Creation and Preservation
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
nite prearranged sequence. The last is the case especially with Philo, who, in spite of his Platonic acceptance of the eternity of matter, regards its formation into an orderly cosmos as a work which God could, if necessary, have accomplished in a moment, and which he divided into six days merely for the sake of orderly procedure.
2. In the Patristic Period: Here the absolute nothingness out of which God created the world is sharply emphasized, as by Tertullian in opposition to the dualism of the Gnostic Hermogenes, and by later representatives of the ecclesiastical creationism, such as Ambrose, Jerome, and the scholastics from Peter Lombard. Here again occurs the assertion that God needed no more than an instant for the creation of the world. The Alexandrian school especially followed Philo's view on this point; Clement even denies that the world was created in time, since time came into existence with created things. Origen, asserting the same thing, places over against it an eternally creative activity of God, which, indeed, he confines to the production of the spiritual world. Athanasius, Basil, and Gregory of Nyssa assert the same practically instantaneous and extratemporal creation; and so also Ambrose and Augustine in the West. The underlying thought of a creation not gradual but at once concluded, and the accompanying proposition that the world was made " not in time, but with time," descended from Augustine and the schoolmen, and so to the common orthodox teixhing.
3. In Modern Times: Even here a certain Judaizing or abstract monotheistic treatment of the subject is to be noticed — not only among Roman Catholic theologians, but also within the boundaries of Protestantism, where the literal interpretation of the six days as six periods of twenty-four hours, generally given in orthodox dogmatics from Luther on, retained the extreme supernaturalist character, left no space for organically independent elements, and brought on an inevitable conflict with the ascertained facts of geology and astronomy. These sciences have demonstrated the origin of the heavenly bodies l^efore the earth; the slow and gradual origin of the mountains and the strata of the earth's surface; and a long succession of many organisms, now for the most part vanished and evidenced only liy fossil remains, as preliminary to those existing at ])resont. On the other hand, it has been realized that the acrf)unt in Genesis, so far from requiring a literal interpretation of the six days, lends itself readily to the explanation of indefinite periods of time — a view which is supported not only by the cosmogonic passages in Ps. civ. and .Job xxxviii. , but by the analogy of the old Persian and Babylonian legends of the creation, which are more or less parallel wit lithe Scriptural narrative. Of the various hypotheses put forth by modern apologetics in order to reconcile the account in (jenesis with geology and astronomy two deserx'c mention: one whicii admits the necessity of tlu^ long j)erio(ls reinnretlfor the formation of thccarth, and conceives them as preceding the six d;iys' work; and one which denies the great duration of the primeval epochs, and considers the geological for-
mations, with the petrifactions contained in them, to have originated after the creative process described in Gen. i. The latter of these is supported by reference to the flood described in Gen. vi.-ix., with its accompanying cataclysms to which ancient legends testify. Its root-ideas are found as early as Tertullian and Hippolytus, and numerous modern writers have adopted the same mode of explaining the presence of petrified shells and skeletons of animals in geological formations. But while this theory has its value as a protest against the extravagant assumptions of geologists, with their formative periods of thousands or even millions of years, it is still untenable on purely scientific grounds. The other, sometimes known as the restitution theory, which places the formative period, of a length sufficient to satisfy geologists, before the six days' work, and regards this as a restoration or setting in order of the confused chaotic results of frequent cataclysms, is objectionable rather on exegetical grounds. This hypothesis, which commonly includes some traces of the partially Gnostic or Manichean idea of the interference of Satan and his demons in the process of creation, seems to have found its first expression in the Arminian theologian Episcopius; its serious scientific defense was first undertaken by J. G. Rosenmtiller in his Antiquissima tcUuris historia (LHm, 1776), while at the same time and later a number of theosophic writers used the idea of restitution in connection with the speculations of Bohme. Whatever its advantages in meeting the contentions of modern science, it is open to the obvious objection that the narrative in Genesis is clearly that of a primitive creation, not of a recreation, and in more than one of its details is irreconcilable with this theory.
