Genesis 1

BIBLE STUDY TEXTBOOK GENESIS THE BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS

C. C. CRAWFORD, Ph.D., LL.D.

College Press, Joplin, Missouri Volume 1 Copyright © 1966 · The College Press · Volume 2 Copyright © 1968 · The College Press · Volume 3 Copyright © 1970 · The College Press

Genesis is the Only Book of Antiquity Which is Ever Considered When Discussing the Scientific Accuracy of Ancient Literature on the Creation of the World.When Darwin’s Origin of Species appeared in 1859, Huxley immediately called it -Anti-Genesis.-’ Why did he think that it was the book of Genesis which Darwin’s theory of natural selection confuted? Why did he not say anti-Hesiod, or anti-Timaeus, or anti-Metamorphosis in reference to Ovid’s account of the creation? In the very fact that Huxley spoke of Darwin’s work as anti-Genesis he confessed that the book of all ancient literature that contained an account of the creation of the world worthy of being discussed in our modern scientific age as of any scientific value at all was the book of Genesis. A vast number of books, and hundreds of articles, during the past one hundred years have been written, maintaining or denying the scientific accuracy of the first chapter of the book of Genesis, but where are you going to find any books and articles even discussing the scientific accuracy of other ancient accounts of the creation of the world? Whenever you hear anyone speaking disrespectfully of the book of Genesis, in its relation to modern science, remember that this first book of our Bible is the only piece of literature of all the ancient nations which anyone even thinks worthy of discussing, even if condemning in the same breath, with the phrase -modern science.-’ It is of great significance that for two thousand years men have felt it necessary to consider this ancient Hebrew record when discussing the subject of creation. The Babylonian, the Greek, and the Roman accounts of the same beginning of our universe are, for the most part, counted mythological, and utterly incapable of being reconciled with the conclusions of modern science.

Wilbur M. Smith, Therefore Stand, pp. 328, 329.

(W. A. Wilde Company, Boston, 1945).

ADDITIONAL SPECIFIC ABBREVIATIONS (BIBLIOGRAPHICAL)

(as used in this Volume [2] only)

EXPLANATORY [Volume 2]

It will be noted that I have included in this Volume excerpts from works that were in common use in theological circles at the turn of the present century and even earlier. Unfortunately, most of these books are now out of print despite the fact that they provide a complete refutation of the various (falsely so-called) liberal views now in vogue throughout the standardized seminarian world (cf. 1 Timothy 6:20). (A notable example is the great work by William Henry Green, entitled The Unity of the Book of Genesis; another is The Authorship of Deuteronomy by our own J. W. McGarvey.) Now it so happens that I have kept excerpts from some of these books in my files for some forty years or more. To try to run down the information as to the publisher, date of publication, and page number or numbers of these, is entirely too time-consuming. Hence, I have simply given, in all such cases, the name of the author and the title of the book from which the excerpt was taken. I vouch for the accuracy of these quotations.

The present intention is to bring out a third and final Volume in this series, the content of which will cover the story of the Patriarchal Agethat of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. We hope to have this ready for publication within a year and to provide therein an index for all three Volumes.

C. C. Crawford.

ADDITIONAL SPECIFIC ABBREVIATIONS

(BIBLIOGRAPHICAL) (as used in this Volume [3] only)

ADDITIONAL SPECIFIC ABBREVIATIONS

(BIBLIOGRAPHICAL)

(as used only in Volume Three)

ELBT Samuel Noah Kramer, section The World of Abraham, in Everyday Life in Bible Times. National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1967. A work which literally makes alive the story of the Patriarchal Age. Thoroughgoing, profoundly interesting, entertaining, and beautifully illustrated. A book for your permanent library.

EXPLANATORY

In presenting the material in Genesis covering the story of the Patriarchal Age we found so much more that is of great interest, not only exegetically but homiletically as well, that a further decision was made (see Explanatory, Introduction, p. xvi., Vol. II) to close this volume on the Abrahamic Pilgrimage and Covenant. We trust that our readers will find this material interesting and helpful. It is now planned that, at some time in the future, a fourth (and final) volume will be issued covering the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. There is outstanding material for Bible students, and for ministers especially, in these Chapter s which make up almost one-half of the entire book.

C. C. Crawford

SPECIFIC ABBREVIATIONS [Volume 4] (BIBLIOGRAPHICAL)

ADDITIONAL SPECIFIC ABBREVIATIONS [Volume 4] (BIBLIOGRAPHICAL)

ADDITIONAL SPECIFIC ABBREVIATIONS [Volume 4] (BIBLIOGRAPHICAL)

ELBT Samuel Noah Kramer, section The World of Abraham, in Everyday Life in Bible Times. National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C, 1967. A work which literally makes alive the story of the Patriarchal Age. Thoroughgoing, profoundly interesting, entertaining, and beautifully illustrated. A book for your permanent library.

CHRONOLOGY OF PRE-MOSAIC AGES

(all dates are B.C. and approximate only)

Egypt

Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine

Mesopotamia (Tigris-Euphrates)

Iran (Persia)

5000 End of the Late Stone (Neolithic) Age

4000 First Union (Heliopolis)

Sumerians

3500 Second Union, under Menes, Memphis

Ur I

3400-2500 Pyramid Age

3000 Amorites

2500 Mari clay tablets

2500 Sumer-Akkad Dynasty of Sargon Ur II

2500 Elamites at Susa (Shushan)

2400 Hittites

2200-1800 Feudal Age (Thebes)

1900-1600 First Hittite Empire (Hattusas)

2050 Ur III Kassites

2000 Abraham leaves Ur

1800-1580 The Hyksos

1500 Mitanni invaders Nuzi clay tablets

1700 Hammurabi at Babylon

1580-1150 The Empire

1500 Thutmose III (Thebes)

1400-1200 Second Hittite

1250 Rise of Assyria

1400 Amenhotep IV,

Empire

1118-1078 Reign of

(Ikhnaton)

1400 Ugaritic tablets

Tiglath-Pileser

Amarna

(use of iron)

The Amarna Letters

1290-1224 Rameses II. (Thebes)

1280 Exodus of Hebrews

1240-1020 Hebrew Conquest Period of the Judges

Temporary Decline of Assyria

1100 End of Egyptian Empire

1020-900 Saul, David, Solomon

The Medes

THE BIBLE

We search the world for truth. We call The good, the true, the beautiful, From graven stone and written scroll, From all old flower-fields of the soul; And, weary seekers of the best, We come back laden from our quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read.

John Greenleaf Whittier

GOD’S WORD

I paused last eve beside the blacksmith’s door,

And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;

And looking in I saw upon the floor

Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.

How many anvils have you had? said I,

To wear and batter all these hammers so?

Just one, he answered. Then with twinkling eye:

The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.

And so, I thought, the anvil of God’s Word

For ages sceptics-’ blows have beat upon,

But though the noise of falling blows was heard,

The anvil is unchanged, the hammers gone.

John Clifford

I IN RETROSPECT: AN APOLOGIA

A bit of personal history is in order here, I think, by way of introduction. I made the confession of Christ and was buried with Him in baptism in a little Christian Church in South Central Illinois, when I was only fourteen years old. At that time I began to read and study the Bible for myself, and not so long thereafter, to teach in the local Sunday School, And throughout the intervening years my life has been devoted largely to studying and teaching this Book which is not only the religious basis, but the moral basis as well, of our entire Western civilization.

During the early years of life it was my privilege to sit under the tutelage of a generation of Christian ministers and evangelists who knew their Bibles, and knew them from cover to cover, one might say without the slightest exaggeration. They knew how to rightly divide the Word of truth. It was also my privilege to collect in my library, and mentally and spiritually to feed upon, books of sermons and dissertations by these men, and by their predecessors, the founders and pioneers of the nineteenth-century movement which had for its ideal the restoration of the New Testament pattern of the local church of Christ. From this early homiletic and theological literature, I gained an understanding of the Simplicities of the Bible, especially of the Plan of Salvation as embodied in the facts, commands, and promises of the Gospelin a word, an understanding of those things essential to the regeneration, sanctification, and eternal redemption of the human beingwhich has served me, throughout my whole life, as a bulwark of personal faith and an antidote to the vagaries of Biblical criticism, theological speculation, and scientific theory.

Incidentally, a volume of these sermons and dissertations of the pioneers has recently been republished, under the title, Biographies and Sermons of Pioneer Preachers.This volume is a reprint of an earlier work edited by W. T. Moore, which was entitled, The Living Pulpit of the Christian Church.The recently issued edition may be obtained from its editor, B. C. Goodpasture of the Gospel Advocate publishing house, Nashville, Tennessee. I commend this volume heartily to all ministers who have bogged down in the morass of human speculative theology and creedism. I commend it to all who may be seeking nourishing spiritual food: too much thin soup is being dished out from the modern pulpit.

Later in lifein my forties, to be exactthe opportunity of entering a secular university, while at the same time serving a local church as its resident minister, presented itself. I decided to take advantage of this opportunity. And because there was so much talk everywhere, at that time especially, about alleged conflicts between the Bible and science, on matriculating at Washington University, St. Louis, I decided to take every course in the different curricula that might be basically irreligious in content; that is, irreligious to the extent of challenging the subject-matter of the Bible or the fundamentals of the Christian faith. I wanted to know for myself. It was, and still is, my conviction that no-one need be afraid of truth.What I am trying to say, without giving the appearance of boastingfor the one kind of snobbishness I detest the most is intellectual snobbishnessis that I set out deliberately to make, for my own satisfaction, as thorough an investigation as possible, of all those phases of human learning that have to do with the problems of Biblical interpretation and with problems of religious faith and practice generally. With this end in view, I enrolled in several courses in the sciences (of geology, biology, anthropology, and psychology in particular); in a considerable number of courses in English (including Anglo-Saxon, Chaucer, English poetry, the English drama, the English novel, etc.); in many courses in philosophy, including several seminars; in courses in ancient, medieval and modern history, and in the history of the Jewish people; and along with these, courses in Greek, Latin, French, and German. Three of these courses stand out vividly in my memory: one was an anthropological course in human origins; a second was a lecture course in the theory of evolution (biological); and the third a course entitled The Evolution of Magic and Religion. The instructor in this last-named subject had one of the most erudite minds I have ever encountered. I found the course content, however, to be wholly speculative, that is, without benefit of any external evidence to support it.

It was my privilege to spend some ten years at the University, attending classes most of the time through winter and summer terms without a break. At the end I received my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, with the major in philosophy and minors in English and psychology, and was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa key. But I decided that having come this far, I should not abandon the quest for knowledge at this half-way point. Hence I transferred to the department of ancient languages, specializing in Greek and Latin, because I had reached the conviction that competence in philosophy (and in Biblical exegesis as well) requires a background of knowledge of the ancient languages. In this area of study, I spent many delightful hours in the study of Greek art and architecture, and as many rewarding seminar hours in reading (in the original) the Greek and Latin poets, dramatists, orators, historians, and philosophers. During this time I enjoyed the privilege also of taking courses in Scholastic philosophy at St. Louis University: these courses in medieval thought I found to be especially helpful, not only in their content, but especially in their disciplines. I was finally granted the doctor of philosophy degree by Washington University, with the major in the Classics and the minor in philosophy. I had accumulated many more credit hours, by this time, than were required for all these degrees. I do not present these facts here for the purpose of being critical of either of the higher educational institutions which I have named: certainly their scholastic standing is unimpeachable; their credits are accepted anywhere in the world. As for professional attitudes generally, I have found, in my association with college professors in various educational institutions, that almost uniformly they try to be intellectually honest and fair; only a small minority are guilty of taking advantage of their position to sell (propagandize for) agnosticism, or to brainwash their students with the insipidities of atheistic naturalism or humanism. As for my studies at St. Louis University, I have never ceased to be thankful for the intellectual discipline which I got from them. It is now my conviction that Scholastic philosophy is the only genuinely Christian philosophy that has ever been formulated; and that it is a priceless heritage, not only of what is known as Greek and Roman Catholicism, but also of what is known as Protestantism. These studies equipped me with a truly constructive background of thought against which many of the fallacies of our present-day scientism are shown up in their true colors. As a matter of fact, true science, in order to arrive at any degree of certitude, is compelled to useand does use, oftentimes without realizing itthe discipline of metaphysics.

Nor do I present these personal matters to give the appearance of glorifying myself. Nothing is farther from my motives here. Indeed, I write with deep humility, for the longer I continued in school, the more I began to realize how little I knew. I try to impress the fact on my classes now that we actually do not live by knowledge, but by faith.(Even a so-called law in science is just a statement of very great probability: the assumption that it will always hold good is essentially an act of faith, else the man who makes it is presupposing his own omniscience.)

The fact is that I have presented the foregoing personal data for one purpose above all others, namely, to refute a notion that has come to be all too prevalent in higher educational circles in our time. I refer to the view that holds in contempt any effort on the part of anyone who, lacking extensive academic training, would venture into print in the field of Biblical exegesis (in the language of the seminaries, systematic theology); or stated conversely, the view that one who has had sufficient academic preparation cannot possibly cling to the traditionally accepted Biblical teaching concerning the inspiration of the Scriptures and the Deity of Jesus (including, of course, the doctrines of the Virgin Birth, the Miracles, the Atonement, and the Resurrection). I am presenting this data to declare with all possible firmness that anyone who has spent his life familiarizing himself with the content of the Bible itself, and in particular the simplicities of the Bible, canand willexplore the areas of human knowledge and continue to accept the content of the Bible unreservedly as what it purports to be, namely, the Spirit-inspired record of God’s progressive revelation of His eternal purpose for the world and for man. The very unity of the subject-matter of the whole Bible is proof in itself of the over-all inspiration of the Spirit in the giving of this Bookthe Book of all booksto man, for his moral and spiritual guidance. Only by arbitrarily totally disregarding the Bible’s own claim of having been specially communicated by the Spirit through the instrumentality of inspired men can one lose himself in the maze of theoretical criticism, conjectural science, and speculative theology.

As the net result of almost fifty years of combined ministerial and educational experience, I am prompted to make the following observations at this point, by way of introducing the content of this textbook: 1. The first half of the present century was truly one of the most shallow and superficial periods in the whole history of human thought. The dominance of the methodology which goes under the name of Positivism made it such. Positivism is the assumption that knowledge must be confined to observable and measurable facts. One can readily see that implicit in this question-begging dogma is the ambiguity of the little word fact. Just what is a fact? How can it be proved to be a fact? Positivism is a kind of wilful ignorance, an earlier version of Popeye’s philosophy, I yam what I yam. As some wag wrote in days gone by

There was an ape in days that were earlier; Centuries passed, and his hair became curlier; Centuries more, and his thumb gave a twist, And he was a man, and a Positivist.

I am happy to take note of the obvious tendency in both present-day science and philosophy to return to sanity in thinking about the meaning of the cosmos and of man’s life in it. After all, the three greatest problems of life are these: What am I? Whence came I? and, Whither am I bound? That is to say, the problems of the nature, origin, and destiny of the personthe problems of freedom, God, and immorality, respectively. These are of infinitely greater significance than the problem as to whether a man should build a fall-out shelter for his physical protection in these dangerous days. Obviously, neither a hydrogen bomb nor a death ray could affect the destiny of the human soul. 2. The alleged conflicts which we heard so much about in the nineteen-twenties and the nineteen-thirties were largely controversies over straw men (that is, false or nonexistent issues) which were set up by fanatical protagonists on both sides. In my college work I did encounter now and then a professor who would go out of his way to cast aspersions on the integrity of the Scriptures. I soon discovered that those teachers who would pick out segments of the Bible for the purpose of holding them up to subtle innuendo or outright ridicule, invariably demonstrated only their own misunderstanding of what they were talking about. Their skepticalat times scornfulattitude was the product of their own sheer ignorance of Bible teaching.I must admit, too, in all fairness, that I have listened to dissertations on scientific subjects from the pulpit by men who displayedby what they saida correspondingly abysmal ignorance of the science which they were anathematizing. No wonder there was so much talk about contradictions, conflicts, discrepancies, etc.!

3. I have discovered that there are many secularly educated persons who criticize what they call Christianity, when as a matter of fact they are not criticizing Christianity at all, but are criticizing the institutional misrepresentations of Christianity which have always flourished in our world. They seem to be oblivious, however, of their failure to make this distinction. To discover what Christianity is, one must go back, not to Westminster, nor to Geneva, nor to Augsburg, nor to Rome, nor to Constantinople, nor even to Nice and the Nicene Creedone must go back all the way to Pentecost, A.D. 30, the birthday of the churchback of all human theological speculation (Christian doctrine corrupted by Greek philosophical terms and phrases) to the teaching of Jesus and His Spirit-guided Apostles as embodied in the New Testament. Christ and Christianity must not be blamed for the superstitions and misdeeds of institutionalized Christianity. 4. I have discovered also that there are many secularly educated persons who actually will not to believe. I recall the words of Victor Hugo: Some men deny the sun: they are the blind. In this category, of course, we find the materialistic scientists, the so-called naturalists and humanists, the positivistic (self-styled pure) psychologists, et cetera. I find too that there are theological seminarians who are still living in the post-Victorian age, still clinging to the outmoded hypotheses of German Biblical criticism (theories that were the offspring of the Teutonic analytical mentality which seemed never to be able to see the forest for the trees), still attempting to measure every phase of the cosmic or personal enterprise by the evolution dogma, and still victimized (and that willingly, it would seem) by the output of what has been called the ideological junkshop of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These persons are representative of the type of intellectual whom Shakespeare describes as man, proud man, who

Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep.[1]

[1] Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, II, 2, 117 ff.

It will be recalled in this connection that Jesus, knowing too well that there have always been, and will always be, persons who are wilfully ignorant, reminds us of the futility of casting pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). If the blind guide the blind, said He, both shall fall into a pit (Matthew 15:14, Luke 6:39): that is to say, their blindness will not be the cause of their staying out of the pit, but the cause, rather, of their falling into it. (Cf. Isaiah 6:10, John 12:40, Romans 11:25, 1 Corinthians 1:23, 2 Corinthians 3:14, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 2 Peter 1:9, 1 John 2:11, etc.).

Do not misunderstand me. I have no quarrel with true science. Indeed science has been a great blessing to mankind in ways too numerous to mention. No sane person would oppose the scientific quest for truth. As a matter of fact, what is human science but man’s fulfilment, whether wittingly or unwittingly, of the Divine injunction to the human race at the Creation: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth (Genesis 1:28). Is not science the story of man’s progressive conquest of his earthly environment?

I simply deprecate the apotheosis of science into a kind of sacred cow. I deplore the spirit that would dethrone God and deify man in the specious name of scientific humanismthe chest-thumping bravado so well expressed by Swinburne (I think it was) in the nineteenth century, Glory to man in the highest, for man is the master of things, Man’s greatest delusion, it has been rightly said, is the delusion that his existence depends on himself, that he himself is the ultimate principle of his own origin, nature and destiny. Besides, the greatest scientists of all ages have been humble and reverent menmen who have stood in profound awe in the presence of the Mystery of Being. As Francis Bacon has written, A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion. 5. The older I grow and the more I come in contact with the present generation, the more amazed I am at the utter ignorance of the Bible which prevails on every hand, not only in circles that are dominantly secular, but even among professing Christians themselves. I am reminded here of what Mary Ellen Chase has written, as follows:

The Bible belongs among the noblest and most indispensable of our humanistic and literary traditions. No liberal education is truly liberal without it. Yet in the last fifty years our colleges have, for the most part, abandoned its study as literature, and our schools, for reasons not sufficiently valid, have ceased to teach it, or, in many cases, even to read it to their young people. Students of English literature take it for granted that a knowledge of the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and the Divine Comedy are necessary not only for the graduate schools but also for the cultured and civilized life, as, indeed, they are; but most of them remain in comfortable and colossal ignorance of a book which antedates Dante, and in large part, Virgil, by many centuries, some of which was written before Homer, and all of which has contributed more to the humanistic civilization of the Western world than have the so-called Classics.[2]

[2] Mary Ellen Chase, The Bible and the Common Reader, p. 9, Macmillan, New York, 1944.

Clyde T. Francisco writes in similar vein:

It is a tragedy of modern civilization that through schools and colleges students are taught to appreciate the beauty and sublimity of the works of Byron, Shakespeare, and Browning, but are left completely uninformed on the greatest literature the world has ever known, just because it is in the Bible. If it were anywhere else, the literary world would bow before it.[3]

[3] Clyde T. Francisco, Introducing the Old Testament, pp 3, 4. Broadman Press, Nashville, 1950.

Indeed one would not be missing the mark to ask: To what extent is the Bible itself taught in our day and age, even in those institutions which go under the name of church schools, Sunday schools, Bible schools, etc?

A press story appeared recently, in a local daily newspaper, which I am moved to reproduce here, because it speaks so eloquently to the point at issue. It went as follows (under the by-line of G. K. Kodenfield, AP Education Writer):

WashingtonA test on the Bible was sprung on five classes of college-bound 11th and 12th graders in a public school.

Some thought Sodom and Gomorrah were lovers; that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luther and John; that Eve was created from an apple; and that the stories by which Jesus taught were parodies. Eighty to 90 per cent of the students could not complete such familiar quotations as: Many are called, but few are chosen; A soft answer turneth away wrath; They shall beat their swords into plowshares; Pride goeth before a fall; and The love of money is the root of all evil. All this happened in Newton, Mass., and English teacher Thayer S. Warshaw decided to do something about it. He arranged for two of his classes to study the Biblenot as a religious book, or even as literature, but as a source book for the humanities. Teaching about the Bible in public schools can be a tricky business, particularly since the Supreme Court decision on school prayer. But Warshaw, reporting his experience in the February issue of The English Journal, believes it is essential. The Bible is indeed a religious book, but it is also a part of our secular cultural heritage. To keep it out of the public schools because it is controversial and because the public cannot trust the good sense of both the teacher and the pupil to treat it as a part of the humanities is a simple but questionable judgment, Warshaw wrote. A knowledge of the Bible is essential to the pupil’s understanding of allusions in literature, in music, and in the fine arts; in news media, in entertainment, and in cultural conversation. Is he to study mythology and Shakespeare, and not the Bible? Is it important for him to learn what it means when a man is called an Adonis or a Romeo, yet unimportant for him to be able to tell a Jonah from a Judas? Warshaw first convinced his pupils of their need for a study of the Bible. He assigned the reading of a few short stories which made no sense to them because they couldn-’t understand the Biblical allusions. He showed them some political cartoons with Biblical references which left them in the dark. The clincher was the quiz on which they fared so poorly.[4]

[4] From The El Paso Times, March 5, 1964.

The courage of this English teacher is to be commended. It must be admitted that recent decisions of the Supreme Court have served the cause of irreligion and sheer secularism by catering to a small minority of fastidious self-styled atheists and agnostics. As a matter of fact it was never the intention of the Founding Fathers to put the state in a position of hostility to religious faith and practice. (We recall in this connection the action of a biology teacher in an Eastern high school who had the praying mantis removed from his laboratory lest the presence of the insect offend the sensibilities of the honorable Court.)

I doubt very much that any person has the right to be called educated who allows himself to remain ignorant of the content of this, the greatest of all booksthe greatest collection of human interest documents that has ever been given to mankind. For this reason, I am convinced that secularly educated professors, no matter how learned they may be in their respective specialized fields, do not have the proper background for setting the standards for Bible colleges, for any kind of college that functions to train men for the ministry of the Gospel of Christ. Hence, I welcome the rise of the newly formed Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges.

One must actually live with the Bible in order to appreciate it.Cf. John 6:63, the words of Jesus: It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life. Again, the words of Jesus in John 8:31-32: If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Or, the words of the Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 3:17where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Or the powerful affirmations of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart, Only those who study the Word of truth, who digest it and assimilate it into the very fabric of their lives, can truly appreciate both the simplicity and the sublimity of this Book of books. Those who do not hunger and thirst after righteousness, that is, after the knowledge of God and of His way of doing things, are missingtragically missingso very much, so very much of that which makes life worth living, of that which gives it meaning, zest, order, and hope! And the tragedy of it all is that they are utterly oblivious of the fact of their great loss!

6. Furthermore, I should like to testify that I have found little or nothing in science or in philosophy that would serve to negate the fundamentals of the Christian faith. As a matter of fact, I stand ready to defend the thesis anywhere, at any time, that there is greater harmony today between scientific theory and Biblical teaching than at any other time in the history of human thought.I shall try to show that this harmony is apparent especially in the book of Genesis.

7. I have written this textbook for use by students in our Bible colleges, and for all Christians who may find it helpful; indeed, for all persons who may be seeking a constructive study of this over-all problem of the relationship between the Bible and science.I have striven throughout for simplicity and clarity. I know of nothing that has been a greater detriment to the Church, and to the spread of the Gospel, than theological gobbledygook: this I have studiously tried to avoid. It takes no great measure of discernment to see that creeds, confessions, and theologies formed by churchmen are many times less intelligible than the Scriptures themselves. All one has to do, to realize the truth of this statement, is to try to plough through the writings of such contemporary theologians as Barth, Brunner, Niebuhr, Tillich, et al. If men had to master the systematic theology formulated by these men (or by their predecessors in Christian history) in order to be saved, I am sure that both Heaven and earth would have been depopulated of saints long, long ago; that indeed Christianity would have died aborning. As a matter of fact, the apostasies and sectism prevalent throughout the history of Christendom have been due primarily to the corruption of apostolic teaching by terms derived from the Greek philosophical systems and from the pagan mystery religions. Had churchmen adhered to the apostolic injunction to hold the pattern of sound words (2 Timothy 1:13), that is, to call Bible things by Bible names (1 Corinthians 2:12-14), it is quite likely that the history of Christianity in the world would have been written in far less tragic terms. (Is it not a notorious fact that the professional theologians brought about the disunity of Christendom with their conflicting speculations? On what basis, then, do we expect their breed to effect the reunion of Christendom through present-day ecumenical movements?) I have never been able to convince myself that the Almighty is interested in the jargon of the seminaries.

I wish to acknowledge, with sincere thanks, the permissions which have been granted me to use the various excerpts from other works that will be found in this textbook. The names of publishers and authors who have been kind enough to grant these permissions are given, either in the List of Specific Abbreviations at the front of the book, or in the added Bibliographical Data at the end of each Part, In a very few instances, I have not been able to identify the publisher: in building a file over several decades I have neglected to attach this bibliographical data occasionally, and inadvertently. The excerpts themselves, however, are authentic. Finally, it will be noted that quotations which appear in this text are from the American Standard Edition of the Revised Version (A.D. 1901), A letter from Thomas Nelson and Sons informs me that permission is no longer necessary to quote from this Edition. I have used it, rather than the Revised Standard Version, largely for its accuracy. In my opinion, the Revised Standard Version tends to become more of a paraphrase at times than a translation.

C. C. C.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA

Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, II, 2, 117 ff.

Mary Ellen Chase, The Bible and the Common Reader, p. 9, Macmillan, New York, 1944.

Clyde T. Francisco, Introducing the Old Testament, pp 3, 4. Broadman Press, Nashville, 1950.

From The El Paso Times, March 5, 1964.

PART ONE:

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

I. THE BIBLE: WHAT IT IS

To introduce this study, a few facts about the Bible are essential, Although we are concerned here only with the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, we must keep in mind that the importance of this one book is to be measured in terms of the relation of its content to that of the Bible as a whole. A few of the more important facts about the Bible that we need to know are the following: 1. It has been rightly said that the Bible is a library of books.It is from almost every point of view the greatest collection of books available to man, sixty-six books in all, thirty-nine in the part known as the Old Testament, twenty-seven in the part known as the New Testament. Hence the derivation of our English word Bible from the Greek neuter plural, biblia (which derived in turn from byblos and biblos, the Greek word which designated the papyrus reed from strips of which books were made in ancient times, usually in the form of rolls). In these various books of the Bible we find law, history, narrative, poetry, prophecy, letters, proverbs, parables, apocalypses, in fact examples of almost every literary form known to man.

2. The Bible is a library of related books.Despite the fact that the sixty-six books which go to make up The Book were written by many different authors, over a period extending from about 1500 B.C. to about A.D. 100, most of whom were unknown to one another, the amazing fact is that the completed whole is a single story with a single theme, namely, redemption through Christ Jesus. As Augustine once put it:

In the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed; In the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.

Everything in the Old Testament pointed forward to Messiah (Christos, Christ, The Anointed One of God); everything in the New Testament points back to Him. The Central Figure of all human history is the Central Figure of the Bible.

3. The Bible is a collection of selected books.

(1) These books did not just get together in some mysterious manner without rhyme or reason. The inclusion of the various sixty-six books in the Canon was determined first by popular acceptance and use, and then by Christian scholarship directed to the specific problem of a final determination of the Canon. The essential criterion for this determination was the contribution made by each book to the history of redemption as worked out on earth in the Messianic Linethe genealogy that began with the first Adam and terminated with the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:45-49).

(2) The Apocrypha (those books of doubtful authenticity) were present in the Greek version of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, the version used in Alexandria and in other cities of the Hellenistic world at the time of Christ. However, these books were never in the Hebrew Old Testament. Jerome included only two of them in his Latin translation, the Vulgate, made about A.D. 405; they were included in the Vulgate later, however, and hence they are still in Roman Catholic Versions. These books were included in the King James Version also, but the Puritans objected so strongly to the questionable moral standards indicated in some of them, that they came to be left out of manybut not allProtestant Bibles. As a matter of fact, the contents of the Apocrypha have to do largely with inter-testamental history, wisdom books, traditions, etc., and contribute little or nothing to the development of the grand theme of divine revelation, the theme of human redemption as mediated by the ministry and work of the Messiah. (3) In addition to these apocryphal books, there were many books, that is, gospels, epistles, etc., in circulation in the post-apostolic age, which are known as the Pseudepigrapha (false writings), so-called because they laid claim to authorship by churchmen distinguished in the early ages of Christianity. The fact of the matter is that the literary and doctrinal excellence of the canonical books above those of the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha becomes so obvious by comparison, as to definitely establish the Canon and hence to distinguish the canonical from the non-canonical writings.

4. The Bible presents itself to us as the Book of the Spirit of God.It purports to be the record of a progressive revelation (cf. Isaiah 28:10, Mark 4:28) of God’s will toward man, as authorized, communicated, and protected against error, by the direct agency of the Spirit of God. This revelation took place first in history: in the lives of the patriarchs, in the establishment and guidance of the Hebrew theocracy under Moses and Joshua, in the chaotic period of the Judges (divinely called civil and military dictators), in the lives and ministries of the Hebrew prophets, in the life and preparatory work of John the Baptizer, and finally in the lives and ministries of Jesus and His Spirit-guided Apostles. This revelation took place on the stage of human history; the record of that revelationline upon line, precept upon preceptand its meaning for mankind, is preserved for us by the agency of the Holy Spirit in this, The Book of books, the Bible. The whole is truly the book of the Spirit. In the first chapter of Genesis we are told of the Spirit’s brooding over the darkness of non-being (the deep) and arousing therein motion, energy, light, matter; and in the last chapter of the Bible, we hear the Spirit joining in the Gospel invitation, The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come; he that will, let him take of the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17). And the imprimatur of the Spirit is obvious on every book, indeed on every page, that lies between these first and last Chapter s. Holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). The great Hebrew prophets sought diligently the meaning of the testimonies which the Spirit of Christ communicated through them, testimonies concerning the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them (1 Peter 1:10-12), the testimonies later embodied in the Gospel message at first proclaimed by the Apostles and their co-laborers, by inspiration of the same Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven. Jesus, who possessed the Holy Spirit without measure (John 3:34) taught and wrought by the power of the Spirit (Luke 11:20, Matthew 12:28, Luke 4:4; Luke 4:14; Luke 4:18-19; Isaiah 61:1-3). And the Apostles were guided into all the truth by the agency of the same Spirit in executing the Last Will and Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Luke 24:45-49; John 14:16-17; John 14:26; John 15:26-27; John 16:7-15; John 20:21-22; Acts 1:1-5; Acts 2:1-4; Acts 15:28; 1 Corinthians 2:6-15). With the termination of the apostolic ministry, revelationand along with it, demonstration (miracles)came to an end (1 Corinthians 13:8, Jude 1:3): all things that pertain unto life and godliness were revealed (2 Peter 1:3, 2 Timothy 3:16-17). Before critics, motivated as they usually are by their own wishful thinking, project their destructive speculations in regard to the text of the Bible, they must come to grips with this doctrine of the Spirit. It is the inspiration of the Spirit that is the source of the Bible’s unity and the guarantee of its reliability.

5. Even though the Bible is a library of books, it is still one Book, the Book of all books, the Book that has been translated, either in part or as a whole, into more languages (some 1100) than any other book known to man. We err when we think of the Bible as the source of two or three different religions. It is, rather, the record of the progressive revelation of the one true religion as it was actualized by the Spirit through three successive Dispensations. (The word dispensation has reference to the system by which God dispenses His gifts and graces throughout any particular period or age: cf. Ephesians 1:10; Ephesians 3:2.) The Dispensations changedfrom the family to the national to the universalas the type of priesthood changed. The Patriarchal Dispensation was the age of family rule and family worship, with the patriarch (paternal head) acting as prophet (revealer of God’s will), priest (intercessor), and king for his entire progeny. (The book of Genesis gives us the history of the Patriarchal Dispensation.)The Jewish Dispensation was ushered in with the establishment of a national institution of worship (first the Tabernacle, and later the Temple) and a national priesthood (the Levitical or Aaronic priesthood). The Christian Dispensation had its beginning with the abrogation of the Old Covenant and the ratification of the New Covenant by one and the same eventthe death of Christ on the Cross (although the Jewish Institution was permitted to remain as a social and civil institution some forty years longer, that is, down to the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of its people by the Roman armies, A.D. 70). (Cf. John 1:17, Galatians 3:23-29, 2 Corinthians 3:1-11, Colossians 2:13-15, and especially the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth Chapter s of the Epistle to the Hebrews.) Under the Christian System, all Christians are priests unto God, and Christ is their High Priest (King-Priest after the order of Melchizedek, Psalms 110:4; Hebrews 6:20; Hebrews 7:1-25), (Cf. 1 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 5:10; Romans 12:1-2; Romans 8:34; Hebrews 2:17, also chs. 3, 5, 7; 1 Timothy 2:5, 1 John 2:1, etc.) It will be recalled that Alexander Campbell referred to-’ the Patriarchal Dispensation as the starlight age, to the Jewish Dispensation as the moonlight age, to the special ministry of John the Baptizer (to the Jewish nation) as the twilight age, and to the present or Christian Dispensation (which may also rightly be designated the Dispensation of the Holy Spirit) as the sunlight age, of the unfolding of the Divine Plan of Redemption. These successive ages, therefore, embrace the successive stages in the revelation of true religion as set forth in the Bible. Refusal to recognize this fundamental unity of the Bible as a whole can result only in confusion, presumption, and ultimate rejection by the Author of the Bible Himself.

6. The Bible is pre-eminently the Book of Life, Its pages are replete with human interest stories covering every phase of life as man lives it, While portraying the virtues of the great heroes of the faith in all ages, not for one moment does it turn aside to hide their frailties. It never deceives man. It tells him bluntly that he is in sin, in a lost condition, and in danger of perishing in hell; at the same time it offers the remedy (the blood of Christ, John 1:29, 1 John 1:7), and the means of applying the remedy (the preaching and acceptance of the Gospel, 1 Corinthians 1:21, Romans 1:16, Acts 2:38, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Romans 2:8, 1 Peter 4:17). The Bible is the most realistic book ever given to man. Because it deals honestly with men, it is the most frequently attacked, ridiculed, maligned book in literature; and, I might truthfully add, the most abused and misrepresented by half-baked intellectuals.

7. The Bible is the world’s all-embracing Manual of Civilization.Where the open Bible goes, men’s minds are liberated from ignorance, error, superstition, etc., as well as from the guilt and the consequences of sin (John 8:31-32; John 17:17). Where the open Bible goes, science flourishes, freedom is appreciated and exalted, and democracy is spread abroad. If all men everywhere could be induced to accept and to actually live the principles of human relationships as set forth in the Ten Commandments, in the Two Great Commandments, and in the Sermon on the Mount, our world would be a very different world from that which it is at present. (Cf. 2 Corinthians 3:17, James 1:25; James 2:12, Galatians 2:4.) No man can add one iota to the body of moral and spiritual truth that is revealed in Scripture.

II. THE BIBLE: WHAT IT IS NOT

It is almost as important for us to know, in this day of fantastic progress in human science, what the Bible is not, as to know what it is.The knowledge of what it is not will do much to clear away the false issues that have been raised in recent years in the form of alleged conflicts between the Bible and science. Let us look at the problem, therefore, negatively, as follows:

1. The Bible is not, was never intended to be, a textbook of science.The word science comes from the Latin scientia, knowledge, which derives in turn from the Latin verb, scio, infinitive form, scire, to know. A science is, literally, a knowledge, a human knowledge, of course. A science is of human origin strictly: it is what man assumes to know (or speaking precisely, what he believes, on the basis of very great probability) concerning the order which he finds characteristic of a given segment of the cosmos. (The Greek word kosmos means order. If our world were not a framework of order, there could never be a science: not only would science be impossible, but life itself would be impossible: man could not live in a totally unpredictable environment.)

The Bible, on the other hand, presents itself to us as a book from God, as the record of God’s progressive revelation of His will with respect to man’s origin, nature, and destiny. It does not claim to be a scientific text: it offers itself strictly as the authentic textbook of Spirit-revealed religion. As a matter of fact, the content of the Bible is largely pre-scientific. That is to say, the books of the Bible were written, for the most part, prior to the rise of human science. This is true especially of the books of the Old Testament canon; and even when the books of the New Testament were being indited, science was only in its initial stages: the only sciences that were being formulated at this time were certain mathematical sciences, especially arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. It will be recalled. that Plato, in the Republic, classified the mathematical sciences as follows: arithmetic, the science of numbering, or of one dimension; plane geometry, the science of two dimensions; solid geometry, the science of three dimensions; astronomy, the science of the three-dimensional world and motion; and harmony, the science of five functions, namely, the three dimensions plus motion plus numerical proportion. To these he added what he called the science of dialectic, the search for the essences (meanings) of things. Aristotle, Plato’s pupil at the Academy for twenty years, wrote the first texts on economics, politics, ethics, logic, poetics (literary criticism), rhetoric, physics, astronomy, biology and psychology. The last four named, which belong in the category of what we now call the natural sciences, in the light of present-day knowledge were woefully unscientific as presented by Aristotle. However, his ethics, politics, logic, and poetics are almost as modern in their content as contemporary texts in these subjects.

It was never the intention of the Bible writers to produce a scientific textbook. The Genesis account of the Creation, for example, was not intended to be a scientific presentation: its author makes no attempt to give us an explanation of the how (the method) of Creation (and it must be remembered that the how, rather than the why, of things, is the specific area in which true science operates: outside that area it is no longer science). The writer of Genesis wrote with a purpose that was simply and solely religious: to impress upon man the truth that the cosmos and everything in it is the handiwork of the Will and Word of the living God (cf. Genesis 1:3; Genesis 1:6; Genesis 1:9; Genesis 1:14; Genesis 1:20; Genesis 1:24; Genesis 1:26; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:1-6; Hebrews 11:3).

This non-scientific character of the Bible has long been recognized, even by the most conservative of scholars. For example, Marcus Dods, discussing the first two Chapter s of Genesis, has written as follows:

If any one is in search of accurate information regarding the age of the earth, or its relation to the sun, moon, and stars, or regarding the order in which plants and animals have appeared upon it, he is referred to textbooks in astronomy, geology, and palaeontology. No one for a moment dreams of referring the serious student of these subjects to the Bible as a source of information. It is not the object of the writers of Scripture to impart physical instruction or to enlarge the bounds of scientific knowledge. But if any one wishes to know what connection the world has with God, if he seeks to trace back all that now is to the very fountain-head of life, if he desires to discover some unifying principle, some illuminating purpose in the history of this earth, then we confidently refer him to these and subsequent Chapter s of Scripture as his safest, and indeed his only, guide to the information he seeks. Every writing must be judged by the object the writer has in view. If the object of the writer of these Chapter s was to convey physical information, then certainly it is imperfectly fulfilled. But if his object was to give an intelligible account of God’s relation to the world and to man, then it must be owned that he has been successful in the highest degree. It is therefore unreasonable for us to allow our reverence for this writing to be lessened because it does not anticipate the discoveries of physical science, or to repudiate its authority in its own department of truth because it does not give us information which it formed no part of the writer’s object to give. As well might we deny to Shakespeare a masterly knowledge of human life, because his dramas are blotted by historical anachronisms. [1]

[1] Marcus Dods, The Expositor’s Bible: Genesis, pp 1, 2. Armstrong and Son, New York, 1895.

Alexander Campbell has written in like vein, warning us against trying to turn the Bible (Genesis included) into a scientific text:

It [the Bible] is not, then, a treatise on man. as he is physically, astronomically, geologically, politically, or metaphysically; but as he is, and ought to be, morally and religiously.[2]

[2] A. Campbell, Christian System, p. 15. John S. Burns and Sons, 1835.

I think I should repeat here, in passing, what I have stated heretofore, namely, that even though the content of the Bible (and of Genesis in particular), chronologically speaking, is pre-scientific, still and all it is fundamentally in harmony with contemporary science; that in fact there never was a time in the history of human thought when Biblical teaching and scientific theory were in greater accord than they are today. Why should it not be so? God has written two books: one is the Book of Nature in which He has revealed His everlasting power and divinity (Romans 1:20, Psalms 19:1); the other is the Book of Redemption in which He has made known His immeasurable love and compassion (John 3:16-18, Ephesians 2:4-7, James 5:11, 1 Peter 1:3). Now science is man’s attempt to interpret the Book of Nature, and so-called systematic theology is man’s attempt to interpret the Book of Redemption. Hence, there may be apparent conflicts between these interpretations, because the interpretations are of men and men are fallible, very much so.But by virtue of the fact that the Books themselves are from God, they cannot be contradictory in their contents. Hence, the Bible has no apology to make to science, nor has it anything to fear from science, for the obvious reason that it does not have any reason to fear truth under any guise, or in any branch of human knowledge. And let me add here that it is a mistake to treat Genesis as a textbook of science by resorting to fantastic interpretations to make its content conform to the latest scientific theories. Insofar as this writer is concerned, the book of Genesis stands on its own two feet (if he may be pardoned for using such a mixed metaphor): it has nothing to fear from, nor any need for accommodation to, human theory and speculation.

2. The Bible is not, was never intended to be, a history of the human race.It is, rather, the history of one genealogical Line, that is, the Line that flowered and terminated in Messiah, the Redeemer. Hence, as stated previously, the Bible is the history of the unfolding of the Plan of Redemption.

The story of the Bible begins, as it should begin, with the archetypal pair, male and female, Adam and Eve. The name Adam, literally translated is simply the man. Hence his counterpart bore the generic designation, woman: as ish signifies man, so ishah, the word used here, signifies she-man, or as in Anglo-Saxon, womb-man. Her generic name was, and is, Woman (Genesis 2:23), but the personal name of this particular woman was Eve, meaning life, hence, the mother of all living (Genesis 3:20). Incidentally, the Septuagint gives the literal and correct rendering, And Adam called his wife’s name Life, because she was the mother of all living.

The Author of, the Bible, the Spirit of God, is not concerned with the story of the human race as a whole, at any time of its existence, but only with the particular segment of the race which was destined to bring forth Messiah, the One through whom the Plan of Redemption for mankind was to be effectuated. In chapter 4 of Genesis, we are given, but only partially, the antediluvian genealogy of the Cainites, and in chapter 5 the antediluvian line of the Sethites, the account culminating in the story of Noah and the Flood. In a word, after Abel’s death, it was Seth and his progeny who were appointed to carry on the genealogical Line that was to culminate in Messiah, Christos, Christ (terms all meaning The Anointed One).

The Bible is the history of Messianic Line only, the Line that was to bring forth in the fulness of the time (Galatians 4:4) the world’s Redeemer. This Line is traced from Adam to Noah, through Seth, in the fifth chapter of Genesis; and after a brief diversion to give us the story of Noah and the Deluge, the Line is traced on down from Noah to Abraham (ch. 11).

With the Call of Abraham, the history became narrowed down to the story of the fleshly seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacobthe children of Israel, as they were known in Old Testament times. God literally separated this people from the rest of humankind and put them into the pulpit of the world to do five things: (1) to preserve the knowledge of the living and true God, (2) to preserve the knowledge of the moral law (Galatians 3:19the law was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come, etc.), (3) to prepare the world for the advent and ministry of Messiah, and (4) to build up a system of metaphor, type, allegory and prophecy designed to identify Messiah at His appearance in the flesh, and (5) actually to give the MessiahProphet, Priest, and Kingto the world.

The account of this Messianic Line is carried forward in the various genealogical tables scattered throughout the Old Testament Scriptures. The termination of the Line is given us in the genealogies which appear in the first chapter of Matthew and the third chapter of Luke, Matthew, beginning with Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, evidently gives us the legal genealogy through David, thence through Solomon down to Josephthe genealogy that must have appeared in the archives of the synagogue. Luke, on the other hand, a Greek, and hence uninhibited by Jewish tradition, gives us the natural genealogy through Mary (the daughter of Heli) back to Nathan, another of David’s sons, thence all the way back to Adam (Matthew 1:1-17, Luke 3:23-28). (See Dr. James Orr, The Virgin Birth of Christ, pp. 36-37). These genealogical tables are integral parts of the Scriptures, and are not to be passed over lightly.

Suffice it to repeat here that the Bible is not intended to be a history of the human race. It is in fact the history of Redemption, the history of the Messianic Line, the Line that flowered in Messiah through whom God’s Plan of Redemption for fallen man was executed. As Jesus Himself declared from His own Cross: It is finished (John 19:30).

3. The Bible is not, was never intended to be, a book of philosophy.Basically philosophy is the study of the meaning of concepts: it wants to know what the scientists mean by the terms from which they take off, in the various sciencessuch terms as energy, matter, life, mind, consciousness, self-consciousness, personality, value, etc. In the branch of philosophy known as philosophy of religion, specialized attention is given to the subjects of God, freedom, and immortality: indeed, as Kant declared, these are the three fundamental subjects of philosophy in general. However, at its best, philosophy is strictly human speculation; hence it is not, and cannot be, a substitute for religious faith. The most it can do is to give us clues that might help us to a better understanding of the ultimates of the Mystery of Being. Although the Bible is not, in any sense of the term, a book of philosophy, still and all, as I have said to my classes many times, when I want the last word on almost any problem in philosophy, I turn to the Bible and there I find it. This is due to the fact, as stated previously, that the Bible is first, last, and always the Book of Life. Both scientists and philosophers would be safeguarded against skepticism, agnosticism, and all the other isms, if they would literally live with the Bible and assimilate its teaching into their thought, and incorporate it into their living from day to day.

The Bible is the Book of Redemption; hence it is the book of the Spirit of God. For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man which is in him? even so, the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God, But we received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God. Which things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth, combining spiritual things with spiritual words (1 Corinthians 2:11-13). To the Spirit of God we are immediately indebted for all that is known, or knowable, of God, of the unseen world, or of the ultimate destinies of men. All that ancient and modern pagans pretend to have known or to know of these sublime topics, has either been borrowed from this Revealer of secrets, or else is mere conceit or conjecture of their own. The simple fact is that the truth to be believed by man respecting his own origin, constitution, and proper ends, could never have been known but by revelation of the Spirit. How profoundly thankful we should be, then, that our God has not left us in darkness, in that gross darkness in which heathen peoples are still struggling and suffering, but has, by His Spirit, revealed His Plan for our eternal redemption, and revealed it so clearly that wayfaring men, though fools, need not err therein (Isaiah 35:8; cf. Romans 16:25-27).

III. THE BOOKS OF OUR BIBLE

Our Bible is divided into two parts, known as the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament, with the exception of just a few passages written in Aramaic (Jeremiah 10:11; Ezra 4:8, apparently to Ezra 6:18, also Ezra 7:12-26: Daniel 2:4 to Daniel 7:28), was written originally in Hebrew. The New Testament was written originally in the Koine (common, vulgar) Greek.

There are thirty-nine books in our Old Testament, classified as follows: 1. Law (5 books): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

2. History (12 books): Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.

3. Classics (5 books): Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon.

4. Major Prophets (5 books): Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel.

5. Minor Prophets (12 books): Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

There are twenty-seven books in our New Testament, classified as follows: 1. Biography (4 books): Matthew, Mark, Luke, John: all are narratives of the personal ministry of Jesus on earth, written to give us evidence that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16-16, John 20:30-31, Hebrews 2:1-4).

2. History (1 book): Acts of Apostles, written to tell us what to do to become Christians, members of the New Covenant (Acts 2:37-38; Acts 8:26-40; Acts 16:28-34).

3. Instruction in Righteousness (21 letters, written by the Apostles, divided into (1) Special Letters (14 books): Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews; and (2) General Letters (7 books): James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude. These epistles were all written to Christians for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

4. Prophecy (1 book): Revelation, or the Apocalypse, the story in prophetic symbolism (Revelation 1:1signified) of the trials and triumphs, and the ultimate destiny of God’s elect (chs. 21, 22). Thus the Bible story which began with Paradise Lost, ends with Paradise Regained.

IV. THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES

The Hebrew Scriptures have always included all the books that make up our English Old Testament, but not in the same general order or arrangement. Whereas there are only twenty-four books in the Hebrew Scriptures, there are thirty-nine in our Old Testament. The content, however, is the same. The Hebrew Scriptures are divided as follows: 1. The Law (5 books), in Hebrew, the Torah; in Greek, the Pentateuch (five tools, books): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

2. The Prophets (8 books), in Hebrew, Nebiim.These are divided into two groups, designated the former and the latter Prophets, evidently with reference to the time order:

(1) The Former Prophets (4 books): Joshua, Judges, Samuel (one book, not two as in our Old Testament), and Kings (also one book, not two as in our Bible).

(2) The Latter Prophets (4 books): the three separate books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; and one book of the Twelve (twelve separate books in our Old Testament).

3. The Writings (11 books), in Hebrew, Kethubim; in Greek, Hagiographa, sacred writings. These are divided as follows:

(1) The Poetical Books (3): Psalms; Proverbs, Job.

(2) The Five Rolls (5): Song, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther.

(3) The Historical Books (3): Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah (one book), Chronicles (one book).

The Torah was always regarded as the most sacred of the holy writings, The Prophets next in point of reverence, and The Writings last. The Torah was Scripture par excellence, and still is, among the Jewish people. Using the structure of the Temple as a parallel, they said that The Writings were comparable to the Outer Court, The Prophets to the Holy Place, but The Law was, and is, the Holy of Holies.

Of the Five Rolls, one was read at each of the great national festivals, as follows:

The Song of Solomon, at the Passover (roughly in our April); Ruth, at Pentecost (in our June); Lamentations, at the Commemoration of the Fall of Jerusalem (on the ninth day of the month Ab, roughly our August); Ecclesiastes, at the Feast of Tabernacles (in our October); Esther, at the Feast of Purim (in our March).

As stated above, among the Jews the Torah has always been, and still is, the most revered document of Hebrew literature, and indeed of world literature. To the Jewish people, it is not only the Book of the Lawit is truly the Book of Life, that is, life as synonymous with experience. Hence the Jewish nation has ever taken pride in being known as the People of the Book.

V. THE BOOK OF GENESIS

The five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which are known, as a unit, as the Torah in the Hebrew Scriptures, have come to be known, again as a unit, as the Pentateuch, in our Bible. This word Pentateuch derives from the Greek penta (five) and teuchos (primary meaning tool or implement, with secondary meanings of a fabric or a case for holding papyrus rolls, hence used for the roll or book itself).[3] As Dummelow writes, Pentateuch is a Greek word meaning -the fivefold volume,-’ and has been used since the time of Origen (third century A.D.) as a convenient designation for the first five books of the Bible.[4]

[3] See Greek-English Lexicon, Liddell and Scott, s.v.New Edition, revised by Sir H. S. Jones, Oxford University Press, London, New York, 1948.

[4] J. R. Dummelow, Commentary on the Holy Bible, Introduction, p. 24. Macmillan, New York.

The first book of the Pentateuch, the Book of Genesisthe title is a transliteration of the Greek word genesis, which means beginningis in a special sense The Book of Beginnings. In it we find the account of the beginnings of the world and man, of domestic and civil society, of liberty and law, of sin and death, of the elements of true religion (altar, sacrifice, and priesthood), of the Plan of Redemption, of the facets of human culture, of the early ethnic groups of mankind, of the Messianic genealogy, of the Hebrew People and their divinely ordained mission, of the Abrahamic Promise and the Old Covenant: presenting as a whole the history of the Patriarchal Dispensation (which extended from Adam to Moses, that is, from the Creation to the establishment of the Hebrew Theocracy at Sinai). In view of these sublime themes, especially in their relation to the fundamental problems of the origin, nature and destiny of man, what a lacuna there would be in man’s knowledge, and especially in his moral and spiritual understanding, had the Book of Genesis never have been written! Its profound revelations of these matters which are inseparably interwoven with every aspect of human thought and life, such themes as God, man, good, evil, sin, death, religion, redemption, etc., make it one of the indispensable works of revealed literature, and indeed of all literature both sacred and profane.

From first to last the sacred motif of redemption binds the sixty-six books of the Bible into a sublime whole: the motif of redemption through Christ Jesus. We are not surprised, therefore, to note that even the Book of Genesis is Christ-centered (Christocentric). Prophetic references to Messiah are numerous in Genesis, as follows:

(1) He would be the Seed of the Woman (Genesis 3:14-15, Matthew 1:18-23, Luke 1:26-38, Galatians 4:4-5);

(2) He would overcome the Old Serpent, the Devil (Genesis 3:14-15, Hebrews 2:14-15; Revelation 12:10-12; Revelation 20:7-10);

(3) He would be of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, respectively (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 18:18; Genesis 22:18; Genesis 26:4; Acts 3:25-26; Galatians 3:16; Hebrews 11:17-18);

(4) He would be of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10; Psalms 2:6-9; Psalms 60:7; Psalms 108:8; Hebrews 7:14, Revelation 5:5).

Hence, said Jesus to the caviling Jews, John 8:56Your father Abraham: rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad. And the Apostle Paul testifies, Galatians 3:8And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel before unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the nations be blessed. To this he adds, Galatians 3:16-Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. As a matter of fact, the very heart of the Abrahamic Promise was the promise of the Reign of Messiah. Moreover, not only in prophecy, but in simile, metaphor, allegory, type, and poetic imagery, the content of Genesis foreshadows the Messiah and the Messianic Institution (cf. Romans 5:14; Galatians 4:21-31; Genesis 28:12, John 1:51; Genesis 2:21-25; Revelation 21:2; Revelation 22:17; 1 Peter 3:18-22, etc.). We may say rightly that from Adam to Abraham, the Gospel existed in purpose, that is, in God’s eternal purpose (Ephesians 3:1-13; Ephesians 1:3-14; Romans 8:28-30); that from Abraham to Isaiah, the Gospel existed in promise (the Abrahamic Promise); that from Isaiah to Malachi, the Gospel existed in prophecy 2 Peter 1:21); that throughout the personal ministry of Jesus, the Gospel, existed in preparation (preparation for the Reign of Messiah: cf. Matt. 28-18-20; John 16:7-16; John 18:36-37; John 20:19-22; Luke 24:45-49; Acts 1:1-8; Hebrews 2:1-4); that beginning with Pentecost, A.D. 30, the advent of the Spirit, and the incorporation of the Body of Christ, the Gospel, with its facts, commands, and promises, exists and is proclaimed as fact (1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Acts 2:22-42; Romans 10:9-10; Romans 6:23, etc.).

Critics, exegetes, commentators, theologians, etc., would do well to accept the fact that they either distort or miss altogether much of the plain teaching of the Bible, including the Book of Genesis, by refusing to accept it as a whole and thus to let it interpret itself.

VI. DIVISIONS OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS

Dr. Julian Morgenstern writes that one central theme gives to the Book of Genesis its unity of thought. This central theme, he goes on to say, is God’s selection of Israel to be the witness and messenger of His truth and His law unto all the peoples of the earth, and His testing and preparation of Israel for this arduous and sacred task. This central theme, adds Morgenstern, is resolved into four natural and logical concepts. (1) God and mankind, (2) God and Israel, (3) God’s purification and preparation of Israel for His service, and (4) God’s providence. This author then suggests four main divisions, writing of course strictly from the Jewish point of view, as follows: (1) Genesis 1-11, stories about mankind in general; (2) Genesis 12:1 to Genesis 25:18, the story of Abraham; (3) Genesis 25:19 to Genesis 36:43, the story of Jacob; (4) Genesis 37-50, the story of Joseph.[5] (Morgenstern follows the now outmoded notion that these stories of the Patriarchs are simply folk tales, not accounts of real events in the lives of historical personages. This view has been completely disproved by archeological discoveries.)

[5] Julian Morgenstern, The Book of Genesis: A Jewish Interpretation.Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, 1927.

The Jewish point of view is clearly stated in a book recently published under the editorship of Gaalyahu Cornfeld, as follows:

The book of Genesis, in its present setting, may be divided into two parts, of which the first (chs. 1-11) presents a Hebrew view of the early history of mankind. This comprises the Flood; the rise of separate nations, and the genealogy of the sons of Shem (Semites); more particularly how the ancestors of the Hebrews were related to other nations, and how they emerged gradually into a separate and distinct existence beside them. Following this, but related to the foregoing, the second part of Genesis (chs. 12-50) comprises in particular the history of the Patriarchs, the immediate ancestors of Israel.[6]

[6] Adam to Daniel, edited by Gaalyahu Cornfeld, p. 2. Macmillan, New York, 1961.

Strictly speaking, Genesis is a book of two distinct parts, namely, Part One (chs. 1-11), giving us the early history of man without regard to distinction between Jew and Gentile, and Part Two (chs. 12-50) giving us the historical origins of the Hebrew people, the people whom God put in the pulpit of the world to preserve among men the knowledge of Him as the One living and true God. Dr. G. Campbell Morgan suggests that in general outline the Book of Genesis might be divided, according to main themes, respectively, as follows:

Generation: Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:25

Degeneration: chs. 3-10 Regeneration: chs. 11-50[7]

[7] G. Campbell Morgan, Analyzed Bible: Genesis.

Another rather simple plan of sectioning the Book that is frequently suggested is the following: I. The Beginnings of History (Genesis 1-11).

The Origin of the World and Man (Genesis 1-5)

The Story of the Flood (Genesis 6-9)

The Place of the Hebrew People among the Nations. (We use people here as synonymous with nation. The United States is called the melting-pot of nations, that is, of different peoples or ethnic groups.) (Genesis 10, 11).

II. The History of the Patriarchs (Genesis 12-50)

The Abraham-Isaac Story (Genesis 12-26)

The Jacob-Esau Stories (Genesis 27-36)

The Story of Joseph and His Brothers (Genesis 37-50)

Perhaps the best method of outlining the content of Genesis is that which is suggested by the use of the word toledoth.This word, meaning generations, occurs as a kind of key to the ten sections of the book, as follows:

Introduction: The Creation Narrative (Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3)

I.

The Generations of the Heavens and the Earth (Genesis 2:4 to Genesis 4:26)

II.

The Generations of Adam (Genesis 5:1 to Genesis 6:8)

III.

The Generations of Noah (Genesis 6:9 to Genesis 9:29)

IV.

The Generations of the Sons of Noah (Genesis 10:1 to Genesis 11:9)

V.

The Generations of Shem (Genesis 11:10-26)

VI.

The Generations of Terah (Genesis 11:27 to Genesis 25:11)

VII.

The Generations of Ishmael (Genesis 25:12-18)

VIII.

The Generations of Isaac (Genesis 25:19 to Genesis 35:29)

IX.

The Generations of Esau (Genesis 36)

X.

The Generations of Jacob (Genesis 37:2 to Genesis 50:26)

The plan of sectioning Genesis that we have chosen to use in this text, it will be noted, follows the general pattern of the successive beginnings described in the book, beginning with the Hebrew Cosmogony, the Beginning of all beginnings (Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3).

VII. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH

The problem of the authorship of the Pentateuch, as projected by modern Biblical criticism, is too complex to be presented here in its various ramifications. Hence, a statement of the critical theory, in its broad outlines, will have to suffice for present purposes. The Pentateuch as it has come down to us in the Hebrew Scriptures (as the Torah) is generally accepted as a unity in its general content. Buthow was this unity effected? The traditional view, held by the Jewish Synagogue, by the New Testament writers, by the Christian Church throughout the centuries, and by practically all commentators, both Jewish and Christian, was that the Pentateuch basically was the work of a single writer, namely, Moses, the great Lawgiver and Mediator of the Old Covenant. This view was, never seriously questioned until the rise of modern Biblical criticism in the eighteenth century, according to which the Pentateuch is the work either of a single editor (redactor), or more probably the work of a succession or school of redactors. Perhaps it should be explained here that this modern Biblical criticism takes two general forms: (1) the Lower Criticism, which is defined as the highly specialized branch of scientific investigation of the authenticity of the text, including examination of root words, idioms, possible anachronisms, etc., to determine how closely the original text has been preserved; and (2) the Higher Criticism, which has to do with the authorship and dates of composition of the various books, and their historical reliability, especially as correlated with the cultural background indicated by each. Essentially the Lower Criticism is textual criticism, the Higher Criticism the combined literary and historical criticism, of the canonical books as such.

The four steps in the so-called historical method (of this Biblical criticism) have been well stated as follows: 1. The grammatical analysis of the document: the effort to arrive at what it says, including the study of distinctions between transliteration (transfer of letters) and translation (transfer of meaning); 2. The effort to determine to what extent the existing document reproduces the original; 3. The effort to determine whether the original document is a true record; and 4. The comparison of the record with other available documents, sacred and profane. According to the modern critical theory, called the Graf-Wellhausen theory, and the Documentary theory, the Pentateuch (rather, the Hexateuch; the critics added the Book of Joshua to the Torah proper, as necessary, in their opinion, to the completeness of the unity of the whole), was formed from a number of documents (codes) all originating long after the death of Moses, but containing Mosaic traditions. (The only part of the entire Pentateuch which the advocates of this theory were willing to accept at first as of Mosaic origin, albeit this grudgingly, was the Decalogue itself.) The various codes postulated by the Documentary Theory were designated and dated as follows: 1. The Yahwist Code (J), alleged to have been indited in the ninth century B.C., in the Southern Kingdom (Judah), and said to be identified (1) by its use of the Name Yahweh for God(or Jahweh, rendered Jehovah in our earlier English versions), (2) by its felicitous use of the narrative style, (3) by its many human interest stories, (4) by its anthropomorphic pictures of God, and (5) by its special emphasis on God’s dealings with His creature, man. Because it is thought to have originated in the Southern Kingdom it is also known as the Judean Code.

2. The Elohist Code (E), alleged to have been written down in the eighth century B.C., in the Northern Kingdom (Israel), and said to be characterized especially (1) by its use of the Name Elohim for God, (2) by its emphasis on the transcendence (sublimity and majesty) of God as the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity (Isaiah 57:15), (3) by its lack of anthropomorphism, and (4) by its emphasis on the supernatural. Because it is thought to have originated in the Northern Kingdom, it is also known as the Ephraimitic Code, after the tribe of Ephraim, the most powerful of the tribes of Israel.

3. JE, said to have been put together by an unknown redactor (or redactors) and to have made its appearance in the seventh century B.C. (It is not claimed, of course, that these writers invented the material; rather, it is held that they put in writing the early ethnic traditions of the Hebrew people handed down orally for the most part, but along with some that had been preserved in writing.) 4. The Denteronomic Code (D), the book of the law, alleged to have been produced anonymously by a prophetic writer, but in the spirit of Moses, some time between 715 and 640 B.C. (during the reign of Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, or Josiah: there is disagreement on this point), for the purpose of centralizing the worship of Yahweh at one place (the law of the central sanctuary), attributed to Moses by deliberate design to clothe it with the authority of the most revered name in Hebrew history and tradition; and hence to have been discoveredmost opportunelyin the rubbish of the Temple, 621 B.C., in the reign of Josiah, as related in 2 Kings, ch. 22. Thus, according to the critical theory, the Book of Deuteronomy can hardly escape the onus of having originated as a kind of pious fraud.

4. The Holiness Code (H), identified as chs. 17 through 26 of the Book of Leviticus, and said to have been composed by an Exilic writer, to emphasize especially the holiness of God (Leviticus 19:2; Leviticus 20:7; Leviticus 20:26; Leviticus 21:8); hence its name. (This Code was first recognized as separate, and so named by Klostermann in 1877.) The critics find a close spiritual kinship between the style and content of H and that of Ezekiel, and hold that both played a large part in the legalistic development of the Jewish religion which culminated in the Priestly Code. We are told that we do not have H in its original form, but only as it has been incorporated into the great Priestly Code.

5. The Priestly Code (P), alleged to have been composed by a writer or writers of the priestly class during the Exile (586-536 B.C.). This Code is said to be identified by its emphasis on the ritual practices of the religion of Israel, on their laws of sacrifice, on their religious ceremonies and festivals, and on their long genealogies designed to emphasize the priestly purity of lineage. P is described as marked especially by its austerity of style, as in the narrative of the Creation (Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3). It is said to have been the bulwark of the reign of legalism in ancient Israel.

The Priestly Code is held to have been completed about 500 B.C., and to have been the framework into which the various earlier Documents were fitted, to make complete the venerable divine library of the Pentateuch. By one or more redactors, we are told, all previous Codes were woven together, and thus the canon of the Torah became fixed by the time of Ezra. As Barclay summarizes:

Everything points to the probability that the Law acquired the status of fully accepted Scripture, that it became in a sense the binding word of God for Israel, in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, that is, about 400 B.C.[8]

[8] William Barclay, The Making of the Bible, p. 22. Abingdon, New York, 1961.

This conclusion is further established by the following facts: 1. The Samaritan Bible was the Torah or Pentateuch exclusively: the Samaritans never recognized any other ancient writings as Scripture. Hence, they must have received the Torah before the Samaritan Schism which occurred about 432 B.C. (The Samaritans claimed that their Pentateuch dated from 722 B.C., the date of the fall of their capital Samaria to their Assyrian conquerors. This claim, however, is discounted, we are told, by Bible scholars generally.) 2. In Nehemiah 8:3, we read that Ezra read the book of the law to the assembled people, and that the reading took from early morning until midday; hence it must have been the complete Torah that was read publicly on this memorable occasion, and not just one or more of the hypothetical Codes. The reading of ancient Semitic languages, we are told by linguistic scholars, took considerable less time than does the reading of English: this fact would allow for the reading of the entire Torah in the time specified. 3. After the time of Ezra, post-Exilic writers referred to the Law with special reverence (cf. Haggai 2:11, Zechariah 7:12, Malachi 4:4). 4. The translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, under the auspices of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (king of Egypt, 285-246 B.C.), known as the Septuagint (designated by the symbol LXX), makes it evident beyond question that by this date the Torah was par excellence the sacred book of the Jews. At that time the Pentateuch was Scripture and evidently had been venerated as such for no one knows how long previously.

The grounds on which the critics propose the Documentary Theory of the Pentateuch may be summarized as follows: 1. The repeated occurrence of the two different names for God, Yahweh and Elohim.Cf. with Exodus 6:2 the following: Genesis 4:1; Genesis 4:26; Genesis 15:2; Genesis 15:8; Genesis 16:2; Genesis 22:14; Genesis 24:31; Genesis 24:35; Genesis 26:25; Genesis 26:28, etc. Cf. also Exodus 6:3 with Genesis 17:1; Genesis 28:3; Genesis 35:11; Genesis 43:14; Genesis 48:3; Genesis 49:25, with reference to the name El Shaddai (God Almighty).

(N.B.We are listing here Scripture passages, especially those from the Book of Genesis, that are cited by the critics in support of their theories: of course, we cannot cover the whole field of the Pentateuch in this textbook. We shall consider the validity of the critical arguments based on these passages, as we encounter them, one by one, in our study of the text of Genesis.) 2. Alleged discrepancies in accounts of the same event. E.g., (1) The Creation. Cf. Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3 and Genesis 2:4-25. In Genesis 1, the critics tell us, man and woman are said to have been created after the physical world and all the subhuman orders; whereas, in Genesis 2, man is said to have been created first, then the animals, and finally woman. (2) The Flood. Cf. Genesis 6:9-22 (esp. Genesis 6:19) with Genesis 7:1-10 (esp. Genesis 7:2-3). In the former passage God is said to have ordered the animals taken into the ark by twos, the male and the female; in the latter, He is said to have ordered all clean beasts to be taken into the ark by sevens, and unclean beasts by two. Furthermore, in Genesis 7:8-9, we read that the animals went into the ark, two and two, male and female, as God commanded it. The critics see much confusion in these various accounts. (3) Boundaries of the Promised Land. Cf. Genesis 15:18-21 with Numbers 34:1-12. (4) Alleged differing accounts of how Beersheba got its name. Genesis 21:31here the name is traced to a covenant between Abraham and Abimelech. Genesis 26:26-31: here the origin of the name is associated with a covenant between Isaac and Abimelech. (5) Alleged different accounts of how Bethel received its name. Genesis 28:18-19-here the origin of the name is associated with Jacob’s vision on his way to Paddan-Aram. Genesis 35:15here the origin of the name is traced to the incident of God’s appearance to Jacob on the latter’s return from Paddan-Aram.

3. Alleged anachronisms, in relation to the actual date of Moses and his work. (I) Deuteronomy 34. The critics ask: Did Moses write his own obituary? (2) Genesis 36. Here we have a long list of the kings of Edom. In Genesis 36:31 we are told that all these reigned before Israel had a king. The critics contend that the royal succession in Edom was thus projected, in this passage, down to the time of King Saul at least, and hence long after the time of Moses. (3) Genesis 14:14. Here we read that Abraham pursued as far as Dan the kings who had taken Lot captive. Judges 18:29here it appears that Dan was given its name long after the time of Moses. (4) Genesis 21-34, Genesis 26:14-18, Exodus 13:17. In these and other passages we find repeated references to the Philistines. But the best historical evidence obtained thus far seems to indicate that the Philistines did not enter Palestine (which got its name from Philistia) until about 1250 or 1200 B.C., a considerable time after the death of Moses, we are told.

4. Alleged variations in the accounts of specific events. (1) The Abrahamic Covenant. Cf. ch. 15 with chs. 17 and 18 of Genesis. (2) The taking of Sarah. Cf. Genesis 12:10-19 with Genesis 20:1 and Genesis 26:1-11. (3) The banishment of Hagar: in Genesis 16:9-16, apparently before Ishmael was born; in Genesis 21:9-21, apparently after the birth of Ishmael. (4) The Covenant with Abimelech. Cf. Genesis 21:22-34 with Genesis 26:26-33. (5) The story of Esau and his birthright. Cf. Genesis 25:27-33 with Genesis 27:1-40.

5. Alleged diversity of language, style, motif, and ideas, characteristic especially of E. and J, The Elohist is said generally to depict the simple and non-artificial mores of primitive times: the Yahwist, on the other hand, to reflect the era of Mosaic law and Levitical institutions. Again, the Elohist is described as writing of God in lofty and majestic terms; the Yahwist, in terms of His Fatherly rapport with His chosen people. The Yahwist God is fundamentally the Covenant God. Some of the alleged traces (in Genesis) of a later age which dispose the critics to reject the Mosaic authorship of the book, and of the Pentateuch as a whole, may be listed as follows:

6. The alleged Palestinian standpoint of the writer (Moses, of course, was not permitted to enter the Promised Land himself: cf. Deuteronomy 34:1-8). Cf. Genesis 12:8; Genesis 50:11, for example. 2. The occurrences of the phrase, unto this day. Cf. Genesis 19:37-38; Genesis 26:33; Genesis 32:32; Genesis 35:20; Genesis 47:26, etc. 3. Statements alleged to presuppose the occupation of the land. Cf. Genesis 12:6; Genesis 13:7; Genesis 36:31; Genesis 40:15. 4. Instances of the interpretation of ancient names of cities by the introduction of names of later origin. Cf. Genesis 14:2; Genesis 14:8; Genesis 14:17; Genesis 23:2; Genesis 35:19. 5. References to customs alleged to belong only to a later age. Cf. Genesis 4:3-4; Genesis 4:14; Genesis 7:8; Genesis 8:20; Genesis 17:26; Genesis 24:22; Genesis 24:30; Genesis 25:22; Genesis 37:3; Genesis 37:23. (The various Scriptures cited in the foregoing lists, and others of like import, will be dealt with in this text, when they occur in our study of the text of Genesis itself.)

(If the student desires to make a detailed study of this problem of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, or of Genesis in particular, he will find what I consider to be the most completely organized and most comprehensive presentation of the subject, pro and con, in the articles, The Authorship of the Pentateuch and Introduction to the Book of Genesis, by Thomas Whitelaw, in the General Introduction to The Pulpit Commentary: Genesis.Although this was a relatively early work, it covers all the ramifications of the subject in a thoroughgoing manner. Contemporary students would find themselves greatly benefited by returning to some of the standard works (defending the Mosaic authorship) which appeared in the days when the Documentary Theory was first being exploited.)

Let us now take a look at the other side of the coin, for the benefit especially of students who, in the standardized theological seminary are usually dogmatically brainwashed in support of the Documentary Theory, and hence have little or no awareness of the arguments which can validly be marshaled against it. In the first place, let us examine some of the claims made by the critics in the early days of the exploitation of the Graf-Wellhausen Theory which are now completely exploded. These may be summarized as follows: 1. The claim that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because script was unknown in his day. Archaeology has proved this contention to be completely false. The Amarna Letters discovered in the Nile Valley in 1887; the Nuzi (in Eastern Mesopotamia) and the Mari (from Mari, the ancient Amorite capital on the Middle Euphrates) clay tablets, found recently in Mesopotamia, the North Canaanite literature discovered at Ras Shamra (the ancient Ugarit), all pre-Mosaic in origin, all in coneiform, prove that script was in common use long before the time of Moses. The evidence is also clear that scribal schools of translators were functioning in very early times. It is now recognized by archaeologists that Egyptian hieroglyphic script had its origin in great antiquity; that in Mesopotamia, the cuneiform writing was equally ancient. As a matter of fact, the cuneiform, we are told, became the medium in which many of the dialects of the Fertile Crescent became stereotyped. W. F. Albright, the distinguished Orientalist, writes: Cuneiform. was employed to write many different languages, mostly non-Semitic, in the course of its long history and wide diffusion. Again, with reference to Hebrew script, Albright states unequivocally: It is certain that the Hebrew alphabet was written with ink and used for every-day purposes in the 14th and 13th centuries B.C. Albright dates Moses and the Exodus at about 1280 B.C.[9]

[9] W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity, Second Edition, Doubleday Anchor Book, 1957, pp. 35, 253, 254, 256. Originally published by Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1940.

2. The claim that the names of the Patriarchs as given us in Genesis, traditionally held to be personal names, most likely were not personal names at all, but tribal names, projected back into antiquity in the form of tribal folklore. As Wellhausen himself wrote:

We attain to no historical knowledge of the patriarchs, but only of the time when the stories about them arose in the Israelite people; this latter age is here unconsciously projected, in its inner and its outward features, into hoary antiquity, and is reflected there like a glorified image.[10]

[10] Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, English translation, pp. 318-319.

This theory is completely discredited today. In Pfeiffer’s explicit statements,

… we can now assert without fear of contradiction that the Biblical patriarchs need not be regarded as demigods or characters from the realm of folk-lore. They appear as real men, living in a real world which is now well-known because of the work of modern archaeology.[11]

[11] Chas. F. Pfeiffer, The Patriarchal Age, p. 14. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1961.

Or, in the words of the distinguished Jewish scholar, Dr. Nelson Glueck of Hebrew Union College:

The archaeological explorer in Bible lands must be aware of the fact that as important as the Bible is for historical information, it is definitely not primarily a chronicle of history, as we understand that term today. It is above all concerned with true religion and only secondarily with illustrative records. Even if the latter had suffered through faulty transmission or embellishments, the purity and primacy of the Bible’s innermost message would not thereby be diminished. As a matter of fact, however, it may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries. They form tesserae in the vast mosaic of the Bible’s almost incredibly correct historical memory.[12]

[12] Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert, p. 31. Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, New York, 1959.

In a word, these dedicated fellows with their picks and spades and shovels have just about succeeded in demolishing every claim that was put forward by the destructive critics who flourished before and after the turn of the century. A final testimony here, from the pen of a distinguished contributor to the Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. I, is fitting:

Archaeology has revealed an extraordinary correspondence between the general social and cultural conditions portrayed in Genesis and those exposed by excavations. Discoveries from such sites as Nuzi, Mari, and elsewhere, provide the geographical, cultural, linguistic, and religious background against which the stories of the patriarchs are laid.[13]

[13] James Muilenburg, The History of the Religion of Israel, Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. I, Genesis, p. 296. See also Millar Burrows, What Mean These Stones? American Schools of Oriental Research, New Haven, 1941.

Thus it becomes evident that the claim that the cultural background of Genesis reflects the milieu of a much later age, at least Exilic or post-Exilic, does not stand up in the face of the facts. The historicity of the personages and events related in the Book of Origins seems now to be firmly established. To this end Dr. Albright summarizes as follows:

As critical study of the Bible is more and more influenced by the rich new material from the ancient Near East we shall see a steady rise in respect for the historical significance of now neglected or despised passages and details in the Old and New Testaments.[14]

[14] Albright, op. cit.,p.81.

In the second place, the attitudes and presuppositions of the critics who formulated the Documentary Theory, are matters of prime importance. These may be stated as follows:

1. The critics were, without exception, men who rejected even the possibility of the miraculous, the superhuman, or the supernatural, and hence proceeded to rewrite Biblical history to make it conform to their presuppositions. This bias, of course, prevented their examination of the contents of the Pentateuchal books simply as they found them and as we still have them in our day. 2. The Bible presents itself to us as the record of God’s progressive revelation to man, communicated by the Spirit of God. (Cf. 2 Peter 1:21, 1 Peter 1:10-12, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, etc.) The critic who proposes to treat the Bible as he would treat any other book must first dispose of this claim of special inspiration which the Bible makes for itself; this the destructive critics do simply by ignoring it. As far as they are concerned, it could be said of them as the disciples whom Paul, on occasion, found at Ephesus said of themselves, namely, that they did not so much as know that there is a Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-7). This could hardly be said to be an intellectually honest attitude. 3. These critics exemplify the Teutonic mentality which seems always to have been afflicted with two blind spots especially, namely, (1) the inability to see the forest for the trees, that is, the predilection to search microscopically for discrepancies and hence to find them where they do not occur, but arbitrarily ignoring any likelihood of harmonies; and (2) the unwillingness to accept any literary product as new, but always persisting in the search for sources, even where sources were not to be found.

2. In their approach to their task, these critics have depended on minute analytical examination of internal characteristics of ancient literary productions. This has resulted in confusion confounded, even among the critics themselves. This type of critical study has led to the most absurd claims, pretensions, disagreements, and controversies, even over the most trivial matters. This is true not only of their critical studies of the Old and New Testament books, but equally so of their treatment of the Homeric epics, of the dialogues of Plato, of the texts of Aristotle, indeed of every ancient document that might be found to lend itself to this hair-splitting type of subjective analysis. Take, for example, the critical theories of the Iliad and of the Odyssey of Homer. Wolf dubbed the Iliad a conglomeration of fragments; Lachmann proposed the theory of nineteen different lays as constituting the framework of the poem; G. Herman advanced what is called the kernel theory, a poetic core supplemented and completed by redactors. (How could we get along without these redactors?) Christ assigned two-third of our Iliad, Bergk two-fifths of it, Leaf about one-sixth of it, to the original Homer. Kirchhoff, Wilamowitz, Seeck, Sittl, Doerpfeld, et al, are responsible for as many conflicting views of the structure of the Odyssey.[15]Similarly, one might compare the theories of the Platonic canon as put forward by such German critics as Tenneman, Schleiermacher, Ast, Socher, K. F. Hermann, Munk, Teuchmueller, Ueberweg, et al, to find little more than a labyrinth of disagreement. The amazing fact about it all is that many of these theories were accepted, at least for a time, in spite of the fact that the critics seldom if ever agreed among themselves. Practically all ancient writings have been made the butts of this irresponsible methodology.

[15] See Wilmer Cave Wright, A Short History of Greek Literature, Ch. II. American Book Company, Cincinnati, 1907, 1935.

