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009 - God and Evolution · Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eight of Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative by
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  Speaker 1: Chapman Cohen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: God and evolution. There is no logical connection between what
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  Speaker 1: is called the moral government of the universe and the
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  Speaker 1: belief in God, but it must be confessed that the
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  Speaker 1: criticism of the belief from the point of view of
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  Speaker 1: moral feeling is of considerable importance. This is in itself
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  Speaker 1: a striking illustration of the reaction of social developments on
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  Speaker 1: religious beliefs, for there is originally no connection between morality
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  Speaker 1: and the belief in God. Man does not believe in
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  Speaker 1: the gods because they are moral, but because they are there.
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  Speaker 1: If they are to his mind good, that is so
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  Speaker 1: much the better. But whether they are good or bad,
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  Speaker 1: they have to be faced as facts. The gods, in short,
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  Speaker 1: belong to the region of belief, while morality belongs to
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  Speaker 1: that of practice. It is in the nature of morality
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  Speaker 1: that it should be implicit in practice long before it
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  Speaker 1: is explicit in theory. Morality belongs to the group and
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  Speaker 1: is rooted in certain impulses that are a product of
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  Speaker 1: the essential conditions of group life. It is, as reflection
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  Speaker 1: awakens that men are led to speculate upon the nature
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  Speaker 1: and origin of the moral feelings. Morality, whether in practice
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  Speaker 1: or in theory, is thus based upon what is. On
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  Speaker 1: the other hand, religion, whether it be true or false,
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  Speaker 1: is in the nature of a discovery. However crude or
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  Speaker 1: uninformed the thinking the belief in God must be regarded
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  Speaker 1: as the product of reflection. The situation is not unfairly
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  Speaker 1: described by doctor Jastro. The various rights practiced by primitive
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  Speaker 1: society in order to ward off evils or to secure
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  Speaker 1: the protection of dreaded powers or spirits, are based primarily
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  Speaker 1: on logical considerations. If a certain stone is regarded as sacred,
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  Speaker 1: it is probably because it is associated with some misfortune
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  Speaker 1: or some unusual piece of good luck. Someone sitting on
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  Speaker 1: the stone may have died, or on sleeping on it
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  Speaker 1: may have seen a remarkable vision which was followed by
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  Speaker 1: a signal victory over a dangerous foe. In all this, however,
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  Speaker 1: ethical considerations are remarkable for their absence. Taking again, so
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  Speaker 1: common a belief among all peoples as the influence for
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  Speaker 1: good or evil exerted by the dead upon the living,
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  Speaker 1: and the numerous practices to which it gives rise, it
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  Speaker 1: will be difficult to discover in these beliefs the faintest
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  Speaker 1: suggestion of any ethical influence. It is not the good,
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  Speaker 1: but the powerful spirits that are invoked. An appeal to
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  Speaker 1: them is not made by showing them examples of kindness, justice,
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  Speaker 1: or noble deeds, but by bribes, flatteries, and threats. The
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  Speaker 1: Study of Religion, chapter six. So we have Tyler also
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  Speaker 1: endorsing this opinion by remarking that quote, the popular idea
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  Speaker 1: that the more or government of the universe is an
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  Speaker 1: essential tenet of natural religion simply falls to the ground.
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  Speaker 1: Savage animism is almost devoid of that ethical element, which,
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  Speaker 1: to the educated modern mind is the very mainspring of religion. Unquote,
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  Speaker 1: and Hofting says that quote, in the lowest forms of
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  Speaker 1: it which we are acquainted, religion cannot be said to
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  Speaker 1: have any ethical significance. The gods appear as powers on
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  Speaker 1: which man is dependent, but not as patterns of conduct
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  Speaker 1: or administrators of an ethical world order. Not till men
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  Speaker 1: have discovered ethical problems in practical life and have developed
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  Speaker 1: an ethical feeling can the figures of the gods assume
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  Speaker 1: an ethical character. Philosophy of Religion, Pages three, twenty three
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  Speaker 1: and four, It is quite unnecessary to multiply evidence. The
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  Speaker 1: truth of the matter would seem obvious. One cannot conceive
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  Speaker 1: man actually ascribing ethical qualities to his gods before he
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  Speaker 1: becomes sufficiently developed to formulate moral rules for his own
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  Speaker 1: guidance and to create moral laws for his fellow man.
