Skilful Work of a Creator. 393 the formation and modelling of the earth as the direct act of God; it rejects the intervention of secondary causes in those events." 1 The statement is wholly incorrect. With far more fairness and truth it might be said-Scripture gives the true theory and real facts of the scientific doctrine of Development. Water is said to produce the things of the deep; and from the earth, as mother, proceed every plant and living creature of the land. David, with true science and common sense, used these words as to God-"Who maketh His angels spirits; His ministers a flaming fire" (Ps. civ. 4). The LXX. translation, and the Epistle to the Hebrews i. 7, lead us to understand that God maketh His angels like winds (viz., incorporeal, swift, powerful), and His ministers (His heavenly servants) as a flame of fire. In Mendelssohn's "Beor" the verse is explained: "He maketh the winds His messengers, and lightnings His ministers." Kimchi, Yarchi, and others take it much in the same way. The best thinkers hold that the universe is not only the skilful work of a Creator, but of a Creator acting by means of those physical properties and chemical combinations of matter which He had Himself conferred. The professor further states-"A Divine revelation of science admits of no improvement, no change, no advance. It discourages as needless, and indeed as presumptuous, all new discovery, considering it as an awful prying into things which it was the intention of God to conceal." 2 Scripture we must state it again and again—is not a revelation of science, therefore the charge is groundless. So-called scientific statements are, for the most part, popular illustrations for the use of unscientific people. David shall admonish the professor as to the studies of those who love Scripture "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein " (Ps. cxi. 2). Solomon, no mean man, gives a rebuke, for he greatly studied those works (1 Kings iv. 30-33). The founders of universities, the ancient endowers of schools, rightly thought that our knowledge of God as Creator leads to a more reverential and better understanding both of Creation and Revelation. These devout men, far from thinking that Scripture allowed 1 Conflict between Religion and Science: " Prof. Draper. no improvement, no change, no advance, encouraged as useful, as reverential, all search after truth: pious men have ever been the great promoters of learning and of science. An able man, in his own line of things, praises and dispraises at the same time :- "Two great and fundamental ideas, common also to the non-miraculous theory of development, meet us in this Mosaic hypothesis of Creation, with surprising clearness and simplicity—the idea of separation or differentiation, and the idea of progressive development or perfecting. Although Moses looks upon the result of the great laws of organic development (which we shall later point out as the necessary conclusions of the doctrine of Descent) as the direct actions of a constructing Creator, yet in his theory there lies hidden the ruling idea of a progressive development and a differentiation of the originally simple matter. We can therefore bestow our just and sincere admiration on the Jewish lawgiver's grand insight into Nature, and his discovering in it a so-called 'Divine revelation.' That it cannot be such is clear from the fact that two grand fundamental errors are asserted in it, namely, first, the geocentric error that the earth is the fixed central point of the whole universe, round which the sun, moon, and stars move; and secondly, the anthropocentric error, that man is the premeditated aim of the creation of the earth, for whose service alone all the rest of Nature is Isaid to have been created." 1 The learned professor ought to know that Moses says nothing about man being "the premeditated aim of the creation;" but that man, being the highest work of God, was made lord of earthly creatures. Further, it is somewhat inconsistent to credit Moses for far-reaching wisdom; and yet, to tax him with rudest ignorance in that very thing concerning which he was wise. The Geocentric Error is no error; the earth is popularly, figuratively, poetically, and as our own standpoint, the centre. The Anthropocentric Error is likewise to be explained as a popular mode of speech. In reality, all true spiritual presentation passes into the infinite -suggests rather than expresses. Scripture must be judged in accordance with all the facts: the earth is great, the sun is greater; as to far-off worlds, assertion becomes unscientific, yet to those worlds and beyond them travels the human "The History of Creation:" Prof. Haeckel. Blasphemy and Fault-making. 395 spirit, as if exceeding all, seeking brighter light and higher life. It is the height of unreason, for materialistic and atheistic professors-blaming the statement of Scripture that man's true greatness is found in likeness to God-to tell us that we are merely clever beasts, and yet-the only god! With utter loathing we give the following reprehensible declaration:-"The dim and shadowy outlines of the superhuman deity fade slowly away from before us; and as the mist of his presence floats aside, we perceive with greater and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander and nobler figure, of him who made all Gods, and shall unmake them. From the dim dawn of history, and from the inmost depth of every soul, the face of our father Man looks out upon us with the fire of eternal youth in his eyes, and says—' Before Jehovah was, I am.'" It is contemptible folly for these blasphemers to talk thus of "our father Man." Why, they assure us that