Spurgeon on the Bible and Darwinism, Part 2

^{Note: This article is reprinted with permission from As I See It, a monthly electronic magazine compiled and edited by Doug Kutilek. AISI is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.}

Read Part 1.

Compiled by Doug Kutilek

Note: A reader from Indiana recently asked if Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) ever directly addressed the subject of Darwinian evolution. Because Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published in England in 1859 only five years after Spurgeon began his London pastorate and was the occasion of great and continuing controversy directly affecting the credibility of the Bible, it would be most surprising indeed if Spurgeon had not addressed the subject. In fact, he did so numerous times, always in strong opposition. Our search turned up a number of quotes and references that should be of interest to the reader. We reproduce a selection of these, without extended comment. —Doug

Do I hear someone say, “But still you must submit to the conclusions of science”? No one is more ready than we are to accept the evident facts of science. But what do you mean by science? Is a thing called “science” infallible? Is it not science “falsely-so-called”? The history of that human ignorance which calls itself “philosophy” is absolutely identical with the history of fools, except where it diverges into madness.

If another Erasmus were arise and write the history of folly, he would have to give several chapters to philosophy and science, and those chapters would be more telling than any others. I should not myself dare to say that philosophers and scientists are generally fools; but I would give them liberty to speak to one another, and at the close I would say, “Gentlemen, you are less complimentary to each other than I should have been.”

I would let the wise of each generation speak of the generation that went before it, or nowadays each half of a generation might deal with the previous half generation; for there is little of theory in science today which will survive twenty years, and only a little more which will see the first day of the twen[t]ieth century.

We travel now at so rapid a rate that we rush by sets of scientific hypotheses as quickly as we pass telegraph posts when riding in an express train. All that we are certain of to-day is this, that what the learned were sure of a few years ago is now thrown into the limbo of discarded errors.

I believe in science, but not what is called “science.” No proven fact in nature is opposed to revelation. The pretty speculations of the pretentious we cannot reconcile with the Bible, and would not if we could. I feel like the man who said, “I can understand in some degree how these great men found out the weight of the stars, and their distances from one another, and even how, by the spectroscope, they have discovered the materials of which they are composed; but,” said he, “I cannot guess how they found out their names.” Just so.

The fanciful part of science, so dear to many, is what we do not accept. That is the important part of science to many—that part which is a mere guess, for which the guessers fight tooth and nail. The mythology of science is as false as the mythology of the heathen; but this is the thing which is made a god of. I say again, as far as it facts are concerned, science is never in conflict with the truths of Holy Scripture, but the hurried deductions drawn from those facts, and the inventions classed as facts, are opposed to Scripture, and necessarily so, because falsehood agrees not with truth.

Two sorts of people have wrought great mischief, and yet they are neither of them worth being considered as judges in the matter: they are both of them disqualified. It is essential that an umpire should know both sides of a question, and neither of these is thus instructed. The first is the irreligious scientist. What does he know about religion? What can he know? He is out of court when the question is—Does science agree with religion? Obviously he who would answer this query must know both of the two things in the question.

The second is a better man, but capable of still more mischief. I mean the unscientific Christian, who will trouble his head about reconciling the Bible with science. He had better leave it alone, and not begin his tinkering trade. The mistake made by such men has been that in trying to solve a difficulty, they have either twisted the Bible, or contorted science. The solution has soon been seen to be erroneous, and then we hear the cry that Scripture has been defeated. Not at all; not at all. It is only a vain gloss upon it which has been removed.

Here is a good brother who writes a tremendous book to prove that the six days of creation represent six great geological periods; and he shows how the geological strata, and the organisms thereof, follow very much in the order of the Genesis story of creation. It may be so, or it may not be so; but if anybody should before long show that the strata do not lie in any such order, what would be my reply? I should say that the Bible never taught that they did. The Bible said, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” That leaves any length of time for your fire-ages and your ice-periods, and all that, before the establishment of the present age of man [note: we expressly deny this is a legitimate possible interpretation. —editor]. Then we reach the six days in which the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and rested on the seventh day. There is nothing said about long ages of time, but, on the contrary, “the evening and the morning were the first day,” “the evening and the morning were the second day”; and so on.

I do not lay down any theory, but simply say that if our friend’s great book is all fudge, the Bible is not responsible for it. It is true that this theory has an appearance of support from the parallelism which he makes out between the organic life of the ages and that of the seven days, but this may be accounted for from the fact that God usually follows certain order whether he works in long periods or in short ones. I do not know, and I do not care, much about the question; but I want to say that, if you smash up an explanation you must not imagine that you have damaged the Scriptural truth which seemed to require the explanation. You have only burned the wooden palisades with which well-meaning men thought to protect an impregnable fort which needed no such defense.

For the most part, we had better leave a difficulty where it is, rather than make another difficulty by our theory. Why make a second hole in the kettle, to mend the first, especially when the first hole is not there at all, and needs no mending? Believe everything in science which is proved; it will not come to much. You need not fear that your faith will be overburdened. And then believe everything which is clearly in the Word of God, whether it is proved by outside evidence or not. No proof is need when God speaks. If he hath said it, this is evidence enough.

Charles H. Spurgeon
The Greatest Fight in the World:
Spurgeon’s Final Manifesto,
Pilgrim Publications, 1990, pp. 29-33

This [divinely] illuminated man sees God, whom ordinary human eyes can never see. He looks back into the ages past and gone, and he sees God making all the worlds that ever existed; while those, who are reckoned wise men, but who are without that light, spin ingenious but worthless theories about how those worlds grew. These men have such wonderful theories that it really seems surprising that they do not themselves make a few worlds since they profess to have found out so many ways of making them. But the opened eye sees “that the worlds were framed by the word of God” and it sees God’s hand in all the histories of all the centuries.

