Toward a Synthesis of Science and Religion
"I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.' A celebrated author and divine has written to me that 'he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.'"
- Charles Darwin, naturalist, in later editions of On the Origin of Species
"Whether is all-God or occasional-God the nobler theory? Positively, the idea of an immanent God, which is the God of Evolution, is infinitely grander than the occasional wonder-worker who is the God of the old theology. Negatively, the older view is not only the less worthy, but it is discredited by science."
- Henry Drummond, evangelist writer and lecturer
- Charles Darwin, naturalist, in later editions of On the Origin of Species
"Whether is all-God or occasional-God the nobler theory? Positively, the idea of an immanent God, which is the God of Evolution, is infinitely grander than the occasional wonder-worker who is the God of the old theology. Negatively, the older view is not only the less worthy, but it is discredited by science."
- Henry Drummond, evangelist writer and lecturer
There are Latter-day Saints who don't concern themselves with whether evolution is true or not, and those who do accept it but don't concern themselves with how it fits into the scriptural accounts etcetera, both groups usually asserting that "it's not important to my salvation". This section probably will hold little interest for them. For myself and others with an insatiable curiosity and need to fit things together, though, here was my speculation while I still believed in the LDS Church. I had no intention of being part of a "theological scholastic aristocracy" as President Joseph F. Smith worried long ago. Because such concerns were expressed as a rationale for not teaching evolution at BYU, and evolution has now been taught at BYU for quite some time, circumstances have obviously changed. And since I held no authority within the church there was no risk of my opinions being misconstrued as authoritative. Note that I don't call this a "reconciliation" because there is no need to "reconcile" things that aren't in conflict to begin with.
One popular approach in and out of the church is the "concordist" view, in which the Genesis creation story is regarded as a condensed metaphorical account of the Earth's formation and life's evolution over millions of years. After all, they like to point out, the Hebrew word translated as "day" (yom) could actually refer to an unspecified period of time. But this view, while vastly superior to creationism, is still wrong because it assumes that the authors of the text were as interested in the origins of Earth and life as we are. They weren't and that's not what the creation story is about at all. The ancient Hebrews believed the same mythology about those things as the other peoples of the Near East, and it wasn't a priority for God to correct them. Instead He used their existing worldview as a framework to teach them about their relation to Him and their purpose on Earth.
Christians recognized that Genesis was not a science book at least as far back as Saint Augustine, over fourteen hundred years before the idea of evolution really came up. This view was well represented in the Church of Jesus Christ by James E. Talmage, who cautioned, "The opening chapters of Genesis, and scriptures related thereto, were never intended as a textbook of geology, archaeology, earth-science or man-science. Holy Scripture will endure, while the conceptions of men change with new discoveries. We do not show reverence for the scriptures when we misapply them through faulty interpretation." The ancient Hebrews would be dumbfounded at how many modern believers (including, sadly, other Apostles) have ignored this advice and misapplied their writings. This is not to say, of course, that nothing in Genesis is factual or historical, but one has to read it carefully and avoid imposing anachronistic worldviews on the text.
One popular approach in and out of the church is the "concordist" view, in which the Genesis creation story is regarded as a condensed metaphorical account of the Earth's formation and life's evolution over millions of years. After all, they like to point out, the Hebrew word translated as "day" (yom) could actually refer to an unspecified period of time. But this view, while vastly superior to creationism, is still wrong because it assumes that the authors of the text were as interested in the origins of Earth and life as we are. They weren't and that's not what the creation story is about at all. The ancient Hebrews believed the same mythology about those things as the other peoples of the Near East, and it wasn't a priority for God to correct them. Instead He used their existing worldview as a framework to teach them about their relation to Him and their purpose on Earth.
Christians recognized that Genesis was not a science book at least as far back as Saint Augustine, over fourteen hundred years before the idea of evolution really came up. This view was well represented in the Church of Jesus Christ by James E. Talmage, who cautioned, "The opening chapters of Genesis, and scriptures related thereto, were never intended as a textbook of geology, archaeology, earth-science or man-science. Holy Scripture will endure, while the conceptions of men change with new discoveries. We do not show reverence for the scriptures when we misapply them through faulty interpretation." The ancient Hebrews would be dumbfounded at how many modern believers (including, sadly, other Apostles) have ignored this advice and misapplied their writings. This is not to say, of course, that nothing in Genesis is factual or historical, but one has to read it carefully and avoid imposing anachronistic worldviews on the text.
