The Story of Creation as Told By Theology and By Science Part 2

4. The age of mammalia. The first remains--two teeth of a small marsupial--were discovered in the Rhaetic beds of the Upper Trias, and a somewhat similar discovery has been made in beds of corresponding periods in Devons.h.i.+re and North America. During the subsequent periods the numbers slowly increase, till in the Tertiary strata the mammalian becomes the predominant type.

5. The earliest traces of man--flint implements--are found in the Post Tertiary strata.

We have then in the Mosaic narrative five points which correspond in order and character to five points in the Geological record; and with reference to two, at least, of these points, we cannot imagine any cause for the coincidence in the shape of a fortunate conjecture, because, so far as we can tell, there was nothing apparent on the face of the earth to suggest to the mind of the writer the long past existence of such a state of things as has been revealed to us by the discovery of the Carboniferous and Reptilian remains. It seems then that Moses must have been in possession of information which could not be obtained from any ordinary source. But if he was thus acquainted with the order in which the development took place, there is nothing improbable in the supposition that he was not altogether ignorant of the length of time which that development required.

Let us suppose then that his knowledge did extend a little farther; let us suppose him to have been aware that each of the Creations which he describes was a process occupying many thousands of years--how could he have imparted this knowledge to his readers? What modification could he have introduced into his narrative, which without changing its general character, or detracting from its extreme simplicity, should have embodied this fact?

This amounts to the question: What words significant of definite periods of time were in use, and consequently at the writer's command, at this time? No language is very rich in such words; but in the early Hebrew they seem to have been very scanty. The day, week, month, year, and generation (this last usually implying the time from the birth of a man to that of his son, but possibly in Gen. xv. 16, a century) are all that we find. These in their literal sense were evidently inadequate. Nor could the deficiency be supplied by numerals, even if the general style of the narrative would have admitted their use, for we find in Genesis no numeral beyond the thousand. There was no word at all in early Hebrew equivalent to our words "period" and "season." When such an idea was to be expressed, it was done by the use of the word "day," either in the singular, or more commonly in the plural.

Thus, "the time of harvest;" "the season of the first ripe fruit,"

are literally "the days of harvest," "the days of the first ripe fruit." In Isaiah x.x.xiv. 8, the singular is used, and followed by the word year in the same indefinite sense. "It is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion."

The only method then which was open to the writer was to make use of one of the words above mentioned in an extended sense, just as he used the word [Hebrew script] (earth) in several senses. But if one of them was to be employed, the one which he has chosen seems the best; not only because its use in that way was common, but because the brevity of the time covered by its natural significance would in itself be a hint of the way in which it was used. That which was impossible in a day might be possible in a year or a generation. The extended significance of the word would become apparent just in proportion as the time covered by its natural significance was inadequate for the processes ascribed to it.

An additional reason may, perhaps, be found for the choice of the word "day," in the accordance of its phenomena with some, at least, of the processes which Moses describes--the dawn, the light slowly increasing to the perfect day, and then fading away gradually into night--these do seem aptly to represent the first scanty appearance, the gradual increase, and the vast development of plants, of the reptiles and of the mammalia, and in the case of the first two cla.s.ses, their gradual pa.s.sing away.

But if the word was thus employed in a figurative, and not in its natural sense, we may expect to find some indications in the context that this was the case. Such indications we do find. The fact that the work of Creation was distributed into days, is, in itself, significant. There is no reason to believe that in the opinion of the writer each day's work tasked to the utmost the power of the Creator. Moses was evidently as well aware as we are, that to Him it would have been equally easy, had He so willed, to call everything into instant and perfect being at a single word.

Nor was the detailed description necessary to establish the foundation of all religion--the right of the Creator to the entire obedience of His creature For this the short recapitulation which (ch. ii. 4) prefaces the more detailed account of man's peculiar relation to his Maker would have been sufficient. Some purpose, however, there must have been for this more particular account which precedes the summary. We may trace two probable reasons. It brings before us the method of the Divine Working in the light of an orderly progress. But beside this, it is of infinite service to us, in enabling us more thoroughly to realize the Fatherly character and ever watchful care of our Creator. As far as that care itself was concerned, it was unimportant whether the work was instantaneous or progressive; but it was very important to us, in so far as it affected our conceptions of G.o.d, and of our relations to Him. For all our conceptions of G.o.d must rest ultimately on our self-consciousness; we can form no idea of Him except in so far as that idea is a.n.a.logous to something which comes within the range of our own experience. Now to us and to our feelings there is a very wide difference between an act performed in a moment, and a work over which we have lovingly dwelt, and to which we have devoted our time, our labour, and our thought, for months or years. The one may pa.s.s from our mind and be forgotten as quickly as it was performed, but in the other we commonly feel an abiding interest. When therefore the great Creator is represented to us as thus dwelling upon His work, carrying it on step by step, through the long ages, to its completion, we find it far less difficult to realize that other truth, so precious to us, that His care and His tender mercies are over all His works, that the loving watchfulness which still upholds all, and provides for all, is but the continuance of that care which was displayed in the creation of all. Creation, Providence and Grace are blended together in one continuous manifestation of the Divine Wisdom, Power, and Love.

