The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

[_Maksutov]

Troublesome questions also arose among theologians re-
garding animals classed as " superfluous." St. Augustine
was especially exercised thereby. He says : " I confess I
am ignorant why mice and frogs were created, or flies and
worms. . . . All creatures are either useful, hurtful, or su-
perfluous to us. ... As for the hurtful creatures, we are
either punished, or disciplined, or terrified by them, so that
w^e may not cherish and love this life." As to the " superflu-
ous animals," he says, " Although they are not necessary for
our service, yet the whole design of the universe is thereby
completed and finished." Luther, who followed St. Augus-
tine in so man}^ other matters, declined to follow him fully in
this. To him a fly was not merely superfluous, it was nox-
ious — sent by the devil to vex him when reading.

Another subject which gave rise to much searching of
Scripture and long trains of theological reasoning was the
difference between the creation of man and that of other
living beings.

Great stress w^as laid by theologians, from St. Basil and
St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas and Bossuet, and from
Luther to Wesley, on the radical distinction indicated in
Genesis, God having created man " in his own image."
What this statement meant was seen in the light of the later
biblical statement that " Adam begat Seth in his own like-
ness, after his image."

In view of this and of w^ell-known texts incorporated
from older creation legends into the Hebrew sacred books
it came to be widely held that, while man was directly
moulded and fashioned separately by the Creator's hand, the
animals generally were evoked in numbers from the earth
and sea by the Creator's voice.

[_Maksutov]

A question now arose naturally as to the distinctions of
species among animals. The vast majority of theologians
agreed in representing all animals as created " in the begin-
ning," and named by /Vdam, preserved in the ark, and con-
tinned ever afterward under exactly the same species. This
belief ripened into a dogma. Like so many other dogmas
in the Church, Catholic and Protestant, its real origins are
to be found rather in pagan philosophy than in the Chris-
tian Scriptures ; it came far more from Plato and Aristotle
than from Moses and St. Paul. But this was not considered :
more and more it became necessary to believe that each and
every difference of species was impressed by the Creator
" in the beginning," and that no change had taken place or
could have taken place since.

Some difficulties arose here and there as zoology pro-
gressed and revealed ever-increasing numbers of species ;
but through the Middle Ages, and indeed long after the
Reformation, these difficulties were easily surmounted by
making the ark of Noah larger and larger, and especially
by holding that there had been a human error in regard to
its measurement."^

But naturally there was developed among both ecclesias-
tics and laymen a human desire to go beyond these special
points in the history of animated beings — a desire to know
what the creation really is.

Current legends, stories, and travellers' observations,
poor as they were, tended powerfully to stimulate curiosity
in this field.

Three centuries before the Christian era Aristotle had
made the first really great attempt to satisfy this curiosity,
and had begun a development of studies in natural history
which remains one of the leading achievements in the story
of our race.

[_Maksutov]

But the feeling which we have already seen so strong in
the early Church— that all study of Nature was futile in
view of the approaching end of the world— indicated so
clearly in the New Testament and voiced so powerfully by
Lactantius and St. Augustine — held back this current of
thought for many centuries. Still, the better tendency in
humanity continued to assert itself. There was, indeed, an
influence coming from the Hebrew Scriptures themselves
which wrought powerfully to this end ; for, in spite of all
that Lactantius or St. Augustine might say as to the futility
of any study of Nature, the grand utterances in the Psalms
regarding the beauties and wonders of creation, in all the
glow of the truest poetry, ennobled the study even among
those whom logic drew away from it.

