02.12. The Creation of the World
Chapter 12 The Creation of the World 1. What is the origin of the doctrine of Creationex nihilo (from nothing)? The prevalence, if not the conception, of the idea of absolute creation, or of creation ex nihilo, is to be referred to the influence of the inspired word of God. Anterior to revelation there were two prevalent causes which prevented the acceptance of this idea. (a.) The universally assumed truth of the axiom that ex nihilo nihil fit. Hence all theists and atheists alike failed to conceive of; or conceiving repudiated, the idea of absolute creation as absurd. (b.) The second cause influencing theists was the presumed interest of natural theology, in the impossibility, on that hypothesis, of reconciling the existence of evil with the perfections of God.
2. What views were respectively held by the great theists Plato and Aristotle?
Plato held that there are two eternal, self–existent principles, God and matter,
3. What views on this point prevailed among the Gnostics?
Some of the Gnostics taught that the universe proceeds from God by way of emanation, which was explained as “a necessary and gradual unfolding ad extra of the germ of existence that lay in God,” as radiance proceeds from the sun, etc. Most of the Gnostics united with this theory of emanation the doctrine of dualism, i. e., of the coordinate self–existence of two independent principles, God and matter (
4. What is the view on this subject common to all schemes of Pantheism?
Pantheists identify God and the universe. God is the absolute being of which stings are the special and transient modes. God is the self–existent and persistent principle of all things, which by an inherent self–acting law of development is eternally running through ceaseless cycles of change.
5. State the true doctrine as to creation. The Christian doctrine as to Creation involves the following points:
1st. “In the beginning,” at some unknown point of definite commencement in time.
2nd. God called all things (that is, the original principles and causes of all things) into being out of nothing. Thus every thing which has or will or can exist, exterior to the Godhead, owes its being and substance as well as its form to God.
3rd. This creative act is an act of free, self–determined will. It was not a necessary constitutional act analogous to the immanent and eternal acts of the Generation of the Son or the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
4th. It was not necessary to complete the divine excellence or blessedness, which were eternal and complete and inseparable from the divine essence. But it was done in the exercise of absolute discretion for infinitely wise reasons.—Dr. Charles Hodge. This doctrine is essential to Theism. All opposing theories of the origin of the world, are essentially Pantheistic or Atheistic.
6. What distinction is signalized by the termsCreation prima seu immediata , andCreatio secunda seu mediate , and by whom was it introduced? The phrase Creation prima seu immediata signifies the originating act of the divine will whereby he brings, or has brought, into being, out of nothing, the principles and elementary essences of all things. The phrase Creation secunda seu mediata signifies the subsequent act of God in originating different forms of things, and especially different species of living beings out of the already created essences of things. The Christian Church holds both. These phrases originated in the writings of certain Lutheran theologians of the seventeenth century, e. g., Gerhard, Quenstedt, etc.
7. What is the primary signification, and what the biblical usage of the word
1st. Strictly, To hew, cut out.
2nd. To form, make, produce (whether out of nothing or not).—Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:3-4; Isaiah 43:1; Isaiah 43:7; Isaiah 14:7; Isaiah 65:18; Psalms 51:12; Jeremiah 31:22; Amos 4:13. Niphal, 1st. To be created.—Genesis 2:4; Genesis 5:2.
2nd. To be born.—Psalms 102:19; Ezekiel 21:35. Piel, 1st. To hew, cut down, e. g., a wood. Joshua 17:15; Joshua 17:18.
2nd. To cut down (with the sword), to kill. Ezekiel 23:47.
3rd. To form, engrave, mark out.—Ezekiel 21:24.“ Gesenius”“Lex.”
8. State the direct proof of the truth of this doctrine afforded in Scripture.
1st. Since the idea itself is new, and foreign to all precedent modes of thought, it could be conveyed in Scripture only through the use of old terms, previously bearing a different sense, but so employed as to suggest a new meaning. The word “bara,” however, is the best one the Hebrew language afforded to express the idea of absolute making.
