Evolution:
ev-o-lu'-shun:
1. The Idea of Evolution:
Evolution is a scientific and philosophical theory designed to explain the origin and course of all things in the universe. By origin, however, is not understood the production or emergence of the substance and of the cause or causes of things, but that of the forms in which they appear to the observer. Sometimes the term is vaguely used to cover absolute origin in the sense just excluded. A moment's reflection will make it clear that such a view can never secure a place in the realm of pure science. The problem of ultimate origin is not one that science can solve. If it is solved at all, it must be by purely philosophical as distinguished from scientific or scientific-philosophical methods. Evolution, therefore, must be viewed in science purely and strictly as a process of orderly change in the form of things. As such it assumes the existence of substance or substances and of a force or forces working its successive transformations. (NOTE: This position is apparently contradicted in the title of Henri Bergson's L'evolution creatrice. But an examination of Bergson's system shows that the contradiction is only apparent. Bergson's evolution is neither substance nor efficient cause or principle. The latter is given in his vital impetus (elan vital); the former in his concept of duration.)
As an orderly change of the form of things, evolution may be viewed as operative in the field of inorganic matter, or in that of life. In the first, it is known and called cosmic evolution; in the second, organic evolution. Of cosmic evolution again there appear two aspects, according as the process, or law. of transformation, is observed to operate in the realm of the lower units of matter (atoms and molecules), or is studied in the region of the great. In the first sphere, it is made to account for the emergence in Nature of the qualities and powers of different kinds of matter called elements. In the second, it explains the grouping together, the movements and transformations of the solar and of stellar systems. Similarly, of organic evolution there appear to be two varieties. The first occurs in the world of life including the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Evolution here accounts for the various forms of living beings building their bodies and passing from one stage to another in their existence as individuals, and for the course of the history of all life as it differentiates into species and genera. The second variety of evolution operates in the higher realm of intelligence, morality, social activity and religion. The idea of a law of orderly change governing all things is not a new one.
Historians of science find it in some form or other embodied in the philosophies of Heraclitus, Democritus, Lucretius and Aristotle. There are those who find it also in the system of Gautama (Buddha).
2. Recent Origin of Notion:
But in none of these was there a sufficiently wide basis of fact inductively brought together, or a thorough enough digestion and assimilation of the material to give the view as presented by them a firm standing. Hegel's idealistic theory of Development is kindred to the evolution theory in its essence; but it too antedates the working out of the system upon the basis of the scientific induction of the phenomena of Nature.
Until the time of Herbert Spencer, the scientific use of the word evolution was limited to the narrow department of embryology. By him, the term was made synonymous with all orderly change in Nature. The notion that such change is the result of chance, however, was not a part of Spencer's teaching. On the contrary, that philosopher held that chance is but the expression of laws undiscerned by the human mind. Yet these laws are just as definite and rigid as those already discovered and formulated.
Since the appearance of the inductive method in scientific research, and the rise of the science of biology in particular, the idea of evolution has been elaborated into a great systematic generalization, and proposed as the philosophy of all perceptible phenomena. Beginning as a working hypothesis in a special narrow department, that of biology, it has been extended into all the sciences until all come under its dominance, and it is viewed no longer as a mere working hypothesis, but as a demonstrated philosophy with the force and certainty of fact.
3. Evolution and Biblical Truth:
It was natural that such an important proposition as the explanation of the present form of the whole universe by theory of evolution should in its course have occasioned much controversy. On one side extravagant claims were bound to be put forth in its behalf, combined with a misconception of its field. On the other a stubborn denial of its sufficiency as an explanation, even in the narrow sphere where it first made its appearance, was destined to confront it. This challenge, too, was the result of the misconception of it as an all-sufficient theory of the universe as distinguished from a law or method of the operation of a cause ulterior and superior to itself. The period of this warfare is now nearly, if not altogether, over. The task which remains to be accomplished is to recognize the bearings of theory on forms of thought arrived at apart from the light thrown on the world by itself.
Since such forms of thought are given in the Bible, certain problems arise which must be solved, if possible, in the light of evolution. These problems concern mainly the following topics:
(1) The belief in a personal God, such as the Christian Scriptures present as an object of revelation;
(2) The origin of the different species of living beings as portrayed in the Book of Gen;
(3) The particular origin of the human species (the descent (ascent) of man);
(4) The origin of morality and religion, and
(5) The essential doctrines of the Christian faith, such as supernatural revelation, the idea of sin, the person of Christ, regeneration and immortality. Beyond the answers to these primary questions, it will be neither possible nor profitable to enter within the brief compass of the present article.
The relation of creation to evolution has been already suggested in the introductory explanation of the nature of evolution. If creation be the act of bringing into existence material or substance which did not previously exist, evolution does not touch the problem. It has nothing to say of a First Cause. The idea of a first cause may be regarded as material for metaphysics or the ground of religious belief.
4. Evolution and Creation:
It may be speculated about, or it may be assumed by faith. The theory of evolution begins with matter or substance already in existence. A fairly representative statement of this aspect of it is illustrated by Huxley's dictum, "The whole world living and not living is the result of the mutual attraction according to definite laws of the powers possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed" (Life of Darwin, II, 210). This statement leaves two things unaccounted for, namely, molecules in the form of a "primitive nebulosity" and "powers possessed by these molecules." How did primitive nebulosity come to exist? How did it come to be composed of molecules possessed of certain powers, and how did there come to be definite laws governing these molecules? The agnostic answers, "We do not know, we shall not know" (ignoramus, ignorabimus, DuBois-Reymond). The pantheist says, "They are the substance and attributes of the Ultimate Being." The theist posits "an uncaused Cause who is greater than they, and possesses all the potentialities exhibited in them, together with much more (therefore at least a personal being), has brought them into existence by the power of His will" (compare EPICUREANS).
Thus the believer in evolution may be an agnostic, a pantheist or a theist, according to his attitude toward, and answer to, the question of beginnings. He is an evolutionist because he believes in evolution as the method of the transformation of molecules under the control of the powers possessed by them. Conversely theist (and by implication the Christian) may be an evolutionist. As an evolutionist he may be thoroughgoing. He may accept evolution either as a working hypothesis or as a well-established generalization, even in the form in which it is defined by Herbert Spencer: the integration of matter out of an indefinite incoherent homogeneity into definite coherent heterogeneity with concomitant dissipation of energy. (For the exact definition in its full length, see First Principles, 367.) In this definition, as in every other form of it, evolution is the name of a process of transformation, not a theory of absolute causation or creation ex nihilo. The human mind may leave the problem of initial creation uninvestigated; it may assume that there is no problem by regarding matter and energy as uncaused and ultimate realities or phases of one reality; or it may trace these back to a First Cause which has at least the powers and characteristics perceptible in the universe and particularly in itself as mind (i.e. individuality, intelligence and freedom), or in other words, to a personal God. In any of these contingencies it may hold to theory of evolution.
5. Evolution and the Origin of Species:
Evolution is strongest in the realm of life. It is here that it first achieved its most signal conquests; and it is here that it was first antagonized most forcibly by the champions of religious faith. Here it proved irresistibly fascinating because it broke down the barriers supposed to exist between different species (whether minor or major) of life. It showed the unity and solidarity of the entire living universe with all its infinite variety. It reduced the life-process to one general law and movement. It traced back all present different forms, whether recognized as individuals, varieties, species, genera, families or kingdoms, to a single starting-point. In this realm the adjective "organic" has been prefixed to it, because the characteristic result is secured through organization. One of its most enthusiastic supporters defines it as "progressive change according to certain laws and by means of resident forces" (LeConte).
The proof for organic evolution is manifold. It cannot be given here at any length. Its main lines, however, may be indicated as follows:
(1) The existence of gradations of structure in living forms beginning with the simplest (the amoeba usually furnishes the best illustration) and reaching to some of the most complex organisms (the human body).
(2) The succession of living forms in time. This means that, according to the evidence furnished by geology, the simpler organisms appeared earlier on the face of the earth than the more complex, and that the progress of forms has been in general from the simpler to the more complex.
(3) The parallelism between the order thus discovered in the history of life upon earth and the order observed in the transformations of the embryo of the highest living forms from their first individual appearance to their full development.
(4) The existence of rudimentary members and organs in the higher forms.
