The answer comes from a thousand voices, “How old? why, 6,000 years, and no more, or closely thereabouts! Every child knows that;—talk about the age of the world at this time of day, when the Bible clearly reveals it!”
Now I ask, Where does the Bible reveal it? Where is the chapter and the verse in which its age is recorded? I have read my Bible somewhat, and feel a deepening reverence for it, but as yet I have never read that. I see the age of man recorded there; I see the revelation that says the human species is not much more than 6,000 years old; and geology says this testimony is true, for no remains of man have been found even in the tertiary system, the latest of all the geological formations. “The Bible, the writings of Moses,” says Dr. Chalmers, “do not fix the antiquity of the globe; if they fix any thing at all, it is only the antiquity of the species.”
It may be said that the Bible does not dogmatically teach this doctrine of the antiquity of the globe; and we reply, Very true; but how have we got the idea that the Bible was to teach us all physical science, as well as theology. Turretin went to the Bible for Astronomy: Turretin was a distinguished professor of theology in his day, and has left behind him large proofs of scholarship and piety. Well, Turretin went to the Bible, determined to find his system of astronomy in it; and of course he found it. “The sun,” he says, “is not fixed in the heavens, but moves through the heavens, and is said in Scripture to rise and to set, and by a miracle to have stood still in the time of Joshua; if the sun did not move, how could birds, which often fly off through an hour’s circuit, be able to return to their nests, for in the mean time the earth would move 450 miles?” And if it be said in reply, that Scripture speaks according to common opinion, then says Turretin, “We answer, that the Spirit of God best understands natural things, and is not the author of any error.”
We smile at such “ecclesiastical drum” noise now, and we can well afford to do so: but when people go to the Bible, determined to find there, not a central truth, but the truths of physics, in every department of natural science, are we to be surprised that they come away disappointed and angry? As Michaelis says, (quoted by Dr. Harris, in his “Man Primeval,” p. 12,) “Should a stickler for Copernicus and the true system of the world carry his zeal so far as to say, that the city of Berlin sets at such an hour, instead of making use of the common expression, that the sun sets at Berlin at such an hour, he speaks the truth, to be sure, but his manner of speaking it is pedantry.”
Now, this is just the way to make thoughtful men unbelievers: and we will not adopt that plan, because it is not honest, neither is it clever; the Gordian knot of every question might easily be solved in this way.
Bearing in mind that the question we are now trying to solve is this, “What is the evidence afforded by Geology, as to the history of creation, and in what way does the geological age of the world affect the supposed statement of Scripture, that the world is only 6,000 years old?” I reply thus, and I prefer to use the words of others rather than my own, lest it should be supposed that I am introducing mere novelties of opinion on this subject:—“That the first sentence in Genesis is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom to this effect; that matter, elementary or combined, aggregated only or organized, and dependent, sentient and intellectual beings have not existed from eternity, either in self-continuity or in succession: but had a beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of One Being, the self-existent, independent and infinite in all perfection, and that the date of that beginning is not made known.”
These are the words of Dr. Pye Smith,[[123]] of whose name as an authority, both in matters of science and philology, no one need be ashamed.
Dr. Redford says, “We ought to understand Moses as saying, indefinitely, far back, and concealed from us in the mystery of eternal ages, prior to the first moment of mundane time, ‘God created the heavens and the earth.’”
“My firm persuasion is,” says Dr. Harris, “that the first verse of Genesis was designed by the Divine Spirit to announce the absolute origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator, and that it is so understood in the other parts of Holy Writ; that, passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation; and that the third verse begins the account of the six days’ work.”
Dr. Davidson, in his “Sacred Hermeneutics,” says,—“If I am reminded, in a tone of animadversion, that I am making science, in this instance, the interpreter of Scripture, my reply is, that I am simply making the works of God illustrate His word in a department in which they speak with a distinct and authoritative voice; that it is all the same whether our geological or theological investigations have been prior, if we have not forced the one into accordance with the other. And it may be deserving consideration whether or not the conduct of those is not open to just animadversion who first undertake to pronounce on the meaning of a passage of Scripture, irrespective of all appropriate evidence, and who then, when that evidence is explored and produced, insist on their à priori interpretation as the only true one.”