Part 5

This can be answered by inquiring whether any of the writers on the Bible, who lived before geology existed, or had laid claims for a longer period previous to man's creation, whether any of these adopted such an interpretation. We have abundant evidence that they did. Many of the early fathers of the church were very explicit on this subject. Augustin, Theodoret, and others, supposed that the first verse of Genesis describes the creation of matter distinct from, and prior to, the work of six days. Justin Martyr and Gregory Nazianzen believed in an indefinite period between the creation of matter and the subsequent arrangement of all things. Still more explicit are Basil, Caesarius, and Origen. It would be easy to quote similar opinions from more modern writers, who lived previous to the developments of geology. But I will give a paragraph from Bishop Patrick only, who wrote one hundred and fifty years ago.

"How long," says he, "all things continued in mere confusion after the chaos was created, before light was extracted from it, we are not told. It might have been, for any thing that is here revealed, a great while; and all that time the mighty Spirit was making such motions in it, as prepared, disposed, and ripened every part of it for such productions as were to appear successively in such spaces of time as are here afterwards mentioned by Moses, who informs us, that after things were digested and made ready (by long fermentation perhaps) to be wrought into form, God produced every day, for six days together, some creature or other, till all was finished, of which light was the very first."--_Commentary, in loco._

Such evidence as this is very satisfactory. For at the present day one cannot but fear that the discoveries of geology may too much influence him insensibly to put a meaning upon Scripture which would never have been thought of, if not suggested by those discoveries, and which the language cannot bear. But those fathers of the church cannot be supposed under the influence of any such bias; and, therefore, we may suppose the passage in itself to admit of the existence of a long period between the beginning and the first demiurgic day.

Against these views philologists have urged several objections not to be despised. One is, that light did not exist till the first day, and the sun and other luminaries not till the fourth day; whereas the animals and plants dug from the rocks could not have existed without light. They could not, therefore, have lived in the supposed long period previous to the six days.

If it be indeed true, that light was not called into existence till the first day, nor the sun till the fourth, this objection is probably insuperable. But it would be easy to cite the opinions of many distinguished and most judicious expounders of the Bible, showing that the words of the Hebrew original do not signify a literal creation of the sun, moon, and stars, on the fourth day, but only constituting or appointing them, at that time, to be luminaries, and to furnish standards for the division of time and other purposes.

The word used is not the same as that employed in the first verse to describe the creation of the world; and the passage, rightly understood, implies the previous existence of the heavenly bodies. "The words [Hebrew] are not to be separated from the rest," says Rosenmuller, "or to be rendered _fiant luminaria_, let there be light; i. e., _let light be made_; but rather, _let lights be_; that is, serve, in the expanse of heaven, for distinguishing between day and night; and let them be, or serve, for signs," &c. "The historian speaks (v. 16, end) of the determination of the stars to certain uses, which they were to render to the earth, and not of their first formation." In like manner we may suppose that the production of light was only rendering it visible to the earth, over which darkness hitherto brooded; not because no light was in existence, but because it did not shine upon the earth.

Another objection to this interpretation is, that the fourth commandment of the decalogue expressly declares, that _in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is_, &c., and thus cuts off the idea of a long period intervening between the _beginning_ and the six days. I acknowledge that this argument carries upon the face of it a good deal of strength; but there are some considerations that seem to me to show it to be not entirely demonstrative.

In the first place, it is a correct principle of interpreting language, that when a writer describes an event in more than one place, the briefer statement is to be explained by the more extended one. Thus, in the second chapter of Genesis, we have this brief account of the creation: _These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens._

Now, if this were the only description of the work of creation on record, the inference would be very fair that it was all completed in a single day.

Yet when we turn to the first chapter, we find the work prolonged through six days. The two statements are not contradictory; but the briefer one would not be understood without the more detailed. In like manner, if we should find it distinctly stated in the particular account of the creation of the universe, in the first chapter of Genesis, that a long period actually intervened between the beginning and the six days, who would suppose the statement a contradiction to the fourth commandment? It is true, we do not find such a fact distinctly announced in the Mosaic account of the creation. But suppose we first learn that it did exist from geology; why should we not be as ready to admit it as if stated in Genesis, provided it does not contradict any thing therein recorded? For illustration: let us refer to the account given in Exodus of the parents of Moses and their family. _And there went a man of the name of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived and bare a son,_ (that is, Moses,) _and when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months._ (Ex. ii. 12.) Suppose, now, that no other account existed in the Bible of the family of this Levite; we could not surely have suspected that Moses had an elder brother and sister. But imagine the Bible silent on the subject, and that the fact was first brought to light in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics in the nineteenth century; who could hesitate to admit its truth because omitted in the Pentateuch? or who would regard it in opposition to the sacred record? With equal propriety may we admit, on proper geological evidence, the intercalation of a long period between the beginning and the six days, if satisfied that it does not contradict the Mosaic account. Hence all that is necessary, in this connection, for me to show, is, that such contradictions would not be made out by such a discovery.