The most striking of these proofs of evolution are the two commonly designated the paleontological and the ontogenetic. The first is based on the fact that in the strata of the earth the simpler forms have been deposited in the earlier, and the more complex in the later. This fact points to the growth in the history of the earth of the later, more complex forms of life, from earlier simpler ones. The second consists in the observation that each individual of complexly constructed species of organisms begins its life in the embryonic stage as the simplest of all living forms, a single cell (constituted in some cases out of parts of two preexisting cells). From this beginning it advances to its later stages of growth as an embryo, assuming successively the typical forms of higher organisms until it attains the full form of its own species, and thus begins its individual post-embryonic life. It thus recapitulates in its individual history the history of its species as read in the paleontological records. This consideration shows that whatever the truth may be as to the species as a whole (for instance of man), each individual of the species (each man) has been evolved in his prenatal life, if not exactly from definitely known and identifiable species (anthropoid individuals perfectly formed), at least from foetal organisms apparently of the same type as those of anthropoids.
But assuming organic evolution to be true upon these grounds, and upon others of the same character, equally convincing to the scientific man, it must not be left out of account that it is to be distinguished quite sharply from cosmic evolution. These two phases of the law are identical at their basis, but become very different in their application according to the nature of the field in which they operate. Cosmic evolution works altogether through reactions. These are invariable in their cause and effect. Given material elements and conditions, they always issue in the same results. Their operations are grouped together under the sciences of chemistry and physics. Organic evolution works through processes to which the term "vital" is applied. Whether these are identical with the chemico-physical processes in the ultimate analysis is an open question among scientists. In the field of purely descriptive science, however, which limits itself to the observation of facts, it can scarcely emerge as a question, since the true nature of vitality is beyond the reach of observation. And upon the whole, theory that there is an inner difference between vitality and physico-chemical attractions and affinities is supported by certain obvious considerations. But even if vitality should prove to be nothing more than a series of reactions of a chemical and physical nature, the type of evolution to which it yields is differentiated by broad characteristics that distinguish it from merely molecular attractions and affinities.
(1) Vital processes cannot be correlated with the chemico-physical ones. Heat, light, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, chemical affinity, are interchangeable and interchanged among themselves. But none of these can be converted into life as far as now known.
(2) All life is from preexisting life (omne vivum e vivo). Biogenesis still holds the field as far as experimental science has anything to say about it, and abiogenesis is at the most an attractive hypothesis.
(3) The vital processes overcome and reverse the chemical and physical ones. When a living organism is constituted, and as long as it subsists in life, it breaks up and reconstitutes forms of matter into new forms. Carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, in combination with other elements, are separated from one another and reunited in new combinations in the tissues of the plant and the animal. On the other hand, the moment the vital process ceases, the chemical and physical resume their course. The organism in which the vital process has been annihilated is immediately put under the operation of chemical affinities, and reduced into its first elements. So long as the vital process is on, there seems to be a ruling or directive principle modifying and counteracting the normal and natural course of the so-called chemical and physical forces.
(4) The vital process is characterized by the manifestation in matter of certain peculiarities that never show themselves apart from it. These are irritability, assimilation of non-living matter in the process of growth, differentiation or the power in each kind of living organism to develop in its growth regularly recurring characteristics, and
(5) reproduction. The result of the vital process is the tendency in the organic product of it to maintain itself as a unity, and become more and more diversified in the course of its life. These features of organic evolution make it necessary to account not only for the origin of the matter and the energy which are assumed in the cosmic form of evolution, but also for the origin and nature of the unknown something (or combination of things) which is called life in the organism, whether this be a unitary and distinct force or a group of forces. (It is interesting to notice the return to the notion of life as primal energy in the philosophy of Bergson (elan vital); compare Creative Evolution. The same view is advocated by Sir Oliver Lodge, Life and Matter.)
Furthermore, care must be taken not to confuse any special variety of evolutionary theory in the organic realm with the generic theory itself. Evolutionists hold and propound different hypotheses as to the application of the principle. The Lamarckian, the Darwinian, the Weismannian, the De Vriesian views of evolution are quite different from, and at certain points contradictory of, one another. They assume the law to be real and aim to explain subordinate features or specific applications of it as seen in certain given series of facts. They differ from one another in insisting on details which may be real or unreal without affecting the truth of the main law. Lamarckian evolution, for instance (revived recently under the name neo-Lamarckian), makes. much of the alleged transmissibility through heredity of acquired traits. Darwinian evolution is based largely on the principle of accidental variations worked over by natural selection and the slow insensible accumulation of traits fitting individuals to survive in the struggle for life. Weismannian evolution posits an astonishingly complex germinal starting-point. DeVriesian evolution is built on the sudden appearance of mutations ("sports") which are perpetuated, leading to new species. It is unscientific to array any of these against the other in the effort to undermine the generic theory of evolution, or to take their differences as indicating the collapse of theory and a return to the idea of creation by fiat. The differences between them are insignificant as compared with the gulf which separates them all from the conception of a separate creative beginning for each species at the first appearance of life upon earth. (On some differences between the primitive form of Darwinian and later theories of the same general type, see Rudolph Otto, in Naturalism and Religion (ET).)
With these limitations, the law of organic evolution may be taken into the Biblical account of creation as given in Genesis, chapters 1 and 2. The question raised at once is one of the relation of the doctrine to the Biblical account. If the evolutionary conception is true, it naturally follows that the Biblical account cannot be accepted in its literal interpretation. For the one of these accounts pictures the different species and general types as coming into existence gradually out of preexisting ones, whereas the other (literally interpreted) represents them as created by a Divine fiat. This difference it is true may be artificially exaggerated. Nowhere does the Biblical account explicitly ascribe the creation of each species to the fiat of God. The word "created" (bara'), as used in Genesis, does not necessarily exclude pre-existing matter and form. On the other hand, expressions such as "Let the earth bring forth" (1:11 the King James Version) indicate a certain mediation of secondary powers in the elements ("resident forces," LeConte) through which organisms came into being. "After their kind" suggests the principle of heredity. "Abundantly" suggests the law of rapid and ample reproduction leading to the "struggle for life," "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest." But all efforts to harmonize Ge with science upon this basis lead at the best to the negative conclusion that these two are so far different in their purpose and scope as not to involve radical contradiction. A positive agreement between them cannot be claimed.
The difficulty vanishes in its entirety when it is borne in mind that the two accounts are controlled by different interests, treat primarily of different matters and, where they appear to cover the same ground, do so each in an incidental way. This means that their statements outside of the sphere of their primary interests are popularly conceived and expressed, and cannot be set over against each other as rivals in scientific presentation. Upon this basis the Ge account is the vehicle of religious instruction (not, however, an allegory); its cosmogonic accounts are not intended to be scientifically correct, but popularly adequate. For all that science is concerned, they may be traditional conceptions, handed down in the form of folklore, and purged of the grotesque, purely mythological element so apt to luxuriate in folklore. Between such accounts and the dicta of pure science, it would be absurd either to assume or to seek for harmony or discord. They are parallel pictures; in the one the foreground is occupied by the actual unfolding of the facts, the religious element is concealed deep by the figures in the foreground. In the other the background of haze and cloud is the domain of fact, the foreground of definite figures consists of the religious ideas and teachings. The evolutionary notion of the origin of living forms on the earth can thus in no way be assumed as in contradiction either to the letter or the spirit of the teaching of Gen.
6. The Descent (Ascent) of Man:
A still more important problem arises when the evolutionary theory touches the origin of man upon earth. Here, too, not simply the Biblical account of the creation of Adam and Eve, and their primitive life in the Garden of Eden as recorded in Ge 2 is affected, but all that is said of man as a child of God, clothed with peculiar dignity and eternal worth.
(1) The difference between the Biblical and evolutionary records of the creation of man may easily be resolved if the Biblical account (Ge 2) is not viewed as a literal statement of actual occurrences, but as the vehicle of certain determinative thoughts designed to affiliate man in his proper relation to God. This means that what is essential in the Biblical account is that man as a distinctive and different being in the world came into existence as the result of a special act of will on the part of God, that he was created as the golden summit of the whole upward movement of life. He is not a mere creature of Nature, but the offspring of the Divine will, with power to know his Maker, to hold fellowship with Him and to carry in him the rational and moral image of the Creator of all. Against this view of the origin of man, evolutionary science has nothing to set over. It is concerned with the process through which the emergence of such a being as man was accomplished, and the time and circumstances in which it took place. These points it finds as it finds similar points affecting other living beings.
