]
The great truths that God is really the Maker and Author of all things,
and that man has a spiritual being, and so forth, surely _gain nothing_
from being conveyed to the world in the folds of a fable. And when it
is not in a confessed fable, but a fable put forth as fact--"God said,"
"God created," "it was so"--not only is there no gain, but our sense of
fitness and of truth receive a shock. A parable is always discernible as
a parable, a vision as a vision. When our Lord, for example, tells us of
the ten virgins, we do not suppose Him to be revealing the actual
existence of ten such maidens, wise and foolish. We know that He is
reading a lesson of watchfulness. But looking at the Genesis narrative,
who could suppose it to be a parable? If sober, unmistakable statement
of fact is possible, we surely have it here, in intention, at least.
The plan of teaching truth in an envelope of error is _per se_ difficult
to conceive. But how much worse is it when we consider--what criterion
does mankind possess for disinterring and distinguishing the elements of
truth? If in religion we had only to do (as some would perhaps contend)
with obvious enforcements of common morality and kindness, there might
be a possibility of getting over the difficulty, because man would
possess some kind of criterion whereby to distinguish what was
fictitious, by the simple process of considering whether any given
statement bore on morals or not.
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