5. The methodology of the critics who formulated the Documentary Theory was simply that of the application of the notion of evolutionary development to Biblical history and religion. To them, Biblical religion, indeed any and all religion, was not a Divine communication (revelation) of any kind, but simply a human invention. The reconstruction made by the Graf-Kuenen-Wellhausen school was based on the Hegelian (theoretical) norm of the historical process, as a kind of spiral evolution consisting of a sequence of theses, antitheses, and syntheses, respectively (it will be recalled that Marx made this Hegelian norm the basis of his theory of economic change). In applying this Hegelian norm to the Pentateuchal subject-matter, the critics postulated a threefold development as pre-prophetic, prophetic, and legal, in the order named. To this they added the general evolutionary theory of man’s invention of religion, by describing the process as proceeding from the polytheistic (animistic), to the henotheistic (characterized by the sovereignty of a single god over the entire pantheon; as Zeus in Greece, Jupiter in Rome, etc.), to the monotheistic (the sovereignty of one God). This developmental theory was extended later by the positivistic school to include the alleged ultimate evolution of monotheism into pantheism (the identification of God with nature or with a Force operating in nature) or into a self-styled scientific humanism, which Comte designated the religion of humanity (whatever that phrase might mean). This notion of a religion without any real God (objective Deity) was fully elaborated by the late John Dewey in his little book, A Common Faith.Here Dewey rejects the conception of God as some kind of Being having prior and therefore non-ideal existence (obviously, this circumlocution, non-ideal, could designate only existence as Other than man, that is, Dewey’s God exists only in man’s imagination); he states explicitly that the term God for him denoted the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions,[16] a kind of insipid, colorless phrase, one that surely could never generate any great measure of zeal in man. (Comte was convinced that his religion of humanity would ultimately become the one and only universal religion, once the intelligentsiarather than the meekshould inherit the earth.)

[16] John Dewey, A Common Faith, p. 42. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1934.

Thus it will be seen that the Documentary Theory was simply another of the many determined attempts, so prevalent at the turn of the century, to apply the evolution yardstick to all aspects of human knowledge and activity. As such, writes a currently eminent scholar, the documents of the Hexateuch. must now be considered as mainly editions, employing far older material, and to this he adds,

and the evolutionary scheme, supposedly derived from them, is now known to be far too simple. For example, ancient religion by the time of the Patriarchs was far advanced beyond an animistic stage, though survivals of animism are common throughout the Bible. In fact, archaeology through its demonstration of the antiquity of high gods reveals that the whole question of a simple animism is open to some suspicion.[17]

[17] G. Ernest Wright, art., Biblical Archaeology, in En cyclopedia of Religion, edited by V. Ferm, p. 74. Philosophical Library, New York, 1945.

(This author insists, of course, that the over-all framework of the Hexateuch as hypothesized by the Graf-Wellhausen theory (reconstruction) is still generally valid.)

In the third place, we must consider briefly the theory of literary fabrication, an integral part of the whole Documentary Hypothesis. According to this theory, in ancient times literary works produced rather late chronologically were often projected in content back into antiquity, in order to vest them with the necessary authority of a venerable name, to secure their acceptance by the people, all this for religious ends, of course (such as centralization of worship, restoration of the authority of a priestly caste, etc.). The notable example of this practice, as alleged in the Documentary Theory, is the Book of Deuteronomy. If this theory of Deuteronomy is true, the book must be regarded, in its origin at least, as a pious fraud. Albright makes the following comments:

The principle of the authority of the written word is not really new, since it has long been recognized as obtaining in most periods and regions where the art of writing has been sufficiently practiced. However, biblical scholars have been misled by the analogy of Graeco-Roman antiquity into exaggerating the possibility of pious fraud in the fabrication of written records and documents beyond all analogy. Nearly every book and passage of the Old Testament has been stigmatized as a literary forgery by at least one scholar. Now it cannot be emphasized too strongly that there is hardly any evidence at all in the ancient Near East for documentary or literary fabrications.[18]

[18] W. F. Albright, op. cit., p. 78.

It is difficult to understand how this theory of literary fabrication could be seriously entertained by anyone who has any respect for piety and right. Unfortunately, however, intellectual honesty is often not valued too highly in some academic circles.

Let us now consider what the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch does not necessarily exclude, as follows: 1. It does not necessarily exclude the use of both oral tradition and written sources by the great Lawgiver. As Whitelaw has written:

That the author of the Book of Origins should have availed himself of pre-existing materials in the composition of his great historical work seems no more an unreasonable suggestion than that the four evangelists should have drawn upon already circulating memoirs of our Lord’s life and work in the construction of their respective Gospels. Nor does any sober critic or intelligent student of the Bible now believe that such a supposition is fatal to the claims either of the Pentateuch and the Gospels to be received as canonical Scriptures or of their writers to be regarded as inspired teachers.[19]

[19] Whitelaw, Introduction to the Book of Genesis, p. 84. Pulpit Commentary, Genesis.

We must remember that Moses was nurtured in the faith of his people even from his mother’s breast (Exodus 2:7-10) and was also instructed, we are told, in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22). Hence, in the composition of the Pentateuch he may well have used long-existing oral traditions and written sources as well. It is well-known today that the content of many ancient religious books was transmitted orally from generation to generation. Oral communication was highly regarded in ancient times; as a matter of fact, Plato repeatedly emphasized the superiority of the oral to the written word.[20] Albright comments: As has often been emphasized by scholars, writing was used in antiquity largely as an aid or guide to memory, not as a substitute for it.[21] There can be little doubt that oral traditions were extant among the Hebrews in the period of their beginnings (the Patriarchal Age), probably going back into the far reaches of Semitic history, and that these were available to Moses when the time came for him to assume his momentous task of building a nation.

[20] See Plato, Phaedrus, especially.

[21] Albright, op. cit., p. 64.

The same is true with reference to written sources. It is likely that Moses had access to records which had been carefully preserved from earliest times. An educated Egyptian of the Exodus period surely would have been familiar with both the cuneiform of Mesopotamia and the hieroglyphs of Egypt. References to such source materials are found in the Bible itself. E.g., in Numbers 21:14-15, we find a quotation specifically said to have been taken from the Book of the Wars of Jehovah. In Joshua 10:13 and in 2 Samuel 1:18, we find rather extensive quotations from what was called the Book of Jashar, evidently a book of songs celebrating the glory of ancient Israel. Scholars are inclined to view the Song of Lamech (Genesis 4:23-24) as the first poem to have been incorporated in Scripture, after having been passed down from generation to generation, until inserted by Moses, under the guidance of the Spirit, into the Book of Genesis. Pfeiffer suggests that the Hebrew toledoth, used so frequently, reflects the existence of genealogical tables or other materials which were in due time incorporated into Genesis.[22]

[22] Pfeiffer, The Book of Genesis.pp. 6, 7. Baker, Grand Rapids, 1963.

2. Nor does the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch necessarily preclude explanatory names, words, and phrases (interpolations) inserted by later writers. Again quoting Pfeiffer:

The recognition of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch does not deny the possibility, or even probability of later editorial revision. Place names may be modernized in order to make them intelligible to a later generation. Joshua, the minister and successor of Moses, may have written the account of Moses-’ death recorded in the last chapter of Deuteronomy. The Jewish tradition of the part Ezra played in the preservation of Scripture may reflect a final editing after the return from Babylon.[23]

[23] Pfeiffer, ibid., p. 7.

The fact is that no human leader in all history ever took such a disorganized rabble as that which crossed the Red Sea, and left it, as did this reputedly meek man Moses, a nation that is still, after more than three millenia, a nation, a people separate, in all countries in which they flourish today. Such a man was surely the most eminently qualified person of his own time to give us the greatest book of his time, that which we know as the Torah or the Pentateuch.

I have no specific theory of inspiration to offer here, except to insist that the Divine inbreathing (revelation) in any age must have reference essentially to the truth that is communicated rather than to the modus operandi of the communication. We are all familiar, of course, with the power of suggestion by which thought may be communicated by one person to another, under hypnosis. Obviously, if the spirit of one human being can thus communicate thought (in words, to be sure) to the spirit of another human being, who can gainsay the possibility that the Spirit of God can communicate Divine thought (truth) to the spirit of man in the same manner? (Cf. Matthew 16:16-17, Acts 2:1-4, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, etc.). Inspiration must have reference especially to the authenticity and reliability of the end-product, the totality of truth embodied in any canonical book as it contributes to the Divine unfolding and human understanding of God’s Eternal Purpose and Plan for the redemption of fallen man. (Ephesians 1:3-14; Ephesians 2:11-22; Ephesians 3:1-12; Romans 8:18-30; 1 Corinthians 15:35-58, etc.).

The fact of the matter is that the Documentary Theory is a conglomeration of conjectures without benefit whatever of external evidence to support them. Indeed a fundamental weakness of the Theory is the fact that it is constructed generally on alleged internal evidences. Not one of the critics ever manifested having the foggiest notion as to who the various authors and redactors of the different hypothetical Codes could have been, or as to when and where, with any degree of preciseness, the authoring and redacting was done. Moreover, the scholars who currently persist in clinging to the general framework of the Theory have modified it to such an extent that much of the groundwork on which it was based originally has been pulled out from under it, leaving it only a shell of what it was formerly.

Another important problem, in any careful evaluation of the Critical Theory, a problem which simply cannot be disregarded, is this: Why is the name of Jerusalem, the city of David, not to be found in all the Pentateuch (except possibly in the mention of Melchizedek as king of Salem in Genesis 14:18)? Is it conceivable that a succession of writers and redactors could have produced the Torah, after the time of David, without so much as a reference to their beloved city? Is it conceivable that they could have produced the books of the Torah at a late date, without mentioning Jerusalem, short of a deliberate conspiracy, entered into beforehand, to avoid the mention of the name? On this view, it is difficult, if not actually impossible, to explain how such a conspiracy of silence could have been deliberately formed and executed by a succession of writers and redactors, extending at least through several generations, most of whom surely were unknown to one another. Under such a theory, therefore, the fact of the unity of the Pentateuchal content becomes utterly amazing!

The following paragraphs from the pen of Dr. Merrill Unger constitute a kind of summary which is too meaningful to be overlooked:

The basic mistake of the critical theory on the subject of the determining principle of the formation of the Old Testament canon is the false pre-supposition that the Ancient Oracles were not written with the avowed purpose of being held sacred and divinely authoritative and obligatory from the start, but that in the course of centuries came to be treated with a veneration which was not at first granted them. In some cases, it is true, it may have taken time for inspired writings to have been received and recognized as authoritative. But to postulate extended time periods, running into centuries, is totally unnecessary historically, and at variance with the internal evidence and tacit claims of the Scriptures themselves.[24]

[24] Merril F. Unger, Introductory Guide to the Old Testament, Second Edition, pp. 65-66. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1956.

Finally, therefore, in this connection, we shall consider briefly what the Scriptures themselves have to say about the authorship of the Pentateuch. Note the following passages: 1. From the Pentateuch itself.Exodus 17:14; Exodus 24:4Moses engages in writing in a book, literally, in the (already existing?) book. Exodus 24:7Moses reads the book of the covenant in the hearing of the people. (The core of the Old Covenant was the Decalogue (Exodus 19:5, Deuteronomy 5:1-21). Hence, we see no real reason for assuming that the titles, book of the covenant and book of the law, referred to separate books. Perhaps the designation, book of the law, was simply a more comprehensive term, designating the Torah as a whole, and hence came into more common use as the writing of the Torah was, little by little, brought to completeness by Moses, and then continued by his successor, Joshua. The Old Covenant, as every Bible student knows, was first made with the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), and under Moses, at Sinai, it was amplified into a national covenant). Numbers 33:1-2Moses is writing the story of the journeyings of his people. Deuteronomy 31:9; Deuteronomy 31:24; Deuteronomy 31:26Moses completes the writing of the words of this law in a book, and this book he orders to be placed, by the Levitical priests, beside the ark of the covenant, that it might serve as a witness against them (the priests) as representatives of the nation; in the Holy of Holies this book was thus protected by the awesome majesty of God’s own presence. Note other references to the book of the law in Deuteronomy 28:61; Deuteronomy 29:21; Deuteronomy 30:10. Note that the affirmations, Jehovah spake unto Moses, God said unto Moses, etc., occur repeatedly in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and especially in Leviticus. Note also Deuteronomy 17:18here it is enjoined upon the people by Moses (who is expressly called a prophet in Scripture: Deuteronomy 18:15; Deuteronomy 34:10; Acts 3:22-26; Acts 7:37-40; John 1:21; John 1:25) that when they shall have taken possession of the Land of Promise and established a monarchy, each successive king shall write him a copy of this law in a book, and shall read therein all the days of his life. This seems to have been a feature of the coronation ceremonies (cf. 2 Kings 11:12, Exodus 25:16, 2 Chronicles 23:11). This surely indicates that several copies of the book in question were in existence, probably in the care of the priesthood exclusively, not long after the establishment of the monarchy, and probably long before that time (i.e., in the time of Joshua and the Judges: the so-called Judges were in fact theocratic dictators).

2. From the rest of the Old Testament books.(1) Joshua 1:7-8here Yahweh is represented as enjoining upon Joshua, Moses-’ successor, unceasing meditation on, and obedience to, all the provisions of the book of the law, that is, all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded thee. Joshua 24:26here we read that Joshua added his own writing to the book of the law.-’ (2) Note other references to the book of the law of Moses (Joshua 8:31, 2 Kings 14:6; Judges 3:4, Nehemiah 8:8, Malachi 4:4), to the book of Moses (2 Chronicles 25:4; 2 Chronicles 35:12; Ezra 6:18, Nehemiah 13:1), to the book of the covenant (Exodus 24:7, 2 Kings 23:2; 2 Kings 23:21; 2 Chronicles 34:30), etc. (3) We find also that as Joshua continued the writing (chronicles) after the death of Moses, so Samuel is said to have carried it on after the time of Joshua (1 Samuel 10:25). Moreover, Samuel was the founder of the school of the prophets which arose in such centers as Ramah, Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, Naioth, and probably other places (1 Samuel 3:20; 1 Samuel 7:3; 1 Samuel 7:15-17; 1 Samuel 8:4; 1 Samuel 9:9; 1 Samuel 10:9-13; 1 Samuel 19:18-24; 1 Samuel 19:20-23, etc.). These centers of prophetic training continued to flourish throughout the entire period of the monarchy; in all likelihood, among those schooled at these places were Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, and many of the later prophets. We can readily see how the historical, prophetic, and classical books of the Old Testament canon came into existence. After the prophets, in the time of the Captivity and later, there arose a group of scholars specifically trained for studying and interpreting the ancient Hebrew manuscripts: these men were known as scribes.

(4) In 2 Sam., ch. 6, and 1 Chron., chs. 13 and 15, we find the story of David’s bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. After being kept there throughout the rest of David’s life, in a tent-like sanctuary, the ark was finally installed by Solomon in the Holy of Holies of the newly built Temple. We read that, at that time, there was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb (1 Kings 8:9). What, then, had become of the book which Moses had turned over to Joshua, to be placed beside the ark of the covenant to be preserved and cherished by the priests, when Joshua had taken over the leadership of the children of Israel? This ancient book could have been lost in those chaotic centuries of the Conquest and the period of the Judges, and later in the early years of the monarchy when the ark was being bandied about, captured by the Philistines, then recaptured by the Israelites, before being hauled on a new cart (2 Samuel 6:3) to Jerusalem. But even if the original Mosaic document had been lost, certainly copies of it were extant. In the great reformation instituted by Hezekiah (who ruled about 715-687 B.C.), we are told that the king clave to Jehovah and kept his commandments, which Jehovah commanded Moses (2 Kings 18:6; 2 Kings 18:12; cf. 2 Chronicles 30:16). After Hezekiah, however, there was another relapse into gross paganism.

(5) At this point the most significant event of this period of decline occurred as described in 2 Kings, ch. 22, namely, the discovery of the book of the law in the rubbish of the Temple (the house of Jehovah) by Hilkiah the priest. What book was thisa book which made such a profound impression on Josiah the king, and through him, on the people? As the story goes, Hilkiah took this book to Shaphan the scribe, who recognized it as the book of the law; the two, Hilkiah and Shaphan, then took the book to Josiah the king, and read it to him; and when the king heard the words of the book of the law, he rent his clothes (v. 11). But King Josiah wanted to be sure about the identity of this book and so he sent Hilkiah and Shaphan and others of his court, to show the book to Huldah, the prophetess; and Huldah immediately accepted it as the book of the law. A great reformation ensued, as had occurred previously under Hezekiah. The finding of this book caused consternation throughout all Judah; the king commanded a national fast in sackcloth and ashes, after reading to the assembled people the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of Jehovah (2 Kings 23:2). (Note the use interchangeably of the two designations, book of the law and book of the covenant.) What was this book? Was it really the Deuteronomic Code? If the book was a pious fraud, as the critics have assumed, certainly all these leaders of the nation were either privy to it, or were taken in by the deception. Orwas this book which Hilkiah found in the rubbish of the Temple the ancient writing, the Torah (or a very early copy of it) which had been turned over to Joshua by Moses himself, the original book of the law in the great Lawgiver’s own hand? If so, no wonder the book brought about such an upheaval in the form of a nation-wide spiritual reformation: it was the voice of Yahweh speaking out of the hoary past!

(6) There seems to be no question, even among the critics, that the book of the law of Moses which Ezra read to the people, in the restoration of the Theocracy after the return from the Captivity, was the Torah substantially as we have it today. (Cf. Ezra 6:18; Ezra 7:6; Nehemiah 8:1-8; Nehemiah 9:3; Nehemiah 13:1.)

3. From the books of the New Testament canon.Note the following passages especially: Matthew 8:4; cf. Leviticus 13:49; Leviticus 14:2 ff. Matthew 19:7-8; Mark 10:1-4; cf. Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Mark 7:10; cf. Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16, Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 20:9. Mark 7:10; cf. Exodus 3:6. Mark 12:26; Luke 2:22, John 1:17; John 5:45-47; John 7:19; John 7:23; Acts 13:39; Acts 15:5; Acts 28:23; 2 Corinthians 3:15; Galatians 3:10; Hebrews 10:28, etc. Note also the passages listed below, referring to the law and the prophets, Moses and the prophets, the book of Moses, etc. At this point, we may summarize with a well-known passage from the Talmud, as follows: Moses received the book of the law from Sinai, and delivered it to Joshua; Joshua delivered it to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue, from whom it passed to the heads of the families of the scribes. This is the testimony of what is perhaps the highest Jewish authority.

VIII. THE DETERMINATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON

1. The Prophets.We have already noted that The Law (Torah) was venerated as the oldest and most sacred of the Hebrew Scriptures, that The Prophets were next, and The Writings last, in ecclesiastical and popular esteem. We now ask, When did the complete collection known as The Prophets become canonized? And when did the collection known as The Writings become canonized?

The Great Synagogue is said to have been an assembly of outstanding Jewish leaders (scribes, priests, prophets) whom Ezra the Scribe selected to assist him in the restoration of the Theocracy. Ezra himself was the head. Hence Jewish tradition has persisted in the claim that Ezra and his collaborators collected all the Jewish sacred writings, edited and revised and transcribed them, and thus established the Old Testament canon as we now have it, that is, as it came to exist as the Hebrew Scriptures, consisting of The Law, The Prophets, and The Writings. Let us now consider passages from the teaching of Christ and His Spirit-guided Apostles which throw light on this question.

(1) Note the following references to the law and the prophets, Moses and the prophets, the book of Moses, the book of the prophets, etc.: Matthew 5:17; Matthew 7:12; Matthew 11:13; Matthew 22:40; Luke 16:16; Luke 16:29-31; Luke 24:27; Mark 12:26; Acts 7:42; Acts 24:14; Acts 28:23; Romans 3:21. (2) Note Acts 13:15here we have a description of the synagogue service in New Testament times (cf. Acts 15:21).

(3) Luke 16:16The Law and The Prophets were in existence until John (the Baptizer); but beginning with John the Gospel of the Kingdom (the Reign of Messiah) was proclaimed (as in preparation, at hand, Matthew 3:2, throughout the personal ministry of Jesus; and as fact beginning with Pentecost and the establishment of the Church, Acts 1:1-8, Acts 2). Luke 24:27beginning from Moses and from all The Prophets, Jesus expounded the Scriptures to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Acts 13:15it was The Law and The Prophets that was customarily read in the worship of the Synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia. Acts 15:21from generations of old it was the custom in every Synagogue to read from Moses on the Sabbath day. Luke 4:17-21: It was by reading from the prophet Isaiah in the Synagogue at Nazareth that Jesus announced the beginning of His ministry. From these Scriptures it seems obvious that The Law and The Prophets was the designation for the Hebrew Scriptures at the beginning of the Christian era.

(4) Note the evidence that the Old Testament prophets had committed their messages to writing before the old (Mosaic) Dispensation had come to an end. Isaiah 8:16Bind thou up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. Ezekiel (Ezekiel 38:17) quotes words which God had spoken by the prophets of old. As noted heretofore, the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are classed as prophetic books, largely, it would seem because they give us the story of the earlier prophets, namely, Nathan, Samuel, Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, etc. Each of the writers whom we know specifically as the Hebrew prophets, beginning with Isaiah and ending with Malachi, has put his own imprimatur on his writing by some such introductory phrase or statement as the following: the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos (Isaiah 1:1), the word of Jehovah came unto me (Jeremiah 1:4), the word of Jehovah came expressly to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:3), thus saith Jehovah (Amos 1:3), the vision of Obadiah: thus saith the Lord Jehovah (Obadiah 1:1), or the formula most commonly used, the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah (Jonah 1:1), etc. These men all belonged to the age of revelation which ended with Malachi, only to be resumed at the proper time by the last of the great prophetic line, John the Baptizer. Incidentally the references in the apostolic writings to the prophetic books of the Old Testament are too numerous to mention here. We can surely affirm, from all the evidence produced here, that the New Testament designation for the sacred books of the Hebrew people was The Law and the Prophets. This does not necessarily mean, however, that there were no other sacred books extant.

2. The Writings.What evidence have we as to the time of the canonization of The Writings as sacred Scripture?

(1) Let us start with Luke 24:44written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms (concerning Messiah); This would seem to indicate that the Psalms (the nucleus of The Writings) were considered as separate from The Prophets, at the time of Jesus-’ incarnate ministry. (The Psalms are quoted repeatedly in the New Testament as Holy Scriptures: cf. Matthew 4:6; Matthew 21:6; Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:10; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:17; Luke 20:42; John 2:17; John 10:34; John 15:25; John 19:24; John 19:36-37; Acts 1:20; Acts 2:25-28; Acts 2:34-35; Acts 4:11; Acts 4:25-26; Acts 13:2; Acts 13:35; Romans 3:4; Romans 3:10-18; Romans 4:7; Romans 10:18; Romans 15:3; Romans 15:11; 1 Corinthians 3:20; 1 Corinthians 15:27; 2 Corinthians 5:12; 2 Corinthians 9:9; Ephesians 4:8; Ephesians 4:26; Hebrews 1:5; Hebrews 1:7-8; Hebrews 1:10; Hebrews 1:13; Hebrews 2:6; Hebrews 2:12; Hebrews 3:7; Hebrews 3:15; Hebrews 4:3; Hebrews 4:5; Hebrews 4:7; Hebrews 5:5-6; Hebrews 7:17; Hebrews 7:21; Hebrews 10:5-7; Hebrews 13:6; 1 Peter 3:10-12.) (2) Note also references to the Book of Daniel in Matthew 24:15 and in Mark 13:14 (cf. Daniel 9:27; Daniel 11:31; Daniel 12:11, also 1Ma. 1:54; 1Ma. 6:7.) Note also the numerous reflections of the language of Daniel in the book of Revelation; according to Goodspeed there are no less than sixty-six of these.[25] Obviously, Daniel is a prophetic book. Yet there is no evidence that it was ever included in The Prophets; rather, it was included in The Writings. (3) In the Apocryphal book of 2Ma 2:13, we read that Nehemiah founded a library, gathering together the books about the kings and prophets, and the things of David, etc. In this context, the phrase, the things of David, must have had reference to the Davidic writings (the Psalms). This would indicate that the Psalms were extant at the time of Nehemiah, as far back as the middle of the fourth century B.C.

[25] Edgar J. Goodspeed, How Came the Bible? p. 43. Abingdon-Cokesbury, New York and Nashville, 1940.

(4) In this connection, the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus provides some significant information. In the Prologue to this interesting book, the grandson of one Jesus ben Sirach tells of his coming into Egypt in the eight and thirtieth year of Euergetes the king (132 B.C.) and finding a copy of the book (Ecclesiasticus) which was written by his grandfather, which he proceeded to translate into Greek. In the Prologue, the translator speaks of the many and great things which had been delivered unto the Jews by the law and the prophets, and by the others that had followed in their steps. He states that his grandfather had been much given to the reading of the law, and the prophets, and the other books of our fathers, and comments on the difficulty of translating the law itself, and the prophecies, and the rest of the books, into other languages. In chs. 44-50 of the book, by the grandfather, Jesus ben Sirach, the author gives us the roll of the famous men of Israel, one of the most eloquent passages in religious literature. He lists the heroes of the faith, not only those of the five books of Moses (The Law), but also those of the historical-prophetic books (The Prophets), and lists them in the order in which they appear in the divisions named. In ch. 49, there is an obvious reference to the book of the twelve prophets (v. 10). He concludes the list with the name of Simon the high priest, son of Onias, who, he tells us, in his (Simon’S) lifetime, repaired the house and strengthened the temple. Throughout this entire chapter 50, he eulogizes Simon. Now this Simon lived about 200 B.C. This means that Jesus ben Sirach lived about 180 B.C., and was already familiar with The Law and The Prophets. What, then, did the translator, the grandson, mean by the rest of the books? He does not tell us what these books were, nor does he mention the term, The Writings. However, it is clear, from this evidence, that by the second century B.C., there was extant, in addition to The Law and The Prophets, a growing body of writings that was being regarded as canonical, as an integral part of the sacred literature of the Jews.

(5) We shall now call up another witness, Josephus, the Jewish historian, who lived about A.D. 37-100. In one of his works, Josephus states that the Jews had only 22 sacred books. He arrives at this figure by reckoning Judges and Ruth as one book, and Jeremiah and Lamentations as one book. He elaborates by stating that there were the five books of Moses, the thirteen books of The Prophets (among which he included Daniel, Job, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Esther); the remaining four books, he adds, contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. He then goes on to say:

… how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one hath been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them.[26]

[26] Josephus, Against Apion, I, 8. The Works of Josephus, Vol. IV, translated by Wm. Whiston, Brainard Publishing Co., Boston and New York.

Certainly this indicates that by the time of Josephus the books included in The Writings were regarded as fixed because the total number of books in the entire Hebrew canon was so regarded.

When, therefore, was the list of The Writings permanently determined? Crushed by the tragic siege and destruction of their holy City and Temple and by the Dispersion of the whole nation, and no doubt disturbed by the rapid spread of Christianity, an authoritative Council of Jewish rabbis and scholars was called at Jamnia, A.D. 90, in Palestine (near Jaffa and not far from the Great Sea), for the purpose of establishing the Canon of the Hebrew Scriptures as an act necessary to the preservation of their faith. At this Council, we are told, the question was discussed whether the Song of Songs or Ecclesiastes defiled the hands. What did this phrase mean? It meant just this: A genuine book of Scripture was regarded as so holy that when a man touched it, his hands were sanctified and were not to be used for ordinary purposes until they had been washed or de-sanctified, just as by touching a corpse the hands became regarded as so unholy and defiled that washing (ceremonial cleansing) was necessary. (A modern analogy of this, from the viewpoint of science, rather than that of magic or superstition, is the germ theory.) All this means, then, that this question with respect to the two books named was still undecided, as late as A.D. 90. However, it must also be understood, as one writer puts it so clearly that

the Councils of Jamnia (A.D. 90, 118) composed of Jewish scholars, did not settle on the canon; rather, they discussed the problem of leaving certain books in the canon that were already there. Public opinion had determined the books in the Old Testament before the scholars met to discuss them. Book after book found acceptance by the people as they sifted them out from the mass of material available, on the basis of how the books agreed with God’s past revelation and met the needs of the human soul. Thus God, guided the formation of the canon as surely as He inspired the writers of its books.[27]

[27] Clyde T. Francisco, Introducing the Old Testament, p. 12. Broadman Press, Nashville, 1950.

It seems to this writer that it may be taken as established that the entire canon of the Hebrew Scriptures had been established even before the beginning of the Christian era.

VI. THE SEPTUAGINT AND THE APOCRYPHA

The oldest version of the Old Testament extant is the Septuagint (LXX), more than two thousand manuscripts of which have been catalogued from the second to the sixteenth centuries. This, according to the Letter of Aristeas of Cyprus to his brother, Philocrates (a third century B.C. document) was the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek by some seventy-two Jewish scholars who were brought from Palestine to Alexandria specifically for that task, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (who reigned 285-246 B.C.). This translation was begun in Ptolemy’s reign; however, the exact date of the completion of the work is not well established. However, the LXX does contain all the books of the Old Testament which we have today, and was itself included in the Hexapla, the monumental work of Origen, who lived about A.D. 185-251. There is no evidence that the Apocryphal books were ever included in the Hebrew Scriptures, although they did make their way into the Septuagint which became literally the Old Testament of the early Christian Church.

The fourteen Apocryphal books are generally regarded as non-canonical for the simple reason that they contribute nothing to the unfolding of the divine Plan of Redemption or to the demonstration of the Messiahship of Jesus. These books are usually classed as historical (I Esdras, I Maccabees, II Maccabees), didactic (Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus), prophetic (Baruch, II Esdras), religious romance (Tobit, Judith) or legendary (Prayer of Manasses, The Remainder of Esther, Song of the Three Holy Children, History of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon). For the most part these books reflect the thought and life of the Jewish people characteristic of the interim between the Testaments, that is, in the period from Malachi to John the Baptizer. Though never included in the original Hebrew Scriptures, the Apocryphal books became associated, by Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt, with the translated Old Testament books, and hence came to be included in the Greek Old Testament (used by the early Christian Church), the so-called Septuagint. The Vulgate of Jerome, the monk of Bethlehem, was a translation into Latin of the original Hebrew Scriptures, completed about A.D. 405. Jerome did not accept the Apocryphal books as canonical; he did, however, translate Judith and Tobit.The other twelve were added to the Vulgate later, and hence through the influence of the LXX, were included in the Douai Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, and in many of the early Protestant Bibles. They have been omitted from all recent non-Catholic revisions and versions.

(For the student who wishes to examine in some detail the history of the Septuagint, the following works are recommended: The Cambridge Septuagint text, edited by H. B. Swete, 3 vols., 1887-1894, Cambridge University Press; An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, by H. B. Swete, revised edition by Ottley, Cambridge, 1914; M. Hadas, Aristeas to Philocrates, Harpers, New York, 1951; and especially The Septuagint Bible, Foreword and Introduction, Charles Thomson translation, published by the Falcon’s Wing Press, Indian Hills, Colorado, 1954. Thomson, an eminent Greek Scholar, was Secretary to the Continental Congress, 1774-1789.)

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART ONE

What is the origin of the word Bible?

In what sense is the Bible a library of books?

In what sense is the Bible a library of related books?

In what sense is the Bible a collection of selected books?

By what criterion are the books of the Bible accepted as canonical?

Explain the terms: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha.

In what sense is the Bible the Book of the Spirit?

In what sense is the Bible one book?

Name the three Dispensations of God’s redemptive Plan, and state the extent of each.

In what book do we find the history of the Patriarchal Dispensation?

In what sense is the Bible pre-eminently the Book of Life?

In what sense is the Bible the world’s Manual of Civilization?

State what the Bible is not designed to be, in God’s purpose.

We find the history of what particular genealogical Line in the Bible?

What in particular were the Hebrew people elected to do in the unfolding of God’s Eternal Purpose?

In what sense is the Bible not a book of philosophy?

What is the over-all theme of the Bible?

How many books in the Old Testament? In the New Testament? In the whole Bible?

Classify and name the books of the Old Testament in our English Bible.

Classify and name the books of the New Testament in our English Bible.

What are the three general divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures?

Name the books of The Law, as given in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Name the books of The Prophets, as given in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Name the books of The Writings, as given in the Hebrew Scriptures.

What does the word genesis mean?

Cite the passages in Genesis that prove the book to be Christ-centered.

What is the preferred method of sectioning Genesis? On the basis of what Hebrew word are the sections best determined? What does the word mean?

Explain what is meant by the Lower Criticism. By the Higher Criticism.

What is the Pentateuch? What does the word mean?

State briefly the so-called Documentary Theory of the Pentateuch.

On what specific claims is the Documentary Theory based?

What specific arguments that were offered to support the Documentary Theory in its early days are now disproved by archaeology?

With what presuppositions did the advocates of the Documentary Theory approach their analysis of the Pentateuch?

What, generally, does the phrase, destructive criticism mean?

In what way have the modern Biblical critics made use of the evolution norm?

What is meant by the phrase, literary fabrication?

In what sense is the Documentary Theory of the origin of Deuteronomy to be regarded as a pious fraud?

What has Dr. Albright said about this device of literary fabrication?

State what the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch does not necessarily exclude.

How account for the absence of the name of Jerusalem from the Pentateuch?

What, according to Dr. Unger, is the basic fallacy in the Documentary Theory?

What evidence concerning the authorship of the Pentateuch is provided by the Pentateuch itself?

What evidence concerning the authorship of the Pentateuch is provided by the rest of the Old Testament?

What evidence concerning the authorship of the Pentateuch is provided by the New Testament books?

What evidence do we have about the determination of the canon of The Prophets?

What evidence do we have about the determination of the canon of The Writings?

What important evidence concerning the canon of The Writings do we get from the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus?

What evidence is contributed by Josephus about this problem?

What is the Septuagint? What evidence does it provide about the determination of the Old Testament canon?

Why are the books of the Apocrypha generally regarded as non-canonical?

How did the Apocrypha come to be included in the Septuagint?

What is the Vulgate? When, where, by whom, and from what sources was it produced?

What was the Council of Jamnia? When was it held, and for what purpose?

What did this Council do with respect to the Old Testament canon?

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA

Marcus Dods, The Expositor’s Bible: Genesis, pp 1, 2. Armstrong and Son, New York, 1895.

A. Campbell, Christian System, p. 15. John S. Burns and Sons, 1835.

See Greek-English Lexicon, Liddell and Scott, s.v.New Edition, revised by Sir H. S. Jones, Oxford University Press, London, New York, 1948.

J. R. Dummelow, Commentary on the Holy Bible, Introduction, p. 24. Macmillan, New York.

Julian Morgenstern, The Book of Genesis: A Jewish Interpretation.Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, 1927.

Adam to Daniel, edited by Gaalyahu Cornfeld, p. 2. Macmillan, New York, 1961.

G. Campbell Morgan, Analyzed Bible: Genesis.

William Barclay, The Making of the Bible, p. 22. Abingdon, New York, 1961.

W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity, Second Edition, Doubleday Anchor Book, 1957, pp. 35, 253, 254, 256. Originally published by Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1940.

Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, English translation, pp. 318-319.

Chas. F. Pfeiffer, The Patriarchal Age, p. 14. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1961.

Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert, p. 31. Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, New York, 1959.

James Muilenburg, The History of the Religion of Israel, Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. I, Genesis, p. 296. See also Millar Burrows, What Mean These Stones? American Schools of Oriental Research, New Haven, 1941.

Albright, op. cit.,p.81.

See Wilmer Cave Wright, A Short History of Greek Literature, Ch. II. American Book Company, Cincinnati, 1907, 1935.

John Dewey, A Common Faith, p. 42. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1934.

G. Ernest Wright, art., Biblical Archaeology, in En cyclopedia of Religion, edited by V. Ferm, p. 74. Philosophical Library, New York, 1945.

W. F. Albright, op. cit., p. 78.

Whitelaw, Introduction to the Book of Genesis, p. 84. Pulpit Commentary, Genesis.

See Plato, Phaedrus, especially.

Albright, op. cit., p. 64.

Pfeiffer, The Book of Genesis.pp. 6, 7. Baker, Grand Rapids, 1963.

Pfeiffer, ibid., p. 7.

Merril F. Unger, Introductory Guide to the Old Testament, Second Edition, pp. 65-66. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1956.

Edgar J. Goodspeed, How Came the Bible? p. 43. Abingdon-Cokesbury, New York and Nashville, 1940.

Josephus, Against Apion, I, 8. The Works of Josephus, Vol. IV, translated by Wm. Whiston, Brainard Publishing Co., Boston and New York.

Clyde T. Francisco, Introducing the Old Testament, p. 12. Broadman Press, Nashville, 1950.

PART TWO: PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION

The word interpretation has become a much abused word in our day, to the extent, one may say rightly, that human speculative theology has introduced confusion into man’s understanding of the Bible. As a matter of fact, the Simplicities of the Christian faiththe terms of admission into the New Covenant, the essentials of Christian worship, the excellences of Christian character and life, need no interpretation (but need only to be exemplified in the lives of the saints): these matters are made so clear in the New Testament that wayfaring men, yea fools, shall not err therein (Isaiah 35:8). Still and all, the word interpretation is legitimate, and the process itself is equally so, provided the correct norms are followed. Moreover, the correct norms or principles are too obvious to be questioned by anyone except an utterly biased person.

Note, therefore, the following important matters, by way of introduction: 1. What interpretation does not mean. C. A. Sillars, writing in The Christian some time ago, stated this side of the case in simple terms, as follows:

Let’s begin by saying what interpret does not mean. It does not mean to change the original truth. It does not mean to add or subtract. It does not mean that any man or group has the right to alter the truth of God as revealed in the Bible. It does not mean that a man may obey the Biblical injunctions he likes and disobey the ones he finds hard to accept.[1]

[1] The Christian, published by the Christian Board of Publication, St. Louis, Mo.

There could hardly be any statement of the case any clearer than this.

2. Correct interpretation, in any case, must have its basis in correct translation, from the original Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) texts. If the translation is erroneous, the interpretation is bound to be so. Unfortunately, untold confusion has been introduced into Christian faith and practice by the substitution in the early centuries of our era of transliteration for translation, confusion which probably will never be cleared away because of the rigidity with which denominational clergy and people cling to their respective traditions. (Transliteration is the transfer of the letters, translation, the transfer of meaning, from one language to another.) Take, for example, the Greek word presbyteros (transliterated presbyter in ecclesiastical Latin, but translated senior, as it should be, in the Latin of the Vulgate). (The Romans were notorious for taking over the Greek words, letter by letter, into the Latin.) Now presbyteros in Greek, classical or Koine, never did mean anything but elder or an elderly man: it should be so translated wherever it occurs in the New Testament, However, in 1 Timothy 4:14, we read of the laying on of the hands of the presbytery; translated, however, it reads the laying on of the hands of the eldership. This is the only passage in which the word presbytery occurs in the English New Testament, and it is a transliteration, not a translation: where presbyteros occurs in other New Testament passages, it is translated elder as it should be. Another example is our word bishop, which derives from the Greek episcopos, from episcopeo, look out over, oversee, exercise oversight, etc. The Greek word means literally an overseer, supervisor, that is, in the sense of jurisdictional authority, the authority of governance, and hence is also rendered ruler in some passages (cf. Romans 12:8; 1 Timothy 3:5; 1 Timothy 5:17; Hebrews 12:7; Hebrews 12:17; 1 Peter 5:1-5, etc.). Now the word bishop; like presbyter, is a transliteration, and not a translation, from episcopos in the New Testament Greek, to episcopus in ecclesiastical Latin, to ebiscopus in vulgar Latin, to Old English bisceop, finally to the modern English bishop.Translated, the word wherever it occurs in the New Testament would be rendered overseer, for this is precisely what it means.[2] Incidentally, the term pastor or shepherd comes from the Greek poimén, and the verb form poimaino means, I shepherd (the spiritual flock). In Acts 20:17-35, the three words, elder, overseer, and tender or pastor of the flock (Acts 20:28-29) occur explicitly or implicitly as designations for the same kind of ministry: in churches of the apostolic age, a local congregation had as many pastors as it had elders or overseers (cf. Ephesians 4:11-12). Had churchmen followed the apostolic injunction to hold the pattern of sound teaching (2 Timothy 1:13; 2 Timothy 2:2; 2 Timothy 3:16-17), Christendom would not be cluttered up, as it is today, with hierarchical systems and self-constituted prelates who have succeeded only in keeping alive sectarian speculative creeds and unscriptural practices. These were the gentlemen who divided Christendom: how, then, can we logically expect their kind to bring about reunion?

[2] See The Oxford English Dictionary.

Another notorious example of the substitution of transliteration for translationone which has kept the Christian world in confusion for centuries, and is still doing sois that of the Greek verb baptizo.In the Greek, classical or New Testament, this word never did mean anything but dip, plunge, immerse, or figuratively, overwhelm (as in reference to Holy Spirit baptism: Acts 1:5; Acts 2:1-4; Acts 10:44-48; Acts 11:15-18; Acts 15:7-11), and is never rightly translated anything else. In the original it never did mean sprinkle (the Greek word for this act is rhantizo) or pour (the Greek word for which was cheo).Certainly it never had any such innocuous meaning as to administer baptismto attach such import to the word is to take it out of its original setting altogether. It signified one, and only one, action, namely, a dipping.Unfortunately for us, the Greek baptizo (like the words presbyteros and episcopos cited above) was never translated into Latin; had it been translated, it would have been rendered mergo or immergo.But instead of translating the word, the Latin Fathers, including Jerome in the Vulgate, simply transliterated it as a first conjugation Latin verb, baptizo (-are, -avi, -atus), whence it was again transliterated into English (Anglicized) as baptize. Had the verb been translated, as it is in Alexander Campbell’s version of the New Testament, Living Oracles, it would read immerse (or, in a few instances, overwhelm) in our current English versions.

Not so long ago, I purchased a book entitled, The Authentic New Testament, a translation by the eminent Jewish scholar and linguist, Hugh J. Schonfield. (In the Introduction to this book, we are told that Dr. Schonfield spent some thirty years working on this, his own modern version of the original Greek text.) On perusing this work, lo and behold! I discovered, to my amazement, that the Greek baptizo is rendered throughout by the word immerse, that is to say, it is actually translated. The following, for example, is Schonfield’s translation of Mat 3:1-6; Matthew 13:17,

At this period John the Baptist made his appearance, proclaiming in the wilderness of Judea, Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!. Then Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the vicinity of Jordan flocked to him, and were immersed by him in the river Jordan as they confessed their sins. Then Jesus arrived at the Jordan from Galilee to be immersed by John. But John stopped him and said, I need to be immersed by you, yet you come to me? Jesus replied, Never mind that. It is of more consequence that one should do one’s whole duty. So John let him have his way. After his immersion Jesus at once rose up from the water, and lo, the skies were parted, and he saw the Spirit of God descend like a dove alighting on him, while a voice from the skies declared, This is my dear Son with whom I am well satisfied.[3]

[3] Hugh J. Schonfield, The Authentic New Testament. A Mentor Religious Classic. Published by the New American Library of World Literature, New York, 1958.

(It will be noted that for some strange reason this author did not translate the epithet, Baptistes, which is applied to John. Campbell, however, did translate it as it should be, John the Immerser.) Note also Schonfield’s translation of the first few verses of the sixth chapter of Romans:

What are we to say then? Are we to continue in sin that mercy may be magnified? God forbid! We who have died so far as sin is concerned, how can we still live in it? Can you be ignorant that those who have become associated with Christ by immersion, have become associated by it with his death? Through this association with him by immersion we are thus united with him in burial, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by means of the Father’s glory, we too should conduct ourselves in newness of life. For if we have become identified with the manner of his death, surely we should be with his resurrection also. [3]

[3] Hugh J. Schonfield, The Authentic New Testament. A Mentor Religious Classic. Published by the New American Library of World Literature, New York, 1958.

The foregoing are glaring examples of the obfuscation of New Testament teaching by the substitution of transliteration for translation: the obfuscation becomes doubly apparent when the passages as transliterated are compared with what they would be if correctly translated.

3. As stated above, human theological jargon has caused untold confusion in the interpretation of New Testament teaching, confusionand accompanying apostasyfrom which in all likelihood Christendom will never recover. This compounding of confusion, in flagrant disregard of the apostolic injunction to hold the pattern of sound words (2 Timothy 1:13), that is, to call Bible things by Bible names (cf. 2 Timothy 2:2, also 1 Corinthians 2:13combining spiritual things with spiritual, that is, interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual or Spirit-inspired language), came about in two ways, generally speaking: (1) through the use of Greek metaphysical terms to explain Biblical doctrine, and (2) through the projection of the concepts and practices of the ancient pagan mystery religions into institutionalized Christianity. Speculative churchmen initiated these apostatizing trends as early as the second century, and by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they had so distorted New Testament teaching, that the church of the apostolic age was hardly recognizable in the creeds and rituals of the medieval hierarchies.

Under the first-named of these categories of corruption, we have fallen heir to such termsnot one of which is to be found in the New Testamentas homoousianism, homoiousianism, heteroousianism, soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology, transubstantiation, consubstantiation, substance, accident, form as distinguished from spirit, ecumenicity, historic episcopacy, apostolic succession, unconditional election and reprobation, total depravity,-’ original sin, eucharist, premillenialism, postmillenialism, existentialism, confrontation, kerygma, demythologizing, open membership, closed membership, open communion, closed communion, etc., etc. One of the latest and most intriguing of these innovations is the phrase, the substantive thing done. Dr. C. C. Morrison, for example, uses this phrase to try to explainbut actually to explain awaythe Scriptural design of the ordinance of Christian baptism: immersion, he tells us, is not the substantive thing done in this particular ordinance.[4] Where in Scripture do we find such a phrase as this? What theologian coined it in the first place? Whoever it was, he should be given a prize for hitting a new high of absurdity in theological lingo. Baptism, in New Testament teaching, is simply an act of faith on man’s part, an act in which human faith and Divine Grace hold solemn tryst; the act in which the penitent believer testifies, in this visible act of obedience, to the facts of the Gospel, namely, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (Romans 6:1-9; Romans 6:17; 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; Colossians 2:12). Hence anything short of a visible burial and resurrection, in and from water as the element, vitiates the ordinance completely.

[4] See The Christian Evangelist, St. Louis, Oct. 27, 1954, and The Christian Century, Chicago, Mar. 5, 1958.

Under the second of the categories named above, that of the projection of the superstitious beliefs and rites characteristic of the ancient pagan mystery religions, into the Christian faith, we have fallen heir to the esoteric practices (ecstatic and orgiastic) associated with sacramentalism, sacerdotalism, shamanism, dogmas of miraculous conversion and second blessing, trances and other emotional extravagances of so-called holiness cults, (The tendency seems always to have been prevalent in humankind to regard heartfelt religion as something too mysterious to be understood, rather than as something to be done, to be put into practice in everyday living, as the Bible clearly teaches: e.g., Matthew 7:20-21; Matthew 7:24-27; Matthew 25:31-46; Galatians 5:16-25). Thus sheer primitive magic was taken over by churchmen in the early Christian centuries, only to result in the prostitution of New Testament Christianity. Today, in many sects and cults professing to be Christian, we have only the carry-over and the embodiment of pagan superstitions in Christian vestments. These various apostasies from the apostolic teaching as found in the New Testament continue to produce untold confusion in Biblical interpretation.

4. Interpretation, in the true sense of the term, is the business of bringing to light the meaning of Scripture, in whatever text or texts may require such explanation. The technical name for the science of interpretation is Hermeneutics, from Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and the interpreter of the will of Zeus. Correct interpretation is simply allowing the Bible to explain itself by the correlation of all passages bearing on a given subject, One may want to know, for example, what the Bible has to say about faith; he should, therefore, using his Concordance as a guide, study all the passages in which the word faith, or its equivalent, occurs; by this method he will understand, from the viewpoint of Scripture, what faith is, how it is obtained, and how it manifests itself. In the same way one may acquire a correct understanding of what the Bible teaches about other subjects, such as repentance, confession, baptism, the spiritual life, judgment, heaven, hell, immortality, etc. And let me say here, most emphatically, that the Bible itself is far more intelligible than the massive tomes which theologians have written about the Bible and its great themes.

We are now ready to suggest the following general rules or principles of correct interpretation, as follows: 1. The A B C’S of correct interpretation of any Scripture passage are four in number, best stated, perhaps, in question form thus: (1) Who is speaking or writing? There are many instances in the Bible in which persons speak, that is, men or women; there are some in which the devil (or devils) do the speaking; there are some, as in the Epistles, in which the author is addressing his words to a specific group of Christians or to Christians generally; and there are innumerable passages in which God is represented as speaking, two or three times directly from Heaven, but usually through chosen human instrumentalities. (2) To whom are the words of the given text directed? For instance, a grievous fallacy occurs when one overlooks the fact that all the New Testament Epistles are addressed only to those who have already become Christians, members of the Body of Christ. It is the design of the Book of Acts to tell alien sinners what to do to be saved, and that of the Epistles is to tell Christians what to do to keep saved, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). (3) Under what Dispensation were the words spoken or written? Failure to distinguish between DispensationsPatriarchal, Jewish, Christianoften results in egregious errors of interpretation. For instance, we frequently hear the question, Why can-’t we be saved like the thief on the Cross? The answer is obvious: Because Jesus lived and died under the Mosaic Law, in the Jewish Dispensation, and by the shedding of His blood on the Cross, He abrogated the Old Covenant and at the same time ratified the New (John 1:17; Ephesians 2:13-18; Colossians 2:13-15; Hebrews 9:11-28; Hebrews 10:10-14, etc.). Now as long as a man is still living he has the right to dispense his property personally, as he sees fit; however, after his death, his property must be allocated according to the terms of his will. So it was with our Lord. While He was on earth, in His incarnate ministry, He had, and frequently exercised, the right of extending the forgiveness of sin to whomsoever He saw fit, as in the case of the penitent thief (Luke 23:43; cf. Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26; Luke 7:47-50). But after His resurrection and return to the Father’s right hand of sovereignty, He left His Last Will and Testament, which was probated on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) by the properly appointed executors, His Spirit-guided Apostles (John 16:7-15; John 20:21-23; Luke 24:45-49; Matthew 28:16-20; Acts 1:1-8; Acts 2:1-4; Acts 2:22-42, etc.), according to the provisions of whichfaith in Christ, repentance toward Christ, confession of Christ, and baptism into Christ (Acts 2:38, 2 Corinthians 7:10, Luke 13:3, Matthew 10:32-33, Galatians 3:27, Romans 10:9-10)forgiveness, remission, justification, etc., are granted to all obedient believers. The simple fact of the matter is that Jesus is not on earth today to forgive sins in person. (4) Finally, under this heading, Under what circumstances were the words written or spoken? This has much to do with the meaning of any Scripture passage. For a concrete example, take Paul’s well-known injunction, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, Let the women keep silence in the churches. for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church. Note the word aischron which the Apostle uses here, which means a shameful, disgraceful, indecent thing to do. What he was writing in this case was literally true when the words were written: it really was a disgraceful thing for a woman to speak out in the Christian assembly or in any kind of assembly for that matter. We must remember that women were not held in very high esteem in those days, especially in pagan circles. The Apostle does not say that this was a sin (hamartia); rather, it was a disgraceful thing in the fact that it brought upon the church the criticism of the pagan community, Wives of pagans would not think of creating the disturbances which women in the Corinthian congregation were causing by spontaneously bursting out into song, prophecy, tongues, etc.: they were turning the worshiping assembly into a kind of bedlam (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:27-31). In the eyes of the pagan community this was shameful, disgraceful, etc. Obviously, if the same attitude toward women prevailed in our time, the same injunction would apply. However, women are held in such high regard today that for a woman to speak decorously in the Christian assembly, or to teach as a ministerial function, is considered entirely proper. The Apostle Paul has been belabored repeatedly as a woman hater: but, this notion is completely negated by his language in Galatians 3:28There can be neither Jew nor Greek. neither bond nor free. no male and female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. I am reminded here of a certain preacher who, when a young woman came forward to make the Good Confession, actually escorted her outside the church building for the purpose of doing this, lest the Pauline injunction that women should keep silent in the church, be violated. Of course, this was an exception, yet it proves just how literalistic some fanatics can be in their misapplication of Scripture passages. Always the question arises in the interpretation of any text, Under what circumstances were the words elicited, and do the same conditions apply today? (Note that the daughters of Philip the Evangelist were prophetesses: see Acts 6:1-6; Acts 21:8-9.) The solution of the problem of woman’s activity in the Christian assembly belongs to the category of custom, and customs, as we surely know, do change, as do the attitudes on which the customs are based. Hence, in the category of custom we must put also the matter of proper attire in the worshiping assembly: the sole apostolic injunction is that immodesty and ostentation (in attire, hair-do, wearing of jewelry, ornaments, etc.) must be avoided (1 Timothy 2:9-10; 1 Peter 3:1-6;. cf. Luke 20:46-47; Matthew 23:5-7; Acts 5:1-11). (Note the Apostle’s use of aischron, again as disgraceful, indecent, etc., in 1 Corinthians 11:6, and as not proper in Titus 1:11, as shameful in Ephesians 5:12.) With respect to the veiling (covering) or not veiling the head in the ekklesia, the Apostle again advises adherence to established custom: in the contemporary popular view, he tells us, for a woman to wear long hair was a mark of glory (femininity), but for a man to do so was a mark of effeminacy. The principle involved is simply this: that although customs are not matters of Divine legislation, still and all, unnecessary violation of established customs is liable to bring upon the Christian community the criticism of an outside (and unsaved) world, and may become, therefore, an unwarranted extension of a Christian’s liberty in Christ Jesus. There are many things which for the Christian may be perfectly lawful, but which under certain conditions are not expedient (as, for example, those which may cause a weak brother to stumble or those which may bring the criticism of the pagan community on the church), that is, attitudes and acts which generally are not contributory to the propagation of the Faith. (Cf. Romans 14:12-23; 1 Corinthians 6:12-14; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; 1 Corinthians 10:23-33; 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.) The Apostle warns, however, that all such matters (of custom) should not be permitted to be carried to the point of contentiousness (1 Corinthians 11:16). We might note also in this connection the passages in the New Testament which refer to the holy kiss (Romans 16:16, 2 Corinthians 13:12, 1 Thessalonians 5:26, 1 Peter 5:14): this was an ancient custom, and one which persists down to our time in many Eastern lands. We of the West, however, shake hands instead of greeting one another with a kiss, holy or otherwise. Another Oriental custom which belongs in this category was that of the washing of feet; indeed it was especially important as a feature of the mores of hospitality. According to the custom, the servant would wash the feet of the master or those of the guest when the latter came in from the dusty roads or fields (Luke 7:38; John 11:2; John 12:3). Indeed this was a necessary act in those lands where only sandals were worn. Jesus used this custom for the purpose of teaching His quibbling and prestige-seeking disciples a lesson of humility; He reversed the usual procedure: He, the Master, taking basin and water and towel, washed the feet of each of His disciples, the servants in the case (John 13:1-20). There is no evidence, however, that the Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit to establish this custom as a Divine ordinance for the Church to maintain (1 Timothy 3:15); as a matter of fact, the custom is not even mentioned in the apostolic Letters. To sum up: In order to correct interpretation of Scripture, one must always keep in mind the distinctions between matters of faith (the facts, commands, and promises of the Gospel: 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Acts 2:38; 2 Corinthians 7:10; Luke 13:3; Matthew 10:32-33; Romans 6:1-11; Romans 10:9-10; Galatians 3:27; Romans 5:5; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Romans 6:23), and matters of speculative theology (Deuteronomy 29:29); between matters of faith and matters of custom, and between matters of faith and matters of expediency. Failure to recognize these distinctions is largely responsible for denominationalism, and especially for the sectarian splinter groups which have disgraced Christendom from the second century to the present.

2. The method of dialectic must be used in the interpretation of certain Scriptures, the method of first studying the given text negatively (determining what it does not mean), then moving to the positive conclusion as to what it does mean. Dialectic insists that the rubbish of human opinions and cliches must be cleared away before the light of truth can shine through. (1) For a clear example of this method, let us consider the meaning of the words of John the Baptizer, as recorded in Matthew 3:11. Here we find John talking to a mixed audience of Jews who had gathered from Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about the Jordan (Matthew 3:5). To them John said: I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I. he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire. Now we ask, who could not have been included, of those in John’s audience, in the scope of this promise of Holy Spirit baptism? Obviously, the unbelieving and the unrepentant could not have been included; it would be sacrilege to say that unbelieving and unrepentant persons ever received the overwhelming (baptismal) measure of the Spirit’s gifts and powers. Who, then, did receive this baptismal endowment? To find the answer to this question we must read on into the Book of Acts especially. There we find, in the first place, that the Apostles, all Jews, received Holy Spirit baptism on the Day of Pentecost (Luke 24:45-49; John 14:16-17; John 14:26; John 15:26-27; John 16:7-14; John 20:22-23; Acts 1:1-5; Acts 2:1-4): this outpouring of the Spirit in baptismal measure was to qualify them with the authority and infallibility to execute properly the Lord’s Last Will and Testament (Acts 10:37-43), Again, the overwhelming measure of the Spirit’s powers was also bestowed on the first Gentiles to be received into the New Covenant, Cornelius and his household at Caesarea (Acts 10:44-48); in this instance, the Divine purpose was to break down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile and to signify to the Church and to the world that both were to receive forgiveness, remission, justification, redemption, etc., on precisely the same terms (Acts 11:15-18; Acts 15:6-12). Hence Paul could write, 1 Corinthians 12:13, In one Spirit were we all baptized [overwhelmed, immersed, incorporated] into one body, whether Jews or Greeks; that is, the distinction between Jew and Gentile no longer existed in the Mind and Will of God. But who among those present to whom John was preaching were to receive the baptism of fire? All one needs to do, to know what John meant here by fire, is to read Matthew 3:12: the verse clearly teaches that he meant the use of fire as a form of judgment, the judgment that will overtake the disobedient at the end of our age (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10); and we know that many who were in his audiences at the Jordan lived and died in disobedience, and hence will suffer this ultimate judgment (Luke 3:17; Matthew 13:24-40; Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:47-48; Luke 16:24; Jude 1:7, etc.). Hence John’s statement was a general one: to put it in simple terms, he was saying: The baptism I administer is a baptism in water; however, the One who comes after me, Messiah; He will administer Holy Spirit baptism (John 15:26) and the baptism of fire which is to overtake the wicked and neglectful at the Last Assize (Matthew 25:31-46, Revelation 20:11-15). (2) Another Scripture which requires the use of the dialectic method of interpretation is found in Joe 2:28 and repeated by Peter in Acts 2:17. Here we read that God promised through the prophet Joel, And it shall be in the last days. I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh, Now what does all flesh include here? Let us ask, first, what it does not include. Certainly it does not include animal flesh. Certainly it does not include unbelieving and impenitent flesh (persons), because Jesus is the Author of eternal salvation to one class only: unto all them that obey him (Hebrews 5:9). Hence, the all flesh of Joel’s prophecy means what this phrase usually means in prophecy or in promise, namely, all flesh in the sense that distinction between Jew and Gentile would no longer exist (Ephesians 2:11-22). (3) In this connection, note the Great Commission as given in Matthew 28:18-20, Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Baptizing themwhom? All the people of all the nations? Of course not: Jesus Himself taught expressly that many will take the broad way that leads only to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14; Matthew 25:41-46; Luke 8:4-15). Does them include infants from among all the nations? Are infants included, as some have argued? Of course not. Infantsthe innocentare not proper subjects of baptism. By His death on the Cross our Lord purchased the redemption of the innocent unconditionally: hence, to such, he tells us, belongeth the kingdom of God (Matthew 18:1-6; Matthew 19:13-15; Mark 9:36-37; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17). Baptizing whomthen? Obviously, all who have been made disciples, learners, followers, believers, Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you, etc. Teaching whom? All who have been baptized into Christ, all Christians. The Great Commission envisions three activities making disciples (by preaching, teaching); baptizing those disciples into Christ; and nurturing those Christians in the most holy faith (Jude 1:20; Colossians 2:6-7). This Commission interprets itself: it is too simple and clear to be misunderstood by any unbiased mind. (4) In Acts 2:1, we have a case in which grammatical construction allows only one meaning. The text reads: And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all together in one place. The question arises: Who are the they? What is the antecedent of they? If we recall that the original manuscripts of the Bible were not divided into Chapter s and verses, and that therefore we should read the last verse of chapter 1 and this first verse of chapter 2 without any break, it becomes clear that the they of Act 2:1 has to be the apostles of Act 1:26. To go all the way back to the one hundred and twenty brethren of Act 1:15 for the antecedent of the they of Act 2:1, as some would have it, shows utter disregard for elementary principles of grammatical construction. Besides, the explicit statements of Act 1:1-8 make it certain that the promise of Holy Spirit baptism was a promise made to the Apostles: this is abundantly confirmed by what follows in Acts 2:1-4.

3. Proper correlation of a given text with its contexts is also necessary to correct interpretation. (1) The relation of the given text to its immediate context is first to be considered. The business of scrapping the Scriptures, that is, taking a passage out of its context here, and another out of its context there, and putting them together to prove a point, is a vicious procedure, but one of which clergymen have often been guilty, in their zeal to support some pet dogma. (The classic example, of course, is the following: Judas went away and hanged himself, go, and do thou likewise, Matthew 27:5 and Luke 10:37.) I recall a sermon I heard some years ago which was based on the story of the conversion of the eunuch, as related in the eighth chapter of Acts. The preacher read the story, from the King James Version, down through Acts 8:37, And he [the eunuch] answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and there he quit reading, closed his Bible, and started preaching. He omitted the entire section which followed Acts 8:37, Acts 8:38-40, in which the eunuch’s immersion, and his rejoicing following his immersion, is all clearly set forth. By these omissions, that is, by disregarding an important part of the context (because of his denomination’s downgrading of immersion as Christian baptism), he left in the minds of his hearers a completely distorted view of New Testament conversion. I recall here another experience of this kind. On occasion, I dropped in at an evening service at a denominational church in Iowa, intrigued by the preacher’s subject as announced on the church bulletin board. Again the subject was: What Must One Do To Be Saved? Naturally I was curious about what this particular denominational brand of clergyman would have to say on this subject. To my amazement, he used as the background for his message the Old Testament story of Jacob’s wrestling with the heavenly visitant, as related in Genesis 32:22-32, and throughout his sermon he kept urging all sinners present to take hold of God, hold on, and never let go, until the Spirit should come upon them and save them by a miraculous call (ecstasy, vision, trance, heavenly voice, or what not), which should be the evidence of God’s pardon. This surely was taking a Bible text (Genesis 32:22-32) out of its context completelya glaring example of utter distortion of Biblical teaching.

(2) Moreover, any given Scripture must be studied in the light of the teaching of the Bible as a whole: only in this way do existing harmonies become manifest. Yet this is the point at which interpretation often goes awry. Take again, for example, the important question, What must I do to be saved? as addressed by the Philippian jailor to Paul and Silas (Acts 16:30). The Evangelists replied, Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shaft be saved, thou and thy house (Acts 16:31). Now, should one stop reading at this point, as did another denominational clergyman in preaching on this subject, at a service which I attended, the question would be answered only partially. Here was a poor superstitious heathen man who was unacquainted with the Gospel message; hence only a general answer could be given, Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house. But how could this jailor and the members of his household believe on the Lord Jesus, of whom they knew little or nothing? (cf. Romans 10:14-17). Hence, we continue to read that Paul and Silas spake the word of the Lord unto him and all that were in his house. What was the result? The jailor took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his immediately. And he brought them up into his house, and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, with all his house, having believed in God (Acts 16:32-34). (Evidently, speaking the word of the Lord to the unsaved includes telling them what to do to be saved and this in turn includes telling them to be baptized: (Acts 2:37-38; Acts 8:34-36). The point is that one cannot take just one of the cases of conversion recorded in Acts to find the complete answer to the question, What must one do to be saved? To get the completeand correctanswer, one must examine all the cases of conversion, under apostolic preaching, that have been put on record. By putting all of these together one soon finds that all who came into the Church under the preaching of the Apostles and their co-laborers came in precisely the same way and on the same terms (Acts 2:37-42; Acts 8:1-13; Acts 8:26-40; Acts 9:1-19; Acts 22:1-21; Acts 26:1-23; Acts 10; Acts 16:11-34; Acts 18:8; Matthew 10:32-33; Romans 10:9-10, etc.). In short, by examining and putting together the incidents of all the recorded cases of conversion, one has the whole truth and nothing but the truth, namely, that the terms of admission into the New Covenant are four: belief in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, repentance from sin, confession of Christ, and baptism into Christ (John 20:30-31; Luke 13:3; Romans 6:1-4; 2 Corinthians 7:10; Galatians 3:27, etc.).

Another case in point, illustrating the necessity of correlating any particular passage of Scripture with the content of the Bible as a whole, is the story of Melchizedek, the King-Priest of Salem, to whom Abraham paid tithes, as related in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. This story has been booted around by critics and theologians as an anachronism, a folk tale, a fiction, a literary fabrication, etc., when, as a matter of fact, it becomes entirely plausible historically and doctrinally, in the light of its defined relation to the doctrine of the Priesthood of Christ, the doctrine as set forth in the sixth and seventh Chapter s of Hebrews. Confusion confounded always occurs when stories of Old Testament incidents are wrested out of their entire Biblical context; that is, treated as totally unrelated to the rest of the Scriptures. As a matter of fact, the Old Testament in many instances becomes fully intelligible only in the light of New Testament teaching, and conversely, Old Testament doctrine becomes essential in many instances to the understanding of what is revealed in the New Testament. Refusal to take the Bible as a whole, as the Spirit-inspired record of God’s progressive revelation of His Eternal Purpose and Plan, simply incapacitates anyone for the clear apprehension of this revelation. This incidentally is the self-imposed limitation (a kind of mental block or blind spot) which has blinded Jewish scholarship throughout the ages to the overwhelming mass of evidence given us in both the Old and the New Testaments to support the truth of the Messiahship of Jesus (John 5:40; Matthew 23:37-38; Acts 7:51-53; Romans 11; Isaiah 6:9-10, Acts 28:25-28, etc.).

4. Proper discernment between the literal and the figurative (in the form of symbol, emblem, metaphor, parable, allegory, poetic imagery, anthropomorphism, type, etc.) is absolutely essential to the correct interpretation of Scripture, This is a principle or rule which is of primary concern to us in the present textbook because it is the one to which we shall have to resort more frequently than to any other, in getting at the basic truths presented in certain sections of the Book of Genesis. However, a very simple norm will suffice to guide us into the discernment between the literal and the figurative. (A figure is perhaps best defined as that which represents something else by a certain resemblance or by several resemblances.) The norm of discernment is this: If a Scripture text makes good sense taken literally, it should be taken literally, but if it does not make sense taken literally, in all likelihood it is designed to communicate profound truth in the guise of the figurative or metaphorical, that is, a truth which cannot be stated clearly or fully in prosaic (propositional) language.For example, take some of the well-known sayings of Jesus: I am the bread of life (John 6:35), I am the way (John 14:6), I am the door (John 10:9), I am the true vine (John 15:1), etc. Jesus, in these sayings, did not mean that He was a literal loaf of bread, or a literal door to the fold, or a literal road, or a literal vine. On the contrary, He was communicating spiritual truth in metaphorical language: only common sense is needed to recognize this fact. As in His parables, Jesus used this method to convey truth far more comprehensively and with greater depth of meaning than it could have been conveyed in propositional terms. Think of all that is involved, for instance, in thinking of Him as the Door to the Fold, the Kingdom, the Church, etc. Sermons and even books have been written to elaborate the utterly inexhaustible depth of spiritual truth that is compressed into these metaphors and parables. (Recall the fact here also that the Book of Revelation, from beginning to end, is couched in prophetic symbolism: cf. Revelation 1:1, signified, that is, expressed in symbols. This means that it is not amenable generally to literalistic interpretation.)

One of our pioneer preachers and educators, D. R. Dungan, suggests the following rules for recognizing figurative language in the Bible:

1. The sense of the context will indicate it. 2. When the literal meaning of a word or sentence involves an impossibility. 3. If the literal sense makes a contradiction. 4: When the Scriptures are made to demand that which is wrong. 5. When it is said to be figurative. 6. When the definite is put for the indefinite number. 7. When it is said in mockery. 8. By the use of common sense.[5]

[5] D. R. Dungan, Hermeneutics, p. 11. Standard Publishing, Cincinnati. (Out of print.)

Literalists, writes Dungan

do not stop to consider that God spoke to men in their own language, and by such methods of speech as would render the thoughts of God most easily understood.[6]

[6] Dungan, ibid., pp. 79-80.

While pointing up the fact that undue and unjustified allegorizing and spiritualizing of Scripture (indulged by such early writers as Philo Judaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen et al, and such modern writers as Emanuel Swedenborg and Mary Baker Eddy) is to be rejected, unjustified literalism, writes Dungan, is equally to be rejected. We all know, of course, that both extremes have been at times carried to the point of sheer absurdity. This writer goes on to say:

We have before seen the evils resulting from the Allegoric method, and yet it is but little, if any, more likely to prevent the right interpretation than the Material or Literal. Either one is a foolish and hurtful extreme. Much of the Bible is written in language highly figurative. And not to recognize the fact, and treat the language according to the figures employed, is to fail entirely in the exegesis, This, of course, does not imply that God has said one thing while He means another, but simply that He has spoken in the language of men, and in the style of those to whom the revelations were made. No one reading the Prophecies or the Psalms without recognizing this fact, will be able to arrive at any reliable conclusions whatever as to their meaning.[7]

[7] Dungan, ibid., pp. 81-82.

Undoubtedly the inadequacy of human language for the communication of Divine thought must always have been one of the greatest problems confronting the Spirit of God in His sublime works of inspiration and revelation, and undoubtedly resort had to be taken oftentimes to many figurative devices to achieve this end. Moreover, on the necessary principle, known as the Law of Accommodation, it was necessary that the revelation be communicated to the people of each successive age in which it was delivered, in the language, both literal and figurative, which the people of each successive age could understand. Hence, we should approach our study of Genesis with this understanding, namely, that much that is revealed in the book was communicated early in the historic period, and hence necessarily abounds in the devices indispensable to making this communication intelligible to those who lived at that time. The amazing thing about it is that the subject-matter of the Book of Genesis is of such an adaptable character that even in our modern age, with a developed science and scientific modes of thought and speech, its teaching is astonishingly up-to-date. It is a revelation that seems to be suitable to those living in any and every period of human history. Nor is any wresting of the Scripture text necessary to establish this fact. We shall now consider some of the more important figurative devices used by the Spirit to facilitate the communication of Divine thought, with special emphasis on those which we shall encounter in the Book of Genesis, as follows: 1. The Symbol.Symbol is in a sense a generic term which may be used properly for various kinds of representation, As a matter of fact, man is specifiedset apart as a speciesprimarily by his tendency to think and to live in terms of symbols: indeed all the facets of his culturelanguage, art, myth, ritual, and even science (especially, in its formulas)are products of this human predilection. Biblical symbolism embraces analogies of various kinds and is explicit or implicit in practically all kinds of figurative media of Divine revelation. Although types belong in the general category of symbols, the symbol, nevertheless, differs from the type, in the sense that the former may refer to something in the present or in the future, whereas the type refers only to what is in the future (its antitype). Dungan classifies symbols as miraculous (e.g., the Cherubim and the flame of a sword of Gen 3:24, and probably in some sense the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil of Gen 2:9; Genesis 2:17); as material (e.g., the bow in the cloud, Genesis 9:13, the symbol of God’s covenant with Noah; circumcision, the symbol of the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 17:9-14), which was also the type of the cutting off of the body of the guilt of sin under the Gospel Covenant (Romans 6:1-11, Ephesians 2:11, Philippians 3:3, Colossians 2:11); and as visional, those experienced in a dream, in a vision, or in fantasy (daydreaming), and which are generally prophetic (e.g., the almond tree and the seething caldron of Jer 1:11-14; the smoking oven and the blazing torch of Gen 15:17; the birthright and the blessing of Gen 25:27-34; Genesis 27:1-40, symbols of the rights of primogeniture; and the various symbols of Joseph’s dream (Genesis 37:5-11), and of the dreams of Pharoah’s chief butler and chief baker (Genesis 40:9-23), and of Pharoah’s own dream (Genesis 41:1-36). There is a great deal of various kinds of symbolism in the Book of Genesis. Milligan writes:

It is obvious that symbols are generally used for the sake of perspicuity; for the sake of presenting more clearly to the understanding the spiritual and abstract qualities of things, by means of outward signs and pictures addressed to the senses. Sometimes, however, they are also used for the sake of energy and ornament; and occasionally they are used, also, for the sake of obscurity. It was for this last purpose that Christ sometimes spoke to the people in parables (Matthew 13:1-17).[8]

[8] R. Milligan, Scheme of Redemption, p. 72. Christian Publishing Company, St. Louis.

Semanticists usually differentiate signs and symbols: signs, they hold, belong to the realm of being, whereas symbols belong to the realm of meaning.This differentiation seems to prevail in Scripture: signs, in New Testament times especially, were actual events, palpable to the senses of spectators, and performed for evidential purposes (cf. John 20:30-31; John 11:38-44; Acts 2:22; Hebrews 2:2-4; cf. Exodus 4:1-9). Biblical symbols, however, are to be understood in relation to the truth which each may represent; that is, what it stands for in the world of meaning.

2. The Emblem.This is properly defined, by Milligan, as merely a material or tangible object of some kind, that is used to represent a moral or spiritual quality or attribute, on account of some well-known analogy between them.[9]

[9] Milligan, ibid., pp. 71-72.

The emblem is closely related to the metaphor. Emblems differ from types, however, in that the latter were preordained and have relation to the future, whereas the former are neither preordained nor related to the future. The beehive, for example, is an emblem of industriousness; the crown, the emblem of royalty; the scepter, the emblem of sovereignty, etc. Noah’s dove was the emblem of purity and peace; hence the dove was in some instances, in Scripture, the emblem of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16, John 1:32). We are justified in asserting that the unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine, of the Lord’s Supper, are emblems respectively of the body and the blood of Christ (Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:17-20, John 6:48-59; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 1 Corinthians 11:23-28; Hebrews 9:11-13, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, 1 Peter 2:21-25). To take these various passages literally, that is, on the presumption that by some kind of priestly blessing the substance of the bread and of the wine becomes the actual substance of the body and of the blood of Christ, is to vest the Communion with a magical esoteric meaning which surely was not our Lord’s intention in authorizing it. He stated specifically that it was to be a memorial of His Atonement (death on the Cross) and at the same time a testimony to the fact of His Second Coming (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).

3. The Type.A type, in Scripture, is an impression, a figure, a shadow, of which the very image, or the substance, is something that lies in the future, hence is known as the antitype (cf. Hebrews 10:1). Both type and antitype are real persons, things, offices, or events. Typology is one of the most fascinating, and most rewarding, and yet most generally neglected, of all branches of hermeneutics. (1) According to Scripture, God elected the fleshly seed of Abraham (the children of Israel) to do certain things in the execution of His Eternal Purpose. Among these divinely ordained tasks were the following: that of preserving in the world the knowledge of the living and true God. (Deuteronomy 5:26; Deuteronomy 6:4; Psalms 42:2, Matthew 16:16, Acts 17:24-31, 1 Thessalonians 1:9, Hebrews 10:11); that of demonstrating the inadequacy of the moral law to rescue man from the guilt, practice, and consequences of sin (John 1:17; John 3:16-17; Romans 3:19-28; Romans 7:7; Romans 8:3-4; Galatians 2:15-16; Galatians 3:23-29); and that of developing a pictorial outline of the Christian System which would serve to identify the Messiah at His coming and the institutions of Messiah’s reign (1 Corinthians 10:11, Colossians 2:16-17, Romans 15:4; Hebrews 8:4-6; Hebrews 9:9; Hebrews 10:1-4, etc.). It is this pictorial outline, consisting of types which point forward to their corresponding antitypes, with which we are concerned at this point. (2) There are certain facts, to which we call attention here, with respect to the relation between types and antitypes, as follows: (a) There is always some resemblance between the type and its antitype, (b) This likeness between type and antitype is but partial; therefore care should be exercised not to extend the likenesses beyond the bounds of reason or even beyond those of Scripture authorization. As one of our pioneer educators has written:

To understand well the law of typology, and the types themselves, is a matter of much consequence in Bible exposition, for two good reasons. First, because it enables us correctly to discern and interpret the types in the Old Testament, so rich with instruction as regards the Christian faith and the Kingdom of God; and secondly, because it will save us from the very common vice of professional type-mongers, who create types in the Scriptures out of their own fertile imaginations, where none exist. It is the folly of the old Jewish allegorists and their Christian imitators, who made the Bible a vast wilderness of allegories.

This writer goes on to warn us that there is but one correct and safe rule governing this subject, namely,

that types are only to be found where the Scripture has plainly pointed them out. In a book so vast and so varied as the Old Testament we may trace a thousand similitudes which rhetorical liberty allows us freely touse as illustrations; to make these, however, types in the divine intention, would be quite another thing and an altogether unwarranted license.[10]

[10] Charles Louis Loos (one-time president of Kentucky University), in his Introduction to Types and Metaphors of the Bible, by J. W. Monser. Published by F. L. Rowe, Cincinnati, 1936.

(c) The points of resemblance between type and antitype were divinely preordained: this would needs be the case for the analogy to prove out correctly, For example, it was preordained concerning the paschal lamb that it should be a male, without blemish; that it should be slain between the two evenings, that is, between noon and sunset (Exodus 12:5-11); that not a bone of its body should be broken (Exodus 12:46); so the same Divine wisdom planned the Antitype, Christ our Passover, with these points of resemblance (John 1:29; John 1:36; 1 Peter 1:19; John 19:31-37; 1 Corinthians 5:7). (d) Finally, every type is a sort of prophecy. Every lamb slain upon the Patriarchal and Jewish altars pointed forward to the Lamb of God who offered Himself on the Cross for the redemption of mankind (Hebrews 9:23-28). The Levitical Priesthood was designed to typify the priesthood of all obedient believers in Christ (1 Peter 2:9, Revelation 1:6). The Tabernacle (and later the Temple) with its various parts and furnishings, typified, with remarkable precision of detail, the structure and ordinances of the Church of Christ; indeed, it might well be said to have typified the entire Christian System (cf. Acts 2:37-42, also Heb., chs. 8 and 9). (3) The design of Biblical typology may be summarized as follows: (a) Undoubtedly God’s purpose in giving to His ancient people this system of Old Testament types was that the type should establish the divine origin of the antitype, and conversely, that the antitype should prove the divine origin of the type. (b) The writer of Hebrews tells us that what Moses did, as a servant in the Old Testament House of God served as testimony confirming the Divine origin and constitution of the New Testament House of God, the Church (Hebrews 3:4-6). The types set up by Moses were designed to prove the Divine origin of the entire Christian System. (c) The Jews of old, throughout their history, were engaged in setting up types which they themselves could not understand as such, because these types required Christianity for their fulfilment (exemplification). Hence, we must conclude that they did not set up a system of their own origination or on their own authority, but that it was given to them by Divine authorization and inspiration, (d) As stated heretofore, the books of the Bible were written by many different authors living in practically every age of the world’s history from 1500 B.C. to A.D. 100. Yet when these various books were assembled into The Book, we have an unbroken motif from beginning to end, namely, redemption through the intercessory work of Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. Hence we have types fulfilled, at times in minutest detail, in their corresponding antitypes, as explained by these different writers who as a rule had no means of communicating with one another personally. Can this positive evidence that the Scriptures were Divinely inspired (communicated to men) in a special way, be successfully refuted? I think not. (e) Preachers seldom if ever discuss the typical and antitypical relationship between the Old and New Testaments. In this respect, they are neglecting one of the grandest themes of Divine revelation, as well as the most positive evidence obtainable to warrant our acceptance of the Bible as the Spirit-inspired Book, and the most forceful means put at their disposal by the Holy Spirit for the edification of the saints and their confirmation in the faith once for all delivered unto them (Ephesians 4:11-16, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Jude 1:3).

(4) Typology is expressly authenticated by apostolic teaching (1 Corinthians 10:11, Colossians 2:16-17, Romans 15:4; Hebrews 3:1-7; Hebrews 8:4-6; Hebrews 9:9; Hebrews 10:1-4, etc.). To repudiate Biblical typology is to flatly contradict apostolic teaching and to belie what is presented to us as the testimony of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-15, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, 2 Peter 1:21, 1 Peter 1:3-12, 1 Thessalonians 3:13, etc.). The truth of Scripture teaching will never be grasped in any appreciable degree of completeness except by the integration of the content of every book and part within the whole. One who refuses to recognize this generaland obviousprinciple of the unity of the whole Bible, thereby shuts himself off from the possibility of any adequate understanding of God’s Eternal Plan. Unfortunately, that is what the destructive critics and the majority of the speculative theologians do.

