Creation and Its Records Part 8

We have now completed the first portion of our inquiry: there remains the second, which, to a large cla.s.s, at any rate, will appear of not less importance. For the Scriptures, which they have been taught to trust, contain a brief but direct and positive statement regarding Creation, as well as numerous other less direct allusions to the subject, all (as far as I know) in unquestioned harmony with the first.

Is the account in the Book of Genesis true? It is necessary to answer this question, because, even if a general belief in an Almighty Author and Designer of all things is shown to be reasonable, still the Scripture ought surely to support the belief; and it would be strange if, when we came to test it on this subject, we found its professed explanations would not stand being confronted with the facts.

No one will, I think, deny that the question is important. Writers of the "anti-theological" school still continue to insist on the falsity of the Mosaic narrative, as if the error was not yet sufficiently slain, and was important enough to be attacked again and again. And theological writers, down to the most modern, continue to explain the text in one way or another;--besides, _they_ admit the importance, under any circ.u.mstances. I do not forget that there is a school of thought, which is distinctly Christian in its profession, but does not allow the importance. It would regard the narrative as addressed to Jews only, and therefore as one which does not concern us. If that was all, it would not be needful for me to discuss the position. But it has been held, not only that the narrative does not concern us, but _also_ that it is certainly inaccurate.

This view I cannot adopt: it seems not quite fair to ourselves, and not quite fair to the Jews. Let me explain what I mean. If we have nothing to do with the narrative, let us abstain _equally_ from defending it _or_ p.r.o.nouncing it wrong--that is for ourselves. As to the Jewish Church, a little more must be said. Let us admit, at any rate for argument's sake, that the separation between the Jewish formal and ceremonial religion and Christianity is as wide as can be wished. Nor would I undervalue the importance of insisting on pure Christianity, as distinct from Judaism. And, further, let us (without any question as to ultimate objects) regard the narrative as primarily addressed to Jews, and let us admit that it may have been unimportant, for the purpose of the first steps in Divine knowledge, that any account should be given of Creation beyond the primary fact that all idolatrous cosmogonies were false, and that the Unseen G.o.d of Israel alone made the heavens and the earth "in the beginning." Why should the Jews have received that truth through the medium of a story of which the whole framework was false, and nothing but the moral true? The framework, moreover, is one so plainly _professing to be fact_, that it was certain to be received as such by a simple people. It seems to me that there is something very suspicious, something repugnant to notions of truth and honest dealing, in the possible communication of underlying Divine truth through the medium of stories, which are not stories on the face of them, but profess and pretend to be statements of fact and authoritatively made.

But, further, it cannot be denied that, whatever allowance may have to be made under the early Jewish dispensation for the ideas and weaknesses of a semi-barbarous people, whatever "winking" there may have been "at times of ignorance," the main object was, by a gradual revelation,[1] by a system of typical ordinances and ceremonies, to lead up to the full spiritual light of the Christian dispensation. Everything written, said, or done, was a step--however small an one--always tending in the one direction, according to the usual law of Evolution. The Christian believer may then look back to the early stages as imperfect foreshadowings and dim ill.u.s.trations of the whole truth; but he would, I should think, on any ordinary principles, be shocked to find truth developed out of positive error. And should the error have been discovered, as it now is[2] (in the view of these I am contending against), this discovery might have arrested the further development of Divine truth altogether. If Moses, or whoever wrote the Book of Genesis--we will not cavil at that--was allowed to compose his own fancies or beliefs on the subject of Creation, _and to state them as Divine fact_ (no matter that the reader at the time was not able to find out the error), would not grave suspicion attach to whatever else he put forward? Who could tell that, on any other subject, the plainest and most direct statement of fact was not equally a fancy, only embodying or enshrining (under the guise of its errors) some real Divine facts? If Genesis i. is unreliable, we have a case of a writer going out of his way to add to certain truths, which might easily have been stated by themselves, a number of positive declarations, _as of Divine authority_, regarding facts, which are not facts.

