Chapter III: Section I: Creation (1)

I. Definition Of Creation.

By creation we mean that free act of the triune God by which in the beginning for his own glory he made, without the use of preëxisting materials, the whole visible and invisible universe.

Creation is designed origination, by a transcendent and personal God, of that which itself is not God. The universe is related to God as our own volitions are related to ourselves. They are not ourselves, and we are greater than they. Creation is not simply the idea of God, or even the plan of God, but it is the idea externalized, the plan executed; in other words, it implied an exercise, not only of intellect, but also of will, and this will is not an instinctive and unconscious will, but a will that is personal and free. Such exercise of will seems to involve, not self-development, but self-limitation, on the part of God; the transformation of energy into force, and so a beginning of time, with its finite successions. But, whatever the relation of creation to time, creation makes the universe wholly dependent upon God, as its originator.

F. H. Johnson, in Andover Rev., March, 1891:280, and What is
Reality, 285—“Creation is designed origination.... Men never could
have thought of God as the Creator of the world, were it not that
they had first known themselves as creators.” We agree with the
doctrine of Hazard, Man a Creative First Cause. Man creates ideas
and volitions, without use of preëxisting material. He also
indirectly, through these ideas and volitions, creates
brain-modifications. This creation, as Johnson has shown, is
without hands, yet elaborate, selective, progressive.
Schopenhauer: “Matter is nothing more than causation; its true
being is its action.”

Prof. C. L. Herrick, Denison Quarterly, 1896:248, and
Psychological Review, March, 1899, advocates what he calls
_dynamism_, which he regards as the only alternative to a
materialistic dualism which posits matter, and a God above and
distinct from matter. He claims that the predicate of reality can
apply only to energy. To speak of energy as _residing in_
something is to introduce an entirely incongruous concept, for it
continues our guest _ad infinitum_. “Force,” he says, “is energy
under resistance, or self-limited energy, for all parts of the
universe are derived from the energy. Energy manifesting itself
under self-conditioning or differential forms is force. The change
of pure energy into force is creation—the introduction of
resistance. The progressive complication of this interference is
evolution—a form of orderly resolution of energy. Substance is
pure spontaneous energy. God’s substance is his energy—the
infinite and inexhaustible store of spontaneity which makes up his
being. The form which self-limitation impresses upon substance, in
revealing it in force, is not God, because it no longer possesses
the attributes of spontaneity and universality, though it emanates
from him. When we speak of energy as self-limited, we simply imply
that spontaneity is intelligent. The sum of God’s acts is his
being. There is no _causa posterior_ or _extranea_, which spurs
him on. We must recognize in the source what appears in the
outcome. We can speak of _absolute_, but not of _infinite_ or
_immutable_, substance. The Universe is but the partial expression
of an infinite God.”

Our view of creation is so nearly that of Lotze, that we here
condense Ten Broeke’s statement of his philosophy: “Things are
concreted laws of action. If the idea of being must include
permanence as well as activity, we must say that only the personal
truly is. All else is flow and process. We can interpret ontology
only from the side of personality. Possibility of interaction
requires the dependence of the mutually related many of the system
upon an all-embracing, coördinating One. The finite is a mode or
phenomenon of the One Being. Mere things are only modes of
energizing of the One. Self-conscious personalities are created,
posited, and depend on the One in a different way. Interaction of
things is immanent action of the One, which the perceiving mind
interprets as causal. Real interaction is possible only between
the Infinite and the created finite, _i. e._, self-conscious
persons. The finite is not a part of the Infinite, nor does it
partly exhaust the stuff of the Infinite. The One, by an act of
freedom, posits the many, and the many have their ground and unity
in the Will and Thought of the One. Both the finite and the
Infinite are free and intelligent.

“Space is not an extra-mental reality, _sui generis_, nor an order
of relations among realities, but a form of dynamic appearance,
the ground of which is the fixed orderly changes in reality. So
time is the form of change, the subjective interpretation of
timeless yet successive changes in reality. So far as God is the
ground of the world-process, he is in time. So far as he
transcends the world-process in his self-conscious personality, he
is not in time. Motion too is the subjective interpretation of
changes in things, which changes are determined by the demands of
the world-system and the purpose being realized in it. Not
atomism, but dynamism, is the truth. Physical phenomena are
referable to the activity of the Infinite, which activity is given
a substantive character because we think under the form of
substance and attribute. Mechanism is compatible with teleology.
Mechanism is universal and is necessary to all system. But it is
limited by purpose, and by the possible appearance of any new law,
force, or act of freedom.

“The soul is not a function of material activities, but is a true
reality. The system is such that it can admit new factors, and the
soul is one of these possible new factors. The soul is created as
substantial reality, in contrast with other elements of the
system, which are only phenomenal manifestations of the One
Reality. The relation between soul and body is that of interaction
between the soul and the universe, the body being that part of the
universe which stands in closest relation with the soul (_versus_
Bradley, who holds that ‘body and soul alike are phenomenal
arrangements, neither one of which has any title to fact which is
not owned by the other’). Thought is a knowledge of reality. We
must assume an adjustment between subject and object. This
assumption is founded on the postulate of a morally perfect God.”
To Lotze, then, the only real creation is that of finite
personalities,—matter being only a mode of the divine activity.
See Lotze, Microcosmos, and Philosophy of Religion. Bowne, in his
Metaphysics and his Philosophy of Theism, is the best expositor of
Lotze’s system.