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  Speaker 1: The moralization of the gods will then follow as a
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  Speaker 1: matter of course, and thereafter we can plainly observe the
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  Speaker 1: operation of the moral sense on the belief in God,
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  Speaker 1: and upon the recognition of crude power. Man really modifies
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  Speaker 1: his gods in terms of the ideal human being. Paul's
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  Speaker 1: picture of a God who uses man as the potter
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  Speaker 1: uses his clay could never flourish in a society which
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  Speaker 1: believed in the rights of man. And so soon as
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  Speaker 1: that conception develops, so soon does the man begin to
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  Speaker 1: revise his conception of God. So with almost every great
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  Speaker 1: change in the form of government or in the notions
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  Speaker 1: of right and wrong. In a slave state, God favors slavery.
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  Speaker 1: When slavery gives place to another form of labor, the
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  Speaker 1: gods are equally vigorous in its condemnation. The history of
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  Speaker 1: the belief in witch burning heresy, hunting, eternal damnation, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: Will illustrate the same point. Religious teachings are all modified
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  Speaker 1: and moralized in accordance with the changing moral conceptions of mankind.
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  Speaker 1: It is not the gods who moralize man. It is
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  Speaker 1: man who moralizes the gods. The gods have their beginnings
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  Speaker 1: as mere powers. They are feared because they are not
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  Speaker 1: for the moral value of what they are. Social development
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  Speaker 1: does the rest. But with that development, the feeling of helplessness,
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  Speaker 1: of weakness decays, and there arises the demand that if
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  Speaker 1: a god is to be worshiped, he must prove worthy
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  Speaker 1: of it. The conviction arises very gradually, but it is there,
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  Speaker 1: and it becomes a powerful solvent of religious ideas. Merely
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  Speaker 1: to govern is not enough. God must govern well, and
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  Speaker 1: in terms of what we have come to understand by
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  Speaker 1: the word justice, and to the minds of millions of moderns,
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  Speaker 1: when tried by that test, the idea of God breaks down.
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  Speaker 1: That there is a god who rules the universe is
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  Speaker 1: one question. That he rules it well and in accord
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  Speaker 1: with what is understood when we talk of morality is
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  Speaker 1: quite another. The two questions are quite distinct, since the
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  Speaker 1: first might be true and the second false. We have
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  Speaker 1: already seen how slender are the grounds for believing in
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  Speaker 1: the first. We have now to show that the reasons
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  Speaker 1: for believing in the second are quite as unsatisfactory. Theism
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  Speaker 1: has been defined as consisting in the belief in a
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  Speaker 1: God who is wise, powerful, and loving, and who has
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  Speaker 1: selected man as the object of his preferential care. And
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  Speaker 1: to this may be added the statement that most modern
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  Speaker 1: theists would extend that care to the whole of sentient life.
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  Speaker 1: God's care must be over all his creatures, and although
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  Speaker 1: this care may be subservient to some wide and far
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  Speaker 1: seeing plan, there must be nothing that looks like obvious
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  Speaker 1: carelessness or criminal neglect. To what conclusion do the facts
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  Speaker 1: point when they are examined in the light of modern knowledge.
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  Speaker 1: Does the world supply us with the kind of picture
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  Speaker 1: that one would expect to see if it were really
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  Speaker 1: presided over by divine love, under the guidance of divine wisdom,
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  Speaker 1: and backed by divine power. The proof that it does
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  Speaker 1: not is shown in the almost endless attempts made to
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  Speaker 1: harmonize the world as it is with the world as
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  Speaker 1: theory would have it be. And a theory that needs
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  Speaker 1: so much defending, explaining, and qualifying, must have something radically
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  Speaker 1: weak about it. That there is evil in the world,
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  Speaker 1: all admit that it offers prima facie objection to the
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  Speaker 1: theistic hypothesis is confessed by the many attempts made to
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  Speaker 1: fit in this evil with the existence of God, to
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  Speaker 1: prove that it works in some mysterious way for some
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  Speaker 1: larger good, or that its presence cannot be dispensed with profitably.