Once more: if this long period had existed, we should hardly have expected an allusion to it in the fourth commandment, if the views we have taken are correct as to the manner in which the Old Testament treats of natural events. It is literally true, that all which the Jews understood by the heavens and the earth, was made, (_awsaw_,) that is, renovated, arranged, and constituted,--for so the word often means,--in six literal days. Had the sacred writer alluded to the earth while without form and void, or to the heavenly bodies as any thing more than shining points in the firmament, placed there on the fourth day, he could not have been understood by the Hebrews, without going into a detailed description, and thus violating what seems to have been settled principles in writing the Bible, viz., not to treat of natural phenomena with scientific accuracy, nor to anticipate any scientific discovery.

I wish it to be distinctly understood, that I am endeavoring to show, only, that the language of Scripture will admit of an indefinite interval between the first creation of matter and the six demiurgic days. I am willing to admit, at least for the sake of argument, that the common interpretation, which makes matter only six thousand years old, is the most natural. But I contend that no violence is done to the language by admitting the other interpretation. And in further proof of this position, I appeal to the testimony of distinguished modern theologians and philologists, as I have to several of the ancients. This point cannot, indeed, be settled by the authority of names. But I cannot believe that any will suppose such men as I shall mention were led to adopt this view simply because geologists asked for it, while their judgments told them that the language of the Bible would not bear such a meaning. When such men, therefore, avow their acquiescence in such an interpretation, it cannot but strengthen our confidence in its correctness.

"The interval," says Bishop Horsley, "between the production of the matter of the chaos and the formation of light, is undescribed and unknown."

"Were we to concede to naturalists," says Baumgarten Crusius, "all the reasonings which they advance in favor of the earth's early existence, the conclusion would only be, that the earth itself has existed much more than six thousand years, and that it had then already suffered many great and important revolutions. But if this were so, would the relation of Moses thereby become false and untenable? I cannot think so."

"By the phrase _in the beginning_," says Doederlin, "the time is declared when something began to be. But when God produced this remarkable work, Moses does not precisely define."

"We do not know," says Sharon Turner, "and we have no means of knowing, at what point of the ever-flowing eternity of that which is alone eternal,--the divine subsistence,--the creation of our earth, or any part of the universe, began." "All that we can learn explicitly from revelation is, that nearly six thousand years have passed since our first parents began to be."

"The words in the text," says Dr. Wiseman, "do not merely express a momentary pause between the first fiat of creation and the production of light; for the participial form of the verb, whereby the Spirit of God, the creative energy, is represented as brooding over the abyss, and communicating to it the productive virtue, naturally expresses a continuous, and not a passing action."

"I am strongly inclined to believe," says Bishop Gleig, "that the matter of the corporeal universe was all created at once; though different portions of it may have been reduced to form at very different periods. When the universe was created, or how long the solar system remained in a chaotic state, are vain inquiries, to which no answer can be given."

"The detailed history of creation in the first chapter of Genesis," says Dr. Chalmers, "begins at the middle of the second verse; and what precedes might be understood as an introductory sentence, by which we are most appositely told, both that God created all things at the first, and that afterwards--by what interval of time it is not specified--the earth lapsed into a chaos, from the darkness and disorder of which the present system or economy of things was made to arise. Between the initial act and the details of Genesis, the world, for aught we know, might have been the theatre of many revolutions, the traces of which geology may still investigate," &c.

"A philological survey of the initial sections of the Bible, (Gen. i. 1 to ii. 3,)" says Dr. Pye Smith, "brings out the result;"

1. "That the first sentence is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom, to this effect,--that _matter_, elementary or combined, aggregated only or organized, and _dependent, sentient, and intellectual beings_ have not existed from eternity, either in self-continuity or succession, but had a beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of one Being; the self-existent, independent and infinite in all perfection; and that the date of that beginning is not made known."