In further explanation of our definition we remark that

(_a_) Creation is not “production out of nothing,” as if “nothing” were a substance out of which “something” could be formed.

We do not regard the doctrine of Creation as bound to the use of
the phrase “creation out of nothing,” and as standing or falling
with it. The phrase is a philosophical one, for which we have no
Scriptural warrant, and it is objectionable as intimating that
“nothing” can itself be an object of thought and a source of
being. The germ of truth intended to be conveyed in it can better
be expressed in the phrase “without use of preëxisting materials.”

(_b_) Creation is not a fashioning of preëxisting materials, nor an emanation from the substance of Deity, but is a making of that to exist which once did not exist, either in form or substance.

There is nothing divine in creation but the origination of
substance. Fashioning is competent to the creature also. Gassendi
said to Descartes that God’s creation, if he is the author of
forms but not of substances, is only that of the tailor who
clothes a man with his apparel. But substance is not necessarily
material. We are to conceive of it rather after the analogy of our
own ideas and volitions, and as a manifestation of spirit.
Creation is not simply the thought of God, nor even the plan of
God, but rather the externalization of that thought and the
execution of that plan. Nature is “a great sheet let down from God
out of heaven,” and containing “nothing that is common or
unclean;” but nature is not God nor a part of God, any more than
our ideas and volitions are ourselves or a part of ourselves.
Nature is a partial manifestation of God, but it does not exhaust
God.

(_c_) Creation is not an instinctive or necessary process of the divine nature, but is the free act of a rational will, put forth for a definite and sufficient end.

Creation is different in kind from that eternal process of the
divine nature in virtue of which we speak of generation and
procession. The Son is begotten of the Father, and is of the same
essence; the world is created without preëxisting material, is
different from God, and is made by God. Begetting is a necessary
act; creation is the act of God’s free grace. Begetting is
eternal, out of time; creation is in time, or with time.

Studia Biblica, 4:148—“Creation is the voluntary limitation which
God has imposed on himself.... It can only be regarded as a
Creation of free spirits.... It is a form of almighty power to
submit to limitation. Creation is not a development of God, but a
circumscription of God.... The world is not the expression of God,
or an emanation from God, but rather his self-limitation.”

(_d_) Creation is the act of the triune God, in the sense that all the persons of the Trinity, themselves uncreated, have a part in it—the Father as the originating, the Son as the mediating, the Spirit as the realizing cause.

That all of God’s creative activity is exercised through Christ
has been sufficiently proved in our treatment of the Trinity and
of Christ’s deity as an element of that doctrine (see pages 310,
311). We may here refer to the texts which have been previously
considered, namely, _John 1:3, 4_—“_All things were made through
him, and without him was not anything made. That which hath been
made was life in him_”; _1 Cor. 8:6_—“_one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom are all things_”; _Col. 1:16_—“_all things have been
created through him, and unto him_”; _Heb. 1:10_—“_Thou, Lord, in
the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the
heavens are the works of thy hands._”

The work of the Holy Spirit seems to be that of completing,
bringing to perfection. We can understand this only by remembering
that our Christian knowledge and love are brought to their
consummation by the Holy Spirit, and that he is also the principle
of our natural self-consciousness, uniting subject and object in a
subject-object. If matter is conceived of as a manifestation of
spirit, after the idealistic philosophy, then the Holy Spirit may
be regarded as the perfecting and realizing agent in the
externalization of the divine ideas. While it was the Word though
whom all things were made, the Holy Spirit was the author of life,
order, and adornment. Creation is not a mere manufacturing,—it is
a spiritual act.

John Caird, Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, 1:120—“The creation
of the world cannot be by a Being who is external. Power
presupposes an object on which it is exerted. 129—There is in the
very nature of God a reason why he should reveal himself in, and
communicate himself to, a world of finite existences, or fulfil
and realize himself in the being and life of nature and man. His
nature would not be what it is if such a world did not exist;
something would be lacking to the completeness of the divine being
without it. 144—Even with respect to human thought or
intelligence, it is mind or spirit which creates the world. It is
not a ready-made world on which we look; in perceiving our world
we make it. 152-154—We make progress as we cease to think our own
thoughts and become media of the universal Intelligence.” While we
accept Caird’s idealistic interpretation of creation, we dissent
from his intimation that creation is a necessity to God. The
trinitarian being of God renders him sufficient to himself, even
without creation. Yet those very trinitarian relations throw light
upon the method of creation, since they disclose to us the order
of all the divine activity. On the definition of Creation, see
Shedd, History of Doctrine, 1:11.

II. Proof of the Doctrine of Creation.

Creation is a truth of which mere science or reason cannot fully assure us. Physical science can observe and record changes, but it knows nothing of origins. Reason cannot absolutely disprove the eternity of matter. For proof of the doctrine of Creation, therefore, we rely wholly upon Scripture. Scripture supplements science, and renders its explanation of the universe complete.

Drummond, in his Natural Law in the Spiritual World, claims that
atoms, as “manufactured articles,” and the dissipation of energy,
prove the creation of the visible from the invisible. See the same
doctrine propounded in “The Unseen Universe.” But Sir Charles
Lyell tells us: “Geology is the autobiography of the earth,—but
like all autobiographies, it does not go back to the beginning.”
Hopkins, Yale Lectures on the Scriptural View of Man: “There is
nothing _a priori_ against the eternity of matter.” Wardlaw, Syst.
Theol., 2:65—“We cannot form any distinct conception of creation
out of nothing. The very idea of it might never have occurred to
the mind of man, had it not been traditionally handed down as a
part of the original revelation to the parents of the race.”

