THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
CREATION AND PRESERVATION OF THE WORLD.
I. The Biblical and Theological Doctrine. II. The Cosmogonies of Ancient and Modern Paganism.
1. The Mythological Cosmogonies of Paganism Proper.
2. Cosmogonic Notions in Ancient, especially Greek,
Philosophy.
3. The Gnostic-Manichean Cosmogonies.
4. Speculative Cosmogonies of the Modern Pantheistic-
MateriaUstio Natural Philosophy. III. The Creation Theories of the Older Judaism and the Judaizing Christianity of Many Fathers and Modern Theologians.
1 . In Judaism Proper.
2. In the Patristic Period.
3. In Modern Times.
IV The Normal Via Media between Jewish and Pagan Theories.
V. Preservation of the World.
I. The Biblical and Theological Doctrine: The
idea of the origin of the universe through the creative power of God is inseparable from the fundamental conception of monotheism. If there is but one living, personal God, nothing in the world can have come into being but through his will. Nowhere is this idea more clearly expressed than in the Old and New Testaments. According to the Mosaic account, God created " the heaven and the earth," that is, the whole natural universe, " in the beginning " of all temporal being. In six working-days he called into existence all inorganic and organic beings by the simple word of power, " Let there be " this or that (Gen. 1. 1-ii. 3). God is not less the absolute creator of the world to the authors of Ps. xxxiii. and civ. and Job xxxviii. With the same definiteness the deutero-canonical or apocryphal literature of pre-Christian Judaism emphasizes the monotheistic nature of the idea of creation (Ecclus. xvi. 26-xvii. 9; II Mace. vii. 28; Wisd. xi. 17 sqq.*). In the New Testament the content of the Mosaic cosmogony is presupposed in numerous sayings of Christ and his apostles, as in those which mention the foundation of the world (John i. 24; Matt. xxv. 24; Luke xi. 50; Eph. i. 4; I Pet. i. 20; Heb. iv. 3), the creation of man and woman (Matt. xix. 4-6; Acts xvii. 24-26; I Tim. ii. 13), and the Sabbath, on which God rested (Heb. iv. 4; cf. John v. 17). God is repeatedly spoken of as the Lord of heaven and earth, who made both (Matt. xi. 25; Luke x. 21; Acts xvii. 24; cf. Rev. iv. 11); as the primal source, of whom are all things (I Cor. viii. 6; Rom. xi. 36; cf. Eph. iv. 6); as the everlasting Father, who through the Son made the world (John i. 3; Col. i. 15-18; Heb. i. 2); as the invisible God, who reveals his eternal power and Godhead by the works of his hands (Rom. i. 20; Acts xiv. 17). The creation of the world out of nothing is mentioned at least once in the New Testament (Heb. xi. 3).
On the basis of this Biblical teaching the dogmatic theology of the Church developed. The most important Fathers, the scholastics, and the old Protestant theologians are in essential agreement in the doctrine of a miraculous creation of the world out of nothing. The distinction is made between a first or immediate and a second or mediate creation. The former is the creation of " the heavens and the earth," i.e., of the substance of the universe both within and without this world.
as well as of purely spiritual or immaterial essences. The second is the gradual development and organization of the matter immediately created out of nothing. As the operative cause of creation the entire Trinity is named, the Father creating the world by the Son in the Holy Ghost (Ps. xxxiii. 6; Gen. i. 2; John i. 3; Heb. i. 2; Col. i. 16; cf. also Rom. xi. 36; Eph. iv. 6). As the final end of creation dogmatic theology places the glorification of God or the complete revelation of his power, wisdom, and goodness — as the intermediate end the beatification of men through their union with God (cf. Gen. i. 31; Ps. viii. 5, xix. 2, cxv. 16; Is. xlv. 18; Acts xvii. 26; I Cor. xv. 46).
The variations from this doctrine which have made their appearance in the history of human speculation have related either to the creative subject or to the manner of creation, modifying either the conception of a conscious personal Creator or that of a determinate process of creation rising by a definite progression to man. On the first point, they are inclined toward changing creation into a mere cosmogony or slow development of the world; on the second, toward neglecting the element of cosmogony or well-ordered plan in creation. The former is the common error of all pagan doctrines of the origin of the universe, as well as of such pagan-pantheistic speculation as has taken place within the Church. The doctrine of later Judaism and the Judaizing supernaturalism of many of the Fathers and late Christian thinkers suffers, on the other hand, from too exclusive monotheistic emphasizing of the absolute action of God in creation.
II. The Cosmogonies of Ancient and Modern Paganism: To pagan thought, creation in its essence is a slow self-originating process, into which the theogonic element enters, if at all, only in the final stages. Its result is the universe considered as mere thusis, or nature, not as ktisis, or the creature. This is true equally of the polytheistic, dualistic, and pantheistic systems of non-Christian paganism, of modern pantheistic tendencies with Christian form, and of their logical consequence, atheistic materialism.
1. The Mythological Cosmogonies of Paganism Proper : These are all characterized by some notion of emanation; they consider the world and the substances within it as effluxes of the Godhead, and thus suggest a certain coherence of matter and the created world of spirits with God. This is true also of the dualistic religions, according to which the world originates from the joint action of the emanations from the good god of light with those from the god of darkness — either in the way of a hostile conflict of the two principles, as in the Persian legend, or in that of the parallel development of both, as in the mythologies of the Slavic, and to some extent of the Germanic, peoples. Into both the dualistic and the pantheistic systems much that is originally polytheistic has penetrated, just as scarcely any developed pagan cosmogony is without suggestion of the monotheistic conception. A complete classification of the pagan cosmogonies will not be attempted here; it will be sufficient to glance at the most characteristic ones, beginning