[Footnote 1: I am not aware of any authority, living or dead, who has gone so far as to deny that G.o.d's revelation to the Jewish Church was in any way connected with Christianity; that it was not even a stage of progress, or preparatory step towards the kingdom of Christ.]

[Footnote 2: And was _sure to be_ sooner or later, when a science of Biology and Palaeontology became possible.]

The great truths that G.o.d 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--"G.o.d said,"

"G.o.d 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 fict.i.tious, by the simple process of considering whether any given statement bore on morals or not. Such a test would not indeed go very far, because the human race is by no means agreed on all moral questions; nor does it always find it easy to say what is, and what is not, directly or indirectly connected with morals. But, in fact, the scope of religion cannot be so confined: and then the difficulty returns; for a revelation that tells us anything of the nature of G.o.d and His method of government, of the nature of our own being and of a future state, must necessarily go beyond our own ethical knowledge and powers of judging, or it would not be a revelation. Supposing that the revelation regarding such vital subjects is occasionally conveyed through the medium of erroneous statements, where in any given case would be the certainty as to what was Divine truth, and what not so?

This argument applies equally to another school of thinkers, who do not care to tell us what the narrative in itself means: who believe that G.o.d did not do what He is said to have done in Genesis, and yet who hold that the narrative is in a sense inspired, and that we may learn from it the great facts that G.o.d (and none other) originated all things--that man has a spiritual element in his nature, and that woman is equal in nature, but subordinate in position, to man, and so forth. Not only is enlightened judgment, even, inadequate to p.r.o.nounce with certainty on how much is true; but the strange feeling still remains, if G.o.d designed to teach us these truths only, why was it not possible to enable the writer[1] to state them without the (purely gratuitous) error? The sufferance of such a strange and unnecessary mixture of error seems rather like that "putting to confusion" of the human mind, which we feel sure the Great Teacher would never willingly perpetrate.

[Footnote 1: For on the supposition stated, there _is_ a revelation in the text. Nor could any cla.s.s of believer deny this. It is entirely unnecessary to define the kind and extent of insphation. But "all Scripture is '_theopneustos_'"--I leave the word purposely untranslated (2 Tim. iii. 16); that surely means that the Divine Spirit exercised _some kind_ of continuous control over the writers.]

Nor, again, can the narrative be got over by saying it is a poetic side or aspect of the facts, and not to be taken literally. If any one knows exactly what this means, and can tell us always how to translate the matter into plain language, it is to be wished that he would enlighten the world as to the process. But even if such process exists infallibly and universally, still, one would suppose, the narrative must, to begin with, be unmistakable poetry. And here, again, the narrative bears every mark of an intention to state facts, not poetic aspects of facts. Nor can we take the narrative as belonging to a familiar cla.s.s in Scripture where a dream is used as a vehicle of communication. In those cases there is really no room for doubt; the visible facts themselves are obviously designed only to typify or represent some other facts.

The events stated in Genesis are not of this cla.s.s. Those, therefore, who would be content with getting over the narrative without caring for its details, can, I must suspect, have hardly given adequate attention to the form and to the contents of the narrative as it stands. Not only are the statements positive, but, taking any interpretation whatever of them, they are not nearly imaginative enough to suit the purpose.

They have an obvious amount of relation to fact which has never been denied.[1]

If the narrative is purely human even (and that the school we are considering do not aver), how did the writer come to be accurate even to that extent? Take only the order of events. I admit it does not correspond with the geologic record in the way commonly a.s.serted; yet it has a very remarkable relation to that sequence.

Now, in any case, the writer could have had no knowledge of any kind _of his own_ on the subject: how did he hit on this particular arrangement?[2] It is a mere matter of calculation on the well-known rules of permutation and combination to realize in how many different ways the same set of events could have been arranged; the number is very considerable.

And he could derive no a.s.sistance from any similar existing narrative.

