The Story of Creation as Told By Theology and By Science

by T. S. Ackland

An additional reason may, perhaps, be found for the choice of the word "day," in the accordance of its phenomena with some, at least, of the processes which Moses describes—the dawn, the light slowly increasing to the perfect day, and then fading away gradually into night—these do seem aptly to represent the first scanty appearance, the gradual increase, and the vast development of plants, of the reptiles and of the mammalia, and in the case of the first two classes, their gradual passing away.

But if the word was thus employed in a figurative, and not in its natural sense, we may expect to find some indications in the context that this was the case. Such indications we do find. The fact that the work of Creation was distributed into days, is, in itself, significant. There is no reason to believe that in the opinion of the writer each day's work tasked to the utmost the power of the Creator. Moses was evidently as well aware as we are, that to Him it would have been equally easy, had He so willed, to call everything into instant and perfect being at a single word. Nor was the detailed description necessary to establish the foundation of all religion—the right of the Creator to the entire obedience of His creature For this the short recapitulation which (ch. ii. 4) prefaces the more detailed account of man's peculiar relation to his Maker would have been sufficient. Some purpose, however, there must have been for this more particular account which precedes the summary. We may trace two probable reasons. It brings before us the method of the Divine Working in the light of an orderly progress. But beside this, it is of infinite service to us, in enabling us more thoroughly to realize the Fatherly character and ever watchful care of our Creator. As far as that care itself was concerned, it was unimportant whether the work was instantaneous or progressive; but it was very important to us, in so far as it affected our conceptions of God, and of our relations to Him. For all our conceptions of God must rest ultimately on our self-consciousness; we can form no idea of Him except in so far as that idea is analogous to something which comes within the range of our own experience. Now to us and to our feelings there is a very wide difference between an act performed in a moment, and a work over which we have lovingly dwelt, and to which we have devoted our time, our labour, and our thought, for months or years. The one may pass from our mind and be forgotten as quickly as it was performed, but in the other we commonly feel an abiding interest. When therefore the great Creator is represented to us as thus dwelling upon His work, carrying it on step by step, through the long ages, to its completion, we find it far less difficult to realize that other truth, so precious to us, that His care and His tender mercies are over all His works, that the loving watchfulness which still upholds all, and provides for all, is but the continuance of that care which was displayed in the creation of all. Creation, Providence and Grace are blended together in one continuous manifestation of the Divine Wisdom, Power, and Love.

But for this purpose it is of little importance to us whether Creation is described as taking place in a moment, or in six ordinary days. If the division into six days indicates orderly progress and watchful care, we naturally expect to find the same indications in each of the subordinate parts. To our imperfect conceptions each single day's work would bear that same character of vast instantaneous action which seemed so undesirable. It would not help us to realize what it is so important that we should thoroughly feel. The very fact then that the history of Creation is divided into days carries with it a strong presumption that those days are not ordinary days.

In the 14th and following verses, when Moses is describing the formation of the heavenly luminaries, he is particular in mentioning that one part of their office was to "rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness." Hence it is sometimes inferred that he was under a mistake in speaking of day and night at an earlier period. But such a mistake seems incredible. To suppose that Moses did not perceive that what he wrote in the 14th and following verses was incompatible with what he had written in the 4th and 5th verses, if such an incompatibility really existed, is to impute to him an amount of ignorance or carelessness which is at variance with the whole character of his writings from beginning to end. Instead of this it will be shown hereafter that, in all probability, his statements rested on a wide knowledge of facts. If then, under such circumstances, he uses the word "day" long before he comes to the formation of the sun, the natural inference is that he did so designedly—that it was his intention that his readers should understand that he was speaking of something very different from that natural day which is regulated by sunrise and sunset.

The way too in which he introduces the mention of the first and following days is apparently significant, though its full meaning is probably more than we can at present understand. In ver. 5 he carefully defines light and darkness as the equivalents of day and night; but in the next verse he passes over these words, and introduces two new ones, which he has not defined; these two words being as much out of place before the creation of the atmosphere as light and darkness are supposed to have been before the Creation of the Sun. And not only does he introduce two new words, but he introduces them in a very remarkable and, with our present knowledge, unaccountable manner. Had he said "And there was morning and there was evening, one day," we should have found no difficulty in harmonizing; his words with what he had previously said concerning the evolution of light. But he first of all reverses the order, and then does not supply the natural termination to his sentence—"And there was evening and there was morning,"—"one night" would seem to be the natural conclusion; but instead of that we read, "there was evening and there was morning, one day." Whatever farther significance then may be hereafter discovered in this remarkable statement, one thing at all events seems clear, that it was designed to call attention to the fact that the day spoken of was not a natural day. Probably certain stages in the progress of the work were indicated, which farther investigations may disclose to us. A few years ago such stages seemed to be discernible, but the continued progress of discovery has partly obliterated the supposed lines of demarcation. Still further discoveries may bring to light other divisions.

In the opening of the second chapter we are told that God rested on the seventh day from all His work, and His rest is spoken of in such a way as to carry our thoughts at once to the Fourth Commandment. In that commandment the duty of hallowing a seventh portion of our time is based on the fact that "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day." But the analogy entirely fails unless the days of the Creator's work bore the same proportion to the day of His rest which man's six days of labour bear to his Sabbath. Now we are expressly told in other parts of Scripture that the Divine Sabbath is not yet ended (Heb. iii. iv.), and we are led to infer that it will not end till He that sitteth upon the throne shall say, "Behold I make all things new." If then the Sabbath of the Creator is measured by thousands of years—the whole duration of man upon the earth—it follows that the days of His work must have been of corresponding length.

One more indication, so strong that in itself it seems sufficient to decide the question, is to be found in the 4th verse of the second chapter. [Footnote: It is not unusual with critics of the German school to assert that this is an independent account of the Creation. But the assertion does not appear to have any valid foundation. The supposed grounds for it are well discussed in the "Speaker's Commentary," vol. i. p. 23, and in "Aids to Faith," Essay v., Sections 2, 4, 5. It has already been pointed out that the supposed variations in order rest entirely on the translation.] In that verse all that is ascribed to the six days in the preceding chapter is summed up as the work of a single day. If then the word is used in a natural sense in the first chapter, it is clearly used in an extended sense in the second chapter. But if it had been used in a natural sense in the first chapter, there would have been no need whatever for its use here. Its place would have been taken—and most appropriately—by the word [Hebrew script], a week, with which Moses was familiar (ch. xxix. 28; Deut. xvi. 10). Its use here would have connected the weekly division of time with the Creation, and as its presence would have been thus strongly significant, its absence is a no less significant indication that the six days spoken of in the preceding chapter are something very different from six natural days.

Three points, therefore, seem to be clear:—

1. However the chapter may be interpreted, there are in it coincidences with ascertained facts so marked that they cannot possibly be fortuitous. They prove therefore that Moses was in possession of some accurate information on the subject on which he was writing.

As we proceed with our subject we shall come upon many more indications of this, some of them exceedingly remarkable. It is therefore by no means improbable that he was acquainted with the fact, that the work which he was describing was one which had occupied a long series of ages.