2nd. This new idea is inevitably suggested by the way in which the term is first used by Moses, when giving account from the very commencement of the genesis of the heavens and the earth. As a general introduction to the history of the formation of the world and its inhabitants, it is declared that “In the beginning—in the absolute beginning, God made the heavens and the earth.” There is not the slightest hint given of any previously existing material. In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth, after that Chaos existed, for then it is said “the earth was without form and void,” and the Spirit of God brooded over the abyss.
3rd. The same truth is also inevitably suggested in all the various modes of expression by which the agency of God in originating the world is set forth in Scripture. In no case is there the faintest trace of any reference to any pre–existing materials or precedent conditions of creation. In every case the whole causal agency to which the creation is referred is the “Word,” the bare “fiat” of Jehovah.—Psalms 33:6; Psalms 148:5. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen (
9. In what manner is this doctrine of the absolute creation of the world by God implied in Scripture?
1st. In all those passages that teach that God is an absolute Sovereign, and that the creature is absolutely dependent on him, “in whom we live and move and have our being.”—Acts 17:28; Nehemiah 9:6; Colossians 1:16; Revelation 4:11; Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6.
Now it is evident that if the essences and primordial principles of all things are not immediately created by God out of nothing, but are eternally self–existent independently of him, then he, in his offices of Creator and Providential governor of all things, must be conditioned and limited by the pre–existing essential properties and powers of those primordial elements. In which case God would not be absolute Sovereign, nor the things made absolutely dependent upon his will.
2nd. In all those passages which teach that the kosmos, the “all things ” had a beginning.—Psalms 90:2; John 17:5; John 17:24.
10. What arguments derived from reason and consciousness, and from the elementary constitution of matter, may be adduced in proof of absolute creation?
1st. This doctrine alone is consistent with the feeling of absolute dependence of the creature upon the Creator, which is inherent in every heart, and which is inculcated in all the teachings of the Scriptures. It could not be said that “he upholds all things by the word of his power,” nor that “we live and move and have our being in him,” unless he be absolutely the Creator as well as the Former of all things.
2nd. It is manifest from the testimony of consciousness:
(1.) That our souls are distinct individual entities, and not parts or particles of God;
(2.) that they are not eternal. It follows consequently that they were created. And if the creation of the spirits of men ex nihilo(out of nothing) be once admitted, there remains no special difficulty with respect to the absolute creation of matter.
3rd. Although the absolute origination of any new existence out of nothing is to us confessedly inconceivable, it is not one whit more so than the relation of the infinite foreknowledge, or foreordination, or providential control of God to the free agency of men, nor than many other truths which we are all forced to believe.
4th. After having admitted the necessary self–existence of an infinitely wise and powerful personal Spirit, whose existence, upon the hypothesis of his possessing the power of absolute Creation is sufficient to account for all the phenomena of the universe, it is unphilosophical gratuitously to multiply causes by supposing the independent, eternal self–existence of matter also.
5th. When the physical philosopher has analyzed matter to its ultimate atoms, and determined their essential primary properties, he finds in them as strong evidence of a powerful antecedent cause, and of a wisely designing mind, as he does in the most complex organizations of nature; for what are the ultimate properties of matter but the elementary constituents of the universal laws of nature, and the ultimate conditions of all phenomena. If design discovered in the constitution of the universe as finished proves a divine Former, by equal right must the same design discovered in the elementary constitution of matter prove a divine Creator.
“Whether or not the conception of a multitude of beings existing from all eternity is in itself self–contradictory, the conception becomes palpably absurd when we attribute a relation of quantitative equality to all those beings. We are then forced to look beyond them to some common cause, or common origin, to explain why this singular relation of equality exists.
We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self–existent it must have been created.”—Prof. J. Clerk–Maxwell in Art. Atom, “Encyclo. Britannica,” 9th ed.
11. State and refute the objection to this doctrine based upon the axiom, “Ex nihilo nihilo fit(from nothing, nothing comes). ”
It is objected that it is an original and self–evident principle of reason, that only nothing can come from nothing. We answer that this statement is indefinite. If it is meant that no new thing, nor any change in a previously existing thing, can begin to be without an adequate cause, we answer that it is true, but does not apply to the case in hand. Our doctrine is not that the universe came into being without an adequate cause, but that the essences as well as the forms of all things had a beginning in time, and their cause exists only in the will of God. The infinite power inherent in a self–existent Spirit is precisely the Cause to which we refer the absolute origination of all things. But if it is meant by the above objection that this infinite God has not power to create new entities, then the principle is simply false and not self–evident; it bears not one of the marks of a valid intuition—neither self–evidence, necessity, nor universality.
