The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science Part 3

_Day Fifth._

_And G.o.d said_--"Let the waters swarm with swarmers, having life, And let winged animals fly over the earth on the surface of the expanse of heaven."

And G.o.d created great Reptiles, And every living thing that moveth, With which the waters swarmed after their kind, And every winged bird after its kind.

And G.o.d saw that it was good.

And G.o.d blessed them, saying-- "Be fruitful and multiply, And fill the waters of the sea; And let birds multiply in the land."

And Evening was and Morning was, a Fifth Day.

_Day Sixth._

_And G.o.d said_--"Let the Land bring forth living things after their kind, Herbivores and smaller mammals and Carnivores after their kind."

And it was so.

And G.o.d made all Carnivores after their kind, And all Herbivores after their kind, And all minor mammals after their kind.

And G.o.d saw that it was good.

_And G.o.d said_--"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, And let him have dominion over the fish in the sea And over the birds of the heavens, And over the Herbivora, And over the Earth, And over all the minor animals that creep upon the earth."

And G.o.d created man in his own image, In the image of G.o.d created he him, Male and female created he them.

And G.o.d blessed them.

And G.o.d said unto them-- "Be fruitful and multiply, And replenish the earth and subdue it, And have dominion over the fishes of the sea And over the birds of the air, And over all the animals that move upon the earth."

_And G.o.d said_--"Behold, I have given you all herbs yielding seed, Which are on the surface of the whole earth, And every tree with fruit having seed, They shall be unto you for food.

And to all the animals of the land And to all the birds of the heavens, And to all things moving on the land having the breath of life, I have given every green herb for food."

And it was so.

And G.o.d saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good.

And Evening was and Morning was, a Sixth Day.

_Day Seventh._

Thus the Heavens and the Earth were finished, And all the hosts of them.

And on the seventh day G.o.d ended the work which he had made, And he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

And G.o.d blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, Because that in it he rested from all his work that he had created and made.

CHAPTER III.

OBJECTS AND NATURE OF A REVELATION OF ORIGINS--_Continued._

"What if earth Be but a shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to the other like; more than on earth is thought."

MILTON.

(3) _Character of the Biblical Cosmogony, and general Views of Nature which it Contains or to which it Leads._--Much of what appertains to the character of the revelation of origins has been antic.i.p.ated under previous heads. We have only to read the Song of Creation, as given in the last chapter, to understand its power and influence as a beginning of religious doctrine. The revelation was written for plain men in the infancy of the world. Imagine Chaldean or Hebrew shepherd listening to these majestic lines from the lips of some ancient patriarch, and receiving them as truly the words of G.o.d. What a grand opening to him of both the seen and unseen worlds! Henceforth he has no superst.i.tious dread of the stars above, or of the lightning and thunder, or of the dark woods and flowing waters beneath. They are all the works of the one Creator, the same Creator who is his own Maker, in whose image and shadow he is made. He can look up now to the heavens or around upon the earth, and see in all the handiwork of G.o.d, and can wors.h.i.+p G.o.d through all. He can see that the power that cares for the birds and the flowers of the field cares for him. He is no longer the slave and sport of unknown and dreadful powers; they are G.o.d's workmans.h.i.+p and under his control--nay, G.o.d has given him a mission to subdue and rule over them.

So these n.o.ble words raise him to a new manhood, and emanc.i.p.ate him from the torture of endless fears, and open to him vast new fields of thought and inquiry, which may enrich him with boundless treasures of new religious and intellectual wealth. Imagine still farther that he wanders into those great cities which are the seats of the idolatries of his time. He enters magnificent temples, sees elaborately decorated altars, huge images, gorgeous ceremonials, priests gay in vestments and imposing in numbers. He is invited to bow down before the bull Apis, to wors.h.i.+p the statue of Belus or of Ishtar, of Osiris or of Isis. But this is not in his book of origins. All these things are contrivances of man, not works of G.o.d, and their aim is to invite him to adore that which is merely his fellow-creature, that which he has the divine commission to subdue and rule. So our primitive Puritan turns away. He will rather raise an altar of rough stones in the desert, and wors.h.i.+p the unseen yet real Creator, the G.o.d that has no local habitation in temples made with hands, yet is everywhere present. Such is the moral elevation to which this revelation of origins raises humanity; and when there was added to it the farther history of primeval innocence, of the fall, and of the promise of a Redeemer, and of the fate of the G.o.dless antediluvians, there was a whole system of religion, pure and elevating, and placing the Abrahamidae, who for ages seem alone to have held to it, on a plane of spiritual vantage immeasurably above that of other nations. Farther, every succeeding prophet whose works are included in the sacred canon, following up these doctrines in the same spirit, and added new treasures of divine knowledge from age to age.