It would be easy of course to take materialistic forms of the evolutionary theory, such as that advocated by Haeckel, Guyeau, Ray Lankester, and establish an irreconcilable discord between them and the Biblical account; but such varieties of theory are distinguished, not by the occurrence of the idea of evolution in them, but rather by the materialistic metaphysics underlying them; when, for instance, Haeckel defines the notion of evolution by excluding from it intelligence or purpose, and by obliterating differences between the lower animal creation and man, he does so not as an evolutionist in science, but as a materialist (Monist of the materialistic type) in metaphysics. The moment the evolutionist determines to limit himself to the scientific side of his task, and the interpreter of the Biblical account to the religious side of his task, the assumed discord in Ge 2 and the evolutionary theory totally vanishes.
(2) The more important point of contact between theory of evolution and the Biblical conception of man, however, is that of the notion of the dignity and worth of man. The very existence of a Bible is based on the idea that man is of some consequence to the Creator. And through the Bible this idea not only appears early (Ge 1:26), "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," followed by the statement, "And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them," but is interwoven with every fundamental teaching.
It is contended that a representation like this is not compatible with the evolutionary conception of the origin of man from simian ancestors. The contention would be well supported if the evolutionary theory actually obliterated the line of distinction between man and the lower creation; and in any form of it in which such line is ignored, and man is regarded as a being of the same order (neither more or less) as those from which he sprang, it is not capable of being harmonized with the Biblical doctrine. But as a matter of fact, the whole drift and tendency of evolutionary thought ought to be and is the very opposite of belittling man. For according to it, man is the culmination and summit of a process whose very length and complexity simply demonstrate his worth and dignity as its final product. Accordingly, some of the most radical evolutionists, such as John Fiske (Through Nature to God) have extended and strengthened the argument for the immortality of man by an appeal to his evolutionary origin.
7. The Origin and Nature of Religion:
Kindred to the problem of the origin of man, and, in some aspects of it, a part of that problem, is the further problem of the origin and nature of religion. First of all, according to evolution, religion cannot be an exception to the general law of the emergence of the more complex from simpler antecedents. Accordingly, it must be supposed to have evolved from non- religious or pre-religious elements. But the very statement of the case in this form necessitates the clear conception of the idea of religion. If religion is the sense in the human soul of an infinite and eternal being, or beings, issuing in influences upon life, then it is coeval with man and inseparable from the human soul. There never was a time when man was not religious. The very emergence of this sense in the mind of a prehuman ancestor of man would change the brute into the man.
We may speak of the states of the prehuman brute's mind as "materials for the making of religion," but not as religion. Their transformation into religion is therefore just as unique as the creation of the man himself. Whatever the mental condition of the brute before the emergence of the sense of an eternal reality and the dependence of itself upon that reality, it was not a religious being. Whatever the form of this sense, and whatever its first content and results, after the emergence of man it became religion. What caused it to appear at that particular moment and stage in the course of the onward movement? This is a question of causes, and its answer eludes the search of science, both pure and philosophical, and if undertaken by pure philosophy, leads to the same diversity of hypotheses as has been found to control the solution of the problem of beginnings in general (Agnosticism, Pantheism, Theism).
For the rest, that the general features hold true in the field of religion is obvious at a glance. Religious thought, religious practices, religious institutions, have undergone the same type of changes as are observed in the material universe and in the realm of life.
8. The Moral Nature:
What is true of religion as an inner sense of a reality or realities transcending the outward world is equally, and even more clearly, true of the moral life which in one aspect of it is the outward counterpart of religion. To speak of the evolution of the conscience from non-ethical instincts is either to extend the meaning and character of the ethical into a region where they can have no possible significance, or to deny that something different has come into being when the sense of obligation, of duty, of virtue, and the idea of the supreme good have appeared.
In other particulars, the development of the moral nature of man, both in the individual and in the community, manifestly follows the process discerned in the material universe at large, and in the realm of organized life in particular. As an observed fact of history, the gradual growth of moral ideas and the mutual play of the inner controlling principle of the sense of oughtness ("the voice of God") and of social conditions and necessities, arising from the nature of man as a social being, are so manifest that they could neither be denied nor better explained in any other way than in accordance with the evolutionary view.
9. Christianity and Christian Doctrine:
But the rise of the evolutionary theory calls for a new consideration not only of the questions of the origin and nature of religion and morality, but also of that of the content of the Gospel.
(1) At the basis of Christianity lies the idea of revelation. The God whom Jesus presented to men is supremely concerned in men. He communicates to them His interest in and His wishes concerning them. This fact the followers of Jesus have in general called "revelation." Some have insisted and still do insist that such revelation must be supernatural. Setting aside the consideration that the term "supernatural" does not occur in Biblical phraseology, and that the notion is deduced by a process of interpretation which leaves a large flexibility to it, i.e. a possibility of conceiving it in a variety of ways, revelation itself is not necessarily bound up with any special method of the communication of the Divine will (compare REVELATION). Analogies drawn from human life furnish many different ways of making known to the minds of intelligent fellow-beings the thought of one's own mind. These include, first, the pragmatic resort to some act or attitude of a physical nature, as, for instance, the touch of the whip or the point of the spur on the horse; the flown or the smile for the higher class of understanding of the human type. Secondly, the linguistic, wherein by conventional, articulate, highly complex sounds, one tells in words what lies in his own consciousness. All such expression is necessarily partial, indirect and symbolic. Thirdly, the telepathic and mysterious method (whose reality some still doubt) by which communication takes place without the mediation of either language or action. The evolutionary view does not exclude the possibility of any of these methods conceived as ethical and psychological processes. It does exclude any and all of them if understood as magical or preternatural phenomena. There is nothing, however, in a proper interpretation of the facts of Christian revelation to force the magical interpretation of the coming of the Divine message.
On the contrary, there is everything in the gradual and progressive method of the formation of the Christian Scriptures to suggest that the law of evolution was not violated here. One of the latest writers in Scripture plainly represents the whole method of revelation from the Divine point of view as a cumulative delivery of knowledge in different and successive parts and aspects (Heb 1:1). Both at its inception and in the course of its history, the gospel shows conformity to this fundamental law.
(2) Evolution and incarnation: One of the strongest objections to the idea of an all-comprehensive generalization of the law of evolution has been said to be that such a law would destroy the uniqueness of the personality of Jesus Christ. This is, however, due to a confusion of thought. In reality it is no more a denial of uniqueness to say that the Son of God entered the world in accordance with the laws of the world as ordered by the Father, than to say that He was subject to those laws after He entered the world; for instance, that He hungered and thirsted, was weary and needed rest and sleep, that His hands and feet bled when they were pierced and that He ceased to breathe when His heart failed to beat. It is a denial of uniqueness as to the method of entrance into the world, but not a denial of uniqueness of character, of nature, even of essence in the Nicene sense. It behooved Him, in bringing many sons to perfection, "to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." The question of the Virgin Birth of Jesus is definitely excluded from the discussion because it is one of historical evidence chiefly, and, in whatever way the evidence may solve it, theory of evolution will have no difficulty to set over against the solution.
See VIRGIN BIRTH.
From the evolutionist's point of view, the incarnation is the climax and culmination of the controlling process of the universe (see INCARNATION). Evolution demands such a consummation as the appearance of a new type of person, and particularly the type which appeared in Jesus Christ. This is not saying that other men can be or have been of the same nature and essence as the incarnate Saviour. It is saying simply that through the incarnation God brings into perfection the ideal embodied and unfolded in previous generations partially, and held in view as the goal through the whole process of previous struggle and attainment. In other words, the New Adam, in Jesus Christ, emerges in the course of the upward ascent of man as the Adam of Ge emerged in the upward ascent from the lower creation. Theology from the point of view of revelation must necessarily explain this as the voluntary entrance of the Son of God into humanity for purposes of redemption. In doing so it does not contradict the evolutionary view, but simply presents another aspect of the subject. Assuming, as is done throughout, that the evolution theory concerns not causes and principles, but the processes of transformation of life, the idea of the world is not complete with the creation of man in the image of God. That image must be brought into perfection through the incoming of eternal life. But eternal life is the life of God lived in the species of time and space. It could only come in a personal form through fellowship with God. The bringing of it must therefore be the necessary goal to which all the age-long ascent pointed.
