The coprolites of Saurians contain the scales and bones of fish which they have devoured. _Rom. 8:20-22_—“_For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation_ [the irrational creation] _groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now_”; _23_—our mortal body, as a part of nature, participates in the same groaning. _2 Cor. 4:17_—“_our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory._” Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, 224-240—“How explain our rather shabby universe? Pessimism assumes that perfect wisdom is compatible only with a perfect work, and that we know the universe to be truly worthless and insignificant.” John Stuart Mill, Essays on Religion, 29, brings in a fearful indictment of nature, her storms, lightnings, earthquakes, blight, decay, and death. Christianity however regards these as due to man, not to God; as incidents of sin; as the groans of creation, crying out for relief and liberty. Man’s body, as a part of nature, waits for the adoption, and resurrection of the body is to accompany the renewal of the world.
It was Darwin’s judgment that in the world of nature and of man, on the whole, “happiness decidedly prevails.” Wallace, Darwinism, 36-40—“Animals enjoy all the happiness of which they are capable.” Drummond, Ascent of Man, 203 _sq._—“In the struggle for life there is no hate—only hunger.” Martineau, Study, 1:330—“Waste of life is simply nature’s exuberance.” Newman Smyth, Place of Death in Evolution, 44-56—“Death simply buries the useless waste. Death has entered for life’s sake.” These utterances, however, come far short of a proper estimate of the evils of the world, and they ignore the Scriptural teaching with regard to the connection between death and sin. A future world into which sin and death do not enter shows that the present world is abnormal, and that morality is the only cure for mortality. Nor can the imperfections of the universe be explained by saying that they furnish opportunity for struggle and for virtue. Robert Browning, Ring and Book, Pope, 1875—“I can believe this dread machinery Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else, Devised,—all pain, at most expenditure Of pain by Who devised pain,—to evolve, By new machinery in counterpart, The moral qualities of man—how else?—To make him love in turn and be beloved, Creative and self-sacrificing too, And thus eventually godlike.” This seems like doing evil that good may come. We can explain mortality only by immorality, and that not in God but in man. Fairbairn: “Suffering is God’s protest against sin.”