But admitting all this, it may be asked, Are these ancient records of any value to us? May we not now dispense with them, and trust to the light of science? The infinitely varied and discordant notions of our modern literature on these great questions of origin, the incapacity of any philosophical system to reach the common mind for practical purposes, and the baseless character of any religious system which does not build on these great primitive truths, give a sufficient answer. Farther, we may affirm that the greatest and widest generalizations of our modern science have, in so far as they are of practical importance, been antic.i.p.ated in the revelations of the Bible, and that in the cosmogony of Genesis and its continuation in the other sacred books we have general views of the universe as broad as those of any philosophies, ancient or modern. This is a hard test for our revelation, but it can be endured, and we may shortly inquire what we find in the Bible of such great general truths.

Many may be disposed to admit the accurate delineation of natural facts open to human observation in the sacred Scriptures, who may not be prepared to find in these ancient books any general views akin to those of the ancient philosophers, or to those obtained by inductive processes in modern times. Yet views of this kind are scattered through the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and are a natural outgrowth and development of the great facts and principles a.s.serted in the first chapter of Genesis. They resolve themselves, almost as a matter of course, into the two leading ideas of order and adaptation.

I have already quoted the eloquent admission by Baron Humboldt of the presence of these ideas of the cosmos in Psalm civ. They are both conspicuous in the narrative of creation, and equally so in a great number of other pa.s.sages. "Order is heaven's first law; and the second is like unto it--that every thing serves an end. This is the sum of all science. These are the two mites, even all that she hath, which she throws into the treasury of the Lord; and, as she does so in faith, Eternal Wisdom looks on and approves the deed."[17] These two mites, lawfully acquired by science, by her independent exertions, she may, however, recognize as of the same coinage with the treasure already laid up in the rich storehouse of the Hebrew literature; but in a peculiar and complex form, which may be ill.u.s.trated under the following general statements:

1. The Scriptures a.s.sert invariable natural law, and constantly recurring cycles in nature. Natural law is expressed as the ordinance or decree of Jehovah. From the oldest of the Hebrew books I select the following examples:[18]

"When he made a decree for the rain, And a way for the thunder-flash."

--Job xxviii., 26.

"Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens?

Canst thou establish a dominion even over the earth?"

--Job x.x.xviii., 33.

The later books give us such views as the following:

"He hath established them [the heavens] for ever and ever; He hath made a decree which shall not pa.s.s."

--Psa. cxlviii., 6.

"Thou art forever, O Jehovah, thy word is established in the heavens; Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth; They continue this day according to thine ordinances, for all are thy servants."

--Psa. cxix., 90.

"When he established the clouds above; When he strengthened the fountains of the deep; When he gave to the sea his decree, That the waters should not pa.s.s his commandment; When he appointed the foundations of the earth."

--Prov. viii., 28.

Many similar instances will be found in succeeding pages; and in the mean time we may turn to the idea of recurring cycles, which forms the starting-point of the reasonings of Solomon on the current of human affairs, in the book of Ecclesiastes: "One generation pa.s.seth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for the ages. The sun ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to its place whence it arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth unto the north.

It whirleth about continually, and returneth again according to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea doth not overflow; unto the place whence the rivers came, thither they return again." I might fill pages with quotations more or less ill.u.s.trative of the statement in proof of which the above texts are cited; but enough has been given to show that the doctrine of the Bible is not that of fortuitous occurrence, or of materialism, or of pantheism, or of arbitrary supernaturalism, but of invariable natural law representing the decree of a wise and unchanging Creator. It is a common but groundless and shallow charge against the Bible that it teaches an "arbitrary supernaturalism." What it does teach is that all nature is regulated by the laws of G.o.d, which like himself are unchanging, but which are so complex in their relations and adjustments that they allow of infinite variety, and do not exclude even miraculous intervention, or what appears to our limited intelligence as such. In opposition to this, it is true, some physicists have held that natural law is a fatal necessity.[19] If they mean by this a merely hypothetical necessity that certain effects must follow if certain laws act, this is in accordance with the Biblical view, for nothing can resist the will of G.o.d. But if they mean an absolute necessity that these laws can not be suspended or counteracted by higher laws, or by the will of the Creator, they a.s.sert what is not only contrary to Scripture, but absurd, for "blind metaphysical necessity, which is the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things."[20] It could lead merely to a dead and inert equilibrium. On the hypothesis of mere physical necessity, the universe either never could have existed, or must have come to an end infinite ages ago, which is the same thing. Only on the hypothesis of law proceeding from an intelligent will can we logically account for nature.

