Introduction
The apparent tension between science and Scripture which came to prominence during the 17th century is typically identified by the trial of Galileo. However, it was scientific discoveries concerning geology and the fossil record that led to the greatest challenges to traditional Christian interpretation of Scripture, specifically concerning the age of the earth, the scope of the Genesis flood, and the age of the human[1] species. Our own community was able to avoid this tension by application of the exegetical principle known as the ‘two books’.
Tension in the Early Modern Era
Near the beginning of the 16th century, Leonardo Da Vinci observed fossil remains which he observed were incompatible with a global flood in the time of Noah. Observations of the geographical distribution of the animals led commentators of the 17th century to propose that the flood was local, as Thomas Browne observed with disapproval,[2] and geological discoveries in the 18th century persuaded theologians such as Matthew Poole[3] and Edward Stillingfleet[4] to support this interpretation of the Genesis flood narrative.
The discovery of remote civilizations in the Americas, and the indisputably ancient history of the Chinese (which was recognized as anteceding the accepted date of Adam), forced Biblical scholars in the 16th and 17th centuries to re-assess the belief that Adam had been the first human. Paracelsus and Giordano Bruno were early promoters of the theory,[5] and Walter Raleigh and Thomas Harriott were accused of believing in pre-Adamic humans on the basis of the conclusions they drew from their explorations.[6]
In 1655, Jewish Calvinist Isaac de la Peyrère’s ‘Prae-Adimateae’ systematized the available anthropological evidence from numerous ancient civilizations and combined it with Biblical data which he believed supported the existence of humans before Adam, humans who nevertheless had not sinned because they had never been illuminated by divine law.[7] In Peyrère’s system Adam was the progenitor of a covenant community chosen by God to become the Jewish people, whilst the Gentiles were descended from humans created by God long before Adam.
Although initially rejected as heresy, the advantages of Peyrère’s theory to systematic studies of botany and anthropology (as well as to the untying of Biblical knots such as the origin of Cain’s wife), led to his work becoming highly influential among scholars of a range of disciplines. With time the theory of humans pre-existing Adam (either as part of a pre-Adamite creation destroyed by catastrophic judgment, or as the earliest members of a creation order which included Adam), become widely accepted by theologians despite remaining controversial. By the 19th century a range of pre-Adamite theories existed within mainstream Christianity, one of which was inherited by our own community.
The 18th century saw an accumulation of geological evidence leading to a re-assessment of the age of the earth. By the early 19th century a significant number of Biblical commentators accepted that the great antiquity of the earth (well over 10,000 years), had been well established by science.
The Principle of the ‘Two Books’
Although 19th century theological discussion over these subjects was typically heated and caused considerable division among Christians, the Christadelphian community met these challenges with little or no concern, and suffered no schisms as a result of apparent tension between science and Scripture.
The reason for this was the adoption by our earliest commentators of the centuries old exegetical principle known as the ‘two books’. This principle understands both Scripture and the natural creation as being reliably harmonious witnesses (when interpreted correctly), to God, His character, and His purpose. Bible passages typically understood as teaching this principle include Psalms 8 and 19, Acts 4:16-17, and Romans 1:19-20. Early Jewish expositors understood this principle, and Jesus likewise indicates that the natural creation is a reliable witness to the character of God (Matthew 5:44-45).
The principle of the two books was established by a number of early Christian writers, including Irenaeus (c.130-202),[8] Tertullian (c.160-225),[9] and Anthony the Abbot (c.251–356).[10] For the next 1,600 years this principle remained the mainstream Christian approach to harmonizing scientific knowledge with Biblical interpretation.[11]
The ‘Two Books’ in the Early Christadelphian Community
The earliest commentators of the Christadelphian community accepted and applied this principle to the interpretation of Scripture. J. Thomas appealed explicitly to the principle in the title of his periodical, The Advocate:
The Advocate: For the Testimony of God as it is Written in the Books of Nature and Revelation CONDUCTED BY JOHN THOMAS, M.D.[12]
THE ADVOCATE will, therefore, exercise himself to the best of his ability and judgment, in setting forth the manifold wisdom of God as inscribed on the brilliant pages of those two interesting volumes.[13]
Accordingly, Thomas accepted the existence of a pre-Adamic creation (complete with human inhabitants illuminated and finally judged by the law of God), on the basis of geological discoveries, which he believed harmonized the record of the ‘two books’.[14]
Applying the principle of the two books to the controversies of his day, an early Christadelphian writer identified as ‘WDJ’ insisted that Scripture and the creation formed a consistently harmonious witness, and that any apparent contradictions were due to misinterpretation of the Bible or the creation.