(5) We are interested in types because we find them in the Book of Genesis. For example, the Apostle Paul tells us that Adam is a figure of him that was to come (Romans 5:14, 1 Corinthians 15:45). The Apostle Peter tells us that the deliverance of Noah and his family from the world of the ungodly into a cleansed world, through water as the transitional element, was typical of Christian conversion in the sense especially that the water of the Deluge was designed to typify Christian baptism (1 Peter 3:18-22). Not only do we have significant types, explicitly declared to be types, in Genesis, but we also have many similaritiesthough not Scripturally designated typesbetween the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, respectively, and the incarnate life and ministry of Christ. These will be pointed out as we proceed with our study of the text of Genesis.

4. The Simile.This is a direct, strong, vivid comparison. Jeremiah 4:4lest my wrath go forth like fire. Daniel 3:25the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods. Luke 7:32like unto children that sit in the marketplace, etc. Matthew 23:27ye are like unto whited sepulchres. Isaiah 53:6all we like sheep have gone astray. From beginning to end, the Bible is replete with similes.

5. The Metaphor.(1) This device occurs repeatedly in Scripture. It is an indirect comparison, yet one that is more vivid than the simile. It is the use of a word denoting an attribute or characteristic of one thing, to explain, by way of a similitude, a like quality in another thing. It involves a transfer of meaning. It takes a known term and bends it to a richer use by contributing color and liveliness to it. It points up a similarity in objects really dissimilar, and oftentimes it serves to make more vivid the dissimilarities implicit in the analogy. (2) Again quoting Loos:

The metaphor is the most abridged form of the simile or comparisoncompressed into a single word. It abounds in all forms of human language, prose as well as poetry. As it is the most effective method of word-painting, it is peculiarly adapted to the purposes of poetry. It gives light, force, and beauty to language.[11]

[11] Loos, ibid., x.

(3) Monser writes:

Plutarch and Quintilian say that the most illustrious metaphors in use are tobe classed under four heads. First: To illustrate animate things by animate, as when God is put for a magistrate, or a shepherd for a prince or ruler. Second: To illustrate inanimate things by animate, as when the earth is said to groan. Third: To illustrate animate things by inanimate, as when Christ is called a door or the way. Fourth: To illustrate inanimate things by inanimate, as when religion is called a foundation. 1 Timothy 6:19.[12]

[12] J. W. Monser, op. cit., p. 161.

(4) God, for example, is described metaphorically as our dwelling-place (Psalms 90:1), portion (Psalms 73:26), shield, fortress, rock, high tower (Psalms 18:2), strong tower (Proverbs 18:10), refuge and strength (Psalms 46:1), a husbandman (John 15:1), builder (Hebrews 3:4), potter (Isaiah 64:8), Judge (Genesis 18:25, Psalms 58:11). Among Scripture metaphors of Christ and His mission are the following: true witness (Revelation 3:14), refiner (Malachi 3:3), Advocate (1 John 2:2), testator (Hebrews 9:16), surety (Hebrews 7:22), Lamb of God (John 1:29; John 1:36), our Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7), physician (Matthew 9:12), good shepherd (John 10:14), son of righteousness (Malachi 4:2), fountain (Zechariah 13:1), bread of life (John 6:48), door (John 10:9), true vine (John 15:1), corner stone (Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:11, 1 Peter 2:6-7), bridegroom (Matthew 25:6). Metaphors of the Holy Spirit: guide (John 16:13), Comforter (John 14:16), earnest (Ephesians 1:13), seal (Ephesians 4:30), water (John 7:28-29). Metaphors of the Word; lamp, light (Psalms 119:105), fire (Jeremiah 23:29), hammer (Jeremiah 23:29), sword (Ephesians 6:17), seed (Luke 8:11). Metaphors of the Church: city of God (Matthew 5:14, Hebrews 11:16, Revelation 21:2), temple of God (suggesting solidarity, stability, Ephesians 2:21), body of Christ (suggesting fellowship of parts, Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 4:4; 1 Corinthians 12:12), household (family) of God (suggesting a spiritual affinity; cf. the Greek agape; cf. Ephesians 2:19), bride of Christ (suggesting purity, constancy, Ephesians 5:22-23, Revelation 21:2; Revelation 21:9; Revelation 22:17), pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). Metaphors of the obedient believer, the saint, the Christian (babe (1 Peter 2:2), soldier (Ephesians 6:10-20, 2 Timothy 2:3); pilgrim (1 Peter 2:11), light (Matthew 5:14), salt (Matthew 5:13), palm tree (Psalms 92:12; Psalms 1:3), sheep (John 10:27), vessel (2 Corinthians 4:7, 2 Timothy 2:21, Acts 9:15), steward (1 Peter 4:10), jewels (Malachi 3:17, A.V., in A.S.V., possession): The foregoing are the more important of the many metaphors that are to be found in the Bible. The metaphor is one of the most meaningful of all figures of speech. (5) Metaphors occur in the book of Genesis: ch. 49, in which we find Jacob’s death-bed prophetic utterances concerning his sons, has many of them: Genesis 49:9Judah is a lion’s whelp, Genesis 49:14Issachar is a strong ass, Genesis 49:17Dan shall be a serpent. a horned snake, Genesis 49:21Naphtali is a hind let loose, Genesis 49:27- Benjamin is a wolf that raveneth, etc. A metaphor is often difficult to explain in prosaic terms, yet, paradoxically, it is rather easy to understand.

7. The Parable.A parable is a likely story, a narrative in which various things and events of the natural world are made to be analogies of, and to inculcate, profound truths of the moral and spiritual realms. Parables occur in the Old Testament: notable examples are to be found in 2 Samuel 12:1-6, in 2 Samuel 14:1-24, in 1 Kings 20:35-43, etc. We all know, of course, that Jesus is distinguished for His use of the parable as a medium of communicating Divine truth. His parables stand alone in literature for their fusion of simplicity and profundity; human genius has never been able even to begin to duplicate them. (Incidentally, the fable is a literary form which differs from the parable, as follows: (1) in the fable, the characters are fictitious (unreal), whereas the actors and events in a parable are taken from real life: (2) the fable is constructed generally by the use of animals, or even plants or flowers or trees, as its characters, endowing them with powers of thought, speech and action. The fable is used, of course, to point up a moral lesson of very high order, but the actors are creatures who are incompetent to do the things that are reported of them. A fair example of a fable is to be found in 2 Kings 14:8-10.)

8. The Allegory.(1) This has been properly called a prolonged metaphor. It is a sustained analogy, made up of a variety of particulars, the whole becoming a connected and complete story. The allegory is identifiable also by the fact that it suppresses all mention of the principal subject, leaving us to infer the writer’s intention from the resemblance of the narrative, or of the description, to the principal subject. The distinction in Scripture between a parable and an allegory is said to be, that a parable is a supposed history, and an allegory a figurative application of real facts.[13] (2) The famous medieval morality plays, of which Everyman is perhaps the most noted, were all allegories. Another famed allegory, from the Shakespearean age, was Spenser’s Faerie Queene.Of course, the greatest of all allegories in human literature, from every point of view, is Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.(3) We are interested here especially in the meaningful allegory of the Covenants, as intended, the Apostle tells us in the fourth chapter of Galatians, in the story of Hagar, the bondwoman, and Sarah, the freewoman, as related in the Book of Genesis, chs. 16 and 21 especially. We shall look into this very important allegory when we take up the study of these Chapter s.

[13] D. R. Dungan, op. cit., pp. 258-259.

9. The Anthropomorphism.This word derives from the Greek anthrópos, man, and morphé, form, and means in the form of man. Hence, to think anthropomorphically is to think of some other form of being in terms of our own human experience. A correct understanding of the design of anthropomorphisms and of poetic imagery is essential to the correct interpretation of many of the early Chapter s of Genesis. These are devices which cause the many human interest stories in these Chapter s to glow with a richness of meaning for us, which, because of the inadequacy of human vocabulary, could never have been achieved through the medium of prosaic (scientific or logical) language. We must never lose sight of the fact that even the Divine Spirit has ever been under the necessity of revealing the Divine will to man in terms which the latter can understand, and that recognition of this Law of Accommodation to the vocabulary of the human recipients, from age to age, will enable us to comprehend more clearly what the content of Genesis has to say to us. Both extreme literalists and extreme allegorizers accomplish nothing but to obscure Divine revelation, and, in the long run, to sow the seeds of agnosticism and skepticism, when there is really no reason for doing so.

The old Greek thinker, Xenophanes (6th century B.C.) was the first, as far as we know, to have brought the charge of anthropomorphism against religion, and in so doing he initiated a mode of criticism, unintelligent as it is, which has persisted to this day. Again and again in subsequent history this charge has been made, and effectively countered, and yet it survives, and even today it continues to be bandied about, and urged upon men, as a plea for the adoption of the agnostic attitude toward religion in general. Why this is, it is not difficult to explain; it would seem that, on the part of those who accept the charge, the wish is often father to the thought; that is, the acceptance is inspired by the will not to believe, rather than by an intelligent consideration of the matter.

Xenophanes is reported to have said, in substance, that if lions could have pictured a god, they would have pictured him in fashion as a lion, and horses like a horse, and oxen like an ox, etc.,[14] and so man, it is implied with no more justification, inevitably thinks of Deity as a magnified man. The holes in this argument are as big and deep as the sea. The charge becomes not an outright denial of fact, but what is worsean utter distortion of the whole issue. In the first place, it is too obvious for questioning that lions, horses, oxen, animals in general, simply do not think of Deity at all, and indeed are incapable of doing so. Man alone thinks of God and man alone seeks to apprehend God and His ways. Even the atheist who denies the existence of God must think of God in order to deny His existence; that is, he must have some notion of what the word God signifies. In the second placeand this is the point at which the Xenophanean argument becomes utterly illogical, man simply cannot think of any other form of being except in terms of his own experience, that is, in the form of man. The master, for example, who sees his faithful old dog lying in front of the fireplace apparently dozing, occasionally stretching, yawning, or perhaps groaning or growling, will tell himself that the old dog is dreaming. But how does he know this? How can he know it? He cannot know it, for the simple reason that he cannot put himself in the dog’s skin, so to speak. However, common sense tells him that human experience is not to be equated with canine experience. Again, the man who would explain the world in terms of a machine is thinking anthropomorphically; that is, he is trying to explain physical reality in terms of the characteristics which he sees in a machine. In terms of logic, all too frequently a science mistakes the a priori for the a posteriori.It is always true of man that he cannot achieve a helpful understanding of any other form of being except in terms of his own experience.

[14] See Elegy and Iambus, Vol. I, pp. 182-215. Translation by Edmonds. Loeb Classical Library, Published by the Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1931. See also fragments from Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies.

Now there are anthropomorphic passages throughout the Bible, and there are several such passages in the Book of Genesis, as we shall see later. Indeed our Lord has used two termsand two onlywhich make God more intelligible (congenial) to man than all the names which have been coined by scientists and philosophers (most of which are utterly absurd). Jesus tells us that, as to His being, God is a Spirit (John 4:24), that is, in some sense possessing the elements of personality such as man possesses (hence man is said to have been created in God’s image, Genesis 1:26-27). As to His relations with His saints, with the sheep of His pasture (Psalms 100:3), God, said Jesus, is their Heavenly Father; hence, they should address their prayers to Him with the salutation, Our Father who art in heaven (Matthew 6:9). Is the term Father anthropomorphic? Of course. But this does not obviate the fact of God’s existence. This term, Father, makes God understandable; it makes Him congenial to His people. Not only do they address Him as their Father, but they do so because He is really their spiritual Father, as in a general sense He is the God and Father of all mankind (Hebrews 12:9the Father of spirits). All the Freudian gobbledygook about the father-image is simply a proof of the obtuseness of agnosticism and skepticism. The God who is not truly Father in His attributes is not a God to be desired at all, except possibly by a certain type of intelligentsia. By his very emphasis on the universality of the father-image, Freud acknowledged that it is only the meaningfulness of the name Father that a really existing God could ever satisfy the religious aspirations of mankind.

There are numerous anthropomorphisms in the Book of Genesis. (Note especially Genesis 3:2-13; Genesis 4:9-15; Genesis 6:5-7.) These are so simply and realistically presented, and filled with such human interest and appeal, that they serve to point up most vividly the vast difference between the Biblical God and the truly anthropomorphic deities of the old pagan polytheisms. The pagan deities were too numerous to mention: they were characterized by sex distinctions (gods and goddesses); they were pictured in, pagan mythologies as guilty of every crime, in the category-lust, rape, incest, treachery, torture, deceit, and indeed what not? (See Plato’s criticism of the tales of the immoralities of the gods, in the Republic; see also these actual tales in the Homeric epics; and read especially the Ion of Euripides.) Whereas these many pagan divinities were, in most cases, personifications of natural forces or human attributes, the God of the Bible is not in any sense a personification-He is, rather, pure personality (Exodus 3:13-15); and the difference between personification and personality is, in this case, the difference between the vagaries of the human imagination on the one hand, and the inerrancy of Divine revelation on the other. (Of course, crude anthropomorphic notions of God still exist among the vulgar: we still hear expressions bandied about in the marketplace, such as, for example, the Man upstairs, etc. The persistence of such notions can be attributed only to supine ignorance.)

The anthropomorphisms of Genesis give us an understanding of our God which all the speculations of science and philosophy can never give us. Biblical anthropomorphisms, by the very purity of their conceptions, provide for us a profound insight into the heart of the God whom we worship, the God and Father who gave His Only Begotten Son for our redemption (John 3:16). Moreover, the Biblical anthropomorphisms serve a purpose which no other figurative device could possible serve: they make our God real to us in a way that no other way of speaking can even approximate,

10. Poetic Imagery.At this point we must look at a word, the careless uncritical use of which has caused untold confusion in the area of Biblical interpretationthe word myth. This is one of the most ambiguous words in the English language. What does it mean? It has come to mean just about all things to all men, with certitude for none. (1) According to the dictionary definition, the function of a myth is to account for the origin of natural phenomena (including especially the astronomical), of ethnic groups, and of social institutions; hence, myths are usually classified as cosmogonic, ethnogonic, and sociogonic, respectively. Astronomical (celestial) myths are generally solar, lunar, or meteorological. (2) In common parlance myths are generally looked upon as purely imaginary fabrications, that is, sheer fictions.(3) By many persons the myth is regarded as, a literary device which embraces practically all forms of symbolism. Under such a view, however, the fact is often overlooked, that a symbol, in order to be a symbol, has to be a symbol of something; that is, it must point to a referent that has some measure of real existence. Hence, if a symbol is in some sense a myth, the myth cannot be a sheer fiction.

(4) It is my conviction that the term myth is not legitimately usable in the sense of a sheer fiction; that confusion is to be avoided only if the word is used to designate the personifications both explicit and implicit in the ancient pagan polytheisms. These certainly were, in every legitimate sense of the term, mythological systems. Much of this pagan mythology, it will be recalled, centered around ideas of the Sun-father and the Earth-mother (Terra Mater).Dr. Yehezkel Kaufmann, in a most interesting book recently published, lists the chief characteristics of the gods of the ancient polytheisms as follows: (a) They are subject, in the last analysis, to a primordial realm or fate, which allocates, both to the gods and to men, their respective portions in life. (The Greek word moira, portion, had this exclusive meaning, and is found throughout all Greek literature.) (b) They are personifications of seminal forces of this primordial realm in which there are manifold powers or seeds, such as water, sky, light, darkness, life, death, etc. (They are sometimes personifications of virtues and vices, as Athena, for example, was the goddess of wisdom.) (c) Their genealogy occurs through what men would call natural processes (cf. the Theogony of Hesiod, a Greek poet of the 8th century B.C.); hence subject to powers and differences of sex. Pagan mythologies abounded with goddesses as well as gods, (d) They are wholly anthropomorphic, subject to all temptations and passions to which men are subject (only more so because they are of the divine order rather than of the human); hence, as stated heretofore, they are guilty of every crime in the categoryincest (Zeus-’ consort was Hera, his sister-wife; in Rome, they were Jupiter and Juno), rape, murder, deceit, treachery, torture, kidnaping, and indeed what not? As a matter of fact, these ancient systems simply reeked with all forms of phallic worship, ritual prostitution, and like perversions. After calling attention to the chief features of these pagan religions, Dr. Kaufmann contrasts the God of the Bible as follows:

The basic idea of Israelite religion is that God is supreme over all. There is no realm above him or beside him to limit his absolute sovereignty. He is utterly distinct from, and other than, the world; he is subject to no laws, no compulsions, or powers that transcend him. He is, in short, non-mythological. This is the essence of Israelite religion, and that which sets it apart from all forms of paganism.

He then goes on to say, with respect to the store of Old Testament narratives that these narratives

lack the fundamental myth of paganism: the theogony. All theogonic motifs are similarly absent. Israel’s God has no pedigree, fathers no generations; he neither inherits nor bequeaths his authority. He does not die and is not resurrected. He has no sexual qualities or desires and shows no need of, or dependence upon, powers outside himself.[15]

[15] Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, pp. 60, 61. Translation by Moshe Greenberg. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960.

(Parenthetically, and regrettably, it is apparent that the statement above, He does not die and is not resurrected, is a reflection of the typically Jewish rejection of the death and resurrection of the God-Man, Christ Jesus. Cf. John 1:11He came unto his own, and. his own received him not.).

The whole issue here may be summed up, I think, in one transcendent distinction, namely, the God of the Bible is pure personality (Exodus 3:13-15), whereas the gods of the pagan mythologies were personifications.In his comprehensive treatment of this subject, Dr. Kaufmann is emphasizing the obvious, namely, that mythology, in the legitimate sense of the term, is conspicuously absent from the Old Testament Scriptures. (And to this, I might add, conspicuously absent from the New Testament writings as well.)

However, we are all aware of the experience of thoughts that lie too deep for words, of ideas which the vocabulary of man is inadequate to communicate. (Indeed, in ordinary life, there are words, especially those which name qualities, which defy definition, except perhaps in terms of their opposites. For example, how can I describe red or redness in such language that others can know they are seeing what I see? The fact is that I cannot describe rednessI experience it. Of course, the definition could be provided by physics in terms of vibrations, refractions, frequencies, quanta, etc. But about the only way one could define sour is by saying it is the opposite of sweet, or define hot by saying that it is the opposite of cold, etc. Such is the woeful deficiency of human language (Isaiah 64:4, 1 Corinthians 2:9-10). Why, then, should we be surprised that the Spirit of God should have to resort to something more than prepositional language to reveal God’s thoughts and purposes to man? We read in Romans 8:26-27, that oftentimes in prayer it becomes necessary for the Holy Spirit to take the unutterable longings of the soul of the saint whom He indwells (1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19) and bear them up to the Throne of Grace with groanings which cannot be uttered. Need we be surprised, then, that the Spirit should have resorted to the richness of poetic imagery at times in order to communicate the ineffable; paradoxically, to describe the indescribable? I might add here that this is precisely what Plato meant by the mythos: in his thinking the mythos was the likely story designed to be instructive; the use of poetic imagery to communicate truth so profound that it cannot be communicated in any other way, We do have just such instances of poetic imagery in the Bible (although this figurative device must not be confused with apocalyptic symbolism: they are similar in some respects, but not identical). The sooner we abandon the use of the word myth in Biblical interpretation, the sooner will confusion in this area of human thinking be dissipated. We shall call attention to instances of this type of poetic imagery as we proceed with the study of the text of Genesis.

The following comment by Dr. John Baillie about the Platonic mythos sets forth clearly what I have been trying to say in re the function of poetic imagery in Scripture:

When Plato warns us that we must be content with a myth, he is very far from meaning that any myth will do, or that one myth is as good as another. No, all readers of the Republic know that Plato entertained the very strongest opinions about the misleading tendency of some of the old myths and that he chose his own with greatest care. If we tell a myth, he would say, it must be a likely story (eikota mython)a myth that suggests the right meaning and contains the right moral values. The foundation of myth and apocalypse, then, can only be the possession of some measure, however small, of true knowledge.[16]

[16] John Baillie, And the Life Everlasting, p. 243. Scribner’S, New York, 1936.

However, I am inclined to repeat, for the sake of emphasis, that the ambiguity of the word myth, as it is currently used, makes it quite unsuitable for use in the interpretation of Scripture.

11. Prolepsis.This, although an explanatory device, is not figurative in character. However, we shall mention it here because it occurs frequently in Scripture, and for some reason Biblical critics seem to know little or nothing about it, or else they choose to ignore it, because it upsets their preconceived norms of determining contradictions. (1) A prolepsis is a connecting together, for explanatory purposes, of two events separated in time, in such a way as to give the impression that they occurred at the same time. A notable example is to be found in Genesis 2:2-3. God rested on the seventh-day period at the termination of His creative activity, but He did not sanctify (set apart as a memorial, Deuteronomy 5:15) the seventh week-day as the Jewish Sabbath until many centuries later, as related in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus. Hence the Sabbath is not even mentioned in the Book of Genesis. Cf. Genesis 3:20Adam named his wife Eve when she was created, but she was not the mother of a race at that timeshe became that later. Cf. also Matthew 10:2-4, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Matthew wrote this account some thirty years after the calling of the Twelve. But in this passage he connects the calling and sending out of Judas with the betrayal of Christ by Judas as if the two events had happened at the same time, when as a matter of fact they occurred some three years apart, (2) A prolepsis is also defined as a kind of anachronism which sometimes appears to be a contradiction but actually is not from the writer’s point of view. In this sense it occurs when a writer mentions a long-standing place-name in two separate passages, in one of which he gives the origin of the name, but in the other mentions an event which occurred there at a different time. For example, Genesis 28:10-19. Here we read that Bethel (house of God) was given its name by Jacob on his flight to Paddan-aram because of the heavenly visitation which he received there in a vision. However, in Genesis 12:8, we find that long before this, Abraham is said to have built an altar at Bethel on his arrival in the Land of Promise. There is no contradiction here. It is obvious that the writer in givirag us the account of Abraham’s arrival in Canaan, simply used the name by which the place had come to be known generally by the people of the land. A similar case occurs with reference to Hebron. It was originally called Mamre, it seems, but later acquired the name of Hebron; hence, because it was known by the name Hebron when Genesis was written, it is so designated in the earlier record (cf. Genesis 13:8; Genesis 14:13; Genesis 23:2; Genesis 35:27). As a matter of fact, the writer seems to use the two place-names interchangeably. (Other apparent anachronisms will be treated in this textbook wherever they are encountered in our study of the text of Genesis.)

We conclude here with a word of caution with reference to the use of the term figurative. It seems to be a common fallacy among those who apparently are out looking for grounds on which to reject clear Scripture teaching, to assume that to explain a text as figurative is equivalent to explaining it away, that is, rendering it meaningless. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Being is the first category of all human thinking. A thought must be a thought about something; a proposition must be a proposition about something; a sentence must be a statement about something.So a figure in Scripture must be a figure of something; a sign must point to something; a symbol must be a symbol of something.(A symbol of nothing would be utterly meaningless.) All this means that to say that a passage must be interpreted figuratively is to enhance its meaning, rather than to nullify it. If Heaven is to be described figuratively as New Jerusalem, the holy city, the city that lieth foursquare, the city that is pure gold, with foundations adorned with all manner of precious stones, with the river of water of life. in the midst of the street thereof, etc. (Rev., chs. 21 and 22), how then can eye see, or ear hear, or the genius of man conceive what the Reality will surely be? Heaven cannot be described in human language; it must be experienced in order to be understood. But the same is true of Hell (Gehenna), is it not? If hell is described figuratively in Scripture as eternal fire, (Matthew 25:41), outer darkness (Matthew 8:12), the weeping and the gnashing of teeth (Matthew 22:13; Matthew 25:30), the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone (Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10; Revelation 20:14-15), the abyss (A.V., bottomless pit: Revelation 20:1; Revelation 20:3), where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:48, cf. Isaiah 66:24, Revelation 6:16-17, Hebrews 10:31, Deuteronomy 4:24, Hebrews 12:29)-if all this is figurative language, I repeat, may God deliver us from the reality to which it points! To try to belittle these expressions as figurative is certainly not to explain them awayrather, it is to multiply their significance a thousandfold!

Permit me to terminate this section of our textbook by quoting, with respect to all figurative devices in Scripture, what J. W. Monser has written, so forcefully and so exquisitely, about types, as follows:

Thus, these types become a confirmation to us of all that the spirit of man is interested in, as respects our holy religion. We fit the type to the antitype as a glove to the hand or a ball to its socket. The exterior fits into the interior. As you prove a criminal’s steps by fitting his boot into the tracks about your doorway, or his guilty shot by the mold of his bullet, so are we enabled, by a comparison of these types, to declare to the world that we have not followed any cunningly devised fables when we made known the power and coming of our Lord Jesus. He alone answers to the typical photographs. All the qualities foreshadowed in the sacrifice and the priest unite in him. Remove him from consideration, and while you rob humanity of the most essential help and the sublimest gift conceivable, you cast an element of confusion into all God’s previous work. Promise, prophecy, and type are equally void and chaotic. The tabernacle and the temple become meaningless, the outer court a butcher’s yard, and the daily sacrifice of the Jew a burden greater than any sane man can bear. The Garden of Eden, the expulsion of Adam and Eve, the curse pronounced upon the serpent, the premature death of man, all these are mysteries, unless we recognize in each event the providential hand of God. Such is the unity of the Divine Purpose, that, look at what portion of it we will, there meets us some allusion to, or emblem of, our common salvation. The Scheme of Redemption is one gorgeous array of picture-lessons. The nation who typified it was a rotating blackboard, going to and fro, and unfolding in their career the Will of the Eternal. Let us not despise the day of small things.[17]

[17] J. W. Monser, op cit., pp. 38-39.

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART TWO

Discuss the validity of interpretation with reference to the Bible.

What is the science of Biblical interpretation called?

State what interpretation does not mean.

Distinguish between transliteration and translation.

Cite examples of the confusion caused by failure to make this distinction between transliteration and translation.

What two influences especially, in the first few centuries of our era, tended to corrupt Christian doctrine?

What is meant by the phrase, calling Bible things by Bible names?

What is meant by the phrase, permitting the Bible to interpret itself?

State the four A B C’S of Biblical interpretation.

What is a Dispensation in Biblical terms?

Give an example of the importance of making proper distinctions between Dispensations in interpreting Scripture.

Cite two or three examples to show the importance to correct interpretation of knowing under what circumstances the content of a passage of Scripture was elicited.

Explain what is meant by the method of dialectic in interpreting Scripture.

Give some examples of the necessary use of this method, citing appropriate Scripture texts.

What are the two general contexts to be considered in the interpretation of a Scripture text?

Cite examples of the confusion caused by failing to correlate any Scripture passage with the teaching of the Bible as a whole.

What general principle is to be followed in distinguishing the figurative from the literal in Scripture interpretation?

What are some of the indications of figurative language in the Scriptures?

What is meant by a symbol?

Into what three classes does Dungan put Biblical symbols?

Show how Divine revelation is affected by the inadequacy of human language.

Explain what is meant by an emblem?

How do emblems differ from types?

What is meant by type and antitype? How are they related?

What was the design of the Old Testament types?

Show how those who deny the validity of typology contradict Scripture teaching.

What Scripture authority have we for accepting the validity of typology?

Mention two types in the Book of Genesis that are explicitly declared to be types, in the Scriptures themselves.

What is a simile? Give examples.

What is a metaphor? How does it differ from a simile?

Give some Biblical examples of metaphors of God.

Give some Biblical examples of metaphors of Christ and His mission.

Give some Biblical examples of metaphors of the Holy Spirit.

Give some Biblical examples of metaphors of the Word of God.

Give some Biblical examples of metaphors of the Church.

Give some Biblical examples of metaphors of the Christian.

Give some examples of metaphors which are to be found in the Book of Genesis.

What are the characteristics of a parable?

How does a parable differ from a fable?

What are the characteristics of the allegory?

What important allegory is to be found in the Book of Genesis?

What is an anthropomorphism?

Why are anthropomorphisms necessary to the human understanding of God?

What was the saying of the ancient philosopher Xenophanes about anthropomorphisms.

What are the fallacies in his argument? What is the half-truth in it?

What were the characteristics of the anthropomorphisms of the ancient pagan polytheisms?

Where do we find anthropomorphisms in the Book of Genesis?

How do Biblical examples of anthropomorphism differ from the anthropomorphisms of the ancient pagan religions?

Explain why anthropomorphism is necessary in any human attempt to understand God and His ways.

What is meant by saying that the Biblical anthropomorphisms serve to make God real (congenial) to us?

What are the two terms which Jesus used specifically to make our God real to us?

What, according to the dictionary, is the function of myth?

What are the four classes into which myths are usually categorized?

What were the characteristics of the ancient pagan mythological systems?

What was the character essentially of the gods and goddesses of these systems?

How does the God of the Bible differ from the mythological deities?

Explain the significance of the distinction between personification and pure personality.

Explain the significance of the Name by which God revealed Himself to Moses.

On what grounds do we say that mythology, in the legitimate sense of the term, is conspicuously absent from the Bible?

Explain what Plato meant by the mythos.

To what extent may we recognize the validity of the mythos in Scripture?

Why the necessity oftentimes of resorting to poetic imagery in communicating Divine thought to man?

What essentially is meant by this term, poetic imagery?

If we should find poetic imagery in Scripture, what would be its function?

Is poetic imagery to be identified with sheer fiction?

Is poetic imagery closely related to apocalyptic symbolism?

Just how can the ineffable be revealed to man?

What is a prolepsis?

Give two examples of prolepsis which occur in the Book of Genesis.

What is the fallacy often implicit in the popular use of the term figurative?

Can we have figures that are not figures of something, or symbols that are not symbols of something?

Explain what is meant by Monser’s statement that the Scheme of Redemption is one gorgeous array of picture-lessons.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA

The Christian, published by the Christian Board of Publication, St. Louis, Mo.

See The Oxford English Dictionary.

Hugh J. Schonfield, The Authentic New Testament. A Mentor Religious Classic. Published by the New American Library of World Literature, New York, 1958.

See The Christian Evangelist, St. Louis, Oct. 27, 1954, and The Christian Century, Chicago, Mar. 5, 1958.

D. R. Dungan, Hermeneutics, p. 11. Standard Publishing, Cincinnati. (Out of print.)

Dungan, ibid., pp. 79-80.

Dungan, ibid., pp. 81-82.

R. Milligan, Scheme of Redemption, p. 72. Christian Publishing Company, St. Louis.

Milligan, ibid., pp. 71-72.

Charles Louis Loos (one-time president of Kentucky University), in his Introduction to Types and Metaphors of the Bible, by J. W. Monser. Published by F. L. Rowe, Cincinnati, 1936.

Loos, ibid., x.

J. W. Monser, op. cit., p. 161.

D. R. Dungan, op. cit., pp. 258-259.

See Elegy and Iambus, Vol. I, pp. 182-215. Translation by Edmonds. Loeb Classical Library, Published by the Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1931. See also fragments from Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies.

Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, pp. 60, 61. Translation by Moshe Greenberg. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960.

John Baillie, And the Life Everlasting, p. 243. Scribner’S, New York, 1936.

J. W. Monser, op cit., pp. 38-39.

PART THREE: IN THE BEGINNING GOD.

Not: In the beginning, nothingfor the simple reason that from nothing, nothing comes to be (ex nihilo, nihil fit).That Something is, that Isness is a fact, must be admitted by all who are not in a lunatic asylum.

Therefore, In the beginning, God. This is the only formula that makes sense. Psalms 14:1The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Note the phrase, in his heart; heart in Scripture designates the interior man, with special emphasis on emotion and will. Atheism is traceable in most instances to an emotional reaction: no man can logically think himself into it.

The Bible presents itself to us as The Book from God communicated by the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1:10-12, 2 Peter 1:21, Hebrews 1:1-4, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, 1 Thessalonians 2:13). What author, in writing a book, prefaces it with an article intended to prove his own existence? Why, then, should the Holy Spirit have prefaced the content of the Bible with a chapter designed to prove the existence of God? To ask this question is to answer it.

The Bible, in explaining the universe, does not indulge specious theories of the eternity of matter, of an undifferentiated ocean of energy, of life force, of infinite regress, or anything of the kind. The Bible does not try to account for the Fact of Being by dispensing with a First Cause: it assigns to all things a Sufficient Reason, an Adequate Cause, in God: in the God of the Bible, the theistic God who transcends the cosmos in His Being but is immanent throughout the cosmos in His power. (All power is ultimately of God.) The existence of God is the First Truth on which all truth depends. He is the all-sufficient First Truth. Accept God’s existence and the rest is not difficult. Deny it, and no foundation is left for life, law, faith, hope, love, truth, justice, freedom, beauty, goodness, holiness, or any other value.

Whatever begins to exist must have an Adequate Cause.Not, as it is sometimes erroneously stated, that all effects must have their adequate causes, but that whatever begins to exist must have an Adequate Cause. To close one’s mind to this principle of Adequate Causality is to shut one’s self off from all possibility of comprehensive knowledge of any kind.

One of the most common, and most grievous, errors of modern science is its tendency to ignore the fact of Efficient Causality, which is the very cornerstone of the structure of metaphysics (the science of being-as-such), and indeed of all human knowledge. To understand what is meant by Efficient Causality, we must recall here the Aristotelian doctrine of Four Causes, which is a very helpful concept, one which affords valid clues to the understanding of the world and our life in it.

According to Aristotle, there are four causes (explanations, ways of defining) anything; that is, four factors which combine to effectuate the constitution of any created thing. These are as follows: the material cause (the stuff of which a thing is made: the cause of which); the formal cause (that which gives to the matter the precise form or specificity it has, that which puts it into the class to which it belongs: the cause according to which); the efficient cause (that agent or power which unites the form and the matter, to give the object concrete existence: the cause by which); and the final cause (the end or function to be served by the object: the foreseen final cause that precedes all other causes: that which is first in purpose or motive, even though last in realization: the cause for which).Take for example, a statue: the material cause is wood, bronze, stone, marble, etc.; the formal cause is the idea .embodied in the matter, a likeness of Washington, or of Lincoln, or of Venus of Milo, or of Athena Parthenos, etc., the efficient cause is the sculptor; and the final cause, ornamentation, commemoration, or it could be simply art for art’s sake; in any case, it is that which motivates the sculptor. For another example, consider a human being: the material cause is the complex of living cells that make up the body; the formal cause is the soul (mind, power of thought, reason, etc.,) which informs the body and thus specifies man as man; the efficient cause is the Creative Intelligence and Power (First Principle, First Cause, God) which gave man concrete existence as homo sapiens, a mind-body unity; and the final cause, the natural and proper intrinsic and extrinsic ends to which man is divinely ordained, as indicated by the impulses of his nature, namely, Perfect Happiness in Union with God, to be achieved by the living of the Spiritual Life, (No human being ever sets out to make himself ultimately and permanently miserable). (Cf. Matthew 22:35-40; Galatians 5:16-25.)

With the foregoing introductory matter to guide us, we shall now look briefly at the various proofs of the existence of God. I use the term proofs, rather than arguments, simply from the conviction that necessary truths (that is, propositions, the opposites of which are inconceivable) do constitute proofs in the fullest sense of the term, or, as stated a bit differently, whatever the inflexible formulas of logic and mathematics demand, must have real existence in the structure of Reality. Let us now examine these proofs which support the simple but sententiously sublime declaration of the first verse of Genesis: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

1.The Cosmological Proof

(1) Who has not been overwhelmed at times by the awesome sense of the Mystery of Being-as-such! Such an emotion might take hold of one, for example, at the sight of the ocean for the first time, or when walking down the cathedral aisle of a seemingly ageless forest, or when wandering about in the fairy palaces of the Carlsbad Caverns, or (as Van Loon puts it, Geography, p. 3) when stunned by the incredible beauty of that silent witness of the forces of Eternity, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. (When our God, who is the Author of beauty and majesty, builds a cathedral, He builds one.) Since living in the Southwest, I have often experienced this sense of awe while strolling on a clear night under the scintillating skies of the New Mexico desert where the stars seem close enough to earth to permit one to reach up and pluck them from the heavens. Who, under the spell of such awesome experiences, could be so insensitive to the music and the dream of living as to fail to ask himself, How, and especially why, did all this come to be? No person who thinks can possibly avoid such ultimate questions. (Cf. the experience of Jacob, Genesis 28:16-17.)

(2) To deny that something is would be a mark of insanity or idiocy. There is one thing I know, and know from immediate experience: I know that I am.(Descartes, 1596-1650, it will be recalled, decided to make a fresh start in pursuit of the philosophy of being, by doubting everything provisionally, the testimony of sense-perception, of reason, of external authority of any kind, even of the existence of a God who is goodness and truth and beauty (since it might turn out that a malevolent being has created man for his own sport), etc. Thinking thus, it suddenly dawned on him that he could not doubt the fact of his doubting or the fact of his own existence as the doubter: dubito, ergo sum, I doubt, therefore I am. From this point he went on logically to affirm, cogito, ergo sum, I think, therefore I am. Obviously, this has to be the taking-off point for all human thought, whether the person realizes it or not. Thought simply does not take place apart from the thinker; hence the first category of all thinking is the category of being, the universal, or of beings, the particulars. I cannot understand why well educated persons are so prone to overlook or to disregard these facts. There simply cannot be love without a lover, law without a lawgiver, behavior apart from a being to behave, adaptation without a being to adapt and being to be adapted to.Being, I repeat, is the first category of human thought, whether recognized to be so or not.) I know; therefore, I am. I know that within me there is a world so vast that it staggers my imaginationa world of thoughts, feelings, desires, sentiments, images, memories, etc. I know too that there is a world outside me, a world of something (sense data?) the motions of which produce sensations within me (sights, colors, sounds, smells, tastes, etc.), and thus provide the raw material of my knowledge. (Was it not John Locke who defined matter as permanent possibility of sensation?) All these things I know.

(3) In a word, I know, we all know, that something is.Hence, the basic question, properly stated, is not, Where did God come from? but, How and why is there something instead of nothing? Moreover, because something is, something must always have been: we must start in our thinking with a Something (the First Principle, or God) that is without beginning or end, or we are driven to the inconceivable postulate that nothing must have produced something.As someone (unidentified) has written in facetious vein:

Once nothing arrived on this earth out of space; It rode in on nothing; it came from no place; It landed on nothingthe earth was not here It worked hard on nothing for year after year; It sweat over nothing with mighty resolve But just about then things began to evolve: The heavens appeared, and the sea and the sod; This Almighty Nothing worked much like a god. It started unwinding without any plan, It made every creature and ended with man. No god here was neededthere was no creation; Man grew like a mushroom and needs no salvation. Some savants say this should be called evolution And that ignorance only rejects that solution.

This, to be sure, is nonsense. Even the ancients recognized such a postulate to be inconceivable: said they, ex nihilo nihil fit, from nothing nothing comes to be.That something must be unbegun follows from the principle ex nihilo nihil fit.If there had ever been a state in which there was nothing, then that state would have continued forever. It is impossible for our imagination to grasp unbegun duration, but the failure of our imagination is overcome by the necessity of rational thought. As surely as there is anything now, so surely there must have always been something (Brightman, PR, 364-365).

(4) That something isthat which we call a universe, a world, a cosmosis undeniable. That the existence of this something is unexplainable apart from the operation of a Power sufficient both to produce it and to sustain it, must be evident to all honest and intelligent thinkers. Certainly, no comprehensive, hence no satisfactory, explanation of this world is possible for one who either ignores or denies Efficient Causality. (By Efficient Causality we mean the Creative Intelligence and Power that philosophy designates the First Cause or First Principle, and that theology calls God.) This is the well-known Cosmological Proof, reasoning from the existence of the world to the existence of God as its Cause (hence it may be designated the causal argument). As first stated by Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), it is necessary reasoning from the facts of motion (change) in the cosmos to the Prime Mover (the unmoved or self-moving, self-existing, and self-determining) First Mover, the only possible alternative being the admission of infinite regress. As revised by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the argument consists in necessary reasoning from the experienced fact of motion to the Prime Mover, from secondary efficient causes to the Frst Efficient Cause, and from contingent (may or may not be) being to the necessary (must be) Being, God. The cosmological argument is based on the principle of sufficient cause. The world is an effect; therefore it must have had a cause, outside itself, sufficient to account for its existence. There must be a cause of the series of causes which we experience. Thus we come to a First Cause or to a self-existent Being. The First Cause could not be material, since this would involve the qualitatively less as being able to produce the qualitatively greateran absurd notion. We are led then to a self-dependent entity or Spirit of God (Titus, LIP, 403). Or to put it in another form: Change is an incontrovertible fact of human experience. But there must be something permanentsomething which persists through all changeotherwise nature would be nothing but a sequence of creations and annihilations (with what in between?) Therefore, we must distinguish between the accidental and the essential features of reality, between the temporary and the permanent in human experience. Change presupposes a cause, and logically we must go back to an uncaused, self-existent cause or to self-existent Being. God is thus imminent in the universe of which he is the constitutive principle. God is the condition of the orderly development of the universe, as well as its permanent source or ground (Titus, ibid., 404).

(5) Someone may object as follows: You argue, obviously, from the principle of sufficient reason, viz., that for every effect there must be an adequate cause, that the cosmos therefore, considered as an effect, must have its Adequate Cause. But is not this a begging of the question (a petitio principii)?That is to say, are you not assuming as true a priori the very proposition to be established, namely, that the cosmos is an effect? Perhaps the cosmos simply is, and has always been, in some form or other, and that is the end of the matter. To this I reply as follows: Surely it may be taken for granted that certain aspects of the cosmos that are known to us are effectsof something. Take, for example, man himself: man either has existed always or he had a beginning: no third view is conceivable. But that he had a beginning no one doubts: surely no scientist would make himself so ridiculous as to contend that man has existed always. Very well, then, if he had a beginning, as is universally admitted, he either created himself or he was the handiwork of an Efficient Causality external to himself. If he made himself, then he existed before he existedand this would be utter nonsense. It must follow, therefore, that man is the product of an Efficient Causality antedating himself and external to himself. There was a time in the process of Creation when manhomo sapiens, should anyone insist on the strictly scientific designationdid not exist: hence a Cause must have been operating equal to the effect produced, that is, adequate to the creation and preservation of the human species. Moreover, if in thought we move backward in contemplation of the creative process (which, even in the Hebrew cosmogony is pictured as having been a progressive development, extending over at least six days), we can conclude only that there must have been a time when life did not exist, at least did not exist on our earth. All texts on historical geology frankly admit that life had a beginning sometime, somewhere, and that the story of that beginning, as far as science can claim to speak, is still enshrouded in mystery. Again, thinking back in terms of regress, let us ask: What existed prior to the appearance of life on the earth? Certainly the earth had to exist as a home for living things as we know them, and the sun had to exist to furnish light, and the atmosphere had to exist to sustain life, that is, life as we experience it. These factors are all necessary to the process of photosynthesisthat mysterious process by which plant life converts the sun’s energy into stored food energy and which is necessary to the sustenance of animal life in its various forms. Shall we not conclude, then, that the heavens and the earth, the suns and planets and stars, all the galaxies and universesin short, our astronomical worldexisted prior to the introduction of life? But what existed prior to these bodies terrestrial and celestial? Probably only molecules and atoms: for are we not in these days reading books with such titles as The Creation of the Universe and Biography of the Earth (by Gamow), Stellar Evolution (by Struve), From Atoms to Stars (by Davidson), and the likebooks whose contents are devoted to a theoretical (and basically conjectural) description of the alleged evolution of the astronomical bodies of the cosmos, an evolution envisioned as having had its inception in the explosion of a primordial atom, or, perhaps, in the chance production of hydrogen atoms from some kind of an original Source. (Cf. also The Nature of the Universe, by Fred Hoyle, especially the Chapter s entitled The Origin of the Stars and The Origin of the Earth and the Planets.). But what existed prior to the molecules and their atoms, or prior to the atoms themselves? Shall we say protons and electrons, or possibly photons only: the tendency in most recent physics is to look upon radiant energy as an ultimate in the physical world. Or, shall we say that there was a time when only what is now regarded as the elusive absolutely first particle (center of force?) of matter existed, which physicists designate the neutrino? (The neutrino has been superseded recently by the Omega Minus.)(These ultimate or first constituents of matter, as matter is interpreted today, are in fact quasi-material rather than material (in the traditional sense of that term), and because man is achieving apprehension of them, not by means of sense-perception, nor even by means of physical sense implemented by mechanical devices, but solely by means of mathematical formulas, present-day physics is all the time becoming more metaphysical than physical. Indeed the line between the material and the immaterial is so closely drawn today that it is scarcely existent.) But we are now ready to ask: What existed prior to the neutrino, prior to photons, electrons, mesons, protons, etc.? The late Dr. Arthur H. Compton, the distinguished physicist, in an article, The Case for Hope, published in the Saturday Review, issue of July 18, 1955, states that before the beginning of our universe it seems that not only were there no stars and atoms, but that time itself was something of only indefinite meaning. Still and all, we cannot logically carry this method of infinite regress (that is, in our thinking) back to nothing; otherwise it would not be infinite regress; that is to say, it would have a terminus or limit, and hence would be finite rather than infinite. Besides, what existed back there to see to it (to cause) that these neutrinos, photons, protons, electrons, atoms, etc., would march into being in the form of a cosmos, with its ultimate mysteries of life, consciousness, thought, self-consciousness, sense of values, etc.? Whatever that Somethingor Someonewas, that is precisely what we mean by Efficient Causality. And so we must admit the existence of the Self-moving Mover, the First Cause, the Self-existent Being, Necessary Being, as the Ground of all contingent being, etc., or we face infinite regress as the only possible alternative. And this infinite regress, moreover, cannot be regress back to nothing or nothingnesss: it is inconceivable that some almighty nothing could have produced something, the world as we know it. (Annihilation, i.e., reduction of the something that is, to sheer nothing, is equally inconceivable.) It is true now and always that, as the ancients put it, ex nihilo nihil fit.No person can account for his own thought except on the presupposition that he, the thinker, exists; nor can any thinker (person) account for his own existence except on the ground of the prior existence of the species of which he is a unit; nor can he account for the species of which he is a unitthe human species, homo sapiensexcept on the ground of an Efficient Causality capable of having brought his own species into actual existence. The theory presupposes the thinker, the person; the person presupposes the human species; and the human species presupposes an Efficient Causality of all things. These conclusions are inescapable. I repeat that no valid explanation of the totality of being is possible except on the basis of an Adequate Cause. I repeat than one of the obvious evidences of the superficial character of much recent thinking has, been its tendency to ignore, even to deny outright, the fact of Efficient Causality.

(6) Experience finds nature, both as a whole and in its particulars (objects and events), contingent, that is, such that it might not have been (lacking necessary existence). The mark of contingency is change: that which changes is subject to influences beyond itself. The bridge from contingent being to self-existent Being (reality) is found in the principle of Efficient Causality. Contingent (secondary) causes do not explain themselves. Both logic and reality require not only causes in nature but also a Cause of Nature. Obviously the Cause of Nature must be the Existent who is capable of bestowing existence. This must be the self-existent (but not self-caused) Being, God. (It has ever been a matter of amazement to me than intelligent persons should have fallen for Hume’s shallow repudiation of causality (i.e., causality in any real sense), his contention that mind reads causality (necessary connection) into what is nothing more than a sequence of events. This notion is contrary to human experience. For example, the fusion of two atoms of hydrogen with one atom of oxygen to form a molecule of water is certainly more than a mere sequence of events: there is motion, change, power, involved in the process. Again, suppose that a man inadvertently takes hold of a highly charged live wireand he dies. There is more involved here than a sequence of events: there is the power of the electric current that causes the man’s death. Moreover, in either case, the same effect necessarily follows the same cause. This is true throughout all nature; otherwise, our so-called laws of nature would be fictions and we would be living in a totally unpredictable world. (The fact is that man could not live in an unpredictable world.) (7) Even the theological doctrine of Creation ex nihilo does not mean, strictly speaking, Creation out of nothing, but rather creation by the Efficient Causality who is essentially Spirit, Mind, Person, etc., that is, non-corporeal, and hence Creation without the use of pre-existing matter, (Cf. Genesis 1:1; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:5-6; Hebrews 11:3.) As Professor W. E. Hocking states the case: For the author of Genesis, mentality is original. It does not enter a physical world already running on its own. On the contrary, it is the physical world which enters the realm of mind. It is the Eternal Mind who in the beginning created the raw materials of the world, and whose word evoked order from chaos (A World-View, PPT, 436).

(8) That, from the viewpoint of science itself, a creation of matter actually did take place in some sense, contends Fred Hoyle, the astronomer, who writes as follows: Perhaps you may think that the whole question of the creation of the universe could be avoided in some way. But this is not so. To avoid the issue of creation it would be necessary for all the material of the universe to be infinitely old, and this it cannot be for a very practical reason. For if this were so, there could be no hydrogen left in the universe.. Hydrogen is being steadily converted into helium throughout the universe and this conversion is a one-way processthat is to say, hydrogen cannot be produced in any appreciable quantity through the breakdown of the other elements. How comes it then that the universe consists almost entirely of hydrogen? If matter were infinitely old, this would be quite impossible. So we see that the universe being what it is, the creation issue simply cannot be dodged (NU, 113-114). Contending for his theory of continuous creation, the same author says: The most obvious question to ask about continuous creation is this: Where does the created material come from? It does not come from anywhere. Material simply appearsit is created. At one time the various atoms composing the material do not exist, and at a later time they do. This may seem a very strange idea and I agree that it is, but in science it does not matter how strange an idea may seem so long as it worksthat is to say, so long as the idea can be expressed in a precise form and so long as its consequences are found to be in agreement with observation (ibid., 112). Cf. Hebrews 11:3By faith we understand that the worlds [literally, ages]have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear.

(9) It is also interesting to note that these scientists (astronomers, geologists, paleontologists, etc.) all begin with something: Hoyle, with a hydrogen fog; Gamow, with ylem (primordial mixture of nuclear particles); Lemaitre et al, with an exploding primordial atom; the monoparental theory, with a cooling and contracting hot nebular mass, e.g., the nebular hypothesis of LaPlace; the Chamberlin-Moulton biparental theory, with a sun and passing star, etc. No one presumes to start with nothing and get a universe; or should we not say, universes?

(10) Protagonists of the evolution theories seem not to realize that their theories are, after all, theories of creation. (Biological evolution is simply a theory of the origin of species, based largely on inferences. No theory of evolution purports to explain the origin of life, the life movement itself, the modus operandi of heredity, or that of mutations. As Cassirer writes: Even in the field of the phenomena of nature we have learned that evolution does not exclude a sort of original creation (EOM, 49). It will be recalled that even Darwin himself admitted Divine agency as the ultimate source of life, that is, life as implanted in the hypothetical primordial cell.) There is simply no getting around the facts of Creation and Efficient Causality: this is the long of the matter, the short of it, and the all of it. Genesis 1:1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

In several of his writings Bertrand Russell goes to considerable pains to let us know that, as he states it, he gave up the Cosmological Argument early in his life. He seems to think this was a matter of great import to all humanitya most unwarranted assumption, I should say. In his treatise, Why I Am Not a Christian, p. 7, he writes: There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Certainly the cosmos of our time has not been the same cosmos that it is now, throughout all preceding millenia of its history: this fact is explicit in the titles that present-day scientists are using, such as, From Atoms to Stars, etc. Certainly, as stated above, any notion of the eternity of matter (or, as Hoyle puts it, that matter is infinitely old) implies, if traced backward, infinite regression (not regression to nothing), or, if traced forward, infinite progression (but not a progression from nothing). As a matter of fact, the concept of the eternity of matter, such as Russell would have us accept, is a concept of timelessness, and affords plenty of room for catastrophism and for the theory of the cyclical movement of cosmic history. Moreover, it is in conflict with the geological theory of uniformitarianism (that now existing processes are sufficient to account for all geological changes): indeed it would seem to necessitate cycles of cosmic history and catastrophism as well, to pave the way for uniformitarianism. To accept Russell’s view would require an almost inconceivable measure of imagination, greater in fact than the measure of faith implicit in the acceptance of a transcendent intelligent Creator. Indeed there is no theory that can logically eliminate the operation of an Efficient Causality that, regardless of what it started with, has actualized and continues to support the phenomena characteristic of our present-day cosmos, such phenomena as the atomic processes, the life processes, the thought processes, etc. It is far more reasonable, from the philosophical point of view, to accept the Aristotelian doctrine of the Unmoved Mover as First Cause of all things than the notion of an infinite regressa process that would go on into infinity without any conceivable stopping-point, That is to say, In the beginning, God.

2. The Ontological Proof

This is the proof that is based on the conviction of the existence of Perfect Being, a conviction implicit in every man’s awareness of his own imperfections. The concepts, of perfection and imperfection cannot be disassociated. (1) The Ontological Proof (from the Greek neuter singular to on, that which is, or being as the universal; plural, ta onta, the things which exist, or beings as particulars) was first formulated by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), but actually derived in principle from Plato’s Theory of Forms (Ideas). According to the Platonic theory, the Forms or Ideas of all classes of things (as known to us in our concepts) are permanent, eternal, and real, and go to make up the world of being, whereas material objects which merely participate in the eternal Forms are ever impermanent and changing, and constitute our world of becoming, the phenomenal world or world of appearance. Hence the more universal the Idea, the greater its reality, its causal efficacy, and its worth. And therefore the Supreme Universal, the Form or Idea of the Good, is the Supreme Good, the Supreme Cause, Perfect Being, etc. On the basis of this principle, Anselm formulated the Ontological Proof substantially as follows: We define God as the Being than which nothing more perfect can be thought. Now there is in the mind the idea of such a Being. But also such a Being must exist outside the mind (objectively); if it did not, it would fail to be the Being than which nothing more perfect can be thought, since a being with the added attribute of existence must be more perfect than one existing only in idea. Therefore, if we wish to retain the meaning that the word God conveys to the human mind, we must affirm that God exists. In a word, the proposition that the most perfect being that can be thought of, really exists objectively, is self-evident. (Perfection, from per and facere, to make thorough or complete, means completeness, wholeness, holiness.)

(2) A modification of the ontological argument occurs in Descartes substantially as follows: There must be in every cause at least as much reality as reveals itself in the effect; otherwise we should have a portion of the effect emanating from nothing. Hence, if there exists in my mind any single idea which is too great to have originated from my own nature, I can be sure that the adequate (commensurate) cause of that idea is to be found outside me. But I discover in myself only one idea which thus evidently requires something outside me as the cause of it, and that is my idea of God as infinite thinking substance, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc., by which all contingent things have been created. It is inconceivable, and therefore impossible, that the idea of attributes so exalted should have come from the imperfect and finite nature which I know my own nature to be. For the same reason it is impossible for this idea to have derived from my parents or from any other source that falls short of the perfection of the idea itself. Therefore, infinite thinking substance, God, must actually exist to have imparted to me this idea of Perfect Being: in this manner alone can I bridge the gulf that exists between me and eternal reality: God as real Existent must be postulated as the only Existent great enough to account for the presence in me of the idea of God which indubitably exists in my own mind.

(3) It is often objected, of course, that this argument embodies an unwarranted leap from the subjective to the objective, from the idea of God to the actual existence of God objectively. It is argued that man formulates, for example, ideas of a Centaur, a unicorn, etc., but that such ideas or images in the mind do not constitute proof of the actual existence of the creatures thus imaged or imagined. To these arguments we may reply as follows: (a) that a Centaur or a unicorn is a creation of the human imagination, formed by the mind’s putting together of fragments of different sense-perceptions, whereas the concept of a Perfect Being is not something that can be imaged (imagined), for indeed the mind finds itself incapable of forming a mental image of itit is, on the contrary, a necessary concept of pure (imageless) thought; (b) that all such concepts of pure thought must point to, or have as their referents, actual existents in the objective world; in a word, that a necessary conclusion, one that is demanded by pure logic or mathematics, must stand for a fact in the structure of external reality. (Just as, for example, the laws of thoughtthe laws of identity and contradiction, That which is, is, and What is, cannot at the same time and in the same sense be and not beare not exclusively laws of thought, but actually laws of things as well. E.g., an oak-tree cannot at the same time and in the same sense be and not be.) No one questions the fact that the laws of thought actually embody the laws of things. E.g., I may not know how many persons will make up the population of El Paso in the year 2000, but I do know that any two of them plus any other two will make four of them. Again, I know that a circle, either as a figure-symbol in geometry textbooks or in actual land measurement, is a figure all the points on the circumference of which are equally distant from the center, and that not by definition alone, but by the very nature of the circle as such. A necessary truth is defined in philosophy as that, the opposite of which is inconceivable. It is inconceivable that nothing should have produced something; therefore it is a necessary truth that Efficient Causality, God, exists without beginning or end. Moreover, pure logic, in demanding Adequate Causality, Perfect Being, the Highest Good, etc., is referring to that Existent who indubitably exists as the Source and Ground of the whole creation.

Recapitulation: Thomistic Proofs of the Existence of God, those put forward by Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica: First Proof: From Motion: i.e., the passing from power to act, as it takes place in the universe, implies a first unmoved Mover, who is God; else we should postulate an infinite series of movers, which is inconceivable. Second Proof: From Efficient Causes, i.e., for the same reason efficient causes, as we see them operating in this world, imply the existence of a First Cause that is uncaused: that is, that possesses in itself sufficient reason for its existence: and this is God. Third Proof: From the Contingency of Beings in the World: the fact that contingent beings exist, i.e., beings whose non-existence is recognized as possible, implies the existence of a necessary being, who is God. Fourth Proof: From the Degrees of Perfection in Beings: The graduated perfections of being actually existing in the universe can be understood only by comparison with an absolute standard that is also actual, i.e., an infinitely perfect Being such as God. Fifth Proof: From the Order Prevailing in the Universe: the wonderful order or evidence of intelligent design which the universe exhibits implies the existence of a supra-mundane Designer, who is no other than God Himself. This is commonly called the Teleological Proof, as set forth in some detail in the pages immediately following.

3. The Teleological Proof

(1) Let us now consider the Teleological Proof of the existence of God (from the Greek telos, consummation, fulfilment, end, etc.). It is significant that the Greek word kosmos (translated in Scripture universe or world), from which we get the English cosmos, means order. (Chaos in ancient Greek meant empty space.) Thus by the very use of the word cosmos we recognize that the framework of nature is one of order; this must be true, otherwise man could never have formulated a science. Man’s sciences are simply his accomplishments in discovering, interpreting and describing (by means of formulas, theories, laws, etc.) the order he finds in the various realms of being. Indeed man could not live in an unpredictable world.

(2) Take, for example, a great building. In what form did it exist before it became a building? The answer is obvious: it must have existed in the mind and plan of the person (architect) who conceived and designed it. All human artifacts have existed first in vision, theory, plan, etc., before being brought into existence as the concrete things they are designed to be. This is true of the dress that is worn, of the dinner that is served, of the house that is built, even of the atom bomb that is constructed, etc. A building presupposes a builder, design a designer (just as thought presupposes the thinker, love the lover, law the lawgiver, etc.).

(3) The idea of design includes not only the structure, but also the function (intended use) of the thing designed. Paley’s illustration of a watch and its uses is, though old, simple and sound: the design in a watch is obvious; but before there could have been a watch, there had to be the watch-maker; moreover, the watch-maker must not only have designed the watch, but obviously must also have designed (consciously intended) the arrangements of its parts to serve the purpose for which the watch was brought into being, namely, to provide an accurate measure of time. Design therefore includes both the structure and function of the thing designed. Furthermore, since it is evident that the watch-maker must antedate the watch, the architect the building, etc., the Supreme Architect must also have antedated His creation. These are simply matters of ordinary common sense. (Cf. Genesis 1:31And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. That is to say, all created things were at that time attaining the ends to which they were ordained by Universal Intelligence; hence there was complete harmony of the potential and the actual. Disharmony entered the picture only when man rebelled against the will of God and so became separated from God by his own sin. Cf. Romans 8:22the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, etc.).

(4) A convincing proof of the order which characterizes the cosmic processes is their basically mathematical structure.Examples: (a) The mathematical precision of celestial movements, not only of the bodies which compose our own solar system, but of the galaxies as well which go to make up the cosmos as a whole: this preciseness is such that for purposes of dating, any one of these heavenly bodies may be taken as the mathematical center (frame of reference); such that the movements of all of them (as, e.g., eclipses, comets, etc.) can be accurately dated as far back in the past or as far forward in the future as the human mind may care to reach in its computations. (b) The differentiation of the physical elements on the basis of the number of protons in their respective atomic nuclei and corresponding number of electrons in their respective orbits (from one proton and one electron in the hydrogen atom up to 92 protons and 92 electrons in the uranium atom); hence the periodic table of the elements. (c) The differentiation of minerals according to their respective basic geometrical patterns (crystal forms) such that the plane surfaces become the external expression of the definite internal structure in each case; hence the science of crystallography. (d) The varying arrangements of atoms and molecules in space, in such a manner as to make possible identification and classification of both molecules and compounds, as depicted in stereotypic chemistry. (e) The differentiation of living species generally according to the number of chromosomes in the reproductive cells of the male and female (in the human species, 23 in the male sperm and 23 in the female ovum): the process by which the mystery of heredity is effectuated. (f) The now known possibility of the actual reduction of certain sensations, such as color and sound, usually described as qualitative, to mathematical quantities. Color sensations are known to be produced by the impingement of refracted light waves of specified different lengths upon the retina of the eye; sensations of sound, by the impingement upon the ear of auditory stimuli in the form of sound waves traveling at various vibration rates by way of a medium, usually the air. Music has its basis, of course, in the mathematics of sound, a fact discovered by Pythagoras in the long, long ago (6th century B.C.). (Pythagoras is traditionally credited with having coined the phrase, the music of the spheres.) To sum up: The mathematical structure of our world points directly to a Universal Intelligence (Mind, Spirit, Reason, Logos) as its source and ground. Cf. Galileo: Nature’s great book is written in mathematical symbols. Einstein: How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought independent of experience, is so admirably adapted to the objects of reality? Pythagoras: Number rules the universe. Plato: God ever geometrizes. (See E. T. Bell, Men of Mathematics.)Cf. also Sir James Jeans (NBS, 158): Today there is widespread measure of agreement which on the physical side approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Jeans (TMU, 168): If the -true essence of substances-’ is for ever unknowable. then the universe can best be pictured, although still very imperfectly and inadequately, as consisting of pure thought, the thought of what, for want of a wider word, we must describe as a mathematical thinker. Jeans (ibid., 175): We may think of the laws to which phenomena conform in our waking hours, the laws of nature, as the laws of thought, of a universal mind. The uniformity of nature proclaims the self-consistency of this mind. Jeans (ibid., 181, 182): If the universe is a universe of thought, then its creation must have been an act of thought. And yet, so little do we understand time that perhaps we ought to compare the whole of time to the act of creation, the materialization of the thought. (Cf. Plato, 427-347 B.C., in the Timaeus, 38cTime, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of time, they might be dissolved together. Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. Plato describes time as the moving image of eternity. Cf. also Augustine, A.D. 354-430, in De Genesi ad Litteram, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book V, ch. 5The course of time began with the motions of creation, wherefore it is idle to ask about time before creation, which were to ask for time before time. For were there no motion of any creature, spiritual or corporeal, whereby the future might through the present succeed to the past, there would be no time. But the creature could have no motion unless it existed. Time, therefore, rather hath its commencement from the creation, than creation from time, but both from God.). Cf. finally Jeans (TMU, 165): The Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician.

(5) A second proof of cosmic order is the principle of adaptation of means to ends which characterizes our world throughout (the inorganic to the organic, the organic to the conscious, the conscious to the self-conscious, the self-conscious or personal to the moral and spiritual, etc.). Consider in this connection the following obviously necessary relations which prevail in the cosmos: that of radiant energy, to the other forms of energy; that of the interrelationships (possible transmutations) of all forms of energy (lose mass and gain energy, lose energy and gain mass); that of light and atmosphere to plant photosynthesis and animal life (plant life is dependent on carbon dioxide, animal life on oxygen); that of photosynthesis to all higher organic life (all higher physical life is dependent on plant photosynthesis; cf. Genesis 1:30to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food, etc.); and that of the physiological and psychological processes in man (as he is presently constituted), etc.

(6) A third evidence of cosmic order is the fact of the adaptation of nature to man and his needs.The distinguished scientist, A. Cressy Morrison, makes this fact the thesis of his excellent little book, Man Does Not Stand Alone (written in reply to the book by Julian Huxley, Man Stands Alone). Throughout the last century, he contends, we have thought so generally in terms of the visible adapting of man to nature that we have been inclined to overlook the less visible but no less obvious and amazing adaptation of nature to man. Morrison’s thesis is, in general, that the wonders of nature and man, and the existence of life itself, can be shown by calculation (the statistics of probability and chance) to be impossible without a Supreme Intelligence and a definite purpose, that purpose being ultimately the preparation of the human soul for immortality. He writes (MDNSA, 99-100): My purpose in this discussion of chance is to bring forcefully to the attention of the reader the fact that. all the nearly exact requirements of life could not be brought about on one planet at one time by chance. The size of the earth, the distance from the sun, the temperature, and the life-giving rays of the sun, the thickness of the earth’s crust, the quantity of water, the amount of carbon dioxide, the volume of nitrogen, the emergence of man and his survivalall point to order out of chaos, to design and purpose, and to the fact that, according to the inexorable laws of mathematics, all these could not occur by chance simultaneously on one planet once in a billion times. Again (ibid., 87): The advance of man beyond the necessities of existence to a comprehension of time lifts him out of the limits apparently set by physical evolution as a thing apart. As he approaches a complete understanding of time, he also approaches an understanding of some of the eternal laws of the universe and an apprehension of the Supreme Intelligence. Again (ibid., 100): We have found that there are 999,999,999 chances to one against a belief that all things happen by chance. Cf. Titus (LIP, 405): Take, for example, the long process of development leading to the human brain and the mind of man. The process has produced minds which begin to understand the world, and it has produced thought and understanding. This is unintelligible unless the course of evolution is directed. The term emergence by itself is a good description but is no adequate explanation. (It is my convictionpermit me to say, parentheticallythat the word evolution is one of the most overworked words in our human vocabulary; moreover, that the biological theory itself rests by and large upon inference; whether the inference is necessary inference or not is the crux of the whole problem. However, two facts stand out clearly, namely, that if any kind of evolution did take place, on any level of being, it must have taken the form of a progressive development or emergence of species, as indeed the word evolution itself implies; and that this forward movement, always toward the more neurally complex, is evidence per se of conscious direction, that is, direction by Mind or Logos. As someone has rightly said, evolution necessarily means new increments of power plus continuity of planand plan presupposes the Planner.) To recapitulate, then, if man has the right to his present natural life, surely he has the right tothe natural means necessary to sustain that form of life; and those necessary means have been provided for him in the subhuman orders of beingthe mineral, vegetable, and animal orders. (Cf. Genesis 1:27-31; Genesis 8:15-17; Psalms 104:14; Psalms 136:25, etc.) Apart from man as lord tenant of the earth (God’s steward) there would be no earthly reason for the existence of any of the subpersonal species.

(7) A fourth evidence of cosmic order is that of the marvelous design of the human organism as a mind-body (psychosomatic) unity.The body is built up hierarchically, that is, in an ascending order of complexity, from cells into tissues, from tissues into organs, from organs into systems, and from systems into the organism. Personality, in like manner, is a hierarchical structure, again in an ascending order of complexity, of reflexes, habits, dispositions, traits, and finally the self. (Incidentally, there is no alchemy of wishful thinking by which psychology can be reduced wholly to physiology, that is, the higher thought processes to sheer neurosensory arcs, etc.) To think for one moment that nature could have produced this living and thinking (personal) being mechanically (whatever that word may mean) by chance operation of resident forces alone is, to say the least, absurd. The body is but the tabernacle in which the real person (the self, the ego, the I) dwells. (Cf. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:7; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 Corinthians 15:35-49; 2 Corinthians 5:1.) However, the human being as presently constituted is a mind-body unity; interaction of the physical and mental is constantly taking place; we know this to be true, even though the mode of this interaction remains inscrutable. Psalms 139:14I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Cf. the quip of the man of medicine, so often recurrent in literature, the boast that if he had had the task of creating the human body he could have done a better job than, in his opinion, was done. As a matter of fact, no human being as yet has succeeded in creating a living cell, much less an entire body vitalized with life. Nor has any man ever been able to synthesize a living cell in the laboratory, and even if man should succeed in doing this some day, even that would leave unanswered the question as to what or who created the first living cell, an event which must have long antedated man’s appearance on earth. Any purveyor of the above-mentioned bit of smart-Aleckism would show about as much consistency as the chap (whom H. L. Mencken tells about) who burst forth on occasion exclaiming, I am an atheistthank God!

(8) A fifth evidence of cosmic order is the fact of the Will to Live which permeates the whole animate creation: the natural tendency of all living creatures to resist extinction.The bird, for example, wounded by the hunter’s shot, will have its wings spread to take refuge in flight the moment it reaches the ground. (Someone has said that the fear of death is in fact the lust for life.) (a) Instinct, which has been called the Great Sphinx of nature, is that power in the subhuman organism by which nature’s God ensures the perpetuation of the species. (Intelligence in man, on the other hand, enables him to grow in knowledge by the process of trial and error; if he were confined to grooves of instinct, he could never attain any measure of control of his environment. The much-touted conditioned reflex explains only the extension of the range of stimuli which will elicit a single response. Man’s development potential, however, lies in his ability to consciously vary his responses to the same stimulus.) (b) Cosmic conation (striving of species and individuals toward natural ends, toward the actualization of their natural potencies) characterizes all orders of the living world within us and around us. Consider, in this connection, the rhythmicity which pervades the cosmos: the alternation of day and night, of seedtime and harvest, of spring and summer and fall and winter (Genesis 8:22); the varying life cycles of natural speciesof the human being, childhood, youth, maturity, senescence, and finally the eventide; the play of opposites, especially of life and death, etc. (Cf. the Pythagorean Table of Opposites, as given us by Aristotle: limit-unlimited; odd-even; unity-plurality (the one and the many); right-left; male-female; rest-motion; straight-crooked; light-darkness; good-evil; square-oblong. Cf. also the Chinese doctrine of yang and yin.)(c) It will be recalled that one of the Platonic (Socratic) arguments for survival is that which is based on the alternation of opposites: contrary states, argued Socrates, pass into each other, and therefore death must pass into its contrary, life. (See Plato, Phaedo, 70-71; cf. also Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:35-49, with reference to the immortality of the saints.) No doubt this ineradicable Will to Live is one of the factors which has prompted the race as a whole to persist in believing that the person cannot perish; because man believes himself to be of a higher order than the brute, he repudiates the notion that his ultimate end can be six feet of earth and nothing more. (d) The Will to Live is evident in every aspect of the upward surge of life, from the process of segmentation (protoplasmic irritability) in the lowliest cell up to the multiplex psychosomatic entity known as man. Theories of evolution may presume to account for the origin of species, but no such theory accounts for the life movement itself; they all simply accept that movement as a fact (hence a postulate). (Freud’s libido is, after all, nothing in the world but this venerable Will to Live. See Plato, Symposium, for a discussion of the Earthly and Heavenly Eros (Love); also G. B. Shaw’s preface to his play, Back to Methuselah.)(e) Individual conscious conation is characteristic only of the person: psychologists are unanimous in saying that any person who has come to feel that he has nothing to live for, is on the verge of a mental crack-up. Any measure of fulness of life must include a self to live with, a creed (faith) to live by, and a goal (hope) to live for.

(9) Throughout the entire cosmos there is cause and effect, and design. (Even the abnormalities of nature, such as cyclones, earthquakes, pestilences, etc., all have their respective causes.) No honestly intelligent person can think for a moment that all this order is the product of chance.Besideswhat is chance? Some have suggested that chance is perhaps just another term for our human ignorance. It has even been said that what we call chance might turn out to be the free will of God. Ordinarily, however, when we use the word chance, we mean just the opposite of purpose and designwe mean purposelessness. (We are reminded here of the bombastic claim put forward in all seriousness in the heydey of what was called naturalism, that if a monkey were stationed at the keys of a typewriter, given sufficient time it would pound out by chance, letter by letter, one of Plato’s dialogues. Actually there are men who can countenance such drivel, who at the same time refuse to believe that there is a God. Such is the capacity for credulity of the will to disbelieve.One is reminded here of the well-known lines

There was an ape in days that were earlier; Centuries passed, and his hair became curlier; Centuries more, and his thumb gave a twist, And he was a man, and a Positivist.

The useful collocation (to use a phrase coined by Dr. A. H. Strong) characteristic of all parts of our world simply forbids the notion that all this has come about and is perpetuated by mere chance. If man ever were to discover that, beyond any possible doubt, the cosmos is simply a fortuitous thing, a product of blind chance alone, hence completely meaninglesssomething that might as well not be as bethat would be a tragic day indeed in the history of the race. To requote the astronomer, Dr. Dan Schilt of Columbia (as originally quoted in Collier’S, August 11, 1951, in reply to the reporter’s question, Why is the universe as it is and what it is?): The hope and faith of astronomers is that eventually we shall find that it is so because it couldn-’t be otherwise. The greatest shock would be to find that it all just happened by chance. Dr. Einstein is quoted (Barnett, UDE, 29) as saying: I cannot believe that God plays dice, with the world, As Fred Emerson Brooke has written in The Grave Digger,

If chance could fashion but one little flower,

With perfume for each tiny thief,

And furnish it with sunshine and with shower Then chance would be Creator, with the power

To build a world for unbelief.

(10) Dr. Hocking (PPT, 431) sees three pervasive types of order in the cosmos, as follows: First, the order of classes, which we meet in observing that all things come in kinds. Second, the order of causality, which we notice in the form of force and law as factors of change. Third, the order of purpose, which is always present in the activity of mind.

(11) Order is nature’s first law. Dr. A. H. Strong points out (ST, 77) that it is a working-principle of all science. that all things have their uses, that order pervades the universe, and that the methods of nature are rational methods. He adds: Evidences of this appear in the correlation of the chemical elements to each other; in the fitness of the inanimate world to be the basis and support of life; in the typical forms and unity of plan apparent in the organic creation; in the existence and cooperation of natural laws; in cosmical order and compensations. Brightman (PR, 379) summarizes the evidence for teleology as follows: It consists of all personal experience of purpose, end, or plan; the signs of purpose or conation in subpersonal selves; the adaptation of means to ends (of inorganic to organic, of organic to conscious) in nature, and hence -the fitness of the environment-’; the arrival of the fit, the beauty of nature; the harmony and interaction of mind and body; and, we may add, the spiritual lifethe striving for ideal valuesthat arises wherever man develops the possibilities of his consciousness, whether in

China or Japan, India or Babylonia, Greece or Israel, Egypt or Rome, among Teutons or among Incas. Why should men say, The more law, the less God? Is it not more reasonable to say, The more law, the greater the evidence of God. As Henry Ward Beecher once put it, Design by wholesale is greater than design by retail. How account for the singular fact that whenever we find out how a thing is done, our first conclusion seems to be that God had nothing to do with it. Are not the laws of nature the laws of God? Hath He not established them for ever and ever? Hath He not made a decree which shall not pass away? (Psalms 148:6). We accept the universality of design (as described by our humanly discovered and formulated laws) as positive proof of the immanence of God.

(12) We conclude that before this world could have existed in fact it must have been planned, designed and created by the Supreme Architect whom we know as God. His handiwork is evident everywhere in it; His footprints are everywhere upon it; His Spirit is the inexhaustible source of every form of power by which it is conserved. Even Herbert Spencer admitted that one truth must ever grow clearerthe truth that there is an inscrutable existence everywhere manifested, to which we can neither find nor conceive beginning or endthe one absolute certainty that we are ever in the presence of an infinite and eternal energy from which all things proceed. Shelley wrote his name in the visitors-’ book at the inn at Montanvert, and added, Democrat, philanthropist, atheist. But he also wrote (Adonais): The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly. And Darwin wrote (Life, 1, 274): In my most extreme fluctuations, I have never been an atheist, in the sense of denying the existence of a God. (See Strong, ST, 57.) No one can intelligently and profoundly contemplate the mysteries of the world around him and within him without admitting the fact of God. (Genesis 1:1; Hebrews 1:10; Hebrews 11:3; Psalms 19:1; Psalms 102:25; Job 38:1; Job 38:4) God has piled so high around us and within us the proofs of His existence that wayfaring men, though fools, need not err therein (Isaiah 35:8).

4. The Anthropological Proof

Let us consider next what is called the Anthropological Proof of the existence of God (from the Greek anthropos, man, and logos, account or study, science, etc.). It is in a sense an application of both the cosmological and teleological arguments to the human being.

(1) The human being is the most complex whole known to us by any process of sense-perception, and is properly designated a person.According to the classic definition proposed by Boethius (A.D. 480-524), a person is an individual substance of a rational nature. Personality cannot be dissociated, of course, from the person; hence, we may define the person as the carrier of the elements of personality. Personality undergoes modification constantly, but through all such changes there is an essential core, so to speak, which remains permanent: this substance we may rightly call the person. Hence personal identity remains intact from the cradle to the grave; nor is there any valid reason for assuming that it will be affected even by the death of the body. Personality is a structure built on the prior structures of matter, life, and mind.

(2) The essential properties of a person are self-consciousness and self-determination. By self-consciousness is meant precisely what the term signifies: awareness of the self. An animal is conscious, but a person is self-conscious: I am not only aware of the desk at which I am writing, but I am also aware that Iam aware of it. Memory is significant, as William James has said, not because it dates events in the past, but because it dates events in my past: hence it is charged with the feeling of familiarity. Self-determination is the power of the self to determine its own ends: in every choice, factors of heredity and factors of environment play their respective roles, but the ultimate choice (determination) is that of the personal reaction to given alternatives, the reaction of the I. The stronger motive always wins, true; but the stronger motive is stronger because it is the one most in harmony with the self, the ME.

(3) Goldenweiser, the anthropologist, writes (Anthropology, 32): All the fundamental traits of the psychic make-up of man anywhere are present everywhere. That is, homo sapiens is homo sapiens wherever and whenever he is found to exist: he is an intellectual, moral and volitional being. As such he had a beginning on this planet-he was the product of an Efficient Causality which antedated him, a Source and Ground of being, adequate to account for his unique powers as well as for those which he shares with the lower orders. Material, unconscious forces (atoms, protons, electrons, etc.) do not provide a sufficient cause for man’s powers of reason, conscience, and free will; the more complex and mysterious phenomena, those of life, consciousness, thought, self-consciousness, abstract and creative thought, the sense of values, etc., do not yield to interpretation solely in terms of physical and chemical forces. The gap between a sensation, which is an event in the nervous system, and the consciousness of that sensation (which includes the word-symbol by which the sensation is identified plus the meaning which this symbol has in terms of individual memory and experience) is the abyss which cannot be bridged by any physiochemical theory. (Some forty years ago John Dewey wrote a book entitled, How We Think.This book became a must in a great many of our colleges. I had to use it as a college textbook myself, But I discovered that, after reading it, I had learned much about neurosensory arcs, receptors, effectors, synapses, and the like, but very little, after all, about how we think. As man is now constituted, thought may be, and probably is, correlated with neural energy of some kind; but this does not mean that neural processes and the thought processes are identical, not by any manner of means.) The meaning of meaning lies outside the realm of either the physical or the chemical, or even the biological. Psychology cannot be reduced to sheer physiology.