12. State and refute the position of some who maintain on moral grounds the self–existence of matter.
Those among theistic thinkers who have been tempted to regard matter as eternal and self–existent, have been influenced by the vain hope of explaining thereby the existence of moral evil in consistency with the holiness of God. They would refer all the phenomena of sin to an essentially evil principle inherent in matter, and would justify God by maintaining that he has done all that in him lay to limit that evil. Now, besides the inconsistency of this theory’s attempt to vindicate the holiness of God at the expense of his independence, it proceeds upon absurd principles, as appears from the following considerations:
(1.) Moral evil is in its essence an attribute of spirit. To refer it to a material origin must logically lead to the grossest materialism.
(2.) The entire Christian system of religion, and the example of Christ, is in opposition to that asceticism and “neglecting of the body” (Colossians 2:23), which necessarily springs from the view that matter is the ground of sin.
(3.) When God created the material universe he pronounced his works “very good.”
(4.) The second Person of the holy Trinity assumed a real material body into personal union with himself.
(5.) The material creation, now “made subject to vanity” through man’s sin, is to be renovated and made the temple in which the God–man shall dwell forever.—See below, Chap. 29., Question 17.
(6.) The work of Christ in delivering his people from their sin does not contemplate the renunciation of the material part of our natures, but our bodies, which are now “the members of Christ,” and the “temples of the Holy Ghost,” are at the resurrection to be transformed into the likeness of his glorified body.
(7.) If the cause of evil is essentially inherent in matter, and if its past developments have occurred in spite of God’s efforts to limit it, what certain ground of confidence can any of us have for the future.
13. Prove that the work of Creation is in Scripture attributed to God absolutely, i. e., to each of the three persons of the Trinity coordinately, and not to either as his special personal function.
1st. To the Godhead absolutely.—Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:26.
2nd. To the Father, 1 Corinthians 8:6.
3rd. To the Son.—John 1:3; Colossians 1:16-17.
4th. To the Holy Spirit.—Genesis 1:2; Job 26:13; Psalms 104:30.
14. How can it be proved that no creature can create?
1st. From the nature of the work. It appears to us that the work of absolute creation ex nihilo is an infinite exercise of power. It is to us inconceivable because infinite, and it can belong, therefore, only to that Being who, for the same reason, is incomprehensible.
2nd. The Scriptures distinguish Jehovah from all creatures, and from false gods, and establish his sovereignty and rights as the true God by the fact that he is the Creator, Isaiah 37:16; Isaiah 40:12-13, Isaiah 54:5; Psalms 96:5; Jeremiah 10:11-12.
3rd. If it were admitted that a creature could create, then the works of creation would never avail to lead the creature to an infallible knowledge that his creator was the eternal and self–existent God.
15. Why is it important for us to know, if such knowledge be possible, what God’s chief end in creation was? This is not a question of vain curiosity. It is evident, since God is eternal, immutable, and of absolutely perfect intelligence, that the great end or ultimate purpose for which he at the beginning created all things must have been kept in view unchangeably in all his works, and so all his works must be more directly or remotely a means to that end. Now our minds are so constituted that we can understand a system only when we understand its ultimate purpose or end. Thus we can comprehend the parts of a watch or steam engine, and their relations and functions, only after we understand the end or purpose which the entire watch or engine was intended to serve. And although God has hid from us many of his subordinate purposes, we believe that he has revealed to us that great ultimate design, without a glimpse of which the true character of his general administration never could be in any degree comprehended. None can deny that if he has revealed his ultimate purpose in creation, that it must be a matter to us of the very highest importance.
It is self–evident that we cannot rise to so high a generalization as this by any process of induction from what we know or can know of his works. Our conclusion on this subject must therefore be drawn, in the first instance at least, entirely from what we know of God’s attributes and from the explicit teachings of his word.
