CONSISTENCY by G. C. Tenney

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 22, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 4

CONSISTENCY

By G. C. Tenney

BY ELD. G. C. TENNEY.

THERE is a consistency which necessarily pervades the whole realm of truth. And this absolutely forbids that any fact or principle should be in any wise contradictory to any other facts or principles in nature or obligation. The distinction which is sometimes made between sacred and scientific truths, between moral obligations and those of nature, is not always a most wise one. All truth is divine; God is its author. The idea or theory which in one particular conflicts with a well-established truth in any branch of knowledge, cannot be true, since it lacks that perfect consistency which must always characterize truth. Thus the truths of religion would correct our scientific conclusions, and banish speculative ideas which are opposed to the truths of revelation; and at the same time science would aid us to obtain correct and rational religious theories.

We may not consider ourselves in harmony with the great principle of truth while rejecting either. Nature’s laws are God’s laws as really as are the ten commandments. And the rules which govern life and health must be entirely consistent with those which control the moral nature. That theory which enjoins only the culture of the soul, and ignores the welfare of the physical system, may be seriously called in question as being defective in not possessing that necessary element of truth, consistency.