Third Origination (Gen. i. 27): "And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him."
The entire paragraph (vers. 26-29) is obviously the record of a supernatural origination. There is a significance even in the change of the creative word. In regard to prior and inferior existences the language is, "Let the earth bring forth!" "Let the waters bring forth!" as though there were some parturient power in nature, or as though nature co-operated with and furnished the conditions and means of the Divine efficiency. But when man is to be created the language is, "Let us make man;" thus placing the origin of man outside the chain of physical causation, and ascribing it to the immediate agency of God. Besides, the creation here spoken of is the production of a spiritual, not a material entity. "God created man in his own image." This creation can not be a formation out of a pre-existent matter, for no form of matter can possibly bear any resemblance to God (Acts xvii. 29). "God is spirit" and man can be like God only in so far as he is endowed with a spiritual nature. Spirit alone can bear the image of God. Whatever may be the teaching of Genesis as to the origin of the human body, be it a formation or a development, there is no uncertainty in its language as to the origin of the human spirit. It is an inbreathing from God. It proceeded directly from Him. By no mere figure of speech, but by a Divine reality God is "the Father of spirits," and man is the offspring and the image of God. This likeness of God lifts man out of the sphere of mere nature—it sets him apart in the essential characteristics and endowments of his being as above nature, and in some sense divine.
The third created entity is Spirit; spirit with its reason, its liberty, its conscience, its susceptibility of Divine inspiration, its capacity for endless progression in knowledge and love.
Here, then, are three entities, matter, life, and mind (= body, soul, and spirit), which had their beginning in an act of absolute creation, and are therefore to be regarded as primordial things.[205] Their existence is the necessary condition of all subsequent formative and developing production, inasmuch as all formation supposes a something to be formed, and all evolution a something involved. These primordial entities are the substratum, or ground, of all the mediate architectonic creation which is effected by the moving and informing presence and agency of the Spirit of God.
This leads us to the consideration of those creative words which are formative, and which always presuppose the existence of real entities as the condition of their efficiency; as, for example, "Let there be light;" "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters;" "Let the dry land appear;" "Let there be luminaries in the expanse of heaven." All the dividings, the gatherings, the organizings, the ordainings, and collocations suppose the prior existence of matter.
We have seen that the first act of absolute creation—the beginning of all beginnings—was the origination of that mysterious entity which is the recipient of impulse, or energy, and the physical substratum of all sensible phenomena. From this initial point, the first formative act was "the moving or brooding of the Spirit of God upon the face of the abyss." All the qualities which matter presents to the senses, all physical phenomena, are the result of this action of the Deity upon matter—that is, they are all manifestations of force.[206] "By various motions of the nature of eddies (vortices) the qualities of cohesion, elasticity, hardness, weight, mass, or other universal properties of matter, are given to small portions of the fluid [ether] which constitute the chemical atoms, and these by modifications in their combination, form, and movement produce all the accidental phenomena of gross matter; and the primary fluid by other motions transmits light, radiant heat, magnetism, and gravitation."[207]
The first distinct creative formation was molecular and radiant energy. "And God said, Let there be light." By this "light" we are not to understand light in its technical sense as distinguished from heat, but rather as including heat, such light, in fact, as we meet with in nature in the light of the sun, the same Hebrew word (אוֹר) being used for both.
The second distinct creative formation was that wonderful mechanical combination of chemical elements we call the atmosphere. "And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the vapors, and let it be a division of vapors from vapors." The Creator has endowed the oxygen and nitrogen of the atmosphere with the power of retaining the aeriform condition under all circumstances, while the aqueous vapor is liable to very great fluctuation. Were there no air surrounding the globe, the quantity of vapor would adjust itself almost instantaneously to any variation of temperature, and the maximum amount possible would always be present at any given place; there could then be no clouds and no genial showers of diffusive rain. "An elevation of temperature would be attended by rapid evaporation, and the amount of water required to fill the space would suddenly flash into vapor; while, on the other hand, a corresponding depression of temperature would be accompanied by an equally sudden precipitation of the aqueous vapor, not in genial showers, but terrific torrents.... The drops, falling without resistance, would be as destructive in their effects as volleys of leaden shot."[208] The presence of a dense medium, such as the atmosphere, retards these sudden changes, and determines the formation of clouds. Thus "the expanse" is admirably adapted to the creative purposes of "dividing the waters from the waters."
The third creative formation was the chemical compounds and their molar aggregation in land and seas. "And God said, Let the waters below the expanse be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry ground appear." The chemical reactions, crystallizations, precipitations, and sedimentary accumulations involved in the creative formation are admirably sketched in Ch. VI. of Dr. Winchell's "Sketches of Creation." The transmutation of the primary fluid into gross matter was something more than a natural evolution—it was a "creative action,"[209] and the exact numerical proportions in which the chemical elements combine must be the result of a distinct creative impulse.
The fourth creative formation was bioplasm, or that vitalized germinal matter which is instrumental in building up the tissues and organs of plants (and animals). "And God said, Let the land sprout forth sprouts; herbs seeding seed, fruit-trees producing fruit after their kind wherein is their seed." The vital force which is concerned in the formation of bioplasm (vitalized matter) must be regarded as distinct, on the one hand, from the physical forces which are efficient in the combinations and aggregations of non-living matter,[210] and, on the other hand, from that sentient, percipient, self-moving principle which constitutes the animal soul. "The 'life' of a man or an animal is very different from what is termed the 'life' of a white blood, or a mucus, or a pus corpuscle; inasmuch as many hundreds of white blood corpuscles, or elemental units of the tissues, might die in man without affecting the 'life' of the man; moreover the man himself might perish, and some of the corpuscles remain alive.... By the life of a man (or an animal) something very different is meant from what we understand by the life of each elemental unit of the organism, and the difference is not merely of degree but of kind."[211] Bioplasm, or cell-life, is generic; soul-life is specific, individual, and indivisible. The former we regard as the direct effect of the Divine life, immanent in nature; the latter is an individualized centre of force, "a delegation of Divine power under limits of necessity." The physical forces are the action of God upon matter, the vital force is the immanence of God in matter. The first is mechanical, the second is vito-dynamical.