Hartmann, the German philosopher, goes back to the original
elements of the universe, and then says that science stands
petrified before the question of their origin, as before a
Medusa’s head. But in the presence of problems, says Dorner, the
duty of science is not petrifaction, but solution. This is
peculiarly true, if science is, as Hartmann thinks, a complete
explanation of the universe. Since science, by her own
acknowledgment, furnishes no such explanation of the origin of
things, the Scripture revelation with regard to creation meets a
demand of human reason, by adding the one fact without which
science must forever be devoid of the highest unity and
rationality. For advocacy of the eternity of matter, see
Martineau, Essays, 1:157-169.

E. H. Johnson, in Andover Review, Nov. 1891:505 sq., and Dec.
1891:592 sq., remarks that evolution can be traced backward to
more and more simple elements, to matter without motion and with
no quality but being. Now make it still more simple by divesting
it of existence, and you get back to the necessity of a Creator.
An infinite number of past stages is impossible. There is no
infinite number. Somewhere there must be a beginning. We grant to
Dr. Johnson that the only alternative to creation is a
materialistic dualism, or an eternal matter which is the product
of the divine mind and will. The theories of dualism and of
creation from eternity we shall discuss hereafter.

1. Direct Scripture Statements.

A. Genesis 1:1—“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” To this it has been objected that the verb ברא does not necessarily denote production without the use of preexisting materials (see Gen. 1:27 “God created man in his own image”; _cf._ 2:7—“the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground”; also Ps. 51:10—“Create in me a clean heart”).

“In the first two chapters of Genesis ברא is used (1) of the
creation of the universe (_1:1_); (2) of the creation of the great
sea monsters (_1:21_); (3) of the creation of man (_1:27_).
Everywhere else we read of God’s _making_, as from an already
created substance, the firmament (_1:7_), the sun, moon and stars
(_1:16_), the brute creation (_1:25_); or of his _forming_ the
beasts of the field out of the ground (_2:19_); or, lastly, of his
_building up_ into a woman the rib he had taken from man (_2:22_,
margin)”—quoted from Bible Com., 1:31. Guyot, Creation, 30—“_Bara_
is thus reserved for marking the first introduction of each of the
three great spheres of existence—the world of matter, the world of
life, and the spiritual world represented by man.”

We grant, in reply, that the argument for absolute creation derived from the mere word ברא is not entirely conclusive. Other considerations in connection with the use of this word, however, seem to render this interpretation of Gen. 1:1 the most plausible. Some of these considerations we proceed to mention.

(_a_) While we acknowledge that the verb ברא “does not necessarily or invariably denote production without the use of preëxisting materials, we still maintain that it signifies the production of an effect for which no natural antecedent existed before, and which can be only the result of divine agency.” For this reason, in the Kal species it is used only of God, and is never accompanied by any accusative denoting material.

No accusative denoting material follows _bara_, in the passages
indicated, for the reason that all thought of material was absent.
See Dillmann, Genesis, 18; Oehler, Theol. O. T., 1:177. The
quotation in the text above is from Green, Hebrew Chrestomathy,
67. But E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 88, remarks: “Whether
the Scriptures teach the absolute origination of matter—its
creation out of nothing—is an open question.... No decisive
evidence is furnished by the Hebrew word _bara_.”

A moderate and scholarly statement of the facts is furnished by
Professor W. J. Beecher, in S. S. Times, Dec. 23, 1893:807—“To
create is to originate divinely.... Creation, in the sense in
which the Bible uses the word, does not exclude the use of
materials previously existing; for man was taken from the ground
(_Gen. 2:7_), and woman was builded from the rib of a man
(_2:22_). Ordinarily God brings things into existence through the
operation of second causes. But it is possible, in our thinking,
to withdraw attention from the second causes, and to think of
anything as originating simply from God, apart from second causes.
To think of a thing thus is to think of it as created. The Bible
speaks of Israel as created, of the promised prosperity of
Jerusalem as created, of the Ammonite people and the king of Tyre
as created, of persons of any date in history as created (_Is.
43:1-15_; _65:18_; _Ez. 21:30_; _28:13, 15_; _Ps. 102:18_; _Eccl.
12:1_; _Mal. 2:10_). Miracles and the ultimate beginnings of
second causes are necessarily thought of as creative acts; all
other originating of things may be thought of, according to the
purpose we have in mind, either as creation or as effected by
second causes.”

(_b_) In the account of the creation, ברא seems to be distinguished from עשה, “to make” either with or without the use of already existing material (ברא לעשות, “created in making” or “made by creation,” in 2:3; and ויעש, of the firmament, in 1:7), and from יצר, “to form” out of such material. (See ויברא, of man regarded as a spiritual being, in 1:27; but ויצר, of man regarded as a physical being, in 2:7.)