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  Speaker 1: The question of why the world is as it is
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  Speaker 1: with a God such as we are told exists, is
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  Speaker 1: as canon Green says, quote the really vital question, for
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  Speaker 1: it touches the very heart of religion unquote. Problem of evil,
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  Speaker 1: page forty six. How then, does the theist deal with it? Broadly?
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  Speaker 1: Two methods are adopted. In the one case, we are
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  Speaker 1: presented with the order of the world or the course
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  Speaker 1: of evolution as indicative of a beneficent scheme. This claims
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  Speaker 1: to freely adopt all that science has to say concerning
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  Speaker 1: the development of life, and to prove that this is
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  Speaker 1: in harmony with the legitimate demands of the moral sense.
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  Speaker 1: The second is the more orthodox way, and taking the
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  Speaker 1: world as it is claims that pain and suffering play
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  Speaker 1: a disciplinary and educational part in the life of the individual.
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  Speaker 1: We will take these in the order named. When dealing
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  Speaker 1: with the argument from design, little was said concerning the
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  Speaker 1: evolutionary explanation of the special adaptations that meet us in
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  Speaker 1: the animal world. It was thought better to fix attention
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  Speaker 1: on the purely logical value of the argument presented. It
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  Speaker 1: is now necessary to look a little closer at the
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  Speaker 1: ethical implications of the evolutionary process. It has been pointed
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  Speaker 1: out that all life involves a special degree of adaptation
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  Speaker 1: between an organism and its environment. Destroy that adjustment and
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  Speaker 1: life ceases to exist. How is that adjustment secured? The
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  Speaker 1: answer of the pre Darwinian was that it represented a
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  Speaker 1: deliberate design on the part of God. Against this, Darwinism
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  Speaker 1: propounds a theory of automatic or mechanical adjustment, which makes
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  Speaker 1: the calling in of Deity altogether gratuitous. And it remains
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  Speaker 1: gratuitous no matter how far the scope of the theory
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  Speaker 1: of natural selection may be modified. But given the continuous
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  Speaker 1: variations which we know to exist with all kinds of life,
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  Speaker 1: given any sort of competition between animals as to which
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  Speaker 1: shall live, given even a degree of adaptation below which
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  Speaker 1: an animal cannot fall and live, and it is at
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  Speaker 1: once plain that the better adaptations will live and the
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  Speaker 1: poorer adapted will be eliminated. This process is analogous to
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  Speaker 1: that by which man has managed to breed so many
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  Speaker 1: varieties of domesticated animals and plants. Some of the varieties
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  Speaker 1: presenting so marked a difference from the original type that,
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  Speaker 1: if found in a state of nature, they would often
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  Speaker 1: be classed as a distinct species. Man selects the variation
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  Speaker 1: that pleases him, eliminates or segregates the type that does not,
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  Speaker 1: and by following up the process eventually produces a distinct
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  Speaker 1: and fixed variation. It was because of the likeness of
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  Speaker 1: what goes on in the case of the breeder to
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  Speaker 1: what we see actually going on in nature that Darwin
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  Speaker 1: used the phrase natural selection as descriptive of the process.
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  Speaker 1: It was not an exact phrase, and it was not
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  Speaker 1: meant to be exact. For one thing, a very important thing.
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  Speaker 1: While a breeder selects nature eliminates, Man's action in relation
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  Speaker 1: to the type preserved is positive. Nature's attitude in relation
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  Speaker 1: to the type preserved is negative. This is a very
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  Speaker 1: important distinction, and it is one that is fatal to
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  Speaker 1: the claims of theism, for if it points to a
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  Speaker 1: plan in nature, it points to one that aims at
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  Speaker 1: killing off all that can be killed, and only sparing
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  Speaker 1: those who are able to protect themselves against its attack.
