Creation and Its Records Part 9

The _works_ of G.o.d, if interpreted truly, are evidence of the same nature as the _word_ of G.o.d if interpreted truly. G.o.d has created man and his reason. It is impossible to suppose that it can be unrighteous reasoning in G.o.d's sight, to derive from the facts of nature any legitimate conclusion to which those facts point. It is childish to believe that G.o.d created ready-made--if I may so speak--rocks with fossils in them, marks of rain-drops showing which way the wind blew at the time, foot-prints of birds, animals with remains of the prey they had been feeding on, in their stomachs, and so forth. It is perfectly reasonable and right to conclude certainly, that those creatures were once living beings; that the surface of the earth was once a soft sediment which received the impression of the rain-drops as they fell; and that stratified rocks were deposited out of lakes and seas, as we see alluvial strata deposited at the present day. It is impossible, therefore, that (if we are not misled by appearances) any well-ascertained fact can be contrary to the truth of G.o.d as explained by Revelation. If we are not sure of the facts of nature, we must wait patiently till further knowledge enlightens us, and must not hastily conclude that the Bible is wrong. The repeated corrections which successive years have compelled us to make in conclusions which were once firmly accepted and proclaimed as "truths of science," should teach us caution in this respect.

Nor, lastly, is it any reproach to the Church, as keeper of the Divine Revelation, that its opinion of certain pa.s.sages should vary with the growth of knowledge. It would be hardly necessary to make this obvious remark but for the fact that it has been reproached against Christian belief, that science is contrary to the Bible, and that the Church has ever had to confess itself wrong, after having persecuted people for not following its peculiar views. It is, indeed, unfortunate that a blind zeal for G.o.d has led, in the past, to persecution; the Church failing to see that such men as Galileo and Bruno never denied G.o.d at all, nor did their discoveries really contradict the Word. But persecution is not a sin peculiar to the Church; it is a sin of human nature.

It is also true that Christian views may be wrong, but the fault is in the views, not in the Bible.

Scientific men, of all people, should be the last to complain of _change_ in views, seeing that what was science two hundred years ago is now (much of it) exploded nonsense.

There is no harm whatever in changing our views about the meaning of difficult pa.s.sages--provided we never let go our hold on the central truth, and put the error to our own account, not saying that the Word itself is wrong.

It may, in this connection, be at once observed that any particular explanation, or that one which I propose presently to suggest, of the first chapters of Genesis, may not commend itself to the reader, and yet the general argument I have adduced will hold good notwithstanding.

All that I care to contend is, that science does not contradict a syllable of the narrative on _one_ possible interpretation, and that changes in view as to interpretation are no arguments against the truth of the pa.s.sage itself.

CHAPTER XII.

_METHODS OF INTERPRETING THE NARRATIVE--a.s.sUMPTIONS OF MEANING TO CERTAIN TERMS._

Returning, then, to the narrative in the Book of Genesis, I think we may take it as clear that the pa.s.sage stands in such a concise and condensed form, that it is obviously open to _be interpreted_. Further, that we should not be surprised if the interpretation at the present day, with our vastly increased knowledge of Nature, is different from what it was in earlier times.

I make no apology for repeating this so often, because it is really amazing to see the way in which "anti-theological" writers attack what _they suppose_ to be the interpretation of the narrative, or what some one else supposes to be such, and seem to be satisfied that in so doing they have demolished the credibility of the narrative itself.

If you choose to a.s.sume that Creation as spoken of by the sacred writer means some particular thing, or even if the ma.s.s of uneducated or unreflecting people a.s.sume it and you follow them, I grant at once that the narrative can be readily made out to be wrong.

Permit me, then, to repeat once more, that the narrative is in human language, and uses the human terms "created," "made," and "formed," and that these terms _do_ (as a matter of fact which there is no gainsaying) bear a meaning which is not invariable. Hence, without any glossing or "torturing" of the narrative, we are under the plain obligation to seek to a.s.sign to these terms a true meaning _with all the light that modern knowledge_ can afford.