See Conant, Genesis, 1; Bible Com., 1:37—“ ‘created to make’ (in
_Gen. 2:3_) = created out of nothing, in order that he might make
out of it all the works recorded in the six days.” Over against
these texts, however, we must set others in which there appears no
accurate distinguishing of these words from one another. _Bara_ is
used in _Gen. 1:1_, _asah_ in _Gen. 2:4_, of the creation of the
heaven and earth. Of earth, both _yatzar_ and _asah_ are used in
_Is. 45:18_. In regard to man, in _Gen. 1:27_ we find _bara_; in
_Gen. 1:26_ and _9:6_, _asah_; and in _Gen. 2:7_, _yatzar_. In
_Is. 43:7_, all three are found in the same verse: “_whom I have_
_bara_ _for my glory, I have_ _yatzar_, _yea, I have_ _asah_
_him_.” In _Is. 45:12_, “_asah_ _the earth, and_ _bara_ _man upon
it_”; but in _Gen. 1:1_ we read: “_God_ _bara_ _the earth_,” and
in _9:6_ “_asah_ _man_.” _Is. 44:2—__“__the Lord that_ _asah_
_thee_ (_i. e._, man) and _yatzar_ _thee_”; but in _Gen. 1:27_,
God “_bara_ _man_.” _Gen. 5:2_—“_male and female_ _bara_ _he
them_.” _Gen. 2:22_—“_the rib_ _asah_ _he a woman_”; _Gen.
2:7_—“_he_ _yatzar_ _man_”; _i. e._, _bara_ male and female, yet
_asah_ the woman and _yatzar_ the man. _Asah_ is not always used
for _transform_: _Is. 41:20_—“_fir-tree, pine, box-tree_” in
nature—_bara_; _Ps. 51:10_—“_bara_ _in me a clean heart_”; _Is.
65:18_—God “_bara_ _Jerusalem into a rejoicing_.”

(_c_) The context shows that the meaning here is a making without the use of preëxisting materials. Since the earth in its rude, unformed, chaotic condition is still called “the earth” in verse 2, the word ברא in verse 1 cannot refer to any shaping or fashioning of the elements, but must signify the calling of them into being.

Oehler, Theology of O.T., 1:177—“By the absolute _berashith_, ‘_in
the beginning_,’ the divine creation is fixed as an absolute
beginning, not as a working on something that already existed.”
_Verse 2_ cannot be the beginning of a history, for it begins with
“_and_.” Delitzsch says of the expression “_the earth was without
form and void_”: “From this it is evident that the void and
formless state of the earth was not uncreated or without a
beginning. ... It is evident that ‘_the heaven and earth_’ as God
created them in the beginning were not the well-ordered universe,
but the world in its elementary form.”

(_d_) The fact that ברא may have had an original signification of “cutting,” “forming,” and that it retains this meaning in the Piel conjugation, need not prejudice the conclusion thus reached, since terms expressive of the most spiritual processes are derived from sensuous roots. If ברא does not signify absolute creation, no word exists in the Hebrew language that can express this idea.

(_e_) But this idea of production without the use of preëxisting materials unquestionably existed among the Hebrews. The later Scriptures show that it had become natural to the Hebrew mind. The possession of this idea by the Hebrews, while it is either not found at all or is very dimly and ambiguously expressed in the sacred books of the heathen, can be best explained by supposing that it was derived from this early revelation in Genesis.

E. H. Johnson, Outline of Syst. Theol., 94—“_Rom. 4:17_ tells us
that the faith of Abraham, to whom God had promised a son, grasped
the fact that God calls into existence ‘_the things that are
not_.’ This may be accepted as Paul’s interpretation of the first
verse of the Bible.” It is possible that the heathen had
occasional glimpses of this truth, though with no such clearness
as that with which it was held in Israel. Perhaps we may say that
through the perversions of later nature-worship something of the
original revelation of absolute creation shines, as the first
writing of a palimpsest appears faintly through the subsequent
script with which it has been overlaid. If the doctrine of
absolute creation is found at all among the heathen, it is greatly
blurred and obscured. No one of the heathen books teaches it as do
the sacred Scriptures of the Hebrews. Yet it seems as if this “One
accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world has never lost.”

Bib. Com., 1:31—“Perhaps no other ancient language, however
refined and philosophical, could have so dearly distinguished the
different acts of the Maker of all things [as the Hebrew did With
its four different words], and that because all heathen philosophy
esteemed matter to be eternal and uncreated.” Prof. E. D. Burton:
“Brahmanism, and the original religion of which Zoroastrianism was
a reformation, were Eastern and Western divisions of a primitive
Aryan, and probably monotheistic, religion. The Vedas, which
represented the Brahmanism, leave it a question whence the world
came, whether from God by emanation, or by the shaping of material
eternally existent. Later Brahmanism is pantheistic, and Buddhism,
the Reformation of Brahmanism, is atheistic.” See Shedd, Dogm.
Theol., 1:471, and Mosheim’s references in Cudworth’s Intellectual
System, 3:140.

We are inclined still to hold that the doctrine of absolute
creation was known to no other ancient nation besides the Hebrews.
Recent investigations, however, render this somewhat more doubtful
than it once seemed to be. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, 142, 143,
finds creation among the early Babylonians. In his Religions of
Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, 372-397, he says: “The elements of
Hebrew cosmology are all Babylonian; even the creative word itself
was a Babylonian conception; but the spirit which inspires the
cosmology is the antithesis to that which inspired the cosmology
of Babylonia. Between the polytheism of Babylonia and the
monotheism of Israel a gulf is fixed which cannot be spanned. So
soon as we have a clear monotheism, absolute creation is a
corollary. As the monotheistic idea is corrupted, creation gives
place to pantheistic transformation.”