16. What is the meaning of the term THEODICY, and by whom was this department of speculative theology in the first instance formally explored? The term Theodicy (
17. What view as to the end of God in creation did Leibnitz advocate, and by whom has he been followed?
Leibnitz held that all moral excellence can be resolved into benevolence, and that the grand, all–comprehending purpose of God in the creation of the universe, and in his preservation and government thereof, is the promotion of the happiness of his creatures. Hence he concludes that God has chosen the best possible system to attain that end in the largest possible degree. This is the system of Optimism. This view has prevailed largely among the New England theologians, in connection with the prevalent theory which regards all virtue as consisting in disinterested benevolence. The objections to this view are—
1st. All virtue does not consist in disinterested benevolence.—See above, Chapter 8., Ques. 61. And happiness is not the highest good.
2nd. It subordinates the Creator to the creature, the greater to the less, as the means to an end. When God from eternity formed the purpose to create, no creatures existed to be made happy or miserable. The motive to create therefore could not have originated in the non–existent, and could have its origin and object only in the divine being himself.
3rd. The Scriptures (see next question) never either directly or indirectly intimate that anything in the creature is the chief end of God, nor do they ever propose any personal or public good of the creature as the chief end of the creature himself.
18. State the true view and quote the statements of the Confession of Faith? The true view is that the great end of God in creation was his own glory. Glory is manifested excellence. The excellencies of his attributes are manifested by their exercise. This end therefore was not the increase either of his excellence or blessedness, but their manifestation God ad extra.
“It pleased God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good.”—“Confession Faith,” Ch. 4., § 1. The same is affirmed to be the chief end of God in all his purposes and works of Providence and Redemption.—Ch. 3. §§ 3, 5, 7, and Ch. 5. § 1; Ch. 6. § 1; Ch. 33. § 2; “Larger Cat.,” Qs. 12 and 18; “Shorter Catechism,” Qs. 7.
19. State from reason and Scripture the arguments which sustain this view.
1st. Since God formed the purpose to create before any creature existed, it is evident that the motive to create must have its source and object in the pre–existing Creator and not in the non–existing creature. The absolute Creator cannot be subordinated to nor conditioned upon the finite and dependent creature.
2nd. Since God himself is infinitely worthier than the sum of all creatures, it follows that the manifestation of his own excellence is infinitely a higher and worthier end than the happiness of the creatures, indeed the highest and worthiest end conceivable.
3rd. Nothing can so exalt and bless the creature as his being made thus the instrument and the witness of the infinite Creator’s glory, hence the proposing that glory as the “chief end” of the creation is the best security for the creature’s advance in excellence and blessedness.
4th. The Scriptures explicitly assert that this is the chief end of God in creation (Colossians 1:16; Proverbs 16:4), and of things as created.—Revelation 4:11; Romans 11:36.
5th. They teach that the same is the chief end of God in his eternal decrees.—Ephesians 1:5-6; Ephesians 1:12.
6th. Also of God’s providential and gracious governing and disposing of his creatures.—Romans 9:17; Romans 9:22-23; Ephesians 3:10.
7th. It is made the duty of all moral agents to adopt the same as their personal end in all things.—1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Peter 4:11.
20. What is the present attitude of Geological science in relation to the Mosaic Record of creation? The results of modern geological science clearly establish the conclusions—(a.) That the elementary materials of which the world is composed existed an indefinitely great number of ages ago. (b.) That the world has been providentially brought to its present state by a gradual progression, through many widely contrasted physical conditions, and through long intervals of time. (c.) That it has successively been inhabited by many different orders of organized beings, each in turn adapted to the physical conditions of the globe in its successive stages, and generally marked in each stage by an advancing scale of organization, from the more elementary to the more complex and more perfect forms. (d.) That man completes the pyramid of creation, the most perfect, and the last formed of all the inhabitants of the world. The only difficulty in adjusting these results with the Mosaic Record of creation is found in matters of detail, in which the true sense of the inspired record is obscure, and the conclusions of the science are immature. Therefore all such detailed adjustments as that attempted by Hugh Miller in his “Testimony of the Rocks” have failed. As to the relation of the findings of science with respect to the antiquity of man to Biblical Chronology see below, Chapter 16. In general, however, there is a most remarkable agreement between the Mosaic Record and the results of Geology as to the following principal points. The Record agrees with the science in teaching—(a.) The creation of the elements in the remote past. (b.) The intermediate existence of chaos. (c.) The advance of the earth through various changes to its present physical condition. (d.) The successive creations of different genera and species of organized beings—the vegetable before the animal—the lower forms before the higher forms—in adaptation to the improving condition of the earth—and man last of all.