The Fall of Adam and Eve
Many Latter-day Saints have traditionally believed that Adam's Fall marked the beginning of death and suffering in the world, which would preclude evolution from having taken place beforehand. 2 Nephi 2:22 states that "if Adam had not transgressed... all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which whey were after they were created, and they must have remained forever, and had no end." I interpret it differently, though. I interpret "all things" to be speaking of broad categories - animals, plants, rocks, etc. - rather than each individual organism. I interpret it to mean that the natural cycles of the earth would have continued indefinitely without a purpose or end goal. Without the Fall, there would be no chance for mankind to progress to something greater than this mortal existence, and no chance for the earth itself to "receive its paradisaical glory" and become the Celestial Kingdom. The entire plan of salvation, of which the Fall is the second foundational pillar, would have been put on hold forever.
Ben Spackman notes, "The traditional assertion is that Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden in order to experience, recognize, and make choices between opposites.
"However, the temple and scripture also present the Garden— if you’re paying attention— with opposites already present, recognized, and forcing choices.
"For example, there is day and night, which entails light and darkness, two pairs of opposites with all the gradations in between: starlight, moonlight, dawn, the golden hour.
"Then there are trees which they eat from. Why do you eat? Why do you need to eat? Hunger and survival. Why do you not eat? Satiety. Is that not an opposite, one based on human need and desire? What would happen if they didn’t eat at all? Would they have gotten hungrier? Would they have died? If not… then why food?
"When tempted by the serpent, Eve 'saw that the tree was good for food' (Genesis 3:6). This entails judgment or discernment, being able to recognize that some trees are good for food and nourishment, but other trees aren’t. Again, here’s a binary already present in the garden, and Eve has the ability to distinguish the good from the bad, the 'feeds me' from the 'doesn’t feed me.'
"Eve also perceives that the tree was a 'delight to the eyes.' This is a judgment of aesthetics, which again implies the presence of binary ends on a scale of beauty, an aesthetic hierarchy, and Eve’s ability to distinguish and judge between those gradations.
"Taking all this together, the traditional LDS framing, in which Adam and Eve loiter in a static Garden for potentially millions of years, without any death or decay, and unable to recognize, choose between, or experience opposites because they have not yet eaten the fruit… simply makes no sense. Those things are already present and happening in the Garden, no fruit necessary. Tradition presents an inadequate description of what scripture says and what the temple presents, leaving science out of the argument entirely."
To be clear, the creation accounts in the Bible are myths and Adam and Eve are mythical people who represent all men and all women. Many Christian denominations have accepted this. But the LDS Church hasn't gone that far, and thus demands a bit more explanation. Remember that the First Presidency declared "Adam is the primal parent of our race" and left open the possibility of pre-Adamites. It is significant that they said "race" rather than "species", for although we refer to "the human race", the term is more accurately defined as "1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics. 2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race. 3. A genealogical line; a lineage". President Smith also referred a year later to Adam and Eve as "the first parents of our generations".
I believe that after homo sapiens had evolved in Africa and spread from there, two special individuals - Adam and Eve - were selected to be the parents of our race and given uniquely child-of-God spirits. They were led or taken to the Garden of Eden in present-day Missouri, a sacred temple-like space set apart from the rest of the world for them to commune with God. (Both Genesis and Moses say that God placed Adam in the garden after he was created.) There they had access to the tree of life, which made them immortal as long as they kept eating its fruit. Nothing in the scriptures states that they were immortal by their very nature. After they gained a knowledge of good and evil by some means - the forbidden fruit may well be entirely metaphorical for all I know - they became morally accountable and thus capable of sin, and angels and a flaming sword were placed to keep them away from this tree so they wouldn't live forever in that corrupted state. Prior to this knowledge, there was no sin - like children, they may have committed moral wrongs, but they were not held accountable to moral laws.