But for this purpose it is of little importance to us whether Creation is described as taking place in a moment, or in six ordinary days. If the division into six days indicates orderly progress and watchful care, we naturally expect to find the same indications in each of the subordinate parts. To our imperfect conceptions each single day's work would bear that same character of vast instantaneous action which seemed so undesirable. It would not help us to realize what it is so important that we should thoroughly feel. The very fact then that the history of Creation is divided into days carries with it a strong presumption that those days are not ordinary days.

In the 14th and following verses, when Moses is describing the formation of the heavenly luminaries, he is particular in mentioning that one part of their office was to "rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness."

Hence it is sometimes inferred that he was under a mistake in speaking of day and night at an earlier period. But such a mistake seems incredible. To suppose that Moses did not perceive that what he wrote in the 14th and following verses was incompatible with what he had written in the 4th and 5th verses, if such an incompatibility really existed, is to impute to him an amount of ignorance or carelessness which is at variance with the whole character of his writings from beginning to end. Instead of this it will be shown hereafter that, in all probability, his statements rested on a wide knowledge of facts. If then, under such circ.u.mstances, he uses the word "day" long before he comes to the formation of the sun, the natural inference is that he did so designedly--that it was his intention that his readers should understand that he was speaking of something very different from that natural day which is regulated by sunrise and sunset.

The way too in which he introduces the mention of the first and following days is apparently significant, though its full meaning is probably more than we can at present understand. In ver. 5 he carefully defines light and darkness as the equivalents of day and night; but in the next verse he pa.s.ses over these words, and introduces two new ones, which he has not defined; these two words being as much out of place before the creation of the atmosphere as light and darkness are supposed to have been before the Creation of the Sun. And not only does he introduce two new words, but he introduces them in a very remarkable and, with our present knowledge, unaccountable manner. Had he said "And there was morning and there was evening, one day," we should have found no difficulty in harmonizing; his words with what he had previously said concerning the evolution of light. But he first of all reverses the order, and then does not supply the natural termination to his sentence--"And there was evening and there was morning,"--"one night" would seem to be the natural conclusion; but instead of that we read, "there was evening and there was morning, one day." Whatever farther significance then may be hereafter discovered in this remarkable statement, one thing at all events seems clear, that it was designed to call attention to the fact that the day spoken of was not a natural day. Probably certain stages in the progress of the work were indicated, which farther investigations may disclose to us. A few years ago such stages seemed to be discernible, but the continued progress of discovery has partly obliterated the supposed lines of demarcation. Still further discoveries may bring to light other divisions.

In the opening of the second chapter we are told that G.o.d rested on the seventh day from all His work, and His rest is spoken of in such a way as to carry our thoughts at once to the Fourth Commandment. In that commandment the duty of hallowing a seventh portion of our time is based on the fact that "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day." But the a.n.a.logy entirely fails unless the days of the Creator's work bore the same proportion to the day of His rest which man's six days of labour bear to his Sabbath. Now we are expressly told in other parts of Scripture that the Divine Sabbath is not yet ended (Heb. iii. iv.), and we are led to infer that it will not end till He that sitteth upon the throne shall say, "Behold I make all things new." If then the Sabbath of the Creator is measured by thousands of years--the whole duration of man upon the earth--it follows that the days of His work must have been of corresponding length.

One more indication, so strong that in itself it seems sufficient to decide the question, is to be found in the 4th verse of the second chapter. [Footnote: It is not unusual with critics of the German school to a.s.sert that this is an independent account of the Creation. But the a.s.sertion does not appear to have any valid foundation. The supposed grounds for it are well discussed in the "Speaker's Commentary," vol. i. p. 23, and in "Aids to Faith,"

Essay v., Sections 2, 4, 5. It has already been pointed out that the supposed variations in order rest entirely on the translation.] In that verse all that is ascribed to the six days in the preceding chapter is summed up as the work of a single day.

