1857.] Science and the Bible. 505
reason
with the help of the "honest, open face"), or with science (that is,
reason with the aid of the out-speaking depths and all truth in
nature). We now come to the special claim of the author, that it is
based on the Bible.
Where is the Bible foundation ? Mainly here. The word " created;" the phrases, " Let the waters bring- forth," " Let the earth bring forth;" the succession of evenings and morn-ings, in the account of creation ; and the recapitulatory statement, that" God made every tree before it ivas in the earth" (Gen. 2: 2).
The
theory is, that nature was six times revived and set to work, by the
putting in of " immaterial entities," and six times left to herself to
go towards decay. It is not merely that God acted at the commencement
of six periods, and then rested; but that, in these intervals, there
was a great decline in nature's forces, in consequence of the
withdrawal of God's hand.
Is
this a fair interpretation of the words of Genesis ? or is it not
evidence that, while the author has avoided science, he has gone to a
less truthful source for his philosophy ?
Create. The meaning of the word create, has
no necessary bearing on the question with regard to nature (except as
respects the beginning, to which we allude beyond); for, the
signification of evolution, framing, or developing, which the " Six
Days" would give, is as well answered by the views we have presented.
Moreover, the derivation of such a word, is little evidence as to its
actual use.
" Evening- and morning." If
these words, in connection with the first, imply that nature passed
through a period of revival, from an efflatus of " the supernatural,"
followed by a period of rest, on the part of God, and decline in
nature, then it was so on the fourth day, when, according to the
author of the " Six Days," the creation of the sun and stars was
simply a becoming visible to the earth. May we recognize, in such
progressive changes, a reviving and a decline ? The Bible speaks of the
creation of vegetation, on the third day. But are we to understand from
what Moses, oux authority here, says about the fourth day with its
evening
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