[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 103 (Tuesday, July 28, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9111-S9113]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      MAN'S LONGING FOR IMMORTALITY SHALL ACHIEVE ITS REALIZATION

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, we have just returned from a most moving 
ceremony in the great Rotunda of the Capitol. The flag-draped coffins 
of Officer Chestnut and Officer Gibson, who died while doing their 
solemn duties protecting the public, the employees, and the members of 
the institution they served, rested imposingly on catafalques, mere 
yards from where these two brave men were brutally cut down by an armed 
assailant on last Friday. The sublime majesty of the great marble dome 
rising above us was somehow magnified by the solemn and eerie silence 
which was broken only by an occasional cough. The sense of loss was 
palpable. Sadness permeated the very air.
  Such times as these cause all of us to ponder anew the fragile 
brevity and uncertainty of the human condition. Officer Chestnut was 
apparently writing directions for a tourist--doing a kind deed--when 
his life was suddenly ended. I am sure that when he arose and dressed 
for work on Friday morning he expected nothing more than an ordinary 
day, followed by a night at home with his family and the simple 
pleasures of a sunny weekend.
  Officer Gibson, as he began his day, likewise, probably had no 
expectations of the bloody gun battle which would, in just hours, mean 
his death. It is at times like these, when we witness the anguish of 
families and friends trying to cope with the incomprehensible reality 
of brutal and sudden death, that some may wonder how a just God could 
allow such seemingly mindless violence and misery. In the face of such 
tragedies, some may even question the very existence of a Creator. We 
reach for answers that elude our grasp. Why do such things happen? 
What, after all, is the point of human existence? It seems that our 
faith is tested most severely when good men senselessly die.
  Yet, the proof of a living Creator is in abundant evidence all around 
us. It is in the perfection and order of the natural world in which we 
live. It is in the beauty and endless variety of the millions of 
species which inhabit the planet. It is in the mystery and complexity 
of the human genetic code. It is in the intangible and unconquerable 
bravery of the human spirit. It is in the magnificence of the wonders 
which modern science daily unveils. And I, for one, find no disparity 
between scientific discovery and God's living word in the Holy Bible.
  Genesis, the first book of the Bible, gives the account of all 
Creation, tells of the establishment of the family, the origin of sin, 
the giving of divine revelation, the development of the human race, and 
the inauguration of God's plan of redemption through its chosen people. 
Genesis takes the reader to the moment when the omnipotent Creator 
spoke into being the matchless wonders of sun, moon, stars, planets, 
galaxies, plants, and moving creatures, and man, whom He made in His 
image. It is the first book of the Pentateuch, which both Scripture and 
tradition attribute to Moses.
  If a student expects to find in Genesis a scientific account of how 
the world came into existence, with all questions concerning primitive 
life answered in technical language familiar to the professor or 
student of science, he will be disappointed. Genesis is not an attempt 
to answer such questions. It deals with matters far beyond the realm of 
science. Yet, I have not personally read of any disagreement within the 
science community concerning the chronological order of the events of 
creation as set forth in the book of Genesis. Instead of disagreement, 
it has been my perception that there is agreement.
  The opening sentence of the first chapter of Genesis states, ``In the 
beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'' That is as far back 
in time as one can get--``in the beginning.'' And it could include a 
billion years or ten billion years or 500 billion years.
  The second sentence of Genesis, Chapter 1, reads as follows: ``And 
the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of 
the deep.'' I doubt that any scientist would disagree with this.
  According to the account in Genesis, God then divided the light from 
the darkness, and scientists agree that there could have been cosmic 
light before the sun, moon and stars were created. The Creator then 
proceeded to divide the waters and to let the dry land appear. The dry 
land was called ``earth,'' and the gathering together of the waters was 
called ``seas.''
  The next step as related by Genesis was the bringing forth of grass, 
the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit.
  Then, according to Genesis, God said, ``Let the waters bring forth 
abundantly the moving creatures that have life, and fowl that may fly 
above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
  ``And God created great whales, and every living creature that 
moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, 
and every winged fowl after his kind.''
  On the scientific side, facts from fossils, plus other data, have 
shown that mammals (animals with solid bones, warm blood, lungs that 
breathe air, and nourish their young with milk) form the final stage in 
a long series of development, which began with tiny sea-dwelling 
creatures. Scientists seem to think that an early type of fish was the 
ancestor of amphibians and thereafter evolved into mammal-like 
reptiles. The primitive amphibians also branched into creatures with 
wings and thus became birds and other fowl. Great changes occurred over 
time. Primitive true mammals, according to science, lived during the 
age of reptiles and these were the probable ancestors of the mammals 
alive today.
  Returning, now, to the biblical account of Creation, by the 
conclusion of the ``fifth day,'' God had said: ``Let the earth bring 
forth the living creatures after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, 
and beast of the earth after his kind,'' and, in the ``sixth day,'' God 
said: ``Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, 
and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping 
thing that creepeth upon the earth.''
  We have reached the ``sixth day'' in the biblical account. A day, in 
God's divine revelation to Moses, evidently meant a period of some 
undetermined length. In Psalm 90--a prayer of Moses--we are told: 
``Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed 
the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art 
God. . . . For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when 
it is past, and as a watch in the night.''
  Regardless of the length of the Creation ``days'', in the sixth, all 
preparations had been completed for the advent of man. ``So God created 
man''--we are told--``in His own image, in the image of God created He 
him; male and female created He them.''
  On the seventh day, God rested from his work. Hence, both science and 
the Bible seem to agree, in broad terms, regarding the chronological 
order of the events of Creation.
  The modern explanation of evolution dates from 1859, when Charles 
Darwin published the ``Origin of Species.'' According to Darwin, 
members of each species compete with each other for a chance to live, 
as well as with members of different species. In this competition