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  Speaker 1: And one is left wondering at the type of mind
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  Speaker 1: which can see goodness and wisdom in a plan that
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  Speaker 1: goes on, generation after generation manufacturing an inferior or defective
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  Speaker 1: type in enormous numbers in order that a few superior
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  Speaker 1: specimens may be found. These, in their turn, to become
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  Speaker 1: inferior by the arrival of some other specimens a little
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  Speaker 1: more fortunate in their endowment. One hardly knows at which
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  Speaker 1: to marvel the most, at the clumsiness of the plan
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  Speaker 1: or at the brutality of the design. It was soon
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  Speaker 1: realized that the old argument from design was no longer possible.
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  Speaker 1: But if one can only get far enough away from
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  Speaker 1: the possibility of proof or disproof, there is always a
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  Speaker 1: chance for the goddite. So it was argued that inasmuch
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  Speaker 1: as natural selection meant the emergence of a higher type,
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  Speaker 1: and as there was no room for design within the process,
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  Speaker 1: might not the process itself be an expression of design.
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  Speaker 1: There might still be room for what Huxley with one
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  Speaker 1: of those foolish concessions to established opinion which is the
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  Speaker 1: bane of English thought, called the wider teleology. This was
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  Speaker 1: a teleology which placed a designing mind at the back
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  Speaker 1: of the evolutionary process and arranging it with a view
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  Speaker 1: to a preconceived end. The process then becomes, to use
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  Speaker 1: Spencer's phrase, a beneficent one, since it eliminates the poorer
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  Speaker 1: specimens and leaves the better ones to perpetuate the species.
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  Speaker 1: We are thus asked to imagine a divine wisdom selecting
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  Speaker 1: the better and destroying the inferior, much as an omnificent
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  Speaker 1: eugenist might destroy at birth all human beings of an
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  Speaker 1: undesirable type. The weakness of the thesis lies primarily in
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  Speaker 1: the fact that, in the case of the breeder, he
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  Speaker 1: has to take the animal as he finds it, subject
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  Speaker 1: to the play of forces, the characteristics of which are
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  Speaker 1: determined for him. He has to make the best of
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  Speaker 1: the situation. In the case of the deity, he creates
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  Speaker 1: the animals with which he is assumed to be experimenting.
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  Speaker 1: He creates the forces with all their qualities, and thus
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  Speaker 1: determines the nature of the situation. Quite certainly. No breeder
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  Speaker 1: would waste his time in breeding over a number of
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  Speaker 1: generations if he could secure the desired type at once.
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  Speaker 1: The whole of the argument of the advocate of the
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  Speaker 1: wider teleology is that God wanted the higher type. But
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  Speaker 1: if that is so, why did he not produce it
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  Speaker 1: at once? What useful purpose could be served by producing
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  Speaker 1: it at the end of a lengthy and murderous process
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  Speaker 1: which might just as well have been secured at the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: It is not wisdom but unadulterated stupidity to take thousands
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  Speaker 1: of years securing what might have been as well done
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  Speaker 1: in the twinkling of an eye. There is, in short,
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  Speaker 1: no justification in the creation of a process, so long
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  Speaker 1: as the end at which the process is aiming can
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  Speaker 1: be reached by a less tortuous method. As mister F. C. S.
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  Speaker 1: Schiller says, quote, so long as we are dealing with
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  Speaker 1: finite factors, the function of pain and the nature of
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  Speaker 1: evil can be more or less understood. But as soon
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  Speaker 1: as it is supposed to display the working of an
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  Speaker 1: infinite power, everything becomes wholly unintelligible. We can no longer
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  Speaker 1: console ourselves with the hope that quote good becomes the
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  Speaker 1: final goal of ill. Unquote, we can no longer fancy
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  Speaker 1: that imperfection serves any secondary purpose in the economy of
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  Speaker 1: the universe. A process by which evil becomes good is
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  Speaker 1: unintelligible as the action of a truly infinite power, which
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  Speaker 1: can attain its end without a process. It is absurd
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  Speaker 1: to ascribe imperfection as a secondary result to a power
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  Speaker 1: which can attain all its aims without evil. Hence, the
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  Speaker 1: world process and the intelligen purpose we fancy we detect
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  Speaker 1: in it must be illusory. God can have no purpose,
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  Speaker 1: and the world cannot be in process. If the world
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  Speaker 1: is the product of an infinite power, it is utterly unknowable,
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  Speaker 1: because its process and its nature would be alike unnecessary
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  Speaker 1: and unaccountable riddles of the Sphinx, pages three hundred eighteen
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  Speaker 1: and nineteen. Besides, as I have already pointed out, in
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  Speaker 1: the process as it meets us. In nature, there is
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  Speaker 1: not a selection for preservation, but a selection for killing.