If then the word is used in a natural sense in the first chapter, it is clearly used in an extended sense in the second chapter. But if it had been used in a natural sense in the first chapter, there would have been no need whatever for its use here. Its place would have been taken--and most appropriately--by the word [Hebrew script], a week, with which Moses was familiar (ch. xxix. 28; Deut. xvi. 10). Its use here would have connected the weekly division of time with the Creation, and as its presence would have been thus strongly significant, its absence is a no less significant indication that the six days spoken of in the preceding chapter are something very different from six natural days.

Three points, therefore, seem to be clear:--

1. However the chapter may be interpreted, there are in it coincidences with ascertained facts so marked that they cannot possibly be fortuitous. They prove therefore that Moses was in possession of some accurate information on the subject on which he was writing.

As we proceed with our subject we shall come upon many more indications of this, some of them exceedingly remarkable. It is therefore by no means improbable that he was acquainted with the fact, that the work which he was describing was one which had occupied a long series of ages.

2. Supposing that Moses was acquainted with all which has now been discovered by geologists, and that he was desirous of imparting that knowledge to his readers, the language which he has employed is the most appropriate that, under the circ.u.mstances, he could have chosen for the purpose. 3. The phenomena exhibited by the context indicate not only that he had this intention, but that he also intended that such of his readers as were competent to entertain the idea, should have sufficient indications to guide them to his meaning.

Whatever then may be the real significance of the "days"--a point which the knowledge at present in our possession seems insufficient to explain--it seems very clear that something very different from natural days is intended. And this is a sufficient answer to the objection which is founded on that interpretation.

That there would be very many points which as yet we are unable fully to understand, has been already shown to be not only possible but probable; and among them it appears this question of the true meaning of the days must be left for the present. When we come to consider subsequently the great number of points in which harmony between the narrative and discovered facts is brought out on investigation, [Footnote: Chap. v.] we may well be content to leave many points unexplained till our knowledge is greatly increased.

SECTION 2. FIRST TRACES OF LIFE.

The second objection has reference to the relative antiquity of the various forms of life, of which we find traces in the successive strata of the rocks. If it be a.s.sumed that the apparent coincidences which have been pointed out between the Mosaic narrative and the geological records are real, and that the traditional interpretation is the true one, then we ought to find--

1. No traces at all of animal life below the Trias.

2. No traces of mammalia below the Cretaceous formation.

But the examination of the rocks leads to a very different result.

Traces of life have been found, probably in the Laurentian, certainly in the Cambrian rocks. The earliest known fish is the Pteraspis, which has been discovered in the upper Silurian formation at Leintwardine, in Shrops.h.i.+re. The first member of the reptilian order, Archegesaurus, occurs in the coal measures; and the first traces of a mammalian--two teeth--occur at the junction of the Lias and Trias. In every case, then, we meet with traces of life at a period long anterior to that at which we should naturally expect them.

In order to ascertain the real weight of this objection we hare to investigate two points:--

1. What are the animals to which the Mosaic Record refers?

2. What does it really tell us about the creation of those animals?

1. It is commonly a.s.sumed that all living creatures are comprehended under the terms used in describing the work of the fifth and sixth days. But a more careful examination shows that there is no real ground for this a.s.sumption. The first point which presents itself is the omission of the Hebrew word for fish, [Hebrew script], in the account of the fifth day--an omission the more marked, because the word does occur in vv. 26, 28, in which dominion over all living creatures is granted to man. The two words which are used in ver. 21 are [Hebrew script] from [Hebrew script], to stretch out, to extend, and [Hebrew script], from [Hebrew script], identical with [Hebrew script], to trample with the feet. The description then points us to animals of great size, especially length, which trample with the feet. "Great sea- monsters," Gesenius calls them. These words clearly indicate the Saurian and allied tribes of reptiles; and when we turn to the rocks we find the remains of these creatures occurring in great numbers, precisely at the point which Moses a.s.signs to them.

Again, in the account of the sixth day, three cla.s.ses of animals are mentioned; but we have no means whatever of ascertaining what kinds of animals were comprehended in these three cla.s.ses, or whether they included all the mammalia then known to the Jews; much less then are we justified in inferring that they comprehend all mammalia that were then, or ever had been in existence.

