Qms:T Griffiths, Axiomata

“Axiomata”—True and False

DEAR BROTHER WALKER,—

Although the old Jewish system of cosmogony, of a plane earth at rest and a sun and stellar heavens in motion, was generally accepted in the days of the apostles and by the writers of the New Testament as true, there is not a hint in any part of the New Testament, nor in any of the authentic patristic writings which rehearse many of the sayings and teaching of the apostles, that the belief in such a system of cosmogony was “foolish and unlearned.” This implies much, in view of the fact that in the higher circles of Grecian philosophy the Pythagorean system of a globe-earth was well known to the “learned”; and it is no secret that the Copernican and Pythagorean systems are essentially one and the same. Paul, when writing to Timothy, had not the faintest idea of including the plane and stationary earth among the “foolish and unlearned questions which gender strife,” and brother Lake’s misapplication of scripture phraseology is therefore unwarrantable. His tactless attack on the “flat-earth theory” might have been allowed to pass off without comment, but for the supplementing of your disingenuous remarks, penned from within the barricades of editorial privilege, in denunciation of the “professed respect” evinced by plane earthists for Moses and the prophets as mere “obscurantism.”

Clodd, in his attack upon Moses and the prophets, wrote: “The battle between the psychological evolutionist and the theological obscurant still rages.”

Whatever may be the claims of the evolutionist to intellectual and scientific progress, those who have any respect for the veracity of Moses must admit that the so-called “theological obscurant,” contending for the origin of man by the direct creative act of God, is right; and the psychological evolutionist wrong; and that it is to the latter the epithet “obscurant” properly belongs. The “theological obscurant” who, however, tries to establish the doctrine of the immortality of the soul from the testimony of Moses does so in violation of a fundamental philological law, so that the contention for the true teaching of the scriptures has to be accompanied by an exposure of his methods of obscuration. The criterion is, “What saith the scriptures?” not “What the scriptures can be made to say?”

We know the process by which the Bible is made to harmonise with the fallacies of popular theology, and it is evident also that the same process is demanded to square the Bible with the figments of modern astronomy. The seeming harmony in both cases can only be effected by the adoption of unreasonable and dishonest methods in dealing with the plain words of scripture.

“Obscurantism” finds a clear Bible definition in God’s query to Job,—“Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). To enable Job to realise the measure of his ignorance and the folly of his obscurantism, the Lord further interrogates: “Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding?”

We need not stay to discuss the answer of Job to such a question, beyond stating that according to the belief of God-fearing men of ancient times he could have no doubt in his mind as to the earth having real material foundations in the waters beneath.

But were the question, “Where was thou when God laid the foundations of the earth?” put to the modern obscurant of the globe-earth persuasion, he would regard it as one of those “foolish and unlearned questions” of ignorant flat-earthists, and reply in Herschelian fashion, that “Since we have long familiarised ourselves with the conception of an earth without foundations or fixed supports, existing insulated in space from contact with everything external, the question as to the earth’s foundations becomes quite irrelevant—such foundations do not exist.”

Were he informed that God Himself put that same question to Job, and that moreover the Bible teaches that these foundations are laid in the abysmal waters below, whence the earth originally emerged, and that their position is beyond the power of man to fathom (Gen. 1:1–10; Jeremiah 31:37; Psalm 24:2), he would, if he “professed respect” for Moses and the prophets, answer, that “It would be unreasonable to understand the language of the Bible in any such literal sense—‘the foundations of the earth’ must be understood to mean ‘the stability of God’s ordinances in the spherical earth traversing the vast orbit in the heavens.’ This is the true method of scripture exposition and has the advantage of appearing in perfect harmony with the discoveries of modern science.”

Let it not be thought that the foregoing answers to the divine question are overdrawn or merely assumed,—they are almost verbatim in the language of globe-earthists. Such language clearly exemplifies those methods of obscuration by which the divine counsel is darkened, and the word of God made of none effect. Those who adopt such perverse methods of scripture exposition have no logical ground to the claim of a belief in the veracity and verbal inspiration of the scriptures.

