055. II. Concerning The Creation Of Matter.

II.Concerning The Creation Of Matter. For the present discussion this question is still on hand. We have not, certainly not intentionally, intimated any doubt that matter is a creation in the sense of a divine origination. So far, we have simply aimed to discriminate the spheres of God’s creative work, and for two ends: that we might attain a clearer view of his work: and that the proofs of theism, while not here to be repeated, might remain secure on their distinctive grounds, and especially that they might not illogically be made contingent upon the most difficult question respecting the creation of matter. That we hold this creation as a fact does not commit us to all the proofs alleged.

1. The Question on A Priori Ground.—The position is often taken that the eternity of matter is contradictory to the absoluteness of God. Hence its origination in his creative agency is an immediate datum of his absoluteness. “The doctrine of creation flows from the infinite perfection of God. There can be but one infinite being. If any thing exists independent of his will, God is thereby limited.”^[272] “However perplexing the thought of a properly so-called creation from nothing may be, yet it flows with absolute necessity from belief in an absolutely almighty Creator. Nay, matter without any form cannot be conceived of ; an eternal matter must also be an independent matter, another God; of which it would be hard to explain why it ought or should need to yield to the will of an almighty Fashioner.”^[273] “If we admit that any thing besides God is self-existent, that any thing exists independent of God as ‘the condition of the divine agency and manifestation,’ then God is not the unconditioned absolute Being.”^[274] These citations are given as instances of this position, and as examples of its expression. There is a false sense of the Infinite and the Absolute, such as we previously considered, which would have the consequences here alleged. That sense, however, neither of these authors admits. With the true sense, which they fully hold, the logic of their position is overstrained.

^[272]Hodge:Systematic Theology, vol. i, p. 561.

^[273]Van Oosterzee:Christian Dogmatics, vol. i, p. 302.

^[274]Cocker:Theistic Conception of the World, p. 68.

Common as the notion is in philosophic thought, it is not an a priori truth that “there can be but one infinite being.” With the false sense of a quantitative, space-filling infinite, there could be but one. God is not infinite in such a sense, but infinite in the plenitude of his personal perfections; nor would he be less infinite, though another existed. Moreover, if matter is eternal, it is not therefore an infinite being. The eternal existence of matter as finite is just as conceivable as the eternal existence of God as infinite. If matter is eternal, it is independent of the creative and preserving agency of God; but he is not thereby limited. His perfections and sovereignty would be just the same as with the origination of matter in his creative agency. It is true that “matter without any form cannot be conceived of,” but it can be conceived without any orderly or cosmical form. Whether created or eternal, this is the primordial state of matter in the view of both Scripture and science. Hence the eternity of matter neither concludes the eternity of the cosmos nor the power of its naturalistic evolution. When it is said that “an eternal matter must also be an independent matter, another God,” logic is strained even to breaking. It would be independent of God’s creative agency, but might else be as completely subject to his will as though his own creation. If he could have created matter as it is, so could he annihilate it and replace it with another, and none the less so on the supposition of its eternity. Hence, even on this supposition, there is no independence of matter in contradiction to the true infinity and absoluteness of God. The utmost extreme is reached in the assumption that, if matter is eternal, “it must be another God.” Why another God because eternal? Plainly, it is not God in any sense, whether created or eternal. Duration itself has no determining influence upon the quality of any being. If we assume that matter, if eternal, must be another God, we assume that the eternity of its existence determines its quality as divine. Such an assumption, however, is excluded as utterly groundless. As that which is eternal has no cause of existence, neither has it any determining cause of its quality. It simply is what it is. There is no a priori necessity that an eternal being must be a divine being. God is God in what lie is, and from no determinate consequence of his eternity. If matter were eternal, it would simply be what it is, without any determining cause. The explanation of “why it ought or should need to yield to the will of an almighty Fashioner” is sufficiently given in his almightiness. Nor could the admission “that any thing besides God is self-existent” involve the consequences that he “is not the Absolute Being,” unless such thing should be of a nature to limit or condition him. As we have previously explained, matter itself could exert no such power. In the further assumption that if “any thing exists independent of God as the condition of the divine agency and manifestation, then God is not the unconditioned Absolute Being,” there may be truth; indeed, we might say there must be truth, as the members of the proposition are identical. It is a truth, however, which has no weight against the eternity of space, and time, and number, for in no sense can these condition the divine agency. It is equally invalid against the eternity of matter.

