The Story of Creation as Told By Theology and By Science

by T. S. Ackland

2. Moses describes the firmament as a solid vault.

3. Moses speaks of the stars as created on the fourth day, only two days before Adam, whereas astronomers have asserted that many of them are so distant that the light by which we see them must have been on its way ages before Adam was created.

That part of the first objection which refers to the existence of light prior to the creation of the Sun, appears so extremely childish that it might have been thought unnecessary to notice it, had it not been solemnly propounded in such a work as "Essays and Reviews." [Footnote: Page 219] Anyone who is in possession of a telescope of but moderate power may satisfy himself of its futility on any starlight night. He has only to turn his telescope to one or two of the more conspicuous nebulae; the Great Nebula in Orion, for instance, or the Ring Nebula in Lyra, and his eye will receive light which has not come from any Sun, for it is a well- ascertained fact that these nebulae are nothing but vast masses of incandescent gas. And this objection is singularly inappropriate in the mouth of the opponents of the Mosaic Record, inasmuch as the Nebular hypothesis is with them the favourite method of accounting for the present state of things. The view which they bring forward as an alternative to the Mosaic account assumes the very state of things which, when, alleged by Moses, they denounce as impossible. The other part of this objection, which refers to the division of day and night, will be more advantageously discussed when we come to consider the actual accounts of the first and fourth days' work. It will then appear probable that the statements which Moses has made on this subject, instead of being indications of ignorance, are the result of a profound knowledge of the subject on which he was writing.

Next, it is alleged that Moses describes the firmament as a solid vault.[Footnote: Essays and Reviews, p. 220.] "The work of the second day of creation is to erect the vault of heaven, which is represented as supporting an ocean of water above it." That the Greek and Latin translations in this place do seem to imply the idea of solidity seems indisputable; and from the Latin the word "firmament" has passed into our own language. But there is no reason to think that the Hebrew word has any such meaning. It is derived from a root signifying "to beat out—to extend." [Footnote: May not this root, [Hebrew script], have some connexion with [Hebrew script], "to be light," from which is derived the Aramaic "Raca" of Matt. v. 22?] The verb is often applied to the beating out of metals, but not always. It is a new doctrine in etymology, that the meaning of a verbal noun is to be deduced from the nouns which often supply objects to its root, instead of from the meaning of the root itself. But even if it can be shown that the word did originally involve such a meaning, that would be nothing to the purpose. It would only be in the same case with a vast number of other words, which, though etymologically untrue, are habitually used without inconvenience, because they do convey to the minds of others the idea which we intend to convey, their etymology being lost sight of. Probably, the very persons who bring forward the objection do sometimes use the word "firmament," though they know the error which is involved in it. Nor would they be any more accurate if they substituted for it the Saxon word "heaven," since that also involves a scientific inaccuracy. The word used by Moses was the commonly recognized name for the object of which he was writing; and no objection to his use of it can be maintained, unless it can be shown that in using it he rejected some other word equally intelligible to all, and which was at the same time etymologically correct. But there is no ground for the assumption that any such word existed in the time of Moses or at any subsequent period.

The third objection, of course, ceases to have any force if the days of creation are no longer regarded as natural days. But the objection is in itself, apart from this condition, of no consequence whatever. For, in the first place, it is by no means certain, or even probable, that the stars referred to in the fourth day's work are the fixed stars. The Hebrew has no word for planets as distinguished from the fixed stars, although, as we know for certain, the difference between the planets and the fixed stars was recognized from a very early period. In every case, then, the context must determine the sense to be given to the word. In this case, the fact that these stars are mentioned in connexion with the sun and moon, combined with our knowledge that the planets, like the moon, are dependent upon the sun for their light, would lead us to infer that they are meant.

But even if the fixed stars were meant, the objection would be no longer tenable. It rests on certain estimates as to the supposed distances of the fixed stars and star clusters, which were formed by the late Sir W. Herschel from what he designated the "space- penetrating power" of his telescopes. Starting with the assumption that the stars were of tolerably uniform size and brilliancy, and that the difference in apparent brightness was the result, and therefore a measure of their distances, he proceeded to apply the same process to the star clusters, which, even in a fair telescope, present only the appearance of faint nebulous spots of light, but are resolved into clusters of stars by more powerful instruments. In many cases, he found that a certain proportion existed between the telescopic power by which a cluster was first rendered visible, and that required for its resolution, and by this means he formed what he considered a probable estimate of its distance. Other clusters there were which only became visible in his most powerful telescopes, and which, therefore, he could never succeed in resolving. These he placed at a still greater distance, and from this estimate he deduced the conclusion that their light must have been in some cases as much as 60,000 years in reaching the earth.

But the whole foundation on which this long chain of inference rested has now been shown to be evanescent. In the first place many of his irresolvable nebulae have been proved by the spectroscope to be true nebulae—masses of luminous gas, and not star clusters at all; and, in the next place, the actual distances of a few of the fixed stars have been approximately ascertained, and it is proved beyond all doubt that the different degree of brightness exhibited by different stars is no test at all of their distance. Of all the stars in our hemisphere whose distance has thus been measured, the nearest to us is one which can only just be discerned by a practised eye on a favourable night, 61 Cygni, whilst the most brilliant star visible in England, Sirius, is at a considerably greater distance. The most competent judges estimate the magnitude of Sirius as about one thousand times that of the sun [Footnote: Mr. Proctor in Good Words, February, 1872.]. In addition to this, many stars of very different magnitudes are found to be related to each other in such a way as to show that they are in actual, and not merely in optical proximity. The clusters which were formerly supposed to consist of large stars at enormous distances from us, are now, upon very solid grounds, believed to be formed of much smaller stars, at much more moderate distances, so that it is very improbable that there is any object visible in the heavens whose light has taken so much as 6000 years, instead of 60,000 years to reach us.

THE NEBULAR THEORY.

We come now to the consideration of the Nebular Theory of Laplace, in so far as it is opposed to the Mosaic account. It must be remembered that, after all, this is only a theory. Even if it could be satisfactorily established, it would only point out a way in which this world MIGHT have been formed. That it could not have been formed in any other way is an independent proposition, in support of which no single argument has ever yet been brought forward. There may be a greater or less probability that the earth was formed in this particular way, that probability depending on the extent to which the theory accounts for observed facts. This it does in many cases, and it has in consequence been accepted AS A WHOLE by many scientific men, as a substitute for the Scriptural account. As will be seen hereafter, there are strong reasons for admitting it as a supplement to the brief account given by Moses; but our business now is to ascertain, whether it has any just claim to be received instead of that account.

The theory seems to have been suggested by certain speculations of Sir W. Herschel. In his telescopic examination of the Nebulae and star clusters, he found that in a great number of cases, when a nebula was rendered visible by a certain amount of telescopic power, it would be resolved into separate stars by a telescope of a little higher power. But there were some nebulae, visible in very small telescopes, or even discernible with the naked eye, such as those in Orion and Andromeda, which could not be resolved even by his great four-foot reflector, the largest telescope that had then been constructed. And these nebulae exhibited a great variety of forms. Some of them were vast shapeless masses of faint light; others, which he designated "planetary" nebulae, exhibited a regular form—a circular disc more or less clearly defined, often brightest in the centre. Others seemed to be intermediate between these two classes. Hence he was led to the idea that these were worlds in the process of formation, and that their varying forms indicated varying stages of that process.