SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
A
DOUBTER'S DOUBTS about science and religion
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE COSMOGONY OF GENESIS
I AVOW myself a believer in the Scriptures, and if a
personal reference may be pardoned, I would say that my faith is not to be
accounted for either by want of thought, or by ignorance of the objections and
difficulties which have been urged by scientists and sceptics. But just as the
studies which charm the naturalist are an unknown world to those who are
ignorant of the book of nature, so also the elements which make the Bible a
fascinating volume to the believer do not exist for those who fail to possess
the clew to its mysteries. " Truth brings out the hidden harmony, where
unbelief can only with a dull dogmatism deny."
These words are Pusey's. And
in the same connection he says in effect that the Bible is its own defence, the
part of the apologist being merely to beat off attacks.
And it is in the
spirit of these words that I would deal with the present question. Nor will it
be difficult to show that while among scientists generally the cosmogony of
Genesis is "a principal subject of ridicule," their laughter may not, after
all, be the outcome of superior wisdom.
It would be interesting and
instructive to recapitulate the controversy on this subject, and to mark the
various positions which have been successively occupied or abandoned by the
disputants, as one or another of the fluctuating theories of science has gained
prominence, or newly found fossils have added to "the testimony of the rocks."
But I will content myself with recalling the main incidents of the last great
tournament upon "the proem to Genesis." I allude to the discussion between Mr.
Gladstone and Professor Huxley in the pages of the Nineteenth Century some
twenty years ago.
In The Dawn of Creation and Worship Mr. Gladstone
sought to establish the claims of the Book of Genesis to be a Divine
revelation, by showing that the order of creation as there recorded has been
"so affirmed in our time by natural science that it may be taken as a
demonstrated conclusion and established fact." Mr. Huxley's main assault upon
this position was apparently successful. His main assault, I say, because his
collateral arguments were not always worthy of him. His contention, for
example, that the creation of the "air population" was contemporaneous with
that of the "water population" depends upon the quibble that both took place
within four and twenty hours.
Mr. Gladstone proclaimed that science and
Genesis were perfectly in accord as regards the order in which life appeared
upon our globe. To which Mr. Huxley replied as follows:
"It is agreed
on all hands that terrestrial lizards and other reptiles allied to lizards
occur in the Permian strata. It is further agreed that the Triassic strata were
deposited after these. Moreover, it is well known that, even if certain
footprints are to be taken as unquestionable evidence of the existence of
birds, they are not known to occur in rocks earlier than the Trias, while
indubitable remains of birds are to be met with only much later. Hence it
follows that natural science does not 'affirm ' the statement that birds were
made on the fifth day, and 'everything that creepeth on the ground' on the
sixth, on which Mr. Gladstone rests his order; for, as is shown by Leviticus,
the 'Mosaic writer' includes lizards among his 'creeping things.'"
The
following is the quotation from Leviticus above referred to :-
"And these
are they which are unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon
the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the great lizard after its kind, and
the gecko, and the land-crocodile, and the lizard, and the sand-lizard, and the
chameleon. These are they which are unclean unto you among all that creep."
"The merest Sunday-school exegesis, therefore" (Mr. Huxley urged)
"suffices to prove that when the Mosaic writer in Gen. 1: 24 speaks of creeping
things he means to include lizards among them."
A charming specimen this
certainly is of "the merest Sunday-school exegesis." The argument, which so
completely satisfied its author and embarrassed his opponent is nothing but an
ad capiandum appeal to the chance rendering of our English Bible. If the
disputants had referred the question to some more erudite authority than the
Sunday-school, they would have discovered that the word translated "creeping
thing" in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus has no affinity whatever with the
word so rendered in the twenty-fourth verse of the first chapter of Genesis,
whereas it is the identical word which our translators have rendered "moving
creature" in the twentieth verse which records the first appearance of animal
life.'
Science proclaims the seniority of land reptiles in the genesis of
life on earth, and the despised Book of Genesis records that "creeping things,"
which, as Huxley insisted, must include land reptiles, were the first "moving
creatures" which the Creator's fiat called into existence. "Hoist with his own
petard" may therefore tersely describe the result of Huxley's attack.
With
his old-world courtesy Mr. Gladstone proposed a reference to a distinguished
American scientist. "There is no one," Mr. Huxley replied, "to whose authority
I am more readily disposed to bow than that of my eminent friend Professor
Dana." And Professor Dana's decision, in the following words, was published in
the Nineteenth Century for August, 1886 " I agree in all essential
points with Mr. Gladstone, and I believe that the first chapter of Genesis and
science are in accord."