In an intriguing snippet of Moses 6:59, God teaches Adam that "inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit..." It seems very odd that God would explain baptism to Adam by comparing it to his own natural birth, unless he actually had his own natural birth. (God is telling Adam what to teach his own children, but context makes it clear that Adam himself is included in the "ye".) Obviously this leaves unresolved questions, like what about Adam's and Eve's parents, or their thousands of other predecessors? Perhaps God drew a line between our race and the previous one for theological purposes. Taxonomists have to do the same thing with all species for scientific purposes and it's often very difficult because there are few clear, fixed distinctions. I think it likely, though, that to some extent Adam's Fall was retroactive just like Christ's Atonement.
Speaking of pre-Adamic humans in general, scholar Hugh Nibley wrote, "Do not begrudge existence to creatures that looked like men long, long ago, nor deny them a place in God's affection or even a right to exaltation - for our scriptures allow them such. Nor am I overly concerned as to just when they might have lived, for their world is not our world. They have all gone away long before our people ever appeared. God assigned them their proper times and functions, as he has given me mine - a full-time job that admonishes me to remember his words to the overly eager Moses: 'For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me.' (Moses 1:31.) It is Adam as my own parent who concerns me. When he walks onto the stage, then and only then the play begins."
Ben Spackman notes, "The traditional assertion is that Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden in order to experience, recognize, and make choices between opposites.
"However, the temple and scripture also present the Garden— if you’re paying attention— with opposites already present, recognized, and forcing choices.
"For example, there is day and night, which entails light and darkness, two pairs of opposites with all the gradations in between: starlight, moonlight, dawn, the golden hour.
"Then there are trees which they eat from. Why do you eat? Why do you need to eat? Hunger and survival. Why do you not eat? Satiety. Is that not an opposite, one based on human need and desire? What would happen if they didn’t eat at all? Would they have gotten hungrier? Would they have died? If not… then why food?
"When tempted by the serpent, Eve 'saw that the tree was good for food' (Genesis 3:6). This entails judgment or discernment, being able to recognize that some trees are good for food and nourishment, but other trees aren’t. Again, here’s a binary already present in the garden, and Eve has the ability to distinguish the good from the bad, the 'feeds me' from the 'doesn’t feed me.'
"Eve also perceives that the tree was a 'delight to the eyes.' This is a judgment of aesthetics, which again implies the presence of binary ends on a scale of beauty, an aesthetic hierarchy, and Eve’s ability to distinguish and judge between those gradations.
"Taking all this together, the traditional LDS framing, in which Adam and Eve loiter in a static Garden for potentially millions of years, without any death or decay, and unable to recognize, choose between, or experience opposites because they have not yet eaten the fruit… simply makes no sense. Those things are already present and happening in the Garden, no fruit necessary. Tradition presents an inadequate description of what scripture says and what the temple presents, leaving science out of the argument entirely."
To be clear, the creation accounts in the Bible are myths and Adam and Eve are mythical people who represent all men and all women. Many Christian denominations have accepted this. But the LDS Church hasn't gone that far, and thus demands a bit more explanation. Remember that the First Presidency declared "Adam is the primal parent of our race" and left open the possibility of pre-Adamites. It is significant that they said "race" rather than "species", for although we refer to "the human race", the term is more accurately defined as "1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics. 2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race. 3. A genealogical line; a lineage". President Smith also referred a year later to Adam and Eve as "the first parents of our generations".
I believe that after homo sapiens had evolved in Africa and spread from there, two special individuals - Adam and Eve - were selected to be the parents of our race and given uniquely child-of-God spirits. They were led or taken to the Garden of Eden in present-day Missouri, a sacred temple-like space set apart from the rest of the world for them to commune with God. (Both Genesis and Moses say that God placed Adam in the garden after he was created.) There they had access to the tree of life, which made them immortal as long as they kept eating its fruit. Nothing in the scriptures states that they were immortal by their very nature. After they gained a knowledge of good and evil by some means - the forbidden fruit may well be entirely metaphorical for all I know - they became morally accountable and thus capable of sin, and angels and a flaming sword were placed to keep them away from this tree so they wouldn't live forever in that corrupted state. Prior to this knowledge, there was no sin - like children, they may have committed moral wrongs, but they were not held accountable to moral laws.
In an intriguing snippet of Moses 6:59, God teaches Adam that "inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit..." It seems very odd that God would explain baptism to Adam by comparing it to his own natural birth, unless he actually had his own natural birth. (God is telling Adam what to teach his own children, but context makes it clear that Adam himself is included in the "ye".) Obviously this leaves unresolved questions, like what about Adam's and Eve's parents, or their thousands of other predecessors? Perhaps God drew a line between our race and the previous one for theological purposes. Taxonomists have to do the same thing with all species for scientific purposes and it's often very difficult because there are few clear, fixed distinctions. I think it likely, though, that to some extent Adam's Fall was retroactive just like Christ's Atonement.