(4) In the light of the vastness of the cosmos as it is now apprehended under the telescope, the individual man seems to be reduced to an infinitesimal fragment of the whole. Eddington tells us (NPW, 1-3) that the atom is as porous as the solar system. He adds: If we eliminated all the unfilled space in a man’s body and collected his protons and electrons in one mass, the man would be reduced to a speck just visible with a magnifying glass. Speaking in dimensional terms, then, man is indeed insignificant. Man, however, is not to be evaluated in terms of body, that is, of three-dimensional being; man is to be interpreted, rather, in terms of the fourth dimension-that of mind or soul. The tendency has been in recent years to belittle the doctrine of anthropocentrism as an evidence of human vanity; as someone remarked, on occasion, Astronomically speaking, man is insignificant. To which the pointed reply was made, Yes, but astronomically speaking, man is the astronomer. The world is, and always will be, anthropocentric, that is, in the sense that every person is inevitably the center of his own experienced world: this is a fact which no amount or kind of human theorizing will change. Nature is individualistic: we come into the world one by one, and we go out of it one by one, and every person, while in it, is uniquehe is an other to every other person. There is no alchemy by which the elements of my personalitymy thoughts, memories, experiences, etccan become the constituent factors of any other person’s personality. Nor is it vanity for man to think that he is the consciously intended end-product of the whole creative process, of the plan of the universe: it is simply a fact that if the world with its systems and galaxies is not here for man’s contemplation, use and benefit (to provide for him not only physical sustenance, but also the truth, beauty and goodness (order) which in his innermost being he craves), then the whole subpersonal realm is without meaningneither the cosmos itself nor any man’s life in it has any significance whatever. (A colleague once remarked to me that he simply could not believe that a certain grasshopper was begotten and born to furnish breakfast for a certain turkey gobbler. Probably notit is doubtful that anyone would carry teleology to such an extreme as this. But the fact remains that unless food of some kind were provided for turkey gobblers, they could not exist; and unless turkey gobblers existed in their turn, we as human beings could never enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and the trimmings. The world we live in is a world of ends and means, and by the grace of God man is appointed to be the lord tenant of it (Genesis 1:27-30; Genesis 9:1-7; Psalms 8:3-6).

(5) The vastness of space is indeed overwhelming, and even only a partial apprehension of this vastness by a human mind engenders profound awe: as Pascal has put it, The eternal silence of infinite space is terrifying. Such vast distances seem to us so impersonal, as someone has said, so unconcerned with human life and destiny. Indeed this must have been the feeling of the Psalmist when he cried out (Psalms 8:3-4):

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?

The plain fact is that if there is no friendly Spirit behind it all and through it allno infinite concern of God for manman is utterly lost. This is true beyond all gainsaying. Man needs, therefore, an object of affection above and beyond his own kind: One who can call forth his highest efforts, One who can lure him on to the realization of his noblest potentialities. Matthew 5:48Ye therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Only the Being of infinite wisdom, power, goodness and holiness can meet the needs and aspirations of the human soul. This Being must exist. Otherwise man’s greatest need would be forever unsatisfied, and his whole existence would be but a synonym for complete frustration. As Chesterton has put it: Man is either the image of God or a disease of the dust. Psalms 42:7Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterfalls. Or in the memorable words of Augustine: Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.

(6) The normal person knows himself to be an inscrutable synthesis of thought, feeling, desire and will. Because of this knowledge of his own being, he persists in acknowledging and seeking the God who is in some measure congenial to him through the possession of like powers. This is the reason why the religious consciousness of man will never be satisfied with the cold-blooded, mechanistic, Spinozistic god of the pantheist. Man is compelled to think of God in terms of his own experience: he cannot do otherwise. Every power that is specifically characteristic of man (i.e., characteristic of man as man) points directly to the God of the Bible, the God who is essentially Spirit (John 4:24), the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Genesis 1:27; Job 33:4; Psalms 42:2, etc.).

5. The Moral Proof

Let us now look at the Moral Proof of the existence of God, namely, that the fact of the existence of values in our world, both subjectively and objectively, points directly to the Summum Bonum (God) as the Beginning and End of all values.

(1) By subjectively we mean, existing in the mind of the subject, the person. By objectively we mean, existing in the structure of the cosmos or of the totality of being. By the Summum Bonum we mean the Highest Good, i.e., Wholeness, Holiness or Perfection. This is variously called the moral, ethical, valuational, or axiological argument (from the Greek axios, meaning worthy of, deserving, having value, etc.). Obviously there is some overlapping of this and the other arguments cited, particularly the Argument from the Fact of Personality.

(2) From time immemorial men have puzzled over the problem of evil, the problem of justifying the ways of God to men (the motif of all epic poetry: cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 26). Some have tried to explain away evil as an illusion of mortal mind, but of course they do not tell us how mortal mind came to be possessed (or obsessed) by such an illusion. As a rule, the race has been so concerned with the problem of evil that it has been prone to overlook the fact of the good.But anthropology, archaeology, and history all agree to the fact that there has been just as much good as evil, just as much cooperation as conflict, in the story of man, even from the very beginning of his life upon this earth. As a matter of fact, if the good had not outweighed the evil in his life, personal and social, man probably would have destroyed himself long ago. (Tomes have been written about prehistoric man, a great deal of which is sheer fantasy. As Chesterton says (EM, 26, 27, 28): People have been interested in everything about the cave-man except what he did in the cave. He adds: Now there does happen to be some real evidence of what he did in the cave. What was found in the cave was not the club, the horrible gory club notched with the number of women it had knocked on the head. The cave was not a Bluebeard’s Chamber filled with the skeletons of slaughtered wives; it was not filled with female skulls all arranged in rows and all cracked like eggs. What was found there? Drawings or paintings of animals; and they were drawn or painted not only by a man but by an artist. They showed the experimental and adventurous spirit of the artist. Breasted, the Egyptologist, tells us (DC) that such words as righteousness, truth, justice, and the like are to be found in the Egyptian fragments as early as the fourth millennium before Christ. The same is true of the evidence of the Mesopotamian fragments.) Man, as far back as he is known historically, aboriginally, and prehistorically, has ever exhibited by his activities the fourfold quest for truth, beauty, goodness (order) and wholeness.

(3) Man is a creature of moral law.As Rollo May writes (MSH, 174): Man is the -ethical animal-’ethical in potentiality even if, unfortunately, not in actuality. His capacity for ethical judgmentlike freedom, reason and the other unique characteristics of the human beingis based upon his consciousness of himself. The human being has never been known, even in the most primitive state, to be without conscience, without a sense of values, without a sense of obligation or duty. If man were merely an aspect of nature (a very ambiguous term, one which certainly needs to be defined prior to any intelligent discussion which may involve its use), then any injunction to obey the ways (laws) of nature or to depart from them would be meaningless. But it is well known that the sense of duty may impel men at times to act in direct opposition to the will to live. In the recent World War, for example, heroes of the Resistance, men without belief in eternal values, in fact without belief in anything except perhaps the pleasure of the moment, nevertheless gave themselves up to torture and death rather than to betray their fellows to the Nazis; and the same has happened recently in outbreaks against the Soviet tyrants. Surely this sense of duty in man implies God as the Source of it and the Guarantor of its integrity. (Cf. Wordsworth, Ode to Duty:

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!

O Duty! if that name thou love

Who art a light to guide, a rod

To check the erring, and reprove;

Thou, who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free; And calm’St the weary strife of frail humanity!)

Cf. Hebrews 11:6He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him. This, basically, was the argument of the German philosopher, Kant (1724-1804). We cannot prove God, said he, by pointing to the starry heavens above, awesome as they may be; rather, it is the moral law within which convinces us that God actually exists. This moral law within is an unconditional mandate (categorical imperative) to heed the call of duty. Conscience, which is the internal apprehension of this moral law, assumes that moral ideals can be and ought to be realized. But they can be realized only if there is a Sovereign Moral Will, God, as their Source and Guarantor; only God can achieve that proper balance between rewards and punishments which is the essence of perfect justice. Thus the moral law per se demands that God exist. It demands, moreover, a future life (immortality) for the actualization of this reign of perfect justice, that is, for the balancing of accounts; it is only by postulating God, freedom, and immortality, that man can hope to achieve ultimate unity and coherence of his actions.

(4) Man is a creature of conscience: by nature he is a moral being; inevitably and inescapably he has what is properly called a moral experience. Brosnahan (PE, 3, 4): In our moral experience one fact stands out preeminently, primary, universal, and specific. Every man who has attained the use of reason is aware of a magisterial power incorporated in his being, that watches over his conduct, hales him before-’ its tribunal, and judges him impartially and without appeal. This indwelling power has been variously designated. For the present we shall call it conscience. The functions of conscience are threefold: it judges, condemning, commending, or exculpating the past act; it witnesses, accusing, justifying, or defending the present act; it dictates, commanding, permitting, or forbidding the future act. All men judge that there is a difference between right and wrong, good and bad, in man’s free activity; as a consequence, therefore, they judge that there are some free human acts which the person ought not to elicit, and some which he ought to elicit: the universality of this judgment is what Scholastic philosophers have designated the Ethical Fact. Codes of morality may vary with time and place, as a result of social conditioning, economic pressure, diverse traditions, and other variable factors. But the fundamental categories of right and wrong are inherent in human nature; moreover, there is an undercurrent of unanimity as to basic ethical principles throughout all human thought. (The recognition of the fundamental right to life, for example, and the law against the taking of human life on one’s own authority (murder) are characteristic of all cultures throughout the story of man’s existence upon earth.) Aristotle held, and many thinkers after him, that the sense of justice is innate in man. Conscience in the person is defined as the voice of practical reason; it follows, therefore, that where man with reason has existed (and without the power of reason he could not be called homo sapiens) there man with conscience has existed: reason and conscience are inseparable. Again, it must be obvious that the very fact of conscience demands the Sovereign Good as its Guarantor.

(5) Man is specified as man, among other things, by a sense of values. Cassirer points out (EM, 79-86) that man is to be distinguished from the brute by his power to think and act in terms of the possible as distinguished from the actual, in terms of the ideal as distinguished from the real. (Sociology, for example, is the study of human behavior as it apparently is; ethics, on the other hand, is the study of human conduct, i.e., human behavior as it ought to be.(MacIver, the sociologist, says (STS, 520): To liveis to act, and to act is to choose, and to choose is to evaluate. As human beings we are making choices constantly every day of our lives, and choice is a personal selection of that which is desired, in preference to something else, because it is more valued. Persons would never be involved in disagreements, would never quarrel, if there were not at the root of differences a question of value. The world in which man really lives is a world of values rather than the world of things: things have meaning for him only in terms of their value. Hence, history testifies eloquently to the fact that the life of man is a story of his

Straining forever to the light That flows from regions out of sight.

Moreover, because man lives in a world of values, he has never been known to be without some form of law, either customary (existing as handed down by tradition) or statutory (existing in stereotyped form: on stone tablets, on parchment or papyrus, or in the form of the written or printed word). What is human (positive) law in essence but the amplification and clarification of the natural law (the law which is incorporated in human nature and in human natural relationships), and what is it as to function but man’s efforts at conserving those ideals and practices which his reason (aided by revelation, of course, in our culture in which we are privileged to have the Bible) tells him to be of value to him as an individual and as a society? Law, however, is the expression of the will of the lawgiver; hence, natural laws of any kindeven those of physics and chemistrymust be regarded as the expression of the Will of the Divine Lawgiver, God, whose Will is the constitution of the universe, both physical and moral. Truly, a lawless world would be a godless world, and vice versa. (Cf. Genesis 1:3; Genesis 1:6; Genesis 1:9; Genesis 1:11, etc.; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:1-6; John 1:1-3; John 1:14; Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:1-3; Hebrews 11:3, etc.).

(6) In any reasonable and just world, it would seem that goodness and happiness should be linked together: that is, that the morally good man should be happy and the wicked man unhappy. But, obviously, such is not always the case: as far as our present world is concerned, the righteous often suffer while the wicked prosper, a Judas gets along about as well as a Socrates, and a Nero about as well as a Paul. But man refuses to believe that this is the final word on the subject. There must be an ultimate Good, a Sovereign Will, who will see to it that justice (the proper relation of goodness and happiness) shall eventually reign, in the day of the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21). There must be the Holy and Righteous One who will, in the day of reckoning, render to every man according to his deeds, whether they be good or bad. If justice is anything more than a fiction, there must eventually be a judgment, an accounting. There is no point in calling this wishful thinkingit is the spontaneous outcry of the human soul for the Ultimate Right, the Highest Good. (Cf. Psalms 89:14, Acts 17:31, Romans 2:5-6, 2 Corinthians 11:15, Hebrews 10:27, John 5:29; Matthew 16:27; Matthew 25:31-46; Matthew 13:24-30; 2 Peter 2:4-9; 2 Peter 3:8-13; Revelation 20:11-15.)

(7) Man and his values are a part of the structure of the totality of being.The superficial distinction too often made between facts and values is an arbitrary one: values are facts of the world we live in. Ultimate truth, both physical and moral, is in the very structure of being-as-such. The laws of physics and chemistry, for example, are simply descriptions of processes which man discovers in the world around him. Lightning, for instance, was a form of electricity long before Ben Franklin flew his kite and discovered it to be such. King Tut might easily have had a radio or television set to provide him with entertainment on his journey to the land of Osiris, had his contemporaries only had the know-how in the field of electronics. Rome could easily have dropped a hydrogen bomb on Carthage if her engineers had known how to harness the power of the atom. All that was lacking in any case was the knowledge on man’s part: all the ingredients and the processes involved have been part of the cosmic order from the dawn of creation. In the physical world, truth is one, and man only discovers it, (For a simple illustration, let us suppose that Smith and Jones have a mutual friend, Brown. Smith meets Jones on the street one day and says to him, I saw Brown a few minutes ago and he was wearing a lovely brand new overcoat, one that reached to his ankles and had five buttons on the front. Jones replies, I saw him too, new overcoat and all. But you are mistaken about the number of buttonsit had only three buttons in front spaced widely apart. Smith reaffirms, No, the overcoat had five buttons. You are the one who is mistaken. And so the argument waxes warm. Until Smith declares, Five buttons is right and true for me.Jones hotly replies, Three buttons is the truth for me.Obviously, the phrase, for me, is utterly irrelevant, insofar as the actual truth is concerned. Smith and Jones hunt up Brown and take a look at the overcoat. The truth turns out to be that the actual number of buttons on the overcoat is four. What Smith and Jones thought about it had no bearing on the facts in the case. And so it is always with respect to the cosmos around us: it is what it is. Truth is in the objective order; it is one; and it is discovered, not formulated, by man. The same is true with respect to truth in the moral realm: ultimate moral truth is incorporated in the structure of human nature and human natural relationships.This is what is meant in our Western tradition by the phrase, natural moral law, or just the moral law, or, as it is sometimes designated, the law of human nature. Aristotle: The law is reason unaffected by desire. Cicero: The law is not in opinion but in nature. As Dorothy L. Sayers has written (MM, 24, 26): There is a universal moral law, as distinct from a moral code, which consists of certain statements of fact about the nature of man; and by behaving in conformity with which, man enjoys his true freedom. The universal law (or natural law of humanity) is discoverable, like any other law of nature by experience. It cannot be promulgated, it can only be ascertained, because it is a question not of opinion but of fact. When it has been ascertained, a moral code can be drawn up to direct human behavior and prevent men, as far as possible, from doing violence to their own nature. Defy the commandments of the natural law, and the race will perish in a few generations; cooperate with them, and the race will flourish for ages to come. This is the fact; whether we like it or not, the universe is made that way. Moral law has its foundation in human nature and human natural relationships.Man’s external relationships are three in number, namely, (a) that of dependence upon the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God (to borrow the appropriate phrase from the Declaration of Independence), the natural relationship which is the source of all religious rights and duties; (b) that of equality with his fellows, the relationship which is the source of all social and civil rights and duties; and .(c) that of trusteeship or proprietorship over the subhuman orders, the relationship from which all property rights originate. (All human beings are equal in the sight of the Creator in the sense that they have all been created persons; and this equality is confirmed by the fact that Christ died for all men alike. See Malachi 2:10; Acts 17:26; Romans 5:6-8; 1 Corinthians 15:3; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15; 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10; 1 Timothy 2:5-6; Hebrews 10:10, etc.). It should be noted, moreover, that these relationships inhere in the nature of things; they are the givens; man does not create them, nor can he change them in any way; he finds them here on his arrival in the world; and from them all his rights and obligations derive. Therefore, we may rightly define the Natural Moral Law (the Moral Law) as that law which is the promulgation in man of the Eternal Law, the Will of God, the Law by which the human being is constituted a person and by which, therefore, human nature and human natural relationships are ordained to be precisely what they are. The primary principles of the Moral Law are set forth in the two Great Commandments (Matthew 22:35-40; Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). The secondary principles of the Moral Law are incorporated in the broad general norms of the Decalogue (Exodus 20:1-17). These moral norms were indeed known to man from the beginning, embedded in his conscience and handed down by tradition, but because of the growing wickedness of the race it became necessary for them to be codified (in order to be preserved) through the mediatorship of Moses. Galatians 3:19the law was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come. Each of these secondary principles must be applied, of course, to the concrete life situation. (Think of the many different kinds of homicide, of disrespect for parents, of theft, of lying, of false witness, of contract-breaking, of covetousness, etc.) The tertiary principles of the Moral Law are set forth in human customary or statutory law: all human law is just to the extent only that it amplifies and clarifies the natural moral law. (Traffic regulations, for example, are for the ultimate end of protecting man’s most fundamental right, namely, the right to life.) The basic principles of the moral law are amenable to human apprehension (even to reason unaided by special revelation) by means of the principle of universalization; that is to say, the determination of the goodness or badness of an act on the ground of what the result would be if the act were universalized, that is, if everybody did it. It would have to be agreed, I am sure, that the universal practice of murder, theft, adultery, lying, perjury, covenant-breaking, disrespect for parents, etc., or indeed of any one of these, would destroy social order and in all probability would bring about the destruction of the race.

(8) Legality, then, if it has any real basis, must have it in morality, and morality has its basis in human nature and in human natural relationships; that is, in the Moral Law promulgated in the person as such, the law which is in turn the promulgation of the Eternal Law, the expression of the Sovereign Will. This Will is the ultimate norm by which the person is constituted a person with all the rights and duties that attach to him solely and simply because he is a person. As Nathaniel Micklem of Mansfield College, Oxford, writes (TP, 60): The Source of our being and the Artificer of our nature is God Himself. That -law of nature-’ which, as the Apostle held, is written on the hearts even of the heathen (Romans 2:14-16), is an expression of the Reason which of itself is a reflection of the wisdom and -eternal law-’ of God; second, as reflecting it, the -law of nature,-’ and third, the customary and statute law of men, which has no validity except as an approximation to the -law of nature.-’ Moral obligation is not physical compulsion; nor is it mere custom or convention; nor is it mere advantage or expediency: it is the obligation placed upon the human will, proximately by the positive law insofar as that law reflects the natural moral law, mediately by the natural moral law, and ultimately by the Eternal Law, the Will of God. Hence morals are not to be identified with mores, nor is morality to be identified in all respects with legality: doing right is of a higher order than being careful or keeping out of the penitentiary. This is a lesson which our age needs to learn. Moreover, the morale of a nation inescapably is dependent on its morality.

(9) Even the ethical relativist, the man who would insist that morality is nothing but the fashion of a particular time and place, finds himself obliged, if he has a single drop of the milk of human kindness in his veins, to accept at least the human being himself as the norm of moral action. Dr. Robert Ulich, Professor of Education at Harvard tells (HC, 149-150) of a scientist (the man was a physician and also a social psychologist) who, in the course of a scholarly discussion, affirmed his espousal theoretically of the relativist position for the scientist. Whereupon one of the discussants present asked him if it would be possible to work out the variables essential to a valid scientific experiment designed to work over into criminals a group of normal children. The speaker replied that he thought it could be done. The discussant then asked him if he did not think it in the interest of the science of criminology that such an experiment should be made. The scientist answered that in his opinion such an experiment would indeed prove enlightening. He was then asked point-blank why he had never undertaken such an experiment. His reply was that children could not be found for such an experiment for the simple reason that parents could not be found who would be willing for their children to be subjected like human guinea pigs to such a test. Then the final question was put to him: But, sir, if the children, and consenting parents, could be found, would you be willing to make the proposed experiment? The scientist replied, with an oath, Do you think I am one of those Nazi war crime doctors who tortured human beings for so-called scientific experiments? Who would wilfully turn a child into a criminal? Dr. Ulich adds: What was happening in this discussion was the denial of relativism by its defender. Unconsciously, he had always made his scientific system relative to something he apparently considered absolute, namely the human being. This human being was to him not another piece of flesh or another species of animals (with which he constantly experimented). Rather it was sacred, belonging, if one wants to say so, to a system superior to all other systems. Making a criminal out of a man by scientific means would have meant to him not only degradation of the value and dignity of humanity, but also of science itself. (10) Legal positivism is the denial of natural law and natural right and obligation altogether. The legal positivist admits no more ultimate source of law and right than the law of the tribe or state of which the person happens to be a unit. Yet the legal positivist cannot, any more than the ethical relativist, eliminate the human being as such as the natural norm. (The Bible makes it crystal clear that even all divinely revealed law is for man’s benefit.Cf. the penalty pronounced on mankind, Genesis 3:17cursed is the ground for thy sake, etc. Also the words of Jesus, Mark 2:27The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.) Even the late Justice Holmes, who certainly was inclined to the positivist view, felt obliged to admit (see Max Lerner, MFJH, 396) that certain necessary elements would have to characterize a society which would seem to us to be civilized, namely, some form of permanent association between the sexes, some residue of property individually owned, some mode of binding oneself to specified future conduct, and at the bottom of all, some protection for the person. (But why some protection for the person? Obviously and solely because of the person’s dignity and worth as a person.And what is the basis of man’s dignity and worth as a person? Could it be anything else than the fact that he is created in the image of God, Genesis 1:26-27?) The simple fact of the matter is that if the will of one man, or of a group of men, or even of a majority of men, is that which constitutes law and right, then the right of individual conscience, or the right of the minority, does not actually exist, Manifestly, there must be a law somewhere that is of higher obligatory power than the law of the tribe or state: a law superior to the will of one man or that of a few men or even that of a majority. There must be a law somewhere that is binding alike on the ruler and on the ruled; otherwise the ruler could never do wrong, the majority could never enact an unjust law, and such rights as the right of individual conscience and the right of the minority would become mere fictions or at most only gratuities bestowed by a ruling regime. If there is no law anywhere superior to the civil authority, to the will of the ruling regime, then the will of that ruling regime, backed as it always is by physical force, becomes the absolute source of law and right from which there is no appeal. This is simply the world-old doctrine that Might makes Right. Hence, the enlightened conscience of man has ever held that there is a Moral Law, the expression of the Eternal Law, the Will of the Creator, which is superior to, and the ground of, all just civil authority and civil law. To abandon this credo is to turn man over to the whims of tyrants and totalitarian regimes. As William Penn once put it, If men are not willing to be governed by God, they will be governed by tyrants.

(11)Will legal positivism stand up, under either logical or empirical scrutiny, or even under the scrutiny of common sense? I think not. For example, is an enactment of a state legislature or national congress necessary to create the division of sex into male and female, the division which lies at the root of all forms of society and upon which the continuity of the race depends? Of course not. This is a provision of the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. Again, is an enactment by any human legislative body necessary to ordain that parents shall have children, and shall provide for and protect their children, or that children shall respect their parents? I think not. Such obligations inhere in the very nature of the world and of man, and indeed were more scrupulously observed in primitive society than in modern society. Again, Is a legislative enactment necessary to establish the Golden Rule as a principle of human conductthe principle that every man should do unto others as he would have others do unto him? I think not. This principle (of reciprocity) is as old as antiquity itself and indeed, in all probability, cotemporaneous with homo sapiens.Still again, two years ago the faculty and staff of Columbia University celebrated that institution’s Bicentennial. The theme of the various sessions was the right to knowledge. I therefore ask: Must man have a legislative enactment to give him the right to knowledge? I think not. Does not his natural capacity for knowledgeby virtue of his having been created or constituted a persongive him the natural right to knowledge? Is not the natural right to knowledge the necessary means to the right to life in its growing fulnessthe necessary means to personal self-realization and to social adjustment as well? This brings us, of course, to the ultimate question: Does man simply live, or does he have the right to life? Is man simply to accept himself as a person without giving any thought to the rights and duties of personality? Must we stop thinking in terms of ultimates and simply adopt Popeye’s philosophy (which is, incidentally, that of Positivism), I yam what I yam? In short, Has man been constituted a person by any act of a human legislature? The question is absurd, of course, on the face of it. Man is a person, with the right to personality, by virtue of having been created a person, and that by the Efficient Causality, God, who is the Source and Ground of His being. Concerning this right to personality, Cassirer gives us, I think, the conclusion of the whole matter, as follows (MS, 219): There is at least one right which cannot be ceded or abandoned: the right to personality. If a man could give up his personality he would cease being a moral being. He would become a lifeless thingand how could such a thing obligate itselfhow could it make a promise to enter into a social contract? This fundamental right, the right to personality, * includes in a sense all the others. To maintain and to develop his personality is a universal right. It is not subject to the freaks and fancies of single individuals and cannot, therefore, be transferred from one individual to another. The contract of rulership which is the legal basis of all civil power has, therefore, its inherent limits. There is no pactum subjectionis, no act of submission by which man can give up the state of a free agent and enslave himself. For by such an act of renunciation he would give up that very character which constitutes his nature and essence: he would lose his humanity. (Thus we see what is meant by the phrase, unalienable rights.)

(12) Natural law and natural right and obligation are terms which have no meaning whatever apart from the Sovereign Will of God as the obligating norm of moral action. Hence the profound affirmations of our Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator (not by any man or group of men, not even by a majority vote of men) with certain unalienable rights; that among such rights are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.That is to say, all men have these specified unalienable rights by creation, by virtue of having been created persons; hence, the proper function of government is that of protecting these rights (of making them secure). Obviously, no human government can grant rights and impose duties which inhere in all men by virtue of their having been created persons. Moreover, these are said to be unalienable rights, that is, rights which cannot be alienated from the person as such. They attach to the person simply and solely because he is a person: he can neither give them away nor can they be taken from him by another. There is a subtle distinction to be made here between the right itself and the exercise of the right. True it is that a man may be called on to jeopardize the exercise of his right to life in the interest of the common good; or he may be unjustly deprived of the exercise of the rights to life and liberty by the act of a tyrannical government. But under any and all conditions, the rights themselves remain unimpaired; they can no more be alienated from the person than his memories, thoughts, and experiences can be alienated from him: these rights inhere in personality itself and remain forever unimpaired both in this world and in the world to come. (The same is true of man’s natural obligations, one of which is to render to God the internal and external worship that is due Him.) (Note, too, that the idea of personal survival (i.e., beyond the death of the body) is implicit in this doctrine of unalienable rights.) (For a thoroughgoing presentation of this doctrine of the Moral Law, see Corwin, The Higher Law Background of American Constitutional Law, a Great Seal Book, published by the Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York.)

(13) Natural moral law, natural right, and natural obligation, all belong, of course, in the realm of those facts which usually are categorized as values.Hence, like all values, they are not amenable to observation, measurement, or proof, in a laboratory of science. But certainly it has been proved again and again, from laboratory of human history, that the moment a nation or an individual abandons or ignores these values, that nation or that individual is on the way to every form of injustice and cruelty imaginable.

(14) All good, all right, all law, all values, all rights, etc., have their ultimate Source in the Sovereign Will of God if they have any binding force whatever, that is, any binding force that is moral rather than physical (sheer might). To illustrate, I am reminded of the story of two salesmen who, in the days when travel was chiefly by train, boarded a passenger coach standing in the railroad yards, disposed themselves and their bags as comfortably as possible, and leaned back to enjoy an hour or more of relaxation. Not long afterward the brakeman thrust his head in at the front door and asked, What are you fellows doing in here? What do you think we-’re doing? answered one of the salesmen, rather sarcastically, and added: We-’re going over to the county seat, of course. Not in this coach, declared the brakeman, The salesmen, exasperated, shouted, almost in unison, Why not in this coach? Because, answered the brakeman, if you-’d used your eyes, you-’d know why. You could -a-’ seen that this coach ain-’t coupled onto anything that-’ll take you anywhere. Laws, goods, values, rights, etc., that are not coupled onto the Sovereign Will of God as the Guarantor of their integrity are not sufficient to take any human being anywhere either in this world or in the next. Denial of natural law and natural right is the final proof of the shallowness which has characterized recent ethical and political thought. (15) The clearest and simplest presentation of the ethical or valuational argument for the existence of God, of which I have any knowledge, is that from the pen of C. S. Lewis, in his excellent little book (which certainly every Christian should read) entitled, The Case for Christianity (published by Macmillan, New York, 1943). His presentation may be summarized briefly as follows: There is in every accountable person the concept of a Law of Right and Wrong (whether it be called a Law or Rule of Fair Play, of Decent Behavior, or what not), that is to say, a Law of Human Nature; otherwise, there would not be repeated differences, even quarrels, about the significance of human acts. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man’s in the wrong (p. 4). Two facts stand out in all human experience: First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way and can-’t really get rid of it. Secondly, that they don-’t in fact behave that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in (p. 7). This twofold intuition is proof of the fact that men do believe in a real Right and Wrong, no matter how variously they may interpret the modus operandi thereof. The ordinary laws of nature, describing what Nature in fact does, do not give us the whole story. The Law of Human Nature tells us what we as persons ought to do, and don-’t. Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better. If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others (p. 11). Yet comparisons of better or worse do, in themselves, point to an ultimate (absolute) Morality or Good Will. Life is made up of the facts (how men do behave) plus something else (how they ought to behave), and these oughts are also facts, facts which cannot be accounted for by any impersonal Life-Force, Creative-Evolution or Emergent-Evolution philosophy. There is a Moral Law in us declaring that men ought to be fair, that they ought to be unselfish. But men are not always fair, not always unselfish, and they know they are not.This Moral Law points definitely to a Something or Somebody from above and beyond the material universe who is actually getting at us. We have two bits of conclusive evidence about this Somebody: namely, the universe which He has made, and the Moral Law which He has put into our minds (p. 25). It is at this point that Christianity comes into the picture, as the only system which resolves our basic human problems. This it does by dealing with man realistically: it tells him that he is not just an imperfect creature who is in need of improvement, one who can lift himself up to perfection simply by tugging at his own bootstraps; that, rather, he is a rebel who must lay down his arms and accept the Remedy which God has provided for him. That Remedy is the Supreme Sacrifice on the Cross (supreme, because it was not made by man for man, but made by God Himself for man, and made out of His love for fallen man; hence, the Atonement). The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start (p. 46). 2 Corinthians 5:19God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Christianity proves its divine origin by its realism: it finds man in precisely the fallen and helpless state morally in which his conscience testifies that he is (if, of course, he will only be honest with himself; cf. Luke 8:15); and it does even more: it offers the remedy, it provides the way outthe way to forgiveness, restoration and life everlasting. It presents the living and true God, who is not only Sovereign Righteous Will, but who is also the Forgiving Father who, by the offering of His Son, has made it possible for Eternal Justice himself to be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:26).

(16) God is Truth, Beauty, Goodness, all these and more: He is Wholeness or Holiness (John 17:11, Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 4:8). Worship (praise, adoration, commemoration, meditation, prayer, service, etc.) is man’s acknowledgement of the worth-ship of God. (Rudolph Otto, in his book The Idea of the Holy, proposes the view that religious value is characterized by a single unique quality which he designates the numinous, a quality totally different from any profane or secular experience, the quality of mysterious and fascinating awe. The holy in God is the awesomeness of God. Cf. Genesis 28:17Jacob’s experience at Bethel: And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Deuteronomy 4:24Jehovah thy God is a devouring fire. Hebrews 10:31It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.)

(17) Dr. Samuel M. Thompson writes (MPR, 197): Men pass judgment upon themselves. They are aware of their failure to fulfil the obligations they accept. They judge themselves, what they are, in the light of a conception of what they ought to be. A man is, and so is a fact; but he demands of himself that he be what he ought to be, and he judges himself by that standard. By virtue of his moral nature he denies his complete submergence in natural fact. He is fact, it is true; but he sees himself also as under a moral necessity to make fact, and to make it in accordance with models which are not themselves mere facts of nature. Human nature contains within itself the power to act for the sake of what it understands its own end to be. This is will; it is genuine action, not merely reaction. Man has ideas of what he should be and he acknowledges his obligation to act in accordance with those ideas. But on what does this obligation rest? What justifies the judgment he passes upon himself when he fails to do what he thinks he should do? That is, what does it mean in relation to the Reality of the cosmic structure that some of its inhabitants have a moral experience which is qualitatively different from every other class of phenomena in the world and is not reasonably to be accounted for by the operation of the physical and chemical, or even vital, forces? Both common sense and Scripture give only one satisfactory answer to these questions: that answer isGod, The fact of values in man and his world is proof that God exists as the Summum Bonum, the Beginning and the End of all true value. A world without the cardinal virtues or values (prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice), and especially one without the theological virtues or values (faith, hope, and love) would be a lawless world and a godless world: it would be a world without any meaning whatsoever. Only a world with values inherent in it can have meaning, and these values can derive their integrity only from the Sovereign Good Will. Again quoting Thompson (MPR, 432): How is man to find real value, and to distinguish it from the appearance of value? There is only one way, and that is to find absolute value embodied in real existence. This is the answer of religion, and it is an answer most explicit in the Christian religion. When absolute good comes to man through the channel of his own nature alone its image is so twisted and distorted by the medium through which it passes that he cannot see it as good. Again (ibid., 529-530): Theism, as a philosophy, begins and ends with a sense of our own finiteness. The nineteenth century positivist, on the contrary, was sure of everything. What he knew was certain, and what he did not know he was sure could not be known. Such cocky arrogance was made possible only by his ability to ignore the difficulties involved in any ultimate questioning. It never occurred to Mill or Comte, nor has it occurred to their twentieth century offspring, ever to stare at such a problem as that raised by Leibniz’s question: Why is there something rather than nothing? Again (ibid., 15): Any conception of God, whatever else it may include, must regard God as really existing. A non-existing God is a contradiction in terms. A conception of God must consider God to be the primary or ultimate existent; that is to say we cannot apply the word God to anything which depends on something else for its existence. Finally, we mean by God the source of the good and the final reality of value. The following excerpt from a radio address by Karl Stern, M.D., July 17, 1955, entitled Psychiatry and Religion, is especially pertinent here, in conclusion. Dr. Stern calls attention to the general positivistic atmosphere of our time, the belief that science is the only fountain of truth and that revelation is bunk, the view that has pervaded large sectors of our culture. He goes on to say: In the time of the Renaissance, philosophers butted into the realm of the scientists. They wanted to disprove discoveries about the movements of stars on the basis of what Aristotle or Aquinas had to say. Now the tables are turned. Now some of our scientists want to apply the scientific method to problems which lie in the realm of philosophy. And the result would be quite unimaginable. There are two basic and entirely different modes of human insightscience and wisdom.Wisdom can tell us nothing about the chemical composition of proteins. And science can tell us nothing about the moral values of Man. At a religious soap box meeting at Hyde Park Corner an atheist heckler once remarked, concerning the creation: -If I had made a universe I certainly would do a better job than God,-’ whereupon the speaker remarked: -I don-’t want to challenge you on this, but would you mind, for the time being, making a rabbit, just to establish confidence?-’ The world of spiritual values is also a universe, and no matter how many new things we discover in the science concerning Man, we won-’t be able to do the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount over. None of us would be able to improve on them.

N. B.No doubt the student has taken note of the unusual length of this Lesson. I have gone to this length in order to make clear the theological foundation of democracy. It is my belief that there can be only one real foundation for respect for self or respect for others, and that is the deep conviction that every person has been created in the image of God. The close correlation between Biblical teaching and social and political democracy is undeniable, and this is a fact which every citizen of the United States of America should clearly understand and never forget.C.C.C.)

6. The Aesthetic Proof

This is the Proof based on the Fact of Beauty throughout the cosmos. Man’s history down through the ages has ever been characterized by his recognition and contemplation of the various aspects of cosmic beauty. This is evident from the fact that from his most primitive state down to the present, he has invariably left behind his works of art. As G., K. Chesterton has written about the art which the cave-man left on the cave walls of Western Europe (EM, pp. 1-44): They were drawings or paintings of animals; and they were drawn or painted not only by a man but by an artist. They showed the experimental and adventurous spirit of the artist. it would seem that he was not only an artist but a naturalist; the sort of naturalist who is really natural. He goes on to say that there is no evidence whatever that this was the end-product of a long prior artistic development: For in the plain matter like the pictures there is in fact not a trace of any such development or degree. Monkeys did not begin pictures and men finish them; Pithecanthropus did not draw a reindeer badly and Homo Sapiens draw it well. The higher animals did not draw better and better portraits; the dog did not paint better in his best period than in his early bad manner as a jackal; the wild horse was not an Impressionist and the race-horse a Post-Impressionist. These artistic productions on the cave walls, Chesterton says, testify to something that is absolute and unique; that belongs to man and to nothing else except man; that is a difference of kind and not a difference of degree. A monkey does not draw clumsily and a man cleverly; a monkey does not begin the art of representation and a man carry it to perfection. A monkey does not do it at all; he does not begin to do it at all; he does not begin to begin to do it at all. A line of some kind is crossed [from brute to man] before the first faint line [of art] can begin. And finally: It is the simple truth that man does differ from the brutes in kind and not in degree; and that the proof of it is here; that it sounds like a truism to say that the most primitive man drew a picture of a monkey and that it sounds like a joke to say that the most intelligent monkey drew a picture of a man. Something of division and of disproportion has appeared; and it is unique. Art is the signature of man.

Of course, art is not to be confused with utility. As True-blood writes, Truth always requires corroboration, but beauty, wherever we find it, is self-justifying. The beautiful, he adds, is not primarily something which we seek, but something rather, which claims us (PR, 121). As Cassirer has written (EM, 143-145), art is also to be distinguished from science, because art is the intensification of reality, whereas science is the impoverishment of reality (that is, in the form of symbols, formulas, laws, etc.). That beauty is not merely subjective is evident from the fact that persons argue about aesthetic judgments, and the subjectivists argue as much as other persons do. Moreover, the sense of Beauty, as of a landscape, for instance, is publicly shared, and this could not be true if beauty were merely subjective. This public sharing of the appreciation of all things bright and beautiful is what Kant has called aesthetic universality. Hence, to say that a thing is beautiful for me has no relevance. This means that there is such a thing as natural beauty objectively: the beauty of the restless ocean, of the wind-swept prairie, of the starry heavens above, of the cathedral aisles of the Rockies and the pine-clad mountain slopes of the Alleghenies. Is there not, then, an Artist who is responsible for all this natural beauty? We must conclude with Dr. Trueblood (PR, 130): If the world is the creation of Infinite Mind, the prodigious beauty of the world makes sense. In short, if theism is true, the esthetic experience of natural beauty is what we should expect to find.

7. The Intuitional Proof

(1) Man is universally endowed with religious intuitions and aspirations, all of which point unmistakably to the Supreme Being who alone is able to supply his needs. Every human being enjoys salvation from physical death daily and hourly through the beneficence of a kind Providence. Man has always been profoundly conscious of his creaturehood, of the brevity and incompleteness of his temporal life: the tragic sense of life has borne down heavily upon his consciousness in all ages. (See Homer, Iliad, VI, 145-149: the words of Glaukos to Diomedes on the battlefield before Troy: Why dost thou inquire of my generation? Even as are the generations of leaves so likewise are those of men: the leaves that be, the wind scattereth upon the earth, and the forest buddeth and putteth forth more leaves again, when the season of spring is at hand; so of the generations of men one putteth forth and another ceaseth to be. Cf. also Psalms 115:15-16; Psalms 90:5-6; Job 14:1-2; Isaiah 40:6-8; James 1:10; 1 Peter 1:23-25.) M. M. Davis, How To Be Saved, p. 20: However fallen and degraded, there is something within man that reaches after God, and a piteous voice that cries to the unseen for help. All attempts by political cultists to brainwash man’s consciousness of his need of God, as the Rock of his salvation and his refuge and strength in time of trouble, out of his thoughts and his life, are doomed from the outset: their very unnaturalness consigns them to ultimate destruction. All people have their belief in some kind of God (or gods) no matter how depraved their concepts of His nature and character. Those who reject the living and true God will, in order to fill the vacuum thus created in their lives, heap to themselves false gods in the form of a Fuehrer, a Party, a Cause, etc., to which they give fanatical monolithic devotion, and in this manner make a religion of irreligion.

(2) The Vedas declare: There is but one Beingno second. The creed of Judaism was, and is, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah (Deuteronomy 6:4; Deuteronomy 4:35; Deuteronomy 4:39). The cry of a united Mohammedanism has always been: Allah is God, and Mohammed is his prophet. Even Brahma, Tao, The One, Unity, etc., of the philosophical mysticisms are designations for what is popularly designated God. The late Dr. Einstein is quoted by Lincoln Barnett (UDE, 106) as follows: My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable, superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. This, of course, is the pantheistic god of Spinoza, not the God of the Bible at all; still, it is a concept of God. Strong (ST, 56): The lowest tribes have conscience, fear death, believe in witches, propitiate or frighten away evil fates. Even the fetich-worshiper, who calls the stone or tree a god, shows that he has already the idea of a God. It is most interesting to note, too, that back of the mythological (and grossly anthropomorphic) pantheons of the early historic nations, as their foundation and support, was the belief in an All-Father or Great Spirit.

(3) Dr. Reiser of the University of Pittsburgh has written recently (NMG) of customs and impulses which cannot be uprooted from a humanity in whom the instinct to survive, the instinct to reproduce, and the instinct to worship the unknown source of all life, are of equal strength and validity. It should be noted also that the former outspoken pessimist and agnostic, Aldous Huxley, not so long ago turned to mysticism: see his book, The Perennial Philosophy.The late C. E. M. Joad, of the University of London, professor of philosophy and well-known author, also lived to experience a change of heart from agnosticism. Note also Walter Lippmann’s emphasis on the natural moral law, in his latest work, The Public Philosophy; and Joseph Wood Krutch, the critic, calls man back to a sense of his responsibility for making independent choices and value judgements, in a recent book, The Measure of Man.The fact that our contemporary literateurs are showing evidences of renewed sanity in their thinking may indeed be a hopeful sign.

(4) According to the anthropologist, Sir James Frazer, primitive magic must not be confused with religion; its real affinity, he contends, is with science rather than with religion. The shaman or medicine man, he says, presumes to control the higher powers by means of the appropriate ritual or incantation, just as the scientist claims the know-how to control, by formulas and rules, the forces of nature, Their approach is the same, even though magic is superstition, whereas science is usually what it claims to be,science. Religion, on the other hand, is anything but presumption to control: it is essentially humility, trust, faith, love, and prayer or petition to the superhuman Power or Powers. The very heart of religion is expressed in the well-known words, Not as I will, but as thou wilt (Matthew 26:39-42). Hangovers of primitive magic may be seen today in the antics of religious racketeers who presume to put God on the spot by demanding that He work a miracle at the time and place set by them, when as a matter of fact God causes miracles to occur at times and places set by Him and for His own ends: e.g., those persons who make a practice of showing off their alleged high standing with the Almighty by deliberately handling poisonous snakes, or those who demand repeated miracles of healing or other kinds of signs, as evidence of God’s approbation of them personally or of His fellowship with them. There is still too much barter, even in Christianity, too much saying to God, If you-’ll scratch my back, then I-’ll scratch yours. Pure love for God makes no such propositions, does not seek a sign (Matthew 16:1-4); in perfect trust it says always and only, Thy will be done (Matthew 6:10). I am reminded here of the incident which occurred in the nineteen-twenties (the decade which Frederick Lewis Allen, in his book, Only Yesterday, dubs the Great Age of Whoopee and Ballyhoo), in which the novelist, Sinclair Lewis, standing in the pulpit of an influential church in Kansas City, took advantage of the opportunity to prove, as he thought, that there is no God. Lewis had previously declared publicly that he did not believe in God, and, like most of his kind, evidently he thought that his disbelief was a matter of some consequence to the public; so, in the role of a clergyman, he stood in the pulpit, struck a defiant attitude, and with a sweeping gesture publicly defied Divine Power to strike him dead on the spot. With utter lack of good taste, he shouted, If there be a God, I defy him to strike me down in the next ten minutes. Dramatically, he pulled out his watchand waited. Of course, nothing happened, and thus Mr. Lewis proved to his own satisfaction that there was no God. The columnist, Arthur Brisbane, commenting on the incident afterward, had this to say: Mr. Storey of the Santa Fe Railroad manages railroads from Chicago to the Pacific. The trains pass over hundreds of railroad ties, and between the ties there are thousands of tiny ants, everywhere busy making a living. One ant says to another, -They tell me that, a mysterious W. B. Storey runs this railroad. I don-’t believe that there is a W. B. Storey, and just to prove it, I defy him, if he does exist, to come down here in the next ten minutes and step on me and kill me.-’ At the end of ten minutes, wrote Mr. Brisbane, that ant would feel as proud as Sinclair Lewis. But that would not mean that Storey could not step on the ant and kill it, if he wanted to; nor that the Ruler of the universe could not strike Lewis dead, if it were worth while. The point is that it isn-’t worth while.Some fifty years prior to this incident in Kansas City, Mrs. Annie Besant, who was then engaged in inflicting on the gullible the hocus-pocus known as theosophy, while addressing an audience of working-men in the Hall of Science, a slum auditorium in Old Street, London, struck a defiant pose, and, taking her watch in her hand, shouted dramatically, If there be a God in heaven, I give Him five minutes in which to strike me dead. There was complete silence as the minutes ticked slowly away and nothing happened. At the end of the allotted time, she turned to the audience and cried: Where is your God? This occurred on a Sunday evening. The following Sunday morning, Joseph Parker, the renowned minister of the City Temple, referred to Mrs. Besant’s challenge. He said: If on your return home this morning, your little boy, just learning to talk, were to surprise you by lifting his head up from the pillow to say, -You say you are my father. I don-’t believe you. If you are my father, I give you just five minutes to prove it by crushing the life out of me,-’ what would you do? Would you prove yourself the great being that you are and take your child by the throat and strangle him to death? No, you would press the little fellow’s head back on the pillow, rock the cradle a while, and say, Sleep, sleep, little one. Some day when you have grown bigger and learned a few things, you will know that I am your father.-’ Then, in a whisper that could be heard throughout that vast auditorium, Joseph Parker said, There is your God!

(5) We can neither assume nor recognize the finite as finite except by comparison with the Infinite. As Victor Hugo once said: Some men deny the sun: they are the blind. Even the atheists and ethical nihilists, whose first tenet is that God and duty are bugbears to be abolished, assume that God and duty exist somehow, and that they are impelled by a sense of duty to abolish them. The fanatical Marxist-Leninist, even though clinging to the silly notion that religion is the opium of the people, will resort to lies, treachery, torture, and even murder en masse, to bring in those values which he envisions as inherent in what he calls a classless society. (Let us not forget that the word utopia, which is derived from the Greek negative prefix, ou, and the Greek topos, place, means literally no place.) In modern times, the woods are full of these pseudo-religions, such as National Socialism, Fascism, Communism (falsely so-called), Humanism, etc., so-called religious substitutes for true religion. All of which goes to show that, as it has often been said, man is incurably religious. Or, as Toynbee has put it: Religion is manifestly one of the essential faculties of human nature. No individual human being and no human community is ever without a religion of some kind; and, when people are starved of religion, the desperate spiritual straits to which they are reduced by being deprived of this necessity of life can fire them to extract grains of religious consolation out of the most unpromising ores.

(6) Blind unbelief is sure to err, wrote Cowper. Of course. It errs, because it is blind: cf. Matthew 15:14. In all ages, of course, there have been individuals and groups who have indulged in the sport of throwing spitballs at the Almighty. Even in ordinary swearing, men seem to be unable to find any Names worthy of being invoked in oaths except those of God and Jesus Christ: unwittingly they are paying compliments, albeit left-handed ones, to the God of the Bible. Cf. Psalms 2:1-4: What does God think about all this human presumption and vanity? Psalms 2:4 answers the question: He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh: the Lord will have them in derision. I have the feeling that the Almighty’s sense of humor is being aroused in our day by the antics of ignorant mobs, rioting, vandalizing, destroying, and shouting their loyalties to self-appointed tyrants whose number at present seems to be Legion. I have the feeling also that the Laughter of God is something inexpressibly awesome, something to be dreaded. I for one pray God that I may never have to hear it.

(7) Practically all peoples have their conceptions of a future life. Archaeological discoveries have shown that the Cult of the Dead flourished among all prehistoric peoples of whom we have any records whatever. (See Sir James Frazer’s three-volume work, Belief in Immortality Among Primitives.) To the Greeks the future heavenly world was known as Elysium (with Hades as the Underworld, and Tartarus (cf. 2 Peter 2:4) as the place of eternal punishment of all great sinners). Among the Germanic tribes, future bliss was to be enjoyed in Valhalla; among the American Indians, in the Happy Hunting Ground. Among the Hebrew people of old, the glories of the heavenly state were designated by such names as Paradise or Abraham’s Bosom, (The Hebrew Underworld, corresponding to the Greek Hades, was known as Sheol. However, Hades and Sheol were regarded simply as abodes of the dead shades without reference to their happiness or the opposite.) (Cf. Luke 23:43; Luke 16:22; Genesis 35-37, Genesis 42:38; 1 Samuel 2:6; Job 14:13; Psalms 16:10; Psalms 139:8; Matthew 16:18; Acts 2:31; 1 Corinthians 15:55; Revelation 20:13.) Among Christians, the Life Everlasting, Union with God, is Heaven, the Home Over There, and the state of eternal loss of God and all Good is Hell (Gehenna, 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; Matthew 5:22; Matthew 5:29-30; Luke 12:5; Mark 9:47). Have these intuitions of the future life with God and Christ and the Holy Spirit been implanted in us merely that we may, at the end, be disillusioned and mocked? Is a man no better than a brute, only to lie down and die, and cease to be? Does a cruel Satirist sit on the Throne of the Universe and play with us as with puppets? A thousand timesNo!

(8) We can arrive, therefore, at but one valid conclusion, namely, that the intuition of the Supreme Being, upon whom men everywhere more or less conceive themselves to be dependent, is so universal that it can be accounted for only on the ground that it was originally implanted in the very nature of man by the Creator Himself, that is, by the act described in Scripture as a Divine inbreathing (Genesis 2:7). To quote Christlieb (MDCB, 141). Cicero’s question (De Natura Deorum, 1, 16) still holds good-What people is there, or what race of men, which has not, even without traditional teaching, some presentiment of the existence of Gods?-’ Does not this indicate that the belief in some higher and more powerful Being by which he is conditioned, is both a logical and a moral necessity for man? Or must not that in which not merely many (which would prove nothing) but all agree, be grounded in the nature and essence of man himself? Yes, human thought must recognize God just as certainly as itself and the world. Man simply can not in any way rid himself of the idea of God.

8. The Experiential Proof

This is the Proof deriving from the testimony of righteous persons who declare themselves to have personally experienced, fellowship with God in this present life and to have actually tasted of the benefits and blessings of His grace.

(1) Faith, which is based on testimony (revelation) gives us at least partial understanding of those realities which are not accessible to sense alone, namely, God’s existence, His attributes, His Creatorship, and His relations with His creation, etc. Faith has been called, therefore, the highest form of knowledge. (We recall here Thompson’s definition of knowledge as all that we believe as a result of sound evidence and logical thinking.) Perhaps it would be more correct to say that faith leads to the highest form of knowledge, namely, that form of knowledge which stems from love. For the person who believes that God is at once the Creator and Preserver of nature and also the Revealer of the Mysteries (Romans 16:25-26; Ephesians 1:9; Ephesians 3:3; Ephesians 6:19; 1 Timothy 3:9; 1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 11:6), there can be no contradictions between the knowledge of nature through science and the knowledge of the spiritual mysteries through Biblically-produced faith (Romans 10:14-17). One who is steeped in the language, lore, and spirit of the Bible knows that revelation complements reason, that faith, far from being a limitation on knowledge, is an enhancement of it. He knows that faith fertilizes the mind and heart: as many of the Church Fathers put it: Credo ut intellegam, I believe in order to understand. Belief in an object gives one understanding of that object: hence faith has been rightly called the insight of the two eyes of the heartunderstanding and love. Pascal: We know truth, not only by reason, but by the heart. The heart has its reasons which the reason knows nothing of. Emerson: Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in rejecting them, (Hebrews 11:3, 2 Timothy 1:12, 1 John 3:2).

(2) 1 Corinthians 13:13. Faith based on testimony (revelation) can give us partial understanding of God and His ways, but only love can give the fuller knowledge. Love is attraction to, and union with (en-rapport-ness) its object. As Erich Fromm writes (art., Man Is Not a Thing, Saturday Review, March 16, 1957): The only way to full knowledge lies in the act of love; this act transcends thought, it transcends words. The act of love (John 3:16, 1 John 4:7-11) was God’s only way to the understanding of man (Philippians 2:5-8; Hebrews 2:5-18; Hebrews 4:14-16; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 5:25; 1 Timothy 2:6; Titus 2:14); likewise, pure love for God is man’s only means to his own fuller knowledge of God (John 17:3, 1 John 4:7-8). As the late Henri Bergson, the French philosopher, has written (TSMR, 240, 246): God is love, and the object of love; herein lies the whole contribution of mysticism. Again, The mystics have blazed the trail along which other men may pass. They have, by this very act, shown to the philosopher the whence and whither of life. Nor should it ever be overlooked that love seeks oneness with its object in submission and in service (John 8:31-32; John 15:10; John 14:15; John 7:17; Matthew 7:24-27). It is only by love that the believer is brought into true fellowship (eternal life) with God (Romans 13:10).

(3) The errors of the intellectualist are errors of defective vision: intellect has been arbitrarily divorced from a right disposition, right affections, right motives, right directionality of life; that is, from what Jesus calls an honest and good heart (Luke 8:15). The intellect will say, I cannot know God, and the intellect is right: what intellect says, Scripture also says (Job 11:7; Romans 11:34; 1 Corinthians 2:14). Cf. especially 1 Corinthians 1:21-24: to the soul steeped in literalminded traditionalism (as represented here by Jews), the idea of a crucified Savior (the doctrine of Atonement) has ever been a stumblingblock; to the speculative, intellectualistic type of mind (as represented here by Greeks), the idea has ever been utter foolishness (Acts 17:21-23). This is just as true today as it ever was. The good seed of the Kingdom (the spiritual seed, the Word of God) can be expected to fructify only in an honest and good heart (Luke 8:15, 1 Peter 1:22-25). Men can know the truth only in proportion to their willingness to do the truth; in like manner, only love can understand love, only holiness can understand, and therefore appreciate, holiness. (Surely the devil would be unspeakably miserable if he should ever find himself in Heaven.) (Psalms 34:8; John 3:21; John 7:17; John 8:31-32). Secular scientists have always been prone to turn theologians and to break into print on matters concerning which they show that they know little or nothing. I think it was Will Rogers who once remarked that the man who is highly specialized in some particular field is apt to be completely ignorant outside the field in which he is specialized. How true this is! In my earlier days, for example, I believed practically anything the first Henry Ford had to say about the manufacture and marketing of automobiles, and I was justified in so doing; he was an authority in that particular field. But I believed little or nothing that he had to say on political and religious subjects: every time he broke into print on these subjects he showed that he knew practically nothing about either. Yet because of our subservience to a great name, the newspapers would print anything that Ford had to say on any subject, whether what he said was worth anything or not. (In logic, this is known as the argumentum ad verecundiam, that is, the fallacy of appealing to the authority of a famous name.) The same can be said of such men as Edison, Burbank, Einstein, Darrow, and many others: their name is Legion: men who demonstrated every time their comments on religion appeared in print, that they had no conception whatever of the Bible and its teaching. (Cf. also the tomes of pseudo-intellectual insipidity that have been published recently under the title, This I Believe.)Just how much are the opinions of such persons on religious matters actually worth?

(4) The noblest affirmations of God have their foundations in profound and genuine religious experience. The Bible itself has come down to us through the mystic experiences of God’s own men and women: men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). (See especially the following: Enoch (Genesis 5:24), Noah (Genesis 6:13-22; Genesis 9:1-17), Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 15:1-20; Genesis 17:1-22), Jacob at Bethel (Genesis 28:10-22) and at Peniel (Genesis 32:24-32), Moses (Exodus 3:1-18, Exodus 19:1 to Exodus 20:26 ff., Deuteronomy 5:1-33; Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Hebrews 11:27), Samuel (1 Samuel 3:1-21), David (2 Samuel 22:1 to 2 Samuel 23:6), Elijah (1 Kings 19:9-18), Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-13), Ezekiel (chs. 36, 37), Daniel (chs. 7, 8), John the Baptizer (Matthew 3:1-2, Mark 1:1-4, Luke 1:80, John 1:19-34), the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1, 2 Peter 1:16-18), Cornelius (Acts 10:1-7), Peter (Acts 10:9-17), Paul (Acts 9:1-20; Acts 22:1-21; Acts 26:1-29; 1 Corinthians 15:1-10; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 2 Corinthians 12:1-5, Galatians 1:11-12); John the Beloved’s successive visions on Patmos, of the seven golden candlesticks (Revelation 1:9 to Revelation 3:22), of the door opened in Heaven (Revelation 4:1 to Revelation 11:18) and of the temple of God in Heaven (Revelation 11:9 to the end of the book). (Note also the divine formulas by which the various prophetic books of the Old Testament are introduced: the word of Jehovah came to Isaiah (Isaiah 1:10; Isaiah 8:1), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:2), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:3), Hosea (Hosea 1:1), Joel (Joe 1:1), Jonah (Jonah 1:1), Micah (Micah 1:1), Zephaniah (Zephaniah 1:1), Haggai (Haggai 1:3), Zechariah (Zechariah 1:1), Malachi (Malachi 1:1), John the Baptizer (Luke 3:2). Also thus saith Jehovah, etc. (Amos 1:6), Obadiah (Obadiah 1:1), the book of the vision of Nahum (Nahum 1:1), the burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see (Nahum 1:1).

(5) We must remember that where the Word of God is, there the Spirit of God is, for the Spirit is the Revealer of the Word (Isaiah 59:21); hence the prophets of old, from Samuel down to John the Baptizer were in a special sense -men of the Spirit (2 Peter 1:21, 1 Peter 1:10-12). Jesus is said to have possessed the powers (gifts) of the Spirit without limitation (John 3:34-35; John 4:14; John 7:37-39; Matthew 12:28, Luke 11:20), and the Apostles were men who were guided into all the truth by the same Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17; John 14:25-26; John 15:26-27; John 16:7-15; John 20:21-23; Acts 1:1-8; Acts 2:1-4; 1 Corinthians 2:9-16). (The Bible, from beginning to end, presents itself to us as the work of Spirit-filled men.) Consider also the experiences of the saints of all ages, men and women who have testified that they cried out unto God and found Himfound Him perhaps not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in fire, but in a still small voice (1 Kings 19:9-18): men and women who have testified that their prayers were heard and answered by our God, that their spiritual aspirations were realized, and their spiritual needs satisfied, through repentance, prayer, meditation, worship, Bible study, and sacrificial service. How many thousands of saints have found God to be their Refuge and Strength at all times! (Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalms 46:1; Psalms 62:7; Psalms 94:22; Psalms 18:2; Psalms 31:3; Psalms 71:3; Psalms 91:2; Psalms 144:2; Jeremiah 16:19; 2 Samuel 22:2-3; 2 Timothy 1:12; 2 Timothy 4:7-8, etc.) Are these testimonies to be passed up lightly as mere superstitions or as, at most, only wishful thinking? Are they not just as valid experientially as that of the physical scientist who may look at the craters on the moon through a telescope, or watch a cell divide under the microscope, or witness the terrific effects of the phenomenon of atomic fission? Does not the average scientist exclude himself from apprehension of ultimate truth by his own arbitrary assumption (presupposition) that knowledge is limited strictly to observable and measurable facts? Besides, what is a fact?

(6) A word of caution here: There is no evidence that the mystic experience occurs in our Dispensation for the purpose of fresh disclosures of moral and spiritual truth to man. Indeed we are told that with the compiling of the New Testament Scriptures all things pertaining to life and godliness were given (2 Peter 1:3), that the Christian System is the Faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3), that the Scriptures themselves are sufficient to furnish the man of God completely unto every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Hence, all alleged special revelations, since the completion of the Canon, must be rejected summarily on two grounds: first, that not any one of them (nor all of them together) has added, or can add, one iota of moral and spiritual truth to that which is given us in the Bible; and second, that these alleged revelations cancel one another out by their diverse and even contradictory contents. God, we are told, is not a God of confusion, but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33). The Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth (John 14:16-17; John 15:26-27); hence it is inconceivable that the Spirit should have been the source of all these diverse cults built up on post-canonical alleged visions and revelations. Truth, in any area, does not contradict itself. For these reasons we must reject so-called mystic experiences purporting to disclose fresh spiritual truth, outside the Judeo-Christian revelation as given us in the Bible. Mystic experiences may be considered valid, however, which serve to confirm the saints, individually and experientially, in the grace and in the knowledge of God and the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).

(7) Man does not create his physical thirst for waterit is born in him: it is an organic tension demanding satisfaction if he is to live in this present world. In like manner, thirst for God is inborn: it is a spiritual tension, so to speak, which can be satisfied only in fellowship with Him. If this thirst for God were not founded in Reality, it would have died out long ago. It is of the essence of religion to have the object of devotion outside the self.Man can no more get along without living water (Psalms 23:2, John 4:13-14; John 7:37-39) to quench his spiritual thirst than he can get along without natural drinking water to quench his physical thirst (Psalms 63:1; Psalms 42:1-2; Psalms 143:6). The vitality of the religious consciousness of man is evident from the fact that it survives all the attacks of its enemiesatheists, agnostics, naturalists, positivists, humanists, and all their ilk; just as it will survive the Marxist-Leninist brainwashing of our time. The Church, like the burning bush of old, has ever burned (with the fires of heresy, apostasy, sectarianism, hypocrisy, formalism, clerical jealousy, ecclesiastical pretension, poor business management, and what not) but remains unconsumed. Man simply refuses to give up God, for he comes to realize sooner or later that in doing so he gives up everythinghe has nothing left. (This was the experience of Job: catastrophically denuded of his herds, and then of his own offspring, afflicted with a loathsome disease, and, as the crowning indignity, scornfully urged by his wife to renounce God and die, Job replied, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh (Job 2:10). Job realized that if he should let go of God, then indeed he would have nothing left.) The simple fact of the matter is that if my life is to have meaning, I must believe in myself, in my fellow-men, and in my God.

(8) Do you live in personal intimacy with God? Do you pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18)? Do you give thanks at the table? Do you know that God answers prayer? Even when as a child you lisped, Now I lay me down to sleep, you prayed to Someoneto One who can hear and understand and responddid you not? Let us never forget that we can come to God anywhere, at any time, if we come to him in Jesus-’ name (Matthew 18:20; John 14:13-14; John 15:16; Colossians 3:17), for He is ever

Nearer to us than breathing, Closer than hands and feet.

9. The Biblical Proof

The Bible bears on its own pages the imprimatur of the Spirit of God, that is, self-evident proof that it is The Book from God. (1) The Bible is a facta fact to be accounted for. In the past one hundred and fifty years, all Bible Societies, we are told, have handled some two trillion copies of the Bible either as a whole or in part. According to the report of the American Bible Society, the Bible as a whole or in part has been translated into more than twelve hundred languages. It is the most up-to-date book in the world. As Clayton Potter has written, in the Front Rank, June 10, 1956: Man’s hopes and despairs, sins and virtues, guilts and aspirations, loves and hates, tendency to doubt and capacity for faith, the causes of his evil and the means of his redemption, were all noted long ago. The Bible is as up-to-date as the latest textbook. Its words must be revised from time to time, for language changes with the years, but its ideas are permanent and its insights forever fresh. Is it any wonder that the demand for the Bible, the world over, grows greater with the passing of every year?

(2) As stated heretofore, no author in presenting his book to the public thinks of prefacing it with the proofs of his own existence: his name on the backbone and on the title page is considered sufficient evidence of his existence and authorship. So it is with the Bible. It does not attempt to prove that God is: it simply presents itself to us as God’s Book, the revelation of His Will and Plan for our redemption. Hence it opens with the sublime affirmation, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. It takes it for granted that men cannot be so foolish as to deny that God is, or that He, by the agency of the Spirit, is the Author of this Book of all books. Let me testify here that the person who feeds upon the spiritual content (food) of the Bible, who assimilates it into the very essence of his interior being, who lives its teaching from day to day to the best of his human ability, can, and does, appreciate both its simplicity and its depth of meaning, and is bound to accept it wholeheartedly as what it claims to be. Rejection of this claim can be attributed only to ignorance or to a perverted will. (3) The Bible is preeminently the Book of the Spirit. (Cf. 2 Peter 1:21; 1 Peter 1:10-12; John 3:34; John 14:16-17; John 12:26; John 15:26-27; John 16:7-13; John 20:21-23; Hebrews 1:1-2; Acts 1:8; Acts 2:1-4; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16; Ephesians 1:13-14; Ephesians 3:1-13, etc.). As Canon Robinson writes (CEHS, 5): On its first page there is painted the impressive picture of chaos, when darkness was upon the face of the deep; but the Spirit of God was brooding, like a mother-bird, upon the face of the waters. From the last page there rings out the evangelical challenge of the Church to the world, -The Spirit and the bride say, Come,-’ Between them there is the story of a divine evolution, which is from God’s side, revelation, and from man’s side, discovery. The language of the Bible is the language of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:6-14). One who has made his mind a storehouse of this language of the Spirit has an almost impregnable defense against every form of materialism and secularism; (It will be noted that Jesus resisted Satan by quoting Scripture: it is written, said He, in meeting each of the three Satanic appeals: Matthew 4:4; Matthew 4:7; Matthew 4:10.) Moreover, only the person who is familiar with the thought and language of the Bible can discern the mediocrity of such other religious writings as the Vedas, the Avesta, the Upanishads, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Science and Health, etc., mediocrity in all those characteristics in which the Bible is unapproachable.

(4) Those characteristics of the Bible which give it the imprimatur of Divine origin are the following: (a) its unity (though made up of sixty-six books, written by many different authors, in all ages of human history from about 1500 B.C. to A.D. 100, yet it is one book with just one theme, redemption through the person and work of Messiah, from beginning to end); (b) Its realism (it presents life just as men lived it and as they live it today, both in its beauty and in its ugliness: it finds man in sin, as indeed every honest man knows that he is, and it shows him the way out); (c) its sublime themes (God, the Son of God, the Spirit of God, grace, sin, faith, hope, love, justification, redemption, sanctification, the Spiritual Life, heaven, hell, immortality, etc.no other religious writing even pretends to deal with all these facts of human life and experience); (d) its literary excellence (it contains the most exquisite examples of every form of the literary art: note especially the unparalleled beauty of the imagery of the apocalyptic books, Daniel, and Revelation; the great epic poem, the Book of Job; the gorgeous hymnody of the Psalms; the idyllic (pastoral) beauty of the Book of Ruth; the books of law, history, prophecy, biography; the parables of Jesus, etc.); (e) its artistic excellence (fine art being the fusion of thought (forty per cent) and feeling (sixty per cent): cf. Job 14:1-15; Job 19:23-29; 1 Corinthians 15:1-28; 1 Corinthians 15:35-58; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Romans 8:18-37; Romans 11:25-36, etc.); (f) its idealism (it presents the only perfect code of morals (values) that has ever been given to man: cf. the Decalogue (Exodus 20), the Sermon on the Mount (Matt., chs. 5, 6, 7), the Two Great Commandments (Matthew 22:34-40), the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25), the Christian excellences (2 Peter 1:5-9, etc.); (g) its finality (not one iota of moral and spiritual truth can be added to that which is given us in the Bible: its finality is in its completeness); (h) its central Figure, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God (John 20:30-31; John 3:16; Matthew 16:16; Hebrews 1:1-4; 1 John 2:22-23; 1 John 4:1-4), anticipated throughout the Old Testament, presented throughout the New Testament.

(5) It is significant, too, indeed most significant, that no book of religion in the entire gamut of world literature has ever been so thoroughly dissected by critics, so smirked at by convictionless liberals, so ridiculed by sceptics and so viciously attacked by evil men, as the Bible has been, down through the ages. The Vedas, the Avesta, the Upanishads, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Science and Health, etc.not one of these books has ever received the critical analysis, the prejudiced, at times vicious, treatment that has been heaped upon the Bible by its enemies. An excellent example of the business of critical dissection occurs in the treatment of the life of Jesus which was presented to the public in the December 25, 1964 issue of Life magazine. However, there is one simple refutation of this demythologizing process, namely, that we have the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John before our very eyestheir content cannot be denied because we have it in black and white. We know these biographies were written in the first century, whether or not by the writers to whom they have always been attributed. Hence, as someone has said, If the transcendent Personage whose biography we have in these four books never lived on this earth, the men who wrote the books would have to be regarded as great as He, by virtue of their ability to conceive such a Character and such a Teaching. Or, as the late S. Parkes Cadman once said, in substance, This demythologizing business has itself produced only a myth.

The vicious methodology of these self-appointed critics (debunkers) of assuming a priori (1) that any event described in Scripture as a miracle must be regarded as unhistorical and hence must be explained away (when the fact is that the Bible does not purport to be a general history, but only the history of the Messianic Line), (2) that the narration by different writers of different aspects of the same event constitutes discrepancy or even outright contradiction, when as a matter of fact the various narratives complement one another and are designed to be put together to give us the complete story of the particular episode, and (3) that the doctrine of inspiration must be disregarded, completely ignored, as if there were no Holy Spirit; this has done irreparable injury to the souls of multiplied thousands of mankind, whose sane judgments are distorted by the scholarly aura which hovers over these speculative critics and theologians, Why do these discrepancy hunters and pickers persist in never looking, or even trying to look, for harmony in the Scriptures? They could find it easily if they were to turn their talents to efforts to build faith rather than to destroy it.

(6) God is really to be found throughout the pages of the Bible, and especially in its revelation of the person and work of Christ. Multiplied thousands today are trying to find God, but they are either looking for the wrong kind of God or looking for the living and true God in the wrong places. The living God is not to be found adequately in the things of this world, nor in the laboratory of science, nor in the traditions of men, nor in the speculations of philosophy. God is to be adequately apprehended only from the pages of the Bible, and especially in the central Figure of the Bible, God’s Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose mission it was to reveal Him (John 1:14; John 1:18; John 14:9; Hebrews 1:1-3). The following excerpt (source unidentified) is especially to the point here: The assurance that the Bible is a unique and indispensable witness to God does not come upon men as a reality because someone else has said so, no matter how authoritative. It comes only by experience with the Bible. If our generation and the generations to follow are to find in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the one Being worthy of absolute loyalty; if we are to lean our whole weight on Him for the saving that we and the world so desperately need, the only place we and the world can find Him is in the Bible, and the one thing we need to do with the Bible is to read itand read it and read it. Courage to stand off other preoccupations, faith that here is the supreme hope for us, patience with what we may never understand, and willingness to do God’s willthis and reading are all that we really need. That is the Bible’s way of bringing us into the presence of God. In the characteristic simplicity of the hymnology of Isaac Watts

The stars that in their courses roll

Have much instruction given;

But Thy good Word informs my soul

How I may climb to Heaven.

(Note well, however, that the lore of the Bible is accessible only to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matthew 5:6), i.e., after God’s way of doing things (Matthew 6:33; Matthew 3:15), and hence are unremitting in their effort to gain the knowledge of the truth. He who does not seek cannot expect to find.) (Matthew 7:7-8; Philippians 2:5; 1 Corinthians 2:16.)

10. The Ultimate Proof

The ultimate Proof of the existence of God is Christ Himself, the central Figure of the Bible, the Son of the living God. The living and true God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (John 20:30-31; Acts 2:36; Acts 11:17; Romans 5:1; 1 Corinthians 1:3, Ephesians 1:3, etc.). The New Testament writings confirm the Messiahship (Christhood) and Sonship of the Lord Jesus by numerous texts which affirm His pre-existence, His condescension and humiliation (as the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us), His exaltation and coronation, and His present universal Sovereignty. These Divine relationships are further validated by the Scriptures setting forth the nobility of His teaching, the faultlessness of His character and life, the supernaturalness of His claims, the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy in Him, the greatness and variety of His miracles, the grandeur of the names ascribed to Him, and indeed by many infallible proofs (Acts 1:3), God has piled the evidence so high throughout the ages, as recorded in Scripture by the inspiration of the Spirit, to authenticate the Messiahship and Sonship of Jesus, that he who fails to read and to heed this testimony will find himself without excuse in the great and notable Day of the Lord, the Day of the Last Judgment (Acts 2:20; Acts 17:30-31; Hebrews 12:23; Revelation 3:5; Revelation 21:7; Revelation 22:4).

Thus Jesus Himself leaves us no middle ground to take between complete acceptance and complete rejection of His Messiahship and Sonship. This is pointed up so sharply by C. S. Lewis (MC, 40, 41). The strange and significant thing about Jesus, says Lewis, is that even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is -humble and meek-’ and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of his sayings. Lewis continues: I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: -I-’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don-’t accept His claim to be God.-’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunaticon a level with the man who says he is a poached eggor else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. Jesus of Nazareth is either everything that He claimed to be and everything that the Spirit claimed about Him and for Him (John 16:13-15)or He is the rankest impostor who ever appeared in the world. He is either all that He claimed to beor He was not even a good man! There is no halfway house for us to hide in, with respect to Him.

Moreover, the absolutely ultimate Proof of the existence of God is the Resurrection of Christ. Why so? Because it was God the Father who, through the agency of the Spirit (Romans 8:11) raised Him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, etc. (Ephesians 1:20-23; cf. Acts 2:32, Philippians 2:9-11, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Hebrews 1:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-15). Thus was this Jesus declared to be the Son of God with power. by the resurrection from the deadeven Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 1:4). Thus the Resurrection was the crowning proof of the Messiahship and Sonship of Jesus, and the proof of the Sonship of Jesus at the same time is the proof of the existence of God the Father who raised Him from the dead. (For detailed studies of the Deity of Jesus and the Historicity of His Resurrection, see my Survey Course in Christian Doctrine, Vols. III-IV, published by the College Press, Joplin, Missouri.)

To summarize the content of this entire section, we affirm the following unequivocally: Should any of the foregoing Proofs be thought seriously amenable to challenge, certainly all of them, taken together, coalesce to put the fact of God’s existence beyond legitimate possibility of rejection by honest and good hearts.Acceptance of this fact, of course, could hardly be expected of the prejudiced mind or perverted will.

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART THREE

What is meant by the First Truth? Who is the First Truth?

State the Principle of Sufficient Reason or Adequate Cause.

Explain what is meant by Efficient Causality.

Explain what is meant by the Mystery of Being.

Explain what is meant by infinite regress.

State the Cosmological Proof of the existence of God.

What does the doctrine of Creation ex nihilo really mean?

State the Ontological Proof as formulated by Anselm and by Descartes respectively.

State the Teleological Proof of God’s existence.

What is the origin and meaning of the word cosmos?

List the evidences of the order characteristic of the universe.

Explain: If the universe were not orderly, there could be no science.

Explain what is meant by the Will to Live.

State what the word chance signifies.

Summarize briefly the Anthropological Proof of the existence of God.

What is meant by anthropocentrism? In what sense is the universe really anthropocentric?

Summarize the Moral Proof of God’s existence.

Explain what the word value means.

Explain: Man is a creature of moral law.

What is the significance of the universality of conscience in man?

Explain: Values are facts of the world we live in.

What must be the foundation of moral law?

State the three external relationships into which every person is born and the class of rights and duties stemming from each of these relationships.

What is meant by legal positivism?

Explain what is meant by the phrase, unalienable rights. Explain clearly the far-reaching significance of this phrase.

Explain what is meant by the Natural Moral Law.

State the Aesthetic Proof of the existence of God.

State the Intuitional Proof of the existence of God.

State the Experiential Proof of the existence of God.

Explain: Where the Word of God is, the Spirit of God is.

What special claim does the Bible make for itself?

State the Biblical Proof of the existence of God.

State the characteristics of the Bible which evidence its Divine origin.

What is the Ultimate Proof of God’s existence?

Explain how the Resurrection of Christ is the final supreme confirmation of the existence of the God of the Bible.

PART FOUR: THE HEBREW COSMOGONY

As we have learned, the Greek kosmos, the English cosmos, means order. Cosmology, then, is that branch of human knowledge which deals with the order that is found to prevail in the different areas of the physical world. This word cosmology must not be confused with the word cosmogony.A cosmogony is an account or narrative of the Creation. The Hebrew Cosmogony is given us in Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3. This account is a compact and complete literary and doctrinal whole, and must be considered as such. It would be well, therefore, before taking up the study of the Biblical text itself, to take a look at the various interpretations of the Hebrew Cosmogony which have been suggested, as follows:

1. The ultra-scientific interpretation.Those who hold this view insist that the Genesis Cosmogony must conform in every respect to the conclusions of the sciences. This, however, is asking too much, for two reasons especially: In the first place, the Bible is not, was not even designed to be, a textbook of science; in the second place, science changes its concepts from age to age; hence no account of the Creation could possibly be sufficiently flexible to be in harmony with all these changing views. Moreover, practically the entire content of the Bible is pre-scientific in origin; that is, it was indited before human science had begun to be formulated. The Biblical account of the Creation is designed to give us the truth about the nature, origin, and destiny of man, and his position in the totality of being as the lord tenant of the earth which was created for his habitation (Genesis 1:28-30). The fundamental truth explicit in this Cosmogony is that the Will of the living God is the constitution of our world, both physical and moral; that the totality of the world we cognize by sense-perception and subsequent reflection is the embodiment of the Thought, Will, and Word of God the Creator. In a word, the motif of the Hebrew Cosmogony is religious (spiritual), not scientific. However, the amazing fact is that the Biblical account of the Beginnings has never been seriously in conflict with scientific thinking at any time in human history; that indeed the harmony between Biblical teaching and scientific thought is greater today than it has ever been. We may state the facts as follows: God has written two Books, the Book of Nature and the Book of Redemption. In the former, He reveals his everlasting power and divinity (Romans 1:20; Psalms 19:1); in the latter, His ineffable love for His creature, man, and His plan for man’s ultimate redemption (John 3:16). Now we may properly state that Science is man’s attempt to apprehend and describe the content of the Book of Nature, and that what is commonly called Theology is man’s attempt to understand what is written in the Book of Redemption. Of course, the result may be apparent discrepancies between the two interpretations because man is ever fallible and prone to error, and, in addition to this, is always faced with the problem of the inadequacy of his language as a vehicle for the communication of Divine Truth. But certainly there can be no discrepancies or contradictions between the two Books themselves, because both are from God, and therefore Truth, and Truth does not contradict itself. Much of the alleged conflict between the Bible and Science does not actually exist; it is the by-product, rather, of the human propensity for setting up and shooting at straw men (that is, speculatively creating issues which are not actually relevant).

2. The ultra-literal view, that the Genesis account pictures the Creation as having been begun and finished in seven days of twenty-four hours each, Cf. Murphy (MOG, 44): The days of this creation are natural days of twenty-four hours each. We may not depart from the ordinary meaning of the word without a sufficient warrant either in the text of Scripture or in the law of nature. But we have not yet found any such warrant. Only necessity can force us to such an expedient. Scripture, on the other hand, warrants us in retaining the common meaning by yielding no hint of another, and by introducing -evening, night, morning, day,-’ as its ordinary divisions. Nature favors the same interpretation. All geological changes are of course subsequent to the great event recorded in the first verse, which is the beginning of things. All such changes, except the one recorded in the six days-’ creation, are with equal certainty antecedent to the state of things described in the second verse. Hence no lengthened period is required for this last creative interposition. Simpson writes in similar vein (IBG, 471): There can be no question but that by Day the author meant just what we meanthe time required for one revolution [rotation?] of the earth on its axis. Had he meant an aeon he would certainly, in view of his fondness for great numbers, have stated the number of milleniums each period embraced. While this might have made his account of creation less irreconcilable with modern science, it would have involved a lessening of God’s greatness, one sign of which was his power to do so much in one day. (I would have to say that these statements are dogmatic, and filled with assumptions for which there is no justification.) The late Dr. Ashley S. Johnson presents an interestingand, in a sense, mediating view, as follows (BMBE, 5): The fact that the creative work had been going on for unnumbered ages, leads the reverent student to the conclusion that the days were ordinary periods of twenty-four hours each, and that each product of Almighty Power was finished and appointed to its sphere on its designated day. I am not certain that I understand these statements precisely, but I take them to mean that the successive days of the Genesis account should be understood as the days on which each successive phase of the Creationall phases of which had been in process of actualization for unnumbered ageswas brought to fruition. This is an interesting theory, to say the least.