he was nothing better than-a monkey! and probably something less. i The expressions-rising, setting, travelling of the sun, the fixity and foundations of the earth-though the only intelligible language, have been found fault with. We are told "Scripture speaks of a flat earth; and of the sky as a watery vault in which the sun, moon, and stars set; of the firmament as a solid arch, literally something beaten , or hammered out; and of the Almighty as a gigantic man." Really, such fault-making displays neither intelligence nor candour; but the grossest ignorance of the Book they presume to condemn. If opponents would remember that no science is involved here, that these are the every-day statements of all ages; and if they discriminate as to what is fact and what figure, where literal accuracy is to be looked for and where a poetic thought, they will be preserved from an infinity of folly. The firmament is that in which, to the eyes of the people, sun and stars do set; and is, indeed, a space for waters. The earth, in common language, is ever spoken of as a plane. In a higher sense even than is stated, the sun does go forth as a giant to run a race. The stability of the earth is counted an error : "The world also shall be stable, that it be not moved" (1 Chron. xvi. 30). "Lectures and Essays: " W. K. Clifford, vol. ii. p. 243. "The world also is stablished that it cannot be moved" (Ps. xciii. 1, xcvi. 10, cxix. 90; Eccl. i. 4). The real meaning is-God, who made the earth, will support it; the excellent order which He established shall be maintained; neither storms from without, nor any commotion from within, shall unsettle its abiding. The principal texts mentioning the movement of sun and stars are: "The sun was risen upon the earth" (Gen. xix. 23). 66 "The sun "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose" (Eccl. i. 5). Science uses the same language now, and it is the best language. He who finds fault with Scripture for poetically and popularly speaking of the sun, must deal with other books in the same manner. If, however, scientific accuracy is unreasonably demanded; we answer that even here, “deep answers to the deep within sacred oracles"—the sun revolving on his axis, as actually viewed from the earth by scientific men and as revolving around his own great centre, does rise, set, go forth and return, in a manner truly wonderful,' and surpassing all expectation. Two other passages are asserted to be incorrect : "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon" (Josh. x. 12). The sun and his shadow are stated to have returned ten degrees (2 Kings xx. 10; Isa. xxxviii. 8). The words translated "sun" and "moon" rather refer to the light than to the substance of those bodies. In what way God continued the sunlight, or a light resembling it, so that Israel fought as in the day, we know not, nor does it seem in the power of man to explain the wonder which confirmed Hezekiah's faith; but a scientific eye-witness might possibly have discerned some of the means by which the different marvels were wrought, though the stopping of the earth in its axial rotation, or the return of degrees, may be precisely inexplicable as a change in natural order naturally effected. No human effort can bring Scripture miracles within the Providential and Miraculous Arrangements. 397 understood range of natural order; indeed, their evidential value depends upon deviation from that order. Both of those in question may have been special providences-coincidences of physical events with moral lessons in illustration of Divine rule. Providential and miraculous arrangements are probably similar to those operations which we see day by day in the course of Nature; for all things, ordinary and extraordinary, are wrought by eternal omnipresent power. Nature, ever flowing onward in the uninterrupted but not unchangeable rhythm of cause and effect, is mediately used and subordinated by the human will acting as a trigger to liberate controlling power. Divine Will acts mediately by Nature, and directly upon Nature, with infinite wisdom and might. It is in the dark we see the stars: and often in the dark we feel that God is near. With scientific affectation calculations have been made to show that the miracle wrought on behalf of Israel, in the days of Joshua, required the energy of six trillions of horses; was a wasteful expenditure, in a few hours, of that which would have provided fighting power for all the armies of the world during millions of years.1 Such trifling needs no grave reply. Match it with another calculation: the wisdom and power requisite to form and give life, by human means, to a cheese mite, would require more than all the millions of men from the beginning of creation till now have possessed; what a waste of power for God to have been at such expenditure for a cheese mite! Of 2,300 million parts of light and heat emitted by the sun, our earth only receives one part. What a stupendous loss if men are the only creatures cared for! Surely those who blame us for likening God to man— when we exhort men to be God-like, are more blameable for making God man-like, by accounting that anything is either little or much to Him. Greatness and smallness are relative-nothing more: "there is absolutely nothing to show that even a portion of matter which in our most powerful microscope appears hopelessly minute as the most distant star appears in our telescopes, may not be as astoundingly complex in its structure as is that star itself, even if it far exceed our own sun in magnitude." 2 "Miracles and Special Providences: " Prof. Tyndall. 2 "Recent Advances in Physical Science," p. 284: Prof. P. G. Tait. |