Speaking of pre-Adamic humans in general, scholar Hugh Nibley wrote, "Do not begrudge existence to creatures that looked like men long, long ago, nor deny them a place in God's affection or even a right to exaltation - for our scriptures allow them such. Nor am I overly concerned as to just when they might have lived, for their world is not our world. They have all gone away long before our people ever appeared. God assigned them their proper times and functions, as he has given me mine - a full-time job that admonishes me to remember his words to the overly eager Moses: 'For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me.' (Moses 1:31.) It is Adam as my own parent who concerns me. When he walks onto the stage, then and only then the play begins."
Natural Selection and Divine Will
A lot of people don't realize that the concept of evolution predates Charles Darwin. As soon as scientists realized that fossils were the remains of living organisms (as opposed to hoaxes or coincidentally organism-shaped rock formations) and that said organisms no longer lived on the earth, it became increasingly obvious that change between species had occurred. Darwin then synthesized the observations and discoveries of many of his contemporaries and forerunners (many of whom he corresponded with personally), and made them known to the general public. But the resulting controversy wasn't due to evolution per se. Before, scientists had assumed that species change was following a fixed, divinely guided path that led from less to more advanced and culminated with human beings. No one had protested that. But when Darwin pointed to natural selection as the mechanism of evolution, many Christians saw this as an assault on God and a promotion of materialism.
The question remains legitimate: If evolution is random and unguided, how can it do what God wants? And for Latter-day Saints in particular, who take this as a very literal doctrine: how can humans be made in God's image? By way of analogy, we know that God has a plan in mind for humanity as a whole, for nations, and for every individual person on Earth. Yet we also know that each of us has free will to do whatever we choose, whether it's God's will or not. Animals also operate autonomously and weather patterns and other forces of nature run their own course unless God specifically intervenes. Most Christians would accept these truths and not regard them as being in conflict.
In my view, evolution is the same way. I see the forces of nature, laws of physics, etc. not as something separate from God, being meticulously controlled from a distance, but as direct extensions of Him and part of His power. Doctrine and Covenants 88:40-43 explains, "He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever. And again, verily I say unto you, he hath given a law unto all things, by which they move in their times and their seasons; and their courses are fixed, even the courses of the heavens and the earth, which comprehend the earth and all the planets."
Darwin wrote to Asa Gray, "I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope & believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical. The lightning kills a man, whether a good one or bad one, owing to the excessively complex action of natural laws, a child (who may turn out an idiot) is born by action of even more complex laws, and I can see no reason, why a man, or other animal, may not have been aboriginally produced by other laws; & that all these laws may have been expressly designed by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every future event & consequence. But the more I think the more bewildered I become; as indeed I have probably shown by this letter."
The question remains legitimate: If evolution is random and unguided, how can it do what God wants? And for Latter-day Saints in particular, who take this as a very literal doctrine: how can humans be made in God's image? By way of analogy, we know that God has a plan in mind for humanity as a whole, for nations, and for every individual person on Earth. Yet we also know that each of us has free will to do whatever we choose, whether it's God's will or not. Animals also operate autonomously and weather patterns and other forces of nature run their own course unless God specifically intervenes. Most Christians would accept these truths and not regard them as being in conflict.
In my view, evolution is the same way. I see the forces of nature, laws of physics, etc. not as something separate from God, being meticulously controlled from a distance, but as direct extensions of Him and part of His power. Doctrine and Covenants 88:40-43 explains, "He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever. And again, verily I say unto you, he hath given a law unto all things, by which they move in their times and their seasons; and their courses are fixed, even the courses of the heavens and the earth, which comprehend the earth and all the planets."
Darwin wrote to Asa Gray, "I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope & believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical. The lightning kills a man, whether a good one or bad one, owing to the excessively complex action of natural laws, a child (who may turn out an idiot) is born by action of even more complex laws, and I can see no reason, why a man, or other animal, may not have been aboriginally produced by other laws; & that all these laws may have been expressly designed by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every future event & consequence. But the more I think the more bewildered I become; as indeed I have probably shown by this letter."