We think it clear, as the result of the previous criticism, that there is no a priori proof of the creation of matter. Certainly that proof does not appear in the arguments which we have reviewed. We know not any of greater strength.

2. On Cosmological Ground.—A necessary link in the cosmological argument for theism is the dependence of the cosmos. The proof of this dependence centers in the manifest fact of its time-origin. This time-origin, however, has respect simply to the orderly forms of the cosmos, and leaves open the question respecting matter itself. To prove the creation of matter by the logic of the cosmological argument, it would be necessary to prove its dependence or time-origin. This is the vital point of the question. It is mainly a question of physical science. While great progress has been made in physics, and rapidly in recent years, it is not yet a completed science. Its diverse schools are conclusive of its incompleteness. “Many scientists of to-day are of the opinion expressed by Grove,^[275] that ‘probably man will never know the ultimate structure of matter.’”^[276] Others may look for such knowledge, but no one claims its attainment. If there are as yet no data of the science conclusive of the time-origin of matter, neither are there any conclusive against it. It is hardly in the nature of the science that there ever should be such, while the former, if not yet sufficient, may be attainments of the future.

^[275]Correlation of Physical Forces, p. 187.

^[276]Cocker:Theistic Conception of the World, p. 132.

Some scientists claim the present attainment and possession of facts sufficient to prove the time-origin and creation of matter. “Chemical analysis most certainly points to an origin, and effectually destroys the idea of an external self-existent matter, by giving to each of its atoms the essential character, at once, of a manufactured article and a subordinate agent.”^[277] “None of the processes of nature, since the time when nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any of the causes which we call natural. On the other hand, the exact equality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent.”^[278] Respecting the more direct point, the only difference between Herschel and Maxwell is that what the former alleges of the atoms the latter alleges of the molecules.

^[277]Sir John Herschel:Dissertations on the Study of Natural Philosophy, sec. 28.

^[278]Professor Clerk Maxwell:Nature, vol. viii, p. 411; these citations in Cocker:Theistic Conception of the World, pp. 125, 126.

3. On Teleological Ground.—The central and necessary fact in the teleological argument for theism is the manifestation of rational intelligence in the conception of ends and the adjustment of means for their attainment. With the cosmos as an end, there is the use of matter in its formation. There can be no question of a marvelous adaptation of matter to this end. Does this adaptation lead us certainly to its creation for this end? The answer little concerns the question of a divine teleology in the cosmos. With a negative answer, such teleology would still have sure ground and ample room. The mechanical use of a machine may so determine the material for its construction as to allow but little skill in its selection. The material of a locomotive is not only well suited to its mechanical use, but a practical necessity. Hence the sphere of skill in its selection is very narrow; yet the rational teleology in the conception of its use, and in its construction for that use, is not thereby diminished. In like manner, even if matter were an eternal existence, the conception of the cosmos as an end and the constructive use of mutter in its formation would still be conclusive of a divine teleology.

Whether the ground of teleology can carry us any further depends upon the scientific discovery of an inner constitution of matter which evinces its origin in time, and its creation for cosmical uses. Some claim such a discovery, as we have recently seen, but without any decisive concurrence of scientific authority. Such opinion, therefore, cannot be conclusive of the creation of matter. Further, as previously noted, the facts which mark the molecules or even the atoms as “manufactured articles” may not be primordial with matter itself, but a product of the divine agency in its preparation for cosmical uses. The molecules are not the ultimates of matter, and therefore not necessarily original with it. Even if matter itself is eternal, it is easily conceivable that God in the process of his creative agency should cast it in its molecular forms, or even endow its atoms with affinities and potencies not originally theirs. The conclusion is that the creation of matter is no a priori truth, and that, while nothing appears in the light of science as contradictory to its creation, neither does any thing yet appear as conclusive of it.

