Part 4

In the first place, we see that the points of connection between geology and religion are numerous and important. A few years since, geology, instead of being appealed to for the illustration of religious truth, was regarded with great jealousy, as a repository of views favorable to infidelity, and even to atheism. But if the summary which I have exhibited of its religious relations be correct, from what other science can we obtain so many illustrations of natural and revealed religion? Distinguished Christian writers are beginning to gather fruit in this new field, and the clusters already presented us by such men as Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Pye Smith, Dr. Buckland, Dr. Harris, and Dr. King, are an earnest of an abundant harvest. I hazard the prediction that the time is not far distant when it will be said of this, as of another noble science, "The undevout _geologist_ is mad."

Secondly. I would bespeak the candid attention of those sceptical minds, that are ever ready to imagine discrepancies between science and religion, to the views which I am about to present. The number of such is indeed comparatively small; yet there are still some prepared to seize upon every new scientific fact, before it is fully developed, that can be made to assume the appearance of opposition to religion. It is strange that they should not ere this time despair of making any serious impression upon the citadel of Christianity. For of all the numerous assaults of this kind that have been made, not one has destroyed even an outpost of religion. Just so soon as the subject was fully understood, every one of them has been abandoned; and even the most violent unbeliever never thinks, at the present day, of arraying them against the Bible. One needs no prophetic inspiration to be confident that every geological objection to Christianity, which perhaps now and then an unbeliever of limited knowledge still employs, will pass into the same limbo of forgetfulness.

Finally. I would throw out a caution to those friends of religion who are very fearful that the discoveries of science will prove injurious to Christianity. Why should the enlightened Christian, who has a correct idea of the firm foundation on which the Bible rests, fear that any disclosures of the arcana of nature should shake its authority or weaken its influence? Is not the God of revelation the God of nature also? and must not his varied works tend to sustain and elucidate, instead of weakening and darkening, one another? Has Christianity suffered because the Copernican system of astronomy has proved true, or because chemistry has demonstrated that the earth is already for the most part oxidized, and therefore cannot literally be burned hereafter? Just as much as gold suffers by passing through the furnace. Yet how many fears agitated the hearts of pious men when these scientific truths were first announced! The very men who felt so strong a conviction of the truth of the Bible, that they were ready to go to the stake in its defence, have trembled and uttered loud notes of warning when the votaries of science have brought out some new fact, that seemed perhaps at first, or when partially understood, to contravene some statement of revelation. The effect has been to make sceptical minds look with suspicion, and sometimes with contempt, upon Christianity itself. It has built up a wall of separation between science and religion, which is yet hardly broken down. For notwithstanding the instructive history of the past on this subject, although every supposed discrepancy between philosophy and religion has vanished as soon as both were thoroughly understood, yet so soon as geology began to develop her marvellous truths, the cry of danger to religion became again the watchword, and the precursor of a more extended and severe attack upon that science than any other has ever experienced, and the prelude, I am sorry to say, of severe personal charges of infidelity against many an honest friend of religion.

In contrast to the contracted views and groundless fears that have been described, it is refreshing to meet with such sentiments as the following, from men eminent for learning, and some of them veterans in theological science. With these I close this lecture.

"Those rocks which stand forth in the order of their formation," says Dr. Chalmers, "and are each imprinted with their own peculiar fossil remains, have been termed the archives of nature, where she hath recorded the changes that have taken place in the history of the globe. They are made to serve the purpose of scrolls or inscriptions, on which we might read of those great steps and successions by which the earth has been brought into its present state; and should these archives of nature be but truly deciphered, we are not afraid of their being openly confronted with the archives of revelation. It is unmanly to blink the approach of light, from whatever quarter of observation it may fall upon us; and those are not the best friends of Christianity, who feel either dislike or alarm when the torch of science, or the torch of history, is held up to the Bible. For ourselves, we are not afraid when the eye of an intrepid, if it be only a sound philosophy, scrutinizes, however jealously, all its pages. We have no dread of any apprehended conflict between the doctrines of Scripture and the discoveries of science, persuaded, as we are, that whatever story the geologists of our day shall find engraven on the volume of nature, it will only accredit that story which is graven on the volume of revelation."--_Chalmers's Works_, vol. ii. p. 227.