An interesting angle in re this whole problem is that in the advocacy of the ultra-literal interpretation of the Genesis Cosmogony, those who are usually regarded as the most orthodox or fundamentalist find themselves in the same company with the radical critics who advocate the solar-day theory in support of their view that the Cosmogony as a whole was pointed up to, and was composed primarily to account for, the origin and observance of the Jewish Sabbath, with the consequence that, in their view, the accounts of the Divine hallowing of the seventh day as the Sabbath which we find in Genesis 2:3 and in Deuteronomy 5:15 are said to be in conflict. (This phase of the problem is treated below and also in the course of the study of the text of Gen 2:3.)

However, there are many distinguished scholarsmen whose Biblical orthodoxy is not open to question, beginning with several of the Church Fatherswho find it impossible to accept the ultra-literal interpretation of the Hebrew Cosmogony, nor do they consider that any necessity is laid upon them to accept it. They hold that the design of the Mosaic account is to affirm the truth that our world is the handiwork of the living God who has only to order a thing to be done and it is done (for with the God of the Bible to think is to create.)(Note the statement, And God said, which occurs repeatedly in the first chapter of Genesis.) These men hold that the Spirit’s purpose in giving us the account is to emphasize the religious truth about the Creation, without regard to possible scientific or unscientific aspects of it. Hence, although we are indeed told expressly that whatever God commanded was done, we are not told just how it was done (cf. Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:1-6; Hebrews 11:3). Whether the Creation extended over seven solar days or seven (shall we say?) aeonic days, they contend, is not a matter of too great significance for a very simple reason, namely, that the same measure of Creative Power (Efficient Causality) would have been prerequisite in either case.Therefore, the problem, according to those who hold this view, is not one of power, but of method.(Obviously, Infinity in God has no reference to magnitude of any kind; rather, it designates the inexhaustibility of the Power which created and which sustains the whole of the Creation.) Those who take this general aeonic-day view cite the following facts to support it:

1. The indefiniteness which characterizes the use of the Hebrew word yom (day) throughout the Genesis Cosmogony itself. E.g., in Genesis 1:5; Genesis 1:16, the word simply designates daylight (light as distinguished from darkness, and day as distinguished from night; in Genesis 1:14, it stands for a period of twenty-four hours; in Genesis 2:4, it designates the whole Creation Era. (This same indefiniteness of meaning characterizes the use of yom throughout the Old Testament; and of the Greek hemera as well as used in the New Testament. Cf. Zechariah 14:6-7: Note that here the word indicates a day altogether unique, one of God’s days, known unto Jehovah, but not day, and not night, as if to distinguish it from one of man’s ordinary civil days. Cf. also Deuteronomy 9:1, Psalms 95:8, Isaiah 49:8; John 9:4; John 8:56; Hebrews 8:9; Hebrews 13:8; 2 Peter 3:8, etc.).

2. The fact that there is nothing in the Genesis narrative to indicate that God spoke all living species into existence at one and the same instant; on the contrary, according to the account itself, the Creation extended over six successive days and, in all probability, a fraction of the seventh (note that God is said to have finished His work on the seventh day, Genesis 2:2).

3. The fact that no actual measurement of time is indicated in connection with the first three days; chronology had its beginning, it is expressly declared, on the fourth day. 4. The fact that the evening which preceded the morning of Day One must have been in the sphere of timelessness; as the distinguished commentator, John Peter Lange, puts it (CDHCG, 166, 167): evening and morning denote the interval of a creative day, the terms indicating respectively the first and second halves of this -day-’; we cannot think of the usual evening and morning here, because the earth, and indeed our entire galaxy, did not become astronomically arranged until late in the entire process.

4. Eternity, which is God’s realm, is timelessness.God Himself is timeless (always He is I AM, Exodus 3:14), and His activity is likewise timeless (Psalms 90:1, 2 Corinthians 6:2, 2 Peter 3:8); unlike men, and unlike Americans especially, God never gets in a hurry.

5. The fact that the account of the seventh day does not terminate with the formula, there was evening and there was morning, a seventh day, such as occurs in connection with the account of each of the preceding six days; this indicatesdoes it not?that the Father’s Sabbath is still going on? (This could well be what Jesus meant when, in defending Himself against the carping of the Pharisees that He was desecrating the Sabbath by doing works of healing on that day, He said, John 5:17, My Father worketh even until now, and I work; that is, the Father had been working works of benevolence throughout all these intervening centuriesHis aeonic Sabbathand now His critics were caviling at Him for doing works of benevolence on their little week-day Sabbath! (cf. Mark 2:27). From the arguments as presented above, there are many sincere believers who conclude that the days of the Genesis cosmogony were aeonic (epochal, or geological) days, and not days of twenty-four hours each. As Thomas Whitelaw writes (PCG, 12.13): The duration of the seventh day of necessity determined the length of the other six. Without anticipating the exposition of ch. 2:1-4, it may be said that God’s sabbatic rest is understood by the best interpreters of Scripture to have continued from creation’s close until the present hour; so that consistency demands the previous six days to be considered as not of short, but of indefinite, duration. (We shall discuss the Sabbath question in more detail later, in dealing with the text of Gen 2:1-3.)

The following note, by Rotherham (EB, note m, p. 33), with regard to the formula with which the account of each day of the Creation is concluded, e.g., there was evening and there was morning, a first day, etc., seems to me to be convincing: By a well-attested Heb. idiom-a first day.-’ Here grammatical exegesis steps in and claims its own. Two ways of explaining this striking -refrain-’ are conceivablethe one unnatural and absurd; the other, at once living and luminous. Either this six-times-repeated statement is a mere extraneous patch of information, having no organic connection with the creative acts amongst which it is inlaidwhich no thoughtful reader can seriously supposeor else on each occurrence it grows out of what has gone before. This being conceded, and the words then being grammatically rendered, the reader is on the high road to a correct decipherment of the days, as God-divided rather than sun-divided. Did the calling forth of -light-’ constitute the first morning? If it did, then the previous -darkness-’ and the preparatory -brooding-’ must surely have constituted the first -evening,-’ Then how long was the first day? If no one knows, then no one can say what was the length of the six days. Essential harmony suggests as a crown to the exegesis: That, as is man, the little worker, doing a small work on six short days, so is God, the great worker, doing a large work on his six far-reaching days. (We shall discuss Exodus 20:11 in relation to Genesis 2:1-3 below.) Furthermore, the astronomical bodies obviously were in the process of being fashioned, out of some form of primal energy, throughout the first three days of the Creative Period. It follows that these could hardly have been solar daysthe astronomical world was not yet sufficiently developed for solar measurement. It seems obvious, too, that the light and darkness of verse 5, for example, designate not the duration, but the phenomena, involved. This ultra-literal interpretation of the Genesis Cosmogony would have us believe that the world is only 144 hours older than man, a view which is contrary both to science and to revelation.

The view that the days of the Hebrew Cosmogony were aeonic days, that is, days of indefinite length, was held by several of the Church Fathers, even those who adopted the literal rather than the allegorical method of interpretation of Scripture, e.g., Ephrem of Edessa, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, et al.(See the book, Evolution and Theology, by Ernest C. Messenger, published by Macmillan, New York, 1932.) On the basis of this exegesis, of course, there was ample time to allow for progressive developmentby means of secondary causes, that is, what we call the laws of nature or natural laws, which are, in fact, the laws of nature’s Godclaimed by modern science. From the instant God spoke out, saying, Light, Be! (Genesis 1:3) to the instant when the Three, in Divine Consilium, decided, Let us make man in our image (Genesis 1:26), the stretch of time, as man measures it, was indeed ample for all the eras that may be claimed by geology, paleontology, and other contemporary sciences.

In a word, we must reject the ultra-literal theory of the Hebrew Cosmogony on the ground that this theory puts itand does so unnecessarily, insofar as religious faith is concernedin direct conflict with some of the known facts of present-day science. This, we insist, is setting up a conflict for which there is no real justification. With respect to the time employed in the Creation, those at one extreme seem to be obsessed with the notion that the extension of the exercise of Creative Power over a long stretch of time (the view which is designated materialistic evolution when attributed to chance, or theistic evolution when attributed to the power of God) is derogatory to God. To be sure, materialistic evolution is atheistic, agnostic, and unscriptural, but theistic evolution need not be so, for the simple reason, as stated above, that regardless of the time or the method involved, certainly the same measure of Efficient Causality would be the necessary prerequisite. On the other hand, those at the opposite extreme seem to be obsessed with the notion that any kind of instantaneous creation (such as mutations appear to be) or any kind of what is called progressive creationism (the insertion of new increments of Power into the Creative Process by direct Divine action; hence the jump from the non-living to the living, from the merely living by cellular processes to the consciously living, from the conscious to the self-conscious or personal) is sheer superstition. This likewise is an unjustified assumption, because if God is truly God, He can do whatever He pleases to do, whenever and in whatever way He pleases to do it, that is consistent with His character and purpose (Isaiah 46:9-11, Acts 17:24-28).

I should like it to be noted here, also, that the statement often made by scientists that the earth is so many years old (the latest figure is about five billion years), or that man has existed on the earth for so many years, hypothetically specified, certainly implies that a Creation occurred: nothing can be old except in terms of relation to a beginning. Moreover, that Creation could have occurred at all presupposes the operation of a Power sufficient to accomplish it; and that it could have occurred progressively, actualizing a cosmos, a rule of order, presupposes, not mere chance, but Intelligence and Purpose. One thing is sureman had nothing to do with it. 3. The mythological view. According to this view, the Hebrew Cosmogony was derived at least in part from Babylonian mythology, or perhaps from a general Semitic mythological deposit long anterior to the Babylonian. Advocates of this view find echoes of Babylonian Cosmology especially in the allusion in Genesis 1:7 to the division of the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and of the Babylonian Cosmogony, known from its two opening words as Enuma elish (When on High), especially (1) in the reference to a watery chaos at the beginning, (2) in the description of the order of events in the Creation, first the firmament, then dry land, the luminaries, and man, in the order named, and (3) in the conclusion picturing the Creative Power (Elohim vs. gods) at rest.

However, the fact cannot be emphasized too strongly that the ethico-theological abyss (as one might well call it) between the two Cosmogonies cannot be bridged by any so-called mythological correspondences. The simple fact of the matter is that whereas the Babylonian account is definitely mythological and polytheistic, the Hebrew Cosmogony is non-mythological and strictly monotheistic, As Finegan states it, referring expressly to the Genesis account (LAP, 54): the dignity and exaltation of the words of the Bible are unparalleled. From every point of view, the Genesis Cosmogony is strictly in a class by itself. The Babylonian Cosmogony takes off with two mythical personifications, the male Apsu (the primordial sweet-water ocean), and the female Tiamat (the primordial salt-water ocean). (Some authorities suggest possible etymological kinship between Tiamat and tehom, the Hebrew word for the deep in the Genesis account.) These two, the male and female principlesas the account goes-became the progenitors of the gods. In time, however, the doings of these offspring became so annoying that Apsu announced his intention of destroying them. But the god Ea, becoming aware of what was about to happen, managed to muster up sufficient strength to overcome and slay Apsu. (In Greek mythology, Kronos emasculated his father, Uranos; and Zeus, in his day, dethroned Kronos, cast him into Tartarus, the abode of great sinners, and seized power for himself.) Mother Tiamat, in the Babylonian myth, bent on revenge, created an army of gruesome monsters whose bodies were filled with poison instead of blood, and appointed one of her own offspring, Kingu, the general of her forces. It was then that Marduk, the city-god of Babylon (Ashur in Assyria), made himself the leader of the gods in their war against Tiamat. A terrible battle ensued in which Marduk emerged as the complete victor. The description of this battle is gory and gruesome, When Tiamat and Marduk finally faced each other in mortal combat, as Tiamat approached Marduk and opened her mouth to devour him, the latter drove a raging wind into her belly and distended it. Marduk then shot an arrow into her inward parts; this arrow tore her belly and pierced her heart. Marduk then, having destroyed the life of Tiamat, cast down her carcass, and standing upon it, proclaimed himself (much in the manner that a referee proclaims the victor in a prize fight in our time), the winnah, after which, he created the world out of her corpse. The gods then condemned Kingu for having instigated Tiamat’s revolt, and slew him, and then fashioned mankind out of the blood that flowed from his arteries. Marduk was finally 99.9. advanced from his first position as the city-god of Babylon to the headship of the entire pantheon, Surely it is approximating profanity even to assume that in these crude pagan mythologies we find the source material of a Cosmogony so pure in its revelation of God, so majestic in its portrayal of His creative activity, so elevated in its literary beauty and simplicity, as is the Genesis account of the Creation.

I quote here the testimony of eminent Jewish scholarship of our time (Cornfeld, AtD, 12) in regard to this problem. While not in agreement with certain statements, I feel that the following excerpt is worthy of presentation, in view of the clear-cut terms in which the Babylonian and Hebrew Cosmogonies are contrasted therein, as follows: Both Genesis and the Babylonian myth, we are told, express in their own symbols a fundamental notion of the world: the victory of cosmos over chaos, and creation seen as the reducing to order of a primeval disorder. But Babylonian cosmogony. is not really a -creation story-’ as in Genesis, but a story of the growth of the cosmos through procreation of gods and struggles between their generations, while the gods themselves personify nature and its elements. But in the Bible God is an independent and self-existent source, or the creator of nature and cosmos. It has been pointed out that in the Bible there were scattered references (in Job 9:13, Psalms 89:10 and Isaiah 51:9) to a primeval conflict between Yahweh and mythological rebellious figures bearing the names of Rahab, Leviathan, the dragon and the serpent. But the dogma in Genesis 1 shears off this mythological content. Any such tale would be a figment to be scrupulously avoided by the writers of the account of Creation. While Hebrew lore must originally have used myth or anthropomorphic concepts, it eventually de-mythed its concepts of a very ancient polytheist version of the primordial world. (We cannot accept, of course, the notion that Old Testament intimations of Satanic power are mythological, because in the full light of the New Testament revelation Satan (the Devil) is presented as a very real enemy of God, man, and all good (John 8:44; Matthew 4:1-11; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 6:10-12; 1 Peter 5:8; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6; Revelation 20:10), and certainly what is revealed in Scripture about Satan and his operations is confirmed by every issue of every newspaper published in our day. Experience testifies that this life is essentially a probationary period in which the forces of good and the forces of evil are engaged in mortal combat for the souls of men.)

The transcendence of the God of the Genesis Cosmogony, by way of contrast to the deities of the ancient mythological systems, is stated eloquently by Ralph H. Elliott (MG, 27, 28) as follows: Is there nothing distinctive which Genesis on its own presents? Very definitely and uniquely there is. Creation originated in the will of God (1:3f). God’s speech-‘Let there be light,-’ etc.,is always prior to, and makes possible, the existence of something. Thus, everything -owes its existence to God’s creative word-’; hence, it is all good. The step-by-step design suggests that God works with a pattern and purpose. There is nothing here of the irrational or whimsical. All is according to the willed design of God. Hence, God is a personal being. He transcends the universe and is independent of the universe. There is not the slightest room for pantheism here. God before all, God back of all, God above all are appropriate statements.

We must reject the mythological theory of the Genesis account of the Creation on the following grounds: (1) the transcendent purity of the concept of God and His operations, as revealed in the Hebrew Cosmogony, removes it far from any connection with these alleged pagan sources; (2) the fact that the account is attached to the history of the early life of man on the earth gives it historical support that all pagan mythologies lacked; (3) there is not the slightest trace of myth in the Genesis narrative, and those who allege to the contrary are obviously confused regarding the factors which make a narrative really mythical. To realize that there is no mythology in the Mosaic account all that one has to do is to compare it with the actual creation myths of the primitive and pagan peoples. Mythology was polytheistic. Its characters were personifications of natural forces (as distinguished from the pure incorporeal personality of the God of the Bible, Exodus 3:14), anthropomorphic creatures with sex distinctions and guilty of all the crimes in the category. Kaufmann (RI, 38:39): The [pagan] gods themselves are subject to evil forces and impulses, and, having sinned, they too must suffer for their guilt. Thus, the guilty Kingu is slain for his part in Tiamat’s attack upon the Babylonian gods. Gilgamesh rebukes Ishtar for her wantonness and cruelty. The Hindu creator Prajapati lies with his daughter, and is punished by the terrible Rudra. Indra, having committed murder, is depressed, and so purifies himself. Cronus castrates his father, and Zeus brings him, in turn, down to Hades. Zeus, Aphrodite, and most of the gods of the Greek pantheon are steeped in promiscuity. The Teutonic Odin is a drunkard, a deceiver, an adulterer, a murderer; it is the same in one mythology after another.

This eminent present-day Jewish authority (RI, 21-24) summarizes the theories and practices characteristic of the ancient pagan mythologies which made them so greatly inferior to the Hebrew Cosmogony and its God (Elohim), as follows: 1. The fundamental idea that there exists a realm of being prior to the gods, and above them, upon whom the gods depend and whose decrees they must obey. This realm is conceived to be the womb in which the seeds of all being are contained. This means, of course that these pagan deities were limited in their powers. (In the Homeric epics, for example, Zeus, although the head of the Greek pantheon and designated the father of gods and men, is pictured, nevertheless, as having been subject to the determinations of an over-ruling Destiny, Fate, etc.) 2.The pagan gods emerge out of the primordial substance, having been generated by its fertility (as depicted in the ancient theogonies.) (A theogony is an account of the generation of the gods, goddesses, demigods, etc. Cf. the Theogony of Hesiod, a seventh century B.C. Greek poet.) 3. These gods were personal embodiments of the various seminal forces of the primordial realm (in simpler terms, personifications of the forces of nature). 4. These gods were all sexually differentiated and subject to all sexual drives (motivations), drives even more powerful than those of the human libido. These early mythologies are fairly saturated with tales of the gross immoralities of the gods: Plato criticizes them severely for this very reason. 5. Finally, just as the fundamental idea of paganism found poetic expression in myth, so it found practical expression in magic.

In a word, these gods and goddesses of pagan myth were limited in power, sexually generated and differentiated, wholly anthropomorphic, grossly unspiritual and immoral. This was equally true of the deities of the Babylonian Cosmogony as of all the ancient theogonies and cosmogonies. They were mere personifications, in striking contrast to the God of the Bible who is pure personality (Exodus 3:14). There are no genuinely mythical, allegorical, or even metaphorical connotations either explicit or implicit in the Hebrew Cosmogony and its portrayal of the living and true God: He is personal, spiritual (i.e., non-corporeal), ethical, compassionate, purposeful, and sovereign, in short, theistic and monotheistic. Moreover, the Biblical God is sharply differentiated from the Greek philosophical pantheistic To Theion (the Divine); whereas the latter is That Which Is, the God of the Bible is He Who Is.

A final word from the pen of Dr. Kaufmann (Intro., RI, 2) is sufficient here as a conclusion: in reference to the conventional view of the origins of Israelite monotheism, namely, that it is to be regarded as an organic outgrowth of the milieu of the ancient Orient, he writes: This view is here rejected in toto.We shall see that Israelite religion was an original creation of the people of Israel. It was absolutely different from anything the pagan world ever knew; its monotheistic world view had no antecedents in paganism. It was the fundamental idea of a national culture, and informed every aspect of that culture from its very beginning.

I feel obliged to dissent, however, from one statement in the foregoing excerpt, namely, the statement that the Israelite religion was an original creation of the people of Israel. I must affirm that this religion was not a human creation, but a Divine revelation to the people whom God elected to preserve theistic monotheism for all future ages.It is inconceivable to me that such an exalted Deity as the One whom we meet in Exodus 3:14 (Yahweh, I AM, He Who Is) could ever have been a formulation (intuition, insight) of the unaided (uninspired) human mind, whether the mind (genius) of a single individual (e.g., Moses) or of an ethnic group, and especially of an ethnic group known historically to have been surrounded on all sides by neighbors all of whom were devoted to such gross immoralities as those which characterized the pagan Cult of the Dead and the pagan Cult of Fertility. To me, this great and incommunicable Name of our God is evidence per se of the Divine origin (inspiration) of the Old Testament Scriptures.

4. The reconstruction theory. This is also variously designated the restitution or renovation theory. It is the theory that we have described in the Genesis Cosmogony what is called the Adamic renovation of our cosmos following a pre-Adamic cataclysmic reduction of this cosmos to a chaos. This view goes along with the cyclical view of cosmic history (cf. Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-2), a view which, incidentally, was held by the Stoics in ancient Greece and Rome.

This view is clearly stated by W. E. Powers (SBG, 8-11), as follows: The opening verse of Genesis says, In the beginning God created (bara) the heaven and the earth.-’ This does not mean that He made the world as it is today only six thousand years ago, but that way back, no one knows how long ago, God created all the universe with its myriads of solar systems, including our own earth, and it came from His hand a perfect masterpiece. To imagine the earth coming from God’s hand in a chaotic condition, void and waste, would be altogether out of order. He created it. in perfect beauty, and was compelled to throw it into chaos through some catastrophe, as a judgment upon its first inhabitants. There is ample Scriptural evidence for the above statement. Let us turn to Isaiah 24:1; Isaiah 45:18, also to Jeremiah 4:23-26. These passages clearly indicate that the earth has undergone in the far distant past a terrible catastrophe which turned it from perfection into disorder and a void because of sin and rebellion. Therefore, between the first and second verses of Genesis, there is ample space of time for all the geological ages that our earth’s strata reveal. This author then suggests that Satan may have been the governor of our earth is its pre-Adamic state of beauty and perfection (cf. Isaiah 14:12-15, Ezekiel 28:11-15, Daniel 10, Luke 10:18, Matthew 4:10, etc.). Powers continues: What the beings on the earth at that time were is somewhat hard to know, but it is perfectly clear that in that awful far-off event they perished, and then in the first Chapter s of Genesis we find a reconstruction of our planet and a re-peopling of it. Beginning at Genesis 1:3, we do not have six days of creation, but more correctly we should say, six days of reconstruction. In this connection, we find God bringing our chaotic earth back to order and preparing it for a new system under the hand of man.

In opposition to this argument, I point out (1) that the texts quoted from Isaiah and Jeremiah obviously had reference to judgments about to descend on the lands of contemporary peoples including even those of Jerusalem and Judah (also the perennial problem as to whether the Hebrew erets should be translated earth or land is here involved); (2) that to hold that references in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 to Satan’s primordial status as an archangel who chose to rebel against the Divine government, for which rebellion he was cast out of Heaven (Luke 10:18), justify the conclusion that he became the ruler of a hypothetical pre-Adamic earth is too far-fetched for serious consideration; or to identify any of the personages who appear in Daniel’s vision, as recorded in Daniel 10, with Satan, is equally far-fetched; (3) that the notion that God would ever have created a chaos in the sense of a universal disorder is totally irrelevant, for the simple reason, as we shall see later, that the counterparts in ancient languages of our English word chaos, did not mean disorder, but rather, as their primary meaning, infinite space, with such secondary meanings as unformed matter, primal energy, the abyss, darkness, etc.

This theoryalso designated the chasm theoryis clearly refuted, it seems to me, by Tayler Lewis (CDHC, 167, 168), on the following grounds: (1) That it does not in any way obviate the peculiar difficulties that attend the solar-day theory, such as a morning and evening without a sun, or the language of succession, of growth, and of a seeming nature, without any consistent corresponding reality; (2) that it is a building of this world on the ruins of a former, without any natural or moral reasons therefor. The states preceding, as understood by this hypothesis were in no sense preparatory; the catastrophe which makes way for it seems entirely arbitrary, and in no sense resembles the pauses described in Genesis, each one of which is in the upward order, and anticipatory of the work that follows; (3) that there is another and greater incongruity in connecting this with a former and very different state of things, or mode of proceeding, with which, after all, it has no real connection either in the realm of nature or of divine providence; (4) that the theory is evidently brought in as a possible escape from the difficulties of geology, and would never have been seriously maintained had it not been for them; (5) that it has to make the heavens of the first verse a different heavens from that of the eighth, without any exegetical warrant; therefore, is a rationalizing interpretation, carrying with it a conception of our modern astronomy, and almost wholly unknown to the Scriptures, which everywhere speak of the heavens and the earth therein mentioned as one system; (6) that it violates the principles of a rational and grammatical exegesis, in making a separation between the first and second verses, of which there is no trace or reason in the language itself. (As a matter of fact, does not the conjunction with which the second verse begins nullify any hypothesis of severance?) (Perhaps it should be noted here that T. Lewis stoutly champions the view that the heavens (or heaven) of verses 1 and 8 are the same, not the astronomical heavens of the planetary systems, galaxies, universes, etc., but the heaven of the earth-world, that is, the star-studded sky, which together with earth, makes up the whole as presented in Scripture. (Cf. Psalms 104, 1 Samuel 2:8; Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22; Psalms 102:25; 2 Peter 3:5-7; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1.) This would be in harmony, of course, with the obvious fact that the entire Genesis Cosmogony is presented from the terrestrial (tellurian) viewpoint, that is, the point of view of a dweller on our earth.) (See further discussion of this problem infra, in the study of the verses involved.)

To sum up: In the opinion of this writer, there is no real reason for bringing in the reconstruction theory of the Hebrew Cosmogony, when, as a matter of fact, the aeonic-day theory is the only one which provides the greater number of solutions for the problems involved.

5. The prophetic-vision theory. According to this theory, the days of the Genesis Cosmogony were actually seven successive ordinary days in the life of the prophet Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15-19, Acts 3:22; Acts 7:37), on which he was vouchsafed what might be called panoramic visions of the progressive stages of the Creation. According to this view, the days mentioned might be named visional or revelational days. Objections to this view are the following: (1) Visions are specifically designated such wherever they are related in Scripture (e.g., Genesis 12:7; Genesis 15:12-17; Genesis 28:10-17; Numbers 24:4; Job 7:14; Isaiah 1:1; Isaiah 6:1-13; Ezek., chs. 1, 10, 11, 37, 40; Dan., chs. 4, 7; Zechariah 1:18-21; Zechariah 2:1-5; Acts 2:17; Acts 10:3; Acts 10:9-17; 2 Corinthians 12:1; Revelation 1:9-20, etc.); however, there is not the slightest hint in the Genesis Cosmogony that mere visions are being described therein; the whole account is presented in declarations that have all the character of forthright history. (2) What about the affirmation presented in Genesis 1:1? This evidently is not included in the first visional day. Hence the question arises as to whether it was included in the first vision granted Moses or was communicated in some non-visional manner. As Archer states it (SOTI, 175, 176); If Genesis 1 was only a vision (representing, of course, the events of primeval history), then almost any other apparently historical account in Scripture could be interpreted as a visionespecially if it relates to transactions not naturally observable to a human investigator or historian. As a matter of fact, this general view has never been entertained by any great number of Biblical commentators.

6. The panoramic or cinemascopic theory, that we have in the Genesis account a vivid unrolling, before the mind of Moses, of the process of Creation in its successive stages, and without particular regard to detail. (Strong, ST, calls this the pictorial-summary view.) One is reminded here of the words of Augustine, De Gen. ad Lit., 4:27, The length of these days is not to be determined by the length of our week-days. There is a series in both cases, and that is all. (It is interesting to note, in this connection, that the heathen cosmogonies represent creation as having been accomplished in a series of ages of prolonged duration. As we shall see later, heathen notions on many moral, social, and religious subjects, all but prove themselves to be corrupted versions of primordial fact.) This panoramic or pictorial-summary interpretation of the Hebrew Cosmogony is the one which is accepted in this textbook.

So much for introductory matters. We shall now proceed to our study of the text of Genesis itself.

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART FOUR

What is a cosmology? What is the derivation of the word?

What is a cosmogony? A theogony?

State the ultra-scientific interpretation of the Hebrew Cosmogony and the objections to it.

Explain the ultra-literal theory of the Hebrew Cosmogony.

State the different uses of the word day (yom) in the first two Chapter s of Genesis.

What are the chief objections to the ultra-literal theory?

Discuss the statement that the same measure of Efficient Causality must have been employed in the Creation regardless of the method used.

How long probably was the first evening of Day One? What conclusion follows?

What probable significance is there in the absence of the usual concluding formula from the account of the seventh day?

State briefly Rotherham’s comment on the days of the Genesis narrative.

Distinguish between theistic evolution and progressive creationism.

State the mythological theory of the Hebrew Cosmogony,

Explain how the Babylonian Cosmogony differs from the Hebrew Cosmogony.

List the characteristics of the Hebrew Cosmogony which make it so far superior to the Babylonian.

List the attributes of the God of the Hebrew Cosmogony which make Him so much superior to the gods of the pagan mythologies.

In what special attribute is the God of the Bible transcendently superior to the deities of paganism?

Explain the difference between personification and personality.

List the characteristics of the pagan mythologies as given by Dr. Kaufmann.

How does the God of the Bible differ essentially from The Divine of Greek philosophical thought?

In what way does the Name of God as given in Exodus 3:14 confirm the doctrine of special revelation?

State the reconstruction theory of the Hebrew Cosmogony and the objections to it.

Why is it called the chasm theory?

Why is it spoken of as a rationalizing interpretation?

Explain the prophetic-vision theory of the Hebrew Cosmogony. State the objections to it.

Explain the panoramic view of the Hebrew Cosmogony. On what grounds is this theory preferred in this textbook?

PART TEN: THE ASSUMPTIONS OF SCIENTISM

The word science is from the Latin scientia, which means knowledge; the Greek equivalent is episteme, hence epistemology, the study of the ways of knowing, of the criteria of truth. I have already made it clear in this text that I have only profound respect for true science and its achievements, the blessings it has conferred on mankind. I would be the last to seek to deter in any way the progress of the human race in the understanding of its environment and in the task of overcoming those factors which prevent adaptation to this environment. But let me emphasize the fact anew that in making these statements I have in mind true sciencethe science, especially the scientific attitude, that is seasoned with a proper measure of both humility and faith: that is, with the awareness of man’s creaturehood and his necessity of depending on faith, in the main, to guide his activity and his progress, rather than on absolute certitude. For absolute certitude man does not have in any great measure: even the laws of the physical, chemical, biological, psychological, and sociological sciences are, after all, but statements of very great probability.For example, two atoms of hydrogen unite with one atom of oxygen to form a molecule of water: thus far no exception to this law has ever been noted. But this does not mean there never will be an exception: and for any man to put forward such a claim is to arrogate unto himself omniscience; and omniscience, or the potentiality of omniscience, man does not have. We think we live in this present world by sight, but careful analysis of human experience will soon make it obvious to all honest and good hearts that we live, for the most part, by faith.Very great probability is itself a measure of faith. What is usually designated knowledge is simply inference. Butis this inference necessary inference? (Necessary inference is rightly defined as that view, the opposite of which is inconceivable.)

1. Science versus Scientism. While I have all the respect in the world for true science and the scientists who pursue it, I have none whatever for what has come to be called scientism. By scientism we mean the deification of science, and, naturally, of man himself as the originator of science. (Devotees of scientism are prone to forget that their science is purely descriptive of what lies out there; that truth is written into the structure of the universe, and that all they can do is to discover it.) Scientism, writes Trueblood, is so naive as to be almost unbelievable. God is a fiction because He cannot be discovered by laboratory technique. Prayer is futile because it cannot be proved by scientific method. Religion is unworthy of serious attention because it arose in the prescientific age. He concludes: What we have here, of course, is not merely science, but a particularly unsophisticated philosophy of science, which deserves the epithet scientism.1Scientism is, of course, the product of a closed mind, or in the final analysis, a form of wilful ignorance. It feeds on assumptions (as premises) which cannot be proved to be valid.

This distinction between science and scientism must certainly be kept in mind in the study of the book of Genesis. It is in this area especially, in which we deal with such problems as those of the Creation, of the beginnings of human society, of the origin of evil, of the institution of religion, that discrepancies between Biblical teaching and scientific thinking have been alleged by extremists on both sides of the controversy. It is our purpose, in this resume, to show that these alleged discrepancies or contradictions are in the main straw men which have been set up by the zealots of these conflicting schools of thought with their contrary methodologies. On the one side of this controversy, we have the die-hard preachers who refuse to entertain anything but an ultra-literal interpretation of Scripture, whether it makes sense or not (that is, in the relation of the particular text to its context, and to the context of the Bible as a whole), and who flatly reject all possible alternatives which do make sense. We still have these gentlemen with us, and in this writer’s opinion they often contribute to the destruction of faith, on the part of young people of high school and college age, as truly as do their ultrascientific antagonists. This should not be. God knows that the one excellence needed perhaps more than any other by the confused youth of our time is faith, especially faith in the integrity of Scripture as the record of God’s revelation to man. They need to realize, once and for all, that nothing, absolutely nothing, has been discovered by the so-called modern mind that downgrades in any way this integrity and reliability. As a matter of fact the modern mind is itself pretty largely a myth of the so-called modern mind.

However, in my opinion, the worst offenders are the materialistic scientists and philosophers: those who, in their desire to exclude God from the cosmos and to reduce what they call religion to an innocuous, indefinable convictionless religiosity, deliberately seek out alleged discrepancies between Biblical and scientific teaching, and seem bent on conjuring up discrepancies where they do not exist at all. These seminarians never seek harmonies; they are out looking only for contradictions; they cannot see the forest for the trees. Believe me, the will not to believe motivates many of the intellectuals of our modern world. I have encountered students, from time to time, who have been sold on the claims of positivism, naturalism, humanism, existentialism (the contemporary fad among the ultra-sophisticates), and in most cases I have found them utterly impervious to any view which may be in conflict with their pet notions. It is this class of collegians who have completely closed minds: they will not even give an honest hearing to contrary views. They are right, and anyone who suggests the contrary is an old fogy. These personsboth instructors and studentswho take advantage of every opportunity to throw paper-wads at the Almighty simply demonstrate their utter ignorance of much of Biblical teaching. Unfortunately there are so many young people who do not know that these are just paper-wads and not golden nuggets of truth, paper-wads saturated with human speculative saliva (if a mixed metaphor be permitted), because these are young people who have never had any opportunity to hear the other side of the case. And unfortunately young men and women are too prone to take as law and gospel what their instructors hand out, no matter how fallacious, and oftentimes utterly absurd, these professorial pronouncements may be. (I am willing, of course, for any man to be sure, so long as he is not cocksure, about what he believes.) The result of much of this confusion, not only in state institutions of learning, but in theological seminaries as well, is what the humorist Mr. Dooley must have had in mind when he remarked that the trouble with so many people is that they know so many things that aint so.

I want not to be misunderstood here. College instructors who manifest this bias, and who go out of their way to cast innuendo on Biblical teaching and on anyone so credulous as to accept it at face value, and on religion in general, are the exception and not the rule. At least I have found it to be so. Unfortunately, however, only three or four professors committed to this type of thinking, are sufficient to confuse young impressionable minds and to brainwash them into a kind of skepticism (which is rooted in pessimism at its worst) that has but one thesis, namely, the meaninglessness of life and utter futility of living. Naturally there would be little point in living in the here and now, in a world, supposedly, of sheer chance (instead of choice), much less would there be any ground for hope of amelioration in a future life of any kind.

The tragedy of all this is that it need not be.It is the by-product of ignorance of the teaching of the Bible, and the immediate product largely of over-specialization so characteristic of modern education, that is, of specialization in a particular area of knowledge attended by misinformation or gross ignorance of what is to be accepted as valid in other areas of life and knowledge, and in particular of the area commonly described as religious, the area of the Spiritual Life. Someone has said that man is the only joker in the deck of nature, and the pitiful aspect of this fact is that he persists in playing his most tragic jokes on himself.

2. Harmonies of Science with Biblical Teaching.Let us now recapitulate what we have learned up to this point of the harmonies which prevail in our day between scientific theory and Biblical teaching, especially concerning matters introduced in the book of Genesis, as follows:

(1) According to the Bible, the first form of matter-in-motion was some kind of radiant energy (light: Genesis 1:3). This is a commonplace of present-day nuclear physics. Moreover, in our day, the line between the non-material (ideal, mental, spiritual) and the material is so thinly drawn as to be practically non-existent. As a matter of fact, energy-matter has become metaphysical, apprehensible in its primal forms by mathematical calculations only, and not by sense-perception. It is interesting to note that, according to the testimony of top-flight physicists, the as-yet-undiscovered elementary forces in matter may turn out to be new and sensational sources of energy vastly more powerful than that loosed by hydrogen bombs. No one knows what the future has in store for man’s understanding of the Mystery of Being.

(2) According to the Bible, animal life had its beginning in the water (Genesis 1:20-21). This is a commonplace of present-day biological science.

(3) According to the Hebrew Cosmogony, the order of Creation was as follows: light, atmosphere, lands and seas, plant life, water species, birds of the heavens, beasts of the field, and finally man and woman. This is precisely the order envisioned by the science of our own time, That the order (sequence) pictured in Genesisin an account known to have been written in prescientific timesshould be in exact accord with twentieth-century science, is amazing, to say the least. There is but one logical conclusion that can be derived from the fact of this correspondence, namely, that Moses was writing by inspiration of the Spirit of God. (We all know today that light and atmosphere (nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc.) had to exist before any living thing could exist, that the process of plant photosynthesis had to be in operation to support both animal and human life. But who knew anything about hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, chlorophyll, photosynthesis, etc., at the time Genesis was written? We simply cannot invoke human experience to account for these facts recorded in Genesis centuries ago, facts that have become known only as a result of the progress of science in modern times, indeed some of them as the product only of more recent discoveries.) (4) It has been pointed out previously in this text that there is no necessity for assuming conflicts between the Genesis Cosmogony and present-day geological science. On the basis of the reconstruction theory of the Mosaic Narrativethat in Genesis 1:1 we have a general statement about the absolute beginning of the physical Creation, and in Genesis 1:2 the account of the beginning of what is called an Adamic renovation, following an alleged pre-Adamic reduction of the cosmos to a state of chaosit is obvious that in the interim thus hypothesized there was ample time for all the periods envisioned by the modern earth sciences. Again, on the basis of the panoramic theory of the Hebrew Cosmogony, according to which the days of the Creation Narrative are held to be aeonic days or periods of indefinite length (the interpretation which we have chosen in this text as the preferable one), certainly sufficient time could have elapsed between the moment when God decreed, Light, Be! and the moment when He said, later, Let us make man in our image, to allow for all the terrestrial developments set forth in the text-books of geology and kindred sciences.

(5) The description of manthe human beingas a spirit-body or mind-body unity (Genesis 2:7) is in exact accord with the psychosomatic approach in medicine, and the organismic approach in psychology, to the study of man.

(6) According to the Genesis account, God decreed something at the beginning of each stage of the Creation, and that which He decreed was so (Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:7; Genesis 1:9; Genesis 1:11; Genesis 1:15). He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast (Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:5-6). We have already noted that recent studies in the area of the phenomena of the Subconscious support the phenomenon of psychokinesis, the power of thought energy in man to effect different kinds of materializations and to affect the movements of ponderable objects or things. Certainly such phenomena support the Biblical doctrine that man was created in the image (likeness) of God (Genesis 1:26-27). That is to say, as the image and likeness of God, man should have within him, infinitesimally of course, the power to transmute thoughts into things, powers which the Creator exercised in bringing the cosmos into existence.

3. The Blind Spots of the Materialists.Materialists have ever been eager to seize upon theories which would reduce manincluding the life processes and thought processes characteristic of manultimately to some kind of physical energy or motion: that is, to an aggregate of protons and electrons. There are scientists and philosophers in our day whose theories are materialistic, but who shy away from being labeled materialists, preferring to be known by more sophisticated terms, such as humanists, naturalists, etc. Nevertheless, they are one with the materialists in their efforts to discredit religion in general, and the fundamentals of the Christian faith in particular. These gentlemen repeatedly seize upon theories which they mistakenly interpretlargely because of their incomplete knowledgeas supporting materialistic predilections, but which in fact do not necessarily do so. This type of half-baked know-how (scholarship?) simply adds to the already existing confusion brought about by their own kind.

For example, materialists, holding as they do that when the body dies the person perishes in toto, assume that T. H. Huxley’s theory of epiphenomenalism supports their view that all forms of being are reducible ultimately to energy-matter and so disproves any possibility of continued personal existence beyond the grave. (As stated heretofore, epiphenomenalismthe word means literally, an accompanying phenomenon, that is, a phenomenon upon a phenomenonis the theory that what is called consciousness or mind or mental process is a kind of aura (something like the electrical glow that may be seen hovering over a machine at work), a refined kind of neural energy that is thrown off by the activity of brain cells; hence, that all so-called mental events are merely incidental and cannot be causative, or cannot be thought of as having independent existence, in any sense whatever; that mind, rather, in whatever sense it may exist, is affected (determined) by body or brain, but in no way affects body or brain. Incidentally, I have already emphasized the fact that there is no correlate in the brain for meaning in thought; hence, that meaning cannot be reduced to physical energy or motion. This is the evidence of common sense and experience and needs no other empirical verification.) As far as I know, it has never been denied by informed persons, either scientists or theologians, that there is some correlation between brain and mind in the human organism. But correlation is not identity.The fact that must be emphasized here, however, is that the theory of epiphenomenalism is not necessarily to be regarded as materialistic at all. In fact it is in accord with the Christian doctrine of immortality, that the personand most assuredly the redeemed personis a body-spirit or body-mind unity, both in the here and in the hereafter, the only difference being in the transmutation of the physical body adapted to its present environment, into an ethereal (spiritual, 1 Corinthians 15:44) body adapted to the needs of the saint in his heavenly environment. Certainly, present-day physics has nothing to say against this teaching, this doctrine of the redemption of the body, or personal immortality, promised to all of God’s elect (Romans 8:18-23, Philippians 3:20-21, 1 Corinthians 15:35-58, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10). Physicists are still seeking the ultimates, the irreducibles of energy-matter. (These as yet unisolated irreducibles of physical energy are now known as quarks in the vocabulary of physics, and are thought to be even more powerful than those which have been discovered.) It is a commonplace of physical science in our day that matter can, and does, function in such attenuated forms that the possibility of an ethereal body, to replace the present earthly, body, is no less scientific than it is Scriptural. For all we know, every person may be carrying around with him, while in this terrestrial body, the elements essential to the structure of the body he will need in the next world; that death, in short, is just such a metamorphosis as is taking place throughout nature all the time. (Of course, we are not told in Scripture just what kind of bodies the wicked will inhabit in their state of separation from God.)

Unfortunately, many who have written on this subject seem to have been unaware of, or misinformed about, the Christian doctrine of immortality. For example, the late C, E. M. Joad, a distinguished teacher of philosophy and author of books on various phases of the subject, a truly scholarly gentleman whose writings are characterized by a sane and sensible approach to philosophical problems, seems to have been beset by this confusion, According to Thomas Aquinas (writes Joad), man is a combination of soul and body, the body being the substance, which owes its qualities to the imposition of the various forms upon the materia prima, and the soul being the substantial form. Conformably with his doctrine of matter and form, St. Thomas insists upon the necessity of the body to the soul, in order that there may be a soul at all. Hence, the soul could not survive the death of the mortal body, unless it were provided with a new and glorified body. But it is with precisely such a body that, he teaches, it is provided at death.2 Evidently the scholarly Joad was not aware of the fact that Aquinas was, in substance, simply repeating the doctrine which had already been clearly stated in the New Testament Scriptures by Jesus Himself and by the Apostle Paul. (John 6:38-40; John 2:19-22; John 12:24; John 11:23-26; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Romans 8:11, etc.).

The same facts apply generally to the arbitrary absorption by materialists into their cult, of the theory known as that of emergent evolution. There are various ramifications of this theory, but in the main it is the theory that in the progressive development of the cosmos with its many and varied forms of being, both non-living and living, new forms with new properties appeared from time to time, which cannot be accounted for in terms of the powers characteristic of the entities existing on lower levels, e.g., energy-matter (sometimes dealt with as space-time), life, consciousness, self-consciousness (personality), etc., in the order named. These apparently original and unpredictable realities common to human experience are called emergents by the proponents of the theory (Samuel Alexander, C. Lloyd Morgan, R. W. Sellars, et al). If one asks, What causes these emergents to emerge? the answer is that a nisus (a pull) of some kind does it. (See infra for a further critique of this theory, also the Tables at the end of this Part). However, the point with which we are concerned here is not the validity of the theory (in the view of the present writer, it is certainly questionable), but the fact that the theory is not necessarily to be regarded as grossly materialistic. Obviously, if mind or soul (self, person) is an emergent, it certainly exists in its own right, (just as water exists in its own right, and continues to do so, as a result of the fusion of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in right proportions); hence, despite the rejection, by advocates of the theory, of what they call an alien influx into nature (a special Divine act?), it seems evident that the theory does not completely close the door to the possibility of the continued existence of the mind or soul (the person) beyond the grave, that is, the possibility of personal immortality. Moreover, emergence, especially in the form of what is called a mutation, certainly bears a striking resemblance to a special creation, that is, to a Divine influx into nature, regardless of what the evolutionists may say about it.

4. The Ambiguity of the Word Evolution.We come now, in this text, to the study of the word (and its referent) which has been the cause of the most intense and sustained controversy in the entire area of the agreement (or the lack of it) between Biblical teaching and scientific thinking in our time. That word is evolution. With the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 (his contemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace, had already arrived at the same general theory), this word has been seized upon, on the one hand, as a forensic watchword, by all those thinkers who would like to destroy Biblical religion; and on the other hand, as a kind of diabolical device to be resisted at all costs, by churchmen who unyieldingly adhere to the most literal interpretations of certain sections of Genesis largely because of their fear of the effect of the theory on young impressionable minds. They honestly fear the theory itself, and more particularly the doctrinaire manner in which it is often presented by its over-zealous advocates. And indeed they have real grounds for these fears: for without justification the theory has been blown up into a full-fledged dogma. It is my conviction, however, that Christians need have no fear of the truth.I propose, therefore, that we try to sift out as carefully as we can whatever measure of truth is embodied in the evolution theory, and ascertain as best we can the extent to which it is actually in conflict, if in conflict at all, with the Genesis Cosmogony. I think I should state here that my own criticism of the theory is based, not so much on theological, as on scientific and. philosophical considerations.

The word evolution is one of the most ambiguous words in our language. It means literally an unrolling, an unfolding, etc. As used originally, the term had reference only to the origin of species: its use was confined to biological science. Since Darwin’s time, however, it has become a yardstick for analyzing and tracing chonologically every cosmical, biological, sociological, and even theological, development in the history of humankind. Hence we have books with such titles, as Stellar Evolution, From Atoms to Stars, Biography of the Earth, etc., and innumerable published articles of the same general trend of thought. (Nowhere, perhaps, is this attempted universal application of the term made more obvious than in the title of a book recently published, From Molecules to Man.) Implicit in the meaning of the word evolution, as used generally, is the idea of progression or progressive development; and the basis of this idea is the a priori concept that the historical order must coincide with a certain logical order in each case; that is to say, as applied by evolutionists, all change necessarily takes place from the simple to the more and more complex. In logic textbooks, this idea is now designated the genetic fallacy. As stated in one such textbook: It is an inexcusable error to identify the temporal order in which events have actually occurred, with the logical order in which elements may be put together to constitute existing institutions. Actual recorded history shows growth in simplicity as well as in complexity.3 The fact is that in some areas change is not from the simple to the complex, but just the reversefrom complexity to greater simplicity. This is true, for example, in the field of linguistics especially: the history of language is the story of a continuous process of simplification. The same is true in the area of social organization: all one has to do to realize this fact is to contrast the long tortuous genealogical tables of the most primitive peoples with the tendency to minimize, even to disregard, genealogies altogether (cf. 1 Timothy 1:4, Titus 3:9). To quote again: Science, as well as art and certain social organizations, is sometimes deliberately changed according to some idea or pattern to which previous existence is not relevant.4

I am reminded here of Herbert Spencer’s theory of cultural evolution, namely, that all cultures have moved forward from savagery through barbarism to civilization. This idea has long been abandoned by anthropologists and sociologists alike. The evolution yardstick was, for a long time, applied to the history of religion: it was contended that animism (the belief that everything is ensouled) was the first form of religion; that in time, animism gave way generally to polytheism; that polytheism was succeeded by henotheism (a pantheon with a single sovereign deity); and then henotheism was succeeded by monotheism (these systems all having been inventions of the human imagination). It is held further that monotheism will ultimately give way to pantheism, a sophisticated religion, hence the only system which is acceptable to the intelligentsia. Again, it is doubtful that this general theory is seriously entertained in our day: there is too much evidence that monotheism has existed along these other views, somewhere and in some form, from earliest times. Moreover, a dry-as-dust intellectualized cult, such as pure pantheism, or any other cult which ignores the personal and living God will never appeal generally to the aspirations or needs of the human soul.

In common parlance, the word evolution means simply development, progression, in terms of a sequence. But progression is not always easy to define. I might line up a wheelbarrow, a gig, a buggy, a wagon, an automobile, and even an airplane, in a single row. There would be some structural resemblance, of course. But we know, in this case, that one of these vehicles is not the outgrowth (emergent) of that type which preceded it; we know, rather, that all of them were products alike of human technology, inventions of the human mind. We know also that as a sequence they spell progression; this progression, obviously, is distinct from that kind of progression which is brought about by the operation of resident forces characteristic of different levels of being. However, evolution is often used to signify a going forward, a development, a progression, that is not emergent in any sense of the term. Hence we speak of the evolution of political systems, of social organization, of the science of medicine, of technology, of ethics and law, etc.

This, however, is not what the term evolution means in biology. Here, it means, according to a well-known definition, by LeConte, continuous progressive change, according to fixed laws, by means of resident forces.(Note the full import here of the word resident.) The full-fledgedand rather pompousdefinition of biological evolution was given us in the Spencerian formula: Evolution, said Herbert Spencer, is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity, that is, of structure and function, and during which the retained motion goes through a parallel transformation. (It should be noted that Spencer’s use of the word motion here leaves a great deal to be explained.) Obvious theories of this type are based on the assumption that all so-called progressive change (evolution) is fortuitous, that is, occurring by accident or chance (purposelessness); hence they are commonly designated mechanistic or materialistic theories. This writer finds it difficult to accept the notion that a movement can be progressive and at the same time fortuitous: surely we have here a semantic paradox, to say the least! (The same is true of the phrase, natural selection. Selectivity, in all human experience, presupposes deliberation and choice: how, then, can impersonal nature be rightly said to select anything? Thus we seem to have another semantic paradox.) However, it is an outstanding characteristic of the devotees of evolutionism to indulge equivocation, perhaps unwittingly, in their use of language.

Theories of what is called emergent evolution tend to the organismic, rather than the mechanistic, explanation of the various facets of the life process. Emergentism, as stated above, is the theory that in general evolution is a naturalistic process proceeding from the operation of resident, yet essentially vitalistic, force or forces; that each emergent has a different structure with additional properties, and its own different behavior patterns; that each emergent not only has subsistence per se (that is, after emerging), but also acts as a causal agency, a transmitter of effects. Moreover, it is said to be beyond the ability of human intelligence to know how many levels of emergence there may be or yet come to be. If one should ask, what is it that causes these emergents to emerge, the answer is that a nisus or pull does it. The theory of some members of this school is that the pull is exerted by whatever lies ahead. But it is difficult to understand just how whatever lies ahead actually exists in order to exert a pull, when according to the theory it is in the process of being actualized (or should we say, of actualizing itself?). If God is envisioned as the Ultimate Emergentthe Goal of the Processthen God is, in terms of the theory, in the indeterminable process of becoming God. Hence, other advocates of the theory identify the nisus with a pushan impulsionfrom within. Be that as it may, in either case, God is presented to us as engaged in the age-long business of Becoming not Himself, but Itself. Emergentism is pantheistic: its God is either nature as a whole, or an impersonal process operating in nature. (Cf. the philosophical system know as Holism. According to this system, the Creative Process (Evolution) stabilized being in successively more complex wholes (the atom, the cell, etc.), of which the most advanced and most complex is the person or personality.5 Holism is a form of Emergentism.)

On the basis of the inclusion of human intelligence in evolution, as playing, perhaps, the most important role in the process, advocates of the theory in our day take the position generally that societal (or psychological) evolution has superseded in large measure what has heretofore been known as organic (biological) evolution. (For a clear presentation of this view, see the book, Human Destiny, by Lecomte du Nouy, published in 1947 by Longmans, Green. See also the concluding Chapter s of the Mentor books, The Meaning of Evolution, by George G. Simpson, and Evolution in Action, by Julian Huxley.) In line with this general idea, the academic world has been thoroughly stirred in recent years by the serious and profound view of human evolution put forward by the late French priest-scientist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In his principal works, The Phenomenon of Man (1959) and The Future of Man (1964), Teilhard envisions evolution through a gradation of forms from atomic particles to human beings, in ever increasing complexity of structure, and along with it, development of consciousness. Man is the focal point in whom all facets of the evolutionary process converge, and in man reflective thought finally emerges. The unique idea in Teilhard’s system is his view that the ultimate reality of this cosmic development (that is, of Evolution) is the incarnate Christ (not the superman of Nietzsche, nor that of Samuel Butler, nor that of G. B. Shaw’s Man and Superman and his Back to Methuselah), but the God-man. Two quotations from this writer are pertinent: The only universe capable of containing the human person is an irrevocably -personalizing-’ universe. Again, In one manner or the other, it still remains true that, even in the view of the mere biologist, the human epic resembles nothing so much as a way of the Cross.6 This, to be sure, is anotherand more profound-theory of emergentism. Like that of Bergson’s creative evolution (described below), this is an honest effort to describe the modus operandi of the evolutionary process, which in the last analysis becomes an effort to describe the indescribablethe ineffable. The mystery of the life movement itself is too profound to yield its secrets to the mere human intellect.

5. Evolution and Evolutionism.One fact should be emphasized before we proceed further with this study, namely, that evolution must not be confused with evolutionism. The word evolution designates only the process itself, the process of continuous progressive change; the word evolutionism, however, designates how the process proceeds, that is, the phenomena that are said to actualize it. (Evolutionism is also properly designated the theory of evolution.)These phenomena are usually listed as follows: (1) Lamarck (1744-1829): the transmission of characteristics (modifications) acquired through the interaction of the organism and its environment.This theory is now generally rejected, except by the Russian biologist, Lysenko, who has been all but canonized by the Kremlin oligarchy for his revival of it, (2) Charles Darwin (1809-1882), getting his cue from Malthus’s Essay on Population (the thesis of which was that because population increases in geometrical proportion, whereas the earth’s resources multiply only in arithmetical proportion, the time will come when the earth will not be able to provide food for its population, unless some selective process removes the surplus), advanced the theory of evolution by natural selection.The process of struggle for existence, Darwin held, selects out and preserves only those organisms which prove to be the most capable of adapting to environment (the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, that is, the fittest to demonstrate survival quality by adaptation). Darwin’s contemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) had arrived at the natural selection theory even before Darwin, but Darwin happened to beat him into print, (They were always good friends, however.) Wallace pointed out the fact to Darwin that while natural selection might account for the survival of an existing species, it did not account for the arrival of a new species.(3) August Weismann (1844-1914) contended that the explanation of evolution lies in the continuity of the germ-plasm.It seems obvious, however, that only process and form (the form being that which specifies man as man) can be transmitted from generation to generation through the germ plasm. Germ-cells are affected only by variations or mutations in themselves, and not by what goes on in the life of the parent. (Still and all, it seems incontrovertible that any modification in the parent organism is transmissible only through the chromosomes and genes. Moreover, genes are but hypothetical determiners of heredity operating beyond the world of sense-perception.) (4) Mutations, discovered by the Dutch botanist De Vries (1848-1935), are sudden big leaps to new species which per se breed true. It is commonly held that evolution might have proceeded by these abrupt and relatively permanent germinal changes. rather than by slight variations. (There are some, however, who contend that mutations might have come about through slowly accumulating changes in the genes.) To this writer’s thinking mutations are indispensable to any possible validation of the evolution theory. Moreover, mutations certainly have all the appearance of special creations. (The German philosopher Lotze, and others, have taken the position that at different stages in the Creative Process, God infused into it new increments of force, that is, new and distinct powers, by direct action, thus bringing into existence the successively higher levels characterized by matter-energy, life, consciousness, and self-consciousness, in the order named. According to this view, Creation involved new increments of power plus continuity of plan.(Cf. the title of the book by Hoernle, Matter, Life, Mind, and God.) It should be noted too that this theory accords in the main with Aristotle’s Hierarchy of Being, according to which Being is organized on successively higher levels of matter-in-motion, the vegetative psyche, the animal psyche, the rational psyche, with God over all as Pure Self-thinking Thought. (5) The laws of heredity as first formulated by the Austrian monk and botanist, Gregor Mendel (1824-1884) are believed to play a significant role also in the evolutionary process. (6) Protagonists of the theory in our day are inclined to agree that evolution may have proceeded in all these ways, with the sole exception of the Lamarckian notion of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. However, the phenomena characterizing this life movement leave the movement itself unexplained.

The following excellent summation by Patrick is in order here: When the doctrine of evolution was brought prominently before the world by Darwin in the middle of the last century, two misconceptions arose, which in our time have been largely corrected. The first was that there is some kind of conflict between evolution and religion, and the second was that evolution has explained the world. As regards the first, we have come to learn that the religious attitude has been greatly strengthened by the enlarged vision which evolution has brought us. We have become accustomed now to the idea of development, and we understand its immeasurable superiority over the old spasmodic theory of creation. The other misunderstanding that arose about evolution was almost the opposite of the first. It was that evolution had explained the world, and that no other philosophy or religion was necessary. This curious error probably came about because of a confusion between evolution as a method or law of change, and evolution as a force or power. There is a popular belief that evolution is a kind of creative force, something that can do things. On the contrary, it is a mere description of nature’s method. We see in evolution that nature behaves in a certain uniform way, or, if you choose, that God creates by a certain uniform method. The student of philosophy, who has already learned that natural laws are not forces or powers, but merely observed uniformities, is not likely to fall into the mistake of making a God of evolution.7

6. The Movement of Evolution.Under this caption, we call attention to two significant views, as follows: (1) What is called orthogenesis, that is, straight line evolution. This is the view that variation in successive generations of a succession of parents and offspring follows a specific line of development, finally undeviatingly evolving a new type. The classic example usually cited is that of the very ancient and tiny eohippus which by gradual, step-by-step change is said to have evolved into the horse that we know today. This is called the theory of determinate variation. (2) Fountainlike evolution.This is the doctrine of the late French philosopher, Henri Bergson (1859-1941).8 Bergson’s main thesis was that the phenomena envisioned bv evolutionism do not explain evolution, that is, the life movement itself; that this surge upward of what might be called the core of the Creative Process is explainable only as the Elan Vital (Life Force). In Bergson’s thought, this Elan Vital is the primordial cosmic principle, the ground of all being, that is at the very root of evolution, a vital push or impulsion pervading matter, insinuating itself into it, overcoming its inertia and resistance, determining the direction of evolution as well as evolution itself.9 This never-ceasing free activity is Life itself. Indeed Bergson speaks of it as Spirit, as a directing Consciousness as well as an actualizing Power. The unique aspect of this view is Bergson’s picture of Life Force operating like a fountain, so to speak, with a center from which worlds shoot out like rockets in a fireworks display, as a series of jets gushing out from the immense reservoir of life.10 We must be careful, however, not to think of this center or core as a thingwe must think of it only as a process. Moreover, as the core-movement pushes upward, according to Bergson’s theory, the push encounters resistance by the matter on which it works; hence there is a falling back toward gross matter by the residue that is left behind by the progressive push of Life toward fulness of being. According to this theory, the Elan Vital manifested itself in the lower animals in the form of instinct; in man, it manifests itself in the form of intelligence (intellection), the power that enables him to surge upward through learning by trial-and-error; it will ultimately push on to what Bergson calls intuition in man, which will be immediacy in man’s apprehension of truth, corresponding in a way, but on a much higher level, to the immediacy of the brute’s response to sensory stimuli. Bergson envisions nothing beyond this power of intuition. Of course, his fountainlike description of evolution, allowing for both progression and retrogression, is another theory of emergentism. (One of my science professors remarked to me once that to him evolution meant variation, and variation either upward (progression) or downward (retrogression). This is approximately Bergson’s view.)

7. Evidence for Evolutionism.The evidence usually cited to support the evolution theory includes the following factors: (1) Comparative anatomy, or structural resemblance among species. (But, to what extent does structural resemblance necessarily prove emergence? Could it not be interpreted as supporting the view that a Creative Intelligence simply used the same general pattern in creating the living species?) (2) Embryology: the embryos of different animal species tend to similar development in early stages. Those of lower animals are said to cease developing at certain points; those of higher animals move upward through additional stages of development. It has long been contended that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny; that is, that each individual organism of a certain phylum tends to recapitulate the principal stages through which its ancestors have passed in their racial history. (This idea is seriously questioned today by many biologists.) (3) Serology: the blood composition of higher animals is the same. Samples of blood from closely related higher animals can be mixed, whereas an antagonistic reaction sets in if there is wide separation between the species. (4) Vestigial remains: the presence of unused organs. Usually cited in this category are the appendix in man, degenerate eyes in cave animals, wings of the female gypsy moth, etc. (5) Geographical distribution of animals: arrested development of flora and fauna in areas cut off in prehistoric times from continental land masses. The classic example of this are the marsupials of Australia. (Yet the opossum, whose only natural habitat is America, is a marsupial,) (6) Paleontology: correlation of the ascending scale of the simple to the more complex fossil forms with successively earlier to later geological strata. (Thus geologists rely on the evidence of paleontology to support historical geology, and the paleontologists cite the evidence of geology to support their chronology of fossil remains. This, some wag, has remarked, borrowing from the comic strips of the nineteen-twenties, is a kind of Alphonse-and-Gaston act.) (7) Artificial selection.That is, changes brought about by selective breeding, by the application of human intelligence; for example, by Mendel, Burbank, and others. This, it is claimed, adds momentum to the whole process. (8) Classification of animals in phyla, classes, genera, species, orders, families, etc., in ascending order of complexity, from unicellular organisms up to man. This, it is held, gives evidence of an over-all relationship among all living organisms.

8. the Evolutionism Dogma.The chief protest by Christians with respect to evolutionism is a protest against the blowing up of the theory into a dogma. A dogma is a proposition to be accepted on the ground that it has been proclaimed by the proper authority; in this case, of course, the proper authority is human science. Evolution is presented in many high school and college textbooks as an established fact; and in others, the inference that it is factual, is expressed by innuendo, with the accompanying inference that persons who refuse to accept it are naive, childish, or just plain ignoramuses. It seems to be assumed by these devotees of the cult that they have a monopoly on the knowledge of this particular subject. The fact is that much of the material appearing in these textbooks is simply parroted by teachers who are so ignorant of Biblical teaching, they are not even remotely qualified to pass judgment on the matter. Unfortunately, too, many persons of eminence in certain highly specialized fields are prone to break into print on various aspects of Biblical doctrine only to prove by their statements -that they are completely uninformed on the subjects on which they choose to expatiate. Pernicious fallacies, - based on the authority of a great name, thus have a way of persisting from generation to generation even though they have been shown to be fallacies many times: it is the prestige of the great name or names with which they are associated which gives them apparent deathlessness. I want to make it clear at this point that whatever objections I have to evolutionism are not based so much on the view that, in certain forms, it is anti-Biblical or irreligious, but on the conviction that it is based all too frequently, not on established factthat is, by the testimony of eye-witnessesbut on inference.The important question, therefore, is this: Is the inference drawn from alleged phenomena in this field *necessary inference?*inference, that is, the opposite of which is inconceivable? Or does much of it savor of little more than conjecture?

Dr. James Jauncey states the case clearly in these words: Of course you will often hear from some enthusiastic evolutionists that evolution is now indisputable, that it has been proved beyond doubt, and that anyone who disputes this is an ignoramus or a fanatic. This is jumping the gun, to say the least. The vehemence-’ of such statements makes one suspect that the speakers are trying to convince themselves. When a scientific theory crystallizes into law, such as that of relativity, it speaks for itself. All we can say at the moment is that evolution is generally accepted, possibly because of the lack of any scientific alternative, but with serious misgivings on the adequacy of some aspects of it. As for the kind of rigorous proof that science generally demands, it still isn-’t there. Indeed, some say that because of the philosophical aspects of the theory, that proof will never be possible.11

A clear example of the blind spots which seem to characterize the devotees of evolutionism is the title of an article appearing recently in Reader’s Digest that reads Can Science Produce Life? This title is misleading, to say the least: life never was produced (created) by human agency. This fact, the author of the article in question, seems to realize. Toward the end, he writes, with reference to microspheres (proteinoids formed by the fusion of amino acids): Although these spheres are not true cellsthey have no DNA genes and they are simpler than any contemporary lifethey do possess many cellular properties. They have stability; they keep their shapes indefinitely. They stain in the same way as the present-day protein in cells, an important chemical test, But the real significance of these microspheres is that scientists do not synthesize them piece by piece; they simply set up the right conditionsand microspheres produce themselves. Thus it will be noted that the eminent scientist-author of this article flatly contradicts the import of the title, by stating that man can only set up the conditions necessary to the production of microspheres but cannot do the producing. (The title is, in fact, an excellent example of the manner in which careless use of language can spread confusion.) Man indeed sets the stage, but the God of nature alone, as the cosmic Efficient Causality, can actualize the life process.

I recommend that every reader of this textbook procure a copy of the latest issue of Everyman’s Library Edition (published by E. P. Dutton, New York) of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and read the Preface written by W. R. Thompson, F.R.S., and Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Ottawa, Canada. Thompson states expressly that the content of his Preface will not follow the tenor of previous introductions to Darwin’S, work, those written by other scientists, in particular that of Sir Arthur Keith. I could not content myself, Thompson writes, with mere variations on the hymn to Darwin and Darwinism that introduces so many textbooks on biology and evolution. I am of course well aware that my views will be regarded by many biologists as heretical and reactionary, However, I happen to believe that in science heresy is a virtue and reaction often a necessity, and that in no field of science are heresy and reaction more desirable than in evolutionary theory. After stating in no uncertain terms what he considers to be the weaknesses of the Darwinian theory (which he describes as a theory of the origin of living forms by descent with modifications), Thompson goes on to point out the fallacies involved in the argumentation used by the evolutionists. This, he declares, makes the discussion of their ideas extremely difficult. In what way? Because personal convictions, simple possibilities, are presented as if they were proofs, or at least valid arguments in favor of the theory (repeating an evaluation made by De Quatrefages). Thompson adds: As an example De Quatrefages cited Darwin’s explanation of the manner in which the titmouse might become transformed into the nutcracker, by the accumulation of small changes in structure and instinct owing to the effect of natural selection; and then proceeded to show that it is just as easy to transform the nutcracker into the titmouse. The demonstration can be modified without difficulty to fit any conceivable case. It is without scientific value since it cannot be verified; but since the imagination has free rein, it is easy to convey the impression that a concrete example of real transmutation has been given. This is the more appealing because of the extreme fundamental simplicity of the Darwinian explanation. This was certainly a major reason for the success of the Origin.Another is the elusive character of the Darwinian argument. Every characteristic of organisms is maintained in existence because it has survival value. But this value relates to the struggle for existence. Therefore we are not obliged to commit ourselves in regard to the meaning of differences between individuals or species since the possessor of a particular modification may be, in the race for life, moving up or falling behind. On the other hand, we can commit ourselves if we like, since it is impossible to disprove our statement. The plausibility of the argument eliminates the need for proof and its very nature gives it a kind of immunity to disproof. Darwin did not show in the Origin that species had, originated by natural selection; he merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and assumptions, how this might have happened, and as he had convinced himself he was able to convince others. (We are reminded here of Mark Twain’s evaluation: There is something so fascinating about science one gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such trifling investments of fact.)

On the subject of mutations, Thompson writes as follows: As Emile Guyenot has said, mutations are powerless, to explain the general adaptation which is the basis of organization. -It is impossible to produce the world of life where the dominant note is functional organization, correlated variation and progression, from a series of random events.-’ Again, from the same author: An important point in Darwin’s doctrine, as set out in the Origin, was the conviction that evolution is a progressive process. The Victorians accepted this idea with enthusiasm. Here I need only say on this point Darwin was inconsistent since, in his view, natural selection acts not only by the survival of the fittest but also by the extermination of the less fit and may produce anatomical degradation as well as improvement. Darwin himself considered that the idea of evolution is unsatisfactory unless its mechanism can be explained. I agree, but since no one has explained to my satisfaction how evolution could happen I do not feel impelled to say that it has happened. I prefer to say that on this matter our information is inadequate.

(I should like to interpolate here a few personal statements as follows: An outstanding example of the downright fanatical zeal with which early exponents seized upon Darwin’s theory and blowed it up to such fantastic extremes (notably, by means of the intellectual vacillations of the erratic T. H. Huxley, the semantic pomposity of the agnostic Herbert Spencer, etc.) is the tree of life as hypothesized by the arrogant German, Haeckel (1834-1919). Haeckel presumed to arrange existing forms in an ascending scale from the simple to the complex, by arbitrarily inserting imaginary names to identify all the necessarily numerous missing links. Today Haeckel’s famous tree is largely famous, even in the scientific world, for its absurdities.) Dr. Thompson concludes his Preface with what is obviously the most telling objection of all to evolutionism. A long-enduring and regrettable effect of the Origin, he writes, was the addiction of biologists to unverifiable speculation, the net result of which was that the success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity. This, he adds, is already evident in the reckless statements of Haeckel, and in the shifting, devious, and histrionic argumentation of T. H. Huxley. Finally, his conclusion: It may be said, and the most orthodox theologians indeed hold, that God controls and guides even the events due to chance; but this proposition the Darwinians emphatically reject, and it is clear that in the Origin evolution is presented as an essentially undirected process. For the majority of readers, therefore, the Origin effectively dissipated the evidence of providential control. It might be said that this was their own fault. Nevertheless, the failure of Darwin and his successors to attempt an equitable assessment of the religious issues at stake indicates a regrettable obtuseness and lack of responsibility. Furthermore, on the purely philosophical plane. the Darwinian doctrine of evolution involves some difficulties which Darwin and Huxley were unable to appreciate, (I might well add that their devoted disciples in our day seem to have closed minds on the same matters). Between the organism that simply lives, the organism that lives and feels, and the organism that lives, feels, and reasons, there are in the opinion of respectable philosophers, abrupt transitions corresponding to an ascent in the scale of being, and they hold that the agencies of the material world cannot produce transitions of this kind. Again, Biologists still agree on the separation of plants and animals, but the idea that man and animals differ only in degree is now so general among them, that even psychologists no longer attempt to use words like -reason-’ or -intelligence-’ in an exact sense. This general tendency to eliminate, by means of unverifiable speculations, the limits of the categories Nature presents to us, is an inheritance of biology from the Origin of Species.

(I urge every student to procure a copy of this book and read Dr. Thompson’s Preface in its entirety. Another book I recommend, one which deals with the evolution theory in terms of biology itself, is that by Douglas Dewar, entitled The Transformist Illusion; this book may be purchased from DeHoff Publications, 749 N.W. Broad Street, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.)

Space is not available here for a review of the conjectural absurdities which have been put forward at different times by over-zealous evolutionists: they are far too numerous to be catalogued anyway. Darwin himself set the fashion of conjecture. It is amazing to note the number of times such words as apparently and probably occur in his writings. One reliable authority may be quoted for the information that the phrase, we may well suppose, occurs over eight hundred times in his two principal works, The Origin of Species, and The Descent of Man.12This would seem to indicate that in all such instances the eminent scientist was guessing. Indeed, is not hypothesis after all the academic term for what is to be taken only as a fairly good guess?

(For a review of some of the absurdities advanced by evolutionists in days gone by, the student is referred to the little book, In His Image, a collection of lectures and addresses by William Jennings Bryan, published by Revell, New York, in 1922. Mr. Bryan’s name recalls, of course, the role which he played in the widely publicized Scopes trial in Tennessee, at which his antagonist was the Chicago attorney, Clarence Darrow. The underlying issue in this trial was the contention of the prosecution that money contributed by taxpayers for the support of public schools could not be used legitimately by teachers to destroy the faith of young people in their classes, and that the teaching of evolution was in a special sense destructive of Christian faith. Hence evolutionism, by indirection, became the real issue that was debated by the two antagonists. I know of no event in my lifetime about which more sheer nonsense has appeared in magazines and newspapers than in the publicity which has been given the Scopes trial, in particular the Bryan-Darrow debate over the theory of evolution. I doubt that any debate was ever held in which both antagonists were as incompletely informed on the subject they were debating as were Bryan and Darrow in this particular case. Darrow’s questions were for the most part puerile and irrelevant in the manner in which they were stated: he simply rehashed questions which have been heard again and again in the history of Christianity, from as far back as the time of Celsus and Porphyry. Bryan’s answers were often childish, largely because he allowed himself to be on the defensive: he should have kept the offensive, which he could have done easily, which any informed Christian can do in exposing the shallowness of atheism or agnosticism. The fact is, however, that Bryan was not the nit-wit that uninformed science teachers and popular writers have tried to make him appear to be. And I know of no more interesting collection of the genuine absurdities which have been advanced by over-zealous evolutionists than those which are presented in Bryan’s book, In His Image.It is interesting to note, too, that Darrow was flabbergasted in two debates with the late P. H. Welshimer (for some fifty-five years Minister of the First Christian Church, Canton, Ohio), the first at Canton, the second at Akron, Ohio. In the Canton debate Welshimer stressed the marvelous unity of the Bible, dwelling especially on the Messianic prophecies and their fulfilment; and just before the debate at Akron, Darrow sought him out privately and asked for the source of his information, admitting that he himself had never encountered such arguments. Welshimer gave him the titles of some important books of Biblical prophecy. But Darrow died just two weeks after the Akron debate. Of course, these facts never get into print in popular news media13).

9.* A Critique of Evolutionism*.I shall now list the more common, and what I consider to be the most valid criticisms of, and objections to, the evolution theory in general, as follows:

(1) Mention has already been made of the attempt to extend the general concept of continuous progressive change (the fundamental thesis of evolutionism) to every aspect of the world man lives in and of his life in it. As Patrick has written The fact is that evolution is a very much overworked word. As the close of the last century and in the beginning of this one, the idea of evolution held almost undisputed sway. It was extended far beyond its original application and applied quite universally. We began to hear of inorganic, cosmic, astral, geologic and atomic evolution. Even the -delirious electrons-’ evolved into atoms and matter itself was the product of a process of development, Social evolution had already made its appearance. nothing is fixed or final; nothing is created; everything just grew and is growing,14 This, as has been stated previously, is what is now recognised as the genetic fallacy.There are areas in which this notion of continuous progressive change simply is not in accord with the facts.

(2) In addition to the genetic fallacy, evolutionists commit another common fallacy of the inductive method, namely, that of over-simplification, also known as the nothing but fallacy. This they do in making no effort to account for the modus operandi of the many leaps occurring in the alleged evolutionary process (as Thompson has stated it, leaps from the organism that simply lives to the organism that lives and feels to the organism that lives and feels and reasons). They simply take it for granted that these are only matters of degree.(Even in one’s personal life, one simply cannot explain how the psychical takes hold of and moves the physical: how a person moves his body if and when he makes up his mind to do so.) In simple truth, they have no explanation of the leap from an existing species to a new species, except by mutations, and these, of course, themselves need to be explained. As Chesterton writes: Far away in some strange constellation in skies infinitely remote, there is a small star, which astronomers may some day discover. It is a star that brings forth out of itself very strange plants and very strange animals and none stranger than the men of science. Again: Most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution, and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word and even about the idea. As a matter of fact, it is not, touching primary things, a very practical, word or a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn. into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying, -In the beginning God created heaven and earth-’ even if you only mean -In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.-’ For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species.. What we know, in a sense in which we know nothing else, is that the trees and the grass did grow and that a number of other extraordinary things do in fact happen; that queer creatures support themselves in the empty air by beating it with fans of various fantastic shapes; that other queer creatures steer themselves about alive under a load of mighty waters; that other queer creatures walk about on four legs, and that the queerest creature of all walks about on two. These are things and not theories; and compared with them evolution and the atom and even the solar system are merely theories. The matter here is one of history and not of philosophy; so that it need only be noted that no philosopher denies that a mystery still attaches to the two great transitions: the origin of the universe itself and the origin of the principle of life itself. Most philosophers have the enlightenment to add that a third mystery attaches to the origin of man himself. In other words, a third bridge was built across a third abyss of the unthinkable when there came into the world what we call reason and what we call will. Man is not merely an evolution but rather a revolution. the more we look at man as an animal, the less he will look like one.15

(3) Evolutionism has no adequate explanation of the process by which a variation in a parent organism becomes embodied in the parental reproductive cells (the fertilized ovum), obviously a change necessary to the transmission of the variation to the offspring. (4) Evolutionism does not give us any satisfactory account of the origin of the life process itself. (Spontaneous generation is now theoretically considered to have been a possibility, but as yet no direct evidence of its actual occurrence in nature has been brought to light.) (5) Evolutionism does not afford any explanation of the life process itself, that is, of the mysterious movement of life; rather, it simply starts with this movement as a fact, apparently indifferent to the importance of the how and why of it. One may watch the division of a single cell into two cells (as, e.g., again the fertilized ovum), but no one understands why the cell divides and the process continues in geometrical proportion (one into two, two into four, four into eight, etc.), or how the daughter cell inherits the particular forms and functions of the parent cell. Why does this movement of life push upward, by differentiation of structure and specialization of function, into the vastly more and more complex forms and finally into the most complex form of all,man, There is no evidence that a potency can actualize itself. What then is the Efficient Causality which actualizes all these changes which are supposed to become stabilized into the multifarious forms that make up the living world? (Protoplasmic irritability is a high-sounding phrase which reminds us of John Locke’s definition of matter as something-I-know-not-what).

(6) Evolutionism requires an almost unlimited stretch of time to account for all the changes envisioned by its advocates. Apparently they expect us to accept without question the necessity of such an extent of time to any adequate explanation of the process; and at the same time they arbitrarily use this hypothetical extent of time to support their theory of the process. Is not this a form of begging the question? Is it not true that the stretch of time required by the theory puts it beyond any possibility of clear proof or disproof empirically, that is, by the testimony of eye-witnesses? One is reminded here of a stanza of Hilaire Belloc’s Ode to a Microbe

The Microbe is so very small You cannot make him out at all, But many sanguine people hope To see him through a microscope. His jointed tongue that lies beneath A hundred curious rows of teeth; His seven tufted tails with lots Of lovely pink and purple spots, On each of which a pattern stands, Composed of forty separate bands; His eyebrows of a tender green; All these have never yet been seen But Scientists, who ought to know, Assure us that they must be so. Oh! let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about!

From Belloc’s More Beasts for Worse Children, in Belloc’s Cautionary Verses.(Knopf, 1951).

(7) That the gap between the intelligence potential of man and that of any known animal species existent or extinct is inconceivably vast, is conceded by evolutionists today. Indeed, many eminent men in biological science are prone to accept the view that man’s appearance on the scene is explainable only in terms of a mutation. (Incidentally, it should be made clear that evolutionists do not take the view that man is nothing but an animal. On the contrary, they hold that he has evolved beyond the brute stage; that, in short, he is animal plus.However, they insist that the difference is only one of degree, not one of kind.)

(8) The theory of mutations is that new forms come into being as wholes, as the result of sudden jumps in the process, and continue to breed true from the time of their emergence. Do biologists have any explanation of the mysterious process by which a mutation is brought about? Obviously they do not. They seem to take it for granted that resident forces of some kind, or of various kinds, work effectively, either singly or collectively, to produce the mutation. Why this process occurs, or just how it occurs, no one knows. (Cosmic rays have been found to produce mutations in fruit flies, we are told). Yet it is inconceivable that evolution could ever have taken place unless the fact of mutations is granted. Many biologists, however, frown on the theory of mutations simply because they find it difficult to harmonize the theory with the mechanism of natural selection which they seek to establish. It is obvious that mutations have all the appearance of special creations. (9) Despite positive assertions in which, as a rule, the theory to be proved is taken for granted, the simple truth is that as yet no one knows just how a new species emerges or could emerge.