But this is not all. Six years later I challenged
Mr. Huxley on this subject in the columns of the Times newspaper. He sought to
evade the issue by pleading that the real question involved was that of the
supernatural versus evolution. This evoked a powerful letter from the late Duke
of Argyll, denouncing the reference to the supernatural as savouring of "bad
science and worse philosophy," and warning Mr. Huxley that in the new position
in which he sought to take refuge "he would not have the support of the most
eminent men of science in the United Kingdom." In a final letter I restated the
question, and again challenged Mr. Huxley either to establish or to abandon his
contention that Genesis and science were in antagonism. His only reply was a
letter suggesting, in his grandest style, that the public were tired of the
controversy. But it was not the public that were tired of it.
The fact
remains that Mr. Gladstone's position stands unshaken. The fact remains that
one who has had no equal in this age as a scientific controversialist entered
the lists to attack it, and retired discomfited and discredited. Mr.
Gladstone's thesis, therefore, holds the field. "The order of creation as
recorded in Genesis has been so affirmed in our time by natural science that it
may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and established fact." Are we then to
conclude that when Genesis was written biological science was as enlightened
and as far advanced as it is to-day? Or shall we adopt the more reasonable
alternative, that "the Mosaic narrative" is a Divine revelation? (I cannot
refrain from adding the following extract from a letter I received from Mr.
Gladstone after the Times correspondence closed "As to the chapter itself"
(Gen. i.), "I do not regard it merely as a defensible point in a circle of
fortifications, but as a grand foundation of the entire fabric of the Holy
Scriptures.")
All this of course will weigh nothing with men who have
prejudged the question. First, there are the religious teachers of that school
whose role it appears to be to import the raw material of German rationalism
and to retail it with a veneer of British piety to suit the British market.
And, secondly, there are the scientists of the materialistic school, to whom
the very name of God is intolerable.
A few years since, Lord Kelvin's
dictum, already quoted,' gave these men an opportunity of "glorying in their
shame"; and they eagerly availed themselves of it. His assertion that
"scientific thought" compelled belief in God set the whole pack in full cry.
The acknowledgment even of "a directive force," they declared, "in effect wipes
out the whole position won for us by Darwin." This clearly indicates that the
only value they put upon their hypothesis is that it enables them to get rid of
God; and if it fails of this it is, in their estimation, worthless. What must
be the moral, or indeed the intellectual condition of men who regard the
negation of God as "a position won for them"!'
But, it may be asked, what
about evolution? The materialistic evolution of Herbert Spencer is as dead as
its author. And even Darwin's more enlightened biological scheme is now
discredited. For it is recognised that something more than Darwinism offers is
needed to account for the phenomena of life. The evolution hypothesis is
thoroughly philosophical; and that is all that can be said for it, for it is
unproved and seemingly incapable of proof. That "creative power" may have
worked in this way may be conceded. But if so, the process must have been
divinely controlled and strictly limited. This much is made clear both by the
facts of Nature and the statements of Scripture; but beyond this we cannot
go.
"Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of
motion, during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent
homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained
motion undergoes a parallel transformation." If this cacophonous sentence be
translated into English, it will be found to contain some element of truth.
Herbert Spencer does not here pretend, as the careless reader of his philosophy
might suppose, that matter itself is capable of producing any such results.
Every change is due to motion, and behind motion is the power which causes it.
What and where that power is, Herbert Spencer cannot tell. He calls it Force,
but he might just as well term it Jupiter or Baal. Were he to assert that it is
unknown, no one could object, however much he differed from him. But with the
aggressive insolence of unbelief he declares it to be "unknowable," thus
shutting the door for ever against all religion. The Christian recognises the
force, and the effects it has produced, and he refers all to God. He allows a
pristine condition of matter described by the philosopher as "an indefinite
incoherent homogeneity"; but as an alternative formula for expressing this he
confidently offers both to the simple and the learned the well-known words,
"The earth was waste and void." As he goes on to consider the" integration of
matter and concomitant dissipation of motion," "And God said" is his method of
accounting for the phenomena. The philosopher admits that not even the
slightest change can have taken place save as a result of some new impulse
imparted by Inscrutable Force. The Christian, in a spirit of still higher
philosophy, accounts for every change by Divine intervention. It is thus that
he explains the " coherent heterogeneity" -or, to translate these words into
the vernacular, the exquisite order and variety of nature.
Here I turn to
the narrative. The earth existed, but it was "desolate and empty," a mere waste
of waters, wrapped in impenetrable darkness. The changes recorded are, first,
the dawn of light, and then the formation of an atmosphere, followed by the
retreat of the waters to their ocean bed; then "the dry land" became clothed
with verdure, and sun and moon and stars appeared. The laughter formerly
excited by the idea of light apart from the sun has died away with increasing
knowledge; and, in our ignorance of the characteristics of that primeval light,
it is idle to discuss the third-day vegetation. It may possibly have been the
"rank and luxuriant herbage" of which our coal-beds have been formed; for one
statement in the narrative seems strongly to favour the suggestion that our
present vegetation dates only from the fifth or sixth day.'