[[Page S9112]]

any helpful variation gives its owner an advantage over others in the 
species that are not so well adapted. Members with such variations, 
therefore, will win the struggle for existence. They will live and 
reproduce their kind, while forms not so well equipped will die. Darwin 
called this process natural selection; it is also referred to as 
``survival of the fittest.''
  According to a national poll that was published earlier this year, 
only 40% of the nation's scientists are said to believe in God. I was 
amazed that 60% of the scientists, according to the poll, share no 
belief in a Creator. Darwin, however, apparently did not share such 
disbelief. Some years ago, I read his ``Origin of Species.'' In this 
brilliant work of a great British naturalist, I came across this 
incisive question, posed by Darwin himself: ``Have we any right to 
assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of 
man?''
  What a pertinent question? I think we human beings are prone to 
forget that the Creator, as Darwin observed, may work by intellectual 
powers unlike those of man.
  In comparing the eye of a human being to an optical instrument made 
by man, Darwin had this to say: ``If we must compare the eye to an 
optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of 
transparent tissue, with spaces filled with fluid, and with a nerve 
sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer 
to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into 
layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different 
distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly 
changing in form. Further, we must suppose that there is a power, 
represented by natural selection or the survival of the fittest, always 
intently watching each slight alteration in the transparent layers; and 
carefully preserving each which, under varied circumstances, in any way 
or in any degree, tends to produce a distincter image. We must suppose 
each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; each 
to be preserved until a better one is produced, and then the old ones 
to be all destroyed. In living bodies, variation will cause the slight 
alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and 
natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. 
Let this process go on for millions of years; and during each year on 
millions of individuals of many kinds''--this is the question that 
Darwin poses--``and may we not believe that a living optical instrument 
might best be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the 
Creator are to those of man?''
  Thus, Darwin appears to acknowledge a Creator back of the Creation--a 
master mind back of the work. I suggest that the 60% of today's 
scientists today who, according to the poll, doubt the existence of a 
Creator, read what Darwin has to say in this regard, if they have not 
already done so, and if they have already done so, it may be valid for 
them to read Darwin's observation again.
  Darwin's work is sprinkled throughout with conjecture, assumptions, 
presumptions, and, in some cases, just plain guess work. For example: 
the reader often finds such words and phrases as: ``Has probably played 
a more important part'', ``there can be little doubt'', ``we may 
infer'', ``seems probable,'' ``I have come to the conclusion,'' ``it 
cannot be doubted,'' ``I am fully convinced'' --this is Darwin 
talking--``it must be assumed,'' ``seems to have been,'' ``appears to 
have played an important part in the origins of our breeds,'' ``seems 
to have been the predominant power,'' ``it is probable that they were 
once thus connected,'' ``thus it is, as I believe,'' ``bearing such 
facts in mind, it may be believed,'' ``we may conclude,'' ``seem to 
have been the chief agents in causing organs to become rudimentary,'' 
``is probably often aided,'' ``is perhaps intelligible by the aid of 
the hypothesis of pangenesis, and apparently in no other way,'' ``it 
may be,'' ``every character, however slight, must be the result of some 
definite cause,'' ``one chief cause seems to be,'' ``some additional 
rudimentary structures might here have been adduced,'' ``we have only 
to suppose that a former progenitor possessed the parts in question in 
a perfect state,'' ``the more complex instincts seem to have originated 
independently of intelligence,'' ``appears to have been gained,'' 
``such variations appear to arise from the same unknown causes,'' ``it 
is not improbable,'' . . . and so on and so on.
  Darwin, posing the question, ``whether there exists a Creator and 
Ruler of the universe,'' responds. Listen to his response to his own 
question: ``And this has been answered in the affirmative by the 
highest intellects that have ever lived.''
  Twelve years after the publishing of the ``Origin of Species,'' 
Darwin published ``The Descent of Man.'' In his second book, Darwin 
applied his theory of evolution to the human race. In Chapter IV, 
Darwin makes an interesting admission. Here is what he said:

       I now admit . . . that in the earlier editions of my 
     ``Origin of Species,'' I probably attributed too much to the 
     action of natural selection or the survival of the fittest. I 
     have altered the fifth edition of the Origin so as to confine 
     my remarks to adaptive changes of structure. . . . I may be 
     permitted to say as some excuse, that I had two distinct 
     objects in view, firstly, to show that species had not been 
     separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had 
     been the chief agent of change, though largely aided by the 
     inherited effects of habit, and slightly by the direct action 
     of the surrounding conditions. . . . Hence, if I have erred 
     in giving to natural selection great power, which I am far 
     from admitting, or in having exaggerated its power, which is 
     in itself probable, I have at least, as I hope, done good 
     service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate 
     creations.

  Darwin was not alone in his effort. Since the earliest days of man's 
exploration of his universe, science and religion--when not simply 
ignoring each other--have often been at odds. Throughout the ages, it 
seems that the more man has learned about the physical nature of the 
universe and its creatures, the greater the gap between religion and 
science has become.
  To many in the scientific community, the world has largely become 
divided between that which can be scientifically and mathematically 
explained away, and that for which the mathematical equation or 
scientific basis has not yet been discovered. The Creator has had no 
role. He has been left out. The fabulously intricate pattern of 
occurrences, which had to exist in order to account for the strictly 
scientific view of the creation of the universe, has been viewed as 
merely chance--a lucky shot!--with no connection to any sort of greater 
intelligence. How absurd!
  Mr. President, I have in my pocket a gold watch and a golden chain. 
Watches are not in the habit of assembling themselves. There has to be 
a designer. There has to be a maker back of the watch, a creator back 
of the chain. There has to be a greater intelligence, a Creator.
  On the other side, to many of those in the religious community, too 
tightly held religious doctrine has precluded all possibilities 
suggested by scientific investigation of the physical world.
  Happily, however, scientists and men of the cloth both appear to be 
rejecting doctrinal absolutism and discovering some common ground.
  Recent articles in Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report, point to 
a change in attitude among scientists and theologians. Rather than 
opposing one another, the study of science and the practice of religion 
may at last be able to enhance one another. Science may be recognizing 
that rules, or tangible events, or even the laws of physics may not 
always be entirely explainable. As we search for scientific truth we 
may also provoke a faith that instills in the previously cynical, a 
wonder for the unexplainable and a tacit admission that there must be a 
higher power.
  In innumerable cases, science is apparently unearthing instances of 
perfection in the physical world which are so far beyond even the 
wildest imaginings of the human mind that chance could not account for 
them, and even nondevout scientists have tended to conclude that such 
minute miracles can only have been wrought by some form of divine 
design.
  Newsweek, in its edition of July 20, said, ``Physicists have stumbled 
upon signs that the cosmos is custom-made for life and consciousness. 
It turns out that if the constants of nature--unchanging numbers like 
the strength of gravity, the charge of an electron and the mass of a 
proton--were even the tiniest bit different, then atoms would not hold 
together, stars would not burn, and life would never have made

