1857.] Science and the Bible. 507
St.
Paul says, in our Bible, Heb. 11: 3, " Tilings that are seen, were not
made from things which do appear," the thought being generally regarded
as equivalent to an assertion of creation from nothing ; and, in the
Greek, it stands, μη etc φαινομένων. The " Six Days " makes the Greek eic μη φαινομένων, and
translates it (p. 224) " Things that are seen were made (or generated)
from things that do not appear," i. e. from "immaterial entities."
With regard to this reading, the " "World-Problem" repeats what is stated in the " Six Days," that the reading i/e μη φαινομένων is
" sanctioned by the two oldest versions, the Latin and Syriac, brought
out by Calvin, and sustained by the best modern German authorities ;"
and, in the " Six Days," the German authorities mentioned, are,
Tholuck, Ols-hausen, and Ebrard.
Again,
in Col. 1: 16, our translation reads : " For by him were all things
created that are in heaven and that are in the earth, visible and
invisible, whether they be thrones," etc. On this passage, the " Six
Days " says, (p. 227) that " the invisible" are the " unseen dynamical
entities, which are not only the law, but the life, of
the phenomenal and material ;" thus again making Paul a good
Platonist. But are these the invisible things of God, of which Paul
here, and elsewhere, speaks ?
A further
argument from Heb. 11: 3, is derived from the spirit of the context. It
observes (p. 226), that " Faith is the evidence, not of what is not, but of what is," though
unseen ; and afterwards adds: " How beautifully the symmetry of the
argument is presented in the Syriac and Vulgate versions—' Faith is
the evidence of things unseen ;' for, by it ' we understand that (in
creation) the things that are seen came out of, or were born of, things
that are unseen ;' " and then argues that the faith referred
to is in unseen dynamical entities (!), and not in the great facts of
creation, which were equally unseen ; that is, a faith in the
originating forces of nature, and not in God as Creator — directly
against the spirit of Paul's teachings with regard to faith.
