Doctrine of the Incarnation.

Another fundamental of Christianity which Evolution is said to contradict is the doctrine of the Incarnation. The doctrine of the Incarnation is, as you are aware, that once in the ages a divine nature was united with a human nature. When I hear that on the theory of Evolution this is impossible, I confess myself lost in astonishment. The supposition of those who urge this objection must be that Evolution claims to be the parent of all that is or ever has been. But on that supposition Evolution contradicts much more than the doctrine of the Incarnation. It contradicts, amongst other things, the doctrine that there is such a town as Dunedin. On the supposition of this objection it can be shown that the existence of Dunedin is a philosophical impossibility. Evolution never quarried stone, nor moulded bricks, nor hewed timber, nor built houses. And yet somehow the city of Dunedin has come into being. Evolution did not write Macbeth or the Tempest. Evolution never chiselled a statue, nor painted a picture, nor built a bridge or a railway, nor preached a sermon, nor delivered a lecture. These are the products of living human will coming down upon the stream of natural causes and effects, and varying them in ten thousand different ways. And if the human will may thus enter as a factor, varying indefinitely the natural evolutionary series, á fortiori may the divine. The doctrine iof the Incarnation must stand or fall upon its own merits. It will neither be harmed nor helped by the doctrine of Evolution.