The Mosaic method found in the first chapter of the book of Genesis is not
the method of physical science; this seeks, by induction, after laws,
principles and causes, stepping backwards step by step, seeking, by the
light of physical science, the character of that unit which lies at the
base of the whole series of all created things. “The world by wisdom knew
not God.” The truth of this statement is monumented by the literature of
the unbelievers of the nineteenth century. To-day, men who refuse Bible
instruction talk of the unknown and the unknowable, thus conceding that
their efforts as naturalists, or “natural men,” are not sufficient in
their results to disclose the character of the great first cause. The same
great failure has been, and ever will be, made by all mere naturalists. In
view of this fact it is well that Moses gives us at once the great first
cause in the phrase, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth.” There is in this sentence no limitation of time, so there is room
here for astronomical ages, cycle upon cycle. There was time enough in
that beginning for the present system of planets to be arranged from a
single nebulous mass. In it we have a picture of matter in a crude
condition, without fixedness of form, surrounded with darkness. Then comes
the commencement of the great work of preparing our planet for the home of
man, by the spirit of God moving over the chaos. There is nothing in this
statement that should perplex any man, unless he is that fool who “says in
his heart there is no God.” If the chaos here described was matter in a
rare, gaseous condition, floating in space, molecular motion produced by
the spirit of God brooding over it, and a chemical change producing
electricity may have given the light called the first day.
Here is that troublesome word _day_. Why should it give trouble to any
scientist? It is a part of his duty to know that neither this word nor the
context in the first chapter of Genesis, nor biblical usage, requires us
to limit the term to a period of twenty-four hours. But the context does
limit it, in its first occurrence, to an indefinite period of _light_.
“GOD CALLED THE LIGHT DAY!” In the fourth verse of the second chapter the
word is used to cover the whole period of time past, both the beginning
and the subsequent six work-days of the Almighty, thus: “These are the
generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, IN THE
DAY when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” This is no modern
invention, gotten up to serve a purpose; for Augustine so understood this
matter in the fourth century. He called them “ineffable days,” describing
them as alternate pauses in the work of God. Such was the interpretation
given by the first Christians. Why should we try to measure this term day,
in its first occurrences, by a chronometer which did not come into use
until the fourth day? The notion that these days were twenty-four hours,
sprang up in the middle ages, and is the child of the literalism and
realism of those times. Moses gives seven great constructive periods of
light, which beautifully harmonize with the seven great geological ages
lying this side of his beginning. How he came to do this has perplexed the
incredulous scholar and historian beyond measure; it is, indeed, a
remarkable fact in literature, but it gives strength to the faith of the
intelligent Christian. God was with Moses; his cosmogony bears evidence of
inspiration. Compare his narrative with the cosmogonies of the ancient
nations. There is but little similitude; if there was much it would not
prove identity. It would be strange if the ancient nations should have no
truth in their cosmogonies. And if they had, would it not be more strange
for Moses to leave it out on that account? It would be well to remind you
just here that the Almighty, and doubtless his man Moses also, knew that
men possessed at least _common sense_. In the New Testament we have the
word tartarus in its verb form. Where did it come from? The Apostle Peter,
guided by the divine spirit, found it in Grecian mythology. Is it to be
thrown out on that account? Nay, verily. A man of God, that is, a prophet,
in any of the ancient ages as far back as Moses, is not to be regarded as
under obligations to shun a truth because it was already in use among men.