But this brings
up the question, What was the creation day? No problem connected with the
cosmogony has greater interest and importance; none is beset with greater
difficulties. The passage itself seems clearly to indicate that the word is
used in a symbolic sense. When dealing with a period before man existed to mark
the shadow on the dial, and before the sun could have cast that shadow, it is
not easy to appreciate the reason, or indeed the meaning, of such a division of
time as our natural day.
"Days and years and seasons" seem plainly to
belong to our present solar system, and this is the express teaching of the
fourteenth verse.'
The problem may be stated thus: As man is to God, so his
day of four and twenty hours is to the Divine day of creation. Possibly indeed
the "evening and morning" represent the interval of cessation from work, which
succeeds and completes the day. The words are, "And there was evening, and
there was morning, one day." The symbolism is maintained throughout. As man's
working day is brought to a close by evening, which ushers in a period of
repose, lasting till morning calls him back to his daily toil, so the great
Artificer is represented as turning aside from His work at the end of each
"day" of creation and again resuming it when another morning dawned.
Is not
this entirely in keeping with the mode in which Scripture speaks of God? It
tells us of his mouth and eyes and nostrils, His hand and arm. It speaks of His
sitting in the heavens, and bowing Himself to hear the prayer ascending from
the earth. It talks of His repenting and being angry. And if any one cavils at
this he may fairly be asked, In what other language could God speak to men?
Nor let any one fall back on the figment that a Divine day is a period of a
thousand years. With God, we are told, a day is as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day. In a word, the seeming paradox of the
tran-scendental philosophy is endorsed by the express teaching of Scripture
that time is a law of human thought. When, therefore, God speaks of working for
six days and resting on the seventh, we must understand the words in the same
symbolic sense as when He declares that His hand has made all these things.'
But the mention of the creation sabbath is the crowning proof of the
symbolic character of the creation "day." God "rested on the seventh day from
all His work which He had made." Are we, then, to suppose that He resumed the
work when four and twenty hours had passed? Here, at least, revelation and
science are at one: the creation sabbath has continued during all the ages of
historic time. God is active in His universe, pace the atheist and the infidel,
but the CREATOR rests. Having regard then to the admitted fact that the
creation sabbath is a vast period of time, surely the working days of creation
must be estimated on the same system.
My object here, however, is not to
frame a system of interpretation, but rather to enter a protest against
confounding the express teaching of Scripture with any system of interpretation
whatever. Nor am I attempting to prove the inspiration, or even the truth of
Scripture. My aim is merely to "beat off attacks." I hold myself clear of the
sin of Uzzah. I am not putting my hand upon the ark: as Dante pleaded, I am
dealing with the oxen that are shaking the ark- unintelligent creatures who
have no sense of its sanctity, or even of its worth.
And here I am reminded
of Huxley's words, "that it is vain to discuss a supposed coincidence between
Genesis and science unless we have first settled, on the one hand, what Genesis
says and, on the other, what science says." This is admirable. Let us
distinguish, therefore, between "what Genesis says" and what men say about
Genesis. And let us not be either misled or alarmed by attacks upon the Mosaie
cosmogony, based on "the merest Sunday-school exegesis" on the one hand, or on
the theories of science on the other. The facts of science in no way clash with
Scripture. And as the prince of living scientists declares- I quote Lord
Kelvin's words again-" scientific thought is compelled to accept the idea of
creative power."
Of the origin of our world the first chapter of Genesis
tells us nothing save that "in the beginning," whenever that was, God" created"
it. It may be, as Tyndall said in his Belfast address, that "for eons embracing
untold millions of years, this earth has been the theatre of life and death."
But as to this the "Mosaic narrative" is silent. It deals merely with the
renewing and refurnishing of our planet as a home for man. And this, moreover,
to prepare the foundation for the supreme revelation of redemption. Let the
authority of Scripture be undermined, and the whole fabric of the Christian
system is destroyed. But in these easy-going days the majority of "those who
profess and call themselves Christians," being wholly destitute of the
enthusiasm of faith, are helpless when confronted by the dogmatism of unbelief.
It is a day of opinions, not of faith, and widespread apostasy is the natural
result.
(Footnote - While correcting the proofs of these pages I have
received a newspaper report of a sermon preached by the Bishop of Manchester in
his Cathedral, in which he justifies the rejection of Gen. i., because "it
seems to be an intellectual impossibility that God should reveal to man an
exact account of the creation of the universe." But there is not a word in Gen.
i. about "the creation of the universe," save in the opening sentence. The word
" create" is not used again till we come to the work of the fifth and sixth "
days" (verses 21 and 27). And when it is said that God " made" the two great
lights and the stars, the word is the same as that used elsewhere of "making" a
feast. And when it is said that He "set" them in the heavens, it is the same
word as is used of "appointing" cities of refuge. (See Appendix, Note I.) The
inference to be drawn from this I cannot discuss here. But it shows that Huxley
was right: "What Genesis says" is but little understood.
Chapter Eight
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