Q. E. D. | Page 7

are imposed on them by an external ceaselessly acting power, the will of the Creator, would be in full accord with Biblical theism; and then we might naturally say that the ultimate particles of which matter is composed may well be regarded as alike and mere duplicates of one another. And this, as we have seen, is just what modern discoveries in radioactivity are teaching us regarding the make-up of the substances that we call matter.
But an objection at once arises. How can these primordial units of which matter is composed behave so differently, if they are really alike, mere duplicates of one another?
We may not as yet be able to tell just why and how; but we have in the cells of which all plants and animals are composed an analogy which is almost perfect, if not quite.
These component units of organic matter, the individual cells, as will be explained later, seem physically and even chemically mere duplicates of one another. They may not all be of the same size; but they are all composed of protoplasm, and the protoplasm of plants cannot be distinguished from that of animals by any physical or chemical tests known to modern science. The protoplasm in the brain of a bird is the same as that in its toes; and no metaphysical subtilties about heredity have ever explained why the one does a different work from the other. The plain fact is that different cells, composed of identical protoplasm and structurally alike, _act very differently_; and there is no scientific reason based on innate properties that gives us even a glimmer of a reason why. We have searched a long time along this road; but there is no prospect of finding an explanation; we are merely running up a _cul-de-sac_ with no view beyond. From the materialistic point of view, nobody knows why protoplasm acts as it does, least _of all, why some masses of protoplasm act one way, and exact duplicates act differently_. But if, on the other hand, we look beyond the facts and methods of physics and chemistry, and even beyond the most plausible theories of genetics, we can readily explain this remarkable action of the cells as the result of the will of an ever acting, omniscient, almighty God. Certainly nothing else is adequate to explain the behavior of living cells.
In a very similar way we must reason regarding the ultimate units of matter, call them what we will, electrons, corpuscles, or units of electricity. If these are mere duplicates of each other, as science now teaches, they not only indicate by this identity that they are "manufactured articles," as was long ago pointed out of the atoms and molecules, but they also indicate with all the force of a demonstration that nothing but an ever present omniscient Intelligence could keep these duplicates from always acting the same under similar external forces. If gold and carbon, iron and oxygen are at bottom composed of particles that are mere duplicates of each other, as seems to be the case, how can these elements and the six dozen or more others maintain their individuality throughout nature as we know they do, even in the far distant stars, except by the sleepless care of an Intelligence whose Word is as effective in one part of the universe as in another, and to whose Word these particles of matter can show no inertia and no disobedience, because they have no powers or properties except what He has imparted? This doctrine of the homogeneousness of matter is the antithesis of materialism. It is consistent only with the doctrine of an almighty and ever present God, and like many other facts which have been developed by modern scientific discoveries, it confirms the other primal doctrine of a literal Creation "in the beginning."
VI
The conclusion which our minds are forced to draw from the facts presented in this chapter is not doubtful, nor is it difficult to state. Matter is not now being brought into existence by any means that we call "natural." And yet the facts of radioactivity very positively forbid the past eternity of matter. Hence, the conclusion is syllogistic: matter must have originated at some time in the past by methods or means which are equivalent to a real Creation.
Thus far, at least, the record of Genesis is confirmed: "In the beginning God created."

II
THE ORIGIN OF ENERGY
I
What has been regarded by many as the greatest scientific triumph of modern times was worked out about the middle of the last century by James Prescott Joule and others, in determining that a certain amount of mechanical energy is exactly equivalent to a definite amount of heat. With this mechanical equivalent of heat all the various other forms of energy have also been correlated; until now we