2. The Bible recognizes progress and development in nature. At the very outset we have this idea embodied in the gradual elaboration of all things in the six creative periods, rising from the formless void of the beginning, through successive stages of inorganic and organic being, up to Eden and to man. Beyond this point the work of creation stops; but there is to be an occupation and improvement of the whole earth by man spreading from Eden. This process is arrested or impeded by sin and the fall. Here commences the special province of the Bible, in explaining the means of recovery from the fall, and of the establishment of a new spiritual and moral kingdom, and finally of the restoration of Eden in a new heaven and earth. All this is moral, and relates to man, in so far as the present state of things is concerned; but we have the commentary of Jesus: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;" the remarkable statement of Paul, that the whole creation is involved in the results of man's moral fall and restoration, and the equally remarkable one that the Redeemer is also the maker of the "worlds" or ages of the earth's physical progress, as well as of the future "new heaven and new earth." Peter also rebukes indignantly those scoffers who maintained that all things had remained as they are since the beginning; and refers to the creation week and to the deluge as earnests of the great changes yet in store for the earth.[21]

It is indeed curious to observe how in our version of the Bible this idea of progress in the universe, or of "time-worlds," as it has been called, has been variously replaced by the words "world" and "eternity," owing to the defective ideas prevalent at the time when the translation was made. In the Hebrew Scriptures the term _Olam_, "age," and in the New Testament the equivalent term _Ai[=o]n_ have been thus treated, and their real significance much obscured. Thus when it is said, "by faith we understand that the _worlds_ were framed," or "by him G.o.d made the _worlds_,"[22] or that certain of G.o.d's plans have been hid "from the beginning of the _world_,"[23] the reference is not to worlds in s.p.a.ce, but to worlds in time, or ages of G.o.d's working in the universe. So also these ages of G.o.d's working are given to us as our only intelligible type of eternity, of which absolutely we can have no conception. Thus G.o.d's "eternal purpose" is his purpose of the ages. So when he is the "King eternal,"[24] and in that capacity gives to his people "life everlasting," he is the King of the ages, and gives life of the ages. So in the n.o.ble hymn attributed to Moses (Psalm xc.), where our version has, "from everlasting to everlasting thou art G.o.d,"[25] the original is, "from age to age thou art, O G.o.d." It has perhaps been a defect of our modern science that it has familiarized us merely with the existence of worlds in s.p.a.ce, and not with their existence in time. It is only in comparatively modern times that the developments of chronological geology and of physical astronomy have brought before us, not only the long ages in which the earth was pa.s.sing through its formative stages, but also the fact that still longer aeons are embraced in the history of the other bodies of our solar system, and of the starry orbs and nebulae. These grand conceptions were already embodied in the Hebrew revelation, and were used there as the means of giving some faint approach to a conception of the unlimited existence of G.o.d himself, of the ages in which his creative work has been going on, and of the future life he has prepared for his redeemed people.

Such views of development and progress are not unknown to many ancient cosmogonies and philosophical systems, but they had no stable foundation in observed fact until the rise of modern geology and physical astronomy; which enable us to affirm that, in addition to those changeless physical laws which cause the bodies of the universe to wheel in unvarying cycles, and all natural powers to reproduce themselves, and, in addition to those organic laws which produce unceasing successions of living individuals, there is a higher law of progress. We can now trace back man, the animals and plants his contemporaries, and others which preceded them, our continents and mountain ranges, and the solid rocks of which they are composed--nay, the very fabric of the solar system itself--to their several origins at distinct points of time; and can maintain that since the earth began to wheel around the sun, no succeeding year has seen it precisely as it was in the year before. The old Hebrew record affirms, and I presume scarcely any sane man really doubts, that this law of progress emanates from the mind and power of one creative Being. When men see in natural law only recurring cycles, they may be pardoned for falling even into the absurdity of believing in eternal succession; but when they see change and progress, and this in a uniform direction, overmastering recurring cycles, and introducing new objects and powers not accounted for by previous objects or powers, they are brought very near to the presence of the Spiritual Creator. And hence, although no science can reach back to the act of creation, this doctrine is much more strongly held in our day by geologists than by physicists. It is quite true that the idea of creative acts has been superseded to a great extent by that of "creation by law," or by that of "evolution." Still behind all there lies a primary creative power; and the validity of these ideas and their bearing on theism and creation we shall have to discuss in the sequel. In one thing only does the Bible here part company with natural science. The Bible goes on into the future, and predicts a final condition of our planet, of which science can from its investigations learn nothing.