4. In the Light of Scripture.—Here the question may be studied either in the more specific terms of creation or in the informing idea of passages which beyond a mere verbal sense express the work of creation. The more specific terms in the Hebrew are עשהבךאיעך. The second and third have rarely been given the definitive sense of immediate or originative creation of matter. There is nothing in the root-sense or biblical use of the words to warrant such a definition. The same is true of the first. “The best critics under stand them as so nearly synonymous that, at least in regard to the idea of making out of nothing, little or no foundation for that doctrine can be obtained from the use of the first of these words. They are used indifferently and interchangeably in many passages ; as, for example, in Isaiah 43:7, where they all three occur applied to the same divine act. The Septuagint renders בךא indifferently by ποιείν and κτίξειν. But especially in the account of the creation in Genesis 1, the verbs are used irrespectively in verses 7, 16, 21, 25, etc.; and in comparing Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:7, man is said to have been created, yet he is also said to have been formed out of the ground. Again, in the decalogue (Exodus 20:11) the verb is עשה,made, not created.”^[279] “The Hebrew word בךא, rendered create, has nothing abstract or metaphysical about it. It is as clearly phenomenal as any word in the language. Its primary meaning is to cut, hence toshave, shape, form, or fashion.”^[280] The result is, not that the primitive act of creation was not originative of matter itself, but that there is no conclusive proof of such origination on purely philological ground.

^[279]Kitto:Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, “Creation.”

^[280]Lewis:The Six Days of Creation, p. 48. The result is the same in the mere verbal study of κτίξειν and ποιείν, the terms of creation in the New Testament, and in common use in the Septuagint for the rendering of the Hebrew words previously considered. Κτίξειν, “literally, to make habitable, to build, to plant a colony. . . . Then, in general, to set up, to establish, to effect any thing. In the Septuagint it answers mainly to the Hebrew בךא, though this word in Genesis is always rendered by ποιείν, and afterward by either ποιείν or κτίξειν, and, indeed, more rarely by ποιείν, but not (as has been said) exclusively by κτίξειν.”^[281] An originative creation of matterdoes not appear in the mere verbal sense of these words. It could not have been an original sense, because such a creation had no place in the Greek mind which originated and used these terms. It does not follow that the sense of an originative creation of matter is not in the Scriptures. All exegesis is not purely philological. There are other laws of interpretation, and must be, for the reason that philology alone cannot always give the full meaning or even the true meaning of an author. Any such etymological restriction would deny to the words of the Hebrew Scriptures the reception of any new or varied meaning in the advancement of revelation, and equally to Christianity the introduction of any new ideas into the Greek of the New Testament. Nothing in either case could be more false to the facts. While, therefore, an originative creation of matter cannot be determined from the Scriptures on purely verbal grounds, such a sense of creation may be clearly given through other laws of interpretation.

^[281]Cremer:Biblico-Theological Lexicon.

It is an obvious principle of interpretation that often the connections of a word, rather than its etymology, determine its meaning. By such a law we may find in the first biblical use of בךא the sense of an originative creation of matter. This is really the method of interpretation and the chief resource of such as claim for the word itself the sense of such a creation. We may notice a few instances; not so much for exemplification, however, as for the proof thus given of the creation of matter. On Genesis 1:1, as containing this sense of creation: “This is also shown in the connection between our verse and the one which follows: ‘And the earth was without form, and void;’ not before, but when, or after, God created it. From this it is evident that the void and formless state of the earth was not uncreated or without a beginning. At the same time it is evident from the creative acts which follow (verses 3-18) that the heaven and earth, as God created them in the beginning, were not the well-ordered universe, but the world in its elementary form; just as Euripides applies the expression ούρανος καί γαία to the undivided mass (μορφί μία) which was afterward formed into heaven and earth.”^[282] “But whatever weight may be due to the usage of the term, it is to be noted that the question turns not so much on the sense of the verb, taken alone and apart from the context, as on the way in which it is to be viewed in such a peculiar collocation as, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ Granted, that in itself the term does not absolutely deny or affirm the presence of pre-existing matter, and that this can be inferred only from the context or subject treated of, the question comes to be. What can be the meaning of the term here? The expression, ‘In the beginning,’ evidently refers to the beginning of created existence, in contradistinction to the eternal being of the Creator, and is thus an absolute beginning in and with time.”^[283] There is still another or further decisive connection of this verb. It lies in the conjunctive transition to the state of the earth. “Verse 2 begins, ‘And the earth,’ etc.; but no history can begin with the Hebrew vav, whether taken in the sense of but or and.”^[284] It follows that verse 2 is an historic continuation of verse 1; and hence, that the meaning must be the creation of the earth as a void and formless mass. With this result, the meaning must be an originative creation of matter. The void and formless state of the product precludes the sense of a cosmical formation and leaves only the sense of origination.

