Dungan - Hermeneutics

D. R. Dungan's Hermeneutics: A Text-Book: Chapter III.
reputation for independence of thought, adopt anything and everything that promises to bring them to
public view. One man was capable of finding all the ordinances of the church in the book of Job. And all
the quaint or curious things from first to last, have come from this desire for leadership. Hence they must
find in the Scriptures what no one else has been able to find, or their claim to acuteness will not be well
maintained.
SEC. 24. EFFORTS TO HARMONIZE SCIENCE WITH THE BIBLE ARE DOING MUCH HARM.
We have no objections to any investigation into the subject of science and revelation. But what we do
object to, is the demand that Scripture interpretation must keep pace with the guesses of scientific
speculators. Every new theory that is advanced demands a new hermeneutics. Words must he bent and
shaded till they will fit the wards and cells of the new science.
The old theologians took advantage of science, and declared that everything that did not accord with
their interpretation of the Bible could not be true, and, therefore, should not be tolerated. This, of course,
was very discouraging to scientific research. No man was at liberty to push his investigations beyond the
creed of the church. All can now see the injustice and injury of such unrighteous jurisdiction.
But in latter times it has been changed, so that the [46] scientist comes and sets himself up in a kind
of espionage over the, interpreter of the word of God. These are both wrong, and both to be condemned.
Before any man is ready to say that the Bible and science are not agreed, he should know two things:
first, he should know all about the Bible; and second, he should know all about science. In the meantime,
the best thing he can do will be to learn all he can of either one, or both.
It is not to be denied that we may know some things, at least approximately, and that so far as facts
have been really introduced and tested, we may be governed by them, just to the extent of our absolute
knowledge. But no interpreter should trouble himself to make exegesis keep up with scientific
hypotheses. Science has no more right to lord it over religion, than religion has to lord it over science. He
who made the universe made the Bible, and when we come to understand them both, we will be
delighted with their beautiful harmony. And it is, therefore, the privilege and duty of every man to push
his investigations as far and as fast as he can. [47]
[HATB 36-47]
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D. R. Dungan
Hermeneutics: A Text-Book (1888)
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