If we conclude from the a.s.syrian discoveries that a non-biblical but similar narrative existed, still it is certain that the princ.i.p.al one we as yet have is so late in date, that it is more likely to be derived from the Bible than the Bible from it. And though, on referring to the earlier tablets, we find traces of the same narrative, it is so obscured by idolatrous and false details, that the Bible writer must have had to make a virtually new departure to get his own simple narrative. A re-revelation would be required. As to all other cosmogonies, Egyptian, Indian, and Buddhistic, nothing can be more opposed in principle and in detail than they are to the severe and stately simplicity and directness of the Mosaic.

[Footnote 1: Not even, for example, by Professor Hackel.]

[Footnote 2: How, for example, did the writer come to introduce the adjustment of hours of daylight and seasons in the _middle_, after so much work had been done? How did he come to place _birds_ along with fish and water monsters, and not separately?]

We cannot, then, account for the narrative on human grounds; nor can we suppose that any inspiring control would have given the author so much truth, and yet allowed so much error.

All this points to only one of two possible conclusions: either the narrative is not inspired at all, and is a mere misleading story, into which the name of G.o.d is introduced by the author's piety--and so really teaches us nothing, since it is not revelation; _or_ the narrative is, as a whole, divinely dictated, and must be true _throughout_, if we can only arrive by due study at its true meaning. That part of it is, or may be, true, even on the most cursory study, is not denied; that it is _all_ true will appear, I think, in the sequel.

But there is a shorter and simpler reason why the rejection of the narrative in Genesis would be a direct blow to Christian faith. The plain truth is that it can hardly be denied, by any candid student of the New Testament, that our Lord and His apostles certainly received the early chapters of Genesis as of Divine authority. This has always been perceived by the whole school of writers opposed to the Faith. They therefore continue to attack these early revelations, and rejoice to overturn them if they can, because they are aware that hardly any chapters in the Bible are more constantly alluded to and made the foundation of practical arguments by our Lord and His apostles.

If these chapters can be shown to be mythical, then the Divine knowledge of our Lord as the Son of G.o.d, and the inspiration of His apostles, are called in question. In the New Testament, especially, there are repeated and striking allusions to Adam, the temptation of the woman by the Serpent, and the entrance into the world of sin and death. Our Lord Himself places the whole argument of His teaching on marriage and the permissibility of divorce on Genesis ii. 24 (_cf_. St. Matt. xix. and St. Mark x.). In St. John viii. 44 our Lord clearly alludes to the Edenic narrative when He speaks of the tempter as a "manslayer ([Greek: anthropoktonos]) from the beginning." Still more remarkable is the argument of St. Paul in Romans v.; altogether based as it is on the historical verity of the account of the Fall; and other allusions are to be found in 1 Cor. xi. 8, in 2 Cor. xi. 3, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, and elsewhere. In short, there are at least sixty-six pa.s.sages in the New Testament, in which the first eleven chapters of Genesis are directly quoted or made the ground of argument. Of these, six are by our Lord Himself, two being direct quotations;[1] six by St.

Peter, thirty-eight by St. Paul, seven by St. John, one by St. James, two by St. Jude, two by the a.s.sembled apostles, three by St. Luke, and one by St. Stephen.

[Footnote 1: St. Matt. xix. 4; St. Luke xvii. 27; and perhaps we might add a third--St. Matt. xxiii. 35.]

We cannot, in fact, possibly avoid the conclusion that our Lord and His apostles admitted the Divine origin and historical truth of these chapters.

Therefore, we are bound as Christians to accept them, and that without glossing or frittering away their meaning, when we have arrived, by just processes, at what that meaning really is.

The fact just stated further warns us against accepting an indefinite interpretation which, while it acknowledges the truth of the general conclusion, still virtually, if not in so many words, allows that the details may be wholly inaccurate.

CHAPTER XI.

_SCRIPTURE METHODS OF REVELATION_.