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an appearance.'' As Nobel-prize-winning Physicist and Christian Charles 
Townes put it, ``somehow intelligence must have been involved in the 
laws of the universe.'' And, consider the words of Physicist-turned-
priest John Polkinghorne, who said that the most fundamental component 
in the belief in God ``is that there is a mind and a purpose behind the 
Universe.''
  Similarly, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report relate the story 
of Allan Sandage, one of the world's most preeminent, respected, and 
accomplished astronomers, who spoke at a recent meeting of cosmologists 
gathered together to consider the theological implications of their 
work. Sandage, who reportedly admits to having been ``almost a 
practicing atheist as a boy,'' has come to the conclusion through his 
work that Creation can only be explained as a ``miracle''. ``It is my 
science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more 
complicated than can be explained by science. It is only through the 
supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence.''
  I find it rather exhilarating that men like Sandage and Townes and 
Polkinghorne, who have devoted so much of their lives to questioning 
their universe in order to discover its secrets, have come to a 
conclusion that to me was answered long ago through simple, basic, 
unquestionable faith, and simple, common-sense reasoning.
  There are those who will only ever be comfortable with a world of 
rules and measurements, in which events are quantifiable and reliable, 
and a ``miracle'' is defined only as that which has not yet been 
thoroughly dissected and concretely explained. There are also those who 
will always reject scientific theory if it seems in any way to 
challenge their religious doctrine.
  But it seems to me that scientists such as Allan Sandage, who embrace 
both religion and science, can teach a valuable lesson to us all. A 
black-and-white science of stiff rules and blinders is fatally flawed. 
It is the scientist who looks to the heavens for divine intervention 
and is willing to admit that not all things are explainable, who has 
the greatest opportunity to achieve medical breakthroughs, uncover the 
mysteries of outer space and develop life-changing technologies. His is 
an intellect which is truly free, for he allows for all possibilities.
  The two great disciplines of the world, science and religion, 
represent the ceaseless human probing for answers to the mysteries of 
life. They are, at their cores, nothing more than man's quest for 
truth.
  As we search, may we never close our hearts to the abundant evidence 
of His love and his miracles all around us.
  Even in the midst of great sorrow and profound tragedy, He is there 
and His love will prevail and will triumph. So my heart goes out today 
to the families of the two brave men whose lives and dedication we 
honored today in this magnificent Capitol, itself a symbol of man's 
belief in things which cannot be seen. And I hope that these loved ones 
will remember the words of hope from the Scriptures and the words of 
William Jennings Bryan:

       If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the cold 
     and pulseless heart of the buried acorn, to make it burst 
     forth from its prison walls, again the mighty oak, will He 
     leave neglected in the Earth the soul of man, created in his 
     own image.
       If He stoops to give to the rosebush whose withered 
     blossoms float upon the autumn breeze, the sweet assurance of 
     another springtime, will He refuse the words of hope to the 
     sons of men when the frosts of winter come?
       If matter, mute and inanimate, though changed by the forces 
     of Nature into a multitude of forms, can never be destroyed, 
     will the imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation when it 
     has paid a brief visit like a royal guest to this tenement of 
     clay?
       No, I am sure that He who, notwithstanding His apparent 
     prodigality, created nothing without a purpose, and wasted 
     not a single atom in all His creation, has made provision for 
     a future life in which man's universal longing for 
     immortality will find its realization. I am as sure that we 
     live again as I am sure that we live today.

  With those words of William Jennings Bryan, Mr. President, I yield 
the floor.

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