It is now claimed by others that Zoroastrianism, the Vedas, and
the religion of the ancient Egyptians had the idea of absolute
creation. On creation in the Zoroastrian system, see our treatment
of Dualism, page 382. Vedic hymn in Rig Veda, 10:9, quoted by J.
F. Clarke, Ten Great Religions, 2:205—“Originally this universe
was soul only; nothing else whatsoever existed, active or
inactive. He thought: ‘I will create worlds’; thus he created
these various worlds: earth, light, mortal being, and the waters.”
Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 216-222, speaks of a papyrus on the
staircase of the British Museum, which reads: “The great God, the
Lord of heaven and earth, who made all things which are ... the
almighty God, self-existent, who made heaven and earth; ... the
heaven was yet uncreated, uncreated was the earth; thou hast put
together the earth; ... who made all things, but was not made.”

But the Egyptian religion in its later development, as well as
Brahmanism, was pantheistic, and it is possible that all the
expressions we have quoted are to be interpreted, not as
indicating a belief in creation out of nothing, but as asserting
emanation, or the taking on by deity of new forms and modes of
existence. On creation in heathen systems, see Pierret,
Mythologie, and answer to it by Maspero; Hymn to Amen-Rha, in
“Records of the Past”; G. C. Müller, Literature of Greece, 87, 88;
George Smith, Chaldean Genesis, chapters 1, 3, 5 and 6; Dillmann,
Com. on Genesis, 6th edition, Introd., 5-10; LeNormant, Hist.
Ancienne de l’Orient, 1:17-26; 5:238; Otto Zöckler, art.:
Schöpfung, in Herzog and Plitt, Encyclop.; S. B. Gould, Origin and
Devel. of Relig. Beliefs, 281-292.

B. Hebrews 11:3—“By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear” = the world was not made out of sensible and preëxisting material, but by the direct fiat of omnipotence (see Alford, and Lünemann, Meyer’s Com. _in loco_).

Compare 2 Maccabees 7:28—ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων ἐποίησεν αὐτὰ ὁ Θεός. This
the Vulgate translated by “quia ex nihilo fecit illa Deus,” and
from the Vulgate the phrase “creation out of nothing” is derived.
Hedge, Ways of the Spirit, points out that Wisdom 11:17 has ἐξ
ἀμόρφου ὕλης, interprets by this the ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων in 2 Maccabees,
and denies that this last refers to creation out of nothing. But
we must remember that the later Apocryphal writings were composed
under the influence of the Platonic philosophy; that the passage
in Wisdom may be a rationalistic interpretation of that in
Maccabees; and that even if it were independent, we are not to
assume a harmony of view in the Apocrypha. 2 Maccabees 7:28 must
stand by itself as a testimony to Jewish belief in creation
without use of preëxisting material,—belief which can be traced to
no other source than the Old Testament Scriptures. Compare _Ex.
34:10_—“_I will do marvels such as have not been wrought_ [marg.
“_created_”] _in all the earth_”; _Num. 16:30_—“_if Jehovah make a
new thing_” [marg. “_create a creation_”]; _Is. 4:5_—“_Jehovah
will create ... a cloud and smoke_”; _41:20_—“_the Holy One of
Israel hath created it_”; _45:7, 8_—“_I form the light, and create
darkness_”; _57:19_—“_I create the fruit of the lips_”;
_65:17_—“_I create new heavens and a new earth_”; _Jer.
31:22_—“_Jehovah hath created a new thing._”

_Rom. 4:17_—“_God, who giveth life to the dead, and calleth the
things that are not, as though they were_”; _1 Cor. 1:28_—“_things
that are not_” [did God choose] “_that he might bring to naught
the things that are_”; _2 Cor. 4:6_—“_God, that said, Light shall
shine out of darkness_”—created light without preëxisting
material,—for darkness is no material; _Col. 1:16, 17_—“_in him
were all things created ... and he is before all things_”; so also
_Ps. 33:9_—“_he spake, and it was done_”; _148:5_—“_he commanded,
and they were created._” See Philo, Creation of the World, chap.
1-7, and Life of Moses, book 3, chap. 36—“He produced the most
perfect work, the Cosmos, out of non-existence (τοῦ μὴ ὄντος) into
being (εἰς τὸ εἶναι).” E. H. Johnson, Syst. Theol., 94—“We have no
reason to believe that the Hebrew mind had the idea of creation
out of _invisible_ materials. But creation out of _visible_
materials is in _Hebrews 11:3_ expressly denied. This text is
therefore equivalent to an assertion that the universe was made
without the use of _any_ preëxisting materials.”

2. Indirect evidence from Scripture.

(_a_) The past duration of the world is limited; (_b_) before the world began to be, each of the persons of the Godhead already existed; (_c_) the origin of the universe is ascribed to God, and to each of the persons of the Godhead. These representations of Scripture are not only most consistent with the view that the universe was created by God without use of preëxisting material, but they are inexplicable upon any other hypothesis.