2. "That at a recent epoch, our planet was brought into a state of disorganization, detritus, or ruin, (perhaps we have no perfectly appropriate term,) from a former condition."

3. "That it pleased the Almighty, wise and benevolent Supreme, out of that state of ruin to adjust the surface of the earth to its now existing condition,--the whole extending through the period of six natural days."

"I am forming," continues Dr. Smith, "no hypotheses in geology; I only plead that _the ground is clear_, and that the dictates of the Scripture _interpose no bar_ to observation and reasoning upon the mineralogical constitution of the earth, and the remains of organized creatures which its strata disclose. If those investigations should lead us to attribute to the earth and to the other planets and astral spheres an antiquity which millions or ten thousand millions of years might fail to represent, _the divine records forbid not their deduction_."--_Script. and Geol._ p. 502.

Says Dr. Bedford, "We ought to understand Moses as saying, _indefinitely far back, and concealed from us in the mystery of eternal ages, prior to the first moment of mundane time_, God created the heavens and the earth."--Smith, _Script. and Geol._ 4th edit.

"My firm persuasion is," says Dr. Harris, "that the first verse of Genesis was designed, by the divine Spirit, to announce the absolute origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator; and that it is so understood in the other parts of holy writ; that, passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation, and, that the third verse begins the account of the six days' work."

"If I am reminded, in a tone of animadversion, that I am making science, in this instance, the interpreter of Scripture, my reply is, that I am simply making the works of God illustrate his word in a department in which they speak with a distinct and authoritative voice; that "it is all the same whether our geological or theological investigations have been prior, if we have not forced the one into accordance with the other."--(Davidson, _Sacred Hermeneutics_.) "And that it might be deserving consideration, whether or not the conduct of those is not open to just animadversion, who first undertake to pronounce on the meaning of a passage of Scripture, irrespective of all the appropriate evidence, and who then, when that evidence is explored and produced, insist on their _a priori_ interpretation as the only true one."--_Pre-Adamite Earth_, p. 280.

"Our best expositors of Scripture," says Dr. Daniel King, of Glasgow, "seem to be now pretty generally agreed, that the opening verse in Genesis has no necessary connection with the verses which follow. They think it may be understood as making a separate and independent statement regarding the creation proper, and that the phrase 'in the beginning' may be expressive of an indefinitely remote antiquity. On this principle the Bible recognizes, in the first instance, the great age of the earth, and then tells us of the changes it underwent at a period long subsequent, in order to render it a fit abode for the family of man. The work of the six days was not, according to this view, a creation in the strict sense of the term, but a renovation, a remodelling of preexisting materials."--_Principles of Geology explained_, &c. p. 40, 1st edit.

"Whether the Mosaic creation," says Dr. Schmucker, of the Lutheran church in this country, "refers to the present organization of matter, or to the formation of its primary elements, it is not easy to decide. The question is certainly not determined by the usage of the original words, [Hebrew] which are frequently employed to designate mediate formation. Should the future investigations of physical science bring to light any facts, indisputably proving the anterior existence of the matter of this earth, such facts would not militate against the Christian Scriptures."

"That a very long period," says Dr. Pond,--"how long no being but God can tell,--intervened between the creation of the world and the commencement of the six days' work recorded in the following verses of the first chapter of Genesis, there can, I think, be no reasonable doubt."

But I need not adduce any more advocates of the interpretation of Genesis, for which I contend. Men more respected and confided in by the Christian world I could not quote, though I might enlarge the number; but I trust it is unnecessary. I trust that all who hear me are satisfied that the Mosaic history of the creation of the world does fairly admit of an interpretation which leaves an undefined interval between the creation of matter and the six days' work. Let it be recollected that I do not maintain that this is the most natural interpretation, but only that the passage will fairly admit it by the strict rules of exegesis. The question still remains to be considered, whether there is sufficient reason to adopt it as the true interpretation. To show that there is, I now make my appeal to geology. This is a case, it seems to me, in which we may call in the aid of science to ascertain the true meaning of Scripture. The question is, Does geology teach, distinctly and uncontrovertibly, that the world must have existed during a long period prior to the existence of the races of organized beings that now occupy its surface?

