Creation. For the scientific discussion of the method by which creation has been effected, reference must be made to the articles DARWINIAN THEORY, EVOLUTION, MAN, SPECIES, and others; but it may be desirable to make a brief statement here regarding the controversy between Genesis and science. In reality, so far as modern scientific theology is concerned, this controversy is now practically at an end, so that only the briefest historical sketch will be necessary to show the nature of the problem and the steps by which the final conclusion has been reached.
To theology, Genesis had for centuries seemed to affirm that the world was created in six days by successive divine commands. To modern science, on the other hand, the rocks disclosed accumulating evidence that the earth and its forms of life were not 'created' in this sense at all, but slowly built up or evolved by secondary causes under the control of natural laws. The new scientific position did not traverse the biblical view of the origin of matter or of life; nor did it deny that the laws of nature might be 'the hands of the Living God.' But it claimed that the creation of the world was an ordinary problem for scientific investigation, and that so far as that had gone, some form of development was probably the means by which creation had been brought about. Frankly recognising the right of science to deal with this question, and accepting on certain points the overwhelming evidence of geology, theologians found themselves compelled to reconsider their ground. The first difficulty was that of time. And here they yielded at once by substituting 'periods' for the 'days' of Genesis—an expedient which, whatever literary objection may be taken to it, was certainly allowed by the original Hebrew. Efforts were next made to reconcile these 'periods' with the formations of geology and with the succession of life as revealed by palæontology. Devout men of science worked out these harmonies with great learning and ingenuity, and as new discoveries of science threw their labours aside, fresh workers by further manipulation of the data on either side continued the attempt to bring the apparently rival records once more into line. Prominent among these attempts were the Universal Pre-Adamite Chaos theory of Dr Chalmers; the Partial Chaos theory of Dr Pye Smith; the Vision theory of Hugh Miller; and the cognate though not identical theories of Kurtz and Guyot. Such attempts were at that time perfectly admissible, and even inevitable—inevitable because the true direction from which the solution was to come was not yet suspected. But one by one these efforts failed. An attempt by Mr Gladstone, so recently as 1885, elicited a reply from Mr Huxley, who, in the name of modern science, not only repudiated the immediate theory but made it obvious that no reconstruction along that line was ever likely to square with acknowledged facts of science. It is of course always possible to challenge the current reading of a growing science, and the harmonist may still take refuge if he chooses in the fallibility of contemporary interpretations of nature. But on the general question of gradual development versus specific creation, the consensus of mature scientific opinion is now so pronounced that any one still clinging to the latter would find it impossible to impress his views upon his age. In some other way, then, the educated mind will seek to reconcile to itself the apparent want of reconciliation between the teaching of nature and the teaching of Scripture.
Stated in a word, the explanation is to be sought for in the fact—recently brought into prominence by the young science of biblical criticism—that the Scriptures really contain no teaching at all upon matters of science. It is an elementary canon of literary criticism that any interpretation of a part of a book or of a literature must be controlled by the dominant purpose or motif of the whole. And when one investigates that dominant purpose in the case of the Bible, it is found to reduce itself to one thing—religion. The books of the Bible, respectively, can only be read aright in the spirit in which each was written, with its original purpose in view, and its original audience. Bearing that in view in the case of Genesis it soon becomes evident that a scientific theory of the universe formed no part of the original writer's intention. Could any one with any historical imagination for a moment expect that it would have been? There was no science then. Scientific questions were not even asked then. And to have given men science would not only have been an anachronism, but a source of mystification and confusion. If the Bible had really aimed at science-teaching, geology would have been one of the last things upon which it would have enlightened mankind. Why was not physiology taught to physicians, or the use of chloroform to surgeons, or of the stars to navigators—matters which would have affected the well-being and actual life of man? In fact it is a first principle of revelation—involved in the very meaning of the word and proved by its whole expression—that matters which are discoverable by human reasoning and observation should find no place in it, that its subject matter is that alone which men could not find out for themselves. Men could find out for themselves the order in which the world was made. What they could not find out was, that God made it. That therefore was the object of Genesis—theology, not geology. Genesis is a presentation of one or two great elementary religious truths to the childhood of the world. Dating from the infancy of the world, written for children, and for that child-spirit in man which remains unchanged by time, its literary form takes colour and shape accordingly. It is not dedicated to the reason but to the soul. It is a sublime theology, clothed in the most memorable and impressive dress, utilising, purifying, and transfusing with the religious spirit some material at least which was common to the cosmogonies of all nations. Now from this point of view the problem of the reconciliation of Genesis with geology simply disappears. The question becomes as irrelevant as when it is asked what the Paradise Lost is meant to prove. Science and Genesis are no longer in competition as to which shall be the accepted authority regarding the process of the creation of the world. Genesis does not even enter the field. And in ceding this position it is only to assume, with even greater authority, its legitimate and much higher function.
The strength of this attitude is that it is quite independent of all conclusions of science. Evolution may be true or false, science may change its ground, new discoveries may arise; but these cannot affect the literary and theological province within which wholly this question is now seen to lie. Hence the attack of science is for ever disarmed. And those who assent to evolution, and the many who in its present form do not yet see their way to accept it, may hold an equal truce with Genesis.
As regards the material utilised by the writer in Genesis, it is sufficient to remark that most of it is a common property of the older cosmogonies. The mythology of Persia describes six creative periods of a thousand years; the cosmogony of the Chaldeans is similar; while that of the Etruscans agrees still more closely with the order of Genesis. Thus the Bible did not create this material, nor reveal it. It incorporated it, inspired it, and so made it the vehicle of a revelation.