(_a_) _Mark 13:19_—“_from the beginning of the creation which God
created until now_”; _John 17:5_—“_before the world was_”; _Eph.
1:4_—“_before the foundation of the world._” (_b_) _Ps.
90:2_—“_Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou
hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to
everlasting thou art God_”; _Prov. 8:23_—“_I was set up from
everlasting, from the beginning, Before the earth was_”; _John
1:1_—“_In the beginning was the Word_”; _Col. 1:17_—“_he is before
all things_”; _Heb. 9:14_—“_the eternal Spirit_” (see Tholuck,
Com. _in loco_). (_c_) _Eph. 3:9_—“_God who created all things_”;
_Rom. 11:36_—“_of him ... are all things_”; _1 Cor. 8:6_—“_one
God, the Father, of whom we are all things ... one Lord, Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things_”; _John 1:3_—“_all things
were made through him_”; _Col 1:16_—“_in him were all things
created ... all things have been created through him, and unto
him_”; _Heb. 1:2_—“_through whom also he made the worlds_”; _Gen.
1:2_—“_and the Spirit of God moved_ [marg. “_was brooding_”] _upon
the face of the waters._” From these passages we may also infer
that (1) all things are absolutely dependent upon God; (2) God
exercises supreme control over all things; (3) God is the only
infinite Being; (4) God alone is eternal; (5) there is no
substance out of which God creates; (6) things do not proceed from
God by necessary emanation; the universe has its source and
originator in God’s transcendent and personal will. See, on this
indirect proof of creation, Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:231. Since
other views, however, have been held to be more rational, we
proceed to the examination of

III. Theories which oppose Creation.

1. Dualism.

Of dualism there are two forms:

A. That which holds to two self-existent principles, God and matter. These are distinct from and coëternal with each other. Matter, however, is an unconscious, negative, and imperfect substance, which is subordinate to God and is made the instrument of his will. This was the underlying principle of the Alexandrian Gnostics. It was essentially an attempt to combine with Christianity the Platonic or Aristotelian conception of the ὕλη. In this way it was thought to account for the existence of evil, and to escape the difficulty of imagining a production without use of preëxisting material. Basilides (flourished 125) and Valentinus (died 160), the representatives of this view, were influenced also by Hindu philosophy, and their dualism is almost indistinguishable from pantheism. A similar view has been held in modern times by John Stuart Mill and apparently by Frederick W. Robertson.

Dualism seeks to show how the One becomes the many, how the
Absolute gives birth to the relative, how the Good can consist
with evil. The ὕλη of Plato seems to have meant nothing but empty
space, whose not-being, or merely negative existence, prevented
the full realization of the divine ideas. Aristotle regarded the
ὕλη as a more positive cause of imperfection,—it was like the hard
material which hampers the sculptor in expressing his thought. The
real problem for both Plato and Aristotle was to explain the
passage from pure spiritual existence to that which is phenomenal
and imperfect, from the absolute and unlimited to that which
exists in space and time. Finiteness, instead of being created,
was regarded as having eternal existence and as limiting all
divine manifestations. The ὕλη, from being a mere abstraction,
became either a negative or a positive source of evil. The
Alexandrian Jews, under the influence of Hellenic culture, sought
to make this dualism explain the doctrine of creation.

Basilides and Valentinus, however, were also under the influence
of a pantheistic philosophy brought in from the remote East—the
philosophy of Buddhism, which taught that the original Source of
all was a nameless Being, devoid of all qualities, and so,
indistinguishable from Nothing. From this Being, which is
Not-being, all existing things proceed. Aristotle and Hegel
similarly taught that pure Being = Nothing. But inasmuch as the
object of the Alexandrian philosophers was to show how something
could be originated, they were obliged to conceive of the
primitive Nothing as capable of such originating. They, moreover,
in the absence of any conception of absolute creation, were
compelled to conceive of a material which could be fashioned.
Hence the Void, the Abyss, is made to take the place of matter. If
it be said that they did not conceive of the Void or the Abyss as
substance, we reply that they gave it just as substantial
existence as they gave to the first Cause of things, which, in
spite of their negative descriptions of it, involved Will and
Design. And although they do not attribute to this secondary
substance a positive influence for evil, they notwithstanding see
in it the unconscious hinderer of all good.

Principal Tulloch, in Encyc. Brit., 10:704—“In the Alexandrian
Gnosis ... the stream of being in its ever outward flow at length
comes in contact with dead matter which thus receives animation
and becomes a living source of evil.” Windelband, Hist.
Philosophy, 129, 144, 239—“With Valentinus, side by side with the
Deity poured forth into the Pleroma or Fulness of spiritual forms,
appears the Void, likewise original and from eternity; beside Form
appears matter; beside the good appears the evil.” Mansel, Gnostic
Heresies, 139—“The Platonic theory of an inert, semi-existent
matter, ... was adopted by the Gnosis of Egypt.... 187—Valentinus
does not content himself, like Plato, ... with assuming as the
germ of the natural world an unformed matter existing from all
eternity.... The whole theory may be described as a development,
in allegorical language of the pantheistic hypothesis which in its
outline had been previously adopted by Basilides.” A. H. Newman,
Ch. History, 1:181-192, calls the philosophy of Basilides
“fundamentally pantheistic.” “Valentinus,” he says, “was not so
careful to insist on the original non-existence of God and
everything.” We reply that even to Basilides the Non-existent One
is endued with power; and this power accomplishes nothing until it
comes in contact with things non-existent, and out of them
fashions the seed of the world. The things non-existent are as
substantial as is the Fashioner, and they imply both objectivity
and limitation.

Lightfoot, Com. on Colossians, 76-113, esp. 82, has traced a
connection between the Gnostic doctrine, the earlier Colossian
heresy, and the still earlier teaching of the Essenes of
Palestine. All these were characterized by (1) the spirit of caste
or intellectual exclusiveness; (2) peculiar tenets as to creation
and as to evil; (3) practical asceticism. Matter is evil and
separates man from God; hence intermediate beings between man and
God as objects of worship; hence also mortification of the body as
a means of purifying man from sin. Paul’s antidote for both errors
was simply the person of Christ, the true and only Mediator and
Sanctifier. See Guericke, Church History, 1:161.