The Incarnation fulfills the conditions of the evolutionary process in that it inserts into the world by a variation the new type governed by the principle of self-sacrifice for others. This is a new principle with Christ, although it is constituted out of preexisting motives and antecedents, such as the "struggle for others" (compare Drummond, The Ascent of Man) and "altruism" (in its noble instances in human history). It is a new principle, first, because in its pre-Christian and extra-Christian antecedents it is not real self-sacrifice, not being consciously consummated as the result of the outplay of the motive given in eternal life, and secondly, because it reverses the main stream of antecedent motive. It enthrones love by revealing God's supreme character and motive to be love. Thus viewed the Incarnation is the real entrance into the stream of cosmic movement of the Superman. Nietzsche's Superman would be exactly the contrary of this, i.e. the reversion of man to the beast, the denial of the supremacy of love, and the assertion of the supremacy of might.
(3) Another difficulty met by the harmonist of the Christian system with the evolutionary theory is that of the problem of sin. The method of the origin of sin in the human race, as well as its nature, are given in the Biblical account in apparently plain words. The first man was sinless. He became sinful by an act of his own.
As compared with this, according to one common conception of the law of evolution, all the bad tendencies and propensities in man are the survival of his animal ancestry. Cruelty, lust, deceitfulness and the like are but the "tiger and the ape" still lingering in his spiritual constitution, just as the vermiform appendix and the coccyx remain in the physical, mere rudiments of former useful organs; and just like the latter, they are apt to interfere with the welfare of the species later developed. Here, as in every previous stage of our survey, the difficulty arises from the failure to distinguish between that which appears in man as man, and the propensities in animals which lead to acts similar in appearance, but different in their place and function in the respective lives of those animals. As a matter of fact, the tendencies to cruelty, greed, lust and cunning in the brute are not sinful. They are the wholesome and natural impulses through which the individual and the race are preserved from extinction. They are sinful in man because of the dawn in the soul of a knowledge that his Maker is showing him a better way to the preservation of the individual and the race in the human form. Until the sense of the obligation to follow the better way has arisen, there can be no sin. But when it has come, the first act performed in violation of that sense must be regarded as sinful. As the apostle Paul puts it, "I had not known sin, except through the law." "I was alive apart from the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived (was made to live) and I died" (Ro 7:7,9).
Instead of militating against the idea of a primitive fall, the discovery of the law of evolution confirms it by showing that at some time, as the moral sense in man arose, in the very earliest stage of his existence as man, by an act of his own will, he set aside the new and better principle of conduct presented to him in his inner consciousness (disobeyed the voice of God), and fell back to the prehuman non-moral rule of his life. If this is not the doctrine of the Fall expressed in the terms of present-day science, it would be hard to conceive how that doctrine could be formulated in modern words.
(F. J. Hall, Evolution and the Fall; compare FALL, THE.)
According to this theory, it was possible for man as he first began his career upon the earth to have passed at once into the condition of perfect fellowship with God. Development might have been sinless. But it was not likely. And it was not desirable that it should be (see ADAM IN THE OLD TESTAMENT). For moral character apart from struggle and victory is weak and only negatively perfect. The elimination of sin was to be accomplished by a process which according to the evolutionary philosophy everywhere and always produces higher and stronger types. It is only as progress is achieved by regeneration following degeneration that the best results are secured. Thus "where sin abounded," it was ‘in order that grace might superabound' (Ro 5:20). Yet neither is sin the less sinful nor grace the less supernatural. It would be reading an unwarrantable doctrine into Scripture to say that upon the whole an unfallen race would have been superior to a fallen and redeemed race. The world as it is is not a mistake but the wisest thought of God.
The mystery of evil in the world is thus left neither more nor less difficult to understand under the evolutionary conception than under any other. The difficulty of an unbroken continuity between the lower and the higher forms of life, culminating in the free will of man, with the necessary possibility of conflict with the will of God, is not treated by the evolutionary philosophy, even though it may not be materially relieved. To this extent, however, it is relieved, that the Divine action is here understood to be analogous and consistent with itself throughout, even though transcending in scope and extent the human intelligence.
(4) In the light of what has already been made clear, it will be easy to dismiss the correlative doctrine of salvation from sin as fully compatible with the idea of evolution. The Christian doctrine of salvation falls into two general parts: the objective mediatorial work of the Redeemer, commonly called the Atonement, and the subjective transforming work of the Holy Spirit, begun in regeneration and continued in sanctification.
The idea of the Atonement lies somewhat remote from the region where the law of evolution is most clearly seen to operate. At first sight it may be supposed to sustain no special relation to evolution either as offering difficulties to it or harmonizing with it and corroborating it. Yet in a system whose parts are vitally interrelated, it would be strange if the acceptance of the evolutionary theory did not in some way and to some extent affect the conception. It does so by fixing attention on the following particulars:
(a) That with the emergence of man as a personality, the relation of the creature to the Creator comes to be personal. If that personal relation is disturbed, it can be restored to its normal state in accordance with the laws observed in the relations of persons to one another. The Atonement is such a restoration of personal relations between God and man.
(b) In achieving the goal of perfect fellowship with Himself on the part of creatures bearing His own image, the Creator must in a sense sacrifice Himself. This Divine self-sacrifice is symbolized and represented in the Cross. Yet the meaning of the Cross is not exhausted in mere external influence upon the sinful creature whose return to the holy Father is thereby aimed at.
(c) Since the alienation of the creature by sin represents an offense to the person of the Creator, there is necessity that this offense should be removed; and this is done through the sacrifice of the Incarnate Son identifying Himself with, and taking the place of, the sinful creature.
The correlative doctrine of Regeneration stands much nearer the center of the thought of evolution. It has always been conceived and expressed in biological phraseology. The condition of sin postulated by this doctrine is one of death. Into this condition a new life is inserted, an act which is called the New Birth. Whatever life may be in its essence, it overcomes, reverses and directs the lower forces to other results than they are observed to achieve apart from its presence. In analogy to this course of life in the process of regeneration, a new direction is given to the energies of the new-born soul. But the analogy goes farther. Regeneration is from above as life is always from above. It is God's Spirit through the word and work of Christ that begets the new Christian life, nurtures, trains and develops it to its full maturity revealed in the image and stature of Christ Himself (see REGENERATION).
10. Conclusion:
If the above considerations are valid, the evolutionary and the Christian views of the world cannot logically be placed against each other as mutually exclusive and contradictory. They must be conceived as supplementing one another, and fulfilling each the promise and possibility of the other. Evolution is a scientific generalization which, kept within the limits of science, commends itself as a satisfactory explanation of the great law controlling all the movements of matter, life and mind. Christianity, so far as it enters into the intellectual life, is interested in the idea of God and of man's relation to God. It may confidently leave the facts in the lower world of processes of transformation to be schematized under the scientific generalization of evolution.
LITERATURE.
The literature of the subject is vast. At the basis of the discussion stand the works of Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, Spencer, Weismann, Haeckel, Romanes and others. For a clear statement of theory, see Metcalf, An Outline of the Theory of Organic Evolution, 1905; Saleeby, Evolution the Master-Key, 1907; Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin (historical), 1908. On its relation to religion and Christianity, B. F. Tefft, Evolution and Christianity, 1885; E. Caird, The Evolution of Religion, 1893; Le Conte, Evolution; Its Nature, Its Evidences and Its Religious Thought, 1888; McCosh, The Religious Aspect of Evolution, 1888; Iverach, Christianity and Evolution, 1894. On its bearing on the ideas of man, sin and redemption, Griffith-Jones, The Ascent through Christ, 1900; H. Drummond, The Ascent of Man, 12th edition, 1901; Tyler, The Whence and Whither of Man; Orr, The Image of God in Man, 1907; Sin as a Problem of Today, 1910; Hall, Evolution and the Fall, 1910; Murray, Christian Faith and the New Psychology, 1911; T. A. Palm, The Faith of an Evolutionist, 1911.
(EDITORIAL NOTE.-It will be understood, that while Professor Zenos has been asked and permitted to state his views on this question unreservedly, neither the publishers nor the editors are to be held as committed to all the opinions expressed.)
