Brief Thoughts on the Scopes Trial
The so-called "Scopes-Monkey Trial" as an event in American history is worthy of analysis because of the way it serves as an example of how opposing worldviews can divide the citizenry. The line of demarcation created by the theory of evolution gave rise to a bifurcation between Biblical literalists on one side, and liberal theists and nonbelievers on the other. The heated disagreement over the origin of the human species polarized the two camps, with each side often treating their respective forms of apologia and kerygmata as nomothetic, while simultaneously believing that the opposing side was immersed in Cimmerian darkness.
The division in the country had already existed for some time; the trial merely served as an arena for the two sides to put forth their points of disagreement. In this sense the Scopes Trial served as a sample from which one can understand the dynamics of this debate and infer its implications at the nationl level.
Of course, when one speaks of "implications," this has strictly to do with the implications of the trial, and not specifically the implications of the theory of evolution. By the time of the Scopes Trial there had already been several strains of "theistic evolution" espoused by "liberal Protestants."[1] This is a point that needs to be made in light of the fact that many (though surely not all) in the anti-evolution camp presented the theory as putting forth a claim about the history of life that is in complete contradistinction to the history presented by the Bible. Unfortunately, such a view obfuscates the real fact of the matter.
Evolution could best be defined as hereditary change over time, where a given species (exempli gratia: humans) evolves into a new species over thousands, if not millions of years. The opponent of the theory who begins from the premise that this contradicts the Biblical account would argue that scripture tells us that man was created on the sixth day. The argument is that if this is true, then man could not have evolved over millions of years, ergo a contradiction is present. The Bible and the theory of evolution cannot both be right, it is argued, thus each indvidual must choose one or the other.
This ultimatum puts the Christian in an uncomfortable position. A subtle appeal to personal dogma and tribal alliance is made, forcing many to seek the more familiar umbrage of their faith. The reality, however, is that it would not be duplicitous to believe in both the Bible and the theory of evolution. While an indepth introduction to the hermeneutics of Bible-based theistic evolution is beyond the scope of this article, one example can be given with regard to the issue of the word "day".
It is not clear why one should believe that when Genesis employs the word "day" (Hebrew: yom), it means a literal twenty-four hour period. The days were determined by the rising and setting of the sun, thus a "day" before the creation of the sun is more metaphorical than literal. If one makes an appeal to the Christian belief that the Bible is a single homogenous work (due to the belief that its inspiration ultimately stems from the same source), a passage from the New Testament can be used to reinterpret the use of the word "day" in Genesis. As the second epistle attributed to Peter states, unus dies apud Dominum sicut mille anni et mille anni sicut dies unus, "a single day for the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a single day,"[2] thus interpretations of temporal divisions laid down in the sacred corpora do not have to be so rigid.[3]
Of course, to present the above as being a summary of the argument put forth by William Jennings Bryan (of the prosecution team in the Scopes trial) would be deceptive. Moving beyond the issue of a challenge to the account put forth by allegedly infallible scripture, Bryan employed a rather sophisticated moral argument against evolution. The theory of evolution, according to his argument, led to eugenics, and other cruel forms of intolerance cloacked in pseudo-scientific verbiage. For Bryan, evolution encouraged one to sublimate the moral code for the sake of advancement. As he put it, evolution has man following "the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak."[4]
Bryan argued that Darwinism removed God from man's historical development, and without such divine guidance moral law loses its validity. Indeed, if there is no cosmic force passing judgement on man, if humans are simply the most advanced of a long line of beasts, if the only law is survival of those who are most fit to survive, there is no sound reason to adhere to any sense of right and wrong. While exploring this sort of reasoning, Bryan argued that German militarism and Nietzsche were examples of Darwinism taken to its logical conclusion. In hind-sight, it was a rather intelligent objection when one takes note of how both Darwin and Nietzsche were later appropriated by the Nazis to justify their less than salubrious actions towards Jews, Gypsies, and others.
