Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Darwin's Unbelief In His Own Words: They Still Echo in "Christianity"

Col 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Excerpts from Scientific America:

Quote:

Editor's Note: This article, translated from German, originally appeared in Spektrum. We are publishing it as part of our tribute to Charles Darwin on his 200th birthday.


One day, as we were walking together, he [zoologist Robert Grant] burst out in great admiration for Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in silent amazement, without being affected in any way emotionally. I had read my grandfather's zoonomy earlier, and it had contained similar views. Nevertheless, it is quite probable that the fact that I was exposed at an early age to such views and heard them being praised made it easier for me to uphold the same ideas in a different form in my Origin of Species.

Accordingly, I read with care Pearson on the creed and a few other books on divinity; and as I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible, I soon persuaded myself that our creed must be fully accepted. It never struck me how illogical it was to say that I believed in what I could not understand and what is in fact unintelligible. I might have said with entire truth that I had no wish to dispute any dogma; but I never was such a fool as to feel and say, "credo quia incredibile" ["I believe because it is incredible"]. If I think of how vehemently I have been attacked by the orthodoxy, it is very amusing to think that I had once entertained intentions of becoming a priest.

On board the Beagle I was completely orthodox, and I recall how several officers laughed at heartily when I quoted the Bible as an irrefutable source on some point of morality. But during the period from 1836 to 1839, I had slowly come to understand that the Old Testament, with its evidently wrong history of the world, its Tower of Babel, its rainbow as a sign, and tendency of ascribing to God the sentiments of a revengeful tyrant, were no more worthy of credence than the holy scriptures of the Hindus or the beliefs of a savage. Despite all my powers of deluding myself, it became more and more difficult to find proof enough to satisfy me.

And that is how faithlessness stalked me and took hold over me slowly, till I became totally disbelieving.

Disbelief crept in on me so slowly that I did not feel any discomfort, and since then, never have a doubted for even a single second the correctness of my conclusions. And I cannot really understand, either, how anyone might want to believe that Christianity were true, because if it were, then, in the plain terms of the text, it is said that people who do not believe would be punished for eternity, and that would include my father, my brother and almost all my best friends. And that is a terrible doctrine!


The answers are original quotes from Charles Darwin from a variety of sources, including The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, who died in 1882.

Unquote.

1.) Darwin's reading started to influence his thinking. WE MUST BE CAREFUL of what we read!

2.) His doubts started slowly. Doubting God's Word is sin. It is unbelief. It is what Satan did with Eve, for in doubting God's Word, one doubts the authority of God Himself.

3.) He says what I've been saying: there was not enough proof to satisfy him. I put it slightly differently: there is never enough evidence for a skeptic, nor enough Scripture for the scholar.

4.) He rejects God's wrath because Hell would mean that his loved ones sould be lost. Where you have compromise, you always have a relationship at stake.

The case is mournful. Certain ministers are making infidels. Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith....--Spurgeon


Robert Shindler, publisher of the Sword and the Trowel said:

The first step astray is a want of adequate faith in the divine inspiration of the sacred Scriptures. All the while a man bows to the authority of God's Word, he will not entertain any sentiment contrary to its teaching. "To the law and to the testimony," is his appeal concerning every doctrine. He esteems that holy Book, concerning all things, to be right, and therefore he hates every false way. But let a man question, or entertain low views of the inspiration and authority of the Bible, and he is without chart to guide him, and without anchor to hold him...

But when, on the other hand, reason has been exalted above revelation, and made the exponent of revelation, all kinds of errors and mischiefs have been the result.

Pro 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

1Co 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

Psa 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;

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