If we remember when and where and for what purpose this Record was produced, and compare it with all other ancient or medieval cosmogonies, this wonderful agreement with the last results of modern science will be felt to contribute essentially to the evidences of its divine origin. It is certainly, even when read subject to the most searching modern criticism, seen to be amply sufficient for the end intended:as a general introduction to the history of Redemption, which although rooted in creation is henceforward carried on as a system of supernatural revelations and influences.
21. State the several principles which should always be borne in mind in considering questions involving an apparent conflict of science and revelation.
1st. God’s works and God’s word are equally revelations from him. They are consequently both alike true, and both alike sacred, and to be treated with reverence. It is absolutely impossible that when they are both adequately interpreted they can come into conflict. Jealousy on either part, is treason to the Author and Lord of both.
2nd. Science, or the interpretation of God’s works, is therefore a legitimate and obligatory department of human study. It has its rights which must be respected, and its duties which it must observe. It is the right of every science to pursue the investigation of its own branch according to its own legitimate methods. We cannot require of the chemist that he should pursue the methods of the philologist, nor of the geologist that he should go to history, either profane or sacred, for his facts. It is the duty of the students of every science to keep within its province, to recognize the fact that it is only one department of the vast empire of truth, and to respect alike all orders of truth, historical and inspired as well as scientific; mental and spiritual, as well as material.
3rd. It follows as a practical consequence from the narrowness of the human faculties, that men confined to particular branches of inquiry acquire special habits of thought, and associations of ideas peculiar to their line, by which they are apt to measure and judge the whole world of truth. Thus the man of science misinterprets and then becomes jealous of the theologian, and the theologian misinterprets and becomes jealous of the man of science. This is narrowness, not superior knowledge; weakness, not strength.
4th. Science is only the human interpretation of God’s works, it is always imperfect and makes many mistakes. Biblical interpreters are also liable to mistakes and should never assert the absolute identity of their interpretations of the Bible with the mind of God.
5th. All sciences in their crude condition have been thought to be in conflict with Scripture. But as they have approached perfection, they have been all found to be perfectly consistent with it. Sometimes it is the science which is amended into harmony with the views of the theologian. Sometimes it is the views of the theologian which are amended into harmony with perfected and demonstrated science.
6th. In the case of many sciences, as eminently of Geology, the time has not yet come to attempt an adjustment between their conclusions and revelation. Like contemporaneous history in its relation to prophecy, Geology in its relation to the Mosaic Record of creation is in transitu. Its conclusions are not yet mature. When geologists are all agreed among themselves, when all the accessible facts of the science are observed, analyzed, and classified, and when Generalization has done its perfect work, and when all of its results are finished and finally fixed as part of the intellectual heritage of man forever, then the adjustment between science and revelation will stand self–revealed, and science will be seen to support and illustrate, instead of oppose, the written word of God.
7th. There are hence two opposite tendencies which equally damage the cause of religion, and manifest the weakness of the faith of its professed friends. The first is the weak acceptance of every hostile conclusion of scientific speculators as certainly true; the constant confession of the inferiority of the light of revelation to the light of nature, and of the certainty of the conclusions of Biblical exegesis and Christian theology to that of the results of modern science; the constant attempt to accommodate the interpretation of the Bible, like a nose of wax, to every new phase assumed by the current interpretations of nature. The second and opposite extreme is that of jealously suspecting all the findings of science as probable offenses against the dignity of revelation, and of impatiently attacking even those passing phases of imperfect science which for the time appear to be inconsistent with our own opinions. Standing upon the rock of divine truth, Christians need not fear, and can well afford to await the result. PERFECT FAITH, as well as perfect love, CASTETH OUT ALL FEAR. All things are ours, whether the natural or the supernatural, whether science or revelation.—See Isaac Taylor’s “Restoration of Belief,” pp. 9, 10.