The course of creation

by John Anderson

At this part of the narrative it is generally supposed, according to the common reading, that there is a retrograde step, as it were, introduced. The day and night have been made to precede the creation of the sun and moon; and now to supply the deficiency we are told of the appointment of these luminaries in the heavens “to give light upon the earth.” But three days and three nights have already revolved. Doubtless they have, but not without light, for light has been created; and not without a provision for the night, for the light has been divided from the darkness. The earth has been revolving upon its own axis; that occasioned the succession of day and night then as now. Another motion is communicated, whereby it revolves in its orbit and circles round the sun; that causes the variety of the seasons, and the divisions of the year. The luminous matter diffused through space, and equally shining upon all bodies, has been assembled into the great central orbs, to be the dispensers each of light and heat to their respective systems; and upon these arrangements being established, both days and nights, seasons and years, are all dependent upon, as they all arise from, the revolution of the planets round the central luminary. “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years.”

“And God made two great lights; he made the stars also.” The original does not bear out the sense of there being in these instances an act of creation; neither does the English term itself always imply that meaning. Light-bearers, or the depositories of illumination, is the true rendering of the Hebrew. The Septuagint translators have used similar relative terms, and in our own language the expression “made” often signifies fashioned, formed, used, constrained. And so the phrase here refers not to the creation, but to the uses of bodies already described as being in existence, and created along with all matter in the beginning. But now they are invested with new properties, are arranged so as to perform new functions, and stand in relations each to each, at the bidding of Him who brought them into being. Next to the summoning of the universe into existence, this was the most stupendous act of Divine power, and we know as much of the one as of the other. Some of the properties of matter we are acquainted with. The laws of motion we can define in some measure, and calculate also their effects. But whence the one, and how the arbitrary appointment of the other, through all the infinite diversity of systems and spheres—precise, harmonious, and orderly—baffles all the ingenuity of science to determine. Mark, too, the order of the introduction of this new class of facts, just in the due course and regulation of nature. When life is mentioned, and the earth is clothed with verdure, the seasons begin their round, and the divinely-instructed historian acquaints us with the cause. “And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth; and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.”

The waters are now replenished with their stores of animal life, and by the same act of creation the air receives its stock of winged tribes. Then follows, as the work of another distinct period of time, the introduction of the terrestrial races—the living creature after his kind—the cattle—and creeping thing—and beast of the earth after his kind. The description here is general. The orders, genera, and species are not named. Still the catalogue is large and amply descriptive. The various types of organic structure are alluded to, and each term or epithet of the quadruple list is elastic enough to embrace one and all the diversified families of the most methodical naturalist. “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, each after his kind.”

Such is the account, the order, and course of creation, as set forth in the inspired record. The description of the various generative acts is simple, distinctive, and consonant with the energies of the Will by which they are performed. The whole narrative is one of many, within the compass of the sacred volume, in which a strict adherence to the letter leads to a sound interpretation. The wisdom of man will be confounded when it tries to fathom the methods and devices of the divine Artificer in originating his works. His safety will often be in distrusting his own understanding, in not magnifying overmuch the ingenuity of his own speculations, and in sometimes believing that even science will be exalted by approximating to, rather than by departing from, the literalities of Scripture.

II. Compare now the epochs of geology with the days of Scripture, and there will be observed at least a remarkable coincidence between them. The fossiliferous systems of the one are nearly the same in number with the descriptive paragraphs in the other. The order in the creation of organized bodies, the progression of life upon the earth, are also wonderfully striking in the records of both. The lowest of our fossiliferous deposits contain the impressions of plants—these stand at the beginning of the Mosaic list. The same groups, and the whole of the next in succession, are characterized by the prevailing abundance of marine tribes—the waters, according to the sacred narrative, then received their command, and multiplied abundantly the moving creature that hath life. Vegetables and animals, still of the waters, continue to increase during the carboniferous era, when a new system succeeds, and in this the foot-prints of birds are distinctly traced—so it was in the same order of succession that the winged fowl is sent forth into the open firmament of heaven. The Lias and Oolite formations immediately follow, filled with monsters of the deep, saurians and flying lizards,—the text speaks of the “great whales” of the period, as distinguished among the productions of the waters. The Wealden Chalk, and Tertiaries are replete with all kinds of reptiles, mammals, and quadrupeds—the horse, urus, and other forms of cattle—and so, in like manner, the last in the Mosaic list, as the highest in the geological strata, are the types of every beast, cattle, and creeping thing.