The man who would claim such a silly thing ought to be discarded from
scientific and literary circles as a blockhead. The cosmogony of the
Babylonians represents the beginning of things in darkness and water; in
which great non-descript animals, hideous monsters, half-beasts and
half-men, made their appearance; then a woman, who personates the creative
spirit or principle, was split into two parts, and the heaven and the
earth produced by the division. Next Belus, the supreme divinity, cut off
his own head, and his blood, trickling down and mingling with the dust of
the earth, produced human creatures having intelligence and spiritual
life. The Phœnician cosmogony presents, first, an ether or a mist diffused
in space. Next, a wind arose, and from this motion proceeded a Spiritual
God, from whom proceeded an egg, which, being divided, produced the
heavens and the earth. Next, the noise of thunder awakened beings into
spiritual life. The Egyptian cosmogony presents a principal divinity,
whose name was Ptah, the world-creating power, who shaped the cosmic egg,
which again appears here, as in the Phœnician. Next, there followed from
Ptah a long succession of gods, with many offices and powers—solar,
telluric and spiritual—from whom, after a time, proceeded _demigods_, and
then from these proceeded heroes, until the link of our humanity was
reached. According to Grote, Grecian mythology opens with the gods prior,
as well as superior, to man; it then descends gradually to heroes and then
to the human race. Along with their gods are presented many monsters,
ultra-human and extra-human, who can’t consistently be styled gods, but
who partake with gods and man in the attributes of free-will, conscious
agency and susceptibility of pleasure and pain—such as the Harpies, the
Gorgons, the Sirens, the Sphinx, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, etc. After a
great struggle, or contest, among these wonderful creatures, there arises
a stable government of Zeus, the chief among the gods. Then appears chaos,
then the broad, firm, flat earth, with deep and dark tartarus below, and
from these proceed different divinities and creatures, some grand and
terrible, some simply monsters; their relations to each other violate all
notions of decency and morality; their wars and slaughters, their gross
and abominable crimes issue in successive creative products upon earth,
which terminate at last in the appearance of man.
Next we will give you the cosmogony of the Vedas, as it is presented in
what is known as the mystic hymn of the Vedas. It is _Pantheistic to the
core_. “It is one of the earliest relics of Hindu thought and devotion:”
“Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven’s broad woof outstretched above.
What covered all? What sheltered? What concealed?
Was it the water’s fathomless abyss?
There was not death—yet was there naught immortal;
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself;
OTHER than It NOTHING since has been.
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound—an ocean without light.
The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
Then first came love upon it, the new spring
Of mind—yea, poets in their hearts discerned,
Pondering, this bond between created things
And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven?
Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose—
Nature below, and power and will above.
Who knows the secret? Who proclaimed it here?
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The gods themselves came later into being?
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
He from whom all this creation came,
Whether his will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it—or perchance even He knows it not.”
—The Rig-Veda, book 10, hymn 129. Translated from Max Mullers’
“Chips from a German Workshop.”
This is Pantheistic throughout, and although it presents no absurd
combinations of matter and spirit, yet it puts the material creation
before the creation of the spiritual, and scarcely allows consciousness to
“the One,” “the It,” from which, somehow, the creation proceeded. The Book
of Menu, which is of equal value with the Veda among the Hindoos, gives
the following account of the creation:
“Menu sat reclined, with his attention fixed on one object, the supreme
God, when the divine sages approached him, and, after mutual salutations
in due form, delivered the following address: Deign, sovereign ruler, to
apprise us of the sacred laws in their order, as they must be followed by
all the four classes, and by each of them, in their several degrees,
together with the duties of every mixed class; for thou, Lord, and thou
only among mortals, knowest the true sense, the first principle, and the
prescribed ceremonies of this universal, supernatural Veda, unlimited in
extent and unequalled in authority.
“He whose powers were measureless, being thus requested by the great
sages, whose thoughts were profound, saluted them all with reverence and
gave them a comprehensive answer, saying: Be it heard! This universe
existed only in the first divine idea yet unexpanded, as if involved in
darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and
undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep; then
the sole, self-existing power, himself undiscovered, but making this world
discernible, with five elements and other principles of nature, appeared
with undiminished glory, expanding his idea or dispelling the gloom. He,
whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external
organs, who has not visible parts, who exists from eternity, even he, the
soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person.
He, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance,
first, with a thought, created the waters and placed in them a productive
seed; that seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing like the luminary
with a thousand beams; AND IN THAT EGG HE WAS BORN HIMSELF IN THE FORM OF
BRAHMA THE GREAT FOREFATHER OF ALL SPIRITS. The waters were called nara,
because they were the production of Nara, or the spirit of God; and, since
they were his first ayana, or place of motion, he thence is named
Nayrayana, or moving on the waters. From that which is, the first cause,
not the object of sense, existing everywhere in substance, not existing to
our perception, without beginning or end, was produced the divine male,
famed in all worlds under the appellation of Brahma. In that egg the great
power sat inactive a whole year of the Creator, at the close of which, by
his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself; and from its two
divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth beneath; in the midst
he placed the subtile ether, the eight regions, and the permanent
receptacle of waters.