^[282]Keil and Delitzsch:On the Pentateuch, pp. 47, 48.

^[283]Macdonald:Creation and the Fall, pp. 64, 65.

^[284]Ibid., p. 245. The following words are treated by some as the most direct Scripture testimony to the creation of matter: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Hebrews 11:3). The former part of the text seems rather to give the sense of a formative creation of worlds. This is the more natural sense of the words, “the worlds were framed by the word of God”—κατηρτίσϑαι τούς αίώνας ρήματι θεού. Special account is made, however, of the latter part: “So that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear”—είς τό μή έκ φαινομένων τά βλεπόμενα γεγονέναι. There may be a question respecting the construction of these words. Such a question is raised, but it is one which does not materially affect the sense. Bloomfield, after treating the construction, says: “Thus the sense is that ‘the world we see was not made out of apparent materials, from matter which had existed from eternity, but out of nothing; so that, at His fiat, the material creation was brought into existence, and formed into the things we see.”^[285] Dr. Hodge holds much the same view. After a review of the construction, he concludes: “Whatever is real is phenomenal; that is, every substance, every thing which really exists, manifests itself somewhere and somehow. The proper antithesis, therefore, to φαινομένον is ούκ όντων. ‘The worlds were not made out of any thing which reveals itself as existing even in the sight of God, but out of nothing.’”^[286] There is another text classed with this one as at once illustrative and affirmative of the same sense of creation: “God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). His calling things which are not as though they were may be taken in the sense of his divine fiat which causes or can cause them to exist and serve his purpose. “God calls τά μή όντα just as he does τά όντα; things that do not now exist are at his disposal as really and truly as things that do exist —that is, they can be made to exist and to subserve his purpose, in the same manner as things do which now already exist. If any one still feels a difficulty, he may solve the sentence in this simple way, namely, καλούντος τά μή όντα ώς [έκαλεσεν] όυτα—that is, calling into existence (Genesis 1:2; Psalms 33:6) things that are not, as [he called into existence] things that are. The sense would be for substance the same.”^[287] “For example, the centurion says to his servant, . . . Do this; but God says to the light, whilst it is not in existence, just as if it were, Come forth, γενού, come into existence. Think of that often-recurring and wonderful יהי, Genesis 1; it expresses the transition from non-existence to existence, which is produced by God calling.”^{[288] [285]} Greek Testament, in loc.

^[286]Systematic Theology, vol, i, p. 560.

^[287]Stuart:On Romans, in loc.

^[288]Bengel:Gnomon of the New Testament, in loc. This interpretation cannot claim decisive authority, and for the reason that some able expositors do not find in the words the sense of an originative creation. Still, there is nothing forced or Inconsistent in the interpretation, and the text may fairly be claimed in support of the creation of matter.

There is another significant fact. There are in the Scriptures many references to the creative work of God: many sublime descriptions of the greatness of that work, and of the greatness of God in its achievement; much of detail in these descriptions; lofty expressions of his majesty and the absoluteness of his power, of his eternity in distinction from the temporariness of all other existences; but in all this there is not the slightest reference to any eternally existing matter which he used in framing the heavens. This total omission is out of all consistency with such an existence. In other spheres of existence, particularly in those of life and mind, the proof of an originative creation is clear and full. Science can give no account of the origin of either life or mind. In the light of reason, as in the light of revelation, both originated in the creative agency of God. With this clear truth, there is the less reason to question the creation of matter; or, rather, the former facts of an originative creation should be accepted as quite decisive of the latter.