Charles H. Spurgeon
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit,
vol. 48 (1902), p. 65

Look at the gentlemen who now tell us that the gospel is a failure. They are the successors of those who have risen up, one after the other; whose principal object has been to refute all that went before them. They call themselves philosophers; and, as I have often said, the history of philosophy is a history of fools, a history of human folly. Man has gone from one form of philosophy to another, and every time that he has altered his philosophy, he has only made a slight variation in the same things. Philosophy is like a kaleidoscope. The philosopher turns it round, and exclaims that he has a new view of things. So he has: but all that he sees is a few bits of glass, which alter their form at every turn of the toy. If any of you shall live fifty years, you will see that the philosophy of today will be a football of contempt for the philosophy of that period. They will speak, amidst roars of laughter, of evolution; and the day will come, when there will not be child but will look upon it as the most foolish notion that ever crossed the human mind. I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I know what has befallen many of the grand discoveries of the great philosophers of the past, and I expect that the same thing will happen again.

Charles H. Spurgeon
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit,
vol. 38 (1892), p. 221

Another fine theory of modern times is disproved by our text [Mark 7:20-23]. According to this evolution doctrine, as applied to theology, the new birth is a development of that which is naturally within the heart. I hope we may be spared such births and evolutions. According to this theory we have had some fine specimens of regenerate people of late; for we have heard of evolutions or developments which have brought out from within evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, and wickednesses of more than average proportions. God save us from all development of sin which dwells in man!

Philosophically, the dogma of evolution is a dream, a theory without a vestige of proof. Within fifty years, children in the school will read of extraordinary popular delusions, and this will be mentioned as one of the most absurd of them. Many a merry jest will be uttered bearing upon the follies of science in the nineteenth century. In its bearing upon religion, this vain notion is, however, no theme for mirth, for it is not only deceptive, but it threatens to be mischievous in a high degree. There is not a hair of truth upon this dog from its head to its tail; but it rends and tears the simple ones. In all its bearings upon scriptural truth the evolution theory is in direct opposition to it. If God’s word is true, evolution is a lie. I will not mince the matter; this is not a time for soft speaking.

Charles H. Spurgeon
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit,
vol. 32 (1886), p. 403

The philosophy now in vogue labours to shut God out of his own creation. They inform us that by some means this world and all that is therein were evolved. Even this will not long content the men of progress: they care nothing for evolution in itself, but only so far as it may serve their purpose of escaping from the thought of God. If by some method or other vain men could scheme a world without a God, they would be delighted, and the philosopher who comes nearest to the invention of a subtle lie which will justify their forgetfulness of God is the prince of the hour, the favourite of his age. Yes, God must be obliterated somehow, for “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”

Charles H. Spurgeon
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit,
vol. 32 (1886), p. 495
Italics added

We have little sympathy with long and elaborate attempts to reconcile the discoveries of geology with the Mosaic narrative of creation … The attempt to discover six periods of some millions of years in geological records, answering to the six days of the Mosaic creation, supposes an intention in Scripture to teach geology … We protest too against an allegorical interpretation of what is narrated as literally true as calculated to mystify our views and weaken our faith at the commencement of our Bibles in all that is to follow.

Charles H. Spurgeon
Review of The Twin Records of Creation, or Geology and Genesis
Published in Spurgeon’s monthly magazine,
The Sword and the Trowel, 1876, p. 43
(quoted from Eric Hayden, The Unforgettable Spurgeon, p. 207)

Geology or no geology, the Mosaic narrative is to be taken, we conceive, in its own common-sense meaning. If there had been no geological science there would have been no attempt to explain away the six natural days of the present creation; nor is geology benefited, while Scripture is grossly mutilated by it. No sooner are we out of this mist and away from the symbolical shadow that is cast over the simple narrative of the Bible, than we enter upon the clear perspective which it is our author’s chief aim to place before us.

Charles H. Spurgeon
Review of The Ages Before Moses
The Sword and the Trowel, 1880, p. 484
(quoted from Eric Hayden, The Unforgettable Spurgeon, p. 207)

We have not included here everything by Spurgeon on evolution that we have come across. A thorough survey and analysis of Spurgeon’s views of Darwinism would make a suitable topic for a master’s thesis, we would think.

One notable compilation of Spurgeon’s statements, comments, and reviews regarding Darwinism is C.H. Spurgeon’s Defense Against Darwin’s “Evolution Theory” of Mankind by Michael Ross of Pilgrim Publications. It is posted at http://members.aol.com/pilgrimpub/darwin.htm. Other sources from which we drew some of our references included the following: The Unforgettable Spurgeon by the late Eric Hayden (Emerald House / Ambassador Publications, 1997), pp. 207-8; and Kerry James Allen, editor, Exploring the Mind and Heart of the Prince of Preachers: Five-thousand illustrations under one-thousand headings from the works of C.H. Spurgeon (Fox River Press, 2005), pp. 149-150; additional references can be located in these. —Doug

Doug Kutilek is editor of www.kjvonly.org, a website dedicated to exposing and refuting the many errors of KJVOism, and has been researching and writing about Bible texts and versions for more than 35 years. He has a B.A. in Bible from Baptist Bible College (Springfield, MO), an M.A. in Hebrew Bible from Hebrew Union College (Cincinnati), and a Th.M. in Bible exposition from Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). A professor in several Bible institutes, college, graduate schools, and seminaries, he edits a monthly cyber-journal, As I See It. The father of four grown children and four granddaughters, he and his wife, Naomi, live near Wichita, Kansas.