Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 51:201 (Jan 1894)
Article: Is Adaptation Possible Without Design?
Author: Jacob Cooper

BSac 51:201 (Jan 1894) p. 117

Is Adaptation Possible Without Design?

Prof. Jacob Cooper

The contest with agnosticism, and all types of unbelief which deny a personal Creator, must be fought on the line of final cause. Hence the persistent effort of naturalists to get rid of design in the formation of the universe. For if there be clear and irrefragable evidences of finality in the construction of the cosmos, then it will be impossible to get rid of the inference that a personal agency has directed the work. For there cannot be design without intelligence and will, and these are forces which are not possessed by matter; and cannot be conceived as acting except as the attributes of personality.

In all the theories of naturalism it is assumed that matter is eternal. Indeed, all systems of speculation which are not influenced by direct revelation take this doctrine for granted. For the intellect left to its own resources cannot conceive the act of absolute creation, and unless it be assisted by superior intelligence can never rise to that idea. All systems of cosmogony which are the offspring of unassisted human speculation, be they Egyptian, Hindoo, or Greek, hold the universe to be a growth from primordial elements which had existed eternally. The Greek cosmogony, which is the highest type of all these, was simply a development. In this philosophy, φύσις was only “a growth,” from φύω “to grow” or “develop”; and consisted in the orderly arrangement of matter according to the plan of a superintending power which directed its movements by design, and in obedience to fixed laws. Matter had nothing to do in its own arrangement, but was

BSac 51:201 (Jan 1894) p. 118

plastic in the hands of a fashioner, who disposed each part in conformity to his own pattern or idea; and left unmistakable evidences of this design in its construction.

The development theory, for which Darwin gets so much fame, underlies the entire Greek philosophy of nature. Neither he nor any modern who has proceded on the same lines, has a just title to originality. They simply adopted what they found ready-made to their hands; and, clothing it in modern phraseology, claimed originality, and permitted the world to ascribe to them the credit of a new interpretation of nature. But there is a wide difference between the way Greek speculation handled the development theory and that of modern naturalism. Matter was eternal with the leading Greek physicists, it is true; but its development was confessedly according to design. For there was nothing formed by chance, or without the superintendence of a superior Power, working according to laws invariable, except in so far as this Power chose to suspend or vary them to ca...