But, as a matter of course, in the early Church and
throughout the Middle Ages all such studies were cast in a
theologic mould. Without some purpose of biblical illustra-
tion or spiritual edification they were considered futile ; too
much prying into the secrets of Nature was very generally
held to be dangerous both to body and soul ; only for show-
ing forth God's glory and his purposes in the creation were
such studies praiseworthy. The great work of Aristotle
was under eclipse. The early Christian thinkers gave little
attention to it, and that little was devoted to transforming it
into something absolutely opposed to his whole spirit and
method; in place of it they developed the Physiologus txw^
the Bestiaries, mingling scriptural statements, legends of the
saints, and fanciful inventions with pious intent and childlike
simplicity. In place of research came authority — the au-
thority of the Scriptures as interpreted by the Physiologus
and the Bestiaries — and these remained the principal source
of thought on animated Nature for over a thousand years.

Occasionally, indeed, fear was shown among the rulers
in the Church, even at such poor prying into the creation as
this, and in the fifth century a synod under Pope Gelasius
administered a rebuke to the Physiologus ; but the interest in
Nature was too strong : the great work on Creation by St.
Basil had drawn from the Physiologus precious illustrations
of Holy Writ, and the strongest of the early popes, Gregory
the Great, virtually sanctioned it.

[_The CCC]

I have no problem with God using the science of Evolution to create us, our world, and universe.

[_Maksutov]

I have no problem with God using the science of Evolution to create us, our world, and universe.

That's pretty much the Deist position, that Thomas Paine leaned towards.

[_Maksutov]

Thus was developed a sacred science of creation and of
the divine purpose in Nature, which went on developing
from the fourth century to the nineteenth — from St. Basil to
St. Isidore of Seville, from Isidore to Vincent of Beauvais,
and from Vincent to Archdeacon Paley and the Bridgewater
Treatises.

Like all else in the Middle Ages, this sacred science was
developed purely by theological methods. Neglecting the
wonders which the dissection of the commonest animals
would have afforded them, these naturalists attempted to
throw light into Nature by ingenious use of scriptural texts,
by research among the lives of the saints, and by the plenti-
ful application of metaphysics. Hence even such strong
men as St. Isidore of Seville treasured up accounts of the
unicorn and dragons mentioned in the Scriptures and of the
phoenix and basilisk in profane writings. Hence such con-
tributions to knowledge as that the basilisk kills serpents by
his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when pur-
sued effaces his tracks with the end of his tail, that the peli-
can nourishes her young with her own blood, that serpents
lay aside their venom before drinking, that the salamander
quenches fire, that the hyena can talk with shepherds, that
certain birds are born of the fruit of a certain tree when it
happens to fall into the water, with other masses of science
equally valuable.

As to the method of bringing science to bear on Scrip-
ture, the Physiologus gives an example, illustrating the pas-
sage in the book of Job which speaks of the old lion perish-
ing for lack of prey. Out of the attempt to explain an un-
usual Hebrew word in the text there came a curious devel-
opment of error, until we find fully evolved an account of
the "ant-lion," which, it gives us to understand, was the lion
mentioned by Job, and it says : *' As to the ant-lion, his father
hath the shape of a lion, his mother that of an ant ; the father
liveth upon flesh and the mother upon herbs ; these bring
forth the ant-lion, a compound of both and in part like to
either; for his fore part is like that of a lion and his hind
part like that of an ant. Being thus composed, he is neither
able to eat flesh like his father nor herbs like his mother,
and so he perisheth."

[_The CCC]

That's pretty much the Deist position, that Thomas Paine leaned towards.

True, but I don't consider myself a Deist. I look to science to explain how God did it, and religion to explain why.

[_Maksutov]

That's pretty much the Deist position, that Thomas Paine leaned towards.

True, but I don't consider myself a Deist. I look to science to explain how God did it, and religion to explain why.

A lot of people are able to live with that. It's what I hope for in our future. I'm not a New Atheist who thinks religions should be extinct. I think they need to evolve and many can. Some won't.

[_The CCC]

That's why I'm an LDS. I'm open to new revelations from God and scientists.

[_LittleNipper]

That's why I'm an LDS. I'm open to new revelations from God and scientists.

Perhaps you might consider that most place the openness this way: .... open to revelations of Science, Man, and god.