James Orr

God's Image in Man, and Its Defacement in the Light of Modern Denials James Orr

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... so Ill SCRIPTURE AND SCIENCE ON THE ORIGIN OF MAN--THE IMAGE AS A CREATION JN last lecture the Biblical account of man's origin was considered in its connection with the subject of man's nature. It was then shown that, in the account in Genesis, man's creation is referred to a special, supernatural act of God; that, while in it man appears as the head and crown of nature--the goal and resting-point of the whole creative movement--he is yet not a mere creature of nature, but stands in a peculiar relation to God, as bearing His rational and moral image, and standing under moral and religious responsibilities to Him. It was seen that this view of the spiritual nature and dignity of man is not overturned by what is advanced against it from the side of a materialistic monism, with its crude doctrine of a universal Substance, its denial of a distinct spiritual principle in man, its theories of psychical and physical parallelism, and its other forms of naturalistic negation. I am in the present lecture to consider the Biblical account of man's origin in relation to theories of natural evolution. The monistic doctrine on this point may be sufficiently summed up for our present purpose in the following propositions, derived from Haeckel :-- 1. There has been a slow and unbroken process of evolution from the lowest forms of organic life to the highest achievement of nature--Man. In Haeckel's view this 'biogenetic process, the slow development and transformation of countless organic germs, must have taken many millions of years--considerably over a hundred.'1 2. This evolution is the result of natural causes which do not imply intelligence or purpose.2 3. The immediate ancestors of man are the anthropoid apes. To quote our authority again:...