(10) Evolutionism is unable as yet to give us a satisfactory account of the origin of sex differences. (It is interesting to note here that the Genesis Cosmogony is silent regarding the origin of females among subhuman orders, with the sole exception of the implication in Genesis 1:22. It is the human female, Woman, to whom our attention is especially directed in Scripture: Genesis 1:27-31). (11) Evolutionism has no adequate explanation of the fact of instinct, of the almost inconceivable manifoldness of instinctive responses among subhuman creatures. Instinct has rightly been called the Great Sphinx of Nature. If complexity of instinct were to be made the criterion of the classification of living forms in ascending order, it is obvious that the lowly Insecta would stand at the head of the list, and man, poor man, would be somewhere near the bottom. Are not instinctive responses the media by means of which Divine Intelligence ensures the preservation of non-intelligent species? (12) It is doubtful that evolutionism could ever adequately account for the great variety of special organs in different species (characteristic of the entire complex of nature’s adaptation to the needs of living creatures), organs such as wings, feathers, eyes, ears; fins and electric organs of fishes, poison glands and fangs of snakes, the radar system of bats, migratory powers of homing pigeons, and many others too numerous to mention, (13) As stated heretofore, structural resemblance does not necessarily prove emergence of the higher form from the lower. It may be the product of the activity of the Divine Mind creating according to an archetypal pattern (as in the instance of man’s invention of the wheelbarrow, buggy, wagon, chariot, automobile, airplane, all of which manifest some structural resemblance). (14) Ordinarily, nature, when left to its own resources, seems to deteriorate rather than to advance. Any gardener knows that tomatoes produced by properly cultivated plants are always superior to those which are produced by seed or plant in what is called volunteer fashion. (15) The apparent non-fertility of hybrids would seem to militate against the evolution theory. (16) Apparently useless organs are not necessarily reduced or rudimentary, in many cases. Ignorance of the use or purpose of an organ is not in itself a proof that the organ has no necessary function at all. (17) Neither similarity nor gradation (nor both together) can prove emergence, that is, continuous progressive change, according to fixed laws, by means of resident forces (LeConte).

(18) Man has no known existing animal ancestors: those alleged humanoidal forms which are supposed to have existed prehistorically are now extinct, hence hypothetically identifiable only by isolated sparse skeletal remains which have been found in different parts of the world, These remains of prehistoric manprior to Cro-Magnon-are too fragmentary to allow for any reliable reconstruction of man’s ancestry from the so-called hominidae, Nor do these widely scattered skeletal remains necessarily indicate that there were different centers of the origin of homo sapiens, What Dr. Bloom has said about such finds in Southern Africa is equally applicable to all other such discoveries: When we speak of Plesianthropus as a found -missing link,-’ this does not mean that man came from even that species, We mean only that we have a member of the family from one of whom man arose.16 As far as I know, no real evidence has ever been found that would discredit the generally accepted view that the cradle of the human race was where the Bible pictures it to have been, that is, in Southwest Asia. Moreover, evolutionists must accept the fact that there had to be a space-time locus at which the transition from hominidae to homo sapiens actually occurred; and that with the appearance of homo sapiens, reason also appeared (as indicated by the Latin sapiens or sapientia), and along with reason, conscience, which is the voice of practical reason. In view of these facts, it must also be recognized that all humanoidal forms existing prior to this transition were not forms of homo sapiens.The tendency of so many scientists to pontificate about these humanoidal finds makes it necessary for us to put their significance in proper perspective in order that we may not be led astray by exaggerations.

(19) The Mendelian laws of heredity have been generally accepted in biological science. However, it must be kept in mind that these laws are simply descriptions of what evidently takes place in transmission through the media of genes; they do not tell us why these transmissions take place as they do, nor do they give us any information as to the modus operandi of the transmissions themselves. Even the genes themselves are only hypothetical determiners of heredity. This is true, of course, of practically all facets of the evolution theory: nearly all that the advocates have to tell us is descriptive in character, descriptive of whatoccurs, not of why, nor specifically of how, it occurs. Perhaps these are mysteries that lie beyond the scope of human comprehension.

(20) In the final analysis, the arrival of a new species is to be accounted for only on the ground of variations transmitted through the chromosomes and genes: as far as we know; inheritance in man takes place in no other way. If mutations be the final explanation of these genetic changes, then the mutations must have occurred in chronological sequence to have produced the continuous progressive changes (demanded by the theory) into more and more neurally complex organisms, culminating in the human organism. It is only a mark of sanity to conclude that there is reason and order back of this entire process, actualizing all such changes; and that the Cosmos is the handiwork of the Universal Mind and Will whom we call God (Psalms 19:1-6).

A word of clarification is needed at this point: I do not mean to assert that we are now in possession of all the information available with reference to the various aspects of evolutionism. Undoubtedly additional information will becoming to light, and, as is usually the case, the acquiring of this information Will gain momentum, as time goes on, information tending either to refute the various criticisms of the evolution theory as presented in the foregoing paragraphs or to give added substantial support to the Various facets of the over-all theory. We must await the discoveries that time may have in store for us in this particular area of knowledge, always keeping in mind the firm conviction that truth never contradicts itself and that it will ultimately out.

10. Materialistic evolutionism.This is the doctrine that all things have evolved by accident or chance (that is, purposelessness).Devotees of this cult simply refuse to acknowledge Efficient Causality of any kind in the origin and preservation of the cosmos (with the possible exception of some form or forms of primal physical energy): they rest their case on the eternity of matter-in-motion. (Obviously this primal physical energy is their god.) With disarming simplicity they proceed to describe all phenomena of the cosmos, including those of the life processes and of the thought processes, in terms of a fortuitous concourse of atoms (or sub-atomic forces). The creed of the materialistic evolutionists is bluntly stated in what may rightly be designated their Bible, namely, the book by George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution.Simpson writes: In preceding pages evidence was given, thoroughly conclusive, as I believe, that organic evolution is a process entirely materialistic in its origin and operation. It has also been shown that purpose and plan are not characteristic of organic evolution and are not a key to any of its operations. Man was certainly not the goal of evolution, which evidently had no goal, etc. He goes on to say, however, that with the entrance of the human mind into the process, purpose and plan did come into operation: this he designates the new evolution. He writes: But purpose and plan are characteristic in the new evolution, because man has purposes, and he makes plans. Here purpose and plan do definitely enter into evolution, as a result and not as a cause of the processes seen in the long history of life. The purposes and plans are ours, not those of the universe, which displays convincing evidence of their absence.17

Materialistic evolution is usually described as mechanistic. The word mechanism, however, has a-’ question-begging aspect. Machines are contrivances, but as far as human experience goes, they are contrivances of some intelligent agent to serve some function, to gain some end. Moreover, anyone who insists that the cosmos is just a great machine, is simply reading into his understanding of it the properties and powers that he himself sees in a machine.Now. it seems obvious that in an organization of any kind an organizing agency is required: some power by which elements are organized into wholes of being; some power to marshal them into a cosmos or world order. This moreover, would have to be some kind of power that is entirely different from mechanical forces and the opposite of gravitational force; gravitational force tends to drag the physical world down to a heat-death, which is technically defined as a state of maximum entropy. (The physicists tell us that the cosmic clock, so to speak, is running down as matter continues to dissolve into radiation and energy continues to be dissipated into empty space.) However, the basic thesis of evolution is progression or progressive development: and progression is precisely the aspect that is of importance to it. But progression implies a goal to which the movement is directed, toward which someone or something is striving; and thus the idea of progression belies the concept of mechanism. Obviously, mechanism and evolution are irreconcilable terms. As Butler has written, in his famous Analogy: The only distinct meaning of the word -natural-’ is stated, fixed, or settled: since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once. In a word, with respect to what are called the laws of nature, we. should not say, the more law, the less God, but we should say, the more law, the more God. LaPlace once declared that he had swept the heavens with his telescope and could not find a God anywhere. One of his contemporaries remarked that he might just as well have swept his kitchen with a broom. Because God is not corporeal being in any sense (John 4:24, Exodus 3:14), He is not to be apprehended by any physical or corporeal means (John 1:18). Hence the stupidity of the Russian cosmonaut who is reported to have said that in all his travels throughout the celestial realm he had searched the stratosphere in every direction to find God but had failed to do so. Of course he failedthe humblest, most uneducated student of the Bible knows why.

The Christian, of course, cannot possibly accept materialistic evolutionism, because it directly contradicts the Biblical doctrine of the sovereignty and eternal purpose of God (Isaiah 46:9-11: Acts 15:18; Acts 17:30-31; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; Ephesians 3:8-12). Nor is there any special reason why any Christian, or any other intelligent person, should accept it, for several reasons. In the first place, any unbiased person can readily see that the phenomena of personality (perception, consciousness, and especially meaning) are not entirely reducible, if reducible at all, to matter in motion (brain cell activity). As the noted physicist, Arthur Eddington, has written: Force, energy, dimensions belong to the world of symbols: it is out of such conceptions that we have built up the external world of physics. We have to build the spiritual world out of symbols taken from our own personality, as we build the scientific world out of the symbols of the mathematician.18

In the second place, materialistic evolutionism cannot be harmonized with the empirical fact of cosmic order. This order is clearly evident (a) from the mathematical relations characteristic of the processes of the physical world and the mathematical formulae by which they are amenable to precise description; (b) from the manifold interrelationships of ends and means, as empirically discerned, prevailing throughout the totality of being; (c) from the predetermined (planned) life cycles of all living species; and (d) from the over-all adaptation of nature to human life and its needs. As stated often herein, the word cosmos means order; lacking this order, human science would not be possible, for the simple reason that science, is man’s discovery and description of the order prevailing in the various segments of the natural world. Surely this architectonic order presupposes a Supreme Orderer, a directing Mind and Will. It is inconceivable that sheer chance could have produced the order we see all around us.

To be sure, in our day evolutionists admit the introduction of purpose, now thatas they contendpsychological evolution has taken over from the biological. (We have noted this, in the excerpt quoted above from Simpson’s book) Purpose entered the cosmic picturewe are told-along with the human intellect and its power of purposeful selection and striving. It strikes me, however, that by correlating purpose with human mental activity, by analogy we are bound to conclude that the design which prevails throughout the subhuman world points irrefutably to another and superior kind of mental activity, that of the Creative Intelligence and Will. Man obviously does not create; he simply uses the material he finds at hand to be used.

11. Theistic evolutionism.This is the view, stated in simplest terms, that evolution is God’s method of creation. Under this view, the important question for us is this: Can theistic evolutionism be harmonized with Biblical teaching, in particular with the Genesis account of the Creation?

It should be emphasized here, first of all, I think, that Darwin never did deny God’s Creatorship. In the closing paragraphs of his Origin of Species he wrote as follows: Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. In the Life of Darwin, we find this statement: In my most extreme fluctuations, I have never been an atheist, in the sense of denying the existence of a God.19 Darwin was a very modest man, even to the extent of making an interesting confession; he described his own mind as having become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, with the result of producing atrophy of that part of the brain on which the higher tastes depend.20 This is a remarkable statement and one which scientists generally should treat seriously. Apparently T. H. Huxley had the same experience, albeit unwittingly; as stated in terms of May Kendall’s parody:

Primroses by the river’s brim Dicotyledons were to him, And they were nothing more.

(We are reminded here of Lord Bacon’s declaration that man cannot enter the kingdom of science, any more than he can enter the kingdom of heaven, without becoming as a little child.) It was not Darwin who developed evolutionism in such a form as to make a Creator superfluous (nor in truth was it either Huxley or Spencer); rather, it was Haeckel (whose fulminations became most embarrassing to Darwin at times) and his successors in the present century who are responsible for this development. Dr. Strong is right in saying that an atheistic and unteleological evolution is a reversion to the savage view of animals as brethren, and to the heathen idea of a sphinx-man growing out of the brute.21

Theistic evolutionists, as stated above, hold that evolution was in all likelihood God’s method of creation. There are many educated and sincerely religious persons who hold that theistic evolutionism if properly stated (that is, within certain limitations) is not necessarily in conflict with the teaching of Genesis, if the latter is also constructively interpreted. In the exposition of this general view, the student should consider the following matters of importance: (1) There is a clear correspondence between the Genesis Cosmogony and present-day scientific thought on many points. (These harmonies have been listed on preceding pages of this Part of our textbook.) (2) It must always be kept in mind that the major aim of the Genesis Cosmogony, and indeed of the whole Bible, is to tell us who made the cosmos, and not how it was made. It was what God said that was so, that is, that was done (Genesis 1:3; Genesis 1:7; Genesis 1:11; Genesis 1:15; Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:25; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:6), but the inspired writer makes no effort whatsoever to inform us as to how it was done. It is crystal clear that the narrative is intended to be a religious, and not a scientific, account of the Creation.

(3) There is nothing in the Genesis text that constrains us to accept the ultra-literal view that God spoke all living species into existence at one and the same time. On the contrary, according to the narrative itself, the activity of Creation was extended over six days and a fraction of the seventh. This is true, however we may see fit to interpret the word day. (4) Certainly the weight of all the evidence available, as explained in an earlier section of this textbook, is in support of the view that the days of the Genesis account were not solar days, but aeonic days; that is, indefinite periods of time. Thus the narrative allows for all the time the evolutionists may want to muster up theoretically in support of their theory.

(5) Evidently infinity in God has no reference to any kind of magnitude because God is Spirit (John 4:24); rather, the term designates the inexhaustible Source of Power by which the cosmos was created and is sustained in its processes. Hence the problem before us is not one of power, but one of method.What method, then, did the Creator use? Was Creation a long-drawn-out process of progressive development, or was it a process of actualization in a very brief time-span? But, after all, what difference does it make, whether it was the one or the other? Whether the Creation extended over six or seven solar days, or over six or seven aeonic days, the same measure of Creative Power would have been necessary in either case.

Because this problem is one of method, and not one of power, why do not the textbooks writers on this subject make this clear, and by so doing remove much of the ground on which their texts are resentfully criticized by Christian leaders. All that would be required would be a simple statement of the fact that the time element involved has little or nothing to do with the expenditure of Energy necessary to effect the actualization of the process. The reason seems obvious, I should say: Many of them actually want to belittle Biblical teaching and to create a thoroughgoing naturalism which would rule the Creator out of the cosmic picture altogether. I have long been convinced that this is a case in which the wish is father to the thought; that the will not to believe is the primary motivation; and that the elimination of everything superhuman or supernatural is the ultimate objective of the positivists, naturalists, humanists, and all those of like persuasion.

(6) As a matter of fact, the language of the Genesis Cosmogony allows for Divinely directed progressive develpment through the media of secondary causes, throughout the Creation. This is clearly implicit in God’s decrees, Let the earth put forth grass, etc., Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, Let the earth bring forth living creatures, etc.; and even in the earlier decrees with reference to non-living being, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, let the dry land appear, etc. The idea implicit in the original here is that of causation, as if to say, let the earth cause … let the seas cause, it to be done, etc. We see no reason for rejecting the view that God, whose Will is the constitution of the cosmos and its processes, should operate through the majesty and the sovereign power of His own established decrees.

(7) There are philosophers and theologians who take the position that at certain stages in the Creation, God, by direct action (that is, primary, as distinguished from secondary, causation) inserted new and higher powers into the Cosmic Process, the first above the inanimate world (matter-in-motion) being the life process (cellular activity),then consciousness (the product of sensitivity), and finally self-consciousness (person and personality). Obviously, these-are phenomena which mark off, and set apart, the successively more complex levels of being as we know these levels empirically. On the basis of this theory, it is held that even though variationsboth upward (progressive) and downward (retrogressive)by means of resident forces, may have occurred on the level of plant life and that of animal life, the actualization of the first form of energy-matter, first life, first consciousness, and first personality (homo sapiens) must have been of the character of special creations. It is interesting to recall the fact here that Wallace, the author with Darwin of the theory of natural selection, held that there were three breaks in the progressive continuity, namely, with the appearance of life, with the appearance of sensation and consciousness, and finally with the appearance of spirit. These breaks seem to correspond in a general way to vegetable, animal, and rational (human) life, in the order named.22

(8) Finally, it must be admitted that one of man’s most common fallacies is that of trying to project his own puny concepts of time into the sphere of God’s timelessness.God does not hurry; His timelessness is Eternity. (2 Peter 3:8, 2 Corinthians 4:18).

12. Theistic evolutionism and Genesis 2:7.The crucial problem involved here, of course, is that of the origin of homo sapiens; as stated in a nutshell, can theistic evolutionism be harmonized with the teaching of Gen 2:7? Can a Christian accept the view that man arrived on the scene through descent (or ascent?) from a brute animal species? Can such a view be harmonized in any way with the description of man as a body-spirit unity (or body-mind unity) that is explicitly given us in Genesis 2:7? Dr. A. H. Strong argues rather eloquently for an affirmative answer to these two questions, as follows: Evolution does not make the idea of a Creator superfluous, because evolution is only the method of God. It is perfectly consistent with a Scriptural doctrine of Creation that man should emerge at the proper time, governed by different laws from the brute creation yet growing out of the brute, just as the foundation of a house built of stone is perfectly consistent with the wooden structure built upon it. (Is not this, however, an irrelevant analogy?) Again: The Scriptures do not disclose the method of man’s creation. Whether man’s physical system is or is not derived by natural descent from the lower animals, the record of creation does not inform us. We are compelled, then, to believe that God’s -breathing into man’s nostrils the breath of life-’ (Genesis 2:7), though it was a mediate creation as presupposing existing material in the shape of animal forms, was yet an immediate creation in the sense that only a divine reinforcement of the process of life turned the animal into man. In other words, man came not from the brute, but through the brute, and the same immanent God who had previously created the brute created also the man.23

To me it is inconceivable that the inspired writer of Gen 2:7 could have had any such idea in mind as that suggested by Dr. Strong in the statements quoted above. Of course, it is entirely possible that the Spirit of God deliberately caused the material of the Genesis Cosmogony to be presented in a form such as to make it adaptable to man’s ever-increasing knowledge of his external environment (cf. Genesis 1:28). This seems to have been true of the over-all panoramic picture of the Creation given us in Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3, That is, having sketched in broad outlines the religious truths of the Genesis narrative, He may well have left it to man himself to spell out as best he can the essentially scientific (empirical) evidence concerning the origin of the cosmos and its manifold forms.

In relation to evolutionism, the meaning of Gen 2:7 is to be studied primarily in the light of the phrase, the dust of the ground. Surely we have here, in the verse as a whole, a portrait in what we of the modern world would call archaic language. Yet the portrait turns out to be scientific in the sense of the now-recognized fact that man is in truth a psychosomatic unity. Obviously, in terms of modern scientific thought, the writer of Gen 2:7 would have us to know that man in his present state is both body and mind (or spirit) and that he is immeasurably more than body alone; that his bodythe earthly house of our tabernacle (2 Corinthians 5:1, Wis. 9:15)like all things corporeal, shares the properties of what is commonly designated physical energy or matter; that in short he has a body akin to all earthly living bodies. This is surely the import of the verse as a whole: as Murphy tersely puts it: Man is a combination of matter and mind.24 The narrative here, writes Whitelaw, which, beginning with the construction of his body from the fine dust of the ground, designedly represents it as an evolution or development of the material universe.25 Marcus Dods writes: The discovery of the process by which the presently existing living forms have been evolved, and the perception that this process is governed by laws which have always been operating, do not make intelligence and design at all less necessary, but rather more so.26 Obviously, the writer could not have presented this thought in present-day scientific terms: he did not have the language for such a communication, and even if he could have had the proper language at his disposal, no one could have understood it.It seems, therefore, that the Spirit has left it to man’s intelligence to fathom the implications of this revelation. The passage, as it stands, appears to me to be irrelevant in respect to modern scientific explanations, even though possibly amenable to interpretation in modern scientific terms. Hence, it can hardly be said either to prove or to disprove them.

Is the breathing intoman’s nostrils the breath of life to be correctly explained (as in Strong’s language) as a reinforcement of the process of life that turned the animal into a man? The word reinforcement as used here strikes me as being exceedingly vague. What kind of reinforcement? Or, just what did this reinforcement involve? Surely the text of Gen 2:7 leaves us with only one valid interpretation, namely, that the breath of God carried with it a direct impartation from God Himself of those powers which specify man as manhis intellectual, moral and spiritual endowments, in fact the whole of his interior life: hence the declaration in Genesis 1:28 that he was created in the image of God. Surely this phrase, image of God, disallows the claim one frequently encounters that the breath of God of Gen 2:7 designates the impartation to man of the vital principle only. Genesis 1:28, if it means anything, surely means that God breathed into him, not just the life principle, but the rational principle as well. (Cf. Genesis 6:17, Acts 17:25, Ecclesiastes 12:7). These are the powers which separate man from the brute creation. Hence, because these powers are so far superior to any that are manifested by brutes, even by the highest primates, I find it impossible to accept the view that the difference of man from the brute is simply one of degree.My conviction is that the difference is, and will always be, one of kind.However Dr. Strong’s theory of reinforcement is to be explained, whether anthropomorphically (which certainly is not to be ruled out) or by mutation (in some manner biologically) it certainly was of the character of a special creation. Even though evolutionistic progression, may have occurred on the plant level, on the animal level, or on both, certainly in the vast leap from the brute to man, a special Divine operation of some kind affords the only satisfactory explanation of its occurrence. I am not convinced that the case for the evolution of man’s interior mental, moral, and spiritual propensitieshis essential being, as manfrom hypothetical primate and humanoidal forms has ever been proved. In all likelihood this is a mystery which will never become fully known to man, either by divine revelation or by scientific discovery, simply, because it lies beyond the scope of comprehension by the human intellect.

I therefore summarize as follows: I strenuously object to the manner in which the theory of evolution has been built up into what might be called a dogma.Many modern textbooks are replete with assertions of, and statements about what is designated the fact of evolution. This usually occurs when, from an author’s viewpoint, the wish is father to the thought. It is unfortunately true that when certain of the intelligentsia lose their faith in God, they avidly seek every possible device to bolster their unbelief, To say that evolution is a fact, however, is going entirely too far, especially in the attempt to establish a theory which is constructed for the most part on inference. Whether this inference is necessary inference or not, or just sheer conjecture, remains a moot question. Bold assertions do not cover lack of concrete evidence. Although I have never been able to bring myself to the point of accepting many of the exaggerated claims that are made by the evolutionists, yet after some fifteen years of dealing with college students, it has become my conviction that there is no real need for adding difficulties for them unnecessarily, or setting up and shooting at what may turn out to be straw men. Hence, the material of this section has been organized and presented with the end in view of helping the student to be strengthened in the most holy faith. If this can be accomplished without doing violence to the sacred text, on any subject that has been more or less controversial, I think it should be done. I cannot convince myself that acceptance or rejection of any theory of the method of the Creation that recognizes and allows for the operation of Divine Intelligence and Power should ever be made a test of fellowship in a church of the New Testament order.(See my Survey Course in Christian Doctrine, Vol. I, pp. 175-186. College Press, Joplin, Missouri, 1962.)

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART TEN

Define the word science.What is epistemology?

Why do we say that the laws of nature (of physics, chemistry, geology, biology, etc.) are statements of very great probability?

Distinguish between science and scientism.

Why do We affirm that much of the loose talk about alleged conflicts between Biblical teaching and scientific thinking in our day simply need not be?

List the harmonies between present-day science and the Genesis Cosmogony.

What is meant by the blind spots of materialists, naturalists, humanists, etc.?

Explain how the theory of epiphenomenalism is not necessarily to be regarded as antiBiblical.

Explain how present-day physics supports the Christian doctrine of immortality.

Explain how the theory of emergent evolution is not necessarily to be regarded as antiBiblical.

Explain the ambiguity of the word evolution.

Explain what is meant by the genetic fallacy.

State LeConte’s definition of evolution.

Explain the present-day theory of societal (or psychological) evolution as related to the biological.

What is the meaning of the word organismic in relation to theories of emergent evolution?

Explain the difference between evolution and evolutionism.

State the contributions of Lamarck, Darwin, Weismann, De Vries, and Mendel, respectively, to evolutionism.

What are mutations?

Explain what is meant by the movement of evolution.

Explain orthogenesis, also Bergson’s fountainlike evolutionism.

List the kinds of evidence usually cited to support the theory of evolution.

Explain what is meant by the evolution dogma.

Explain the fallacy in the title, Can Science Produce Life?

Summarize Thompson’s critique of evolutionism.

Explain how scientists have extended the notion of continuous progressive change to practically every aspect of the cosmos.

Explain what is meant by the fallacy of over-simplification.

Explain what is meant when we say that evolutionism has no adequate explanation of the transmission of variations from parents to offspring.

Does evolutionism give us any adequate explanation of the life movement itself? Explain your answer.

Explain how the unlimited stretch of time that is required by evolutionism is a form of begging the question.

How do mutations fit into the general theory of evolution? How are mutations to be accounted for?

Does structural resemblance necessarily prove emergence? Explain your answer.

List various facts of the world we live in, for which evolutionism can give no satisfactory explanation.

What is materialistic evolutionism? Explain why Christians cannot accept it, and why there is no real ground for any intelligent person to accept it.

What is the fallacy in the so-called mechanistic explanation of the origin of the cosmos?

Explain what is meant by theistic evolutionism?

What did Darwin have to say about the activity of the Creator in the origin of the biological world?

Summarize the arguments that may be offered in support of theistic evolutionism.

What is meant by the statement that the Creator may have operated through secondary causes in bringing the world into existence?

Summarize; Dr. Strong’s application of evolutionism to the account of the creation of man in Genesis 2:7. Do you consider the explanation valid? Explain your answer.

Discuss the likelihood of any correlation between the phrase, the dust of the ground, as occurring in Genesis 2:7, and the theory of evolution.

What, obviously, is the full meaning of Gen 2:7?

Summarize our general conclusions about evolutionism in relation to the Hebrew Cosmogony.

D. Elton Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion, p. 168. Harpers, 1957.

C. E. M.Joad, Guide to Philosophy, p. 309. Dover, 1936.

Cohen and Nagel, An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method, p. 389. Harcourt, Brace, 1934.

Ibid., p.390.

See J. C. Smuts, Holism and Evolution, pp.261-262. Macmillan, 1926.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, pp. 290, 311. Trans from the French by Bernard Wall. Harper Torchbook, 1961.

G. T. W. Patrick, Introduction to Philosophy, Revised Edition, pp. 122-124. Houghton Mifflin, 1935.

See Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. by Arthur Mitchell. Holt, 1911.

Patrick, op. cit., p. 115.

Arthur Kenyoh Rogers, A Student’s History of Philosophy, Third Edition, pp. 472-473. Macmillan, 1937.

James H. Jauncey, Science Returns to God, p.57. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1961.

See Herald and Presbyter, Nov. 22, 1914. Quoted by William Jennings Bryan, In His Image, p.91. Oliphants, London, and Revell, New York, 1922.

See P. H.-The Welshimer Story, by Francis M. Arant. Standard, Cincinnati, 1958.

G. T. W. Patrick, op. cit., p. 144.

G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, pp. 21-25. Doubleday Image Book, 1955.

Quoted by Douglas Dewar, The Transformist Illusion, p. 125. DeHoff, Murfreesboro, Tenn., 1957.

George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution, p. 143. Mentor Book Edition.

Sir Arthur Eddington, Science and the Unseen World, p. 82. Macmillan, 1930.

Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 1:274.

Quoted by A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, One Volume Edition, p. 36. Judson Press, Philadelphia, 1907.

Strong, ibid., p. 473.

Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwinism, pp. 445-478. Quoted by Strong, ibid., p. 473.

See Strong, ibid., pp. 465-466.

Murphy on Genesis, p. 84. Estes and Lariat, Boston, 1873.

Thomas Whitelaw, Pulpit Commentary: Genesis, p. 41. Funk and Wagnalls, New York.

Marcus Dods, The Expositor’s Bible: Genesis, p. 10. Armstrong and Son, New York, 1895.

ADDENDA: COSMOLOGICAL THEORIES [Volume 1]

(Theories of the Origin and Organization of the Cosmos)

EMANATIONISM: Unity is prior to plurality. Creation is conceived as a process of the watering down of perfection, as, for example, light, in moving away from its source and thus becoming diffused, is finally lost in darkness. Darkness is non-being, and non-being is usually identified with gross matter. The most thoroughgoing emanation cults were those of the Gnostics and especially that of Plotinus, which is known as Neoplatonism.

PLOTINUS (A.D. 205-270).

(The Egyptian Neoplatonist, who derived his system largely from his teacher, Ammonius Saccas. His writings were published by Porphyry in six books, each consisting of nine sections, hence entitled the Enneads.) Origen and Augustine both were greatly influenced by Neoplatonism. The following should be read downward:

The One

Nous

one: world unity, prior to the possibility of plurality many: ideas or forms of all possible existents: (1) universals, (2) particulars

Soul

one: world soul, undivided many: individual souls, (1) unconscious, (2) conscious of ideas

Body

one: world body, as a whole many: particular bodies (1) as wholes, (2) decomposed

The Void

Gross matter: non-being

Gnosticism, in its various cults, postulated a series of emanations from the Absolute Being or Unity in the forms of psychic intermediaries, known as aeons.According to this early Christian heresy, Christ Himself was just such an emanation or aeon. It is interesting to note, in this connection, that the Deists of a later age were prone to regard the laws of nature as emanations, hence as having a kind of independent existence.

PHILOSOPHICAL HINDUISM

(or Hindu Mysticism. Very old, as set forth in the Upanishads)

Again, read downward: Brahman (perfect unity) Atman (unity that pervades plurality)

Souls (plurality that is really unity) Bodies (plurality that is mistaken for reality)

Castes (levels of social classes) Animals (levels of animal life) Plants (levels of plant life)

Matter (levels of decomposition)

Illusion (Maya)

It will be noted that emanationist systems all tend toward pantheism, the doctrine that identifies God with what we commonly call His Creation. The fallacies of pantheism are clearly pointed out in the following terse statements by C. H. Toy, Introduction to the History of Religions, p. 476: Pantheism has never commended itself to the masses of men. The demand for a deity with whom one may enter into personal relationsthe simple concept of a God who dwells apart satisfies the religious instincts of the majority of men. The ethical questions arising from pantheism seem to them perplexing: how can man be morally responsible when it is the deity who thinks and acts in him? and how can he have any sense of loyalty to a deity whom he cannot distinguish from himself?. Man demands a method of worship, and pantheism does not permit organized worship. Moreover, pantheism, by distributing the Divine essence through all cosmic existents, inanimate or animate, amoral or moral, makes God to be the author of evil as well as of good; to this fact the only alternative would be that evil is illusion, and this is the corner in which Absolutists are uniformly forced to take refuge. May I remind the student that an illusion is necessarily an illusion of something: an illusion of nothing or nothingness is inconceivable.

PLATO’S COSMOLOGY

(Plato lived 427-347 B.C. See his likely story of the Creation, in the Timaeus.)

Being:

The Forms (Ideas): The Form of the Good

Unity

Forms of all classes of existents

The Demiurgos (Craftsman, Architect)

The World: World-Soul

Becoming:

Rational Souls

Irrational Souls

Inanimate Bodies

Non-being:

Indeterminate matter

Plato can hardly be classified as an emanationist: in fact it is difficult to put his cosmology in any definite category. In the Timaeus, he pictures the Creation as having been actualized by the Demiurgos (Master Craftsman, Great Architect,) as the World-Soul, according to the archetypal Forms, out of what he calls the Receptacle. This last term seems to have been the word he used to designate the Void (empty space). It will be recalled that the Greek word chaos denoted, not disorder, but empty space; hence this was the Greek term generally used for non-being which was conceived to be what we call matter. (Cf. Plotinus, above). The Forms, in Plato’s thought, were the Principles of classification, e.g., the mustardness of a mustard seed, the horseness of a horse; that is, that which specifies the individuals of each particular kind of things. Had he put these Forms in the Mind of The DivineThe Form of the Good, that is, Unityhis system would have to be regarded as theistic; however, there seems to be no evidence in his writings that he took this step; he apparently gave the Forms an eternally separate existence in themselves. Hence, we must conclude that on the whole Plato favored a view of the Deity as immanent, and that his system was weighted in the direction of a higher pantheism. This is evident from the fact that the World-Soul (as the Prime Mover) is presented as spreading out throughout the cosmos and as directing its processes and changes from within. As a matter of fact, Plato obviously belonged to the Greek philosophical tradition (Aristotelianism alone excepted) in which the Divine Principle (God) is conceived pantheistically as That Which Is, in striking contrast to the Hebrew voluntarism in which God is revealed as He Who Is (Exodus 3:14), in a word, as pure personality.

ARISTOTLE’S HIERARCHY OF BEING

God

(defined as Pure Thought Thinking Itself: cf. John 4:24)

rational psyche (soul)

(physiochemical processes, cellular processes, sensitivity, locomotion, plus reason)

animal psyche

(physiochemical processes and cellular processes plus sensitivity and locomotion)

vegetative psyche

(physiochemical processes, plus the cellular processes)

matter-in-motion

(or in modern terms, the physiochemical processes of the inanimate world)

Aristotle, in his De Anima (On the Soul), pictures the totality of being as a hierarchy, that is, as organized on different levels in an ascending scale of complexity of powers, in which each higher order subsumes the powers of those below it. Analysis of the nature of movement (change) convinced Aristotle that in order to account for the complex of contingent causes-and-effects which is the cosmos, there must be a First Cause, a First or Prime Mover, who is self-existent (sui generis), that is, non-contingent and without beginning or end, the only alternative being that somewhere, at some time, nothing must have originated the first somethinga notion utterly absurd, of course; or, as someone has put it, the first mover must himself be unmoved, except from within, and different from the first moved. This Prime Mover, otherwise described as Pure Thought Thinking Itself, is Aristotle’s God, who is presented as affecting the universe without being a part of it. Hence, it will be seen that Aristotle’s God is transcendent, and that his system more nearly approximates theism than that of any other Greek philosopher. (Aristotle lived 384-322 B.C., and was a student at Plato’s school, the Academy, for some twenty years.)

Why does our world exist instead of any other kind of world? asked the German philosopher, Leibniz (1646-1716). Simply because (Leibniz concluded) God has chosen, not to create any kind of world at random, but to create the best of all possible worlds, that is, the best He found it possible to create for achieving His ends, the actualization of the greatest possible good and the least possible evil. (Evil, Leibniz held, is of three kinds, namely, physical evil (suffering), moral evil (sin), and metaphysical evil: this he defined in terms of the necessary imperfection of finite beings.) Therefore, because our world is the handiwork of this Perfect Being (The Absolute Monad), it must be the actualization of the fulness of created being. In such a world (reasoning a priori, of course), all possible beings must be actualized, all possible levels (grades) filled therein: there must be unbroken continuity in the form of progressive gradation of organisms from the very lowest living being up to the very highest, God Himself. Thus arose the doctrine of the Great Chain of Being, a doctrine which flourished in early modern times, and which, obviously, is largely in accord with present-day evolutionism. (For a thoroughgoing presentation of this view, see the excellent book by Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, published by the Harvard University Press, 1950. The concept is also clearly set forth in the poem by Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man.)

EMERGENTISM

(This is the view that unity is in the process of emerging out of plurality. The process is, and probably will always be, an unfinished process. The following tables are to be read upward,)

God

Mind

Mind

Society

Life

Life

Mind

Matter

Life

Matter

Space-Time

Matter

C. Lloyd Morgan, Samuel Alexander, in his book, Emer- in his book, Time gent Evolution, and Deity, 1920. 1923.

Roy Wood Sellars, in his book, Evolutionary Naturalism, 1922.

Emergentism* (discussed on preceding pages), though at times paying lip service to a God, is strictly pantheistic in character. In all cases, it rejects the theistic doctrine of God’s transcendence. It ignores uniformly the necessity of Efficient Causality in all cosmic processes.

I have presented the foregoing concepts (and diagrams) for the purpose of demonstrating the futility of all efforts to obtain complete knowledge of the origin and organization of the cosmos through unaided human reason. The ultimate mysteries are inscrutable. These various philosophical theories surely prove this to be true; that is, they prove the inherent incapacity of the human mind to explain (as Chesterton has put it) how nothing could turn into something or how something could turn into something else. How refreshing to turn away from the best that human wisdom can afford us, and to accept by faith the Biblical teaching, on these subjects! (Cf. Job 11:7; Isaiah 55:6-11; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 1 Corinthians 3:18-20; Romans 11:33-36; Hebrews 11:3).

The following tables will serve to point up the correspondences between the empirical (commonsense) and the Biblical accounts of the origin and organization of the created world:

self-consciousness

God

(the person)

(Pure Spirit: John 4:24)

consciousness

Angels

(the brute)

(ethereal beings, ministering spirits: Hebrews 1:14)

life

(the cell)

Souls

(Genesis 2:7)

energy-matter (non-living)

Bodies

Matter

The EMPIRICAL ACCOUNT of the Dimensions of Being, based on observation and experience.

The BIBLICAL ACCOUNT of Being.

(Read upward)

(Read upward)

Day 7rest

Day 6man and woman, bara, Genesis 1:28; Genesis 2:7 land animals

Day 5water and air species, bara, Genesis 1:21

Day 4chronology (measurement of time)

GOD

Day 3plants, lands and seas

Day 2atmosphere (expanse)

Day 1energy, light, matter: bara, Genesis 1:1

THE HEBREW COSMOGONY (Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3)

(read upward)

Some hold that God, the Eternal Spirit, created without the use of pre-existing materials, inserting new increments of power into the Creative Process at successively higher levels. Some hold that God put into Prime (First) Matter all potentialities (Forms) later actualized by His Efficient Causality. N.B.For the diagrams presented above as illustrative of the Emanation and Emergent-Evolution theories of the origin and organization of the cosmos, I am indebted to Dr. Archie J. Bahm, Professor of Philosophy, University of New Mexico. These diagrams appear in his well-known book, Philosophy: An Introduction, published by Wiley and Sons, 1953. It is by his permission that I reproduce them here, and for this privilege I am deeply grateful.-C.C.C.

Dr. A. H. Strong, in his Systematic Theology, suggests that the content of the Biblical teaching falls under the category of what is philosophically designated Ethical Monism.

It is my conviction, however, that Dr. Bahm, in the work cited above, presents a philosophical view which approximates rather closely the essence of the Genesis Cosmogony. Dr. Bahm has named his theory Organicism. Should the student wish to pursue the subject further, he can do so by familiarizing himself with the argument presented in Chapter 20 of Bahm’s book. The late Martin Buber, the Jewish theistic existentialist, in his book entitled The Eclipse of God develops the thesis that whereas philosophy holds fast to an image of God, or even to a faith in God, religion holds fast to God Himself. This is a true contrast.

I must confess that I find philosophical theory and terminology, aside from suggesting clues now and then to the understanding of certain matters of Christian doctrine, to have little in common with Biblical revelation as a whole.

Now may I close this volume with a personal confession, namely: I could never substitute for faith in the Biblical Heavenly Father who has revealed Himself to us in His Son Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-4; Hebrews 11:6; John 15:1), any coldly intellectual philosophical theory of the origin and nature of the Mystery of Being. I recall here the striking forcefulness of the questions which Zophar the Naamathite addressed to Job in olden times: Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? (Job 11:7). There is but one answer to these questionsan unequivocal negative. Or, as the Apostle Paul puts it: The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God (1 Corinthians 3:19). Again: For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe (1 Corinthians 1:21). Through the foolishness of the preaching of what? The preaching of Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:23-24).

Genesis 1:1

**PART FIVE: THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNINGS

Genesis 1:1**

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

1. What is the relation of this verse to the Creation Narrative as a whole? (1) It could refer to the creation of first matter, the first form or forms of what we call physical energy (the elemental forces to be arranged subsequently into the cosmos). This seems to be the view of the majority of commentators. (2) It could be designed to emphasize the fact that God created the physical (inanimate) universe first; that is, prior to His creation of living beings to inhabit it. (3) Or, does it designate an earlier beginning (creation) of a cosmos which later suffered a cataclysmic reduction to its elemental forms, with Genesis 1:2 describing the beginning of a reconstruction of the whole? As Rotherham paraphrases (EB, 33): In the beginning (of the present order of things) God created (that is, shaped or formed according to his own divine idea) the heavens (above) and the earth (below). Now the earth (emphasized idiomatically for the purpose of singling it out for first remark) had become waste and wild (probably by previous catastrophe); and darkness (emphasized as about to be dealt with) was on the face of the roaring deep; but (preparing the mind for a new order of things) the Spirit of God was brooding (with quickening effect) on the face of the waters. And (things being so; such being the state of the earth) God said (and thus the renewing, re-creating divine acts commence). (See the objections to this reconstruction theory under Part Four supra.My main objection is that it in no way resolves the problems it is intended to resolve, namely, those of the geological history of the earth, and much less those of the origins of the celestial worlds. However, there are many eminent scholars who champion this theory.) (4) Finally, this verse could be intended to serve as a general introduction to the entire Cosmogony that follows, beginning with Genesis 1:2as a summary of the whole creative process narrated in the section ending with Genesis 2:3. The fundamental truth designed to be impressed upon our minds in this sententiously sublime introductory affirmation is the truth that it was God (Elohim) who did the creating. Cf. Isaiah 42:5; Isaiah 45:18; Job 38:4; Psalms 24:1-2; Psalms 104:5; Acts 14:15; Acts 17:24-28.

2. One of the most impressive facts about this Cosmogony is its general agreement (1) not with the early creation mythologies, such as, for example, the Babylonian in particular; (2) not with medieval or early modern science, (3) but especially with the science which has developed, and is in process of further development, in our own time.Its amenability to interpretation in the light of present-day science especially, is so obvious that I choose deliberately to emphasize this aspect of it in this textbook. Whereas the mythological interpretation raises all kinds of questions and apparent discrepancies with science, exegesis in the light of present-day scientific thinking about the world and its origin eliminates them. This interpretation, moreover, does not require any wresting of the Scripture text out of its context, much less does it require any fantastic distortion of the Scripture text. It seems to me that the acceptance of any account of the Creation as divinely inspired would have to be justified by its correspondence with progressively developing human science. As stated previously, God has written two booksthe Book of Nature and the Book of Redemption. Now science and theology, which are the products of man’s efforts to interpret these two Books, respectively, may produce apparent discrepancies, because man is fallible, ever liable to error. But the Books themselves cannot be in conflict, for the simple reason that both embody Truth, and Truth does not contradict itself.

Murphy (MG, 28-30): This great introductory sentence of the book of God is equal in weight to the whole of its subsequent communications concerning the kingdom of nature. It assumes the existence of God; for it is he who in the beginning creates. It assumes his eternity; for he is before all things: and as nothing comes from nothing, he himself must have always been. It implies his omnipotence; for he creates the universe of things. It implies his absolute freedom; for he begins a new course of action. It implies his infinite wisdom; for a kosmos, an order of matter and mind, can only come from a being of absolute intelligence. It implies his essential goodness; for the Sole, Eternal, Almighty, All-wise, and All-sufficient Being has no reason, no motive, no capacity for evil. It presumes him to be beyond all limit of time and place; as he is before all time and place. It asserts the creation of the heavens and the earth; that is, of the universe of mind and matter. This creating is the omnipotent act of giving existence to things which before had no existence. This is the first great mystery of things; as the end is the second. Natural science observes things as they are, when they have already laid hold of existence. It ascends into the past as far as observation will reach, and penetrates into the future as far as experience will guide. But it does not touch the beginning or the end. This sentence assumes the being of God, and asserts the beginning of things. Hence it intimates that the existence of God is more immediately patent to the reason of man than the creation of the universe. And this is agreeable to the philosophy of things; for the existence of God is a necessary and eternal truth, more and more self-evident to the intellect as it rises to maturity. But the beginning of things is, by its very nature, a contingent event, which once was not and then came to be contingent on the free will of the Eternal, and, therefore, not evident to reason itself, but made known to the understanding by testimony and the reality of things. This sentence is the testimony, and the actual world in us and around us is the reality. Faith takes account of the one, observation of the other.

Genesis 1:1, Murphy goes on to say, bears on the very face of it the indication that it was written by man, and for man; for it divides all things into the heavens and the earth. Such a division evidently suits those only who are inhabitants of the earth. With no less clearness, however, does it show that it was dictated by superhuman knowledge. For it records the beginning of things of which natural science can take no cognizance. This simple sentence denies atheism; for it assumes the being of God. It denies polytheism, and, among its various forms, the doctrine of two eternal principles, the one good and the other evil; for it confesses the one Eternal Creator. It denies materialism; for it asserts the creation of matter. It denies pantheism; for it assumes the existence of God before all things, and apart from them. It denies fatalism; for it involves the freedom of the Eternal Being. It indicates the relative superiority, in point of magnitude, of the heavens to the earth, by giving the former the first place in the order of words. It is thus in accordance with the first elements of astronomical science. It is therefore pregnant with physical and metaphysical, with ethical and theological instruction for the first man, for the predecessors and contemporaries of Moses, and for all the succeeding generations of mankind.

3. In the beginning: There is some question here about the use of the definite article: probably it should read, in beginning. Some authorities would render it, In the beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth, etc. However, this rendering does not materially affect the meaning of the statement. (1) In the beginningof what? Evidently, of the space-time continuum in all its aspects, thereafter designated in Scripture the creation (Romans 1:20; Romans 8:20; Romans 8:22; Mark 10:6; Mark 13:19; 2 Peter 3:4). Hence, Rotherham: At first. That is to say When time began, or, When God began creating, etc. Time, said Plato, is the moving image of eternity. That is, the changing (phenomenal) aspects of our world of Becoming simply reflect the eternal Ideas (Forms) in the mind of the Creator which go to make up the world of Being (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:18; 2 Corinthians 5:7). Time has also been described aptly as the narrow vale between the mountain peaks of two eternities. Thompson (MFR, 310): Time. is the measure of change. Without change, existence has no temporal aspect. Without change there is no way in which we can distinguish between before and after; without change a thing has no before and after.Timelessness, on the other hand, is the eternal now.(Cf. Exodus 3:14, 2 Corinthians 6:2.) (2) We are prone to think of eternity as a kind of stretched-out time; it must be, rather, timelessness, a state characterized essentially by illumination; for the saints of God, it is the knowledge and love that constitutes their ultimate union with God (1 Corinthians 13:9-13, 1 John 3:2). This, to be sure, is a concept which the human mind, imprisoned as it is now in the world of sense-perception, is utterly unable to comprehend. (3) One must distinguish between mathematical time (that which is measured by the movements of the heavenly bodies) and real time (that which is experienced in terms of sheer intensity of living, as, for example, the experience of the soldier on coming out of battle, who says, I feel as if I had lived a lifetime in the last few hours). In either case, time presupposes intelligences so constituted as to be able to do the measuring and the experiencing.(4) Surely the beginning of the Creation was the beginning of time. As Erich Frank writes (PURT, 69). Creation is, as it were, that moment in which eternity touched upon time. In a similar way Christ’s advent in the world means that eternity again invaded time and thus a -new creation-’ came about. Both Creation and Redemption are absolutely unprecedented; they are unique events which are fixed in time. -Christ died and rose from the dead only once; he will not die again.-’ His death was an event which will never recur. It belonged to a definite moment in time which, through its lasting importance, gave the merely natural course of time a new content, a meaning. Thus it became history; that is, time filled with meaning.

(5) Who, or what, existed prior to the beginning of time? For the answer to this question we must appeal to the Scripture as a whole. On doing so, we learn that God, the Word, of God, and the Spirit of God, all existed from eternity and participated in the Creation: in the light of New Testament teaching these are fully revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, 1 Peter 1:2). (Logos, Verbum, Wordor Wisdom, 1 Corinthians 1:24was the name which designates the co-eternal relationship between the Father and His Only Begotten Son, the One who became flesh in the Bethlehem manger, and whom we confess as Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16). Cf. John 1:1-3; John 1:18; John 8:58; John 17:4-5; John 17:24; 1 Corinthians 1:24; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Philippians 2:5-6; Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:2; Hebrews 1:10; Revelation 3:14; Genesis 1:2, Psalms 139:7, John 4:24, Hebrews 9:14.) Moreover, God’s Eternal Purpose existed from before the foundation of the world.Obviously, an eternal purpose is one that begins and ends beyond time, that is, in the realm of the timeless. Cf. Isaiah 46:9-10; Matt. 25-34; Nehemiah 9:6; Psalms 102:25; Romans 8:28-30; Romans 16:25-27; 1 Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 1:3-4; Ephesians 3:9-11; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2; 1 Peter 1:18-20; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 17:8. All these Scriptures clearly point back to pre-temporal, pre-mundane intelligent Being and Purpose, Absolutely no being existed, however, before the triune personal God and His Eternal Purpose, who is from everlasting to everlasting (Psalms 90:1-2, Isaiah 9:6, Hebrews 9:14), that is, sui generis or self-existent, without beginning or end.

4. In the beginning, God: that is, El (the general Semitic Name for the Deity), but here, Elohim, the plural form, and yet used with a singular verb. This is the most frequent designation of God (occurring more than two thousand times) in the Old Testament, and the only designation occurring in the Genesis Cosmogony. Why the plural subject with a singular verb? Neither that Elohim (1) suggests a remnant of polytheism, nor (2) indicates a plurality of beings through whom God reveals Himself, as, e.g., angels (angels are creatures, not creators: cf. Genesis 32:1-2; Daniel 7:10; Psalms 148:1-8; Luke 2:13; Hebrews 1:13-14; Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 5:11), but (3) designates a plural of quality equal to the term Godhead, a plural of majesty, a plural of intensity that expresses the fulness of the Divine nature, or (4) includes all of these as indicating excellence, perfection, etc., plusin the light of Scripture teaching as a wholea foreshadowing of the triune personality of the living and true God (1 Thessalonians 1:9) as fully revealed in the New Testament (hence, to be correlated with the us passages in the Old Testament, as Genesis 1:26; Genesis 11:7, and Isaiah 6:8). Indeed, throughout Scripture Elohim designates God as Creator and Preserver (Isaiah 57:15the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity), as distinguished from Yahweh, the Name which designates God as Redeemer. The former Name designates our God the Creator-God, the latter designates Him the Covenant-God. It seems perfectly reasonable that from the very beginning of the Old Testament the Name of the Deity should be revelatory of all aspects of the Godhead; hence, says Delitzsch, The Trinitias is the plurality of Elohim which becomes manifest in the New Testament. Perhaps this diversity of the essential unity (tri-unity) within the Godhead was not disclosed in the early ages of the world, lest God’s ancient people should drift into tritheism (the worship of three Gods), but was held concealed in the eternal mystery (Ephesians 1:9; Ephesians 3:4; Ephesians 3:11; 1 Peter 1:10-12) until the fulness of God’s Eternal Purpose was disclosed in the Last Will and Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (Cf. Deuteronomy 6:4, Mark 12:29Jehovah our God is one Jehovah. It seems obvious that one here has no numerical connotation, but expresses, rather, uniqueness: that is to say, the God of the Bible is the only living and true God: cf. Isaiah 45:6; Isaiah 46:9.) Cf. also Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, 1 Peter 1:1-2. (Note the linguistic kinship between the Hebrew Elohim and the Arabic Allah.)

Whitelaw (PCG, 2): Unless where it refers to the angels (Psalms 8:5) or to heathen deities (Genesis 31:32, Exodus 20:3, Jeremiah 16:20) or to earthly rulers, Elohim is joined with verbs and adjectives in the singular, an anomaly in language which has been explained as suggesting the unity of the Godhead. G. Ernest Wright (IBG, 365): The whole of this universe was God’s creation, and its stability was due to his continuing and sustaining power. Life was possible because God created and preserved a space for it in the midst of the primeval waters, a space which could be done away at any moment were it not for His gracious Will to preserve it (cf. Genesis 6-9). The utter dependence of all life upon the creative will and energy of God was thus the Hebrew emphasis. (For God’s continuous sustaining Power, cf. Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:1-6; Psalms 102:25-27; Acts 17:24-27; Hebrews 1:1-4; Colossians 1:17, etc.). Joseph Parker (PBG): I conclude, therefore, by sayingfinishing thus the first part of my discoursethat, given the universe, given human life, given the whole scheme of things as now known to us, to account for them, no other solution so fully satisfies my intelligence and my heart as the solutionGod. Given this solution, God, no interpretation of that term, pantheistic as including the great sum total, deistic as including a general but not special providence, can satisfy my heart. I find the only interpretation of God I can rely upon and rest in is the interpretation given by Jesus Christ. With that I will fight my fight in time; with that I will face the great unknown.

Christlieb (MDCB, 210ff.) on Biblical Theism: The teaching of Scripture concerning God is based on the theistic conception, that, namely, which holds fast at once His supramundane and His intramundane character; the one in virtue of His nature and essence, the other of His will and power. For while Theism on the one hand, regards the Theos (God) ,as a personal Being, and so as essentially distinct from the whole created universe and from man, it is no less careful, on the other hand, to present Him as the ever-living and working One in His immediate personal relationship to man and the universe by the doctrine of a universal Divine Providence. This view of the divine nature is virtually expressed in the first verse of the Bible. This writer then goes on to show how Genesis 1:1 and many other Scriptures exclude all that is false in other conceptions of God. First, against atheism, which we need scarcely mention, Scripture here, as everywhere, teaches an eternally existing unbeginning God, from whose, creative activity heaven and earth and time itself took their beginningan absolute self-existing One, who saith, I AM THAT I AM, having in Himself the ground of His own being. (Exodus 3:14, John 5:26, Revelation 1:4; Revelation 1:8.) Against materialism we find a protest in the first sentence of the Bible. Matter is not eternal.It had a beginning along with time; heaven and earth were created in that beginning. Matter, therefore, cannot itself be God, but came into existence through an act of His will. And He is distinguished from it not only by priority of existence, but difference of nature. (Psalms 92:5; Psalms 147:5; John 4:24). In like manner we find in those first words of Scripture a protest against pantheism, with its confusion of God and world, and its assumption of the identity of essence in both. God is both antemundane and supramundane, and as to His essence distinct and separate from the world, and existing independently of it: -In the beginning God createdheaven and earth.-’ God ISis absolutely and without beginning; the world is brought into existence, and is dependent on its Creator, not He on it. Moreover, it came into existence through Him, not from Him.Every theory of emanation which would make the world, in whatever form, old Indian or modern pantheistic, an efflux from the Divine Essence, is from the first excluded by the word -created,-’ which simply expresses the fact that the world’s origin is not derived from the essence, but from the will, of the Creator: that its production was not a necessity, but a free act on God’s part, who is therefore to be distinguished and separated from the world as a living, willing and personal Being. Throughout Scripture God speaks as a personIwho does not, as Hegel thought, attain to self-consciousness in the human spirit, but has possessed it independently from the beginning. So little, according to Scripture, is God from us, that we are rather from Him. He is not a mere Idea, but Personality itself, Absolute Freedom, and the highest Self-consciousnessthe prototype of all other Self-consciousness, all other Personalitythat which alone and eternally IS which we are always becoming; who is before and above all, and from whom our own personality is derived (Genesis 2:7, Ephesians 4:6). (Isaiah 45:8; Psalms 139, Jeremiah 29:11, Acts 15:18). Finally, against the false deistic and rationalistic separation between God and the world, Holy Scripture makes like protest in that same opening sentence, which declares the dependence of the world in both its parts (heaven and earth) on the will of Him who called it into being. The same is also indicated in the divine names most commonly used in Scripture, expressive of divine power and might (Elohim, El, Eloah), as well as of lordship and dominion (Adon, Adonai), and indicating at once the essential unity of God in opposition to Polytheism (Deuteronomy 6:4) and His fulness of living energies. He is, therefore, in the highest sense the living One and the living Agency, which not only created the world, but also continuously upholds and maintains it. (Hebrews 1:3, Acts 17:25, Psalms 104:29; Acts 17:27-28; Philippians 2:13; Psalms 33:13; Psalms 33:15). All these attributes follow still more clearly from the name -Jehovah.-’ Just as the general activity of God in the world is referred to Elohim, so almost every divine action which relates to the theocratic revelation is ascribed to Jehovah.

Deism is the notion which arose in the Newtonian era, according to which God as the lofty One who inhabiteth eternity, came out of that eternity long enough to establish the cosmos and to actualize all the laws of nature, and then withdraw from all further intercourse with what He had created, much in the same manner as a man would wind a clock and then expect it to keep on running on its own power. Deism is the denial of any kind of special providence; the light of nature, that is, reason, is held by deists to be man’s only reliance. In a word, deism emphasizes the transcendence of God exclusively, while denying His immanence. Pantheism, on the other hand, which would identify God with the world, nature, the universe, etc., emphasizes the immanence of God exclusively, while denying His transcendence. Theism, however, is the doctrine that God is both transcendent and immanent, transcendent in His being (prior to, separate from, and sovereign over, His creation), but always immanent (throughout His creation) in His will and power (Psalms 139:7-10). The God of the Bible is uniquely theistic.

The theocracy of Israel was the first corporate witness of the living and true God. The greatest spiritual struggle that the Children of Israel had throughout their national existence was the struggle to hold fast to the monotheistic self-revelation of God delivered to them through Moses, and thus to resist the temptation to drift into the idolatrous polytheisms of their pagan neighbors, all of whom were devoted to the orgiastic and licentious rites that characterized the Cult of Fertility. The pure conceptions of the Old Testament of the nature and attributes of God render absurd the notion that Jehovah was merely a tribal deity, that is, a creation and development of the inner consciousness of the Hebrew patriarchs, kings, and prophets. The Old Testament presentation of God can be explained satisfactorily only on the ground that its details were divinely revealed to holy men of old who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21, 1 Peter 1:10-12).

5. Created.(1) The Hebrew bara, translated create, occurs three times in this chapter (Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:26): in Genesis 1:1, as descriptive of the beginning in an absolute sense (either of the Creation considered as a whole, or of first energy and matter to be subsequently fashioned into an ordered cosmos); in Genesis 1:21, as describing the beginning of animal life; and in Genesis 1:26, as describing the beginning of man. Here, and throughout Scripture, this verb is used uniformly of Divine activity only, and surely designates a primary beginning. It is thus to be distinguished from the verbs yatzar, translated form or fashion, as in Genesis 2:7-8; Genesis 2:19, etc., and asah, translated make, as used in Genesis 1:7; Genesis 1:16-26; Genesis 1:31, and Genesis 2:2-4, etc. Throughout Scripture these verbs are predicated equally of both God and man, and designate a fashioning or shaping out of pre-existing materials, that is, secondary beginnings. Whitelaw (PCG, 3): Thus, according to the teaching of this venerable document, the visible universe neither existed from eternity, nor was fashioned out of pre-existing matter, nor proceeded forth as an emanation from the Absolute, but was summoned into existence by an express creative fiat. So, in Genesis 1:21 and Genesis 1:26, the same verb, bara, is used to affirm the primary beginning of what previously had not existed per se, namely, animal life and the human spirit, respectively. In the sense of introducing absolute novelty into the Creative Process, it occurs frequently in Scripture (cf. Isaiah 65:18), (2) Now a fiat is an authorizing order or decree.So it was in the Creation: God spoke, commanding it, and whatever He thus commanded, was done (Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:1-6; John 1:1-3; Romans 4:17; Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:2). However, it strikes me that failure to recognize the fact that God’s having decreed (said) a thing to be done, does not indicate in itself when and how it was done, points up a certain measure of obtuseness on the part of all who fail (or refuse) to recognize this distinction. The fact is that the Genesis narrative is designed to impress upon our minds one sublime truth above all others, namely, that the Will of God is the constitution of the whole Creation, both physical and moral.

(3) Current Jewish thought on this subject is expressed clearly as follows (AtD, 8); The first chapter of Genesis begins with God existing as a transcendent deity outside of the world, to create it. He was when nothing else existed. (Again, p. 3): A governing idea is expressed in the statement that God used merely his creating word: God said. and creation came into existence. Contrary to other ancient myths about the origin of the world. there is no wrestling with the primeval abyss, no struggle against other divine beings. Furthermore, since God is all-powerful, all that He creates is well made. But the text does not go further: it does not deal, for example, with the philosophical question of whether anything existed before God began to create. (I must protest the indirect allusion, in this excerpt, to the Genesis narrative as a myth. See Part IV supra, under the mythological view.)

(4) Skinner (ICCG, 7): The central doctrine is that the world is createdthat it originates in the will of God, a personal Being transcending the universe and existing independently of it. The pagan notion of a Theogonya generation of the gods from the elementary world-matteris entirely banished. It is, indeed, doubtful if the representation goes so far as a creatio ex nihilo, or whether a pre-existent chaotic material is postulated; it is certain at least that the kosmos, the ordered world with which alone man has to do, is wholly the product of divine intelligence and volition. The spirituality of the First Cause of all things, and His absolute sovereignty over the material He employs, are further emphasized in the idea of the word of Godthe effortless expression of His thought and purposeas the agency through which each successive effect is produced; and also in the recurrent refrain which affirms that the original creation in each of its parts was -good,-’ and as a whole -very good-’ (Genesis 1:31), i.e., that it perfectly reflected the divine thought which called it into existence.

(5) Adam Clarice (CG, 27): Genesis 1:1 should read: -God in the beginning created the substance of the heavens, and the substance of the earth,-’ i.e., the prima materia, or first elements, out of which the heavens and the earth were successively formed. This passage argues a wonderful philosophic accuracy in the statement of Moses, which brings before us not a finished heavens and earth, as every other transaction appears to do, though afterward the process of their formation is given in detail, but merely the materials out of which God built the whole system in the six following days. Again: The supposition that God formed all things out of a pre-existing eternal nature is certainly absurd; for, if there was an eternal nature besides an eternal God, there must have been two self-existing, independent, and eternal beings, which is a most palpable contradiction. (I may add that this kind of dualism is wholly unphilosophical in that it postulates two First Principles, when only onethe Eternal God who is Spirit-is necessary. Mind alone, not matter, can account for all the phenomena of human experience, such as thought, meaning, values, etc.) Lange (CDHCG, 162): That in this creating there is not meant, at all, any demiurgical forming out of pre-existing material, appears from the fact that the kind of material, as something then just created, is strongly signified in the first condition of the earth (Genesis 1:2) and in the creation of light.

(6) What does present-day science have to say about the Creation? As we have noted previously, Bertrand Russell thinks there is no necessity for assuming that the cosmos ever had a beginning. But one thing is certain, namely, that the cosmos has not existed always as we know it today.All branches of sciencephysics, chemistry, geology, biology, etc.are dogmatically, and to a great degree, arbitrarilytreating the whole cosmos as the product of a long-drawn-out developmental (evolutionary) process. As stated heretofore (see the Cosmological Proof, Part IV, supra),the only possible alternative to an absolute beginning would be an infinite regress, and infinite regress is inconceivable. The notion of the eternity of matter necessarily embraces the cosmic cycle theory of successive cataclysms and reconstructions, with the last reconstruction paving the way for what is known in the geology of our time as uniformitarianism. Moreover, in whatever form cosmic energy may once have existed, it would have required Efficient Causality to have actualized all its potencies, for the simple reason that the power to actualize itself lies beyond the power of any potency. The fact is that our scientists, almost without exception, in explaining the universe, find that they have to begin with something. Lemaitre began with the explosion of a primordial atom; Gamow begins with an inferno of homogeneous primordial vapor seething at unimaginable temperatures, such heat that no elements, no molecules, not atoms, but only free neutrons in a state of chaotic agitation, existed; Hoyle et al begin with a hydrogen fog, Whipple, with a rarefied cosmic dust cloud, etc. No one begins with nothing, for ex nihilo, nihil fit.As Lincoln Barnett writes (UDE, 104): Even if one acquiesces to the idea of an immortal pulsating universe, within which the sun and earth and supergiant red stars are comparative newcomers, the problem of initial origin remains. It merely pushes the time of Creation into the infinite past. For while theorists have adduced mathematically impeccable accounts of the fabrication of galaxies, stars, star dust, atoms, and even of the atom’s components, every theory rests ultimately on the a priori assumption that something was already in existencewhether free neutrons, energy quanta, or simply the blank inscrutable -world stuff,-’ the cosmic essence, of which the multifarious universe was subsequently wrought. It is generally conceded, I think, by modern physicists that the problem of Creation cannot be avoided even from the scientific point of view.

(7) At the risk of being thought repetitious, I should like to note here that in the science of our day there are two chief rival theories of the origin of the universe. First, there is what is known as the big bang theory, that of Lemaitre, that the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a primordial atom and has been expanding ever since. This, of course, is a theory of the Creation, in a general sense; however, it does not account for the existence of this super-atom. Hence we may ask, Did this primordial atom ever have a beginning, or was it without beginning? Second, there is the steady state theory, or that of continuous creation (a la Hoyle), with new hydrogen being somehow created spontaneously in inter-galactic space, to fill the voids left by cosmic expansion or by the death of galaxies. As noted heretofore, Hoyle declares that the question of Creation cannot be avoided because the matter of the universe cannot be infinitely old (else the cosmic supply of hydrogen would have been exhausted long ago, by conversion into helium). The only solution, therefore, writes Hoyle (NU, 112-114), must be that of continuous creation by which new hydrogen is thrown into the hopper. He writes: Where does the created material come from? It does not come from anywhere. Matter simply appearsit is created. At one time the various atoms composing the material do not exist, and at a later time they do. Gamow and his school present a somewhat different theory (CU, Intro.), namely, that the present state of the universe resulted from a continuous evolutionary process, which started in a highly compressed homogeneous material a few billion years agothe hypothesis of -beginning.-’ Gamow writes, in The Scientific American, March, 1954: During the first few minutes of the Universe’s existence matter must have consisted only of protons, neutrons and electrons, for any group of particles that combined momentarily into a composite nucleus would immediately have dissociated into its components at the extremely high temperature. One can call the mixture of particles ylem [pronounced eelem]the name that Aristotle gave to primordial matter. As the Universe went on expanding and the temperature of ylem dropped, protons and neutrons began to stick together, forming deuterons (nuclei of heavy hydrogen), tritons (still heavier hydrogen), helium and heavier elements. Dr. Tolman of the California Institute of Technology suggests another hypothesis, that of a pulsating universe, of alternating periods of expansion and contraction, the cycles being governed by changes in the totality of matter. This presupposes, of course, that, as in Hoyle’s theory, somewhere in the universe new material is being formed. However, as a matter of fact, even though it appears to be true that the totality of matter in the cosmos is constantly changing, the change appears to be in one direction only, toward what is called a heat-death, technically defined as a condition of maximum entropy.

The problem before us, therefore, resolves itself basically into this: Whence the primordial atom of Lemaitre? Whence the new matter continually being poured into the cosmic process, according to Hoyle? Whence Gamow’s ylem? Whence Tolman’s constantly changing supply of matter? Whence Dr. Whipple’s dust cloud? Did all theseor any one of themsimply exist without a beginning, that is, unbegun? Or, did whatever the scientist may start from, or start with, in accounting for the existence of the cosmos, have a beginning? The answer of Genesis is unequivocally in the affirmative: the cosmos did have a beginning: before anything of the nature of physical energy began, there was God, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God: only the God of the Bible, the triune God, is without beginning or end.Psalms 90:2even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Exodus 3:14And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM. Cf. Psalms 102:24; Psalms 102:27; Jeremiah 10:10; John 4:24; Acts 17:24-28.

(8) The consensus is, generally, that Genesis does not teach Creation ex nihilo, that it teaches, rather, Creation without the use of pre-existing material; that is, Creation by the power of the Divine Thought and Will, as expressed by the Word of God, and effectuated by the Spirit of God (Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9). (It seems that in all activities of the Godhead, the Father is the originating Power, the Son (Logos) the executive Power, and the Spirit the realizing Power, that is, according to Biblical teaching.) For the God of the Bible to think a thing, is for Him to create it. An interesting, albeit greatly inferior, analogy may be cited in the phenomena of psychokinesis, now a subject of research in various colleges and universities, notably in the Department of Parapsychology at Duke University, under the direction of Dr. J. B. Rhine. (See Rhine’s latest books, The Reach of the Mind, The New World of the Mind, etc.). Psychokinesis is defined as the power of human thought (thought energy) to effect the movements of ponderable objects. Included in this category are such phenomena as levitation, automatic writing, ectoplasms, etc. Phantasms, we are told by investigators in this field, may be called embodied thoughts (that is, ethereal reconstructions of matter by the power of thought), even as a man may rightly be called an embodied thought of God. All such phenomena serve to support the view of the primacy of mind or thought in the totality of being. In the possessing and functioning of these powers of -thought energy, thought projection, and thought materialization, man, it is contended, again reveals the spark of the Infinite that is in him, and thus himself gives evidence of having been created in the image of God. (By virtue of the fact that man is the image of God, does it not follow reasonably that he should manifest in some slight measure the powers belonging to the Divine Mind and Will?) Is, not the cosmos itself, according to Biblical teaching, a constitution of the Divine Will, a projection of the Divine Spirit, an embodiment of the Divine Thought as expressed by the Divine Word?

(9) Hebrews 11:3By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear. Obviously, Creation out of visible materials is clearly denied in this Scripture (cf. 2 Peter 3:5, Romans 4:17, 2 Corinthians 4:18). This is in harmony with the view held generally, that Genesis 1:1 teaches Creation by the power of Divine Thought and Will without the use of pre-existing matter. Still and all, can not the present-day nuclear physicist make the same affirmation, in the light of his knowledge of atomic and sub-atomic forcesthe affirmation that what is seen has not been made out of things which appear (things visible)? Has an atom ever been seen by the naked human eye, or even by the naked eye implemented by the most powerful microscope? Of course not. What is an atom? Is it properly described as a particle, corpuscle, etc.? Hardly. It seems best described as a kind of field in which elemental forces operate. Does an atom occupy space? It is difficult to determine just how it does so, if at all. If these characteristics are true of the atom, how much more so of the sub-atomic forces that are constantly operating within the atom? In our day physicists talk about both matter and anti-matter. They give us a strangealmost weirdpicture of thirty or more of these inconceivably powerful sub-atomic forces, existing in, or emanating from, the nuclei of atoms. (In recent days we hear about the neutrino, the Xi-minus, and now the Omega-minus, and indeed what yet lies in the offing to be discovered, no one knows.) An electron has been defined as an elementary something which can move in all directions at once without ever being found at any intermediate point. All this means that these ultimate facets of what is called physical energy are completely invisible to the human eye; that matter in its ultimate form is so attenuated as no longer to be regarded as material, or hardly even as quasi-material. The fact is that our knowledge of matter and its elemental forms has been derived originally through the media of mathematical formulas, and not by means of sense perception. These original forms of energy, then, belong to the realm of things not seen; and matter, in our present-day understanding of it, is metaphysical in its ultimate aspects, rather than physical. And the things that are not seen, the Apostle tells us, are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18). Does this statement take in these elemental forces also? And where is the line to be drawn between the strictly non-material (mental, invisible) on the one hand, and the material and visible on the other? Or is it so thinly drawn as to be well-nigh non-existent? Can God as Spirit (John 4:24) rightly be thought of as including in His own being these forms of first energy? We do not know. We can not know. Much would depend, it seems, on how we define Spirit and material or physical. Surely we are justified in affirming that all power is of God. Perhaps, in the final analysis, we are bogged down here in semantics; hence, in the limitations of human language. Quoting Barnett again (UDE, 114): Man’s inescapable impasse is that he himself is part of the world he seeks to explore; his body and proud brain are mosaics of the same elemental particles that compose the dark, drifting dust clouds of interstellar space; he is, in the final analysis, merely an ephemeral conformation of the primordial space-time field. Standing midway between macrocosm and microcosm he finds barriers on every side and can perhaps but marvel, as St. Paul did nineteen hundred years ago, that -the world was created by the word of God so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.-’

(10) D. Elton Trueblood contends (PR, 98-105) that our scientific thinking at present, by two of its most fundamental laws, positively supports the doctrine of Creation. These two laws are what is known as The Second Law of Thermodynamics and what is known as the Evolution Hypothesis: (Trueblood writes of the latter, quite arbitrarily, it seems to me, as The Fact of Evolution.) The First Law of Thermodynamics is the well-known law of the conservation of energy, that is, that the totality of energy-matter making up our universe is constant. But, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the fact that the totality of energy is constant does not mean that this energy is always available. This is what is known among physicists as the progressive degradation of energy, namely, that because there is diffusion of energy constantly with no accompanying addition to the total supply, we are compelled to envision a final state of complete stagnation. McWilliams (Cos., 42): As the useless energy increases, the useful decreases by the same amount. This ratio of useless to useful energy is called entropy.The law of entropy states that the ratio is constantly increasing. This means that the amount of energy available for the energizing process of the world is ever growing less. How, then, is this law related to the problem of Creation? Trueblood explains: We are driven, logically, to the conclusion that the physical world is something which not only will have an end, but also something which had a beginning. If the universe is running down like a clock,-’ says Dr. Inge, -the clock must have been wound up at a date which we could name if we knew it. The world, if it is to have an end in time, must have had a beginning in time.-’ (Would it not be precise to say that if the world is to have an end with time, it must have had a beginning with time?) Trueblood continues: This follows strictly from the fact that the law of energy is irreversible. A clock which always runs down and is never rewound cannot have been running forever. Again quoting Barnett (UDE, 103-104): If the universe is running down and nature’s processes are proceeding in just one direction, the inescapable inference is that everything had a beginning: somehow and sometime the cosmic processes were started, the stellar fires ignited, and the whole vast pageant of the universe brought into being. Most of the clues, moreover, that have been discovered at the inner and outer frontiers of scientific cognition suggest a definite time of Creation. The unvarying rate at which uranium expends its nuclear energies and the absence of any natural process leading to its formation indicate that all the uranium on earth must have come into existence at one specific time, which, according to the best calculations of geophysicists, was about two billion years ago. The tempo at which the wild thermonuclear processes in the interiors of stars transmute matter into radiation enables astronomers to compute with fair assurance the duration of stellar life, and the figure they reach as the likely average age of most stars visible in the firmament today is two billion years. The arithmetic of the geophysicists and astrophysicists is thus in striking agreement with that of the cosmogonists who, basing their calculations on the apparent velocity of the receding galaxies, find that the universe began to expand two billion years ago. And there are other signs in other areas of science that submit the same reckoning. So all the evidence that points to the ultimate annihilation of the universe points just as definitely to an inception fixed in time.

As stated above, the other law which Trueblood cites to support both theism and creationism is the Evolution Hypothesis. Contrary to the thinking of many, writes this distinguished scholar, the inclusion of man in the evolutionary scheme, does not make religious faith difficult or even impossible; it is this very inclusion which subsequent reflection has fastened upon as one of the chief features of the natural order among those which substantiate and corroborate the theistic hypothesis. (Perhaps I should state here that the inclusion of man in the evolutionary process is precisely the notion which I cannot accept. Trueblood admits that evolution is a highly speculative theory, adding, however, that the evidence is sufficient to satisfy most minds which have considered it fairly. This last statement, too, is debatable: too often the evidence alleged to support this theory is presented as fact, when as a matter of fact, it is evidence arrived at only by inference. This raises the corollary question, Is the inference necessary (unavoidable) inference? This general subject will be treated later in the present text. Suffice it, at this point, to present Trueblood’s argument.) The argument is as follows: (a) The climax of the creative process is the capacity to understand the world around us, and this capacity is inherent in man only. (b) This capacity has arisen by degrees in the natural order, the evidence to support this being the claim that man shares much of his mental experience with the humbler creatures. (This too, it seems to me, is debatable: see infra under the comments on Genesis 2:7.) (c) Any plan is to be properly evaluated by its end product (cf. Isaiah 45:5-7; Isaiah 45:12; Isaiah 46:9-11). Therefore, the ground of rationality need not appear; until the end of the series of events, but when it appears it illuminates the entire process. (d) If the general evolutionary theory is true and if man’s life be included in this theory, we cannot escape the conclusion that mind and nature are genealogically, as well as cognitively, akin. (e) Therefore, how can nature include mind as an integral part unless it is grounded in mind? Mind, that is, is not something alien or accidental to the scheme of things, but is a phenomenon which is deeply rooted in the entire structure. (f) In virtue of the fact that science knows nothing of the wholly fortuitous, that is, that there are no truly accidental events, then mind, so far as we know it, is an integral part of the system and a revelation of the nature of nature. The obvious conclusion must be that cosmic and biological evolution are one, and that there has been a single orderly development with mind and matter belonging to the same inclusive system. At one end of the evolutionary series is unconscious life, and at the other is self-conscious life, but it is all one series.(This, to be sure, points up the argument that Evolution is properly described as a theory of Creation.) (I should like to add here that if the evolutionary series is described in terms of an unbroken continuity, it demands Mind as the directing Force and it demands that all higher phenomena of our experiencethose of the processes of life, thought, personality, etc.must have been present potentially in the first material with which the process of Creation had its origin. It demands, furthermore, an Efficient Causality to actualize all these potencies in the upward surge of being. It has long been an accepted norm of evidence that before anything can be established beyond all possibility of doubt, it must be supported by the testimony of two or more eye-witnesses. (Cf. Deuteronomy 17:6; Deuteronomy 19:15; 2 Corinthians 13:1; Acts 10:40-43; Acts 2:32; 1 Corinthians 9:1.) Unfortunately, the time element that is involved in the Evolution Hypothesis puts it beyond either proof or disproof on the ground of this indispensable norm.) Dr. Trueblood’s argument is presented here for whatever value it may have in strengthening the student’s faith.

(11) Why the Creation at all? The esthetic theory would have it that Creativity is the very nature of Love; that because our God is Love, it is of the very essence of His being freely to create.(John 3:16; 1 John 4:7-21; Romans 5:5.) It could well be that Creation and Redemption are all of one general Plan of the ages, and that Creation, insofar as man is concerned, will not be complete until the saints appear in the Judgment clothed in glory and honor and immortality (Romans 2:6-10; Romans 8:28-30); that this will be the ultimate of Creative activitythe end foreseen by our God, and the goal of His Eternal Purpose, from the beginning (Ephesians 3:1-12; Ephesians 1:3-14; Isaiah 46:9-11). This would mean that the physical or natural Creation was just one phase of the Divine Plan and designed to set the stage for the Recreation or Regeneration, the end purpose being the vindication of Divine Justice challenged by Satan and his rebel host, and the conclusive demonstration to all intelligences of the universe that the diabolical charges were utterly false. (Cf. 2 Peter 3:4, Jude 1:6; Luke 10:18, John 8:44, 1 Corinthians 6:3, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 6:10-16, John 12:31, Revelation 20:7-10.) This vindication was achieved by just such a demonstration of Love as was actualized in God’s offering of His Only Begotten Son for man’s redemption. These problems are all inherent in the over-all problem of moral evil (sin) and physical evil (suffering), a problem which lies beyond the scope of human intelligence to fully resolve; hence, concerning which Divine revelation has given us only intimations. Unless by faith one accepts these intimations, one can never hope to attain any satisfying understanding of the Mystery of Being.

(6.) The heavens and the earth.(1) In view of the obvious fact that the Genesis Cosmogony is written from the terrestrial viewpoint (that is, that of a person on earth), some commentators hold that this phrase designates simply the earth and the starry skies above it.Others hold that the phrase is descriptive of our own solar system; others that the term earth stands for the cosmic mass out of which the earth was composed, and the term heavens for the rest of the universe. (2) Again, the earth alluded to in Genesis 1:1 could not have been the dry land of Gen 1:10: this was not separated from the Seas until the third day of Creation. Moreover, in Genesis 1:10, the dry land as Earth and the gathering together of the waters as Seas are associated in such a way that we are obliged to think of them as two parts of the whole, namely, the Lands and Seas which go to make up the geography of our planet. (3) We conclude that the phrase, the heavens and the earth of Gen 1:1 is intended to designate the whole organized universe or cosmos. This view, of course, lends support to the doctrine that this verse is to be taken as an introductory heading to the rest of the Creation Narrative.

(4) According to Scripture, the old or natural Creation consists of the heavens and the earth and all the host of them (Genesis 2:1; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:1-6), the former phrase designating, as stated above, the organized cosmos. The host of heaven takes in (a) the sun, moon, and stars, and (b) the angels. Deuteronomy 4:19; Deuteronomy 17:3; Genesis 32:1-2; Ki. Genesis 22:19; Psalms 103:21 (cf. Hebrews 1:13-14); Daniel 7:10 (the prophet’s Vision of the Ancient of Days); Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 5:11. The host of earth, of course, takes in all living creatures upon the earth. Cf. Genesis 7:21-22; also Romans 8:20-22the whole creation of this text evidently includes all living things upon the earth, all of which are regarded in Scripture as being under the curse, and therefore suffering the consequences, of sin (Genesis 3:17, Romans 3, Galatians 3:13, Revelation 22:3)and hence is equivalent to the host of earth. We have here a picture of the struggle for existence more graphic than any portrayal by Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, or any of the evolutionists.