"For our own part," says Rev. Henry Melville, "we have no fears that any discoveries of science will really militate against the disclosures of Scripture. We remember how, in darker days, ecclesiastics set themselves against philosophers who were investigating the motions of the heavenly bodies, apprehensive that the new theories were at variance with the Bible, and therefore resolved to denounce them as heresies, and stop their spread by persecution. But truth triumphed; bigotry and ignorance could not long prevail to the hiding from the world the harmonious walkings of stars and planets; and ever since, the philosophy which laid open the wonders of the universe hath proved herself the handmaid of revelation, which divulged secrets far beyond her gaze. And thus, we are persuaded, shall it always be; science may scale new heights and explore new depths, but she shall bring back nothing from her daring and successful excursions which will not, when rightly understood, yield a fresh tribute of testimony to the Bible. Infidelity may watch her progress with eagerness, exulting in the thought that she is furnishing facts with which the Christian system may be strongly assailed; but the champions of revelation may confidently attend her in every march, assured that she will find nothing which contradicts, if it do not actually confirm, the word which they know to be divine."--_Sermons, 2d Am. edit._ vol. ii. p. 298.

"Shall it then any longer be said," says Dr. Buckland, "that a science, which unfolds such abundant evidence of the being and attributes of God, can reasonably be viewed in any other light than as the efficient auxiliary and handmaid of religion? Some few there still may be, whom timidity, or prejudice, or want of opportunity, allow not to examine its evidence; who are alarmed by the novelty, or surprised by the extent and magnitude, of the views which geology forces on their attention, and who would rather have kept closed the volume of witness, which has been sealed up for ages, beneath the surface of the earth, than impose upon the student in natural theology the duty of studying its contents;--a duty in which, for lack of experience, they may anticipate a hazardous or a laborious task, but which, by those engaged in it, is found to afford a rational, and righteous, and delightful exercise of their highest faculties, in multiplying the evidences of the existence, and attributes, and providence of God."

"It follows then," says Dr. J. Pye Smith, "as a universal truth, that the Bible, faithfully interpreted, erects no bar against the most free and extensive investigation, the most comprehensive and searching induction. Let but the investigation be sufficient, and the induction honest; let observation take its farthest flight; let experiment penetrate into all the recesses of nature; let the veil of ages be lifted up from all that has been hitherto unknown,--if such a course were possible, religion need not fear; Christianity is secure, and true science will always pay homage to the divine Creator and Sovereign, _of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things; and unto whom be glory forever_."--_Lectures on Scripture and Geology, 4th London edit._ p. 223.

LECTURE II.

THE EPOCH OF THE EARTH'S CREATION UNREVEALED.

The Mosaic account of the creation of the universe has always been celebrated for its sublime simplicity. Though the subject be one of unparalleled grandeur, the writer makes not the slightest effort at rhetorical embellishment, but employs language which a mere child cannot misapprehend. How different, in this respect, is this inspired record from all uninspired efforts that have been made to describe the origin of the world!

But notwithstanding the great simplicity and clearness of this description, its precise meaning has occasioned as much discussion as almost any passage of Scripture. This results chiefly from its great brevity. Men with different views of inspiration, cosmogony, and philosophy, engage in its examination, not so much to ascertain its meaning, as to find out whether it teaches their favorite speculative views; and because it says nothing about them, they attempt to fasten those views upon it, and thus make it teach a great deal more than the mind of the Spirit. My simple object, at this time, is to ascertain whether the Bible fixes the time when the universe was created out of nothing.

The prevalent opinion, until recently, has been, that we are there taught that the world began to exist on the first of the six days of creation, or about six thousand years ago. Geologists, however, with one voice, declare that their science indicates the earth to have been of far higher antiquity. The question becomes, therefore, of deep interest, whether the common interpretation of the Mosaic record is correct.

Let us, in the first place, examine carefully the terms of that record; without reference to any of the conclusions of science.

A preliminary inquiry, however, will here demand attention, to which I have already given some thoughts in the first lecture. The inquiry relates to the mode in which the sacred writers describe natural phenomena.

Do they adapt their descriptions to the views and feelings of philosophers, or even the common people, in the nineteenth century, or to the state of knowledge and the prevalent opinions of a people but slightly removed from barbarism?