Of course ultimately the trial came down to an issue of the freedom of the individual to express his beliefs vs. the majority's ability to silence one's belief. The question became one with regard to the paradox of a man's academic freedom in light of majoritarian ruling against that freedom. Should one be permitted to teach a theory that the legislature has ruled unfit to be taught? Though some would treat it as a majoritarian appeal to veritable mob rule, in reality it is an appeal to the spirit of democracy and the laws created by such a process. In this sense, it does not matter if evolution is true; rather all that matters is that a law chosen by the people be upheld.
Of course the paradox is set ablaze when comparisons are made between the Scopes Trial and the respective trials of Galileo and Socrates. Such analogies drawn from sad moments of history make the conviction of Scopes seem crude and barbaric. Nonetheless, the aforementioned paradox is still there, and it may have been one that was faced by the Church that condemned Galileo. The trial of Socrates, though possibly more a creation of Plato's mind than a historical event, also touches on the issue of conflict between the individual and the tenets of a social contract established by the majority. In silent acknowledgement of the difficulty of this problem, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Scopes' conviction on a technicality (the judge, rather than the jury, set the fine in the original case).
Since the events of the adventurous Scopes Trial things have both changed yet remained seemingly the same. Of course the theory of evolution gained ground all over the country. As for what happened at the trial, the public as a whole is generally misinformed as their sole source of information is the theatrical adaptation, Inherit the Wind.
The movie that is loosley based on the Scopes Trial bares signs of an obvious agenda. The writer obviously had an axe to grind with the theists, and sets out to thoroughly humilate them by painting them as buffoons - the very "yokels" that Bryan felt represented the religious in Darrow's mind. The movie reduced Bryan (or the character representing him, Matthew Harrison Brady) to a crude fundamentalist, stripping him of his left-leaning politics, his sophistication, his pacifism, his sermon-on-the-mount-esque compassion, his intelligence. Indeed, while Bryan resembled those who are right of center in his fevered defense of Christianity (and his call for Bible believers to get involved in politics seemed like a precursor to the battle cry of the Christian Right), he was nonetheless very much a leftist on a number of issues.
The movie does, however, capture part of the essence of Bryan's moral argument when his character states that the people "need to believe." The moral argument, when taken in isolation, does not have to hinge on the truth of Christianity. The argument, stripped to its bare essentials, is that Christianity encourages morally upright behavior, while belief in Darwinism creates an environment conducive to the worst sort of savagery and moral degredation. In a subtle and self-deprecating sort of way, it no longer matters to Bryan if Christianity can be demonstrated as true; rather what matters is that it is more suitable for maintaining society. People need Christianity, and they need to avoid Darwinism, thus even if Christianity were to be a lie, it would be a "noble lie." Truth is inessential; indeed, the son of God himself was without answer when Pilate asked quid est veritas, "what is truth?"[5]
In the end, it would seem that the Scopes Trial is more than just a representation of the state of belief in 1920s America. Such a conclusion can be inferred from the PBS documentary What About God?[6], which shows that all the same issues are still weighed today. Christians have to ponder the implications evolution makes towards their faith. There are questions of whether a given interpretation of the Bible even allows acceptance of the theory. Most similar of all, there is even an attempt to gain the support of the majority to teach an alternative to evolution.
NOTES
- One example that comes to mind is the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, who declared himself a "Christian evolutionist" - see William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform, (University of Chicago, 1980), p. 154.
- II Peter 3:8.
- For more on the issue of literal day vs. an undetermined period of time (or an "age"), see Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion, (Harvard, 1999), pp. 15-16.
- Larson, opere citato, p. 39.
- John 18:38.
- The most interesting segment of the documentary is the portion that focuses on the students at Wheaton College in Illinois, who try to balance being both Evangelical Christians and believers in the theory of evolution. More can be found in Carl Zimmer, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, (Harper Collins, 2001), pp. 313-344.
- II Peter 3:8.