[Footnote C: Journal of Discourses, Vol. vi: p. 6.]
Professor Baden Powell further says, "The idea of 'creation' as meaning absolutely 'making out of nothing,' or calling into existence that which did not exist before, in the strictest sense of the term, is not a doctrine of scripture; but it has been held by many on the grounds of natural theology, as enhancing the ideas we form of the divine power, and more especially since the contrary must imply the belief in the eternity and self existence of matter."[D] Theologians have held, generally, that to admit the doctrine of the eternity and self existence of matter detracted from the perfection of Deity, though how that can appear is difficult to comprehend.
[Footnote D: Kitto's Biblical Literature, Art. Creation.]
Not only have so-called theologians been compelled to renounce the unphilosophical idea that the universe was created out of nothing; but they also have to admit that there are indisputable evidences of the earth having a greater antiquity than their interpretations of the word of God allow. That is, the earth itself bears in its own bosom the evidence that it is more than six thousand years old. And though it may turn out, on further investigation, that some of the claims of geology are extremely absurd; owing to the fact, perhaps, that the founders of that science have not considered sufficiently the effect of conditions not now existing and forces not now in operation, but which doubtless existed and operated in the earlier ages of our earth's existence—yet when extremely liberal allowances for all these things are made, the indisputable evidence adduced from the science of geology is sufficient to establish the statement that the earth is more than six thousand years old; and it might be added also that from the same source it is evident that the earth was not created or organized from pre-existing element in six days of twenty-four hours duration.
These facts which geology unquestionably demonstrates have thrown sectarian theologians into dismay. The dogmas concerning the creation formulated with so much pomp and circumstance by the apostate churches of Christendom, respectable only for their antiquity, are going to pieces before the facts discovered by geologists and churchmen, or theologians, call them which you will, are filled with alarm lest all confidence be lost in revelation; and many of them are making frantic efforts to harmonize the facts of revelation with the facts of science. Unfortunately, however, some of these proceed on lines which result the same as the efforts of some to harmonize the theory of evolution with the gospel—as the latter efforts end in the destruction of the gospel, so the former end in denying the inspiration of scripture, in relegating it to the realms of poetry, which means kicking it contemptuously out of the domains of fact, of history. "We affirm," say they, "that it cannot be history—it may be poetry."[E]
[Footnote E: Kitto's Biblical Literature, Vol. I., p. 486. Such also were the views of the late Henry "Ward Beecher, and in fact all of his school, which I am sorry to say is rapidly increasing in numbers, both in the United States and England. For the continental countries I cannot speak.]
There is nothing in the Bible, however, which drives believers in revelation to those straights— straights in which they throw overboard, practically, the word of God; discard it, or, in other words, degrade it to the level of romance—making it nothing better than the idle coinage of the half frenzied brains of day-dreamers. If the dogmas of apostate Christendom respecting the creation were given over as a romance instead of the revelations of God, and those revelations were re-examined, and especially if re-examined under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, it would then be found that there is nothing in the scriptures requiring the believer in revelation to accept the idea of recent or instantaneous creation of the earth. There is no more warrant in the Bible for the doctrine that the earth was begun and completed—created— about six thousand years ago, and that instantly, at the word of God, than there is that it was made out of nothing. On the other hand there is very much to lead one to believe the contrary.
Six thousand years ago our earth reached that degree of perfection that it was fitted for the abode of man; and it is interesting to note, in this connection, that geologists have found no evidence of the existence of man on the earth only in the strata of the earth's crust belonging to the latest geological periods, and most probably only in those made within the period of history. But while the Bible may teach that it was only about six thousand years since man was placed upon the earth, how long the period of formation lasted previous to that time, how long it required to prepare this planet with all its wealth of fruits and vegetables and animal life, for the abode of man, is not known. "It is called in the scriptures," says Apostle Orson Pratt,
"Six days; but we do not know the meaning of the scriptural term 'day.' It evidently does not mean such days as we are now acquainted with—days governed by the rotation of the earth on its axis, and by the shining of the great central luminary of our solar system. A day of twenty-four hours is not the kind of day referred to in the scriptural account of the creation; the word 'day' in the scriptures seems often to refer to some indefinite period of time. The Lord, in speaking to Adam in the garden says, 'In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;' yet he did not die within twenty-four hours after he had eaten the forbidden fruit; but he lived to be almost a thousand years old, from which we learn that the word 'day' in this paragraph, had no reference to days of the same duration as ours. Again it is written, in the second chapter of Genesis, 'In the day that he created the heavens and the earth;'[F] not six days, but 'in the day' that he did it, incorporating all the six days into one, and calling that period 'the day' that he created the heavens and the earth.[G]"
[Footnote F: These are the generations of the heaven and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. Genesis ii: 4.]