But it may perhaps appear strange, that the account of the Creation of living beings should be of such limited extent, embracing only reptiles, birds, and mammals. A little consideration, however, will remove this apparent strangeness. We should, perhaps, naturally expect to have some notice of the first appearance of animal life; but from the circ.u.mstances under which Moses wrote such a notice was simply impossible. The lowest and simplest form of life with which we are now acquainted is the Amoeba Princeps, a minute particle of jelly-like substance, called sarcode--scarcely larger than a small grain of sand--and with no distinction of organs or limbs. [Footnote: Carpenter, The Microscope and its Revelations, p. 428.] The oldest known fossil, Eozoon Canadense, is of a cla.s.s but little above this--the foraminifera; we may therefore deem it probable that life began with some form not very unlike the Amoeba. How could the formation of such a creature have been described to the contemporaries of Moses? They could have had no idea of its existence. To describe the first beginnings of life then, was, under the circ.u.mstances, an absolute impossibility. But if a part only of the long series of animal life could possibly be noticed, the determination of the point at which he should first speak of it would be left to the writer, guided as he would be by considerations of the object for which, and the persons for whom, he wrote, which we must necessarily in our position be unable duly to estimate. All that we are ent.i.tled to expect is that the account, so far as it extends, should be in accordance with facts.

The next point to be ascertained is, "Does the Mosaic Record intimate that the creations of reptiles on the fifth, and of mammals on the sixth days were entirely new creations, i.e. that no creatures of these cla.s.ses had existed before?" There is no direct a.s.sertion to this effect; it is only an inference, though a natural one, when we consider the circ.u.mstances under which it was drawn. When, however, we turn to the original we find the 20th verse worded in a way which seems designed to avoid the suggestion of such an inference. Literally translated it is, "Let the waters swarm swarms, the soul of life." Such creatures then may have existed before, but not in swarms. And in the account of the sixth day, as has been already noticed, three forms of mammalia are specified, and we have no knowledge as to the varieties included in these three forms. Nor is there here any intimation that it was the first creation of such animals. The greater part of the earlier fossils belong to the Marsupialia and Mouotremata, and we have no reason to believe that these cla.s.ses have existed in historic times in Europe, Asia, or Africa. They are now confined (with the exception of the opossums, which are American) to Australia. They were therefore entirely unknown to the Jews, and in consequence necessarily omitted in a doc.u.ment intended for their use.

What has been said with reference to reptiles is also applicable to birds. The first traces of them are found in the ornithichnites of the new red sandstone, and the first fossil--Archaeopteryx, in the Solenhofen strata, belonging to the Oolite. From the nature of the case the remains are necessarily scanty, since birds would be less exposed than other animals to those casualties which would lead to their preservation as fossils, but enough traces have been found to show that in the period corresponding to the fifth day they were very numerous, and attained in many instances to a gigantic stature. A height of from ten to twelve feet was not uncommon.

When, therefore, we notice that the fifth and sixth days correspond to two periods, in the first of which reptiles and birds, and in the second mammalia, were the prominent types, the words of the sacred historian seem to have an adequate interpretation in that fact. There is no contradiction between the two records. Moses describes but a very few of the facts which geology has brought to light, but those few facts are in exact accordance with the results of independent observation. The acts of Creation of which Moses speaks correspond to remarkable developments of the orders of animals to which he refers. To have noticed the time of the appearance of the first individual member of each cla.s.s, as distinguished from the time when that cla.s.s occupied the foremost place in the ranks of creation, would have been inconsistent with the simplicity and brevity of the narrative, while it would have been unintelligible to those for whom the narrative was intended, since these primeval types had pa.s.sed out of existence ages before the creation of man. It is, however, noteworthy, that the first appearances of the several orders follow precisely the same arrangement as the times of their greatest development.

SECTION 3. SIMULTANEOUS CREATION.

This objection may be very briefly disposed of, though it appears to be one which has made a very deep impression on Mr. Darwin.

[Footnote: Origin of Species, p 1, &c.] It is entirely an inference drawn from the old interpretation of the six days. While that interpretation was received it followed, as a necessary consequence, that the creation of all kinds of plants on the third day, and of reptiles, birds, and mammalia on the fifth and sixth days respectively, must have been simultaneous. But if that interpretation is proved to be untenable, the inference drawn from it falls to the ground. The language of the narrative seems to point in an opposite direction. There is one instance in the chapter in which the words used seem to point to an instantaneous result. "And G.o.d said 'Let light be' and Light was," though in this case the words probably have a further significance, which has been brought out by the discovery of the nature of light. But in these three cases the command is first recorded, with (in two cases) the addition "and it was so," and then the narrative goes on to speak of the fulfilment of the command, as if the command and its fulfilment were distinct things.

SECTION 4. DEATH. CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS.