Written by Andrew C. Zenos
Virgin Birth:
I. DEFINITION
II. THE TEXTUAL QUESTION
III. THE HISTORICAL QUESTION
1. Statement Not Dogmatic but Vital as History
2. Its Importance to Leaders of the Early Church
3. Hypothesis of Invention Discredits the Church
IV. THE CRITICAL QUESTION
1. Basis of Virgin-Birth Statement
2. Interrelationship of Narratives
3. Sources, Origin and age of Documents
V. THE DOCTRINAL QUESTION
1. In the New Testament
2. Portrait of Jesus in Synoptic Gospels
3. In Rest of the New Testament
4. Oppositions to the Doctrine
5. Its Importance to Modern Thought
LITERATURE
I. Definition.
"Virgin-birth" is the correct and only correct designation of the birth statement contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. "Immaculate conception" is of course manifestly a blunder due to the confusion of one idea with another. "Supernatural or miraculous birth" will not do, because there is no intimation that the process of birth was in any way exceptional. "Supernatural or miraculous conception" is equally unsatisfactory as it involves a question-begging comparison between the birth of Christ and the exceptional births of the Sons of Promise (e.g. Isaac, John the Baptist, etc.). The only statement which is sufficiently specific is "virgin-birth," inasmuch as according to the New Testament statement Mary was at the time of this birth virgo intacta.
II. The Textual Question.
We may deal with this division of our subject very briefly, because if we are to allow any weight at all to textual evidence there is no question as to the infancy narratives, either in whole or in part. Their position is flawless and unassailable. There is a voluminous literature devoted to the discussion of the subject, but it is notably jejune even for critical writing, and much more impressive for ingenuity and dialectic skill in arguing a poor case than for anything in the way of results. We do not hesitate to refer the reader who is interested in discussions of this sort to entirely satisfactory reviews of them found elsewhere (see Machen, Princeton Review, October, 1905; January, 1906; and Orr, The Virgin Birth of Christ). We may summarize the entire discussion in the words of Johannes Weiss (Theologische Rundschau, 1903, 208, quoted by Machen, ut sup.): "There never were forms of Mt and Lu without the infancy narratives." One point only we shall consider in this connection; namely, the disputed reading of Mt 1:16. The Ferrar group of manuscripts (nos. 346, 556, 826, 828) interpose a second "begat" between the names Joseph and Jesus. It is affirmed that this reading with the variants represents an original form of the genealogy preserved in the Gospels which affirms the literal sonship of Jesus to Joseph. The first and most obvious remark to be made upon this question is, granting-what is extremely uncertain-that this reading is original, it does not prove nor begin to prove the point alleged. This is now widely conceded. For one thing, the word "begat" is used elsewhere for legal or putative fatherhood (compare Mt 1:12 and see GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST). Allen's statement of the case indicates clearly enough that the radical use of this variation has broken down (see ICC; "Matthew," 8). This writer holds that the reading of Sam 1 ("Jacob begat Joseph. Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary the Virgin, begat Jesus, called the Messiah," Mt 1:16) is nearest the original form. By four steps, which he enumerates in order, he conceives that the original text, which was intended to convey the idea of a legal fatherhood on the part of Joseph, was modified so as to guard the statement from misinterpretation. This hypothesis is ingenious if somewhat complicated. The weak spot in the whole case (for the variation) lies in the fact that all manuscripts concur in the name of Mary and the term "virgin." It is evident, in any view of the relative standing of the various readings,
(1) that the genealogy as deposited in public or private record would read: "Jacob begat Joseph, Joseph begat Jesus,"
(2) that the person who used the genealogy in the Gospel and placed it in connection with Mt 1:18-25
(a) had Mary particularly in mind and inserted the names of women to prepare the way for the mention of Mary, all of which was a departure from usual and orderly procedure;
(b) that he used the word "begat" in the legal sense throughout (1:8,12; compare 1Ch 3:11,12,19);
(c) that he believed in the virgin-birth as evinced by the connection and the use of names of women including Mary's.
There is therefore no basis for the idea that the genealogy, even without the strongly attested relative clause of Mt 1:16, ever meant anything but an attestation of the virgin-birth.
III. The Historical Question.
1. Statement Not Dogmatic but Vital as History:
The twofold birth announcement of Matthew and Luke is a statement of historical or, more strictly speaking, biographical fact. The accounts, as we shall see, are very rigidly confined to the matter of fact concerned. It is not a dogma and receives very little doctrinal elaboration even in the infancy narratives themselves. It is an event, wholly real or wholly imaginary. The statement of it is wholly true or entirely false. But as a historical statement this narrative is of peculiar quality and significance.
(1) It touches upon the most delicate matters, at a place where the line between that which is most sacred and that which is most degraded in human life is closely drawn. To discredit it leaves the most intimate mystery of our Lord's earthly life under the shadow of suspicion. It is therefore a statement of the greatest personal moment in the evangelic record.
(2) It involves the secret history and public honor of a family most dear and sacred to the entire Christian body. It records the inner and outer experiences of the mother of the Lord and of His brethren, themselves honored leaders in the church.
(3) It touches upon the central mystery of the Lord's person in such a way as to involve either a very important contribution to the doctrine of the incarnation or a very serious mutilation of the truth. We may dismiss altogether the contention of many, that whether true or not the fact is of no great importance. It must be of importance. No fact in which the relationship of Jesus to His ancestors according to the flesh, to His mother, to the laws of life in the race at large, are so evidently and so deeply involved can possibly be a matter of indifference. The nature of His experience in the world, the quality and significance of His manhood, the fundamental constitution of His person, the nature and limits of the incarnation are necessarily and vitally concerned in the discussion. It is impossible to begin with the acceptance or rejection of the fact and arrive by logical processes at like convictions on any fundamental matter in the region of Christology.
2. Its Importance to Leaders of the Early Church:
All this must have been as patent to the earliest believers as to ourselves. The men who incorporated this incident into the gospel narrative could not possibly have been blind to the importance of what they were doing (compare Lu 1:3). In view of these facts it would be well for the serious student to ask himself this question: "On the hypothesis of invention, what manner of men were they who fabricated these narratives and succeeded in foisting them upon the church so early as to dominate its earliest official records and control the very making of all its creeds?" It is clear that deliberate invension is the only alternative to historical credit. We may throw out of court as altogether inadmissible the hypothesis that the church as a whole, by a naive and semi-unconscious process, came to believe these stories and to accept them without criticism. Rumors always grow in the absence of known facts, especially where curiosity is keen. Absurd rumors multiply among the credulous. But no statement contrary to natural expectation was ever yet promulgated among people of even average intelligence without meeting the resistance of incredulity on the part of some individuals who wish to inquire, especially if means of verification are within reach. In this particular instance, the issue may be stated much more sharply. At no period reasonably to be assigned for the origin and incorporation of these documents could they have been honestly accepted by any member of the Christian community, sufficiently taught to occupy a position of authority. If the story was invented, there must have been a time when Jesus was universally accepted as the son by natural generation of Joseph and Mary. The story surely was not invented before His birth nor for some time after. The first person, therefore, who spoke contrary to the prevalent and natural belief must have had it from the family, which alone knew the truth, or else have been a wanton and lying gossip. Such a story is recognizable on the face of it as authoritative or pure invention. There is no middle ground. It could not have been recounted without being challenged for its strangeness and for its contravention of the accepted belief. It could not have been challenged without the exposure of its groundless and fraudulent character, for the simple reason that the lack of positive and authoritative certification would be its immediate and sufficient condemnation. It is not difficult to draw the portrait of the inventor of this story. He must have been lacking, not only in the sense of truthfulness, but also in the elementary instinct of delicacy, to have invaded the privacy of the most sacred home known to him and deliberately invented a narrative which included the statement that Mary had come under suspicion of wrongdoing in such a way as to shadow the life of her Son. He must also have been doctrinally lax in the extreme, as well as temperamentally presumptuous, to have risked a mutilation of the truth by an invention dealing with such essential matters.
3. Hypothesis of Invention Discredits the Church:
Moreover, this hypothesis demands that this fabrication must have met with instantaneous and universal success. It passed the scrutiny of the church at large and of its authorized teachers, and was never challenged save by a small group of heretics who disliked it on purely dogmatic grounds.