7. The following concluding word from the pen of the distinguished physicist, Sir Arthur Eddington (SUW, 37, 69-70) is especially pertinent here: In comparing the certainty of things spiritual and things temporal, let us not forget thisMind is the first and most direct thing in our experience; all else is remote inference. That environment of space and time and matter, of light and colour and concrete things, which seems so vividly real to us is probed deeply by every device of science and at the bottom we reach symbols. Its substance has melted into shadow. None the less it remains a real world if there is a background to the symbolsan unknown quantity which the mathematical symbol x stands for. We think we are not wholly cut off from this background. It is to this background that our own personality and consciousness belong, and those spiritual aspects of our nature not to be described by any symbolism or at least not by symbolism of the numerical kind to which mathematical physics has hitherto restricted itself. Our story of evolution ended with a stirring in the brain-organ of the latest of Nature’s experiments; But that stirring of consciousness transmutes the whole story and gives meaning to its symbolism. Symbolically it is the end, but looking behind the symbolism it is the beginning. Again: Theological or anti-theological argument to prove or disprove the existence of a deity seems to me to occupy itself largely with skating among the difficulties caused by our making a fetish of this word. It is all so irrelevant to the assurance for which we hunger. In the case of our human friends we take their existence for granted, not caring whether it is proven or not. Our relationship is such that we could read philosophical arguments designed to prove the non-existence of each other, and perhaps even be convinced by themand then laugh together over so odd a conclusion. I think that it is something of the same kind of security we should seek in our relationship with God. The most flawless proof of the existence of God is no substitute for it; and if we have that relationship the most convincing disproof is turned harmlessly aside. If I may say it with reverence, the soul and God laugh together over so odd a conclusion. Hebrews 11:6he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Strong (ST, 371): By creation we mean that free act of the triune God by which in the beginning, for His own glory, he made, without the use of pre-existing materials, the whole visible and invisible universe. Everest (DD, 147): It is objected that the creation of something out of nothing is absurd. Now the Bible does not say that the world was created out of nothing. There always was something in existence, and this something was the cause of whatever else came into being. Matter was produced by the divine energy. That this was impossible, no man can know; for we do not know what matter is. What is an atom? Has an atom ever been seen, measured, weighed, or analyzed? One of the most plausible theories is that an atom is a mathematical point where force is located; a point around which there play unceasingly attractive and repulsive forces. If this is true, that God should call it into being would not be impossible, but analogous rather to what we know of mental power; for man is also a creator, calling into existence thoughts, choices, and bodily motions. In the final analysis, Creation, in the absolute sense, is a truth that is to be received by faith; it transcends both human reason and imagination. (Cf. Genesis 1:1, John 1:3, Romans 4:17, Hebrews 11:3.)

FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

The Mystery of Being

1. Who has not been overwhelmed at times by a profound sense of the Mystery of Being? What is it to be? Someone may say, It is to exist. But this is just a synonym, not a definition. The fact is that being can only be experienced, never defined. 2. Being exists either potentially or actually.For example, a mighty oak existed once, potentially, in an acorn. A baby is actually a baby; potentially it is an adult person. A seed is actually a seed; potentially it is a plant. Cold water is actually cold; potentially, it is hot. One does not inherit diseases; rather, one inherits the tendency to a certain disease because the mechanism is not present in his body metabolism to prevent it; all such mechanisms must be potentially present at conception, in the fertilized ovum in which one begins to be. 3. A potency, however, cannot actualize itself: it requires an efficient causality to make it actual (just as, e.g., the living being requires food and water in order to grow). So it is with the totality of being. It can be explained only as the complex or manifold produced by the Efficient Causality who actualizes all the potencies inherent therein. This cosmic Efficient Causality is God, the Intelligence and Will (Power) who creates and sustains all things (Psalms 33:6-9; Psalms 148:1-6). 4. God alone is pure actuality (completeness, perfection: cf. Matthew 5:48, Romans 12:2, Leviticus 19:2holiness is wholeness).In God existence and essence are one; it is the very essence of God to be (Exodus 3:14, John 8:58). The Russian astronaut is reported to have said that while he was traveling through the upper reaches of space he looked everywhere for God but found Him not. What stupidity! Our God is Spirit (John 4:24), hence not apprehensible by sense-perception. Although no man has seen Him at any time (John 1:18), the fact is, in the words of the Psalmist, that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork (Psalms 19:1). (6) God, who is being, is one.He is Spirit, that is, without body or parts, but having understanding and free will. He is everywhere; wherever anything exists, God is there giving it existence, God is eternal; because it is His nature to be, He could never be non-existent, but is without beginning or end (Revelation 1:17-18, Hebrews 9:14, Isaiah 9:6, Exodus 3:14, Job 36:26, Psalms 90:2; Romans 1:20; Romans 16:26; Ephesians 3:9; 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 Timothy 6:16; Revelation 1:8; Revelation 22:13). All contingent things depend on other things for existence, but our God depends on nothing outside Himself for His existence, that is, His ground of existence is within Himself: He is self-existent.

The simple fact is that there must be Being who is without beginning or end; otherwise the something that exists must have come from nothing. This is absurd, The Self-existent Being is known in philosophy as the First Principle or First Cause, but for religious faith He is God. No man can logically think His way into atheism. When it occurs, atheism is the consequence of an emotional reaction of some kind.

In the Beginning

This phrase is used with great significance in the Bible. As a matter of fact, the Bible is the only book to which we can go for the truth about cosmic beginnings. Science treats of the how of things only; its laws are descriptive of the processes which the human mind discovers in the various realms of the natural world. Revelation alone can give us the truth about cosmic beginnings, especially the beginnings absolute, because absolute beginnings occur only by the operation of the Intelligence, Will, and Power of God. Absolute beginnings lie outside the realm of what is called natural law, in the area of the Primary or First Cause. Things once begun, however, are perpetuated in their various natures and functions by secondary causes, that is, by the decrees of God as exercised through the laws of nature. Let us consider the three passages in which this phrase, in the beginning, occurs in Scripture, used in a context such as to make it profoundly meaningful, as follows:

1, John 1:1-3. John is described in Scripture as the disciple whom Jesus loved. (John 13:23; John 19:26; John 20:2; John 21:7; John 21:20). He it was who leaned on the Master’s bosom on the occasion of the Last Supper, and he it is who has given us, in the fourth Gospel narrative, the sublime spiritual truths concerning the origin, person, and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1) It was John who, in the first three verses of His Prologue, climbed into the very heaven of heavens to give us the revealed truth that in the beginning was the Word, the Logos. In the beginning of what? This phrase can be measured chronologically only if eternity can be so measured. It declares simply that from all eternity was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. From all eternity Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten, was with Godin the bosom of the Father (John 1:18), in a position of loving intimacy with Him (John 17:5; John 17:24). From all eternity the Word, the Only Begotten, was God, that is, one of the Godhead, and therefore is to be worshiped with the worship that is due the Father. What man could have given us such a profound revelation? Because the Spirit alone searches the deep things of God, He alone can give us insight into, these eternal truths (1 Corinthians 2:10). In the manger at Bethlehem the eternal Logos became in fact the Only Begotten Son of God, through the passive instrumentality of the Virgin (Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-38, Galatians 4:4-5). (2) Note that in John’s Prologue, before he has anything to say about the Creation, he declares that the Logos was in being originally. In this hymn on the Creative Logos, he takes us back even farther than Moses does in Genesis 1:1; back, indeed, to the eternity before time itself had a beginning. Note the other Scriptures in which the pre-existence of Christ is affirmed: John 1:14; John 17:5; John 8:58; Colossians 1:17; Galatians 4:4; Philippians 2:5-11; Hebrews 2:14-15. (3) Note the meaningful affirmations about the Logos in John 1:1-3: (a) His eternity: originally, that is, from all eternity, He is the Word of God (1 John 1:1-2, Revelation 1:17-18; Revelation 22:13). (b) His fellowship with the Father: and the Word was with God, that is, there were Two, God and the Word; (c) His deity: lest anyone get the notion that the Word was less than God, John adds, and the Word was God, that is, as truly God as the entire Godhead (Hebrews 1:8, Revelation 19:13-16). (4) Note that John uses Logos and not Sophia (Wisdom: cf. Proverbs 8:22-30). Thus the Hebrew doctrine of the going forth of the Divine Word from God is emphasized, by way of contrast with the Greek idea of the immanent Divine Reason, as the governing idea in the revelation of the true relationship between the Son and the Father. (Cf. John 1:18; John 5:30; John 6:38; John 10:30; John 17:4-5; John 17:18-21; Galatians 4:4; 1 John 1:1-2; 1 John 5:20.)

2. Genesis 1:1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning of what? Of the space-time process. Beginning is a familiar word with most of us, but we are inclined to think of it as a fashioning or rearrangement of what is already existent. But the beginning of Gen 1:1 was, as we have noted previously, an absolute Creation by the Power of Divine Thought and Will. There was a time when the cosmos was not; when there were only God, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God (in the sunlight of the New Testament revelation, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Hence we are told expressly that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear (Hebrews 11:3). This beginning was of necessity the work of Divine power, and hence is properly designated supernatural.As a matter of fact, changes from non-being to being, from the unconscious to the conscious, from the conscious to the self-conscious (personality), apparently lie outside the scope of any strictly natural process (cf. Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:27). Energy-matter, the cosmos, animal life, human personality (self-consciousness and self-determination)all must have been originated by Divine agency, through the introduction of new increments of power into the Creative Process at successive intervalsand hence, although originating in a miracle of absolute creation, are nevertheless perpetuated in what we call natural processes (secondary causes).

3. *Acts 11:15*the words of Peter to the brethren at Jerusalem, explanatory of the conversion of the first Gentiles, Cornelius and his household at Caesarea. (See Acts 10, 11, 15.) As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them (Cornelius and his household, the first Gentile converts) even as on us (the Apostles, all of them Jews) at the beginning.What beginning? The beginning of the regeneration, of the spiritual creation (John 3:3-7, Titus 3:5, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 6:15; Ephesians 2:10; Ephesians 4:24), of the Reign of the Messiah, of the Church of Christ, of the New and better Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrews 8:6), of the Dispensation of the Spirit. The time was A.D. 30; the place, Jerusalem. On that occasion, the Spirit descended on the Apostles in baptismal measure (Luke 24:45-49, John 20:21-23; Acts 1:1-5; Acts 2:1-4), thus making them charter members of the Church by miracle. They in turn preached the Gospel to the assembled multitude, telling inquiring sinners what to do to be saved. Some three thousand persons heard, believed, repented, and were baptized into Christ (Acts 2:37-42). And there were added together in that day about three thousand souls (Acts 2:41): thus the Body of Christ was incorporated, vitalized by the indwelling Spirit. It seems reasonable to conclude that the Apostles were thus made members of the Body by the miracle of Holy Spirit baptism; those who obeyed the Gospel on that day, and all who have done so since that day, have been added to themliterally, *added together-*by the psychological process of conversion (Acts 3:19-20, Galatians 3:27, Romans 10:9-10); and so that which began in miracle is perpetuated by the hearing and obedience of faith (Acts 2:38, Romans 6:3-5, Ephesians 2:19-22, Galatians 3:2).

Conclusion: Things that are begun supernaturally are perpetuated naturally.The beginning of the world, of man, of life, of all things in God’s Eternal Purpose, was of necessity outside the realm of the strictly natural. The beginning of the Jewish nation was accompanied by miracles (Exodus 4:1-9). The ministry of Jesus was authenticated by miracles (Acts 2:22). The beginning of the church was in a miracle (Acts 2:1-4). The Gospel in its earliest proclamation was attested by miracles (Acts 8:4-24; Acts 9:32-42; Acts 10:38-40; Acts 19:1-7; Acts 28:1-6; Mark 16:17-20; Hebrews 2:2-4). In the days of the early Church, when disciples had to depend on the oral teaching of the Apostles, God graciously confirmed the word by the signs that followed (Romans 1:11, 1 Corinthians 12). However, when the New Testament was written and compiled, this miraculous element passed away (1 Corinthians 13:8, Ephesians 4:8-16). Do not expect a miracle to be performed today to convert a sinner. Demonstration accompanies revelation; however, when the revelation is completed, the demonstration is no longer necessary (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Matthew 12:38-40, Romans 1:4). Romans 10:6-10the righteousness which is of faith says, The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach, etc. Accept and obey the Gospel, enjoy salvation through obedience to its commands, and live in the blessed hope of life everlasting.

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART FIVE

State the various theories of the relation of Gen 1:1 to the rest of the Creation Narrative that follows.

What are the objections to the reconstruction theory?

What does our text say about the agreement between the Genesis Cosmogony and present-day science?

Name the various concepts which, according to Murphy, are denied by the first verse of Genesis.

The phrase, in the beginning, implies the beginning of what?

Explain the distinction between mathematical time and real time.

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What seems to be the essential difference between eternity and time?

Who or what existed prior to the beginning of time, according to Biblical teaching?

What is the name used for the Deity in Genesis 1:1? What is the special significance of this name?

What suggestions have been made to account for the use of the plural subject with a singular verb, in this Scripture?

What explanation of this problem harmonizes with the teaching of the Bible as a whole?

Explain the theistic doctrine of God.

Explain how, according to Christlieb, Genesis 1:1 is a protest against atheism, materialism, pantheism, emanationism, deism, and rationalism.

Show how theism differs from both deism and pantheism,

What is the significance of the verb bara as used in the first chapter of Genesis? How does this verb differ from the verb asah in meaning?

What are the objections to the notion of the eternity of matter?

Explain what is meant by Efficient Causality.

State the main rival theories, in present-day science, of the origin of the universe.

In explaining the cosmos, with what something does each of the following scientists begin: Lemaitre, Hoyle, Gamow, Whipple?

What kind of Creation does Genesis teach?

What is meant by Creation without the use of preexisting material? How does this differ from Creation ex nihilo?

Show how research in the field of psychic phenomena supports the Biblical doctrine of Creation by the power of Divine Thought.

On what grounds do we say that matter as it is understood today in its ultimate forms is metaphysical rather than physical?

How does the Second Law of Thermodynamics give scientific support to creationism?

How, according to Trueblood, does the Evolution Hypothesis support both theism and creationism? Do you agree?

Show how the teaching of Heb 11:3 might be harmonized with current knowledge in the area of nuclear physics.

What answers may be given to the question, Why Creation at all?

Give the various suggested meanings of the phrase, the heavens and the earth. Which view is preferred in this textbook?

What is included in this phrase, the heavens and the earth?

What is included in the host of heaven?

What is included in the host of earth?

State Dr. Strong’s definition of Creation and discuss the various parts of this definition.

Genesis 1:2-5

Day One: Energy-Matter, Motion, Light (Genesis 1:2-5)

And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

1. The writer singles out the earth for special emphasis. This is consistent, of course, in that it points up the fact immediately that the entire Cosmogony is to be written from the viewpoint of an inhabitant of earth. However, as Lange points out (CDHCG, 163), the description given here of the genesis of the earth may well serve, by way of analogy, for the generation of the universe.
2. The earth was waste and void. (1) This description takes us back to the first stages in the Creative Process subsequent to the first putting forth of energy from the being of God; the Spirit, literally, was brooding; that is, the process was actually going on when the account opens; as yet the primal energy (was it psychical or physical?) had not transmuted itself into gross matter (which present-day physicists describe as frozen or congealed energy). There was only formlessness and voidness: literally, the earth was formless and empty.Again quoting Lange (CDHCG, 163): It is through the conception of voidness, nothingness, that Thohu and Bohu are connected. The desert is waste, that is, a confused mass without order; the waste is desert, that is, void, without distinction of object. The first word denotes rather the lack of form, the second the lack of content, in the earliest condition of the earth. It might therefore be translated form-less, matter-less.

(2) There are some who hold that the phrase thohu vabohu supports the notion of a previous overthrow, a cosmic upheaval. For corroboration they refer us especially to Isaiah 34:11, where the same terms are rendered, respectively, confusion and emptiness (cf. also Jeremiah 4:23), Whitelaw (PCG, 41) rejects this view: the phrase, he contends, does not suggest the ruin of a previous cosmos, because Elohim never intended anything to be thus formless and empty, hence utterly functionless (that is, not good for anything); rather, He created the earth to be inhabited, and to be inhabited by man as the crown of Creation. Obviously, the Genesis Cosmogony gives us the clear picture of an organized cosmos, the ultimate end for which the Divine activity was first set in operation. Our God is purposeful: He sees (plans) the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-11).

(3) I suggest that form (in formless) here does not connote shape or configuration essentially, but, rather, the ancient concept of form as the principle of specification, that is, of the identity of particulars in any given class. For example, one who looks at a mustard seed and a poppy seed can hardly distinguish between them. But one thing is sure: one cannot plant a poppy seed and get a mustard plant, for the obvious reason that all poppies have the form of poppy-ness, whereas all mustard plants have the form of mustard-ness. Or, just as a mind or soul informs the human body, so man is specified (set apart as a species) by his thought processes. Hence, we have in this verse of Genesis a picture of the earth when it had not yet assumed the form of a planet, but was still only a part of a huge, shapeless, objectless, motionless, and tenantless mass of world stuff (the hydrogen fog of Hoyle? or Gamow’s ylem? or Whipple’s dust cloud?), perhaps little more than a potential field of elemental forces, out of which the earth and all other planets and suns, and perhaps all other universes, were eventually to emerge as a result of the brooding of the Ruach Elohim.It was that state in which all electronic, gaseous, liquid, and solid elements were commingled (present only potentially), but as yet lacking any trace of differentiation. Moreover, this primal world-stuff was shrouded in the thick folds of Cimmerian gloom, giving not the slightest promise of that fair world of light, orders, and life into which it was about to be transformed.

3. And darkness was upon the face of the deep.(1) Is this a reflection of the Babylonian cosmology in which the earth was thought of as resting upon a subterranean ocean? Such a view is based, of course, on the presupposition that the Babylonian traditions of the Creation and the Deluge were the originals from which the Biblical accounts were deriveda view which ignores altogether the possibility of Divine revelation as the source of the Genesis Cosmogony (or the account of Noah’s Flood). In opposition to this derivation-theory, it will be noted that the preceding affirmation (in Genesis 1:2) that the earth was formless and empty, indicates clearly that as yet the earth as such did not even exist, that in fact the whole heavens and earth were as yet unformed, at this stage of the Creative activity. It is granted, of course, that the deep is a term used frequently in the Hebrew Scriptures to designate the sea (cf. Psalms 42:7, Job 38:30, Isaiah 44:27). But again there is no evidence that a sea or ocean existed at this point in the Creation. The writer is not picturing here the ultimate state of the cosmos; rather, he is describing its state prior even to the beginning of its arrangement into a cosmos, prior to the genesis of physical force, motion, and ultimately gross matter, through the continuous activity of the Spirit of God. In view of these considerations, I suggest that the deep, in this particular connection, could well refer to the deep of limitless Space.(This could be the import of the term as used in Genesis 8:2 also.) Under this view, then, we have here a picture of limitless Space filled with, and shrouded in, thick darkness, with the world-stuff beginning to emerge at God’s command, through the Spirit’s activity of stirring, energizing, that is, actualizing forms of energy which had not before that moment operated, and which were capable of transmutation into the kinds of matter known to us today. (It is impossible for the human mind to conceive of the transition from Eternity to Time (which necessarily involved the beginnings of what we call the physical aspects of the Plan of the Ages) as having occurred in any other way. Basically, to be sure, this transition must always remain a mystery to human intelligence because it embodies the ineffable, and must, in the final analysis, be largely a matter of faith.) In its first state, of course, the very first world-stuff was motionless and objectless (that is, wholly undifferentiated); as a matter of fact, had there been anything at this point desirable to be seen, there was no light by which to see it, for thick darkness was upon the face of the deep. This interpretation is supported by the language of the very next sentence, And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, the term waters suggesting an even more advanced stage in the Creative Process, probably the stage at which matter had begun to assume, incipiently at least, a gaseous (atmospheric waters), or perhaps even the beginning of a fluidic, state.

(2) It is significant, I think, that the tradition of such a primordial Chaos, the chief characteristics of which were formlessness, emptiness, and darkness, was widespread among ancient peoples. The Greek word, Chaos, for instance, meant primarily, empty, immeasurable space, and only secondarily, the rude, unformed mass of something out of which the universe was created. Thus Hesiod, the Greek poet of the 8th century B.C., wrote as follows: Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bare starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods (Theogony, HHH, LCL). Of course, these are all personifications, but their import is obvious. Chaos (Space), says Hesiod, was first of all; of him was born Erebus (Darkness) and black Night; and by the union of Darkness and black Night came Aether (the upper air) and Day. And Plato, some four centuries after Hesiod, writing in an imaginative vein, in his well-known likely story (mythos) of the Timaeus, described the Creation of the cosmos, by the Demioergos (Master Craftsman), out of the Receptacle of Becoming (Space) according to the patterns supplied by the Eternal Forms or Ideas that go to make up the World of Being. Plato seems to imply that these Eternal Forms (principles of specificity, e.g., the cow-ness of a cow, horse-ness of a horse, etc.) exist in the Divine Reason, although I have never been able to find any passages in which he affirmed this explicitly. The Receptacle, he describes as having no qualities of its own; it is not, according to the Platonic picture, that out of which things of our World of Becoming are made, but that in which the qualities that make up this physical or corporeal world (in the form of the Opposites which are said to be continuously passing, the one into the other and back again, cyclically) appear as in a mirror (See F. M. Cornford, PC). Lange, on Genesis 1:2 (CDHCG, 163): Chaos denotes the void space (as in a similar manner the old Northern Ginnumgagap, gaping of yawnings, the gaping abyss, which also implies present existing material), and in the next place the rude unorganized mass of the world-material. (Incidentally, one principle that must always be kept in mind in the study of the Old Testament is that mythological (and traditional) distortions of ancient beliefs and practices all point necessarily to a genuine original.)Certainly it is worth noting well, in this connection, that one of the concepts which has gained widespread credence among physicists of our own time is that Space may have been the very first stuff of which the physical universe had its beginning. For example, Mr. Walter Russell, one-time President of the Society of Arts and Sciences, was quoted in the metropolitan press several years ago, as follows: The question arises, Is there any line of demarcation between a spiritual and a physical universe? And have we been calling the invisible universe spiritual just because we could not see it? We have begun to see something tangible and inspiring beyond place, mass and dimension. There must be a limitless source of static energy somewhere back of all this dynamic expression. With reference to the ultimate particles or forces of which matter is composed, continued Mr. Russell, which seem to constitute light, and which carry energy, scientists find them all acting suspiciously like some of the processes of human thought. He added: Tomorrow physics will undoubtedly divorce energy from matter and give it to space. What we call the spiritual universe may prove to be the static source in space of electric energy. If Einstein’s prophecy is fulfilled it would cause a far greater upheaval in science than Copernicus caused in the concept of Ptolemy. Basic conclusions of today would be either reversed or discarded entirely, for if energy belongs to space as the new cosmogony suggests, light would belong to space, as Jesus inferred. When energy is found to belong to space, light will be understood to be an emergence from space, and God will be found to be what Jesus said He wasLight. As we study Jesus-’ teaching from the point of view of science, we become convinced that He understood light, energy, motion, and space, and knew what filled space. Jesus taught that life is eternal, that there is no death. Science may prove this to be literally true, and that the body, like all other material phenomena, merely registers the intensity of the thinking of a Supreme Intelligence. If science proves this, it will give meaning to the words of Sir James Jeans that -matter may eventually be proved to be pure thought.-’ (Recall Pascal’s vivid line: The eternal silence of infinite space is terrifying. Cf. Psalms 139:7-10.) We might well ask: Can any real line of demarcation be drawn between psychical (mental, spiritual) light (illumination) and physical light (illumination)? (See again the comments by Fred Hoyle on continuous creation, as quoted on preceding pages.) (Of course, we must always avoid dogmatizing in our attempts to correctly apprehend the sublime truths that are incorporated in the Genesis Cosmogony.)

(3) The Bible teaches throughout that our physical cosmos is an embodiment of Divine Thought as expressed by the Divine Word (Logos), and as actualized by the Divine Spirit. The Will of God is the constitution of the totality of being, both visible and invisible (Psalms 148:1-6; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Hebrews 11:3). These are fundamental truths to which the physical science of our time is gradually groping its way back, despite its tendency to cling tenaciously to pantheistic assumptions,

(4) As in the physical realm, so it is in the spiritual. M. Henry (CWB, 2): This chaos represents the state of an unregenerate graceless soul: there is disorder, confusion, and every evil work; it is empty of all good, for it is without God; it is dark till almighty grace effects a blessed change. (This change is wrought, of course, through our hearing, accepting, and obeying the Gospel of Christ.)

4. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.(1) Literally, the Spirit of God (Ruach Elohim) was brooding.Not a wind of God, for the obvious reason that the air did not exist at this particular stage in the development of the cosmos. Skinner (ICCG, 17-18): Not, as has sometimes been supposed, a wind sent from God to dry up the waters, but the divine Spirit, figured as a bird brooding over its nest, and perhaps symbolizing an immanent principle of life and order in the as yet undeveloped chaos. In accordance with Biblical usage generally, writes Whitelaw (PCG, 4), this term, Spirit of God, must be regarded as a designation, not simply of -the divine power, which, like the wind and the breath cannot be perceived, (Gesenius), but of the Holy Spirit, who is uniformly represented as the source or formative cause of all life and order in the world, whether physical, intellectual, or spiritual. As it were, the mention of the Ruach Elohim is the first out-blossoming of the latent fulness of the Divine personality, the initial movement in that sublime revelation of the nature of the Godhead, which, advancing slowly, and at the best but indistinctly, throughout Old Testament times, culminated in the clear and ample disclosures of the gospel. (Cf. Job 26:13; Job 27:3; Job 33:4; Job 32:8; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 104:29-30; Acts 17:25).

(2) The Spirit of God was brooding.The Hebrew word used here has a double meaning. In the first place, it conveys the idea of a stirring, a fluttering, as of an eagle stirring up her nest and teaching her young to fly. (The word has this import also in the Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:11.) Thus the entrance of the Spirit into the primordial Chaosformless, objectless, immeasurable Spacewas signalized by a stirring therein, an energizing, a setting in motion.In the second place, the word merachepheth (from rachaph, to be tremulous, as with love) signifies a brooding, an incubation. The complete picture is that of a mother-bird brooding over her nest, hatching her eggs, and nurturing her young. In Milton’s stately elegiac verse, the Spirit

… from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread, Dove-like, sat’St brooding on the vast abyss, And mad’St it pregnant.

Rotherham (EB, 3, n.): The beautiful word brooding, an exact rendering of the Hebrew, is most suggestive, since it vividly describes the cherishing of incipient life, as a preparation for its outburst. The participial form of such a word clearly denotes a process, more or less lengthened, rather than an instantaneous act. John Owen, (HSGP, 56): The word -moved-’ (merachepheth) signifies a gentle motion, like that of a dove over its nest, to communicate vital heat to its eggs, or to cherish its young. Without him, all was a dead sea, a rude unformed chaos, a confused heap covered with darkness; but by the moving of the Spirit of God upon it, he communicated a quickening prolific virtue. This is a better account of the origin of all things than is given us by any of the philosophers, ancient or modern. Moreover, does not this verb suggest clearly that the Creation was an act or outpouring of Divine Love as well as of Divine Powerof Divine Love seeking perhaps the fellowship of kindred holy spirits, that is, the spirits of the redeemed of mankind? And may we not reasonably conclude that this activity of the cherishing Spirit was the origin of the myth of Eros, and of the mythological world-egg, whether regarded as Persian or Greek?

The breath of man, writes Lange (CDHCG, 164), the wind of the earth, and the spirit, especially the spirit of God, are symbolical analogies. The breath is the life-unity, the life-motion of the physical creature, the wind is the unity and life-motion of the earth, the spirit is the unity and life-motion of the life proper to which it belongs; the spirit of God is the unity and life-motion of the creative divine activity. It is not a wind of God to which the language here primarily relates. From this place onward, and throughout the whole Scripture, the spirit of God is the single formative principle evermore presenting itself with personal attributes in all the divine creative constitutions, whether of the earth, of nature, of the theocracy, of the Tabernacle, of the church, of the new life, or of the new man. The Grecian analogue is that of Eros (or Love) in its reciprocal action with the Chaos, and to this purpose have the later Targums explained it: the spirit of love.M. Dods (EBG): This, then, is the first lesson of the Bible: that at the root and origin of all this vast material universe, before whose laws we are crushed as the moth, there abides a living, conscious Spirit, who wills and knows and fashions all things. (Cf. John 4:24; Psalms 104:29-30; Job 26:13; Job 27:3; Job 33:4; Acts 17:25; Genesis 2:7, Psalms 33:6the breath of his mouth; Exodus 31:1-11; Exodus 35:30-35; Numbers 11:16-17; Deuteronomy 34:9; 2 Samuel 23:12; 1 Chronicles 28:11-12; John 14:26; John 16:7-14; John 20:22-23; Acts 1:1-5; Acts 2:1-4; Ephesians 2:19-22; John 3:1-7; Romans 5:5; Acts 2:38; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; Romans 8:11.) Robinson (CEHS, p. 5): The Bible is the Book of the Spirit. On its first page there is painted the impressive picture of chaos, when darkness was upon the face of the deep; but the Spirit of God was brooding, like a mother-bird, upon the face of the waters. From the last page there rings out the evangelical challenge of the Church to the world, -The Spirit and the bride say, Come.-’ Between them there is the story of a divine evolution, which is from God’s side, revelation, and from man’s side, discovery.

(3) As the first brooding of the Spirit over the primordial deep was the beginning of the actualization of the physical creation, so the overshadowing of the Virgin by the same Holy Spirit, effecting the conception, hence the incarnation, of God’s Only Begotten Son, was the beginning of the actualization of the spiritual creation, the Regeneration (1 Corinthians 15:45-49). The divine creation of the physical nature of Mary’s Son, the incarnate Logos, constituted His body the perfect offering as the Atonement (Covering) for the sin of the world (John 1:29), and also constituted it a body over which death had no power. Thus it will be seen that the Incarnation by the Virgin Birth, the Atonement, and the Resurrection are all necessary to the framework of Christianity; not one of these doctrines can be rejected without vitiating the entire Christian System.It would be well for the unitarians and the cultists to keep this in mind. (I am reminded here of the man who said he had flirted with Unitarianism for a long time, but simply could not bring himself to address his prayers, To whom it may concern.) (Luke 1:35; John 1:14; Luke 24:45-49; Acts 2:30-33; Acts 4:10-12; Romans 8:11; Hebrews 4:14-15; Hebrews 7:26-28; Hebrews 9:23-28; 1 Peter 2:21-25; 1 Peter 3:21-22; Revelation 1:17-18).

(4) Note here also the correlations of various Scriptures which identify the Spirit of God of the Old Testament with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord, of the New Testament. Correlate Luke 4:18-19, Isaiah 61:1-2, Acts 10:38; Matthew 22:43, Psalms 110:1; Acts 4:25, Psalms 2:1-2; Acts 1:16, Psalms 69:25; Psalms 109:8; Hebrews 3:7-11, Psalms 95:7-11; all these with 1 Samuel 16:13, 2 Samuel 23:2; Acts 2:17-21; Acts 2:4; Acts 2:32-33; Acts 28:25-28, Isaiah 6:9-10; Isaiah 61:1-3, Luke 4:18-19; John 3:34, Matthew 12:28; Luke 11:20; Exodus 8:19; Exodus 31:18; Exodus 32:16; Exodus 34:1; Exodus 34:27-28; Deuteronomy 9:10, Psalms 8:3 (the finger of God in Scripture is a metaphor of God’s Spirit-power): 2 Peter 1:21, 1 Peter 1:1-11. Note where identifications occur in the same passage: Acts 16:6-7; Acts 5:3; Acts 5:9; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; Romans 8:9. The Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit (Nehemiah 9:20, Matthew 28:19, Acts 2:38, John 1:33), the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Lordall these are terms designating the one and the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:11, Hebrews 9:14). (Cf. also Isaiah 63:10-11; Isaiah 11:2; Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 48:16; Isaiah 61:1; Matthew 3:16, John 1:32, etc.)

(5) The transmutation of psychical energy into physical energy and action occurs all the time in man: it occurs when any human being makes up his mind to walk, run, climb, jump, sit down, lie down, or to use his mind or body in any way. There is no more mysterious power in our human experience than this power of thought and will to direct the activity of mind (as in cases of voluntary recollection) and that of the body (a notable example being that of the pitcher who throws the baseball if and when and where he makes up his mind to throw it.) Yet this is so commonplace in our lives that we never give any thought to the unfathomable mystery involved. May we not reasonably conclude, then, that in the possession of such powers man but reflects the spark of the Infinite which was breathed into him originally by the Spirit of God (Genesis 2:7; Genesis 1:26-27)? And if psychical energy in man is capable of self-transmutation into physical energy, who can gainsay the fact that psychical energy in God (who is Spirit, John 4:24) is capable of an absolute creation of physical energy? We hold, therefore, that primal energy is Pure Thought, the activity of pure Spirit. (We recall that Aristotle defined God as Pure-Thought-Thinking-Itself.) This primal energy is the source of every other form of energy in the cosmos. Spirit-power, Willpower, Thought-power, Word-power (which is Thought-power willed and expressed) in God are one and the same in activities and in effects. Our cosmos is the product of Universal Intelligence and Will, the construct of Pure Thought. This is precisely what the Bible teachesthat God the absolute Spirit, by the instrumentality of His Word and the agency of His Spirit, is the eternal (unoriginated) First Cause of all things that exist. Moreover, the Creation itself was essentially that act of Pure Thought which embraces the entire Space-Time Process (Continuum) in a single Idea; hence, with God it is always the eternal NOW (Exodus 3:14). As Augustine writes, referring to the Creator (Conf., 262, 260): Thy years are one day; and Thy day is not daily, but To-day, seeing Thy To-day gives not place unto to-morrow, for neither doth it replace yesterday. Thy To-day is Eternity; therefore didst Thou beget the Co-eternal, to whom thou hast said, This day have I begotten Thee (Psalms 2:7. This divine begetting referred to in the Psalm was in the Eternal Purpose of God: it became concretely actualized in the Incarnate Logos.) Again: In the Eternal nothing passeth, but the whole is present.

(6) The beginning of the brooding of the Spirit over the thick darkness of the deep marked the first transmutation from the psychical to the physical. The introduction of physical energy was the creation of motion: the natural transitions followed, from motion to heat, to light, etc. It is important to note, however, the distinction between energy, which is primary, and the propagation and application of energy in terms of force, which is secondary. It is obvious, moreover, that the application of energy in terms of force presupposes a directing Will.Without the guiding Intelligence and Will to direct the expenditure of energy along definite and well-prescribed lines, and for specific and respective ends depending on the kinds of energy put forth, the result would surely be disorder and catastrophe, It seems evident that all natural law, which is but descriptive of the operations of natural forces (in terms of specific formulas), is of necessity predicated upon the guiding Intelligence and Will which is superior to that which it directs and governs: speaking by way of analogy, law, of whatever kind, presupposes a lawgiver. Science, in its use of the word law which it borrowed from jurisprudence, wittingly or unwittingly, pays tribute to the cosmic Lawgiver. The guiding Intelligence and Will which directs the expenditure of energy in terms of force presupposes, in turn, the Divine Personality. It is unreasonable to presuppose an impersonal energy, or source of energy, as the First Cause. This definition of force as applied and directed energy is fundamental to any proper understanding of the cosmic processes. Moreover, wherever there is divine Will, there is divine Personality; and wherever there is divine Intelligence and Will, there is the Eternal Spirit. In a word, apart from the Eternal Spirit there is no rational explanation either of energy or of force; however, with the acceptance of the activity of the Eternal Spirit, no other explanation is needed, either of energy or of force, or of the Creation and Preservation of the Cosmos.Where the Eternal Spirit is, there is law, light, life, love, order, peace. (Cf. again John 4:24, Hebrews 9:14.) Where the Spirit is not, there is license, darkness, death, hate, disorder, strife: in short, evil in every diabolical form. Or, as someone else has put it: It is indeed significant that the two characteristics of the primordial Chaos which occur in all the ancient traditions are those of emptiness and darkness.That is to say, where God is not, there is always emptiness, darkness, non-being. Where God is, there is, by way of vivid contrast, life, light, being. And the ontological difference between non-being and being consists in the activity of the Divine Spirit.We shall now follow the account, as given in the remaining verses of the Genesis Cosmogony, of the progressive development, step by step (day by day), of the primal undifferentiated world-energy, under the continuous brooding of the Spirit of God, into the organized cosmos that is the object of man’s scientific quest throughout the ages.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

1. Literally, And God said, Light, Be! and light was. According to: Scripture, God as Father plans, God as the Word (Logos) executes (decrees), and God as the Spirit actualizes that which is decreed (Psalms 148:6; Isaiah 45:22-23; Isaiah 46:9-11; Ephesians 3:9-12). In the first verse of Genesis, Elohim, the Absolute, the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9), is introduced to us as the originating First Cause; in Genesis 1:2 the Spirit of God is introduced to us as the actualizing First Cause; in Genesis 1:3, the Word of God is introduced to us as the executive First Cause, of the initial phase of the Creative Process. From this point on, throughout the entire Cosmogony, the formula, And God said, introduces the account of each successive advance in the physical (natural) Creation. That is to say, whatever God willed and decreed at the beginning of each day, was done (actualized) on that day, in that particular stage of the total Process. Just how it was done seems to have been a matter of little or no concern to the inspired writer, or, therefore, to the Spirit who inspired him to write; the purpose was to emphasize only the religious fact of the Creation, namely, that it was God who did the creating, through the executive agency of the Logos and the realizing agency of the Spirit. The problem of the how of the Process was left for human science to spell out slowly and laboriously throughout the centuries. Hence, under the energizing activity of the Spirit, the Word, we are told, the Logos, interposed His executive authority, ten times in succession, in the form of Divine ordinances or decrees, to give intelligent direction and order to the Process as a whole. We must not forget that our Godthe living and true Goddeclares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). The end result was the organized cosmos, the cosmic order which makes human science possible. As a matter of fact, it is this order which makes human life possible; man simply could not live in an unpredictable world.

2. From this verse onward we must not forget that we are thinking in terms of the writer’s point of view, that is, in terms of earth, and of the solar system of which the earth is a planet, in short, of the viewpoint of a person on earth. Of course, the development described here, apparently, of what occurred in the formation and development of our solar system, may be regarded as paralleling what was occurring in other celestial systems (galaxies, or island universes).

3. How long a time elapsed between the first stirring of the Spirit of God in the primeval deep, and the issuance of the first Divine decree, Let there be light, we do not know and obviously cannot know. Both the Bible and science indicate, however, that the stretch of time was very, very long: the various heating and cooling processes hypothesized by science, and the activity of brooding attributed in Scripture to the Divine Spirit, all imply an indefinitely long period.

4. The Logos.(1) In the Old Testament, we meet God, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God: in the full light of the New Testament revelation, these become Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, 1 Peter 1:2). Why was not this triune personality of the God of the Bible clearly revealed to God’s ancient people, the children of Israel? We cannot say definitely. It is obvious, of course, that God did not fully reveal Himself in Old Testament times. Perhaps if He had disclosed His triune personality to the Hebrew people, they would have drifted into tritheism, that is, into the worship of three Gods instead of the one living and true God. Hence, under the Old Covenant, it is the uniqueness of God which was given special emphasis, in the oft-repeated creed, Deuteronomy 6:4, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, that is, the only Jehovah (Yahweh). (Deuteronomy 4:35; Deuteronomy 4:39; Isaiah 45:18; Isaiah 46:9; Acts 17:23-29.) It seems that the revelation of the tri-unity of God was withheld from the Israelites of old, lest they drift into polytheism and idolatry, the besetting sins of the ancient pagan world. However, although the doctrine is not fully disclosed in the Old Testament writings, there are many clear intimations of it, as we shall see later.

(2) We are especially concerned here with the significance of the name Logos as it occurs and its meaning is fully revealed in the Bible as a whole: Let us not forget the principle of interpretation which is followed throughout this textbook, namely, that any Bible doctrine must be studied and interpreted in the light of the teaching of the Bible as a whole, in order that its full meaning may be brought to light. Hence, with reference to the Logos, we find that Scripture unequivocally, from beginning to end, identifies the One whom we know historically as Jesus of Nazareth, and whom we confess as the Christ, the Son of the living God, as the true Biblical Logos. In proof of this statement, note the following catenae of Scripture passages: (a) Those which affirm generally His pre-existence, His co-eternity with the Father, and His pre-existence, moreover, as a personal Being (Philippians 2:5-7; Hebrews 2:14; John 1:18, John 10:17-18; John 17:5; John 17:24; Colossians 1:17; John 8:58; Revelation 1:17-18; Revelation 21:6; Isaiah 9:6; Micah 5:2; John 6:38; John 6:62; John 7:33-34; Galatians 4:4); (b) those which present Him as the executive Agent of the Creation and Preservation of the world (Colossians 1:16-17; 1 Corinthians 8:6; John 1:1-3; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 1:10); (c) those which declare either explicitly or implicitly, His deity (John 8:58, here He assumes :for Himself the great and incommunicable Divine Name, Exodus 3:14), John 1:18; Revelation 1:17-18; Revelation 21:6; John 1:1-3 (and the Logos was God), John 20:28 (here Jesus accepts forms of address due to Deity alone); Matthew 1:23 (God with us); John 10:30, Romans 9:5, Colossians 2:19, 1 Timothy 3:16, Hebrews 1:3, 1 John 1:2); (d) those Old Testament passages which intimate pre-incarnate appearances of the eternal Logos. These include the passages referring to the activity of the Angel of Yahweh (Genesis 3:2-4; Genesis 16:7; Genesis 16:9; Genesis 16:13; Genesis 18:1-2; Genesis 18:13; Genesis 18:17; Genesis 18:20; Genesis 18:23; Genesis 22:11-19; Genesis 31:11-13; Genesis 32:30; Exodus 3:2-4; Exodus 14:19 (here the Angel’s presence is indicated by the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, symbols, respectively, of the Spirit and the Word, who go together, Isaiah 59:21); Exodus 13:21-22 (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, Hebrews 11:26-27), Judges 13:20-22, Joshua 5:13-15, Daniel 3:25; Daniel 3:28, Micah 5:2); those passages in which Wisdom is represented as existing eternally with God, though distinct from Him (Job 28:20-23, Proverbs 8:1-6; Proverbs 7:21 (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:22-24; 1 Corinthians 1:30); Jeremiah 10:10-12); those passages in which the Word, as distinguished, from God, is presented as the executor of God’s will from eternity (Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:5-6; Psalms 119:89; Psalms 147:15-18; Psalms 107:20; Hebrews 11:3, 2 Peter 3:5).

As Epiphanius, one of the Church Fathers, wrote, in substance: the Divine unity was first proclaimed by Moses (Deuteronomy 6:4); the Divine duality, that is, the distinction between the Father and the Son, Messiah, by the prophets (Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 11:1-2; Micah 5:2); but the Divine tripersonality was first clearly shown forth in the teaching of Christ and the Apostles (Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, 1 Peter 1:2).

The term Logos was in rather common use at the time of our Lord’s ministry in the flesh. Hence, John wrote his Prologue (Genesis 1:1-18) to set forth the true doctrine of the Logos, in Latin Verbum, in English, Word.The Logos, he declared, is not the Platonic World Soul, not the Gnostic inferior intermediary between God and the world, not just the Philonian Divine Thought (Word) or its manifestation in the world (Wisdom), not the Stoic World Fire, but the Person who became flesh and dwelt among us as Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God.(1 Timothy 2:5, Matthew 16:16). Lebreton (HDT, I, 187): The Messianic belief is as foreign as belief in the Incarnation to the Philohian theory of the Logos, and is equally characteristic of Christianity. As the Messiah, prepared for by the whole past of Israel, awaited and predicted by the prophets, came upon earth to inaugurate the Kingdom of God and redeem the elect, and due, later on, to return to judge the whole world, Jesus fills the whole of history. The Philonian Logos is foreign to history; he may be the object of the speculation of philosophers, he has no contact with the life of men. Again (ibid, 414): Human speculation flattered itself in vain that it could sound the depths of the life of God, its proud efforts resulted in nothing but barren and deceptive dreams; it is in the humility of the Incarnation that the mystery of God has been revealed: for the Jews a scandal, a folly to the Greeks, the strength and wisdom of God for the elect.

A. Campbell has written on the doctrine of the Logos (John 1:1-3), in the Christian Baptist, May 7, 1927, as follows: The names Jesus, Christ, or Messiah, Only Begotten Son; Son of God, etc., belong to the Founder of the Christian religion, and to none else. They express not a relation -existing before the Christian era, but relations which commenced at that time. To understand the relation betwixt the Savior and His Father, which existed before time, and that relation which began in time, is impossible on either of these [i.e., the Arian or Calvinistic] theories. There was no Jesus, no Messiah, no Christ, no Son of God, no Only Begotten, before the reign of Augustus. The relation that was before the Christian era was not that of a son and father, terms which always imply disparity; but it was that expressed by John in the sentence under consideration. The relation was that of God and the -Word of God.-’ This phraseology unfolds a relation quite different from that of a father and a sona relation perfectly intimate, equal and glorious. This naturally leads me to the first sentence of John. And here I must state a few postulata. 1. No relation amongst human beings can perfectly exhibit the relation which the Savior held to the God and Father of all, anterior to His birth. The reason is: that relation is not homogenial, or of the same kind with relations originating from creation, All relations we know anything of, are created, such as that of father and son. (Note: where there is father and son, the father must of necessity antedate the son.) Now I object as much to a created relation as I do to a creature in reference to the original relation of God and the Word of God. This relation is an uncreated and unoriginated relation.2. When in the fulness of time, it became necessary in the wisdom of God to exhibit a Savior, it became expedient to give some view of the original and eternal dignity of this wonderful visitant of the human race. And as this view must be given in human language, inadequate as it was, the whole vocabulary of human speech must be examined for suitable terms, 3. Of the terms expressive of relations, the most suitable must be, and most unquestionably was, selected. And as the relation was spiritual and not carnal, such terms only were eligible which had respect to mental and spiritual relations. Of this sort there is but one in all the archives of human knowledge, and that is the one selected. 4. The Holy Spirit selected the name, WORD, and therefore we may safely assert that this is the best, if not the only term, in the whole vocabulary of human speech at all adapted to express that relation which existed -in the beginning,-’ or before time, between our Savior and His God. What are the implications of this name? At this point I paraphrase Mr. Campbell’s answer to this question thus: (1) A word is commonly defined as the sign or symbol of an idea. It is the idea expressed in written or spoken form, (When I speak of a chair, for instance, there immediately flashes into your mind an image of the thing of which I have the same image in my own mind; and the image represents an idea.The word is therefore the sign or symbol of the idea.) (2) the human intellect thinks, i.e., it formulates and relates ideas by means of words, and the result is language.Men cannot express their ideas without words of some sort. (3) It follows that the word, and the idea which it represents, must have their origin at the same time, and are therefore of like antiquityor, as we say, co-etaneous. And though the word may not be the same in different languages, the same idea is expressed. (4) The idea and the word are distinct, of course; that is, they are two.(5) Yet the relationship between the two is the most intimate of which we have any knowledge, and is a relationship of the mind or spirit.An idea cannot exist without a word, nor a word without an idea. (6) To be acquainted with the word is to be acquainted with the idea, for the idea is in the word, and the word stands for the idea.

We continue Mr. Campbell’s exegesis verbatim from this point, as follows: Now let it be most attentively observed and remembered that these remarks are solely intended to exhibit the relation which exists between a word and an idea, and that this relation is of a mental nature, and more akin to the spiritual system than any relation created, of which we know anything. It is a relation of the most sublime order; and no doubt the reason why the name, Word, is adopted by the Apostle in this sentence, was because of its superior ability to represent to us the divine relation existing between God and the Savior prior to His becoming the Son of God. By putting together the above remarks on the term Word, we have a full view of what John intended to communicate: (1) As a word is an exact image of an idea, so is -The Word-’ an exact image of the invisible God. (2) As a word cannot exist without an idea, nor an idea without a word, so God was never without -The Word,-’ nor -The Word-’ without God. Or, as a word is of equal age, or co-etaneous with its idea, so -The Word-’ and God are co-eternal. (3) And as an idea did not create its word, nor a word its idea, so God did not create -The Word,-’ nor -The Word-’ God. Such a view does the language used by John suggest. And to this do all the Scriptures agree. For -The Word-’ was made flesh, and in consequence of becoming incarnate, He is styled the Son of God, the Only Begotten of the Father. As from eternity God was manifest in and by -The Word,-’ so now God is manifest in the flesh. As God was always with -The Word,-’ so when -The Word-’ becomes flesh, He is Immanuel, God with us. As God was never manifest but by -The Word,-’ so the heavens and the earth and all things were created by -The Word.-’ And as -The Word-’ ever was the effulgence or representation of the invisible God, so He will ever be known and adored as -The Word of God.-’ So much for the divine and eternal relation between the Savior and God. You will easily perceive that I carry these views no farther than to explain the nature of that relationship uncreated and unoriginated, which the inspired language inculcates.

Mr. Campbell concludes as follows: These views place us on a lofty eminence whence we look down upon the Calvinistic ideas of -eternal filiation,-’ -eternal generation,-’ -eternal Son,-’ as midway between us and Arianism. From this sublime and lofty eminence we see the Socinian movement upon a hillock, the Arian upon a hill, and the Calvinist upon a mountain; all of which lose their disproportion to each other because of the immense height above them to which this view elevates us. The first sentence of John, I paraphrase thus: -From eternity was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was, I say, from eternity with God. By Him all things were made, and He became flesh and dwelt among us. He is become a child born and a son of man. As such He is called Immanuel, Jesus, Messiah, Son of God, Only Begotten of the Father.-’ Again, in the Millenial Harbinger, 1846, pp. 634-636, Mr. Campbell wrote the following on the same subject, the Person of Christ, the Savior: Our attention is first called to his person. Right conceptions of his person are, indeed, essential to right conceptions of His office. Our guide to both are the oracles of God. What, then, say the Holy Scriptures? They represent the person called Jesus the Messiah as having been born of a Virgin in the reign of Herod the Great, and in the thirtieth year of Caesar Augustus. But while they thus represent his nativity as having been at that particular time, they also intimate that his birth was only an incarnation of one who previously existed, whose -goings forth have been from of-’ old, from everlasting.-’. Jesus is the name of an incarnation, but it is not the name of that which became incarnate. It was not Jesus, but the Word that was made flesh. The person called THE WORD -became flesh and dwelt among us.-’. Evident, then, it is that Jesus of Nazareth had in some other nature a pre-existence. His human existence commenced at a fixed date, and in a certain place; but in some other nature, and in some other place, he pre-existed. What that nature was, and where that abode, must be learned from that Spirit which searches all thingseven the deep things of God.-’ Finally, We have, then, GOD, the WORD of God, and the SPIRIT of God; and these three are not three Gods, but one Goddenominated in the remedial system as the FATHER, the SON, and the HOLY SPIRIT, relations of a truly mysterious and sublime character. We can, indeed, apprehend, though we may not comprehend them. They are intelligible, though not comprehensible. (I consider Mr. Campbell’s explanation of the doctrine of the Logos the clearest I have been able to find anywhere. Hence I have taken sufficient space here to reproduce it in its entirety.)

Logos has a twofold meaning in the Greek: (1) reason or intelligence, as it exists inwardly in the mind, and (2) reason or intelligence as it is expressed outwardly in speech; hence, an account, a tale, a study, a revelation. Both of these meanings are implicit in the use of this word as the eternal name of our Savior. Jesus is inwardly the Word of God in the sense that He exists from everlasting to everlasting in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18), and, as nothing is as close to a person as his own thought, so there is no one as close to the Father as His Only Begotten Son. Jesus is the Logos outwardly in that He reveals to us the good and acceptable and perfect will of God both in life and in teaching (Romans 12:1-2; John 14:9-12; John 16:13-15). He was with God before the world was called into being, before even time began; He is with God now, seated at God’s right hand, the Acting Sovereign of the universe and the Absolute Monarch of the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 28:18; Acts 2:36; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; Ephesians 1:20-23; Colossians 1:13-20; Philippians 2:5-11; Hebrews 1:1-4; 1 Peter 3:20-22; Revelation 1:17-18). He is God in the sense that He is one Person of the Divine Tri-unity, of which He is the executive Agency (John 1:1-3). The manger of Bethlehem was not the place of Christ’s beginning: on the contrary, He is the Logos personally and timelessly, the Logos unbegun and unending; His goings forth have been from everlasting (Micah 5:2; John 17:5; John 17:24; John 8:58; 1 Timothy 3:16). What really happened at Bethlehem was that the pre-existent Logos took upon Himself a new order of being: in the Apostle’s language, the Logos became flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, left eternal glory (John 3:16; John 17:5; Galatians 4:4) and took upon Himself the nature of the seed of Abraham (Hebrews 2:14-18; Philippians 2:5-11), to purchase redemption for sinful man (John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 1:18-20; Hebrews 9:12; Revelation 5:9-10). That is to say, the non-material passed over into the material. This happens every day when man causes his own thoughts to transmute themselves into corporeal activities of many different kinds. Conversely, man transmutes the material into the non-material (or at most, the quasi-material) in the application of the ultimate forms of energy and the relations existing among these, which are apprehensible only in terms of mathematical formulas. Those who discount or reject the Virgin Birth are called upon to explain away the doctrine of the Savior’s pre-existence, one of the explicit and most prominent doctrines of the Bible.

To summarize: Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, is known to us historically as Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth); His eternal name, however, is Logos, Word; his temporal name (that which existed only in God’s Eternal Purpose until it was given actuality in our world, at Bethlehem, in the reign of Caesar Augustus) is Son of God, the Only Begotten of the Father (Psalms 2:7; Colossians 1:13-18; Luke 1:30-35; John 1:14); His official title is Messiah, Christos, Christ, meaning The Anointed One. These names are all meaningful, and must not be wrested out of their respective Scriptural contexts.

5. Let there be light: and there was light.(1) Note well the manner in which these decrees were expressed, the formula which occurs throughout the whole Cosmogony: Let there be, etc., etc. (Genesis 1:3; Genesis 1:6; Genesis 1:9; Genesis 1:14; Genesis 1:20; Genesis 1:24). Does not this intimate that the Divine Will was operating through the media of what we speak of as secondary causes, that is, the laws of nature? Note the significant change in Genesis 1:26: it is no longer, let there be, it is now let us, that is, Elohim communicating within His own being, a Divine Consilium of the Father, the Word, and the Spirit.

(2) What kind of light is indicated here? Do we have here the idea of light without a sun? Simpson (IBG, 469): Light was therefore created before even the sunone of the features of the story which renders impossible all attempts to bring it into line with modern scientific knowledge. This statement is dogmatic, to say the least, Of course, this is to be expected of exegetes who find the source-material of these Scriptures in various aspects of the Babylonian myths. True it is, that in the early pagan accounts of Creation, we find a sun-god, that is, a personification of the sun, presented as creator; and that we also find in these accounts the antithesis of darkness and light portrayed under the guise of a deadly conflict between this sun-god and some kind of a chaos-monster. But the idea of light as the first created being is not to be found in any of these pagan traditions (which, by way of contrast with the Hebrew account, are myths in the proper sense of that term). It is agreed, of course, that it was not the intention of the writer of Genesis to give us a scientific account of the Creation (indeed the entire book was written in pre-scientific times). It was his intention, rather, to give us the religious (spiritual) truth about the origin and development of the Creative Process. But who has any legitimate ground or right to assume that the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of Truth (John 15:26), could not have put this account in language that would be found to be in accord with human science as the latter advanced in its understanding of the mysteries of the physical world? Indeed the broad general terms in which this narrative is communicated to man has made it adaptable even throughout the changes which have occurred from time to time in scientific theory.

(3) What kind of light was this first light, as decreed in Genesis 1:3? In opposition to the dogmatism of the mythologizing interpreters, it should be noted that among physicists of our time it is a commonplace that the primal form of energythe ultimate, the irreducibleto be called into being was some form of radiant energy. But there are many kinds of radiant energy, in addition to those few reflected by a surface and then refracted by the retina of the human eye to give man his sense of colors, those embraced within the limits of the visible spectrum. There are many other forms of radiant energy operating both above and below these limits, such as radio waves, for example. Cosmic rays which bombard us constantly from outer space are perhaps the most mysterious of all these primal forms of energy. Or, again, was this first light some form of molecular light?- light resulting, let us say, from heat produced by the motion induced (by the Divine Energy) into the now gradually shaping cosmic mass, which by this time was probably molten? There is no certain answer to these questions, of course. We know, however, that luminosity is the result of incandescence. Any solid body can be rendered luminous (incandescent) by being heated to some 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Any liquid that can absorb as great a quantity of heat likewise emits light. To be incandescent is to be white, glowing, or luminous with intense heat. Strong (ST, 395): The beginning of activity in matter would manifest itself by the production of light, since light is the resultant of molecular activity. This corresponds to the statement in Genesis 1:3. As the result of condensation, the nebula becomes luminous, and this process from darkness to light is described as follows: -there was evening and there was morning, one day.-’ Here we have a day without a suna feature in the narrative quite consistent with two facts of science first, that the nebula would naturally be self-luminous, and, secondly, that the earth proper, which reached its present form before the sun, would, when it was first thrown off, itself be a self-luminous and molten mass. The day was therefore continuousday without flight. Someone has rightly remarked that men called Moses a fool for putting light previous to the sun, and Laplace a scientist for doing the same thing.

(4) In a famous essay, On Light (De Luce), Robert Grosseteste, made the first Chancellor of Oxford in 1221, apparently anticipated some of the concepts of present-day physics, in his treatment of lux (light in its source) and lumen (reflected or radiated light). His theory came to be known as the light metaphysics, and was elaborated by two of his contemporaries, Roger Bacon and the Italian mystic, Bonaventura. According to this theory, along with the Creation ex nihilo of unformed matter, God brought into existence the first form, lux spiritualis.This lux, conceived as an extraordinarily rarefied form of corporeal light, something, in fact, that approximated spirit, originated space; and as the form of corporeity in primordial matter, was the primary source and cause of all created things. As McKeon writes (SMP, I, 261): The characteristic of all light is to engender itself perpetually, and diffuse itself spherically about a point in an instantaneous manner. Originally, the luminous form and matter were equally unextended, but the first form created by God in the first matter, multiplies itself infinitely, and spreads equally in all directions, distending thus the matter to which it is united and constituting thus the mass of the universe. Moreover, according to this theory, just as light is the power by which the purest Spirit produces the corporeal world, so too it is the instrument by which the soul comes in contact with the body and the things of sense; hence, viewed in this aspect, the lux becomes lumen.Commenting on Grosseteste’s theory, Miss Sharp has this to say (FPOTC, 23): It appears that Grosseteste experienced the same difficulties as modern physicists. The functions he assigns to light. show that he regards it as an energy; but his desire to speak of it as resembling body is strikingly like the present-day application of such terms as -wave lengths-’ and -rays-’ to the ether, which in itself is admitted to be imperceptible to the senses and is thought of only as the subject of activity or as that which is conserved throughout change. As a principle of unity in the universe, this light is comparable to the modern ether, which fills all space from the most distant star to the interspaces of the atom. Again, Grosseteste’s theory is not unlike the modern hypothesis of the convertibility of matter and energy. Lastly, we find something resembling the modern ethereal attributes of electricity, magnetism, and chemical activities, in his view of lux as the source of all movement and life and as the basis of sound. (Modern physics, to be sure, has abandoned the notion of ether; however, this does not affect the foregoing argument, as space itself seems to have taken over the role once assigned to the ether.) Two other pertinent facts should be pointed out in this connection: first, that Grosseteste’s theory of lux and its creative function is strikingly parallel to the tendency of present-day physicists to regard radiant energy as the ultimate irreducible of matter; and second, that this light metaphysics is strikingly adaptable to the Biblical doctrine of the ultimate glorification of the bodies of the redeemed (Daniel 12:3, Romans 8:11; Romans 8:30; 1 Corinthians 15:35-49; Acts 9:1-9; 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, etc.) and it was used by its advocates, by Bonaventura especially, to elaborate that doctrine.

(5) That the light decreed in the third verse of Genesis was not the light of our sun seems obvious. Solar light did not penetrate the vapors which enveloped the earth until the fourth day. Moreover, it seems that our entire solar system was in process of being formed, but only in process of being formed at this stage of the Creation: as part of an organized cosmos, it did not yet exist as a solar system.Lange (CDHCG, 165): The light denotes all that is simply illuminating in its efficacy, all the luminous element; the darkness denotes all that is untransparent, dark and shadow-casting; both together denote the polarity of the created world as it exists between the light-formations and the night-formations, the constitution of the day and night. However, whatever may have been the nature of the light described in this meaningful passage, the religious truth remains the same, namely, that the entrance of the Divine Word always brings light, whether that entrance be into the impenetrable darkness of the primordial Chaos or into the dark recesses of the human soul. Where the Spirit of God operates through the Word, the darkness flees before the light; so in the Creation, there was at first darkness, non-being, but when the Spirit began to energize there was light and being. On Day One, then, occurred the beginning of matter-in-motion in the primal forms of energy and light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

1. The light was called good.In Scripture anything is called good that is doing what the Creator designed it to do in the total scheme of things. Hence we may rightly say that the Creation was the field in which God’s perfections were manifested. Note also that only the light is called good, not the darkness, nor even the co-existence of light and darkness.

2.* God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night*.(1) Because God is all-powerful, all that He creates is good for some purpose or end. Did God Himself bring the darkness into existence? Whatever the darkness implies here, whether it be an absolute void or a motionless, objectless, amorphous world-stuff, man does not have and cannot even claim to have the certain answer to this question. It may well be that the darkness existed by God’s sufferance; hence, whatever may be implied by the term, this darkness when reduced to order by Divine decree, became a good: the whole Creation was later Divinely pronounced good, and after the creation of man, very good (Genesis 1:25; Genesis 1:31). Thus has God always been bringing forth being out of non-being, perfection out of imperfection. (2) Titus Burckhardt writes (Cosmology and Modern Science, in Tomorrow, Vol. 12, No. 3): Modern science will never reach that matter which is at the basis of this world. But between the qualitatively differentiated world and the undifferentiated matter there lies something like an intermediate zone: this is chaos. The sinister dangers attendant on atomic fission are but a pointer indicating the frontier of chaos and of dissolution. (3) By thus separating the darkness and the light, as specificyet relationalforms, God imposed order on the darkness and gave meanings to both darkness and light, meanings both physical and spiritual. (4) At the same time that He gave meaning to both darkness and lights, as Lord of both, He gave them their appropriate names, Night and Day, respectively, and thus set in motion the ordered alternation of night and day generally.

3. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.(Literally, Day One.) (1) Simpson (IBG, 471); rejects the aeonic-day theory. While this view, he says, might have made the account of creation less irreconcilable with modern science, it would have involved a lessening of God’s greatness, one sign of which was His power to do so much in one day. Is not this a begging of the question? How is God’s greatness lessened by the view that this first day was one of indefinite length? Did it not take the same measure of power to actualize the Creation regardless of the length of time that God may have taken to do it? (2) We certainly do not take the position here that God could not have created the cosmos in six days of twenty-four hours each: God can do whatever He may will to do that is consistent with His Being and Character. M. Henry (CWB, 2): The Creator could have made his work perfect at first, but by this gradual proceeding he would show what is, ordinarily, the method of his providence and grace. (Cf. 2 Peter 3:8). Whitelaw (PCG, 12): Of course the length of Day One practically determines the length of all six. If it was a solar day, then they must be considered such. But as the present sidereal arrangements for the measurement of time were not then established, it is clearly gratuitous to proceed on the assumption that it was. M. Henry again (ibid., 2): This was not only the first day of the world, but the first day of the week. I observe it to the honour of that day, because the new world began on the first day of the week likewise, in the resurrection of Christ, as the light of the world, early in the morning. In him the dayspring from on high visited the world. (Luke 1:78, Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1-2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1-10, Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:2, Revelation 1:10). (3) How long was the darkness that preceded the light of this Day One? This question could be answered only if we knew precisely what the darkness was. This, however, we do not know. That the darkness was of indefinite duration seems obvious from the reading of the text. It has been asserted that this sequence of darkness and light, night and day, evening and morning, was determined by the Hebrew custom of reckoning time from sunset to sunset. Is it not more reasonable to think that, on the contrary, the Hebrew custom was derived from the Hebrew Cosmogony as handed down from the remote past in the Torah?

Genesis 1:2-19

**PART SIX: THE FIRST FOUR DAYS OF THE COSMIC WEEK OF BEGINNINGS

Genesis 1:2-19**

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The verb bara, translated create, writes Skinner (ICC, 15) is used exclusively in Scripture of Divine activity, a restriction to which perhaps no parallel can be found in other languages; expresses the idea of novelty, extraordinariness; expresses the idea of effortless production (such as befits the Almighty) by word or volition (as another puts it, the verb emphasizes the unconditioned Creatorship of God; cf. Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:1-6; Romans 4:17). With this introduction which, apparently, is a caption to the Cosmogony that follows, or, it may be, a designation of the activity by which the first form of undifferentiated energy-matter was called into being by the Divine Will and Word, the writer proceeds to the description of the successive steps by which this first form of energy-matter was arranged into an organized cosmos.

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART SIX

What is the import of the word bara in the first chapter of Genesis?

What Was done on Day One of the Creation?

State the probable meaning of the phrase, formless and empty, as descriptive of the original state of the earth.

What is suggested by the first syllable, form, in the word formless, as used in Genesis 1:2?

What is the probable meaning of the term, the deep?

What is the meaning of the word chaos in Greek?

How does the picture of the primeval chaos suggest the state of the unregenerate soul?

What does the word brooding suggest, as descriptive of the work of the Spirit of God in the Creation?

Point out the correlation between the Spirit’s brooding at the beginning of the physical Creation and His brooding at the beginning of the spiritual Creation.

List some of the Scriptures which identify the Spirit of God of the Old Testament with the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of Christ, of the New Testament.

Cite some examples from everyday life of the transmutation of psychical energy into physical energy.

What light does this throw on the origin of the first form of physical energy?

What is presupposed in the application of energy in terms of force?

What probably was the kind of light indicated in the third verse of Genesis?

What reasons have we for concluding that this was not solar light?

With what formula is the description of each epoch of Creation introduced in the Genesis narrative?

In the light of the entire Bible what is the significance of this formula?

Point out some of the Scriptures which identify Jesus of Nazareth as the Eternal Logos.

What is the twofold meaning of the term Logos in Greek, and how does Jesus fulfill this twofold aspect?

State the historical, eternal, and temporal names of our Savior. What is His official title and what is its import?

What is the significance of the repeated formula, Let there be, etc.?

What reasons have we for thinking that the first form of light was an elementary kind of radiant energy rather than solar energy?

What does the word good imply, as God is represented as using it, in the Genesis account?

What was done on Day Two of the Creation?

Explain what is meant by the law of accommodation.

List the contrasts between the Babylonian and the Mosaic Cosmogonies.

Why do we reject the theory that the Genesis account was borrowed from Babylonian sources?

What are the grounds on which we accept the Genesis account as divinely inspired?

What does the word firmament mean, as used in Genesis 1:6-7?

What is probably meant here by the separation of the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament?

State the monoparental and biparental hypotheses of the origin of the earth.

What is the import of the word Heaven as used in Genesis 1:8?

What was done on Day Three of the Creation?

By what processes were lands and seas probably differentiated?

Explain what is meant by secondary causation.

What do we mean by saying that God probably operated through secondary causes throughout most of the Creation? By what formula is this method indicated?

What is the import of the phrase each after its kind?

What was done on Day Four of the Creation?

Why. do we reject the view that sun, moon and stars were created at this stage?

Correlate Genesis 1:17 with Genesis 9:8-17 and with 1 Corinthians 11:23-33.

State some of the aspects in which the primordial darkness was a metaphor of the unconverted soul.

State the aspects in which light is a metaphor of the Gospel.

What do we learn from the first chapter of Genesis concerning the Word-Power of God?

Where is this Word-Power to be found today?

Genesis 1:6-8

Day Two: The Atmosphere (Genesis 1:6-8)

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

1. These verses precipitate us into the very core of the problems incidental to the origin of the celestial (astronomical) universe. They mark the end of cosmological reference and point to the beginnings, respectively, of the geological and the biological. As heretofore stated, the content of this section of the text has reference primarily, it seems, to our solar system, as explained from the viewpoint of a terrestrial inhabitant. However, it can be just as readily applied to the various units (galaxies, stellar systems, supernovae, etc.) of the entire cosmos. We shall now examine these verses rather carefully because of the importance of the subject-matter involved.

2. Progressive Revelation.Many eminent authorities have held that the Genesis Cosmogony as a whole is a record of the Creation couched in the language of the commonality and presented from the viewpoint of ordinary human experience and common sense: in a word, in conformity with what is designated the law of accommodation. We find this law exemplified in the instances of poetic imagery and anthropomorphism occurring throughout the Old Testament, and especially the book of Genesis. Because of the limitations of human vocabulary, its inadequacy as a vehicle for the communication of Divine thought, the most God could do for man was to supply him with an anthropomorphic image of Himself (John 1:18), that is, until He could supply the real, and far more adequate image, in the person of His Only Begotten Son (John 14:6-11). Hence, it follows that revelations given to the infancy of the race were necessarily more anthropomorphic, and stated in simpler terms, than those made in subsequent ages as men advanced in their ability to understand the significance of what was being revealed. God’s revelation to men of Himself and His Eternal Purpose was a progressive revelation, and the record of that revelation and its meaning for us was set down, from age to age, by men who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little, etc. (Isaiah 28:10; Isaiah 28:13; cf. Mark 4:28). Failure to recognize this aspect of the Divine method leads to absurd distortions of Scripture teaching in the form of half-truths which are often more deceptive than complete error.

3. The Law of Accommodation.This is clearly stated by Marcus Dods (EBG, 4-5) as follows: Accepting this chapter [the first chapter of Genesis] then as it stands, and believing that only by looking at the Bible as it actually is can we hope to understand God’s method of revealing Himself, we at once perceive that ignorance of some departments of truth does not disqualify a man for knowing and imparting truth about God. In order to be a medium of revelation a man does not need to be in advance of his age in secular learning. Intimate communion with God, a spirit trained to discern spiritual things, a perfect understanding of and zeal for God’s purpose, these are qualities quite independent of a knowledge of the discoveries of science. Had the writer of this book (Genesis) mingled with his teaching regarding God an explicit and exact account of how this world came into existencehad he spoken in millions of years instead of speaking of daysin all probability he would have been discredited, and what he had to say about God would have been rejected along with his premature science. But speaking from the point of view of his contemporaries, and accepting the current ideas regarding the formation of the world, he attached to these the views regarding God’s connection with the world which are most necessary to be believed.. Here then instead of anything to discompose us or to excite unbelief, we recognize one great law or principle on which God proceeds in making Himself known to man. This has been called the Law of Accommodation. It is the law which requires that the condition and capacity of those to whom the revelation is made must be considered. If you wish to instruct a child, you must speak in language that a child can understand. Strong (ST, 393-394) writes that what he calls the pictorial-summary view of the Genesis Cosmogony holds that the account is a rough sketch of the history of creation, true in all its essential features, but presented in graphic form suited to the common mind and to earlier as well as later ages. While conveying to primitive man as accurate an idea of God’s work as man was able to comprehend, the revelation was yet given in pregnant language, so that it could expand to all the ascertained results of subsequent physical research. This general correspondence of the narrative with the teachings of science, and its power to adapt itself to every advance in human knowledge, differences it from every other cosmogony. current among men. There is a world of truth in these statements. What was necessary in the primitive world to save men from groveling in polytheism and idolatry was the knowledge that there is a living and true God; that He is one, not many; that He is just, holy, and good; that He made the world and all that therein is (Acts 17:24-28); that the crowning achievement of His handiwork was the creation of man in His own image, to be lord tenant of earth. All these truths are expressly set forth in Genesis. The scientific account of the Creation has been written by the finger of God upon the crust of the earth and in the natures of living species; the religious account was incorporated by inspiration of the Spirit of God in the graphic panoramic affirmations of the Genesis Cosmogony.

4. The Mythologizing of the Radical Critics.The radical critics have developed fantastic pseudo-Biblical cosmologies by reference to alleged Babylonian mythological source-material. In so doing they have created a cosmological mythology of their own. Perhaps the radical critics-’ point of view is best expressed by Harry Emerson Fosdick (MUB, 46-47) as follows: In the Scriptures the flat earth is founded on an underlying sea; it is stationary; the heavens are like an upturned bowl or canopy above it; the circumference of this vault rests on pillars; the sun, moon, and stars move within this firmament of special purpose to illumine man; there is a sea above the sky, -the waters which were above the heavens,-’ and through the -windows of heaven-’ the rain comes down; within the earth is Sheol, where dwell the shadowy dead; this whole cosmic system is suspended over vacancy; and it was all made in six days with a morning and an evening, a short and measurable time before. This is the world view of the Bible. An examination of the Scriptures cited as the basis on which this cosmic view was formulated shows that they are not necessarily subject to the interpretation put upon them by these critics; that in fact protagonists of this view fail to distinguish between poetic imagery and propositional truth. (The Scriptures cited are the following: Psalms 136:6; Psalms 24:1-2; Genesis 7:11; Job 37:18; Genesis 1:6-8; Isaiah 40:22; Job 26:11; Psalms 104:3; Genesis 1:7; Psalms 148:4; Isaiah 14:9-11; Psalms 93:1; Psalms 104:5; Psalms 104:2; Genesis 1:14-18; Psalms 78:23; Genesis 7:11; Job 26:7.)

Many authorities, including distinguished Semitio-Scholars have taken these mythologizers to task for imposing on the Bible a stilted, artificial cosmology that is nowhere clearly and systematically taught in Scripture. A striking example of the far-fetched inferences of these critics is found in the alleged association of the Hebrew word tehom, the deep, with the Babylonian Tiamat, the she-dragon of chaos. However, this connection, if it actually existed, simply proves the Hebrew account to have been the original, because the natural object, tehom, surely preceded the mythological personification of it. (Cf. Psalms 136:6; Psalms 24:2.) For a thoroughgoing and conclusive treatment of this important phase of our subject, for which we have not available space here, the student is advised to read Bernard Ramm (CVSS, 96-102), who concludes as follows: The best we can do is to (i) indicate the freedom of the Bible from mythological polytheistic or grotesque cosmologies, (ii) note the general hostility of the Bible to cosmologies which are antitheistic, and (iii) clearly present the theocentric view of the Bible towards Nature. (I call attention here to the thesis of the excellent book by Yehezkel Kaufmann, recently published, The Religion of Israel.This distinguished Jewish scholar writes, obviously, with but one end in view, namely, to establish the fact that Hebrew monotheism was definitely not an evolution from surrounding pagan mythologies and traditions, but was in fact a complete revolution against such systems.) The Fosdick interpretation, as quoted above, is a reading into the first few Chapter s of Genesis a mass of conjecture that simply cannot be validated without unjustifiable distortion of fact.

Similarities between the Babylonian Cosmogony and the Hebrew Narrative of the Creation: (1) Both know of a time when the earth as such did not exist. (2) In Genesis, light dispels darkness, and order follows chaos. In the Babylonian record, Marduk, a sun-god (like the Sanscrit Dyaus pitar, the Greek Zeus patér, the Latin lu piter, meaning father of light) overthrows the she-dragon of darkness, Tiamat. (3) In Genesis, the dry land appears after a time, in obedience to Divine decree. In the Babylonian tablets, Marduk creates the earth out of one part of the corpse of the slain Tiamat. (4) In Genesis, the sun, moon, and stars are set in the heavens, again by the decree of Elohim. In the Babylonian record, Marduk creates them to serve as mansions for the gods. (5) In Genesis, God brings into existence the lower species, again by the operation of His ordinances. In the Babylonian record, the assembly of the gods creates them. (6) In Genesis, God creates mankind. In the Babylonian record, Marduk fashions the first man out of the blood of the slain Kingu who had been Tiamat’s consort. Finegan (LAP, 53): The sequence of events in the creation also is the same in the two stories, in that the following happenings take place in the same order: the creation of the firmament, the creation of dry land, the creation of the luminaries, and the creation of man. Both accounts begin with the watery chaos and end with the gods or the Lord at rest. (Incidentally, in the Genesis account, there is no reason for assuming that the creation of the celestial luminaries took place on the fourth day, as we shall see later.)

The Contrasts between the Babylonian Cosmogony and the Hebrew Account of Creation.These unlikenesses are tremendous. (1) Genesis reveals God as the Creator of all things. The Babylonian record brings in a number of deities. (2) Genesis pictures an original darkness, abyss, deep, etc. The Babylonian account personifies them, and the earth, the sky, the sea, and the heavenly bodies as well. (3) Genesis reveals a God without a female counterpart; in fact the Hebrews had no word in their language to express the idea of a goddess. The Babylonian records give to almost every great deity a female counterpart: indeed this was a feature of all pagan polytheisms. (4) Genesis is purely spiritual in character. The Babylonian account is shot through with base passions, jealousies, hates, plots, wars, and like evils. (5) Genesis is purely monotheistic, whereas the Babylonian record is grossly polytheistic. The gods of all the ancient polytheisms were anthropomorphic personifications of natural forces (in particular, of the sun-father and the earth-mother). The God of Hebrew and Christian monotheism is pure personality.

Did the writer of Genesis borrow his account from Babylonian sources? Although this view prevails today in certain academic circles, it is, to a great extent, absurd and unwarranted. A comparison of the religious teaching of the two accounts should be sufficient to settle this question in the mind of anyone not blinded by preconceived opinion. Clay (LOTB, 73); Upon the differences of the two stories we need not dwell. The crude polytheistic grotesqueness of the Babylonian, with its doctrine of emanation or evolution from chaos to order, which makes the gods emerge from this chaos, or brings the firmaments out of a carcass, put it altogether in another class; and it is in no respect to be compared with the dignified and sublime conception of the beginning of things, with God as the supreme Creator, who called all things into existence. The theory frequently advanced that the prophets of Israel took these Babylonian traditions and purified them by the subtraction of their grosser elements, for the purpose of making them the vehicle for teaching the impressive truths of God’s personality, unity, and relationship to Israel (H. L. Willett), is, in McGarvey’s language (BC, 389) about as sensible as to say that the parable of the prodigal son was derived from Peok’s Bad Boy, or from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer.

Did the Babylonian account (known as Enuma Elish, from its two opening words, meaning when on high) have its origin from Genesis? This is improbable, but not at all impossible. Or, are the few likenesses between them due to a common Semitic inheritance, each handing on from age to age records concerning the early history of the race? Granting that this hypothesis be acceptable, how are we to account for the fact that the Genesis narrative remained pure, the least uncolored by the extravagances of all these ancient traditions? The history of the Hebrew people began with Abraham. How did Abraham or his immediate successors come into possession of such an idealistic religious account of the Creation? How can we account for the pure conceptions embodied in the Genesis account on any other basis than that of supernatural origin and oversight. Granting that the account was a revelation from an early age, what prevented it from becoming steeped in mythological accretions as did the creation stories of all other ancient peoples?

I am not willing to admit that the Mosaic narrative is an embodiment of traditions, when it has all the earmarks of a special divine revelation. This is true regardless of the time in which it may have originated. Why omit all consideration of the Spirit of God in dealing with this problem? Does not special revelation include special inspiration, and vice versa? Why could not the Holy Spirit have revealed these truths to some ancient patriarch who gave them down through his descendants to Moses? Why could not the Holy Spirit have embodied them in a revelation directly to Moses himself? Orif the critics would insist that it be soto an inspired writer in the ages following Moses? Our claim here is that Divine inspiration is the only basis on which anyone can account for the pure conceptions of the Genesis Cosmogony. These simply cannot be explained away as figments of the human imagination.Orr (ISBE, V, 3107): No stronger proof could be afforded of the truth and sublimity of the Biblical account of the origin of things than is given by the comparison of the narrative of creation in Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:4, with the mythological cosmogonies and theogonies found in other religions. Ramm (CVSS, 102): It is typical of radical critics to play up the similarity of anything Biblical with the Babylonian, and to omit the profound differences or gloss over them. When the Biblical account is set side by side with any other cosmology its purity, its chasteness, its uniqueness, its theocentricity are immediately apparent. Again (ibid., 102, n.43): Conservative Christianity explains Babylonian and Biblical parallels by the theory of cognateness (not of dependence, nor of purification.

5. The Firmament. The Waters under the Firmament, and the Waters above the Firmament.(1) The word rakia, translated firmament, means literally, stretched out, hence expanse, and by necessary inference, alludes to the atmosphere. Obviously, this is the space above the earth, in general what we call the sky, the habitat of the winds and clouds, and the space in which the celestial bodies of our solar system move in their courses. Hence, Genesis 1:5 God called the firmament Heaven. Not the heavens of the entire cosmos, referred to in Genesis 1:1, but the celestial heaven which is in close proximity to the earth, the heaven of the earth-world (Delitzsch). (2) Does this passage refer to a separation of the heavenly waters, described as held back by a solid arched firmament to which the heavenly bodies were attached, from the watery abyss below, on which the flat earth was supposed to restthe customary explanation built on the theory of a borrowing from Babylonian cosmology? Not necessarily. It has been stated above that the customarily accepted theory of an adaptation of Babylonian source material to the Hebrew account, is built on the failure of, the critics to recognize the poetic imagery of the Hebrew Scriptures and to differentiate this imagery from astronomical fact.

