Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation

by Martin Luther

With reference to the man Moses has already said that he was made of the dust of the ground, and that the breath of life was breathed of God into his nostrils. He has also stated that the whole multitude of living creatures was brought before Adam. When Adam had seen among them all no helpmeet for him, woman was made to be his companion in the generation and preservation of the human species. For God did not will that the posterity of Adam should be made out of the ground, as he himself was, but that it should be propagated as the other animals. As to our bodily life we eat and drink, generate and are generated just like all animals. However Moses is greatly concerned in his thought to separate and distinguish man from all the animal creatures, because in this way the end is reached that after this earthly life man should become a partaker of the spiritual and eternal life. Now all these things pertain, as we have just observed, unto the creation work of the sixth day. For as God had said, "Be fruitful and multiply," the explanation of the manner in which the woman was created and brought to Adam became a necessary part of the sacred narrative.

All this is moreover intended to lead us into the firm belief and satisfaction of mind that six days were really occupied by God in his creation of all things, contrary to the opinion of Augustine and Hilary, who think that all things were created in a moment. To such an extent do they depart from the history of facts and follow allegories and indulge in I know not what kind of dreamy speculations. Nor do I speak these things by way of reproach to the holy fathers, whose labors we ought to venerate. I make these statements for the confirmation of the truth and for our own consolation. The fathers were great men. Yet they were men; men who had fallen and still liable to fall. So that we have no ground for exalting ourselves like the monks, who worship all things belonging to themselves as if they were not liable to fall. Whereas for my part, it is rather a great consolation to me than otherwise, that the fathers are discovered to have erred and fallen at times also. Because my thoughts run thus: If God pardoned sins and errors in them why should I despair of pardon from him? On the other hand, despair immediately comes on if you begin to think that the fathers did not experience the same things which you feel and suffer. It is at the same time quite certain that there was a mighty difference between the call of the apostles and the call of the fathers. On what grounds therefore can we esteem the writings of the fathers equal to the writings of the apostles?

But with special reference to the sacred passage of Moses before us, how, I pray you, is it possible that six days should be either a moment or an hour? Neither faith, which rests wholly in the Word, nor reason itself, can admit this. Wherefore let us be assured, that there were between the divine acts of the creation certain intervals. Thus, Adam is first created alone. Then there are brought unto him all the animals, not only that he might name them, but that he might be tried, by seeing whether he could find in all this collection of creatures a meet companion. After this, Eve is created. Lastly, these words are spoken by the Lord, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat," etc., which words struck the ears of Adam. All these things carry with them a proof that they occurred at certain intervals of time, unless indeed you would turn away like Origen from such plain and positive historical facts to the most absurd allegories. For Moses is not here giving us a record of God himself, in whose sight all things past, present, and future are ever present in the same moment; but he is recording a history of Adam, a creature of time, who was made and who lived; and with whom as a creature there is a difference between the present and the future. I have deemed it right to bring these things to your recollection by this repetition. Now let us proceed with Moses.

V. 21. And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.

Here again not faith only, but reason and fact also, prove that the time of Adam's being awake was one space of time and the time of his being asleep another. These spaces have evidently their intervals. As therefore Adam was created in the sixth day, and all the animals were brought to him on that day; as he heard the command of God concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; as God sent upon him sleep, it is manifest beyond dispute; that all these facts have reference to time and to this animal life. And it is equally evident that the days mentioned in the sacred record must be understood to have been true and real days, contrary to the opinion of the holy fathers. Whenever therefore we find the opinions of the fathers to disagree with the Scriptures, we tolerate them with reverence and acknowledge them to be our elders in the Church; but we do not for their sakes depart from the authority of the Scriptures.

Elegant and true is that sentiment of Aristotle, in the First Book of his "Ethics," "Where both friends and truth are near to us, it is our sacred duty to give the higher honor to the truth." The philosopher of old here plainly affirms that it is better to stand by the truth than to show too much favor to those who may be our friends or even our relations. Such a sentiment is nobly becoming a philosopher. If, therefore, a natural man and a heathen holds that such a principle should be maintained in moral, human and civil disputations, with how much greater firmness should it be held in the discussion of those things which stand on the manifest testimony of the Scriptures! How jealous should we be of setting the authority of men above that of the Word! Men may be deceived, but the Word of God itself is the wisdom of God and infallible truth.

But with respect to this portion, namely, the divine history itself, what I pray you, could be recorded more fabulous in the estimation of human reason, if you wish to follow that? For could any one be found who would believe this fact concerning the creation of Eve, if it were not thus openly declared? For here all the other creatures stand as plain examples to the contrary. Every other living creature is generated from male and female, and is so generated that it is the female that brings it into the light. But here the female herself is created from the male; and that too with a no less wonderful creation than that by which Adam himself was made a living soul, from the dust of the ground. These facts are mere monstrosities and outrageous absurdities, if you set aside the authority of the Holy Scriptures and follow the judgment of reason. Hence it is that Aristotle affirms that neither the first man nor the last man can be given as the foundation of an argument. And reason would force us to affirm the same of her naked self, without this text before us. For if it be received as a truth, a truth which the uniform law of the whole creation testifies, that nothing is born alive but from male and female, it is a true conclusion that the first man cannot be accounted for in that way.

The same conclusion may also be declared to be correct by human reason concerning the creation of the world, which the philosophers of old therefore concluded to be eternal. For although reasons are put together by reason, by which is proved that the world is not eternal; yet reason herself, all the while, settles down with all her powers upon this basis of conclusion. For what beginning will reason find in nothing? And again, if you say that the world had a beginning and that there was a time in which the world had no existence it will immediately follow close upon your heels that, before the world there was nothing at all. Other absurdities will follow in an infinite series; by the multitude of which philosophers being struck plunged at once into the conclusion that the world was eternal.

But again if you affirm that the world was infinite, there immediately springs up before you another new infinity in the successive generation of mankind. But then philosophy will not admit a plurality of infinities; and yet it is compelled to admit them upon its own conclusions, because it knows neither the beginning of the world nor the beginning of mankind. This hostile contrariety and utter obscurity brought the Epicureans into a state which compelled them to assert, that both the world and mankind existed without any reason at all; and that without any reason at all they would both perish; just as beasts, which after they are dead, are just as if they never had been. From premises like these other terrible conclusions naturally follow; either that there is positively no God at all, or that he cares not at all for human things. These are the labyrinths into which reason is brought, when without the word of God it follows its own judgment.

Therefore it is very profitable thus to behold how impossible it is that reason or our own wisdom should go beyond the above stated limits, in its judgments concerning the creature. For what, I pray you, does the philosopher with all his reasoning know of the heavens or the earth or the world; seeing that he understands not whence either of them came or in what end they all or either of them, are appointed to terminate. Nay, what do we ourselves know concerning ourselves? We all see that we are men. But ought we not to believe also and know that we have this man for our father and that woman for our mother? But how or why this is so can never be learned from human reason. Hence all our knowledge and our wisdom lie only in the comprehension of the material or formal cause; and even in these we often make the most wretched mistakes. But as to the efficient and final cause, we know nothing, nor can explain anything whatsoever. And the saddest part of our ignorance is, that our deficiency is at its worst when we come to dispute or to speculate concerning the world into which we are born and in which we live. Is not this, I pray you, a poor and miserable pretension to wisdom?