Do they write as if they meant to correct the notions of men on natural subjects, when they knew them to be wrong; or as if they did not mean to decide whether the popular opinion were true or false? These points have been examined with great skill and candor by a venerable clergyman of England, whose praise is in all the American churches, and whose skill in sacred philology, and profound acquaintance with the Bible, none will question, any more than they will his deep-toned piety and enlarged and liberal views of men and things. I refer to Dr. J. Pye Smith, lately at the head of the Homerton Divinity College, near London.[6]

He first examines the style in which the Old Testament describes the character and operations of Jehovah, and shows that it is done "in language borrowed from the bodily and mental constitution of man, and from those opinions concerning the works of God in the natural world, which were generally received by the people to whom the blessings of revelation were granted." Constant reference is made to material images, and to human feelings and conduct, as if the people addressed were almost incapable of spiritual and abstract ideas. This, of course, gives a notion of God infinitely beneath the glories of his character; but to uncultivated minds it was the only representation of his character that would give them any idea of it. Nay, even in this enlightened age, such descriptions are far more impressive than any other upon the mass of mankind; while those, whose minds are more enlightened, find no difficulty in inculcating the pure truth respecting God from these comparatively gross descriptions.

Now, if, upon a point of such vast importance as the divine character, revelation, thus condescends to human weakness and ignorance, much more might we expect it, in regard to the less important subject of natural phenomena. We find, accordingly, that they are described as they appear to the common eye, and not in their real nature; or, in the language of Rosenmuller, the Scriptures speak "according to optical, and not physical truth." They make no effort to correct even the grossest errors, on these subjects, that then prevailed.

The earth, as we have seen on a former occasion, is described as immovable, in the centre of the universe, and the heavenly bodies as revolving round it diurnally. The firmament over us is represented as a solid, extended substance, sustaining an ocean above it, with openings, or windows, through which the waters may descend. In respect to the human system, the Scriptures refer intellectual operations to the reins, or the region of the kidneys, and pain to the bones. In short, the descriptions of natural things are adapted to the very erroneous notions which prevailed in the earliest ages of society and among the common people. But it is as easy to interpret such descriptions in conformity to the present state of physical science, as it is to divest the scriptural representations of the Deity of their material dress, and make them conform to the spiritual views that now prevail. No one regards it as any objection to the Old Testament, that it gives a description of the divine character so much less spiritual than the views adopted by the theologians of the nineteenth century; why then should they regard it as derogatory to inspiration to adopt the same method as to natural objects?

These considerations will afford us some assistance in rightly interpreting the description of the creation, in the first chapter of Genesis, to which we will now turn our attention.

_In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness, and the light he called day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day._

The first question that arises, on reading this passage, is, whether the creation here described was a creation out of nothing, or out of preexisting materials. The latter opinion has been maintained by some able, and generally judicious commentators and theologians, such as Doederlin and Dathe in Germany, Milton in England, and Bush and Schmucker in this country. They do not deny that the Bible, in other places, teaches distinctly the creation of the universe out of nothing. But they contend that the word translated _to create_, in the first verse of Genesis, teaches only a renovation, or remodelling, of the universe from matter already in existence.

That there is a degree of ambiguity in all languages, in the words that signify to _create_, to _make_, to _form_, and the like, cannot be doubted; that is, these words may be properly used to describe the production of a substance out of matter already in existence, as well as out of nothing; and, therefore, we must resort to the context, or the nature of the subject, to ascertain in which of those senses such words are used. The same word, for instance, (_bawraw_,) that is used in the first verse of Genesis, to describe the creation of the universe, is employed in the 27th verse of the same chapter, to describe the formation of man out of the dust of the earth. There was, however, no peculiar ambiguity in the use of the Hebrew words _bawraw_ and _awsaw_, which correspond to our words _create_ and _make_; and, therefore, it is not necessary to be an adept in Hebrew literature to judge of the question under consideration. We have only to determine whether the translation of the Mosaic account of the creation most reasonably teaches a production of the matter of the universe from nothing, or only its renovation, and we have decided what is taught in the original.

Now, there can hardly be a doubt but Moses intended to teach, in this passage, that the universe owed its origin to Jehovah, and not to the idols of the heathen; and since all acknowledge that other parts of Scripture teach, that, when the world was made, it was produced out of nothing, why should we not conclude that the same truth is taught in this passage? The language certainly will bear that meaning; indeed, it is almost as strong as language can be to express such a meaning; and does not the passage look like a distinct avowal of this great truth, at the very commencement of the inspired record, in order to refute the opinion, so prevalent in early times, that the world is eternal?