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  Speaker 1: With the breeder, preservation is primary. It is of no
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  Speaker 1: value to him to kill. It is the preservation of
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  Speaker 1: a desired type that is all important. In nature, so
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  Speaker 1: far as we can see, the whole aim is to
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  Speaker 1: destroy it is not the fittest that are preserved so
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  Speaker 1: much as it is the unfittest that are killed. The
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  Speaker 1: fittest are left alive for no other apparent reason than
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  Speaker 1: that nature is unable to kill them. The truth of
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  Speaker 1: this is in the fact that where there is no death,
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  Speaker 1: there is no evolution of a higher type. In the
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  Speaker 1: case of diseases that kill, there is a gradual development
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  Speaker 1: of an immune type, which introduces the paradox that the
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  Speaker 1: healthiest diseases from which a race may suffer are those
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  Speaker 1: that are most deadly. Where a disease does not kill,
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  Speaker 1: there is no development against it. It is the winnowing
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  Speaker 1: fan of death that makes for the development of animal
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  Speaker 1: life and the correct picture of nature. If we must
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  Speaker 1: picture an intelligence behind, it would be that of an
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  Speaker 1: intelligence aiming at killing all, and only failing in its
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  Speaker 1: purpose because the natural endowment of some placed them beyond
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  Speaker 1: its power. And without examining the question begging word higher,
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  Speaker 1: it may be said that natural selection does not make
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  Speaker 1: for the uniform covering of the earth with representatives of
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  Speaker 1: higher types. If in some parts of the world the
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  Speaker 1: higher have replaced the lower types, elsewhere the lower have
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  Speaker 1: replaced the higher. Natural selection, in fact, works without reference
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  Speaker 1: to whether the form which survives is higher or lower.
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  Speaker 1: All that matters is adaptation. The germ of malaria renders
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  Speaker 1: whole tracts of the earth uninhabitable to those whom we
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  Speaker 1: consider representative of the higher culture. In other parts, an
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  Speaker 1: alteration of the rainfall may crush out a civilization and
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  Speaker 1: leave a handful of nomadic tribes as the sole denizens
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  Speaker 1: of lands where once a lofty civilization flourished. Throughout the
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  Speaker 1: whole of nature, there is never the slightest indication that
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  Speaker 1: forces operate with the slightest reference to what we are
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  Speaker 1: accustomed to consider the higher interests of the race. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: from the standpoint of an apologetic theism, we are entitled
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  Speaker 1: to ask precisely what is meant by this justification of
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  Speaker 1: the evolutionary process in terms of the production of a
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  Speaker 1: higher type. The justification of a painful or a costly
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: experience by an individual is twofold. First, it is the
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  Speaker 1: only way, perhaps in which certain things may be learned
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  Speaker 1: or accomplished. And second, it is the individual who passes
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  Speaker 1: through the experience who benefits thereby. But suppose a person
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  Speaker 1: entered on a course of training with the absolute certainty
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  Speaker 1: that he would never survive it, should we be justified
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  Speaker 1: in forcing the course on him. Clearly not, the whole
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  Speaker 1: would be regarded as a wasted effort and as an
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  Speaker 1: exhibition of gratuitous cruelty. Now, when we look closely at
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  Speaker 1: this evolutionary process, who is it that benefits? Thereby, in
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  Speaker 1: a vague way, we speak of the race benefiting. But
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  Speaker 1: the race is made up of individuals. And while it
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  Speaker 1: may be said the individual benefits from the experience through
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  Speaker 1: which the race has passed, it cannot be truthfully said
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  Speaker 1: that he is the better because he has gained from experience.