To whatever origin in the way of suggestion from without one may attribute the story-whether one may ascribe it to the influence of Old Testament prophecy, or Jewish Messianic expectations in general, or to ethnic analogies, Babylonian. Egyptian or Greek-the fact remains that the story had to be invented and published by those who ought to have known better and could easily have known better had they possessed sufficient interest in the cause of truth to have made even casual inquiries into the credentials of such an important statement offered for their acceptance. It is fairly true to say that ethnic analogies for the birth of Christ fail (see article on "Heathen Wonder-Births and the Birth of Christ," Princeton Review, January, 1908). It is also true that the rooted Sere conviction shared by the Hebrews, that family descent is to be traced through the male line only, so persistent even among the New Testament writers that both evangelists, on the face of them, trace the lineage of Joseph, would have acted as an effectual barrier against this particular legendary development. It is further true that no passage of the Old Testament, including Isa 7:14, can be adduced as convincing evidence that the story was invented under the motive of finding fulfillment for Messianic predictions (see IMMANUEL). But far more satisfactory is the elementary conviction that the founders of the Christian church and the writers of its documents were not the kind of men to accept or circulate stories which they knew perfectly well would be used by unbelief in a malignant way to the discredit of their Master and His family. The hypothesis of invention not only leaves an ugly cloud of mystery over the birth of Jesus, but it discredits beyond repair every man who had to do with the writing and circulation of the Gospels, down to and including the man who professes to have "traced the course of all things accurately from the beginning," according to the testimony of those who were "eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" (Lu 1:2 f). It is simply impossible to save the credit, in any matter involving honesty or commonsense, of one who uses words like these and yet incorporates unauthenticated legends into the narrative to which he has thus pledged himself.
One may venture at the close of this section of the discussion to point out that everything which the inventor of this story must have been, the narrators of it are not. Both narratives exhibit a profound reverence, a chaste and gracious reserve in the presence of a holy mystery, a simplicity, dignity and self-contained nobility. of expression which are the visible marks of truth, if such there are anywhere in human writing.
IV. The Critical Question.
1. Basis of Virgin-Birth Statement:
The infancy narratives evidently stand somewhat apart from the main body of apostolic testimony. The personal contact of the disciples with Jesus, upon which their testimony primarily rests, extended from the call of the disciples, near the opening of the ministry, to the resurrection and post-resurrection appearances. It is hyper-skepticism to deny that the substance of the gospel narrative rests upon the basis of actual experience. But all four evangelists show a disposition to supplement the immediate testimony of the disciples by the use of other well-attested materials. Luke's introductory paragraph, if it was written by an honest man, indicates that he at least was satisfied with nothing less than a careful scrutiny of original sources, namely, the testimony, written or oral, of eyewitnesses. It may reasonably be surmised that this was the general attitude of the entire group of apostles, evangelists and catechists who are responsible for the authorship and circulation of the Gospels.
But, to say nothing of the infancy narratives, for one of which Luke himself is responsible, these writers have embodied in the narrative the ministry of John the Baptist, the baptism and temptation of Jesus, all of which events happened before their fellowship with Jesus, strictly speaking, began. In particular, assuredly no disciple was an eyewitness of the temptation. None the less the narrative stands, simply because imaginative invention of such an incident in the absence of accredited facts cannot reasonably be considered. The fact that the birth narratives do not rest upon the testimony of the same eyewitnesses who stand for the ministry of Jesus does not discredit them as embodying reliable tradition, unless it can be proved that they contradict the rest of the apostolic testimony or that no reliable witness to the events in question was within reach at the time when the documents were composed. In the present instance such a contention is absurd. The very nature of the event points out the inevitable firsthand witnesses. There could be no others. In the absence of their decisive word, bald invention would be necessary. To charge the entire church of the time (for this is what the hypothesis amounts to) as particeps criminis in its own official and documentary deception is an extreme position as unwarranted as it is cruel.
The internal harmony of the facts as recorded points in the same direction. The silence or comparative lack of emphasis with reference to the birth of Christ on the part of the other New Testament writers is to be explained partly on the basis of doctrinal viewpoint (see V, below) and partly because an ingrained sense of delicacy would naturally tend to reticence on this point, at least during the lifetime of Mary and the Lord's brethren. The following intimately corresponding facts are sufficiently significant in this connection:
(1) that the fact of Jesus' unique birth could not be proclaimed as a part of His own teaching or as the basis of His incarnate life;
(2) that He was popularly known as the son of Joseph;
(3) that the foster-fatherhood of Joseph, as embodied in the genealogy (see GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST), was the recognized basis of His relationship to the house of David. All these facts appear just as they should in the narrative.
The very fact that the genealogies, ending with the name of Joseph, and the current representations of Jesus as Joseph's son, are allowed to appear in the same documents in which the virgin-birth statements appear, together with the entirely congruous facts that the main synoptic narrative does not emphasize the event, and that neither Paul nor John nor any other New Testament writer gives it a prominent place, is indication enough that it rested, in the opinion of the entire witnessing body, on a sufficient basis of evidence and required no artificial buttressing. Internal harmonies and incidental marks of truthfulness are of the utmost importance here because in a narrative so complex and vital it would have been easy to make a misstep. Since none was made, we are constrained to believe that the single eye to truth filled the apostolic mind with light. Every item, in the infancy narratives themselves, as well as in the more strictly doctrinal statements of other New Testament books, is as we should expect, provided the birth statement be accepted as true. Internal evidence of truthfulness could not be stronger.
2. Interrelationship of Narratives:
This general conclusion is confirmed when we come to consider the relationship of the two narratives to each other. To begin with, we have two narratives, differing greatly in method of treatment, grouping of details, order and motive of narration, and general atmosphere. It is evident that we have two documents which have had quite a different history.
In two points, at any rate, what might be considered serious discrepancies are discoverable (see BIBLICAL DISCREPANCIES). These two points are:
(1) the relationship of the Massacre of the Innocents and the journey to Egypt, as related by Matthew, to Luke's account, which carries the holy family directly back to Nazareth from Bethlehem after the presentation in the temple;
(2) the discrepancy as to the previous residence at Nazareth (Luke) and the reason given for the return thither (Matthew).
As to (1) it is quite clear that Matthew's account centers about an episode interpolated, so to say, into the natural order of events (see INNOCENTS, MASSACRE OF THE). It is also clear that the order of Luke's narrative, which is in the highest degree condensed and synoptic, does not forbid the introduction of even a lengthy train of events into the midst of Lu 2:39 (compare condensation in 2:40-42,51,52). It may easily be that the lacunae in each account are due to a lack of knowledge on the part of either writer as to the point supplied by the other. Matthew may not have known that the family had resided formerly in Nazareth, and Luke may not have known that a return to Galilee as a permanent residence was not contemplated in the original plan. The difficulty here is not serious. We consider the discrepancy as it stands as of more value to the account as indicating the independence of the two accounts and the honesty of those who incorporated them into the Gospels without attempting to harmonize them, than any hypothetical harmonization however satisfactory. We introduce this caveat, however, that Matthew had an especial reason for introducing the episode connected with Herod and for explaining the residence at Nazareth during our Lord's early years as occurring by divine authority (see Sweet, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ, 218 f, for discussion of this point; and compare INNOCENTS, MASSACRE OF THE).
We are now free to consider the remarkable convergence of these two documents. The following particulars may be urged:
(1) the synchronism in the Herodian era;
(2) the name "Jesus" given by divine authority before birth;
(3) Davidic kinship;
(4) the virgin-birth;
(5) the birth at Bethlehem;
(6) residence at Nazareth.
In addition we may urge the essential and peculiar harmony of descriptive expressions (see V, below) and the correspondence of the inner and outer experiences of Mary.
See MARY, II.