Now, can this running parallel be accidental or intended? Did the writer of the one record know anything of the contents of the other? Does the course of creation, as detailed in the strata of the earth, follow as a necessary consequence from the nature of things? or as the arbitrary appointment of Him who made them? Would plants, fishes, reptiles, fowl, mammals, all emerge in this precise order of succession, by any known law of organic structure? Or could not the first and last, or any of the intermediate kinds, have been at once, and as adaptively, brought together in one and the same period of time? Was the writer of the Genesis acquainted with the rich exuberant flora of the carboniferous age? and was it meant as a true exposition of its history that there were as yet no beasts or quadrupeds upon the earth to enjoy it? And knowing of it, as well as of all the other superficial arrangements,—the upheaval of the crust, the rise of mountains, the alternate shifting of sea and land,—does he describe the progress of organic creation precisely as it occurred, and as the changes of the planet became adaptive?

The series of creative acts terminates in the introduction of Man upon the stage of terrestrial being. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

Here both narratives are completely at one as to man’s place in the course as well as system of creation. No fragment of his race has been detected in any of the rocky strata of the earth. Every other organic thing, of every class, and order, and tribe, has its representative in one or other of the geological epochs. Man stands apart and alone in the geology as in the history. No mere link in the chain of organic existence, not a being of mere earthy mold, but fashioned in the image of his Maker, and fitted to explore, to understand, and to exercise dominion over the works of his creation. How much, again, in all this last and highest evolution of creative might, is the conclusion confirmed, and arrived at from so many converging lines, that the sacred record was intended to embody an actual account of the creation of our globe, in its various primordial arrangements as well as in all its consecutive events, until its majestic close in the human epoch? For, looking back and comparing the whole narrative with the facts of geology, is it not highly probable that we have in that account distinctly shadowed forth the progressive researches of the science, the great physical truths of creation, as symbolized in the rocks? The brilliant vista through millions of untold ages, and upon scenes supposed to be unnoticed and unrecorded, vanishes indeed at the admission of this principle of interpretation. But a more consistent view of the world’s history—of the comparative longevity of its successive tribes—of the various changes and alterations which its surface has undergone—and a less violence far to the obvious import of the sacred text—form no unpleasing substitutes on which, amidst such lures to doubt, bewilderment, and error, faith and reason will equally incline to repose.

III. The conclusions which have been, or which may be, deduced from a comparative examination of geology and the Mosaic record, fall to be noticed.

1. In order to preserve the literal rendering of the six days of creation, it is maintained that the Mosaic record takes no account whatever of any of the geological formations described. After the intimation, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep”—the close of the epochs, with all their complement of strata and fossils, was accomplished; and then, as descriptive of the era of man, with all his living cotemporaries, and the several days with the works therein accomplished, the new order of events referred to in the text commences with the declaration, “and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The discoveries of geology are thus all cast back upon unrecorded anterior periods, and with regard to which the sacred record is silent; while of the new series of events, in precisely the same order of succession and enlarged amount of normal organic being, there is a defined literal account. This may be regarded as the generally received interpretation among the leading geologists as well as of a large class of eminent divines. It was early and eagerly adopted by Dr. Chalmers. The proof of its soundness is made to hinge upon certain ingenious criticisms regarding the terms bara, asah, yatzan, which in the common version of the Hebrew text are translated created, made, formed. According to the new rendering, wherever any of these words occur in any of the verses after the second, they are to be restricted to the simple act of fashioning, arranging, and constructing new bodies out of pre-existing matter. Hence, all the initial and secondary actings noticed in the narrative are in this manner clearly distinguishable. It is farther argued, that all the secondary class of arrangements are distinctively pointed to, and separated from the primordial, by the formula of expression, “and God said,” which is introduced at the commencement of each of the six days, but not prefixed to the initial creative act of all matter in the beginning.