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  Speaker 1: He does not pass through the discipline. He simply registers,
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  Speaker 1: so to speak, the result. And therefore, so far as
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  Speaker 1: he is concerned, he is exactly in the position that
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  Speaker 1: the first man would have been, had he possessed the
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  Speaker 1: endowment social and individual which the present man has. There
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  Speaker 1: is no greater fallacy than that contained in the common
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  Speaker 1: saying that man learns through experience individually. So far as
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  Speaker 1: civilization is concerned, that is not true. Were it true,
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  Speaker 1: civilization would be impossible if each man had to start
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  Speaker 1: where our primitive ancestors started and learn from experience we
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  Speaker 1: should end where the first generation of socialized human beings ended,
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  Speaker 1: and the generations of men would represent an endless series
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  Speaker 1: of first steps to which there would be no second ones.
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  Speaker 1: What the individual learns from experience is very little and
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  Speaker 1: would never serve to lift him from out of the
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  Speaker 1: ranks of savagery. What he learns from the experience of
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  Speaker 1: the race is much, and gives the whole distinction between
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  Speaker 1: the civilized man and the savage. It is the discipline
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  Speaker 1: of the race, that experience which meets each of us
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  Speaker 1: in the form of traditions, counsels, institutions, et cetera, from
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: which we get the really vital lessons of life. But
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: if that is so, the attempted justification of natural processes
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: on the ground that God designed them as they are
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: so that man might learn from experience breaks down. The
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: individual does not so learn, but is presented with the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: products of the experience of others, and which he accepts
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: in the vast majority of cases without even putting it
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: to the test. And therefore the method by which man
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: learns was open from the start, had there been some
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: man who could have told us generations ago. All that
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: has been slowly discovered since we should all have been
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the better for it, and we should have learned then
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: exactly as we have learned since. And if God was
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: really anxious to teach us, what possible objection could there
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: be to his teaching us in some such way? In
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: other words, how can we justify the probus says if
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the result is possible by any other method. The standpoint
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: of the theist is that God develops the species in
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: order to benefit the individual. But the order is that
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the individual is sacrificed to benefit the species, so far
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: as any benefit can be traced. For it must be
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: noted that it is not the individual who has passed
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: through all the suffering, who has lived through the years
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: of semi animal life, or through the years of tyranny,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that finally emerges, strengthened and triumphant. It is a different
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: individual altogether. The greatest benefit is secured by those who
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: come latest, and who have done the least to secure it.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: The reward bears no relation to the personal desert and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: at the end, what happens. If we are to be
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: guided by the lessons of science, we must believe that
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: one day the human race will cease to exist, just
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: as certainly as one day it began to exist. And
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: what are we to think of the almighty wisdom and
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: goodness which is responsible for all and almighty intelligence designs
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: a process to produce a perfect animal through the sufferings
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: of myriads of other animals. It takes thousands and thousands
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of generations to complete the process, and meantime, every year
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: is bringing the whole plan nearer to extinction. Divine wisdom
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: anything nearer complete stupidity and futility. It would be difficult
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: to conceive. I know that at this point it will
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: be said that I am leaving out of account the
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: future life, and that the story of human growth is
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to be continued elsewhere. But that will certainly not meet
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: all that has been said above. And it is a
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: curious manner of meeting an objection based upon the only
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: phase of existence that we know with assurance to tell
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: us that our indictment will receive a complete refutation in
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: another state of existence of which we know nothing at all.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: The reply is in itself an admission of the truth
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: of the charges. If life admitted of a moral justification here,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: there would be no need to appeal to some other
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: life in which these blemishes are made good. If some
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: other life is needed to correct the moral abnormalities of
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: this one, then the indictment of the atheist is justified,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and one is left again wondering why, if all mighty
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: intelligence could make all things straight in the next world,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: why the same intelligence could not have made the necessary
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: corrections in this one. The truth is that the god
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of the evolutionary process is as much a myth as
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: is the god of special creation. He has all the
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: blemishes of the other one one step removed. The palean