The next inquiry concerning the passage relates to the phrase _the heavens and the earth_. Does it comprehend the universe? So it must have been understood by the Jews; for their language could not furnish a more comprehensive phrase to designate the universe. True, these words, like those already considered, are used sometimes in a limited sense. But in this place their broadest signification is in perfect accordance with the scope of the passage and with the whole tenor of the Scripture. We may, therefore, conclude with much certainty, that God intended in this place to declare the great truth, that there was a time in past eternity when the whole material universe came into existence at his irresistible fiat:--a truth eminently proper to stand at the head of a divine revelation.

But when did this stupendous event occur? Does the phrase _in the beginning_ show us when? Surely not; for no language can be more indefinite as to time. Whenever it is used in the Bible, it merely designates the commencement of the series of events, or the periods of time, that are described. _In the beginning was the word_; that is, at the commencement of things the word was in existence; consequently was from eternity. But in Genesis the act of creation is represented by this phrase simply as the commencement of the material universe, at a certain point of time in past eternity, which is not chronologically fixed. The first verse merely informs us, that the first act of the Deity in relation to the universe was the creation of the heavens and the earth out of nothing.

It is contended, however, that the first verse is so connected with the six days' work of creation, related in the subsequent verse, that we must understand the phrase _in the beginning_ as the commencement of the first day. This is the main point to be examined in relation to the passage, and therefore deserves a careful consideration.

If the first verse must be understood as a summary account of the six days' work which follows in detail, then _the beginning_ was the commencement of the first day, and of course only about six thousand years ago. But if it may be understood as an announcement of the act of creation at some indefinite point in past duration, then a period may have intervened between that first creative act and the subsequent six days' work. I contend that the passage admits of either interpretation, without any violence to the language or the narration.

The first of these interpretations is the one usually received, and, therefore, it will be hardly necessary to attempt to show that it is admissible. The second has had fewer advocates, and will, therefore, need to be examined.

The particle _and_, which is used in our translation of this passage to connect the successive sentences, furnishes an argument to the English reader against this second mode of interpretation, which has far less force with one acquainted with the original Hebrew. The particle thus translated is the general connecting particle of the Hebrew language, and "may be copulative, or disjunctive, or adversative; or it may express a mere annexation to a former topic of discourse,--the connection being only that of the subject matter, or the continuation of the composition. This continuative use forms one of the most marked peculiarities of the Hebrew idiom, and it comprehends every variety of mode in which one train of sentiment may be appended to another."--J. Pye Smith, _Scrip. and Geol._ p. 195, 4th edit.

In the English Bible this particle is usually rendered by the copulative conjunction _and_; in the Septuagint, and in Josephus, however, it sometimes has the sense of _but_. And some able commentators are of opinion that it admits of a similar translation in the passage under consideration. The elder Rosenmuller says we might read it thus: "_In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Afterwards the earth was desolate_," &c. Or the particle _afterwards_ may be placed at the beginning of any of the succeeding verses. Thus, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was desolate, and darkness was upon the face of the waters. _Afterwards_ the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Dr. Dathe, who has been styled, by good authority, (Dr. Smith,) "a cautious and judicious critic," renders the first two verses in this manner: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; but afterwards the earth became waste and desolate." If such translations as these be admissible, the passage not only allows, but expressly teaches, that a period intervened between the first act of creation and the six days' work. And if such an interval be allowed, it is all that geology requires to reconcile its facts to revelation. For during that time, all the changes of mineral constitution and organic life, which that science teaches to have taken place on the globe, previous to the existence of man, may have occurred.

It is a presumption in favor of such an interpretation that the second verse describes the state of the globe after its creation and before the creation of light. For if there were no interval between the fiat that called matter into existence, and that which said, _Let there be light_, why should such a description of the earth's waste and desolate condition be given?

But if there had been such an intervening period, it is perfectly natural that such a description should precede the history of successive creative acts, by which the world was adorned with light and beauty, and filled with inhabitants.

But, after all, would such an interpretation have ever been thought of, had not the discoveries of geology seemed to demand it?