If the cosmological language of the Bible is to be understood in the obvious and ordinary sense in which we are bound to understand scripture terminology in matters of history, precept, and doctrine, then it can be shown that there is scarcely a statement of cosmologic fact in the Bible which is not contradicted by the fundamentals of modern astronomy. This fact has become so glaringly evident that “the idea of the earth as a planet revolving round the sun” has profoundly affected theological thought, and shattered the whole religious mind of the seventeenth century, and subsequent centuries.” From the strong antagonism of modern astronomy to the Bible, one might reasonably suppose that its theories were purposely devised for the special object of overthrowing the authority and credibility of the scriptures.

Is it because Moses states that the firmament, which he styles “the heavens,” was formed on the second day of the first week of creation, that modern astronomers affirm its evidence for countless ages before?

Is it because Moses has said that God made the firmament in the midst of the waters—dividing the waters under the firmament from the waters above the firmament—that modern astronomers must teach that the firmament is space without bounds, and forms no division between waters above and waters below?

Is it because Moses says that sun, moon, and stars were made and placed in the firmament of the heavens on the fourth day of creation week, that modern astronomers maintain as a scientific axiom the existence of these orbs for millions of years before the Adamic era?

Is it because Moses and the prophets teach that there is but one “greater light” or sun in the heavens, that modern astronomers must affirm the existence of millions of suns?

Is it because Moses has stated that time and seasons, measured by the celestial luminaries, had for their starting point the fourth day of creation week, that modern astronomers and geological evolutionists maintain as an established fact the functional and chronometric activity of these orbs for millions of ages before that date?

Is it because the Bible speaks of the sun as a body in motion in the heavens (with one notable exception), that modern astronomers must define it as a stationary object?

Is it because the Bible states that the Lord “laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be removed for ever,” that modern astronomers must teach that it is a revolving body without foundations or fixed supports, and traversing the heavens in a vast orbit?

Is it because the Bible states that the earth is “stretched upon the waters”—“founded upon the seas, and established upon the floods”—“standing out of the water, and in the water,” that modern astronomers must describe it as a globular body with “the waters reposing upon its bosom”?

Is it because Moses plainly teaches that the earth originally came forth out of darkness, and the waters of the abyss, that modern scientific obscurants must affirm the earth to have been evolved from a revolving globe of incandescent gas, according to the guess of a French agnostic?

Is it because the Bible plainly affirms the fact of an universal flood which over-whelmed the world in the days of Noah, that modern scientific obscurants, infidel and Christian, deny the possibility of such a flood, and that “this is as certain as that the earth revolves round the sun”?

Is it because Joshua records the fact of the solar and lunar miracle attending the battle of Beth-horon, that modern scientific obscurants must regard the miracle as either a myth or a mere fake?

Further, as the climax of modern obscurantism, reasoning from generally accepted premises, is it not seriously and persistently affirmed by the “learned” that “the discovery of the Copernican system of the planets, of the spherical earth, of the infinity of space, of the millions upon millions of gigantic suns and worlds with which this space is filled, have taught the present generation that there is no mathematical use of the expressions ‘up’ or ‘down’ on the globe on which we live; and that if the ascension (of Jesus) were the literal physical departure of a body through tractless space, even if that body travelled as rapidly as a beam of light, it would not yet have reached the more distant stars, and that millions and millions of years would not suffice to transport it even to the farthest point in space which can be reached with a powerful telescope”? It is thus that the ascension of Christ becomes “a geometrical impossibility.”—(Basil Wilberforce Sermons, p. 74–5).

An axiom is radically that which is taken for granted, and there are false axioms as well as true. The axioms of modern astronomy are purely hypothetical as set forth in the preface of Copernicus’ book, De Revolutionibus. “It is not necessary that hypotheses should be true, or even probable; it is sufficient that they lead to results of calculation which agree with calculation. . . . The hypothesis of terrestrial motion was nothing but a hypothesis, valuable only as it appears to explain phenomena, and not considered with reference to absolute truth or falsehood.” Evidently this German philosopher was not so sanguine as to the truth of his system of astronomy as the Newtonians, who have, by virtue of a lively imagination, accepted it.