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: god had at least the merit of coming to close
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: scrips with his work. The evolutionary one shields himself behind
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the fact that the work is done by his agents.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: And then it is found that he created the agents
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: for this special work, and all that they do is
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the product of the qualities with which he endowed them.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: If anything, the evolutionary deity is more objectionable than the
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: older one. And if theists will examine nature candidly and
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: with an open mind, they will see that it is so.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I do not know that any one has drawn a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: more truthful picture of natural processes as they appear from
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the point of view of being the product of a
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: divine intelligence than has mister W. H. Mallick, And his
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: picture is the more deadly as coming from a champion
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: of theism. If he says theis will look at the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: facts of the universe steadily in the face. What they
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: will see will astonish them. They will see that if
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: there is anything at the back of this vast process
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: with a consciousness and a purpose in any way resembling
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: our own, a being who knows what he wants and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: is doing his best to get it, he is, instead
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: of a holy and all wise God, a scatter brained,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: semi powerful, semi impotent monster. They will recognize as clearly
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: as they ever did the old familiar facts which seemed
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to them evidences of God's wisdom, love and goodness. But
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: they will find that these facts, when taken in connection
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: with the others, only supply us with a standard in
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the nature of this being himself, by which most of
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: his acts are exhibited to us as those of a
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: criminal madman. If he had been blind, he had not sin.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: But if we maintain that he can see, then his
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: sin remains habitually a bungler as he is, and callous
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: when not actively cruel. We are forced to regard him
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: when he seems to exhibit benevolence, as not divinely benevolent,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: but merely weak and capricious, like a boy who fondles
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: a kitten and the next moment sets a dog at it,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and not only does his moral character fall from him
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: bit by bit, but his dignity disappears. Also. The orderly
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: processes of the stars and the larger phenomena of nature
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: are suggestive of nothing so much as a wearisome court
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: ceremonial surrounding a king who is unable to understand or
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: to break away from it. Whilst the thunder and whirlwind,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: which have from time immemorial been accepted as special revelations
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: of his awful power and majesty, suggest if they suggest
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: anything of a personal character at all, merely some blackguardly
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: larakin kicking his heels in the clouds, not perhaps bent
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: on mischief, but indifferent to the fact that he is
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: causing it. The truth is, if we consider the universe
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: as a whole, it fails to suggest a conscious and
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: purposeful God at all, and it fails to do so
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: not because the processes of evolution as such preclude the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: idea that a god might have made use of them
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: for a definite purpose. But because when we come to
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: consider these processes in detail and view them in the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: light of the only purposes they suggest, we find them
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to be such that a God who could deliberately have
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: been guilty of them would be a god God to absurd,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: to monstrous, too mad to be credible. Religion as a
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: credible doctrine, Pages one, seventy six through eight. As we
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: have already seen, the attempt to find a plan in
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the processes of evolution breaks down hopelessly. On analysis, the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: supposed plan turns out to be nothing more than a
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: perception of some sort of regularity, and as regularity is
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: an inescapable condition of existence, all that it proves is existence.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: On that point there is no dispute, and the moral
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: justification of the cosmic process, while intellectually indefensible, adds an
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: element of moral repulsion. That the process as we know
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: it is morally repugnant is shown by the appeal to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the future, the request to suspend judgment till such a
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: time as the plan is completed, when it is hoped
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: that the end will justify the means, God it is
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: trusted will justify himself in the future. But in his
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: anxixs deciety to impress upon us the fact that God
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: has a moral future, the theist forgets that he has
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: had a past, and that past is a black one.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: The uncounted generations of suffering in the past is not
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: to be compensated by a probable happiness in the future.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: The myriads of organisms that have lived incomplete lives and
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: ended them in deaths of suffering are not canceled by
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the probability that, at some time still in the future,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: a comparatively small number will lead lives of happiness. The
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: record is there quote, there is blood upon the hand unquote,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and not all the apologies of a self convicted animism
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: can ever wipe it clean. End of Chapter eight