3. Sources, Origin and Age of Documents:
We have now reached the final and crucial point of this phase of our discussion when we take up the question as to the sources, origin and date of these narratives. Our method of approach to the general question of their credibility delivers us from the necessity of arguing in extenso theories which have been framed to account for the narrative in the absence of historical fact. We resort to the simple and convincing principle that the story could not have been honestly composed nor honestly published as derived from any source other than the persons who could have guaranteed its trustworthiness. Every indication, of which the narratives are full, of honesty and intelligence on the part of the narrators is an argument against any and all theories which presuppose a fictitious origin for the central statement. Negatively, we may with confidence assert that wide excursions into ethnic mythology and folklore have failed to produce a single authentic parallel either in fact or in form to the infancy narratives. In addition to this, the attempt to deduce the story from Messianic prophecy also fails to justify itself. In addition, there are two considerations which may justly be urged as pointing to trustworthy sources for the narrative: First, the strongly Hebraic nature of both narratives. It has often been pointed out that nowhere in the New Testament do we find documents so deeply tinged with the Hebraic spirit (see Adeney, Essays for the Times, number XI, 24 f; and Briggs, New Lights on the Life of Christ, 161 f). This statement involves both narratives and is another evidence of profound internal unity. A second important fact is that the doctrinal viewpoint is Jewish-Christian and undeveloped. The term "Holy Spirit" is used in the Old Testament sense; the Christology is undeveloped, omitting reference to Christ's preexistence and interpreting His sonship as official and ethical rather than metaphysical. The soteriology is Jewish and Messianic, not unfolding the doctrine of the cross. All these facts point in one direction, namely, to the conclusion that these documents are early. It is impossible reasonably to suppose that such documents could have been composed in the absence of sources, or by persons devoid of the historical spirit, after the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus had shed such light upon His person and mission as to transform both Christology and soteriology through the ideas of incarnation, atonement and the Trinity.
It is still asserted, in the face of the most convincing evidence to the contrary, that the infancy narratives are late addenda to the gospel tradition as a whole. This idea is due, primarily, to a confusion of thought between origin and publication. The latter must have been coincident with the original issue of the Gospels in their present form. The textual evidence here is convincing. On the other hand, the main body of testimony incorporated into the Gospels at the time of their publication had been in the hands of the apostles and their helpers for some years, as evidenced by the Pauline letters and the Book of acts. In all probability the sources upon which the infancy narratives rest, which had their origin and received the impress which characterizes them in the period antecedent to the public ministry of Jesus, came into the hands of the Gospel writers toward the end of the formative period at the close of which the Gospels were issued. In other words, the story of the Lord's birth was withheld until the time was ripe for its publication. Two occasions may have served to release it: the death of Mary may have made it possible to use her private memoirs, or the rise of anti-Christian calumny may have made the publication of the true history imperative. At any rate, the narratives show every indication of being contemporary documents of the period with which they deal. This fact puts an additional burden of proof, already heavier than they can bear, upon those who would antagonize the documents. We may reasonably affirm that the narratives will bear triumphantly any fair critical test.
V. The Doctrinal Question.
1. In the New Testament:
The discussion of the doctrinal significance of the virgin-birth statement falls naturally into three parts:
(1) Its doctrinal elaboration in the New Testament;
(2) its historic function in the development of Christian doctrine;
(3) its permanent value to Christian thought.
We begin with the narratives themselves. As has just been said, they were incorporated into the Gospels at a time when the New Testament Christology had reached maturity in the Pauline and Johannine writings and the Epistle to the Hebrews. The doctrine of the incarnation was fully unfolded. It had been unequivocally asserted that in Jesus all the fullness of the Godhead was historically and personally manifested (Joh 1:14; Php 2:5-8; Col 1:18; 2:9; Heb 2:14). In contrast with these statements the infancy narratives not only, as adverted to above, exhibit on the surface a rudimentary Christology, but in several items, of profound interest and most surprising tenor, show that the birth notice was not apprehended or stated in view of the doctrine of the incarnation at all.
The detailed justification of this statement follows:
(1) Matthew (see 1:18-25) does not use the term "Son of God." The only expression implying a unique relationship to God, other than in the "of Holy Spirit" phrase, twice used, is in the word "Immanuel" quoted from Isaiah, which does not necessarily involve incarnation. At the beginning of the genealogy Jesus is introduced as the son of David, the son of Abraham.
(2) The assertion as to His conception by Holy Spirit is conditioned by three striking facts:
(a) His conception is interpreted in terms of conception by the power of Holy Spirit, not of begetting by the Father. The Old Testament expression "This day have I begotten thee," used twice, occurs in quite a different connection (Heb 1:5; 5:5).
(b) The term "Holy Spirit" is used without the article.
(c) The phrase descriptive of the being conceived is expressed in the neuter, ‘the thing conceived in her is of Holy Spirit' (to gar en aute gennethen ek pneumatos estin hagiou).
The implication of these three facts is
(i) that the sonship of Jesus through His exceptional birth is interpreted in terms of divine power working upon humanity, not as the correlative of divine and essential fatherhood; it is the historical sonship that is in view (contrast with this the two passages in Hebrews referred to above);
(ii) the writer is speaking in the Old Testament sense of "Holy Spirit" as the forthgoing of creative power from God, not as personal hypostasis;
(iii) he is also emphasizing (in the use of the neuter) the reality of the physical birth. These three facts, all the more remarkable because they are attributed to a heavenly messenger who might be expected to speak more fully concerning the mystery, exclude the supposition that we have one historic form of the doctrine of incarnation. On the contrary, had we no other statements than those found here we should be unable logically to postulate an incarnation. Every statement made concerning Jesus, apart from the virgin-birth statement itself, might be true were He the son of Joseph and Mary.
The case is far stronger when we turn to Luke's account, in spite of the fact that the terms "Son of the Most High" and "Son of God" ordinarily implying incarnation are used. We notice
(d) that the anarthrous use of "Holy Spirit" reappears and that a poetic parallelism defines the term (Lu 1:35), making "Holy Spirit" =" Power of the Most High";
(e) that the neuter phrase is also found here, "the holy thing which is begotten," etc. (dio kai to gennomenon hagion klethesetai);
(f) that future tenses are used in connection with His career and the titles which He bears: "He shall be (as the outcome of a process) great," and "He shall be called (as a matter of ultimate titular recognition) the Son of the Most High" (Lu 1:32); "The holy thing.... shall be called the Son of God" (Lu 1:35).
In these instances the title is connected directly with the career rather than the birth. Even the "wherefore" of Lu 1:35, in connection with the future verb, carries the power of God manifested in the holy conception forward into the entire career of Jesus rather than bases the career upon the initial miracle. These three facts taken together exclude the reference to any conception of the incarnation. The incarnation is directly and inseparably connected with Christ's eternal sonship to the Father. The title "Son of God" includes that but does not specify it. It includes also the ethical, historical, human sonship. The term "Holy Spirit" used without the article also is a comprehensive expression covering both a work of divine power in any sphere and a work of divine grace in the personal sphere only.
These accounts are concerned with the historic fact rather than its metaphysical implications. This historic fact is interpreted in terms of a divine power in and through the human career of Jesus (which is so stated as to include an impersonal, germinal life) rather than a dogmatic definition of the Messiah's essential nature. The omission of all reference to pre-existence is negatively conclusive on this point. The divine power manifested in His exceptional origin is thought of as extending on and including His entire career. This leads us directly to a second phase in the interpretation of Christ and compels to a reconsideration at a new angle of the miracle of His origin.
