John BASCOM, Prophet (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IV The conception of evolution has not only caused a very radical modification in all branches of thought?scientific, philosophical and religious?but it has itself undergone a revolutionary change in the comparatively short period since the doctrine has been regarded as established. It was believed to have started as a doctrine destructive of faith and now appears as a chief bulwark of faith. Darwin himself tended to an agnostic position on account of the inconsistency between the physical facts of the world and the old theology. Today the new theology reconciles the physical facts of the world with a supreme, pervasive, personal, spiritual presence, immanent in the world. Evolution as announced by Spencer is the development ofeach successive stage of the universe and of our world as a part of it from the previous stage, by the operation of physical forces only. Thus everything is foreclosed from the beginning to the end. The forces of nature, effective at the dawn of time, determine everything. This was rejected by Dr. Bascom because it is an extreme statement not involved in the facts to be explained; because the origin of the successive changes is in no way accounted for; and because it makes no provision for the spiritual side of the world. He accepted a spiritual evolution. By that he meant one of distinct increments and of an overruling purpose which in its entire process contains and expresses personal spiritual power, in the means employed in the formation of the world as well as in the actual development of the world. The evolution of the universe is compared to the growth of a language or the development of an art. Physical forces throughout all time are permeated and carried forward by spiritual forces. The physical side and thespiritual side are inseparable. The pro...