(3) We accept the interpretation here that is presented by Arnold Guyot, in his excellent little book, Creation; though published as far back as 1884, like many other works of earlier vintage, it gives us a far more sensible understanding of the Genesis Cosmogony than those appearing on the market since the turn of the century, a period in which textual criticism in all areas has been characterized by sheer conjectural extravagances. The word translated waters, Guyot tells us, being the best afforded by the Hebrew language to express the idea of fluidity (nebulousness), is used here to designate the primordial cosmic material, the amorphous world-stuff, the molten mass (now heated to intense degrees by the energizing of Divine Power) of the undifferentiated sun, planets, satellites, etc., of our solar system. (Psalms 148 seems to have this same meaning, where we read of the waters that are above the heavens (Genesis 1:4)waters which are distinguished from the deeps below (Genesis 1:7) and the vapor above (Genesis 1:8). Hence, the separation of the earth from the parent mass, and the development of it into an independent sphere, answers, according to Guyot, to the dividing of the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. That is to say, the waters which were under the firmament (the detached earth in its most primitive state as such) became divided from the waters which were above the firmament (the parent molten mass, which apparently became a sun) by the intervening expanse.Moreover, after having become detached from the parent mass, naturally the earth began to cool at its surface, as it whirled through space; and as this process of cooling continued, the gases were thrown off which formed the atmosphere.And no doubt the entire earth-mass became enshrouded in dense vapors at this stage, these vapors thus obscuring for a time the light of the parent sun from which the planet had been detached. Guyot writes (Cr, 66-67): One fact admitted by all is the work of separation, of individualization, which must have preceded the present combination of the heavenly bodies, and this is indicated as the special work of the second cosmogonic day. thus we follow the gradual concentration from a gaseous state to a compact and well-defined body. We see how a family of planets has been detached from a vast central body which holds them in bondage in their orbits by the power of its mass. That is to say, the entire process by which the earth was detached and developed as a separate planet could well have been duplicated in the detachment and separate development of all the celestial bodies from their respective central suns. This all occurred on Day Two. Thus under the impulsion of the brooding of the Spirit of God, the cosmos began to march into being. And so there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

(4) Note the remarkable correspondence between the foregoing interpretation of Gen 1:6-8 and current scientific hypotheses of the origin of our solar system. In general, these are two, namely, the monoparental and the biparental hypotheses. According to the former, as envisioned especially in the nebular hypothesis of Laplace (1749-1827), the huge primordial mass of nebulous matter, revolving in space with sufficient velocity and gradually condensing from an intensely high degree of heat, may have eventually, by throwing off successive rings of nebulae, set the stage for the development of all the celestial bodies, moving in their respective orbits, which make up our planetary system. The biparental hypothesis, on the other hand, first suggested by the French naturalist Buffon (1707-1788), pictures the formation of our planetary system as the result of a violent collision between the sun (which in more recent terms is thought of as having become a nova or supernova in the far distant past) and some other celestial body, which he called a comet, by which he apparently meant, however, another star of comparable size. Although some of the fragments caused by this collision must have been lost forever in interstellar space, others, Buffon thought, held in check by the gravitational pull of the central mass (sun), were forced to continue revolving around it in the form of separate planets. This biparental hypothesis has been modified in recent years by the Chamberlin-Moulton theory in which the notion of direct physical collision has been abandoned for the tidal wave theory, namely, that the planets were first formed when a giant tidal wave of nebulous matter was raised on the surface of the sun by the gravitational attraction of an intruding star which passed by the sun at a distance of several solar diameters. This tidal wave theory has been further elaborated by Sir James Jeans. The theory has also been implemented by the planetesimal hypothesis, that these separate planetary masses subsequently grew by accretion of smaller compact masses of nebulae (each surrounding a nucleus) called planetesimals. This tidal action hypothesis has been chosen, instead of that of direct collision, we are told, on the ground that the close passing of two great stars is much more probable than a direct collision. However, it is interesting to note that the British geophysicist, Jeffreys, has suggested recently that the hypothetical stellar encounter must have been much closer than was assumed in the tidal theory, that in fact the passing star must literally have brushed the surface of the sun, in order to tear away masses of solar matter. If this view should be the right one, we are back to the original form of Buffon’s hypothesis. Note the following pertinent comments from Gamow (BE, 29): We must conclude that the solid crust of the Earth must have been formed from previously molten material about two million years ago. Thus we can picture the Earth two billion years ago as a completely molten spheroid, surrounded by a thick atmosphere of air, water-vapors, and probably other volatile substances. The Genesis Cosmogony thus speaks for itself in the many features in which it is in harmony with current scientific thinking about the origin of our planetary system.

Genesis 1:9-13

Day Three; Lands and Seas, Plant Life (Genesis 1:9-13)

And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and. it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after their kind: and God saw that it was good. And. there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

1. Need it be pointed out here that there had to be light, and there had to be an atmosphere, before there could be any vegetation upon the earth. Moreover, the earth itself had to be put in order to receive and to nourish this vegetation from the time of its first appearance. Hence we have here, in all likelihood, a description of the steps necessary to this end: the partial condensation of the vapors enveloping the earth’s surface, at this stage in the Creative Process, together with the cooling of the earth’s crust, resulted, of course, in the outlining of continents and oceans. Hence, at this point something entirely newa new increment of powerentered into the progressive development of the Creation. This something new was the appearance of the first forms of life, those of the plant world. This marked the crossing of the great divide between the world of physiochemical energy and the world of living things.
2. Just as there had to be light, and there had to be an atmosphere, so there had to be plant life before there could be any form of animal life. Plant cells differ from animal cells in the fact that they alone contain the pigment chlorophyll, which is responsible for the green color of plants and which is best known for its mysterious action in photosynthesis, the amazingly subtle and complex process by which plants convert the energy of the sun’s rays into stored food energy that is necessary to the existence of all living things. Scientists have not yet been able to break this process down, to learn exactly how it works. It is a scientific fact, however, that with the creation of plant chlorophyll, photosynthesis commenced and the plant kingdom began to flourish, sucking in sunlight and dumping out oxygen. E. V. Miller (WLP, 117): With few exceptions all life on this planet owes its existence to the fact that green plants are able to store up the energy of the sun. Light is known to be the sole source of energy for this process of photosynthesis. Other necessary factors are water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and temperature of varying degrees. (In oceanic life, the microscopic organisms known as plankton carry on photosynthesis, like their relatives on the land, and so supply fish and other marine animals with food.) Thus the Genesis Cosmogony is again found to be in accord with present-day biological science.
3. On Day Three the Creative Process moved upward from the astronomical beginnings to the geological and biological phases. As we have already noted, on Day Two, the earth, when it became detached from the parent sun, began to cool. It would seem that as it cooled, the solid portions gathered at the center, with the liquids resting upon them, and the gases forming the outer envelope. As this cooling of the earth’s crust continued, the elements were thrown off which comprise our atmosphere, and the entire mass became surrounded by dense vapors. This expanse (atmosphere) separated the earth below, not only from the parent sun, but probably from the other planets as well, all of which were in process of being formed in the same way. Science could hardly improve on the brevity and comprehensiveness of this description. Then on Day Three, the partial condensation of the enveloping vapors, and the continued cooling of the earth’s crust, brought about the genesis of lands and seas, and so paved the way for the appearance of vegetation. Everest (DD, 150): The earth shrank upon itself as it cooled, continents and mountains were lifted up, ocean beds were depressed, and the waters flowed together. Evaporation began, the windwafted clouds passed over the lands, the rains fell, the rivers dashed down the slopes, and another great wheel began to revolve and flash in the presence of the Master Mechanist.
4. Let the earth bring forth, etc. (1) Various commentators hold that the classification of flora here is threefoldgrass, herbs, and trees. Skinner (ICCG, 24), thinks it is twofold, based on two different methods of reproduction, the one kind (grass, verdure, herbage, terms designating all plants in the earliest stages of their growth) producing seed merely, the other producing fruit that contains the seed. (2) And it was so. This oft-repeated formula is simply an affirmation that whatever the Creator spake,that is, willed, ordained, orderedwas done, that whatever He commanded, stood fast (Psalms 33:9). (3) Note the threefold description of the trees here: their specific nature, fruit-bearing; their peculiar characteristic, seed enclosed in fruit; and their external appearance, rising above the ground. (4) After their kind. Surely this means, not that God made every kind of plant, tree, or seed, outwardly and directly; it means, rather, that He instituted the causation, in the form of seminal power, from which each individual of a kind or class (genus, species, etc.) proceeds to grow and to reproduce its kind. Since it is the form which is embodied in the seed, it is the form (the principle of specification, e.g., the oakness of an oak tree, or that which makes it an oak tree and not some other kind of tree) which determines the structure, and not the structure which determines the form. Hence an oak tree is an oak tree and cannot be a birch tree, any more than a poppy seed can be planted and a mustard tree be produced from its germinal seed. This principle of each after its own kind is one which prevails today as always, and no doubt will continue to do so, among all living things. If this were not true, taxonomythe classification of animals and plants on the basis of their natural relationshipswould be impossible, as indeed would be all the biological sciences. Note that the Genesis account makes it clear that the causative power is in the seed, a causative power which requires light, soil, atmosphere, moisture, etc., to actualize it. Note also the clear implication of secondary causation (as described in the form of laws of nature) in the repeated formula Let the earth put forth grass, etc., Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, etc. In a word, God provides the seminal power, but His power operates at the direction of His eternal decrees (Psalms 148:5-6). (5) And God saw that it was good. This formula (one might say, refrain), appearing at the end of each section of the Creation narrative, affirms that whatever God commanded, was done; and that the Divine purpose for which it was done was being realized. It was all good in the sense that each thing produced was doing what the Divine Will ordained it should do in the total structure of being.

Genesis 1:14-19

Day Four: Chronology (Genesis 1:14-19)

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day

1. Evidently we have here the account of the genesis of chronology, the measurement of time. On this day the sun, moon and stars were bidden to give light for the earth, and were appointed as timepieces, for signs, seasons, days and years.

2. This does not necessarily mean that the heavenly bodies were brought into existence at this time. It is our conviction that the various systems of suns and planets and satellites had all been passing through the same formative processes as that which had brought into existence our own planetary system. Milligan (SR, 29): There is nothing in the text that implies that they were just then created.They had doubtless existed in some state, as had the earth, from the beginning. But on the fourth day the clouds were most likely dispersed, and the atmosphere became perfectly transparent, and these luminaries then became visible from the earth; and hence this was the most suitable time that could have been selected for making them our chronometers.

3. This section obviously refers to the appearance of sun, moon and stars in the firmament, in such a way as to be plainly discernible to the naked eye of an observer upon the earth. During this entire period, the atmosphere was gradually being purified. Plants continued to grow in this humid environment, although the source of the rapidly increasing light was probably not apparent for some time; however, plant growth itself, by absorption, assisted in the complete dissipation of the enveloping vapors, so that the heavenly bodies finally appeared in full view in the firmament.

4. Note that the Divine decree was not, Let the luminaries be brought into existence; it was, rather, Let the sun, moon and stars give light upon the earth.This was necessary in order for them to be appointed as our timepieces. Note our word appointednot created. This means that these celestial luminaries which had been in process of creation from the beginning were now divinely appointed as the instruments for man’s use in measuring signs (the zodiac?) and seasons, and days and years; just as the rainbow which had existed from the beginning in the relationship between the sun’s rays and the rainfall, was in Noah’s day divinely appointed to be the sign of His covenant that He would never again destroy man with the waters of a flood (Genesis 9:8-17); and just as the unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine, which had existed from the beginning, were appointed by our Lord to be the appropriate emblems of His offering of His body and His blood on the Cross of Calvary for the redemption of mankind (1 Corinthians 11:23-33).

In order to adapt to his present environment, man has need of the sequence of day and night, of seedtime and harvest, of the times and the seasons. For practical ends, he must have norms for the measurement of space and time. However, mathematical time must be distinguished from real time. Whereas the former is measured, the latter is experienced: it is the very intensity of life, as e.g., the soldier who will say, on coming out of battle, I feel as though I have lived a lifetime in the last few hours. This experience of the intensity of living affords one at least a faint glimmer of the meaning of eternity as timelessness.

FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

The Primordial Darkness a Metaphor of the Unconverted Soul

The thick darkness of the first day of the Creation is a fit metaphor of the darkness of the unconverted soul. In the beginning the world was (1) without order.It was in a state of formlessness and emptiness. So the unconverted soul lives in a state of spiritual formlessness and emptiness, a condition which requires a special Divine arranging in order to bring harmony and beauty out of this formlessness (1 Corinthians 2:14). (2) Without light.In the beginning there was thick darkness everywhere. So the unconverted soul walks in darkness (Ephesians 4:17-19) devoid of that true spiritual light which came down from heaven to illumine the emptiness of men’s hearts (John 1:4-9, 2 Corinthians 4:4-6). One may be alive to culture, to education, to science, to social problems, to political issues, but unless one is born again, born of water and the Spirit, he is spiritually dead (John 3:1-6). (3) Without life.There were no indications of life in the great deep until the Holy Spirit began to brood upon the face of the waters. So, until the human soul yields itself to the quickening impulse of the Holy Spirit, it is dead in its own trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1, Romans 3:23). Persistence in such a course leads ultimately to eternal separation from God and from the glory of his might (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, Revelation 20:14). -(4) Yet not beyond the limits of Divine grace.As the Holy Spirit brooded over primeval darkness, so He broods today over unconverted souls, longing for the proclamation of the Word to introduce light, life, order, and beauty; by wholeheartedly responding to the Divine Word; all who thus hear and obey the Gospel are made partakers of the divine nature (Romans 10:8-10; Romans 10:17; 2 Peter 1:4).

Darkness was upon the face of the deep until God said, Let there be light. A beautiful symbol of the appearance of the true Light who lighteth the world. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not (John 1:4-5; John 14:5). When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, the world of men was enshrouded in spiritual darkness (Romans 1:18-32). Judaism had become hopelessly encrusted with sheer formalism and traditionalism. So-called natural: religion had failed. Current philosophies did not assuage the pessimism in men’s souls. Stoicism, Hedonism, Libertinism, Epicureanism, Cynicism, and the other isms, had served their day and been found wanting. The whole World was under condemnation, lost, in danger of perishing (John 3:16-17). Then cometh Jesusthe world’s hope, the Light and life of mankind, and the only Light and Life of mankind.

Light as a Metaphor of the Gospel

1. Light and the Gospel are analogous, as regards (1) their source, God; (2) their nature, which is, in each case, to shine, to illumine, to dispel darkness; (3) their effect.Light simply shines: it does not have to be advertised. What would you think of a man who would put a sign on a lighthouse, reading This is a lighthouse? What would humanity do without light? What would the world be without the Gospel?

2. God’s gift of light resembles His gift of the Gospel, in that (1) both are pure, (2) both are free, (3) both are universal, (4) both are gentle, (5) both are pervasive, (6) both are indispensable, (7) both are transcendent, (8) both are satisfying.

3. It is the will of God: (1) that all men shall have the light of salvation. God despises both physical and moral darkness. To dissipate moral darkness, He sent His Son, His Spirit, His Church, His ministers, etc. (2) That His Church shall be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14-16, 2 Corinthians 3:2-3). God does not expect the world to be spiritually enlightened by literary, philosophical, cultural, or social service societies; nor by clubs, lodges, or secular schools; nor by the social gospel, eugenics, fraternalism, or any other human instrumentality in itself. God expects the world to be spiritually enlightened by His Church, and only by His Church, which is the habitation of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:22). As Christ was the Incarnation of the Father, so the Church is the Incarnation of the Son (Ephesians 1:23). There is no substitute for the Church of the living God. (3) That the whole worldall peoplesshall be illumined by the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ. The twofold mission of the Church is that of preserving the Truth of God and proclaiming it unto all the nations (Isaiah 11:9; Isaiah 60:19; Hebrews 2:14; 1 Timothy 3:15; Matthew 28:18-20; Matthew 24:14).

Have you the light of Divine grace in your heart? Can you truly sing,

The light of the world is Jesus?

Once I was blind, but now I see

Is your soul so flooded with Gospel light that you can peacefully wait for the morning (Psalms 130:6)? Are you letting your light shine before men? Are you truly a living epistle of Christ?

In the beginning, God

God createdGod saidGod sawGod calledGod madeGod setGod blessedalways there is God. Godthe explanation of all things; without Him, there is no ultimate explanation of anything. Joseph Parker (PBG): I claim no finality; I scorn no other man’s thinking; I had a universe given me to account for. One man told me that it was to be accounted for by chance, and I feltthat he was a fool. I had human life given me to account for, in all zones and climes, in all ages and seas and lands. I studied it. One man told me it was to be accounted for by the law of averages, and I felt that he was a fool. I had the Bible to account for. I read it straight through, and I was told by one man that it happened to come together just as it is, that there is no purpose in it, no organic spiritual genius and unity, and that it was a gathering up of fragments that have no mutual relation; and as I read the thing, as it got into me and made my blood tingle, I felt that he, too, was a fool. Then I came to this revelation, In the beginning, GodGod, not a name only, but. a character, a spirit, a life, a reality: God is light, God is love, God is Savior, God blessed forevermore, King of kings and Lord of lords, and I felt that the answer was grand enough to be true!

The Word-Power of God

Man’s besetting sin has ever been that of rejecting the Word of God. But search the Bible from cover to cover, and you will find that nothing so displeases God as lack of confidence in, and disrespect for, His Word. For example, Saul and the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15).

There are those who speak of the mere Word as if it were of no importance. But words are always important, because they communicate ideas. Words are the media of intelligent intercourse among persons. So the Word of God is the revelation of the Mind and Will of God. God’s Spirit-Power, Will-Power, Word-Power, are equally all-powerful. (Cf. Luke 1:37; Matthew 24:35; Matthew 12:36-37; Matthew 7:24-27; Mark 8:38.) This Power is the sovereign Power in the cosmos, as evidenced by the following facts: 1. The worlds (ages) were framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3). The formula, And God said, occurs ten consecutive times in the first chapter of Genesis, and in each case that which God ordained came to pass. John 1:1-3; John 1:14; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:1-6; Colossians 1:15-17. The Logos was the executive Agent of the Godhead in the Creation of the universe. 2. The cosmos is sustained, in its processes by the same Word-Power.This is the Power that maintains the order which human science discovers and describes both in the physical and in the moral realm. Hebrews 1:1-3, 2 Peter 3:7. 3. Biblical miracles were performed by the use of the same Word-Power.The rod of Moses was an emblem of this Power. But Moses failed to sanctify God’s Word in the sight of the Israelites by smiting the rock instead of speaking to it, as God had commanded (Numbers 20:7-13). Note Joshua’s command addressed to the sun and the moon (Joshua 10:12). 4. This Word, Logos, became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Jesus of Nazareth.John 17:5; John 17:24; John 8:58; John 1:1-3; John 1:14; Colossians 1:15-17. Jesus was the Logos inwardly in that He is from all eternity in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18). He is the Logos outwardly in that He is the complete revelation of God to man (John 14:9-12; John 16:13-15). The Babe in the Bethlehem manger was God’s Power clothed in flesh and blood. 5. Jesus wrought mighty works (miracles) by the same Word-Power.Acts 2:22; Matthew 14:19; Matthew 8:26-27; Matthew 8:3; John 4:50; Matthew 8:32, Mark 1:25; Luke 7:14, John 11:43. Matthew 8:8only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. Jesus gave no treatments, absent or present; He had only to speak the Word and the miracle was wrought. 6. When Jesus returned to the Father, this Word-Power was dispatched to the Apostles at Pentecost through the agency of the Holy Spirit.Luke 24:49; John 14:16-17; John 14:26; John 15:26-27; John 16:7-15; John 20:22-23; Acts 1:1-8; Acts 2:1-4. Note the effect of the preached Word on the multitude (Acts 2:37). 7. The Word-Power of God, since the first proclamation on the Day of Pentecost, is embodied in the Gospel.Psalms 19:7it converts the soul. Isaiah 2:3, Micah 4:2this Word to go forth from Jerusalem. Acts 2:4this it did on the first Pentecost after the Resurrection. Luke 24:47the Gospel to be proclaimed first at Jerusalem. Romans 1:16the Gospel, not just a power, nor one of the powers, but the Power of God unto salvation to all who accept and obey it. 8. By the same Word Power, the Apostles performed miracles, Acts 3:6; Acts 9:34; Acts 9:40; Acts 13:8-12. 9. The Word, written or spoken, makes believers.Acts 2:14-37; Acts 8:5-12; Acts 8:30-35; Acts 9:6; Acts 22:10; Acts 11:14; Acts 10:34-43; Acts 16:14-15; Acts 16:32; Acts 18:8; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Romans 10:8-11; Romans 10:17. Conclusion: Division in Christendom arises from two causes, namely, refusal to accept and obey the laws of God, and the making of laws by men where God has not made any. The Word is irresistible by material things: when it is spoken, nature obeys. Man alone has the power to resist the Word (Romans 13:1-2) and the power to neglect it (Hebrews 2:1-4). Note the ultimate destiny of all who ignore, neglect, or resist the Word (2 Thessalonians 1:8, 1 Peter 4:17). Let us obey the Gospel of Christ (Hebrews 5:9) and so enjoy the fulfilment of the precious and exceeding great promises of God (2 Peter 1:4, Hebrews 5:9, Acts 2:38, Romans 6:23).

Genesis 1:20-23

Day Five: the Water and Air Species (Genesis 1:20-23)

And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

1. We have here the account of the beginnings of animal life, in the aquatic and aerial species. Did animal life appear first in the water? Evidently so, as air-breathing animals could hardly have lived until the atmosphere had been purified. Water animals must have preceded all other kinds in the Creation. It is a commonplace, of course, of present-day biology that animal life began in the water, and that flying reptiles which lived in the water and required but little oxygen, were probably the precursors of birds.

2. Genesis 1:20let the waters swarm, etc. That is to say, the seas were to be filled with creatures adapted to marine life, each species capable of reproducing its own kind prolifically. Note also Genesis 2:19Does this mean that the bodies of marine animals are of a different texture than those of birds and beasts? Whatever it means, it is made clear that the life principle was inherent in every individual of every kind (species) of both water and air creatures. These are here differentiated from all previous creations, and from vegetation in particular, by their possession of this vital spark. Butdoes not this contradict the fact that plants are also living organisms? It does not. It simply bears out the well-known fact that the life processes of animal cells are different from those of plant cells (as stated heretofore, the latter are specifically characterized by their possession of chlorophyll and by their unique activity of photosynthesis). Whitelaw (PCG, 25): It may be impossible by the most microscopic analysis to differentiate the protoplasmic cell of vegetable matter from that of animal organisms, and plants may appear to be possessed of functions that resemble those of animals, yet the two are generically differentvegetable protoplasm never weaving animal texture, and plant fibre never issuing from the loom of animal protoplasm. That which constitutes an animal is the possession of respiratory organs, to which, doubtless, there is a reference in the term nephesh, from naphash, to breathe Lange (CDHCG, 171): The creation of marine animals begins first. It is not only because they are the most imperfect creatures, but because the water is a more quickening and a more primitive conditioning of life than the earth. The like holds true of the air.

3. Genesis 1:21And God created. every living creature that moveth (A.S.V.) The moving creature that hath life (A.V.) R.S.V.every living creature that moves, from ramas, meaning move, creep, etc.the term remes being especially descriptive of creeping animals, either on land, or in water (Genesis 9:2; Genesis 7:14; Psalms 69:34). Does this mean that insects also came into existence at this stage? Or are these to be included among the creeping things named in Genesis 1:24? We cannot be certain about this. One fact, however, is obvious, namely, that the appearance of the power of locomotion is emphasized here as the significant characteristic of the life process at this stage. Human experience proves that animal life is specified (distinguished from plant life) by the power of sensitivity (sensations are the sources of consciousness) and locomotion. (See infra, Aristotle’s Hierarchy of Being.) Lange (CDHCG, 172): It suits well the fifth day, or the number five, that the symbols of mightiest life-motion, the fishes and the birds, are created on this day. The animals of lesser physical motion, but of more intensive individual sensation, come after them.

4. Genesis 1:22. In the case of plants, their reproductive powers are included in their creation. Here, however, the first living animal forms are endowed with the right of self-propagation by a separate acta Divine benediction. In Scripture, as in nature, fish are assigned to water, birds to the heaven (sky, air), and beasts to the earth. In a later verse, we shall see that man’s lord tenancy over all these forms, indeed over the whole earth, is ordained by the Creator.

Genesis 1:20-31

**PART SEVEN: THE LAST THREE DAYS OF THE COSMIC WEEK OF BEGINNINGS

Genesis 1:20-31**

The heart of the Genesis Cosmogony is that all things have been brought into existence by the Supreme Creative Will, acting either directly (primary causation) or through the agency of forces and materials of His own creation (secondary causation). God created, God said, God called, God saw, God made, God blessed, etc. The name of God, Elohim, occurs forty-six times in the first two Chapter s of Genesis. The facts that God wills it means that He is Absolute Sovereign over what He has created; that He rules, determines, and brings to their pre-determined ends all the ages (Isaiah 44:6); that He is sovereign over all aspects of the cosmos, including life, man, society, peoples, and even the destinies of individuals and nations (Acts 17:24-28, Jeremiah 18:5-10). God before all, God back of all, God over all: God’s creative Word is the Efficient Cause of the existence, and continuance in existence, of all things. God Himself is without beginning or end, the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Self-existent Living One.

Every process of the cosmos is divinely willed; every good end is divinely designed and ordained. Hence the living and true God is personalan Other to all other persons. He is the sovereign God, transcending the cosmos and independent of it. He is the personal, sovereign, rational and moral Divine Being. He is over all, and through all, and in all (Ephesians 4:6). There is not the slightest room here for pantheism or deism. This is theism in its most exalted form. Deuteronomy 6:4Yahweh our God is one Yahweh, that is, the only Yahweh (I AM, Exodus 3:14). I am God, and there is none like me (Isaiah 46:9). I am the first, and I am the last: and besides me there is no God (Isaiah 44:6; Revelation 1:8; Revelation 1:17-18). This is monotheism of the highest order.

The sublime facts to which the Genesis account of the Creation points directly is that the Eternal God, who is Spirit (John 4:24), is the God of creation, of revelation, of conscience, of judgment, of redemption, of the ultimate restoration of all things (Acts 3:21).

When Elohim began the Creation, He made things, one might well say, in the rough. He created the heavens and the earththe ancient Hebrew way of saying the entire cosmos. The Spirit of God moved in the darkness of the great deep, preparing it for all that was to follow. One basic truth of the entire Genesis account is that in the six great days of creative activity, this activity pointed unfailingly to the crown of the Divine handiwork, man; in them all things necessary to human existence were marvelously wrought. How long it was from the first stirring in the primordial deep until God said, Let us make man in our image, we do not know. We can readily see, however, that the account allows for the vast ages, and the processes taking shape throughout, as envisioned by present-day geological science. Perhaps it should be added here, parenthetically, that the geological theory of uniformitarianism, namely, that early geological processes were the same as those now empirically discernible (or, as Hutton put it, that the present is the key to the past, and that, if given sufficient vastness of time, the processes now at work could have produced all the geological features of our planet) simply could not apply, in any great detail, to the first beginnings of the lands and seas that go to make up our earth. It seems obvious that the elements had to be brought into existence in their proper interrelationships in order to effect planetary beginnings and to establish the more advanced planetary processes and changes.

As we have noted, Day One of the Hebrew Cosmogony witnessed the first manifestations of energy, of matter-in-motion, and the creation of light. On Day Two the firmament was brought into being, giving us such necessities of human existence, as the surface waters, the intervening atmosphere, and the sky above with its clouds. On Day Three, earth and water, apparently one conglomerate mass up to this point, became separated, so that the earth took its proper form, with continents and seas being formed, and with vegetation beginning to clothe the hitherto bare land. On Day Four it seems that the vapors enveloping the newly formed planet were gradually dissipated, so that sun, moon and stars became visible, to be divinely appointed as standards for human measurement of time. Cornfeld (AtD, 5): Thus God made the world’s time, which is the framework of history, for He is the Lord of history.

Throughout the rest of the Genesis Cosmogony, the writer, while noting that there are divinely graded kinds of living beings, puts supreme emphasis on the moral and spiritual character of the cosmos, and its dependence upon its Creator (God saw that it was good, Genesis 1:4; Genesis 1:10; Genesis 1:12; Genesis 1:18; Genesis 1:21, etc.) and especially upon the towering significance of man as a moral agent and the lord tenant of the whole Creation.

It seems significant indeed that in Genesis 1:21, we find the Hebrew verb bara used the second time (cf. Genesis 1:1) in the account of the Creation. We have noted heretofore that this verb denotes a real primary beginning: it means that something new, some new increment of power, is being introduced into the creative process. Hence, we find in the section we now take up (Genesis 1:20-23) the account of the advance from the unconscious being of the plant to the conscious being of the animal, the awareness that comes from sense-perception and locomotion, the powers that specify the entire animal creation. Because of this fact, I have chosen to make this the breaking point between the two sections of the Creation narrative.

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART SEVEN

What is said, in this text, to be the heart of the Genesis Cosmogony?

Distinguish between primary and secondary causes.

Cite Scriptures which teach theism and monotheism in their purest forms.

What is the theory of imiformitarianism? Why is this theory not applicable to the creation of lands and seas?

Review what happened on Days One, Two, Three, and Four of the Creative Week.

What was created on Day Five?

What advance in the Creation is indicated in Genesis 1:20-23?

According to Genesis in what environment did animal life begin? What does biology teach about this?

On what ground does Lange account for the beginning of animal life in the water and in the air?

What are the two characteristics in particular which distinguish animal life from plant life?

List the principal events of Day Six of the Creation.

Explain the import of the metaphor, River of Life.

Explain what is meant by the mystery of the Life Movement.

Name and define the cellular processes.

List Skinner’s threefold classification of animals.

What are the two naturalistic theories of the Origin of Life?

Explain what is meant by* abiogenesis*.How did the Church Fathers regard this theory? What is the status of the theory today?

State Augustine’s theory of seminal reasons (seminal causes).

Explain what is meant by the Will to Live.

State clearly Aristotle’s theory of the Hierarchy of Being.

What particular still unsolved problems are pointed up by Aristotle’s theory?

What was the Great Chain of Being theory? In what great poem is it set forth?

What change in the formula of the Divine decree occurs in Genesis 1:26? What does this change emphasize?

State the theories of Creation suggested, by Cuvier and Lotze.

What theories have been suggested as explanations of the us in Genesis 1:26?

What is the only explanation of the us which harmonizes with the teaching of the Bible as a whole?

27

What is the special significance of the credo of Deuteronomy 6:4?

By what Names is the tripersonality of God indicated in the Old Testament? What is the full revelation of these Names as given in the New Testament?

What is the significance of the use of the verb bara in Genesis 1:27?

What is the meaning of the term, creation absolute?

What are the phenomena which mark off the successive levels in the Totality of Being?

What is the significance of the metaphor, the Breath of Life?

What is the special import of God’s very good in Genesis 1:31?

Why cannot the terms image and likeness of God refer to corporeal likeness?

What is, in all likelihood, the specific import of the phrase, image of God, as descriptive of man?

In what special sense was Jesus the very image of God?

Does the phrase image of God indicate that man is in some sense deity?

In what sense is man the representation of God in the Creation?

What special significance has personality with reference to God?

What is the significance of the distinction between the Oriental doctrine of absorption, and the Biblical doctrine of fellowship, as the destiny of the person? Which of these is the doctrine of personal immortality?

What is the import of the terms male and female as used in Genesis 1:27?

What was the twofold Divine blessing pronounced upon mankind at the beginning (Genesis 1:28)?

What evidence have we that God does not look with favor on concentration of population?

What is meant by the statement that God vested man with lord tenancy over the whole of nature?

How is this lord tenancy connected with man’s stewardship?

What are the three categories of truth?

On what ground do we assert that human science is the fulfilment of God’s command that man should multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it?

By what five fundamental truths does the Genesis Cosmogony affirm the glory and dignity of the person?

What reasons do we have for asserting that all subhuman orders were created for man’s use and benefit?

What general objections to this view are urged by skeptics?

Would you not agree that if our conviction is not true (that the world was created for man’s use and benefit), the only alternative view would have to be that all existence is meaningless? Explain your answer.

Restate the argument presented herein, in answer to the question, Why a Creation at all?

Explain the significance of the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25:41.

Would you say that Genesis 1:29-30 indicates that God originally intended only a vegetable diet for man?

What conclusion do you reach by comparing these verses with Genesis 9:3?

What is the meaning of good as used in these verses?

What is the special significance of God’s very good in Genesis 1:31?

State the various explanations of the Scripture which tells us that God finished his work on Day Seven.

In what sense, evidently, did God rest on Day Seven?

What is the probable significance of the absence of the customary formula (used in preceding verses to indicate the termination of each Day’s activity) from the story of Day Seven?

How do the words of Jesus in John 5:17 throw light on this problem of God’s rest?

What is a prolepsis? Cite Scripture examples of prolepsis.

Show how Genesis 2:2-3 is obviously a case of prolepsis.

What is the reason given for God’s hallowing of the seventh day of the week instead of some other day?

What special event was the Jewish Sabbath appointed to memorialize (according to Deuteronomy 5:15)?

Where in the Pentateuch do we find the account of the first observance of the Jewish Sabbath?

Explain the significance of the sequence of events of the eight-day period described in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus.

Why, evidently, do we find no record of the observance of the Sabbath in the book of Genesis?

Why does the Sabbath have no significance for Christians?

What day do Christians observe and why? What is it called in Scripture?

What analogies exist between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord’s Day?

Summarize the arguments for the general interpretation that Day Seven of the Creative Week is one of indefinite duration.

Show how Tayler Lewis correlates the language of the Fourth Commandment with this interpretation.

Show how Whitelaw effects the same correlation. Cf. Rotherham’s view (as given earlier in this text) and that of Archer (as stated directly above).

List other evidences of the ambiguous use of the Hebrew yom throughout the Old Testament.

Show how Genesis 1:31 sets the optimistic motif which runs throughout the entire Bible.

List the correspondences between the Hebrew Cosmogony and present-day science.

Explain how this correspondence is especially true of the order of Creation as given in Genesis and as held by the most recent science.

What bearing do these facts have on the doctrine of the special Divine inspiration of the Genesis Narrative of the Creation?

Show how the Order of the Creation as given in Genesis harmonizes also with the facts of human experience.

Restate our objections to the reconstruction and cyclical theories, respectively, of the cosmos as applied to the Genesis Cosmogony.

Explain what is meant by plant photosynthesis and why the process is of such great importance.

Review the general Order of the Creation, Day by Day, as set forth in Genesis 1.

What is the special significance of this Order? To what does it necessarily point?

Explain the difference between theoretical atheism and agnosticism.Is there any practical difference between the two views?

What is pantheism, and what are the main objections to it?

Define deism, and state the objections to it.

Define materialism and state the objections to it.

Define dualism and state the objections to it.

Explain what is meant by emanationism.State the objections to it.

What, in a general sense, is naturalism?

Distinguish between humanitarian humanism, egoistic humanism, and Biblical humanism.

Define polytheism.What was its most fundamental characteristic?

Define monotheism.How is it related to monism?

Define henotheism.

State the fundamental characteristics of theism. What are the chief attributes of the Biblical theistic God?

Genesis 1:24-31

Day Six: Land Animals, Man, Naming of the Animal Tribes, Woman (Genesis 1:24-31)

And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the ground after its kind: and God saw that it was good.

1. Here we have the account of the creation of the land animals, whose bodies are part of the earth’s substance (elements): this could not be said of fishes which are related in a special sense to the water. Some hold that the classification here includes insects for the first time. E.g., Skinner (JCCG, 29): The classification of animals is threefold: wild animals, roughly, carnivora; domesticated animals, roughly, herbivora; reptiles, including perhaps creeping insects and very small quadrupeds.

2. The River of Life.(1) The stretch of time involved in the Divine activity of the first four days of the Creation allows, of course, for the developments claimed by the astronomical and geological sciences. (A word of caution here: Recent attempts to apply the evolution yardstick, which was at first simply and only a hypothesis of the origin of species, to the origin of the celestial and terrestrial non-living worlds, are, to say the least, based on the questionable a priori supposition that such a norm is valid in these areas.) Nevertheless, it can now be maintained legitimately that no conflict need arise between Genesis and geology, in the light of present-day knowledge in these realms. (2) We have now reached the stage in which the Creative Activity, as set forth in the Genesis narrative, is represented as advancing from non-living to living forms. Here, of course, the tremendous mysteries of the Life Processmany of them apparently impenetrable by human intelligencepress upon us for solution, from the points of view of both Scripture and science, The life that any person enjoys was not created in him; rather, it flowed into him from his parents, and their life flowed into them from their parents, and so on and on and on, back, obviously, to a Source of all life, which in the nature of the case had to be a Living Source. First Life could not have been a human creation, for, if we are to accept the views of the evolutionists, both plant and animal life existed prior to man’s appearance on the scene. How fitting, then, such metaphors as the Stream of Life, the River of Life, etc.! How irrefutable the truth set forth in Scripture that all life is a Divine giftthe very Breath of the living and true God (Genesis 2:7)! Revelation 22:1the river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. However life may have originated on earthor on any other planet, for that matterit is essentially the Breath of God. And the Breath of God is Scripturally a metaphor of the power of the Spirit of God. (3) What is life? What is it in the structure of the living cell that sets it apart from the non-living molecule or atom? All that can be said now, in answer to this question, is simply that no one knows.Living things are differentiated from the non-living by such powers as metabolism, growth (not by accretion from without, but by processes operating from within), reproduction, waste and repair, sensitivity, adaptability, movement, dynamic equilibrium (ability to maintain a balance in the flow of matter and energy within the organism’s system), etc.

3. The Mystery of the Life Movement.(1) What is there in the living cell to vitalize it, to differentiate it from mere quanta of energy? No one knows. The secret resides in the cell protoplasm, a semifluid, jellylike substance, which, up to the present time, has resisted all human efforts to analyze it. The most that has been learned thus far is that life requires a large number of highly specific proteins with different shapes, sizes, and patterns. These protein molecules and sub-moleculeseach containing a large number of atomsare invariably present in protoplasm (so we are told). I take the position that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that man may some day, once he has succeeded in breaking down protoplasm, synthesize a living cell in the laboratory. This event, however, should it occur, would leave unsolved the problem as to how the first living cell came into existence, because this was a development which necessarily occurred before man was created. Moreover, such a synthesis would only push the fundamental problem a notch farther back. The basic problem would need to be re-stated as follows: How did the ingredients thus synthesized by man, come to be endowed with the potencies essential to the production of the spark of life? One thing is sureman himself did not endow these ingredients with vital force: this force must have been present potentially in the ingredients themselves or in their inter-relationships. Thus it becomes clear that the eventual synthesis of a living cell in the scientific laboratory would leave the problem of Creation, or of the Source and nature of Creative Force still unsolved. (2) Every human individual starts life as a single cell, the ovum which was produced by the ovary of the mother and fertilized by the spermatozoon of the father. Immediately following this fertilization (conception), the basic cellular processes set in, namely, those of cell segmentation (continuous division and multiplication), cell differentiation (change of structure), and cell specialization (the assumption of function which accompanies differentiation), so that by the time the child is ready to be born it has its full complement of different tissues. At the end of thirty hours after conception, we are told, the one cell has pulled apart to make two cells; at fifty hours, the two split to make four; at sixty hours, the four become eight, etc., until, by the process of geometrical progression, at the end of the third day of life there are thirty-two cells. This is the start toward the vast number of cells which go to make up the body of the newborn babe. Dr. George W. Corner, embryologist at the Rockefeller Institute, has written (as quoted by Dr. Shettles, Today’s Health, March, 1957, published by the A.M.A.): The fertilization of an egg by a sperm cell is one of the greatest wonders of nature. If it were a rare event, or if it occurred only in some distant land, our museums and universities would organize expeditions to witness it, and newcomers would record its outcome with enthusiasm. But as it is, like the shining of the sun, we simply take it for granted, without giving a thought to the mystery of it. Call it protoplasmic irritability, or what not, there is a vital force which is inherent in the life processes of the living cellsand this is why we call them living cells,

(3) Manifold are the mysteries of the life processes. For instance, can anyone explain how it is that, by means of a specific number of submicroscopic blobs of living matter called chromosomes, 23 in the human male and 23 in the female (through the activity of the hypothetical genes inherent in these chromosomes, though the genes are not apprehensible to the naked eye, nor even to the naked eye implemented by the most powerful microscope), the two parentaland several ancestralnatures are fused in the offspring; or how it comes about that through these quasi-material chromosomes and genes, not only are physique and physiology, but even temperament (emotional tone and intensity) and intelligence potential, handed down to the child? (There is no amount of learning that can transform a moron into a genius.) Or, can anyone explain the upward surge of the life movement into the more and more complex forms of living being? Can anyone explain the venerable Will to Live, the determination to resist extinction, that seems to characterize all living creatures (or, as put in the form of the oft-heard cliche, Self-preservation is the first law of nature)? What is this tremendous life force that can drive the roots of a tree through a sewer or through the foundation of a house? To my way of thinking the mysteries of the life processes are far more inscrutable than the powers that are wrapped up in the atom. 4. The Problem of the Origin of Life has not yet been solved by any naturalistic hypothesis. (1) As a matter of fact, only two hypotheses of a strictly naturalistic character have ever been suggested, namely, the view that life was brought to this earth, possibly by a falling meteorite, from some other planet, and the view that is generally known as the theory of spontaneous generation. Obviously, the former view explains absolutely nothing; nothing, that is, with respect to the origin of life: it simply transfers the problem to another planet or star, The latter view, however, the theory of spontaneous generation (abio-genesis), deserves some attention at this point. (2) In ancient and medieval times the theory of abiogenesis was held generally, and without question, by scientists (such as they were in those early ages), philosophers, and theologians alike, including even several of the Church Fathers. Nor was this view held to be antiscriptural: as Aquinas put it (ST, I, q. 91, art. 2): What can be done by created power, need not be produced immediately by God. Men frequently noted that worms, insects, flies, mice, frogs, etc., seemed to come out of the earth, out of dung, out of putrid meat and water exposed to the air; hence the consensus was that under proper conditions of moisture and warmth, the earth could generate living forms. It was even believed that the mud of the Nile River begat swarms of mice. The English naturalist, Ross, announced pompously: To question that beetles and wasps were generated in cow dung is to question reason, sense, and experience (quoted by De Kruif, MH, 26). It remained for the restless Italian experimenter Spallanzani (1729-1799), building on first foundations already laid by the Dutch lens grinder, Leeuwenhoek, and another Italian iconoclast, Redi, finally to come to the conclusion, and to proudly announce, that microbes must have parents. All the thanks he got for his epoch-making discovery was the prejudice, leading to ostracism, of his colleagues. We all know, however, that Spallanzani’s view was fully confirmed by the great Pasteur (1822-1895) in the next century. No concrete evidence has yet been found that would disprove this view that all life comes from antecedent life, that only living things can reproduce living things. (3) Twentieth-century biologists are content to stop with the claim that such an event as the generation of the spark of life by non-living matter might have occurred under certain conditions. For example, G. G. Simpson (ME, 13): How did life arise? Again, the honest answer is that we do not know but that we have some good clues. Current studies suggest that it would be no miracle, nor even a great statistical improbability, if living molecules appeared spontaneously under special conditions of surface waters rich in the carbon compounds that are the food and substance of life. And the occurrence of such waters at early stages of the planet’s evolution is more probable than not. This is not to say that the origin of life was by chance or by supernatural intervention, but that it was in accordance with the grand, eternal physical laws of the universe. It need not have been miraculous, except as the existence of the physical universe may be considered a miracle. Also Julian Huxley (EA, 19-21): The work of Pasteur and his successors has made it clear that life is not now being spontaneously generated. There are only three possible alternatives as regards the origin of living substance on this earth. Either it was super-naturally created; or it was brought to the earth from some other place in the universe, in the interior of a meteorite; or it was produced naturally out of less complicated substances. The third alternative, that living substance evolved out of nonliving, is the only hypothesis consistent with scientific continuity. The fact that spontaneous generation does not occur now is not evidence that it did not do so at some earlier stage in the development of this planet, when conditions in the cosmic test tube were extremely different. Above all, bacteria were not then present, ready to break down any complex substances as soon as formed. It must be confessed, however, that the actual process is still conjectural; all we know is that living substance must have developed soon after the first rocks of the geological series were laid down, and that this was somewhere about two thousand million years ago. We can be reasonably sure that a relatively simply nucleoprotein marked a crucial stage in the process, and that the earliest truly living things were nothing so elaborate as cells, but more in the nature of naked genes. All this, of course, is still guesswork; indeed a hypothesis has been correctly defined as a fairly good guess. (4) It is interesting to note here that the well-known Church Father, Augustine, who lived from A.D. 354 to 430, points up the fact (GL, V, 4, 143) that Genesis 1:11-12 teaches that the earth itself, not seeds in the earth, was given the power to produce plants (the first form of life). He writes: For he does not say, -Let the seeds in the earth germinate the pasture grass and the fruitful tree,-’ but he says, -Let the earth germinate the pasture grass sowing its seed.-’ Augustine also theorized that living things which inhabit the earth were created potentially in the form of hidden seeds (seminal reasons); that in due time, and in the proper sequence, these hidden seeds were actualized pursuant to the proclamations of the successive Divine decrees. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) held that this actualization (in his thinking, apparently, something of the character of an evolution), was the modus operandi by which the Creator effectuated the origins of the first forms of life. As stated above, with respect to the spontaneous generation theory one fact is obvious, namely, that if the spark of life was actually generated by the sudden orientation of certain forces within a protein molecule, the potencies had to be inherent in that molecule before they could be actualized. This means simply that the problem of the origin of life is pushed back another step: it becomes the problem of how non-living matter acquired these potencies in the first place, and of the Efficient Causality by which they were actualized: in short, the necessary Creative Power, in whatever form localized, had to operate to bring about Creation.

5. Aristotle’s Hierarchy of Being. This is a doctrine, stated in his De Anima (On the Soul) which becomes very helpful at this point in our study. According to Aristotle, the totality of being is a hierarchy (i.e., organized on different levels, in an ascending order of complexity); that is to say, our world is a terraced world, so to speak, and not a continuum (without a single break from the lowest to the highest of forms). Aristotle based this hierarchical arrangement of all organisms on what he called the differentiating powers of the soul (psyche) possessed by those individual existents at each level, those of each higher order, subsuming in themselves the powers of those below them in the scale, and possessing an additional differentiating or specifying power of their own. At the lowest level, of course, are the processes of the inanimate creation (according to Aristotle, of matter-in-motion), what today we call the physiochemical basis of all created things. At the next level, according to Aristotle, is the plant creation (what he designates the vegetative psyche), which has the same physiochemical basis, plus the vegetative or nutritive powers (what are known today as the cellular processes). At the third level is the animal order (animal psyche), which has both the physiochemical and vegetative powers, plus the powers of sensitivity and locomotion. At the highest level stands man, the rational creation (rational psyche), who has the same physiochemical basis insofar as his body is concerned, who also shares the vegetative powers with the plant and animal orders, and the powers of sensitivity and locomotion with the animal creation alone, but who has in addition the power of reason (the thought processes and their ramifications). Over all, said Aristotle, is the Prime Mover, the First Cause, God, whom he defines as Pure Self-Thinking Thought (cf. Exodus 3:14, John 4:24).

God-Pure Thought Thinking Itself

Rational psyche

p-c processes

nutritive processes

(cellular)

sensitivity locomotion

reason

Animal psyche

p-c processes

Nutritive processes

(cellular)

sensitivity locomotion

Vegetative psyche

p-c processes

Nutritive processes

(cellular)

The inanimate level: in Aristotelian terms, matter-in-motion; in modern scientific terms, the physiochemical processes.

If should be noted that this diagram points up the major problems posed by the evolution hypothesis, namely, the bridging of the gaps from the non-living to the living, from the plant to the animal, and especially from the animal to man.

It is interesting to contrast with Aristotle’s hierarchy of being, the notion of the totality of being as a continuum, as embodied in the famous doctrine (developed in early modern times) of the Great Chain of Being. According to this view, because our world is the handiwork of a perfect Being, it must be the best of all possible worlds; hence, again reasoning a priori, all possible beings must be actualized, all possible places filled, therein: that is, there must be an unbroken continuitya progressive gradationof organisms from the very lowest living being up to the very highest, God Himself. (See A. O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, Harvard University Press.) As stated clearly by Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man:

Of systems possible if -tis confest That wisdom infinite must form the best,

then it follows that

… all must full or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree.

The resultant picture is as follows:

Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures aethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee, From thee to nothing.On superior pow-‘rs Were we to press, inferior might on ours; Or in the full creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great scale’s destroy-’d; For Nature’s chain whatever link you strike, Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

It is evident that the Great Chain of Being theory, although originally arrived at through a priori reasoning, is the one that is most in harmony with the evolution hypothesis, provided the former could be established by empirical evidence. I am reminded here of Haeckel’s Tree of Life, a book in which the author supplied all the missing links he considered necessary to the evolution of species, and supplied them out of his imagination. The book is looked upon today as a kind of freak product of overzealousness, in an age when the favorite academic indulgence was that of singing paeans to Darwin.

Biblical teaching completes the Aristotelian picture with its doctrine of angels (from the Greek angelos, messenger) who are represented as occupying an intermediate position between God and man (Psalms 8). Angels are pictured in the Bible as celestial (ethereal) beings, higher than man in intelligence and power, whose function is to serve as emissaries of God in the execution of His Plans for His Creation (Hebrews 1:14, 2 Peter 2:11).

Perhaps it should be mentioned here that the French scientist, Cuvier (1769-1832), held the view that the first pair, male and female, of each kind was a direct Divine creation. The modern philosopher, Lotze, and others, have advanced the view that special increments of power were thrust into the Creative Process, at intervals, by direct Divine action, thus marking off the transitions from inanimate energy to life, from life to consciousness, and from consciousness to self-consciousness (as in man). As stated above, these are the unbridged gaps in all naturalistic theories of the origin of species.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them.

1. Note the change of formula in Genesis 1:26.It is no longer, Let there be a firmament, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered in one place, Let the earth put forth grass, Let there be lights in the firmament, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, Let the earth bring forth living creatures, etc, It is now, at the beginning of this final epoch, Let us make man in our image, etc. Obviously something of transcendent importance is about to occur: the climactic terminus of the whole Creative week is about to be attained, the noblest product of the Divine handiwork is about to be unveiled.

2.* What, then, does the us signify?* (1) Does it mean that God is taking counsel with the angels (Philo)? Hardly, for the simple reason that man is not the image of an angel, that is, possessing an ethereal body: man’s body is of the earth, earthy (1 Corinthians 15:47); to become spiritual (ethereal) the bodies of the saints must await the putting on of immortality (2 Corinthians 5:1-10; 1 Corinthians 15:35-57; Philippians 3:20-21; Romans 2:5-7; Romans 8:11; Romans 8:22-23). Moreover, God’s angels always appear in Scripture as servants, never as counselors (Hebrews 1:14). (2) Does it mean that God was taking counsel with the earth (Maimonides)? Hardly. It is difficult to see how the earth could enter into a Divine consilium that involved the deliberation and decision that is indicated in the phrase, Let us, etc. (3) Is this an occurrence, then, of what is commonly designated the plural of majestythat is, the use of we by an Oriental potentate, in his royal edicts, to connote his power, majesty, glory, and all the attributes which may be inherent in him, in the eyes of his subjects? Skinner (ICCG, 30) objects that this usage is absent from Hebrew theology. (4) Is this a remnant, a hang-over, of polytheism? Evidently not.Such a view is completely out of accord with the strict Hebrew monotheism. (5) The us evidently connotes the involvement of all the powers of the Godhead in the creation of man. By correlating this verse (Genesis 1:26) with Genesis 3:22; Genesis 11:7, and Isaiah 6:8 (note the three-fold holy, holy, holy in Genesis 1:3 of this chapter), it becomes evident that all these Scriptures designate a consilium among persons; in short, in the light of Scripture teaching as a whole, they are intimations of the triune personality of God. In the Old Testament we have God, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God. In the full light of the New Testament revelation, these become Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). (This is in accord, too, with the use of the plural form Elohim as the Name used for God in this chapter: see Part V this text, supra.)(The credo of Deu 6:4 evidently has no numerical significance: it means simply, and positively, that the Yahweh of the Bible is one Yahweh in the sense of being the only Yahweh: cf. Isaiah 45:18; Isaiah 46:8-11; 1 Timothy 2:5, Acts 17:23-31).

3. Genesis 1:27And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.Note the verb, created, from the Hebrew bara, the third and last time it is used in the Genesis Cosmogony. In the process of the physical creation the brooding of the Spirit did not cease with the bringing into existence of such first physical phenomena as energy, motion, light, atmosphere, lands and seas: in short, the factors that constitute the physiochemical world. This brooding or actualizing was continuous throughout the whole Creative Week (indeed it is continuous throughout the entire Time Process). Moreover, as a result of the Word’s executive agency, and of the Spirit’s realizing agency, new increments of power came into the Creative process, at successive stages of development. As emphasized heretofore, this is clearly indicated by the three successive appearances of the verb bara in the Genesis Narrative. In the Hebrew, yatsar means to form or to fashion, and asah means to make. Both of these verbs designate a forming, fashioning, or arranging out of, or with the use of, pre-existing materials. The verb bara, however, in the some forty-eight instances in which it occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures, invariably conveys the idea of a creation absolute, that is, without the use of preexisting materials; and in every instance in which it appears, whatever its object may be, it has God for its subject. Bara is used first in Genesis 1:1now, granting that this affirmation is simply a general introductory statement, which it appears to be, it clearly points to the fact that the first step in the Creative Processperhaps the engendering of the first form of physical energywas a creation absolute.Again, bara is used in Genesis 1:21, obviously to indicate the step upward (or forward) from the unconscious to the conscious order of being: in this passage the beginning of animal lifein the language of the ancients, animal psyche or animal soul,is described. Finally, bara occurs a third and last time in Genesis 1:27: here it designates the step upward from the conscious to the self-conscious (personal) order of being; in the language of the ancients, from animal soul to rational soul. Thus it is clear that the inspired writer intends for us to understand that a creation absolute took place at (at least) three successive steps upward in the actualization of the natural creation, producing for human science the seemingly impenetrable mysteries of physical energy, conscious life, and self-conscious life. It seems evident, moreover, that a creation absolute must have taken place also in the step forward from the nonliving order to the first living being; this, from the point of view of biological science, would have been the first form of plant life, although the author of the Genesis Cosmogony does not explicitly so indicate. (It is a commonplace in present-day biology that the line between plant and animal is so thinly drawnas in certain algae, fungi, etc.as to be indiscernible.) Certainly unless spontaneous generation can be established as a fact of nature, the conclusion would seem to be unavoidable that the plant cell was the first living form to be created. The mystery of lifethe mystery that resides in the protoplasm of the cellhas not yet been penetrated by human science, and unless it can be determined that inanimate matter can per se produce life, we must continue to think that life force (elan vital) is something added to, or superposed upon, the basic physiochemical processes. We must conclude, therefore, that as a result of the brooding of the Divine Spirit, new increments of power came into the Creative Process, at successive stages, to produce the first forms, respectively, of physical energy, the unconscious life of the plant, the conscious life of the animal, and the self-conscious life of man. These are phenomena which mark off the various levels in the total Hierarchy of Being. These levels, moreover, are characterized by differences, not just of degree, but of rank. And the use of the verb bara in the Genesis Cosmogony indicates clearly, with the single exception noted (and the exception would, of course, be eliminated, should it be proved that plant cell and animal cell were cotemporaneous in origin) the beginning of each of these successively higher orders. It is also most significant that the words bara and asah (created and made) are used in Genesis 2:3, by way of recapitulation, evidently to mark the distinction between absolute beginnings and subsequent natural developments or arrangements of that which had previously been originated.

4. The Breath of Life.According to Scripture, the brooding of the Spirit (metaphorically described as the Breath of Life, the Breath of God, etc.) is responsible for every form of life in the universenatural, spiritual, and eternal. And so at the Creation this brooding of the Spirit actualized every form of natural life there isthe unconscious life of the plant, the conscious life of the animal and the self-conscious life of man. (Acts 17:24-25; Genesis 1:21; Genesis 7:21-23; Ecclesiastes 3:21; Job 34:14-15; Psalms 104:27-30.) Commenting on Psalms 104:27, George Matheson writes (VS, 50, 51): Who are the -all-’ here spoken of? They are the living creatures of the whole earth. What! you say, the creatures of the animal world! Can these be said to be in possession of God’s Spirit? I can understand very well how man should be thus privileged. I can understand why a being of such nobleness as the human soul should lay claim to a distinctive pre-eminence. But is it not a bold thing to say that the human soul is in contact with the beast of the field? Is it not a degradation of my nature to affirm that the same Spirit which created me created also the tenants of the deep? No, my brother; if you shall find in God’s Spirit the missing link between yourself and the animal world you will reach a Darwinism where there is nothing to degrade. You are not come from them, but you and they together are the offspring of God. Would you have preferred to have had no such link between you? It is your forgetfulness of that link that has made you cruel to the creatures below. You do not oppress your brother man, because you know him to be your brother; but you think the beast of the field has no contact with the sympathy of your soul. It has a contact, an irrefragable, indestructible contact. You are bound together by one Spirit of creation; you sit at one communion table of nature; you are members of one body of natural life. The glory of being united to thy Father is that in Him thou shalt be united to everything. Thou shalt be allied not only to the highest but to the lowest; thou shalt be able not only to go up but to go down. Thou shalt have the power that the Lord hadthe power to empty thyself to the lowermost to the uttermost. Thou shalt feel that thou owest all things thy sympathy when thou hast recognized this relationship through the same divine Spirit. Perhaps the feeling of a natural kinship between man and the lower orders, so widespread among primitive peoples, was, after all, but a universal intuition of an eternal truth. (See a further elaboration of this concept in our study of Gen 2:7 infra.)

5. Man as the Image of God.(1) Genesis 1:26Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Up to this time God has simply uttered the creative edict, and what He commanded was done; now it seems that He stays His hand, so to speak, for a Divine consilium before He goes on with the final phase of His creative work. The reason is obvious: He is now to bring into existence man, the highest (in inherent powers and faculties) and the noblest (in moral potential) product of His handiwork; man, for whose use and benefit everything else has already been brought into being. Elliott (MG, 36): Man was initiated by a solemn announcement rather than by a command. The lower animals were made each after their kind, but man was made after the image of God.Appointed as head of all other creation (Genesis 1:26), man was the pearl, the crown of creation. As for everything below man, God pronounced it all good .(Genesis 1:25); following man’s creation, however, and his appointment as lord tenant of the earth, Elohim looked out upon His total handiwork and pronounced it very good (v. 41); that is, every created species was fulfilling its nature by doing that which it was designed to do in the over-all plan of God. The cosmology of the Bible is geocosmic in its practical point of view. (2.) It should be noted here that the image of God in man persisted: that is, neither Fall nor Flood destroyed it (Genesis 5:1; Genesis 5:3; Genesis 9:6). Elliott (MG, 37): This is a basic trait which God has stamped upon all mankind. Man may ignore this character, act on the animal level, and, thus in a sense, be -inhuman-’ in the nature of failing to evaluate and use the possibilities which God has graciously given; but he does not lose these possibilities. As long as there is life, there is the opportunity through forgiveness of having dominion and fellowship with God.

(2) A great deal of unprofitable speculation has been engendered about the use of the two terms here, image and likeness. Tayler Lewis, for example (Lange, CDHC, 173), following the Maimonidean tradition, that the us of Gen 1:26 probably indicates communication between the Creator and the already created earth (or subhuman nature as a whole), suggests that the phrases, in our image, after our likeness, could mean that man should be like unto both the divine and the earthy, that is, in the composition of his body a likeness of the earth (or nature) from which he was taken, and in his spirit like to the higher order of being in that it is incorporeal and immortal. He adds: If we depart at all from the patristic view of an allusion to a plurality of Idea in the Deity, the next best is that of Maimonides. In fact, if we regard nature as the expression of the divine Word from which it derives its power and life, the opinion of the Jewish Doctor approaches the patristic, or the Christian, as near as it could from the Jewish standpoint. (Cf. Genesis 2:7, 1 Corinthians 15:47, John 3:31.) (I have stated, in a foregoing paragraph, the common objections to this Maimonidean interpretation of Gen 1:26.) The general tendency today is against making any significant distinctions between the two words, image and likeness.

(3) That image or likeness here is not to be interpreted as any form of corporeal likeness of man to God, is evident from the tenor of Biblical teaching as a whole. In Scripture, for example, God is unequivocally described as Spirit (John 4:24, the words of Jesus; cf. Acts 17:27-28); that is, as one of the earlier creeds puts it, without body or parts, but having understanding and free will. Again, the Second Commandment of the Decalogue expressly forbids, the making or use of any graven image, or likeness of anything, as an object or means of worship (Exodus 20:4-6); in view of this explicit prohibition in the Mosaic Code, it is most unlikely that the terms image or likeness of Gen 1:26 were intended to convey any notion of corporeality in God. As a matter of fact, the Bible is replete with polemics against any form of image-worship (idolatry). Cf. Deuteronomy 5:8, Psalms 106:20; Isaiah 40:18-23; Isaiah 44:9-20; Acts 17:29, Romans 1:22-23; Isaiah 6:1 (Isaiah 6:1note Isaiah’s silence here as to God’s appearance). Of course God is, often spoken of, especially in the Old Testament, in anthropomorphic or metaphorical language; hence, passages, in which He is pictured as thinking, feeling, or willing, as men are wont to think and feel and act (Genesis 6:6; Genesis 3:8; Exodus 32:10-11; Exodus 32:14), and passages in which bodily organs are ascribed to Him, such as hands, arms, eyes, fingers, ears, mouth, lips, etc. (Genesis 3:8; Genesis 11:5; Exodus 8:19; Exodus 15:16; Exodus 31:18; Numbers 11:18; Numbers 11:23; Numbers 12:8; Deuteronomy 8:3; Exodus 33:20-23; Psalms 94:9; Psalms 17:4; Psalms 17:15; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 119:73; Isaiah 1:15; Isaiah 50:2; Isaiah 60:13; Proverbs 2:6; Job 40:9; Zechariah 14:4). All such passages exemplify only the inadequacy of human language to communicate Divine revelation, and the use of the Law of Accommodation to overcomenot too effectively, of coursethis linguistic barrier.

(4) The consensus among Bible students is that the image of God attributed to man in the Creation Narrative consists in the latter’s essential spirituality as an intelligent and free agent, in his moral integrity, and in the dominion over all subhuman orders divinely entrusted to him. That this image of God is still that which specifies man as man and constitutes him to be wondrously superior to all lower orders, even after the Fall and the Flood, is clearly indicated by such passages as Genesis 5:1-3 and Genesis 9:6. In Genesis 9:6, the fact of this image of God in man makes murder (the killing of a human being of one’s own individual authority and with malice aforethought) punishable by taking the life of the murderer: in Biblical teaching, rational life (personality) is man’s greatest good, primarily because he has been created in God’s image. Even Aristotle remarks that the power of reason is the spark of the Divine in man. Chesterton has commented pointedly that man is either the image of God or a disease of the dust. (Cf. Genesis 2:7; Job 27:3; Job 32:8; Psalms 139:14; Psalms 8:3-6; Ecclesiastes 12:7, Hebrews 12:9, etc.) In a word, this image of God in man is the basis of the emphasis on the dignity and worth of the person which runs throughout all Biblical teaching. This conviction of the dignity and worth of the person is the basis of all moral action and of the science of moral action which goes under the name of ethics.Although from the earth, that is, the physiochemical elements, comes man’s physical tabernacle, from God comes that essential spiritthe core, so to speak, of the person and personalitywhich is incorporeal and hence timeless (2 Corinthians 4:18; 2 Corinthians 5:1-10; 1 Corinthians 15:35-58).

(5) Perhaps the meaning of the image of God in man is best summarized in the word personal.That is to say, as God is a Person (Exodus 3:14), so man is a person, though unquestionably in a vastly inferior sense. Some Bible students have tried to clarify this difference by asserting that God is super-personal. To my way of thinking, however, the super in this connection is meaningless, because no one knows or can know in this present life all that is connoted by the prefix. In saying that man is personal in some sense as God is personal, we are surely on Scriptural ground. It is significant that although the Old Testament forbids our thinking of God in the likeness of material things, it does not forbid our thinking of Him in the likeness of our inner selves.My conviction is that the term personal expresses the core of the meaning of the phrase, the image of God, even more precisely than the term moral. True it is that man, by virtue of his possession of understanding and power of choice, is a moral being potentially, and hence responsible for his deeds. However, our Lord alone is the very image of God in human flesh (Hebrews 1:3, John 1:14), that is, God’s image both personally and morallymorally in the sense of actualized potentiality: though in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). His devotion to the Father’s Will was complete devotion; hence, He was holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners (Hebrews 7:26, Matthew 3:15, Luke 2:49; John 4:34; John 5:30; John 5:36; John 6:38; John 17:4).

(6) Some Commentators have held that the image of God indicated here is that of dominion; that is, man’s Divine endowment with dominion over the whole creation is a reflection, so to speak, of God’S; absolute sovereignty. But, is it not more reasonable to conclude that man’s stewardship, his lord tenancy of the universe, follows from his endowments, rather than vice versa? Skinner (ICCG, 32): This view cannot be held without an almost inconceivable weakening of the figure, and is inconsistent with the sequel, where the rule over creatures is, by a separate benediction, conferred on man, already made in the image of God. The truth is that the image marks the distinction between man and the animals, and so qualifies him for dominion: the latter is the consequence, not the essence, of the divine image. (Cf. Psalms 8:3-9.)

(7) Again, neither, image nor likeness should be taken to signify that man is divine. He is human, separated from God, not by degree, but by rank: he belongs to the natural world, whereas God transcends the natural, as Creator transcends His Creation. Only through redemption and sanctification (growth in holiness or wholeness) does man become a partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4, Hebrews 12:14, Matthew 5:8). Elliott (MG, 36): Thus, the words do not imply that man is divine. He is copied after a divine one, patterned after a divine one with some of his attributes: he has functions which are like God’S. Thus, God showed Himself to be the prototype and the original of man. This implies, not that man is just like God, but that man is something on the order of God.

(8) It may be accepted, I think, that image here signifies not only personality, hence possible fellowship with God, but representation as well. Again Elliott (MG, 37): Images in the Orient were to represent someone. Thus, man is the -representative-’ of God over creation. Actually the image idea has something to say about man’s stewardship. Dependence is also involved: man is dependent upon the one for whom he is representative. Since dependent man has been delegated a task of responsibility with a share of authority over creation, he is in turn a responsible being.

(9) However, we repeat the conviction here, for the sake of emphasis, that man is God’s image primarily in the personal sense of the term. Cf. Exodus 3:14Only a person can say meaningfully, I am, that is, only a person uses personal pronouns. Moreover, let us never forget that the fundamental property of the person is individuality, that is, otherness: every person, God included, is unique, every person is an other to every other person. Hence the saint’s ultimate Union with God is not absorption into the Cosmos, into Brahma, Tao, Unity, the One, or what has been designated the ocean of undifferentiated energy (that is, the loss of individuality); it is, on the contrary, according to Scripture teaching, a state of unhindered access to, and fellowship with, the personal living (theistic) God (1 John 1:3-4, 1 Corinthians 13:9-12, Revelation 21:1-8). Again, we take note of the supreme excellence of the Christian faith as compared with Oriental, and indeed all other, systems or cults that may be abroad in the world under the name of religion.

(10) A final constructive word from T. Lewis (Lange, CDHCG, 174) is in order here: The image of God the distinguishing type of man: Hold fast to this in all its spirituality as the mirror of the eternal ideas, and we need not fear naturalism. Many in the church are shivering with alarm at the theories, which are constantly coming from the scientific world, about the origin of species, and the production of man, or rather the physical that may have become man, through the lower types. The quieting remedy is a higher psychology, such as the fair interpretation of the Bible warrants, when it tells is that the primus homo became such through the inspiration (the inbreathing) and the image of God lifting him out of nature, and making him and all his descendants a peculiar species, by the possession of the image of the supernatural.

(11) Male and female created he them.(1) Note the threefold parallelism here of the parts of this verse (27), built around the verb created. This surely indicates a crescendo of jubilation as the writer contemplates the crowning work of Elohim’s creative Word and Spiritthe creatures, both male and female, created in His own image. (2) Note that male and female as used here are generic, that is, designating the two great divisions, according to sex, of the entire human race. As yet they are not proper names, as, for example, in Genesis 3:20 and Genesis 5:3. Note that God called their name Adam, that is, Man, in the day when they were created (Genesis 5:1-2): that is, the generic name was originally ascribed in common to both man and woman. (3) The content of this Genesis 1:27 surely indicates that we have here a kind of panoramic view of the climactic events of this great day, and thus we have confirmation of the essentially panoramic (pictorial-summary, cinemascopic) character of the entire Hebrew Cosmogony. On the view (which will be presented later) that in chapter 2 we have in greater detail, and with special reference to man, the account of the happenings on this sixth day, we may summarize these happenings as follows: the creation of man, the naming of the animal tribes, and the creation of woman. The Garden of Eden narrative seems also to be associated with the events of this day. We are justified in reaching these conclusions, I think, in spite of the chronological indefiniteness of the sequence of the Divine works throughout the entire Creative Epoch. Time seems never to have been a matter of any great concern to the Spirit of God in His revelation of God’s Eternal Purpose as embodied in the Bible.

And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food: and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food; and it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

1. Note the twofold Divine blessing, not to him, but to them (that is, all mankind): the blessing of the power to reproduce their kind, which they were to have in common with the lower orders (Genesis 1:22); also the blessingand responsibilityof dominion over all subhuman orders of being. Are we justified in assuming that man and woman in their original innocence had the power of reproducing their kind by the power of thought alone? It is a point worth considering, although, of course, we have no certain answer.

2.Note also the twofold Divine ordination: to multiply and replenish (populate) the earth, and to subdue it. (I) God ordered them to disperse and to occupy the whole earth. But what did they actually do? They disobeyed God: they concentrated in the land of Shinar and undertook to build a tower to heaven (Genesis 11:1-9). There is no evidence anywhere that God looks with favor on concentration of population, for the obvious reason that it invariably issues in vice, crime, sin, divorce, mental illness, disease, strife, and every kind of evil. (2) God also vested them with dominion over the whole earth, with lord tenancy over the whole of nature. This dominion includes the authority to control and utilize nature, nonliving as well as living, for his own good and the good of his fellows. (If man has the right to life, he has the right to the means of sustaining it, and the means are provided only by the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms.) After all, what is science but the story of man’s fulfilment, whether wittingly or unwittingly on his part, of this Divine injunction to take possession of the earth and subdue it? (3) There are three categories of truth: (a) that which is concealed from man, largely because it lies beyond the power of the human intelligence to apprehend it (the mysteries of nature, such as energy, life, consciousness, perception, self-consciousness, etc., are as inscrutable as the mysteries of grace, such as the triune God, the union of the divine and human in the person of Christ, the incarnation, the atonement, resurrection, immortality, etc.); (b) that which has been embodied in the structure of the cosmos for man to spell out slowly, through the centuries, in the form of his science; and (c) that which has been revealed in Scripture for man’s redemption, sanctification, and immortalization: 2 Peter 1:13all things that pertain unto life and godliness (cf. Deuteronomy 29:29). (John 8:31-32; John 14:6; John 18:37-38; John 17:17).

3. The Glory and Dignity of Man is clearly indicated by many affirmations of the Genesis Cosmogony. Milligan (SR, 36): God’s favor to man is further manifested in the fact, that for his special benefit the whole earth, with all its rich treasures of mineral, vegetable, and animal wealth, was provided. For him, all the matter of the Earth was created in the beginning. For him, all the gold, and silver, and copper, and iron, and granite, and marble, and coal, and salt, and other precious minerals and fossils, were treasured up, during the many ages that intervened between the epoch of Creation and the beginning of the Historic Period. For him, the light and the atmosphere were produced. For him, the world was clothed with grass, and fruits, and flowers. For him, the Sun rose and set in the firmament, and the stars performed their apparent daily and yearly revolutions. For him, the sea and the land were filled with living creatures, and the air was made vocal with the sweet voices of birds. All these things were provided for the good and happiness of man; and then he himself was created to enjoy them. And thus it happened that what was first in design was really last in execution.

The fact of the Glory and Dignity of Man is the crowning revelation of the first chapter of Genesis. Man’s nobility, in the Plan of God, is evidenced as follows: 1. By the time of his appearance in the Creation.He came into existence after all inferior kinds had been created: he was the last and fairest of the Divine works. 2. By the solemn circumstances of his making.With respect to other phases of the creative activity, there was a simple expression of the Divine Will, such as, Let there be light, Let the waters bring forth, etc. But the creation of man necessitated a Divine consilium in which the three Persons of the Godhead were heard to decree among themselves, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. The creation of man was a subject of special consideration and was attended with Divine solicitude and delight. 3. By the dignity of his nature.Created in the image of God, endowed with the essential elements of personality, he is the highest and noblest of all creatures of earth. (Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:7; Job 32:8; Job 33:4; Psalms 8:3-8; Psalms 139:14). 4. By the circumstances of his early environment.Eden, with its delights, was especially fitted up for his occupancy, signifying his early state of innocence, happiness, exemption from physical death, and unhindered access to God (Genesis 2:8-17). It seems that God, foreseeing his fall into sin, prepared the earth at large, with all its vast resources, for his habitation in his fallen state. 5. By the extent of his dominion (Genesis 1:28-31), which is universal. Everything on earth was placed under his lord tenancy, and the Divine command was unequivocal, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. The Scripture makes it crystal clear that man was crown of the Creation for whose sake all else was called into being. Man, in his. primitive state was natural; through rebellion against God, he fell from a natural into an unnatural state (sin is unnatural); by grace, through faith, he may attain to a preternatural state. Man, at present, is fallen, in spiritual ruin, in danger of perishing, and without hope in thisworld or in the world to come, unless he accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as His Redeemer and prepares for ultimate Union with God by growing in the Spiritual Life in this present world. (Romans 3:23-25, John 3:16-18, Ephesians 2:8, 1 John 5:11-12). Let us seek the restoration of the Divine image in our souls, for without holiness no one can hope to see (experience) the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).

Marcus Dods (EB-G): Man is dear to God because he is like Him. Vast and glorious as it is, the sun cannot think God’s thoughts, can fulfil but cannot intelligently sympathize with God’s purpose. Man, alone among God’s works, can enter into and approve of God’s purpose in the world, and can intelligently fulfil it. Without man the whole material universe would have been dark and unintelligent, mechanical and apparently without any sufficient purpose. Matter, however fearfully and wonderfully wrought, is but the platform and the material in which spirit, intelligence, and will may fulfil themselves and find development. Man is incommensurable with the rest of the universe. He is of a different kind and by his moral nature is more akin to God than to His works.

4. The doctrine pointedly emphasized in Scripture that the cosmos with its myriad forms of life was brought into existence for man’s use and benefit (Genesis 1:28-30; Genesis 9:1-3) is looked upon as absurd by self-appointed positivists, naturalists, humanists, pessimists, and all their kind: the very idea, they say, is consummate egotism on man’s part, In one breath they tell us that man is utterly insignificant, just a speck on a speck of the totality of being; in the next breath, they will contend that man’s capacity for knowledge is infinite, thus vesting him potentially with omniscience. (Man’s capacity for knowledge is indefinite, but not infinite.) Among these skeptics and agnostics, consistency is never regarded as a jewel. If the lower orders, nonliving and living, were not brought into existence for man’s benefit, (a) for what conceivable end could they have been created?the only alternative view would be that of the utter purposelessness of all being; (b) how does it happen that man is the only created being capable of inquiring into the meaning of the cosmos-’ and of his own life in it? and (c) how does it happen that man is vested with a well-nigh insatiable spirit of wonder (curiosity?) which drives him into an unabating quest for the understanding and control of his environment?

5. One might well ask at this point, Why a Creation at all? Or, for those who would deny Creation, why the existence of the totality of being that obviously does exist? Of course, man has no certain answer to this question, nor is the certain answer to be found anywhere that I know of (cf. Job 11:7, Isaiah 55:8-9, Hebrews 11:6). I firmly believe, however, that God’s activity in whatever realm, whether that of the physical Creation or that of the spiritual Creation, the Regeneration (Matthew 19:28; John 1:3; John 3:3-6; Titus 3:5), is the outpouring of His love. And, we might ask, even though human intelligence cannot fathom the mystery, How could God’s love be as fully revealed in any area of being as in a world of lost sinners? (Cf. John 3:16-17, Acts 3:21; Ephesians 3:8-12; Romans 8:21; Romans 8:38-39; 1 John 4:7-21). It strikes me that man’s weakness is his utter incapacity to fathom the super-abundance of the Divine Love which is lavished unstintedly upon the creatures which He created in His own image. May we not be justified in believing also that it is this unfathomable, ineffable Divine Love which caused the Creator to shower upon mankind the glories of the physical as well as those of the spiritual Creation. Intrinsically, God’s end in Creation is the well-being (happiness) of His moral creatures; extrinsically, His primary end is His own glory. Nor is this doctrine of the love of God incompatible with that of the final punishment of the neglectful, disobedient and wicked (Matthew 25:46, John 5:28-29, Romans 2:4-11, 2 Thessalonians 2:7-10, Revelation 20:11-15). We must remember that God did not prepare Hell for mankind, but for the devil and his angels(Matthew 25:41); the lost who go there will do so because their individual consciences will send them to their proper place (Acts 1:25, Revelation 6:16-17).

6. Genesis 1:29-30. There is a difference of opinion as to whether these verses indicate that only vegetable diet was permitted for man’s sustenance. One view is that we cannot dogmatically affirm that man’s dominion over the animals did not involve his using them for food; indeed the fact of animal sacrifice (first noted in ch. 4) probably indicates that the worshipers ate the flesh of the victim: this seems to have been an aspect of sacrifice wherever practiced. On the other hand, it is contended by many that Genesis 9:3 clearly teaches that the use of animals for food was not authorized prior to Noah’s time. We do have indicated here, however, a fundamental scientific fact, namely, that plants with their chlorophyll, because of the mysterious work of photosynthesis which they perform, are absolutely necessary food for all animal life (including human beings).

7. Genesis 1:31Everything was very good.(Cf. Psalms 104:24; Psalms 119:68.) The meaning of good as used in these first few Chapter s of Genesis is uniformly the same: the good is that which is suitable to a nature, that which adds a perfection or removes an imperfection. The nature of any class of things is determined by their function.Note Genesis 2:18it is not good that the man should be alone. That is to say, alone the man could never have actualized the functions for which he had been created, namely the reproduction of his kind and their stewardship over the whole of the Creation; without a helper meet for his needs, his appearance on the scene would have been utterly purposeless and useless. Hence, anything to be good must be good for something; that is, for the function it was created to perform. Therefore, when Elohim looked out over His Creation and pronounced it all good, this meant that all created species were actualizing the functions for which they had been created, in relation to the totality of being: the consequence was, of course, harmony, order, peace. Note also that heretofore God simply pronounced His handiwork good (Genesis 1:10; Genesis 1:12; Genesis 1:18; Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:25), but now, in contemplation of the finished Creation, God pronounces it all very good.The reason for the special emphasis is obvious: man, the crown of Creation, has now made his appearance on the scene and been appointed lord tenant of the universe. (The various existents of the subhuman world (both the nonliving and the living) are incapable of dysfunctions that would distort their natures; man alone, endowed as he is with the power of choice to endow him with the power to love, has succeeded in messing up practically everything that God has created; without this power of choice, however, man simply would not be man-he would be only a robot or an automaton.) God never makes anything but good.Nature was perfect (complete) as it came from His hand. There was nothing to mar this perfection until sin (moral evil) entered Eden, bringing in its wake disease, suffering, and death (physical evil).