WG-16-17. TWO METHODS OF WORLD-MAKING
17. TWO METHODS OF WORLD-MAKING
MAN has observed in the world and has become acquainted with two distinct methods of working. These two methods proceed respectively from different spiritual sources, and are radically different one from the other. One is a method of evolution—that is, a method of continual change from one set of conditions to another, with increasing diversity and ramifications, in the effort to work out some far-off result which is not clearly defined to consciousness, and which constantly eludes pursuit. The other is a method of creation, according to which the plan and pattern of each thing is complete and perfect from the beginning, admitting of no improvement or development. One method is that of a mighty but imperfect spiritual being, who aims at attaining, after a long succession of failures, some ideal state or result, and who in that endeavor perseveringly evolves one new expedient after another, as successive failures materialize. The other method is that of an Omnipotent and All-wise Being, who works after the counsel of His own perfect will, who has no need to experiment, and with whom failure is impossible. One method is that of Satan; the other method is that of Jehovah- Elohim. The universe was created by the word of God. “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” (Psa 33:6). The earth too was formed by His word, and filled with living things, vegetable and animal, each of which was bidden to bring forth “after his kind” Each of His creatures has fulfilled this command; and in all the earth there is not an instance wherein a living thing has brought forth seed which was not “after his kind.” The earth itself could not contain the figures which would represent the acts of reproduction that have taken place in it, but among them all there is not known a single departure from this command. This is the method of Creation—God’s method; and all talk of differentiation, and integration, and progression from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, of primal nebulosity and primordial protoplasm, and all the rest of it, has no more solid foundation than Gulliver’s Travels. The method of evolution is found only in human affairs and nowhere else in the universe. This method—namely, that of getting one’s eyes opened and becoming as gods, knowing good and evil, and thus being able to discern and discriminate, to choose and experiment and fail, and choose again— was proposed by its author to the first parents of the human race, and was adopted by them. The words are recorded for us: “Certainly ye shall not die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Adam thus committed the human race to the method of evolution, and the affairs of humanity have proceeded according to that method ever since. The mistake that the philosophers of materialism have made is just this: Having traced out a law or method of development or progress in all human affairs and institutions, and being unilluminated by the Word of truth, because they rejected it, they have hastily and eagerly accepted the conclusion that evolution is an universal method. Unbelieving theologians in turn (which our seminaries turn out by the hundreds), fearful of being thought “unscientific” and “not abreast of modem thought,” have accepted evolution as God’s method of creation; and thus the whole world has wondered after the beast. And now the grim humor of the situation is evident to those who have eyes to see and wit to appreciate it, in that the doctrine of evolution itself is becoming a mere phase in the evolution of philosophy, and is taking its place in the prodigious mass of junk and debris which “Evolution” has left in its wake. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.”
We may be sure that Satan desires that his method should be well thought of, whatever he may now—after these centuries of testing—think of it himself; and doubtless he takes much satisfaction in having imposed upon apostate Christendom the belief that his method of evolution was the Divine method of creation.