To give a popular view of the evidence sustaining the affirmative of this question is no easy task. It needs a full and accurate acquaintance with the multiplied facts of geology, and, what is still more rare, a familiarity with geological reasoning, in order to feel the full force of the arguments that prove the high antiquity of the globe. Yet I know that I have a right to presume upon a high degree of scientific knowledge, and an accurate acquaintance with geology, among those whom I address.

In the first place, I must recur to a principle already briefly stated in a former lecture, viz., that a careful examination of the rocks presents irresistible evidence, that, in their present condition, they are all the result of second causes; in other words, they are not now in the condition in which they were originally created. Some of them have been melted and reconsolidated, and crowded in between others, or spread over them. Others have been worn down into mud, sand, and gravel, by water and other agents, and again cemented together, after having enveloped multitudes of animals and plants, which are now imbedded as organic remains. In short, all known rocks appear to have been brought into their present state by chemical or mechanical agencies. It is indeed easy to say that these appearances are deceptive, and that these rocks may, with perfect ease, have been created just as we now find them. But it is not easy to retain this opinion, after having carefully examined them. For the evidence that they are of secondary origin is nearly as strong, and of the same kind too, as it is that the remains of edifices lately discovered in Central America are the work of man, and were not created in their present condition.

In the second place, processes are going on by which rocks are formed on a small scale, of the same character as those which constitute the great mass of the earth. Hence it is fair to infer, that all the rocks were formed in a similar manner. Beds of gravel, for instance, are sometimes cemented together by heat, or iron, or lime, so as to resemble exactly the conglomerates found in mountain masses among the ancient rocks. Clay is sometimes converted into slate by heat, as is soft marl into limestone, by the same cause. In fact, we find causes now in operation that produce all the varieties of known rocks, except some of the oldest, which seem to need only a greater intensity in some of the causes now at work to produce them. By ascertaining the rate at which rocks are now forming, therefore, we can form some opinion as to the time requisite to produce those constituting the crust of the globe. If, for instance, we can determine how fast ponds, lakes, and oceans are filling up with mud, sand, and gravel, conveyed to their bottoms, we can judge of the period necessary to produce those rocks which appear to have been formed in a similar manner; and if there is any evidence that the process was more rapid in early times, we can make due allowance.

In the third place, all the stratified rocks appear to have been formed out of the fragments of other rocks, worn down by the action of water and atmospheric agencies. This is particularly true of that large proportion of these rocks which contain the remains of animals and plants. The mud, sand, and gravel of which these are mostly composed, must have been worn from rocks previously existing, and have been transported into lakes, and the ocean, as the same process is now going on. There the animals and plants, which died in the waters, and were transported thither by rivers, must have been buried; next, the rocks must have been hardened into stone, by admixture with lime, or iron, or by internal heat; and, finally, have been raised above the waters, so as to become dry land. Beds of limestone are interstratified with those of shale, sandstone, and conglomerate; but these form only a small proportion of the whole, and, besides, were mostly formed in an analogous manner, though by agencies more decidedly chemical.

Now, for the most part, this process of forming rocks by the accumulation of mud, sand, and gravel is very slow. In general, such accumulations, at the bottom of lakes and the ocean, do not increase more than a few inches in a century. During violent floods, indeed, and in a few limited spots, the accumulation is much more rapid; as in the Lake of Geneva, through which the Rhone, loaded with detritus from the Alps, passes, where a delta has been formed two miles long and nine hundred feet thick, within eight hundred years.[7] And occasionally such rapid depositions probably took place while the older rocks were in the course of formation. But in general, the work seems to have gone on as slowly as it usually does at present.

Yet, in the fourth place, there must have been time enough since the creation to deposit at least ten miles of rocks in perpendicular thickness, in the manner that has been described. For the stratified rocks are at least of that thickness in Europe, and in this country much thicker; or, if we regard only the fossiliferous strata as thus deposited, (since some geologists might hesitate to admit that the non-fossiliferous rocks were thus produced,) these are six and a half miles thick in Europe, and still thicker in this country. How immense a period was requisite for such a work! Some do, indeed, contend that the work, in all cases, as we have allowed it in a few, may have been vastly more rapid than at the present day. But the manner in which the materials are arranged, and especially the preservation of the most delicate parts of the organic remains, often in the very position in which the animals died, show the quiet and slow manner in which the process went on.