Harnack, Hist. Dogma, 1:128—“The majority of Gnostic undertakings
may be viewed as attempts to transform Christianity into a
theosophy.... In Gnosticism the Hellenic spirit desired to make
itself master of Christianity, or more correctly, of the Christian
communities.”... 232—Harnack represents one of the fundamental
philosophic doctrines of Gnosticism to be that of the Cosmos as a
mixture of matter with divine sparks, which has arisen from a
descent of the latter into the former [Alexandrian Gnosticism],
or, as some say, from the perverse, or at least merely permitted
undertaking of a subordinate spirit [Syrian Gnosticism]. We may
compare the Hebrew Sadducee with the Greek Epicurean; the Pharisee
with the Stoic; the Essene with the Pythagorean. The Pharisees
overdid the idea of God’s transcendence. Angels must come in
between God and the world. Gnostic intermediaries were the logical
outcome. External works of obedience were alone valid. Christ
preached, instead of this, a religion of the heart. Wendt,
Teaching of Jesus, 1:52—“The rejection of animal sacrifices and
consequent abstaining from temple-worship on the part of the
Essenes, which seems out of harmony with the rest of their legal
obedience, is most simply explained as the consequence of their
idea that to bring to God a bloody animal offering was derogatory
to his transcendental character. Therefore they interpreted the O.
T. command in an allegorizing way.”

Lyman Abbott: “The Oriental dreams; the Greek defines; the Hebrew
acts. All these influences met and intermingled at Alexandria.
Emanations were mediations between the absolute, unknowable,
all-containing God, and the personal, revealed and holy God of
Scripture. Asceticism was one result: matter is undivine,
therefore get rid of it. License was another result: matter is
undivine, therefore disregard it—there is no disease and there is
no sin—the modern doctrine of Christian Science.” Kedney,
Christian Doctrine, 1:360-373; 2:354, conceives of the divine
glory as an eternal material environment of God, out of which the
universe is fashioned.

The author of “The Unseen Universe” (page 17) wrongly calls John
Stuart Mill a Manichæan. But Mill disclaims belief in the
_personality_ of this principle that resists and limits God,—see
his posthumous Essays on Religion, 176-195. F. W. Robertson,
Lectures on Genesis, 4-16—“Before the creation of the world all
was chaos ... but with the creation, order began.... God did not
cease from creation, for creation is going on every day. Nature is
God at work. Only after surprising changes, as in spring-time, do
we say figuratively, ‘God rests.’ ” See also Frothingham,
Christian Philosophy.

With regard to this view, we remark:

(_a_) The maxim _ex nihilo nihil fit_, upon which it rests, is true only in so far as it asserts that no event takes place without a cause. It is false, if it mean that nothing can ever be made except out of material previously existing. The maxim is therefore applicable only to the realm of second causes, and does not bar the creative power of the great first Cause. The doctrine of creation does not dispense with a cause; on the other hand, it assigns to the universe a sufficient cause in God.

Lucretius: “Nihil posse creari De nihilo, neque quod genitum est
ad nihil revocari.” Persius: “Gigni De nihilo nihil, in nihilum
nil posse reverti.” Martensen, Dogmatics, 116—“The nothing, out of
which God creates the world, is the eternal possibilities of his
will, which are the sources of all the actualities of the world.”
Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 2:292—“When therefore it is
argued that the creation of something from nothing is unthinkable
and is therefore peremptorily to be rejected, the argument seems
to me to be defective. The process is thinkable, but not
imaginable, conceivable but not probable.” See Cudworth,
Intellectual System, 3:81 _sq._ Lipsius, Dogmatik, 288, remarks
that the theory of dualism is quite as difficult as that of
absolute creation. It holds to a point of time when God began to
fashion preëxisting material, and can give no reason why God did
not do it before, since there must always have been in him an
impulse toward this fashioning.

(_b_) Although creation without the use of preëxisting material is inconceivable, in the sense of being unpicturable to the imagination, yet the eternity of matter is equally inconceivable. For creation without preëxisting material, moreover, we find remote analogies in our own creation of ideas and volitions, a fact as inexplicable as God’s bringing of new substances into being.

Mivart, Lessons from Nature, 371, 372—“We have to a certain extent
an aid to the thought of absolute creation in our own free
volition, which, as absolutely originating and determining, may be
taken as the type to us of the creative act.” We speak of “the
creative faculty” of the artist or poet. We cannot give reality to
the products of our imaginations, as God can to his. But if
thought were only substance, the analogy would be complete. Shedd,
Dogm. Theol., 1:467—“Our thoughts and volitions are created ex
nihilo, in the sense that one thought is not made out of another
thought, nor one volition out of another volition.” So created
substance may be only the mind and will of God in exercise,
automatically in matter, freely in the case of free beings (see
pages 90, 105-110, 383, and in our treatment of Preservation).

Beddoes: “I have a bit of _Fiat_ in my soul, And can myself create
my little world.” Mark Hopkins: “Man is an image of God as a
creator.... He can purposely create, or cause to be, a future
that, but for him, would not have been.” E. C. Stedman, Nature of
Poetry, 223—“So far as the Poet, the artist, is creative, he
becomes a sharer of the divine imagination and power, and even of
the divine responsibility.” Wordsworth calls the poet a “serene
creator of immortal things.” Imagination, he says, is but another
name for “clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And reason in her
most exalted mood.” “If we are ‘_gods_’ (_Ps. 82:6_), that part of
the Infinite which is embodied in us must partake to a limited
extent of his power to create.” Veitch, Knowing and Being,
289—“Will, the expression of personality, both as originating
resolutions and moulding existing material into form, is the
nearest approach in thought which we can make to divine creation.”

