The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science

by Sir John William Dawson

On the whole, the Hebrew books give us little information as to the astronomical theories of the time when they were written. They are entirely non-committal as to the nature of the connections and revolutions of the heavenly bodies; and indeed regard these as matters in their time beyond the grasp of the human mind, though well known to the Creator and regulated by his laws. From other sources we have facts leading to the belief that even in the time of Moses, and certainly in that of the later Biblical writers, there was not a little practical astronomy in the East, and some good theory. The Hindoo astronomy professes to have observations from 3000 B.C., and the arguments of Baily and others, founded on internal evidence, give some color of truth to the claim. The Chaldeans at a very early period had ascertained the principal circles of the sphere, the position of the poles, and the nature of the apparent motions of the heavens as the results of revolution on an inclined axis. The Egyptian astronomy we know mainly from what the Greeks borrowed from it. Thales, 640 B.C., taught that the moon is lighted by the sun, and that the earth is spherical, and the position of its five zones. Pythagoras, 580 B.C., knew, in addition to the sphericity of the earth, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the identity of the evening and morning star, and that the earth revolves round the sun. This Greek astronomy appears immediately after the opening of Egypt to the Greeks; and both these philosophers studied in that country. Such knowledge, and more of the same character, may therefore have existed in Egypt at a much earlier period.

The Psalms abound in beautiful references to the creation of the fourth day

: "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
Or the son of man, that thou visitest him?"
—Psalm viii.

"Who telleth the number of the stars,
Who calleth them all by their names.
Great is our Lord, and of great praise;
His understanding is infinite.
The Lord lifteth up the meek;
He casteth the wicked to the ground."
—Psalm cxlvii.

"The heavens declare the glory of God,
The firmament showeth his handiwork;
Day unto day uttereth speech,
Night unto night showeth knowledge.
They have no speech nor language,
Their voice is not heard;
Yet their line is gone out to all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them hath he set a pavilion for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
Its going forth is from the end of the heavens,
And its circuit unto the end of them.
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof."
—Psalm xix.

These are excellent illustrations of the truth of the Scripture mode of treating natural objects, in connection with their Maker. It is but a barren and fruitless philosophy which sees the work and not its author—a narrow piety which loves God but despises his works. The Bible holds forth the golden mean between these extremes, in a strain of lofty poetry and acute perception of the great and beautiful, whether seen in the Creator or reflected from his works.

The work of this day opens up a wide field for astronomical illustration, more especially in relation to the wisdom and benevolence of the Creator as displayed in the heavens; but it would be foreign to our present purpose to enter into these.

It may be well, however, to think for a moment of the importance of the facts suggested by the writer of Genesis in mentioning the use of the heavenly bodies as signs of time. To what extent civilization or even the continued existence of man as an intelligent being would have been possible without the marks of subdivision of time given by the great astronomical clock of the universe, it is almost impossible for us to imagine. Without such marks of time, in any case, the whole fabric of human culture must have been different from what it is. Farther, in connection with this, it is a grand thought of our early revelation that all these heavenly bodies, however magnificent, and however they might seem to the heathen to be objects of worship, are but marks on God's clock, parts of a mere machine which keeps time for us, and is therefore our servant, as the children of the great Artificer, and not our ruler. The idea has been termed an astrological one; but astrology as a means of divination has no place in the record. The heavenly bodies are under the law of the Creator, and their function relatively to us is to give light and to give time. Astrological divination is an outgrowth of the Sabæan idolatry, and held in abomination by the monotheistic author of Genesis. His object may be summed up in the following general statements:

1. The heavenly hosts and their arrangements are the work of Jehovah, and are regulated wholly by his laws or ordinances; a striking illustration of the recognition by the Hebrew writer both of creative interference, and that stable, natural law which too often withdraws the mind of the philosopher from the ideas of creation and of providence.

2. The heavenly bodies have a relation to the earth—are parts of the same plan, and, whatever other uses they were made to serve, were made for the benefit of man.