IV. The Normal Via Media between Jewish and Pagan Theories : In place of the restitution theory, now usually abandoned, there has been in modern times an attempt to harmonize the conclusions of science and religion by a direct parallel between the days of creation, taken as periods of indeterminate length, and the main epochs of geological dc\ elopment. This was made first by some of the antideistic apologists of the latter eighteenth century, and taken up by Cuvier, the founder of modern paleontology. Ho was followed by a large number of both theologians and scientists, among others Hugh Miller, J. D. Dana, F. de Rougemont, G. B. Pianciani, Dclitzsch, Giittler, Secchi, and Pesnel. This parallel, which is carried out in minute detail by some of its advocates, removes at least a part of the difficulties oiTercd at the first glance by the Scriptural account. Thus the olijcetion that light was created before the sun, which came into being after the earth, is met by the assumption that the narrative in Gen. i. 14-19 is a purely optical or phenomenological one. Certain difTiculties, to l)e sure, still remain unsolved, such as the relation of the six days or j)eriods in the light of their different <luration, and their separation from each other, which is given variously by different harmonists. The total munlier of the geological epochs is considerably more than six (according to some geologists as many as twenty or thirty), so that a direct
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Creation and Preservation
combination of them with the six days is only possible by a great reduction. In the way of a too speciiic harmonization stands also the fact that the Mosaic account postulates a gradual progression from vegetable to animal life, and within the latter from one class to another, while according to the geological history plants and animals must have been simultaneously present from the first. In any case, a too strict harmonizing is forbidden by the character of the Biblical narrative, which is not literally historical, but prophetically ideal; it is considered as a sort of inverse prophecy even by some of the Fathers, such as Chrysostora and Severianus. The more this view of the Mosaic narrative is accepted; the more it is realized that its author was intending not to teach the elements of geology, but to reveal the fundamental conceptions of theology; the more it is seen that his standpoint was that of religion, not of natural history, the clearer will it become that it is necessary to give up the idea of carrying out the reconciliation in every detail and to be content with establishing an ideal harmony in the main outlines. It is of no slight value to be able to include in this harmony the fundamental truths of the revealed account: (1) the priority of the inorganic elements of the earth's constitution to the creation of organisms; (2) the separate origin, in accordance with a definite plan, of the various species, orders, and classes of plants and animals; and (3) the constant rising of these representatives of the organic creation to man as the crown and dominant end of the entire process.
This view, if properly realized, leads to a deeper speculative solution of the problem which does justice also to the theological side of the whole subject, its relations to the eternal being and life of the Godhead. If the real Christian or concrete theistie idea of creation is to receive its proper development, it is of the utmost importance to conceive the act of creation as a product of the free Trinitarian self-determination of the personal God. This involves a full and exhaustive utilization of the Scriptural doctrine of the creation of all things through the Son as the absolute archetype of a universe which attains its perfection in the free intellectual life of man made in the image of God (John i. 1-3; Heb. i. 2; I Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 16); and not less a careful speculative development of the idea of creation in the Spirit of God, or, in the Scriptural phrase, "by the breath of his mouth"— by the formative and vivifying principle from which proceed the organic disposition, differentiation, and development of the world created after the image and by the word of the Son (Ps. xxxiii. 6, civ. 30; Job xxxiii. 4; cf. Gen. i. 2). Through the conception of creation through the Son it is possible to set forth the true nature of the transcendence of God in his creative activity, while the idea of a creation in the Spirit of God brings the immanence of this activity vividly before the mind. The former doctrine serves to utilize what is true in deism for the Christian view, while the latter serves to utilize what is true in pantheism, especially the transmutation or development theory of the modem scientific pantheism. The former takes the
abstract monotheistic view of Judaism, as the latter takes the polytheistic, atheistic, or pantheistic view of pagan thought, purifies them both from their one-sided or superstitious or fantastic elements and develops them into a truly Christian or concrete monotheistic belief.
V. Preservation of the "World: In the form just outlined, the idea of creation by God is inseparably connected with the idea of the preservation of the world by him. God's " rest " on the seventh day is not mentioned as a contrast with his activity on the preceding six, as a transition to idle inactivity, but merely, in accordance with the radical sense of the Hebrew word, denotes the completion of the work. The New Testament leaves no doubt of this interpretation of God's rest (John v. 17; Heb. iv. 1-10, ii. 3). The doctrine of the Church gives the same view of the relation of God's activity as creator and as preserver. The scholastics designated the conservation of the world as a continuance of creation. Nor is this conservation merely negative. What is required is, in the words of Baier, " a divine action which imports a continuous influence upon created things, such as is convenient and necessary for each according to its nature, to the end that they may be able to continue in their essence and power." This influence is of fundamental importance; together with God's transcendence, his immanence must be asserted. The creation, the preservation, and the governance of the world are an inseparable group of divine activities.
The doctrine in regard to the preservation of the world attains special importance on account of its points of contact with the modern scientific doctrine of evolution. These are sufficiently numerous, since the created world nowhere presents itself to us in any other shape than as a development from lower stages and forms of life to higher and higher ones. God preserves the universe which he has created, not as a lifeless machine eternally standing still, but in a condition of progressive motion; the preservation of the world is practically equivalent to the development of the world. In this doctrine of the preservation of the universe is the point of connection for whatever elements of truth are contained in the theories of Kant and Laplace on the formation of the world and in Darwin's theory of the origin of species; and, though they may be received with caution in the province of the history of creation, freer play may and must be allowed to them in that of the preservation of the world. See Evolution. (O. ZocklerI.)