Now (having already considered the school of interpretation which declines to attend to the exact terms) we can confine our attention to two cla.s.ses of interpreters. One explains the term "days" to mean long periods of time; the other accepts the word in its ordinary and most natural sense, and endeavours to eliminate the long course of developmental work made known to us by palaeontological science, and supposes all that to have been pa.s.sed over in silence; and argues that a final preparation for the advent of the man Adam was made in a special work of six days.

All the well-known attempts at explanation, such as those of Pye-Smith, Chalmers, H. Miller, Pratt, and the ordinary commentaries, can be placed in one or other of these categories.

Now, as regards both, I recur to the curious fact (already noted) that it seems never to enter into the conception of either school to inquire for a moment what the sacred writer meant by "created"--G.o.d "created"--G.o.d said "let there be." It _is_ curious, because no one can reasonably say "these terms are obvious, they bear their own meaning on the surface;" a moment's a.n.a.lysis will scatter such an idea to the winds. Yet the terms _are_ pa.s.sed by. The commentators set themselves right earnestly to compare and to collate, to argue and to a.n.a.logize, on the meaning of the term "days;" the other term "created" they take for granted without--as far as I am aware--single line of explanation, or so much as a doubt whether they know what it really means!

The interpretation that I would propose to the judgment of the Church is just the very opposite. It seems to me that the word _day_ as used in the narrative needs no explanation; it seems to me that the other does.

As regards the term "day," it is surely a rule of sound criticism never to give an "extraordinary" meaning to a word, when the "ordinary" one will give good and intelligible sense to a pa.s.sage. And looking to the fact that, after all, when the days of Genesis _are_ explained to mean periods of very unequal but possibly enormous duration, that explanation is not only quite useless, but raises greater difficulties than ever, I should think it most likely that the "day" of the narrative should be taken in the ordinary sense. But of this hereafter.

On the other hand, with regard to the terms "creation,[1]" "created,"

"Let there be," and so forth, I find ample room for the most careful consideration and for detailed study before we can say what is meant.

Even then there remains a feeling of profound mystery. For at the very beginning of every train of reflection and reasoning on the subject, we are just brought up dead at this wonderful fact, the existence of _matter_ where previously there had been _nothing_. The phrase "created _out of_ nothing" is of course a purely conventional one, and, strictly speaking, has no meaning; but we adopt it usefully enough to indicate our ultimate fact--the appearance of matter where previously there had been nothing. Nor is the difficulty really surmounted by alleging such a mere _phrase_ as "matter is eternal," for we have just as little mental conception of self-existent, always--and _without beginning_--existent matter, as we have of "creation out of nothing."

[Footnote 1: The entire silence of commentators regarding the doubtful meaning of "creation" is so surprising, that I have had the greatest difficulty in persuading myself that the explanation I propose is new.

Yet certainly I have never come across it anywhere.]

The human mind has always a difficulty when it is brought face to face with something that is beyond the scope not only of its own practical, but, even of its theoretical or potential ability.

The "creation," therefore, of matter by a Divine Power is matter of _faith_, as I endeavoured to set forth in the earlier pages of this little work; but it is _reasonable_ faith, because it can be supported by sound reasoning from a.n.a.logy and strong probability.

All our attention, then, I submit, should be directed to understanding what is "creation" in the sacred narrative.

CHAPTER XIII.

_THE GENESIS NARRATIVE CONSIDERED GENERALLY._

I.--THE FIRST PART OF THE NARRATIVE.

-- 1. _Objections to the Received Interpretations_.

Taking the narrative as it stands, we find it to consist of two parts.

First, a general statement, of which no division of time is predicated, and which is unaccompanied by any detail. Second, there is an account seriatim of certain operations which are stated to have been severally performed one on each of six days.

As regards the first portion, we have no definite knowledge of scientific truth with which to compare the narrative. It is obviously necessary for some Divine teacher to tell us authoritatively that G.o.d originated and caused the material earth, and the systems of suns and stars which men on the earth's surface are able to discern in the "heavens."

We are consequently informed that in the beginning--there is no practical need for defining further--"G.o.d created the heavens and the earth." Here the question arises whether the Hebrew "bara," which is a general term, alludes to the first production of material, or to the moulding or fashioning of material already (in terms) a.s.sumed to exist.