2. Portrait of Jesus in Synoptic Gospels:
The narrators of the life and ministry of Jesus on the basis of ascertained fact and apostolic testimony were confronted with a very definite and delicate task. They had to tell with unexaggerating truthfulness the story of the human life of Jesus. Their ultimate aim was to justify the doctrine of incarnation, but they could not have been unaware that the genuine and sincere humanity of Christ was a pillar of the doctrine quite as much as His essential Deity. To portray the human experience of a being considered essentially divine was the Herculean task attempted and carried to a successful issue in the Synoptic Gospels. These writers do not conceal for a moment their conviction that they are depicting the career of the wonder-working Son of God, but they never forget that it is a career of self-limitation within the human sphere, the period of self-imposed and complete humiliation undertaken on behalf of the Father, "for us men and for our salvation." Hence, the nature and limitations of the narrative. Mark omits reference to the virgin-birth. Matthew and Luke narrate it and forthwith drop it. These facts are exactly on a paragraph. It is no more remarkable that Mark omits the story than that Matthew and Luke make so little of it. To allege either fact as a motive to doubt is to misinterpret the whole situation. By the terms of their task they could do nothing else. The Fourth Gospel and the Epistles announce that the human life of Jesus was due to the voluntary extra-temporal act of a pre-existent Divine Being, but in the synoptic narrative four passages only hint at pre-existence, and then as incidental flashes from the inner consciousness of Jesus. This omission is no more remarkable and no less so than the omissions noted above. By the terms of their task the synoptic writers could do nothing else. The fact of pre-existence could be announced only when the earthly task had been triumphantly finished (see Mr 9:9,11). During the entire period of the earthly life as such Jesus was under trial (note Mt 3:17, correctly translating the aorist; compare the remarkable words of Joh 10:17), performing a task, accomplishing a commission, achieving a victory as human son. The story of the Temptation exhibits the conditions under which Jesus performed His task. The temptations were one and all addressed to His consciousness as God's Son. They were resisted on the sole basis of self-humiliation and dependence. The entire synoptic narrative is consistent with this representation. Jesus is consciously one in will and spirit with God, but that oneness with God is consummated and conducted in the Spirit, through faith, by prayer. They describe His entire career of holiness, wisdom and power, each unique, in the terms of the Spirit-filled, trustful, prayerful human life. Here is the vital point. They disclose the eternal Sonship (in which beyond question they believe) on its ethical, not on its metaphysical side, by prediction of His future triumph rather than by definition of His person. In such a narrative, consistently carried out, there can be no resort to the preexistent, eternal Sonship, nor to the miracle of His human origin in the story of His career under trial. In particular, the miracle, whereby His germinal connection with the race was established could not extend to the personal and spiritual life in which His victory was His own through the personal Holy Spirit. The argument from the virgin-birth to His sinlessness (see IMMACULATE CONCEPTION) was made by the church, not by the New Testament writers. The sinlessness of Christ was His own achievement in the flesh which He sacrificed through His holy will of obedience to the Father.
3. In Rest of the New Testament:
This leads us to a third phase of development in the New Testament doctrine of incarnation. In the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles it is asserted that the innermost moral significance of the earthly career of Jesus lay in the fact that it was the consistent carrying-out of an extra-temporal volition of divine mercy and love whereby He became the Revealer of God and the Saviour of men. This doctrine is based upon the story of the human career completed in the glorification which, according to the testimony, ensued upon His death and disclosed His place in the divine sphere of being. But it is also based upon the virgin-birth narrative and grounded in it. Attention has already been called to the fact that the virgin-birth is not (in the infancy narrative) connected with the metaphysical sonship of Jesus. All that is said then, doctrinally, concerning Jesus might be true were He the son of Joseph and Mary. On the contrary, what is said in John and the Epistles depends upon the virgin-birth narrative for its foundational basis. It has often been asserted that Paul and John do not refer to the virgin-birth. This statement the present writer takes to be more than doubtful, but if it is true, all the more striking is the indirect and unconscious testimony to the virgin-birth involved in their doctrinal reliance upon it. According to these writers the incarnation was due to a divine act of self-limitation whereby the divine mode of existence was exchanged for the human (Php 2:5-11 et al.). According to the infancy narrative, the birth of Jesus was due to a divine creative act whereby a human life began germinally and passed through the successive stages of growth to maturity. The synoptic narrative outside the infancy narrative supplies a third point, that the entire conscious personal career of Jesus upon earth was lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. The infancy narrative is the keystone of an arch, one half resting upon the synoptic account, the other upon the doctrinal construction of Joh and the Epistles. The virgin-birth statement by its adoption of Old Testament terminology makes room for a divine activity both in the impersonal and in the personal spheres. The doctrine of incarnation implies that as in every new human being the creative divine power manifests itself impersonally in germinal beginnings, so in the life of Christ the divine power conditions itself within the impersonal forces of germinant life with this important and suggestive difference: In the career of Jesus there issues from the sphere of germinal beginnings not a new human person created from the life-stock of the race, but the personal human life, including all human powers, of a pre-existent divine person self- conditioned and self-implanted within the human sphere. The central conscious self, the agent of His activities and the subject of His experiences in the historic sphere was the eternal Son of God. His life in the human sphere was that of a true human being in the full actuality of a human life. Hence, it follows, since ordinary generation involves necessarily (that is the intent of it) the origination of a new person not hitherto existing, that the birth of Jesus could not have been by ordinary generation. The birth of Christ through ordinary generation would have involved a quite incomprehensible miracle, namely, the presence and action of the ordinary factors in human origins with a contrary and unique result. The virgin-birth is the only key that fits the vacant space in the arch. In addition it may reasonably be urged that the relationship of human parents to each other, ordinarily a natural, necessary and sacred act, could have no part in this transaction, while the very fact that Mary's relationship was to God alone, in an act of submission involving complete self-renunciation and solitary enclosure within the divine will, fulfils the spiritual conditions of this unique motherhood as no other imaginable experience could.
4. Oppositions to the Doctrine: Historically the virgin-birth statement performed a function commensurate with the importance ascribed to it in this discussion rather than the current depreciation of it. The doctrine of Christ was menaced in two opposite directions, which may be designated respectively by the terms "Ebionite" and "Gnostic." According to the former teaching (the word "Ebionite" being used in a general sense only), Jesus was reduced to the human category and interpreted as a Spirit-led man or prophet, in the Old Testament meaning of the term. According to the opposite tendency, He was interpreted as divine, while His human experience was reduced to mere appearance of a temporary external union with the Logos. The virgin-birth statement resisted both these tendencies with equal effectiveness. On the one hand, it asserted with unequivocal definiteness a real humanity conditioned by true birth into an actual connection with the race. On the other hand, it asserted an exceptional birth, setting Jesus apart as one whose entrance into the world was due to a new, creative contact of God with the race. Historically, it is difficult to see how the New Testament doctrine could have escaped mutilation apart from the statement, seemingly framed with express reference to conditions arising afterward, which so wonderfully guarded it. The holy mystery of the Lord's origin became the symbol of the holier mystery of His divine nature. It thus appears in every one of the historic creeds, an assertion of fact around which the belief of the church crystallized into the faith which alone accounts for its history, a profound and immovable conviction that Jesus Christ was really incarnate Deity.
5. Its Importance to Modern Thought:
The importance for modern thinking of the virgin-birth statement is threefold:
(1) First, it involves in general the question, never more vital than at the present time, of the trustworthiness of the gospel tradition. This particular fact, i.e. the virgin-birth, has been a favorite, because apparently a vulnerable, point of attack. But the presuppositions of the attack and the method according to which it has been conducted involve a general and radical undermining of confidence in the testimony of the gospel witnesses. This process has finally met its nemesis in the Christus-myth propaganda. The virgin-birth statement can be successfully assailed on no grounds which do not involve the whole witnessing body of Christians in charges of blind credulity or willful falsification, very unjust indeed as respects their character and standing in general, but very difficult to repel in view of the results of denial at this point.
(2) The virgin-birth is important for the simple historical reason that it involves or is involved in a clear and consistent account of the Lord's birth and early years. Apart from the infancy narratives we are utterly without direct information as to His birth, ancestry or early years. Apart from these narratives we have no information as to the marriage of Joseph and Mary; we are shut up to vague inferences as to this entire period. No biographer ever leaves these points obscure if he can avoid it. It is very earnestly suggested that those who cast discredit upon the infancy story do not clearly recognize the seriousness of the situation brought about in the absence of any narrative which can be trusted as to this vital point. Calumny there is and has been from an early day. If there is nowhere an authoritative answer to the calumny, in what sort of a position is the Christian believer placed? He can assert nothing, because apart from what he has too lightly thrown away he knows nothing.
(3) Lastly, the more closely the statement as to the Lord's birth is studied, the more clearly it will be seen that it involves in a most vital and central way the entire doctrine of the incarnation. This doctrine is an interpretation of facts. Those facts stand together. In the midst of those facts, harmonizing with them, shedding light upon them and receiving light from them, resting upon the same consentient testimony is the statement, which is thus worded in the oldest symbol of our historical faith: "Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary" (see APOSTLES' CREED). There is no adequate reason why the intelligent believer should feel uncertain as to this statement of our holy religion.
LITERATURE.
There is a vast and growing literature which more or less directly deals with the subject of our Lord's birth. The literature may be classified as follows:
(1) Lives of Christ;
(2) critical commentaries on Matthew and Luke;
(3) critical and historical investigations of Christian origins;
(4) monographs on the Apostles' Creed;
(5) monographs and articles on the specific subject.
For a list and analysis of discussions see Sweet, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ, 354-57.
Written by Louis Matthews Sweet
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