These two objections may advantageously be considered together, since the fifth is in a great measure, though not entirely, dependent upon the fourth. For if death, in the common sense of the word, was unknown till the fall of Adam, it follows as a necessary consequence that no carnivorous creatures could have existed before that time. On the other hand, it may be considered as the natural death of large cla.s.ses of animals to be devoured by the carnivora; so that if there were no carnivorous animals prior to the Fall, one of the avenues to death, at all events, had not been opened.

There is really no ground at all for the first of these objections in the actual history of Creation. It is only when the threat held out to Adam (ii. 17) is viewed in the light of St. Paul's comment upon it (Rom. v. 12; viii. 20) that the supposition can be entertained. This, then, is the real foundation of the difficulty.

But, first of all, there is no reason to suppose that St. Paul's words refer to any death but that of man. Now, it may well have been, that although man, having a body exactly a.n.a.logous to those of the animals, would naturally have been subject, like them, to the ordinary laws of decay and death, yet in the case of a creature who possessed so much which raised him above the level of the lower animals, there may have been some provision made which should exempt him from this necessity. That this was the case appears probable from the mention made in the narrative of the Tree of Life. We have no intimation whether the action of the fruit of this tree was physical or sacramental, but that, in one way or other, it had the power to preserve man from physical death seems almost certain from the way in which it is spoken of after the Fall (iii. 22-24). But the mention of the Tree of Life leads to the inference that the case of Adam was entirely exceptional.

In the next place, it does not seem probable that that dissolution of the body which was the natural lot of all other animals was the whole, or even the chief part, of the evil consequence of Adam's fall. That it was included in the penalty seems probable, but it only const.i.tuted a comparatively unimportant part of that penalty.

The threat was, "In THE DAY that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," and we cannot doubt that the Divine words were exactly fulfilled, though Adam's natural death did not take place for many hundred years. But the guilty creatures, covering their nakedness with fig-leaves, crouching among the trees of the garden in the vain hope of hiding themselves from the face of their Maker, who were to transmit an inheritance of sin and shame and misery to their yet unborn posterity, were surely very different beings from those whom the Creator but a short time before had p.r.o.nounced "very good." The true life of the soul was gone; the image of G.o.d defaced. This was the real, the terrible death. If death in its full sense means nothing more than the dissolution of the body, our Lord's words, "He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die," have failed of their fulfilment. That promise has been in force for more than eighteen centuries, and yet no case has occurred of a Christian, however holy he may have been, or however strong his faith, who has escaped the universal doom.

The Church of the Patriarchs could point to an Enoch, the Jewish Church to an Elijah, who were exempted from the universal penalty; but Christianity can point to no such exemption, nor does she need it. To her members, to die is to sleep in Jesus; to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, for the penalty of death is cancelled.

Though, then, it seems by no means improbable that Adam, if he had not fallen, would have been exempt from the dissolution of the body, yet this is not absolutely certain, and even if it were certain, his case would be an exceptional one: no inference as to the immortality of the animal creation could have been drawn from it.

The supposition that all animals prior to the fall lived entirely on vegetable food rests partly on this groundless inference, and partly on the Divine Words recorded in verse 30: "And to every beast of the field, and to every fowl of the air, have I given every green herb for meat." But it is important to notice that these words are not recorded as addressed to the animals, like the command to be fruitful and multiply. Had this been the case, any omission to mention the flesh of other animals, might have been looked upon as significant. Instead of this they are addressed to Adam, and they follow other words in which the same things are a.s.signed to Adam for his food. They come then in the form of a limitation to the rights granted to Adam, rather than of a definition of the rights of the lower animals. Adam was to have the free use of every green herb, but he was not to account himself the exclusive owner of it. The beast of the field and the fowl of the air were to be co-proprietors with him; they were to have the use of it as freely as himself; but that they were to be restricted to the use of vegetable food nowhere appears.

Accordingly we know that carnivorous creatures have existed from the first, and that though to a superficial observer this may appear a cruel arrangement, yet in reality it is a most merciful provision, by which aged, weak, or maimed animals are preserved from the agonies of death by starvation.

We may conclude then that there is no real contradiction between the conclusions at which Geologists have arrived, and the words actually made use of by Moses, but that all such supposed contradictions have arisen from meanings being attached to those words, which, though possible or even probable, were not the only possible meanings. When the difficulty has been suggested, and the words have in consequence been more closely examined, it appears that they are capable of an interpretation in strict harmony with every fact which Geologists have as yet discovered, and that in many cases there are not wanting indications that the writer intended them to be thus understood.