I think that the conclusion must be that the best authority is in favour of the idea of absolute origination of the whole;--the bringing the entire system into existence where previously there was a perfect blank.

But even if the secondary meaning of "fashioned" or "forged" be allowed, we have still an intelligible rendering. For in that case the first origination of matter is tacitly a.s.sumed by the term itself, and the statement would be, that the matter of the future cosmos so existing, the Divine Artificer fashioned or moulded it into the orderly fabric it has come to be.

The narrative then at once refers to our earth, with which, and with its inhabitants, the whole volume is to be in future directly concerned.

"The earth was (or became) without form and void (chaotic), and darkness was on the face of the deep (or abyss)."

We have no positive knowledge of what the first condition of terrestrial matter was, apart from Revelation. The remarkable discoveries that the spectroscope has enabled, and the facts learned from the physical history of comets and meteorites, can do no more than make what is known as the "nebular hypothesis" highly probable. But it is amply sufficient for our purpose to point out, that if it is true that matter originated in a nebulous haze to the particles of which a spiral rotatory motion had been communicated, and if (confining our attention to one planet only) that attenuated matter gradually aggregated in a ring or rings, and then consolidated into a solid or partly solid globe, then the results are briefly, but adequately and sublimely, provided for by the form of the Mosaic statement.

Matter thus aggregating would have developed an enormous amount of heat, and there would have been a seething ma.s.s of molten mineral matters, with gases and other materials in the form of vapours, which would have gradually cooled and consolidated. Vast ma.s.ses of water would in time be formed on one hand, and solid mineral ma.s.ses on the other; the latter would contract as cooling progressed, causing great upheavals and depressions and contortions of strata. And before the advent of life-forms, it is not difficult to conceive that the first state of our globe was one which is intelligibly and very graphically described as being "without form and void." Nothing more than that, can, from actual physical knowledge, be stated.[1]

It is also stated that this confused elemental state of our earth was accompanied at first by darkness. Material darkness that is--for the potentiality of light and order was there; the SPIRIT OF G.o.d "moved" (or brooded) upon the face of the abyss. This presents no difficulty of interpretation, and may therefore be pa.s.sed over for the present.

[Footnote 1: It would be hardly necessary (but for some remarks in the course of the Gladstone-Huxley controversy) to observe that the term "void" does not imply vacuity or emptiness, as of _substance,_ but absence of defined form such as subsequently was evolved.]

Practically, indeed, there has been no grave difficulty raised over this first portion. And if it is argued (on the ground of what I have already in general terms indicated) that the term "created" will, on my own interpretation, get us into difficulties, I reply that here, in its position and with the context, there is no room for doubt, for clearly the word implies _both_ the great primary idea of the Divine design or plan formulated in heaven, _and_ the subsequent result in time and s.p.a.ce.[1] This will become more clear when I have further explained the subject.

[Footnote 1: And of course if the true sense be "fashioned" or "moulded," the question does not arise.]

II.--THE SECOND PART OF THE NARRATIVE.

But from this point the narrative commences to be more precise, and to exhibit a very singular and altogether unprecedented division of creative work into "days."

Now I have already indicated my doubt whether we ought to import any unusual meaning to explain this term.

In the first place, the objection that till the movements and relations of the sun to the earth were ordained there would be no _measure of a day_ will not stand a moment's examination. Nor will the further objection sometimes made, that even with the sun, a day is a very uncertain thing: for example, a day and a night in the north polar regions are periods of month-long duration, quite different from what they are in England, or at Mount Sinai. Obviously, a "day" with reference to the planet for which the term is used, means the period occupied by one rotation of the planet on its own axis. The rotation of the earth is antecedent to anything mentioned in the narrative we are considering. In the nature of things, it would have been coeval with the introduction of the _prima materies_--at least if any nebular hypothesis can be relied on. The "day" would be there whether it were obscured by vapours or not, and whether specially made countable and recognizable by what we call the rising and setting of the sun, or not, and whether we were standing in Nova Zembla or in Australia.