Creationism - National Center for Science Education

similar to Orr’s. He tried to allow for a non-Darwinian evolution within certain limits,
but rejected naturalistic descent of all life from a common ancestor (see later).
Other contributors to The Fundamentals were harsher towards evolution. New
York lawyer Philip Mauro (author of Evolution at the Bar), affirming the inerrancy of the
Bible in matters of science as in other fields, declared that not a single fact supported
evolution, and that it is contrary to science. Moreover, Darwin’s theory is “directly
contrary to the great and immutable law declared nine times over in the first chapter of
the Bible in the brief but significant expression, ‘after his kind’” (1910:27). “The theory
of organic evolution, promulgated by Darwin and Wallace, 7 has nothing to commend it
except that it offers an alternative to the acceptance of the account of the origin of species
given in the Bible” (1910:45).
It is useless to pretend that Darwin’s theory might be true, and the Bible nevertheless entitled to respect.
The Lord Jesus said to a learned man of His day, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how
shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?” (John 3:12). If the Bible does not give us a truthful
account of the events of the six days recorded in its first chapter, it is not to be trusted as to any of its
statements. [1910:27]
Vol. VIII of The Fundamentals contains two attacks on evolution, by Rev. Henry
Beach, and by an unnamed “Occupant of the Pew.” According to “Occupant” in his
article “Evolutionism in the Pulpit,” Darwin’s aim was to abolish dualism; his theory is
not supported by a single scientific fact. “Occupant” derides attempts by ministers who
seek to accommodate evolution by saying that the Bible was not meant to be authoritative
in the realm of science. “In this way the story of creation as given in Genesis was set
aside, and the whole book discredited” (1912:28). Citing several anti-Darwinian
scientists, he claimed that even most scientists admit evolutionism is dead. Those who
still cling to it are simply seeking a mechanistic explanation in order to deny “the hated
alternative of accepting Genesis with its personal God and creative acts.”
But when we consider that the evolutionary theory was conceived in agnosticism, and born and nurtured in
infidelity; that it is the backbone of the destructive higher criticism which has so viciously assailed both the
integrity and authority of the Scriptures; that it utterly fails in explaining—what Genesis makes to clear—
those tremendous facts in human history and human nature, the presence of evil and its attendant suffering;
that it offers nothing but a negative reply to that supreme question of the ages, “If a man die, shall he live
again?”...it becomes evident to every intelligent layman that such a system can have no possible points of
contact with Christianity. [1912:31]
Beach, in his article, “Decadence of Darwinism,” also attempted to show that
evolution is refuted by science, but emphasized that the religious and moral issues for its
rejection were primary.
As a purely academic question, who cares whether a protoplasmic cell, or an amoeba, or an ascidian larva,
was his primordial ancestor? It does not grip us. It is doubtful whether any purely academic question ever
grips anybody. But the issue between Darwinism and mankind is not a purely academic question.
[1912:36]
7 Though he opposed Wallace’s evolutionism, Mauro admired his later argument that the design of the
universe proved that Earth had been designed for habitation by man.