3. The Bible recognizes purpose, use, and special adaptation in nature. It is, in short, full of natural theology, akin in some respects to that which has been so elaborately worked out by so many modern writers. Numerous pa.s.sages in support of this will occur to every one who has read the Scriptures. It is necessary here, however, to direct attention to a distinction very obvious in Scripture, but not always attended to by writers on this subject. The Bible maintains the true "final cause" of all nature to be, not its material and special adaptations or its value to man, but the pleasure or satisfaction of the Creator himself. In the earlier periods of Creation, before man was upon the earth, G.o.d contemplates his work and p.r.o.nounces it good. The heavenly hosts praise him, saying, "Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."

Further, the Bible represents intelligences higher than man as sharing in the delight which may be derived from the contemplation of G.o.d's works. When the earth first rose from the waters to greet the light, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of G.o.d shouted for joy." There are many things in nature that strongly impress the naturalist with this same view, that the Creator takes pleasure in his works; and, like human genius in its highest efforts, rejoices in production, even if no sentient being should be ready to sympathize.

The elaborate structures of fossils, of which we have only fragmentary remains, the profusion of natural objects of surpa.s.sing beauty that grow and perish unseen by us, the delicate microscopic mechanism of nearly all organic structures, point to other reasons for beauty and order than those that concern man, or the mere utilities of human beings; and though there are now naturalists who deny absolutely that beauty is an object in nature, and a.s.sign even the colors of flowers and insects to utility alone, and this of a very low order, this doctrine is so repulsive to our higher sentiments that there is little danger of its general acceptance; while the slightest consideration shows that the utilities referred to could have been secured without any of this consummate beauty a.s.sociated with them, and our perception of and delight in which mark in a way beyond the ability of skepticism to cavil at our own spiritual kins.h.i.+p with the Author of all this profusion of beauty. Yet man is represented as the chief created being for whom this earth has been prepared and designed. He obtains dominion over it. A chosen spot is prepared for him, in which not only his wants but his tastes are consulted; and, being made in the image of his Maker, his aesthetic sentiments correspond with the beauties of the Maker's work, and he finds there also food for his reason and imagination. This view of the subject, as well as others already referred to, is finely represented in the address of the Almighty to Job.[26]

The Bible also very often refers to the special adaptations of natural objects and laws to each other, and to the promotion of the happiness of sentient creatures lower than man. The 104th Psalm is replete with notices of such adaptations, and so is the address to Job; and indeed this view seems hardly ever absent from the minds of the Hebrew writers, but has its highest applications in the lilies of the field, that toil not neither do they spin, and the sparrows that are sold for a farthing, yet the heavenly Father has clothed the one with surpa.s.sing beauty, and provides food for the other, nor allows it to fail without his knowledge. I may, by way of farther ill.u.s.tration, merely name a few of the adaptations referred to in Job x.x.xviii. and the following chapters. The winds and the clouds are so arranged as to afford the required supplies of moisture to the wilderness where no man is, to "cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth." For similar objects the tempest is ordered, and the clouds arranged "by wisdom." The adaptations of the wild a.s.s, the wild goat, the ostrich, the migratory birds, the horse, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, to their several habitats, modes of life, and uses in nature, are most vividly sketched and applied as ill.u.s.trations of the consummate wisdom of the Creator, which descends to the minutest details of organization and habit.