NATURE makes no false impressions, and just so the Bible.[15]
The inconsistency spoken of between nature and scripture, arises not from antagonism, but from the misinterpretations of both. It is man’s interpretation of the one set against man’s interpretations of the other. It is not nature versus scripture, but false science against true theology, or false theology against scientific fact.[16]
This writer characterized science which derives knowledge from God’s creation as an ‘inspiration of God’s spirit’, [17] so there is no competition of authority between science and Scripture; both are ultimately derived from God Himself, both reveal truths which He communicates through His two books.
Following the same principle, R. Roberts acknowledged without dispute the scientific evidence for pre-Adamic inhabitants, even though he rejected evolution.
That the earth had a history anterior to the six days’ work, is certain, from both scripture and nature. Geology proves the existence of forms of life long before the Mosaic creation; and the Bible tacitly affirms a pre-Adamite order of things, in the words addressed to Adam and Eve “replenish (or fill again) the earth,” which are the words made use of to Noah, when the world had been cleared of its antediluvian inhabitants. It is probable that the fallen angels referred to by both Peter and Jude were related to this period.[18]
Early Christadelphian commentators also used the scientific findings of their day to make sense of apparent contradictions between the description of creation in Genesis, and existing scientific knowledge. In 1884, Roberts commented enthusiastically on correspondence received by ‘Brother Simons, of Outram’.[19] Simons, in answer to a question he had read in the Ecclesial Visitor (‘Why God did not make everybody perfect at once, if He had the power to do so, &c., &c.?’), directed the questioner to the natural creation as understood by geology, making the following arguments.
- Geology teaches us that there was a time on earth ‘when animal life, if not totally, was nearly unknown, and only the lower order of vegetable life covering its face’[20]
- This lasted ‘many thousands of years’, during which ‘the earth was undergoing wonderful and necessary changes to fit it for a creation of a higher order’[21]
- When this stage was over ‘it was replaced by a creation of a higher order, when animal and vegetable forms of a far more wonderful structure were brought into existence and most admirably adopted to the atmosphere, climate, and peculiarities of that creation’[22]
- This also lasted ‘many thousands of years, before it was ‘swept away, and a grander creation built on its ruins’, and ‘so on, stage after stage’[23]
Other issues were treated in the same way. Harmonizing his understanding of the Biblical text with the geological, archaeological, and biological evidence, Roberts interpreted the Genesis flood as local.
There are facts that compel such a conclusion: and as all facts are of God, they must be in agreement. The animals of New Zealand are different front those of Australia. The animals of Australia, again, are different from those of Asia and Europe. These again differ entirely from those of the American continent: All differ from one another: and the fossil remains on all the continents show that this difference has always prevailed.[24]
The comments of ‘WDJ’ on the scientific implications of Joshua’s ‘long day’ are another example of harmonizing Biblical interpretation to scientific facts.
The laws of motion and gravitation forbid us to presume that scripture speaks scientific truth in recording that the sun stood still, and that the moon stood still; or, that in believing that they both stood still, we are to scientifically infer that the earth stood that they might appear to do so, that the illusion they stood might be produced, but they cannot forbid us believing the truth of the record for all that.[25]
These earlier Christadelphian approaches to issues in Genesis reveal a strong preference for accepting established scientific facts, and interpreting Scripture in harmony with them. It was understood that both the Scriptures and the natural creation are works of God by which He has revealed Himself reliably, and that the two will always be in harmony when interpreted correctly. Most importantly, these earlier commentators saw no struggle for authority between science and Scripture: “Every thing in art and science are but copies of the workings of God’s spirit in nature”, as WDJ wrote.[26]
Conclusion
Consistent application of the two books principle would be of advantage to current Christadelphian expositors seeking to reconcile apparent tensions between Scripture and science, especially those tensions raised by enemies of the gospel.
[1] [Ed. AP]: The concept of a pre-Adamic creation need not imply the existence of those ‘in the image of God’ (‘man’ in a Biblical sense) but the second ‘book’ does imply the existence of hominids.
[2] ‘How America abounded with beasts of prey, and noxious animals, yet contained not in it that necessary creature, a horse, is very strange. By what passage those, not only birds, but dangerous and unwelcome beasts, come over. How there be creatures there (which are not found in this triple continent). All which must needs be strange unto us, that hold but one ark; and that the creatures began their progress from the mountains of Ararat. They who, to salve this, would make the deluge particular, proceed upon a principle that I can no way grant’, Browne, ‘Pseudodoxia Epidemica’ (1646). [Emphasis in this and all further quotations is my own.]