Pa.s.sing, then, to a consideration of the explanations of the narrative that may be or have been given at various times, I would first call attention to the fact, that it seems in many instances to have been the distinct purpose of Divine inspiration to allow the meaning of some pa.s.sages to be obscure; perhaps among other reasons, that men might be compelled to study closely, to reason and to compare, and thus to become more minutely acquainted with the record. Especially in a case of this sort, where the world's knowledge of the facts would necessarily be gradual, was it desirable that the narrative should be confined in scope, and capable of being worked out and explained by the light of later discoveries; because, had the narrative really (as has long been supposed) been revealed to tell us what was the actual course of evolution of created forms on earth, it would not only have occupied a disproportionate s.p.a.ce in the sacred volume, but would have been unintelligible to the world for many centuries, and would have given rise to much doubting and false argument, to the great detriment of men's spiritual enlightenment. It would have diverted men's minds from the great moral and conclusion of the whole (and here it is that the "moral" or conclusion is so important) to set them arguing on points of natural science.

The Bible was never intended (so far we may agree with all the schools of thought) to be a text-book on biology or geology. We need rather to be impressed with the great facts of G.o.d's Sovereignty and Providence, and to know definitely that all the arrangements of our globe and all forms of life are due to Divinely-created types. This is exactly secured by the narrative as it stands; but such a purpose would not be served by a narrative which, while it contained these great facts, had them enwrapped in a tissue of unnecessary and false details. And therefore it is, if I may so far antic.i.p.ate my conclusion, that the narrative has no direct concern with how, when, and where, the Creation slowly worked itself out under the Divine guidance which is still elaborating the great purpose of the "ages"; it confines our attention to what G.o.d, the great Designer, did and said in heaven, as preliminary to all that was to follow on earth. The former was not a proper subject for revelation, because man would in time come to learn it by his studies on earth; but the latter all ages could only learn--the first as well as the latest--from a Divine Revelation.

Again, let me address a few words to those who are tempted, half unconsciously perhaps, to think that any lengthy prelude and "elaborate"

explanation of Genesis must condemn the narrative _a priori_, or be derogatory to the dignity of Revelation. Why the narrative should be brief and concise I have just suggested. That it needs explanation of _some_ sort is inevitable, because it _must_ be put into human language; and directly such language is employed, we come upon such terms as "let there be," "he created," and "days," which do not always call forth the same ideas in all minds.

It will not have escaped the attention of any earnest student, that Scripture has several different methods of describing things so as to reveal them to men. This, a moment's reflection will enable us to expect. However high and wonderful the things to be stated are, in order to be brought within reach of human understanding _they must be expressed in terms of human thought and experience_; and these are imperfect and essentially inadequate. Hence it is, that many truths have to be brought before us in special or peculiar ways.

How, for instance, are we told of the temptation and fall of man? How are we to understand what was meant by the Tree of Life or the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, or by the Serpent speaking and beguiling Eve? We are at a great loss to give a precise explanation, though the practical meaning is not difficult.

The facts may be none the less true, though from their transcendental character it may have been necessary to put them down in mysterious, possibly even in merely allegorical, language. Another instance of this might be given in the account of Satan in the presence of the Lord as described in the Book of Job, or of the lying Spirit described by Micaiah when prophesying before Ahab. It maybe that these narratives describe to us transactions in a world beyond our own, which _could_ only be conveyed to us in figures or in imperfect form. When St. Paul was caught up into the third heaven, he "heard unspeakable things" which it was not _possible_ for him to utter--the medium of expression was wanting. Divine or mysterious things have, then, to be described in peculiar language which is not always easy to understand. Nor, having respect to the varying requirements of the different ages, or the circ.u.mstances of the time and of the inspired writer, is it easy to understand why any particular form of communication was selected, though doubtless if we knew more we should see a good reason for it. This gives us one cla.s.s of Scripture pa.s.sages--of methods of revelation. On the other hand, there are in Scripture many facts of the highest import, and in themselves of transcendent magnitude, which are yet capable of being stated without any possibility of our interpreting or understanding the narrative in more ways than one. When it is stated that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, we know beyond all reasonable doubt what is meant.