There are such things as astronomical dreams, and it is said of the renowned Kepler that he wrote a book with the title: “An Astronomical Dream.” The author did not claim the dream to be a fact, but Parkhurst, in his Hebrew Lexicon, informs us that “what Kepler proposed as a dream Huygens and a long list of Kepler’s Newtonian followers have treated as a reality, or at least as a high probability.”

The celebrated Newton, seeing an apple fall from a tree to the ground, fell into a reverie, and devised the theory of universal gravitation. His followers, however, while claiming that he discovered the Law of Universal Gravitation, cannot demonstrate its existence as a fact. Its existence is demanded for no other reason than to make the globe-earth an established going concern. Without it the system would logically fall to pieces.

La Place, the famous French astronomer, while peering into the heavens for a life-time, affirmed his failure to find God there. He, however, by a powerful imagination, to account for the origin of the universe without a Creator, invented the nebular theory. The theory to-day is regarded by the great mass of the “learned” as a well-established principle in modern astronomy and evolution. La Place was modest enough to claim it as a mere speculation, and since his day our modern astronomers have not produced one fact in demonstration of its truth. It is a theory that is required to logically account for another, namely, the shaping of the globular earth into a spheroid. In turn, the spheroid is assumed to prove La Place’s nebular hypothesis of scientific world-building.

Here we have an exhibition of the operation of an astronomic see-saw “argument,” whereby two fallacies in reciprocating action are resolved into “facts.” These “facts,” with others of the same category, are the weapons by which modern speculative philosophy essay to overthrow the authority of Moses and the prophets. They are the so-called “facts” which find not a shadow of support in the scriptures, yet, draped in the mystifying verbiage of a godless science, find an honourable place in the columns of a magazine professedly devoted to the advocacy and defence of divine truth.

The brethren, whose respect for Moses and the prophets you have placed at such a low estimate, consider that real respect can only be where their words are heartily accepted in their natural and obvious sense. With these brethren this is the written criterion of the truth. They do not want to wait until they enter the Kingdom of God to find out what Moses meant when he penned the record of creation; since they would be quite justified in anticipating Moses to answer, that he just meant what he said. None but an “obscurant” would wish him to have meant something different from what his words obviously convey. But such brethren who believe in Moses believe also that there is enough “damnable heresy” in the figments of modern astronomy to jeopardise the salvation of any person who accepts them as scientific truth. The evidence of this is too palpable for any globe-earthist to deny, for it is seen in the rampant scepticism of modern times, and in the minds of professing “Christians,” who have no faith in the Bible as a divine revelation, because they believe that the earth is really “a planet revolving round the sun.” Is it not undeniable that the rejecters of the divine authority and veracity of the scriptures are those with whom it is an established axiom that the earth is a revolving globe? But where shall we find the man or woman who denies the veracity and verbal inspiration of the scriptures, as the result of accepting as an absolute fact that the earth is a plane at rest, firmly established on real material foundations? Here is an open field to embark upon an expedition of discovery, which both brother Lake and yourself might do worse than take up. Failure to discover the object of search would not be without some benefit, though of a negative kind. It would show to those globe-earth theorists who “profess respect for Moses and the prophets,” that the road to obscurantism, to the vagaries of higher criticism, to modern rationalism and unbelief, lies not in the way of plane-earthism which finds its expression in the very language of scripture, but in the region of modern theoretical astronomy, the terminology of which finds no place in the Bible. The truth of God cannot be maintained in its integrity while cherishing and supporting the theories of such a bastard and infidel science.

“If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.”

Faithfully yours in the defence of all revealed truth.

T. GRIFFITHS.

The Christadelphian Magazine, Vol 53, p. 406, 1916