[3] ‘Synopsis’ (1670).
[4] ‘Origines Sacra’ (1662).
[5] D. N. Livingstone, The Preadamite Theory and the Marriage of Science and Religion (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 82/3; Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1992), 4.
[6] “Perhaps it was for these reasons that both Raleigh and Harriot, and indeed Christopher Marlowe, were branded with holding to the preadamite heresy, and belonging to a circle of atheists which impiously and impudently persisted in affirming that American Indian archaeology gave evidence of artifacts that predated Adam by thousands of years”, Livingstone, The Preadamite Theory and the Marriage of Science and Religion, 2.
[7] “Taken in its full context, then, Peyrère’s preadamite theory was fundamentally a theological project, universalistic in impulse and Messianic in character. And yet by proposing the altogether simple idea that people had existed for millennia before Adam, Peyrère was able to reconcile the shortness of biblical chronology with the latest findings of geography, anthropology, and archaeology”, Livingstone, The Preadamite Theory and the Marriage of Science and Religion, 7.
[8] ‘He is to Us in This Life Invisible and Incomprehensible, Nevertheless He is Not Unknown; Inasmuch as His Works Do Declare Him.’, Irenaeus, ‘Against Heresies’ (ANF, 4.20).
[9] ‘He, as I suppose, who from the beginning of all things has given to man, as primary witnesses for the knowledge of Himself, nature in her (manifold) works’, Tertullian, ‘Against Marcion’ (ANF, 5.16).
[10] ‘My book, O philosopher,’ replied Antony, * is the nature of things that are made, and it is present whenever I wish to read the words of God.’, Socrates Scholasticus, ‘Historia Ecclesiastica’ (4.23), in The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Surnamed Scholasticus, or the Advocate, (trans. H. De Valois and E. Walford; London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), 238.
[11] Ephrem the Syrian (c.306-373), Gregory of Nyssa (c.335-394), John Cassian (c.360-435), Pelagius (c.354-420/440), Vincent of Beauvais (c.1190-c.1264), Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), Thomas of Chobham (c.1255-1327), Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), Thomas of Kempis (1380-1471), and Louis of Granada (1505-1588), were among many holding this view.
[12] J. Thomas, The Apostolic Advocate 3 (March, 1837): 260.
[13] J. Thomas, The Apostolic Advocate 3 (March, 1837): 261.
[14] ‘Fragments, however, of the wreck of this pre-Adamic world have been brought to light by geological research, to the records of which we refer the reader, for a detailed account of its discoveries, with this remark, that its organic remains, coal fields, and strata, belong to the ages before the formation of man, rather than to the era of the creation, or the Noachic flood. This view of the matter will remove a host of difficulties, which have hitherto disturbed the harmony between the conclusions of geologists and the Mosaic account of the physical constitution of our globe.’, J. Thomas, Elpis Israel: An Exposition of the Kingdom of God, (Birmingham: CMPA, 1997), 11. ([Ed. AP]: Note Thomas’ implicit understanding of ‘man’ in contradistinction to the pre-Adamic world.)
[15] WDJ, “The Bible as a Law of Life and Immortality”, The Ambassador of the Coming Age 1/6 (1864): (93-94) 93.
[16] Ibid., p. 93.
[17] “Every thing in art and science are but copies of the workings of God’s spirit in nature. And it is by the study of nature and by meditation, on the discoveries which have been made as communicated to him through books, that man acquires his knowledge in the science of life, and so inhales this inspiration of God’s spirit”, ibid., pp. 93-94.
[18] R. Roberts, “Were There Human Beings Before Adam?”, The Ambassador of the Coming Age 48/ 5 (1868): 172.
[19] ‘Brother Simons, of Outram, writes thus excellently on a subject which has perplexed many only because they do not take all the elements of the case into account’, Roberts, “Why Man was not at once made Perfect”, The Christadelphian 21/238 (1884): 177.
[20] Ibid., p. 177.
[21] Ibid., p. 177.
[22] Ibid., p. 177.
[23] Ibid., p. 177.
[24] Roberts, “The Visible Hand of God”, The Christadelphian 18/205 (1881): 308.
[25] Ibid., p. 94.
[26] Ibid., p. 93.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One