The fact may be true or false, but the narrative of the fact needs no explanation; there are no terms which need expansion--which could bear more than one possible meaning, and which could be used accordingly in one sense or another. This instances a second cla.s.s. Again, we can bring forward yet another cla.s.s of Scripture revelations, namely, pa.s.sages which are necessarily understood with reference to certain other matters which are unexpressed but are taken for granted, or in which the words used may bear more than one meaning, or a meaning which is uncertain or obscure. If the unexpressed matter can be supplied without doubt, then all ages will agree in the interpretation; and if the terms can (by reference to context or otherwise) be explained, the same result follows: if not, then in interpreting the narrative, each age will _make its own a.s.sumption_ regarding the terms used, on the basis of such knowledge as it possesses. It follows, then, inevitably, that if the state of knowledge varies, the interpretation will be different according to the different standard of knowledge, according to which the necessary a.s.sumptions are made. And yet all the while the authority of the pa.s.sage itself is not touched. As it is unquestionable that such different cla.s.ses of pa.s.sage do occur in Scripture, it is merely a question of criticism whether any given pa.s.sage is of this cla.s.s or that, and whether its terms do admit of or require explanation. It is no doubt possible to make mistakes and to err by refusing the direct meaning, and giving to the terms an a.s.sumed meaning for which there is no real necessity.[1] We have always to be on our guard against giving special meanings to words where they are not required; but granted that caution, there undoubtedly are pa.s.sages in which either the terms themselves are not plain, or in which they may really have a meaning different from the ordinary one.

[Footnote 1: As, for example, where persons desirous to get over the plain reference to Baptism in St. John iii. 5, try to explain away the term "water" to mean something metaphorically but not actually water.]

To descend from the general to the particular, it is obvious that the account of Creation in Genesis i., ii. is in such a form that we must a.s.sume our own ideas of the term "day" therein employed, and also those to be attached to "created" and similar terms.

In early times, no one would take "day" to mean anything else but an earth day of the ordinary kind, and no one would question whether or not the whole existing animals and plants, or their ancestors, appeared on earth in six such days, or whether anything else was meant. Again, by the time St. Augustine was writing, a little more knowledge of nature and a little more habit of reasoning about the origin of things was in the world, and that knowledge led people to suppose that creation meant only the making of things "out of nothing," but that it would take longer than six times twelve hours, so that "days" might mean "periods."

And people imagined for a long time that--taking for an example the work in the middle of the narrative--there was a time when the earth emerged from the tumult of waters, that it then got covered with plants, the waters remaining barren of life; but that when the plants had come up all over the ground, then the waters all at once became full of all sorts of sea-sh.e.l.ls, fish, and monsters of the deep, and so on.

They did all this, by naturally _a.s.suming_ that the terms "creation,"

"day," &c., meant what the _existing state of knowledge_ at the time suggested.

At the present day, one would have supposed that every one must feel that while the term "day" might or might not admit of explanation, certainly _creation_ (i.e., terms implying it) did require very great care in interpreting, and very great consideration as to what they really meant But however that may be, we have here a pa.s.sage which _must_ have an explanation; and which must have an explanation that depends on the state of knowledge.

The utility of Revelation is not negatived by this necessary result of the employment of human language in describing the facts. It was _not_ necessary before, that all should be understood; it may be now increasingly necessary in the purposes of G.o.d that it should be. At any rate the fact is so, that in former days people did not possess the data for knowing fully what creation meant, and certainly they do now possess it to a very much greater extent at least. Always men could learn from the narrative what it always was important for them to learn, namely, G.o.d's Sovereignty and Authorship. It is in this way that the value of the _general_ teaching of the narrative comes out, and not by trying to allow a mixture of truth and falsehood in Revelation. All is and always was true; but _all_ the truth was not equally extractable at all times.

Again: the dignity of the old written Revelation is not compromised because G.o.d has virtually given a further revelation in His works, i.e., by enabling man to know more about the rock-strata and the succession of life on the earth. That is what it really comes to. It should never be forgotten that the book of Nature _is_ a revelation.