The Cruelty of Nature
Biologist and atheistic philosopher Richard Dawkins observed, "The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored." From these scientific facts he extrapolated an unscientific opinion: "In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
Darwin himself suffered a substantial crisis of faith due to his observations in nature. Earlier in his letter to Asa Gray, he confided, "With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I wish to do, evidence of design & beneficience on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice." This is merely a variant of the "problem of evil" that philosophers and theologians have wrestled with since the beginning of time. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides the most satisfactory answer I've found to this question as it pertains to humans - that suffering is necessary for personal growth and to understand joy - and I think we can extrapolate it to other animals. If God requires or allows His own children to suffer as part of their journey to eternal bliss, why should His other creations be exempt?
In 1946 David O. McKay said, "Among the generalizations of science, evolution holds foremost place. It claims: 'Man is a creature of development; that he has come up through uncounted ages from an origin that is lowly.' Why this vast expenditure of time and pain and blood? Why should he come so far if he is destined to go no farther? A creature which has traveled such distances, and fought such battles and won such victories deserves, one is compelled to say, to conquer death and rob the grave of its victory. Darwin said... 'Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued, slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.'"
Indeed, though evolutionary progression and eternal progression aren't the same thing, nor does one require the other, they do complement each other beautifully. "All things testify of Christ." And indeed evolution, like the rest of nature, is beautiful. Notwithstanding the suffering and death involved, the big picture that emerges, of self-perpetuating change and adaptation and emergence of new and unique forms of life, is beautiful - just as life itself, though full of trials and tribulations, is meant to be beautiful. And it creates so much more awe and respect for God's creative powers than species just being "poofed" out of thin air.
Henry Drummond said it perfectly in 1894: "There are reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of Nature and the books of Science in search of gaps - gaps which they will fill up with God. As if God lived in the gaps? What view of Nature or of Truth is theirs whose interest in Science is not in what it can explain but in what it cannot, whose quest is ignorance not knowledge, whose daily dread is that the cloud may lift, and who, as darkness melts from this field or from that, begin to tremble for the place of His abode? What needs altering in such finely jealous souls is at once their view of Nature and of God. Nature is God's writing, and can only tell the truth; God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."
Darwin himself suffered a substantial crisis of faith due to his observations in nature. Earlier in his letter to Asa Gray, he confided, "With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I wish to do, evidence of design & beneficience on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice." This is merely a variant of the "problem of evil" that philosophers and theologians have wrestled with since the beginning of time. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides the most satisfactory answer I've found to this question as it pertains to humans - that suffering is necessary for personal growth and to understand joy - and I think we can extrapolate it to other animals. If God requires or allows His own children to suffer as part of their journey to eternal bliss, why should His other creations be exempt?
In 1946 David O. McKay said, "Among the generalizations of science, evolution holds foremost place. It claims: 'Man is a creature of development; that he has come up through uncounted ages from an origin that is lowly.' Why this vast expenditure of time and pain and blood? Why should he come so far if he is destined to go no farther? A creature which has traveled such distances, and fought such battles and won such victories deserves, one is compelled to say, to conquer death and rob the grave of its victory. Darwin said... 'Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued, slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.'"
Indeed, though evolutionary progression and eternal progression aren't the same thing, nor does one require the other, they do complement each other beautifully. "All things testify of Christ." And indeed evolution, like the rest of nature, is beautiful. Notwithstanding the suffering and death involved, the big picture that emerges, of self-perpetuating change and adaptation and emergence of new and unique forms of life, is beautiful - just as life itself, though full of trials and tribulations, is meant to be beautiful. And it creates so much more awe and respect for God's creative powers than species just being "poofed" out of thin air.
Henry Drummond said it perfectly in 1894: "There are reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of Nature and the books of Science in search of gaps - gaps which they will fill up with God. As if God lived in the gaps? What view of Nature or of Truth is theirs whose interest in Science is not in what it can explain but in what it cannot, whose quest is ignorance not knowledge, whose daily dread is that the cloud may lift, and who, as darkness melts from this field or from that, begin to tremble for the place of His abode? What needs altering in such finely jealous souls is at once their view of Nature and of God. Nature is God's writing, and can only tell the truth; God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."