It is to be observed here that in holding this doctrine of use and adaptation in nature, the Bible is only consistent with its own theory of rational theism. The Monotheist can not refer nature to a conflict of antagonistic powers and forces. He must recognize in it a unity of plan; and even those things which appear aberrant, irregular, or noxious must have their place in this plan. Hence in the Bible G.o.d is maker not only of the day but of the night, not only of the peaceful cattle but of the voracious crocodile, not only of the suns.h.i.+ne and shower but of the tornado and the earthquake. Further, in all these things G.o.d is manifested, so that we may learn "his eternal power and divinity[27] from the things which he has made," and in all these also there are emblems of his relations to us. This argument from design is in truth the only proof the Bible condescends to urge for the existence of G.o.d; and it is the only one in which in his later days our great English philosopher Mill could see any validity.[28]

If the reader happens to be familiar with the objections to the doctrine of final causes, or teleology, in nature, urged in our day by Spencer, Haeckel, and others, he will have seen from the foregoing statements that these objections are in themselves baseless, or inapplicable to this doctrine as maintained in the Bible. There is no consistency in the position of men who, when they dig a rudely chipped flint out of a bed of gravel, immediately infer an intelligent workman, and who refuse to see any indication of a higher intelligence in the creation of the workman himself. It is a blind philosophy which professes to see in primal atoms the "promise and potency of mind,"

and which fails to perceive that such potency is more inconceivable than the evidence of primary and supreme mind. The men who maintain that wings were not planned for flight, but that flight has produced wings, and thousands of like propositions, are simply amusing themselves with paradoxes to which may very properly be applied the strange word devised by Haeckel to express his theory of nature--_Dysteleology_, or purposelessness. It is to be borne in mind, however, that the teleology of the Bible is not of that narrow kind which would make man the sole object of nature, and the supreme judge of its adaptations. Inasmuch as G.o.d's plan goes over all the ages past and future, and relates to the welfare of all sentient beings known or unknown to us, and also to his own sovereign pleasure as the supreme object, we may not be in a position either to understand or profit by all its parts, and hence may expect to find many mysteries, and many things that we can not at present reconcile with G.o.d's wisdom and goodness. We know but "parts of his ways," the "fullness of his power who can understand." "His judgments are unsearchable," "his ways are past finding out."

4. The law of type or pattern in nature is distinctly indicated in the Bible. This is a principle only recently understood by naturalists, but it has more or less dimly dawned on the minds of many great thinkers in all ages. Nor is this wonderful, for the idea of type is scarcely ever absent from our own conceptions of any work that we may undertake. In any such work we antic.i.p.ate recurring daily toil, like the returning cycles of nature. We look for progress, like that of the growth of the universe. We study adaptation both of the several parts to subordinate uses, and of the whole to some general design. But we also keep in view some pattern, style, or order, according to which the whole is arranged, and the mutual relations of the parts are adjusted. The architect must adhere to some order of architecture, and to some style within that order. The potter, the calico-printer, and the silversmith must equally study uniformity of pattern in their several manufactures. The Almighty Worker has exhibited the same idea in his works. In the animal kingdom, for instance, we have four or more leading types of structure. Taking any one of these--the vertebrate, for example--we have a uniform general plan, embracing the vertebral column constructed of the same elements; the members, whether the arm of man, the limb of the quadruped, or the wing of the bat or the bird, or the swimming-paddle of the whale, built of the same bones. In like manner all the parts of the vertebral column itself in the same animal, whether in the skull, the neck, or the trunk, are composed of the same elementary structures. These types are farther found to be sketched out--first in their more general, and then in their special features--in proceeding from the lower species of the same type to the higher, in proceeding from the earlier to the later stages of embryonic development, and in proceeding from the more ancient to the more recent creatures that have succeeded each other in geological time. Man, the highest of the vertebrates, is thus the archetype, representing and including all the lower and earlier members of the vertebrate type. The above are but trite and familiar examples of a doctrine which may furbish and has furnished the material of volumes. There can be no question that the Hebrew Bible is the oldest book in which this principle is stated. In the first chapter of Genesis we have specific type in the creation of plants and animals after their kinds or species, and in the formation of man in the image and likeness of the Creator; and, as we shall find in the sequel, there are some curious ideas of higher and more general types in the grouping of the creatures referred to. The same idea is indicated in the closing chapters of Job, where the three higher cla.s.ses of the vertebrates are represented by a number of examples, and the typical likeness of one of these--the hippopotamus--to man, seems to be recognized. Dr. McCosh has quoted, as an ill.u.s.tration of the doctrine of types, a very remarkable pa.s.sage from Psalm cx.x.xix.:

"I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.