“From the supreme soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially, though
unperceived by sense, immaterial; and before mind, or the reasoning power,
he produced consciousness, the internal monitor, the ruler; and before
them both he produced the great principle of the soul, or first expansion
of the divine idea; and all vital forms endued with the three qualities of
goodness, passion and darkness; and the five perceptions of sense, and the
five organs of sensation. Thus, having at once pervaded, with emanations
from the Supreme Spirit, the minutest portions of six principles immensely
operative, consciousness and the five perceptions, he framed all
creatures; and since the minutest particles of visible nature have a
dependence on those six emanations from God, the wise have accordingly
given the name of S’arira, or depending on six, that is, the ten organs on
consciousness, and the five elements on as many perceptions, to his image
or appearance in visible nature; thence proceed the great elements, endued
with peculiar powers, the mind with operations infinitely subtile, the
unperishable cause of all apparent forms.
“This universe, therefore, is compacted from the minute portions of these
seven divine and active principles, the great soul, or first emanation,
consciousness, and five perceptions; a mutable universe from immutable
ideas. Among them each succeeding element acquires the quality of the
preceding; and in as many degrees as each of them is advanced, with so
many properties is it said to be endued. He, too, first assigned to all
creatures distinct names, distinct acts, and distinct occupations, as they
had been revealed in the pre-existing Veda. He, the supreme ruler, created
an assemblage of inferior _Deities_, with divine attributes and pure
souls, and a number of Genii exquisitely delicate; and he prescribed the
sacrifice from the beginning. From fire, from air, and from the sun he
milked out, as it were, three primordial Vedas, named Rich, Yajush and
Saman, for the due performance of the sacrifice.
“He gave being to time and the divisions of time, to the stars also, and
to the planets, to rivers, oceans and mountains, to level plains and
uneven valleys, to devotion, speech, complacency, desire and wrath, and to
the creation, which shall presently be mentioned; for he willed the
existence of all those created things. For the sake of distinguishing
actions, he made a total difference between right and wrong, and enured
these sentient creatures to pleasure and pain, cold and heat, and other
opposite pairs. With very minute transformable portions called matras, of
the five elements, all this perceptible world was composed in fit order;
and in whatever occupation the Supreme Lord first employed any vital soul,
to that occupation the same soul attaches itself spontaneously when it
receives a new body again and again. Whatever quality, noxious or
innocent, harsh or mild, unjust or just, false or true, he conferred on
any being at its creation, the same quality enters it, of course, on its
future births; as the six seasons of the year attain respectively their
peculiar marks in due time and of their own accord, even so the several
acts of each embodied spirit attend it naturally.
“That the human race might be multiplied, he caused the Brahmen, the
Cshatriya, the Vaisya and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arm,
his thigh and his foot.
“Having divided his own substance, the mighty power became half male, half
female, or nature active and passive, and from that female he produced
Viraz. Know me, O most excellent of Brahmens, to be that person whom the
male power, Viraz, having performed austere devotion, produced by myself;
me, the secondary framer of all this visible world. It was I who, desirous
of giving birth to a race of men, performed very difficult religious
duties, and first produced ten Lords of created beings, animated in
holiness, Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Cratu, Prachetas, or
Dacsha, Vasishtha, Bhrigu and Narada; they, abundant in glory, produced
seven other Menu, together with deities and the mansions of deities, and
Maharshis, or great sages, unlimited in power; benevolent genii, and
fierce giants, blood-thirsty savages, heavenly quiristers, nymphs and
demons, huge serpents and snakes of smaller size, birds of mighty wing,
and separate companies of Pitirs, or progenitors of mankind; lightnings
and thunder-bolts, clouds and colored bows of Indra, falling meteors,
earth-rending vapors, comets and luminaries of various degrees;
horse-faced sylvans, apes, fish, and a variety of birds, tame cattle,
deer, men, and ravenous beasts with two rows of teeth; small and large
reptiles, moths, lice, fleas, and common flies, with every biting knat and
immovable substances of distinct sorts.”
Reader, I have given you this chapter of ancient cosmogonies under the
conviction that a bare statement of them must convince any one of either
the ignorance or dishonesty of infidels who claim that Moses learned all
that he gave in his cosmogony from the ancient cosmogonies. How was it
that Moses avoided all their errors and extravagance? How was it that he
gave such a severely simple description of creation, which no rhetoric can
improve, and no scientist _successfully_ refute?
Can you believe that energy, or force, lies behind all things, operating
them, without believing there is something lying behind it, to which it
belongs?
Can you believe that a concourse of dead atoms held a solemn convention,
went into harmonious action and produced life?