Creation is not simply the thought of God,—it is also the will of
God—thought in expression, reason externalized. Will is creation
out of nothing, in the sense that there is no use of preëxisting
material. In man’s exercise of the creative imagination there is
will, as well as intellect. Royce, Studies of Good and Evil, 256,
points out that we can be original in (1) the style or form of our
work; (2) in the selection of the objects we imitate; (3) in the
invention of relatively novel combinations of material. Style,
subject, combination, then, comprise the methods of our
originality. Our new conceptions of nature as the expression of
the divine mind and will bring creation more within our
comprehension than did the old conception of the world as
substance capable of existing apart from God. Hudson, Law of
Psychic Phenomena, 294, thinks that we have power to create
visible phantasms, or embodied thoughts, that can be subjectively
perceived by others. See also Hudson’s Scientific Demonstration of
Future Life, 153. He defines genius as the result of the
synchronous action of the objective and subjective faculties.
Jesus of Nazareth, in his judgment, was a wonderful psychic.
Intuitive perception and objective reason were with him always in
the ascendant. His miracles were misinterpreted psychic phenomena.
Jesus never claimed that his works were outside of natural law.
All men have the same intuitional power, though in differing
degrees.

We may add that the begetting of a child by man is the giving of
substantial existence to another. Christ’s creation of man may be
like his own begetting by the Father. Behrends: “The relation
between God and the universe is more intimate and organic than
that between an artist and his work. The marble figure is
independent of the sculptor the moment it is completed. It
remains, though he die. But the universe would vanish in the
withdrawal of the divine presence and indwelling. If I were to use
any figure, it would be that of generation. The immanence of God
is the secret of natural permanence and uniformity. Creation is
primarily a spiritual act. The universe is not what we see and
handle. The real universe is an empire of energies, a hierarchy of
correlated forces, whose reality and unity are rooted in the
rational will of God perpetually active in preservation. But there
is no identity of substance, nor is there any division of the
divine substance.”

Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 36—“A mind is conceivable
which should create its objects outright by pure self-activity and
without dependence on anything beyond itself. Such is our
conception of the Creator’s relation to his objects. But this is
not the case with us except to a very slight extent. Our mental
life itself begins, and we come only gradually to a knowledge of
things, and of ourselves. In some sense our objects are given;
that is, we cannot have objects at will or vary their properties
at our pleasure. In this sense we are passive in knowledge, and no
idealism can remove this fact. But in some sense also our objects
are our own products; for an existing object becomes an object for
us only as we think it, and thus make it our object. In this
sense, knowledge is an active process, and not a passive reception
of readymade information from without.” Clarke, Self and the
Father, 38—“Are we humiliated by having data for our imaginations
to work upon? by being unable to create material? Not unless it be
a shame to be second to the Creator.” Causation is as mysterious
as Creation. Balzac lived with his characters as actual beings. On
the Creative Principle, see N. R. Wood, The Witness of Sin,
114-135.

(_c_) It is unphilosophical to postulate two eternal substances, when one self-existent Cause of all things will account for the facts. (_d_) It contradicts our fundamental notion of God as absolute sovereign to suppose the existence of any other substance to be independent of his will. (_e_) This second substance with which God must of necessity work, since it is, according to the theory, inherently evil and the source of evil, not only limits God’s power, but destroys his blessedness. (_f_) This theory does not answer its purpose of accounting for moral evil, unless it be also assumed that spirit is material,—in which case dualism gives place to materialism.

Martensen, Dogmatics, 121—“God becomes a mere demiurge, if nature
existed before spirit. That spirit only who in a perfect sense is
able to commence his work of creation can have power to complete
it.” If God does not create, he must use what material he finds,
and this working with intractable material must be his perpetual
sorrow. Such limitation in the power of the deity seemed to John
Stuart Mill the best explanation of the existing imperfections of
the universe.

The other form of dualism is:

B. That which holds to the eternal existence of two antagonistic spirits, one evil and the other good. In this view, matter is not a negative and imperfect substance which nevertheless has self-existence, but is either the work or the instrument of a personal and positively malignant intelligence, who wages war against all good. This was the view of the Manichæans. Manichæanism is a compound of Christianity and the Persian doctrine of two eternal and opposite intelligences. Zoroaster, however, held matter to be pure, and to be the creation of the good Being. Mani apparently regarded matter as captive to the evil spirit, if not absolutely his creation.

The old story of Mani’s travels in Greece is wholly a mistake.
Guericke, Church History, 1:185-187, maintains that Manichæanism
contains no mixture of Platonic philosophy, has no connection with
Judaism, and as a sect came into no direct relations with the
Catholic church. Harnoch, Wegweiser, 22, calls Manichæanism a
compound of Gnosticism and Parseeism. Herzog, Encyclopädie, art.:
Mani und die Manichäer, regards Manichæanism as the fruit, acme,
and completion of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a heresy in the
church; Manichæanism, like New Platonism, was an anti-church. J.
P. Lange: “These opposing theories represent various pagan
conceptions of the world, which, after the manner of palimpsests,
show through Christianity.” Isaac Taylor speaks of “the creator of
the carnivora”; and some modern Christians practically regard
Satan as a second and equal God.

On the Religion of Zoroaster, see Haug, Essays on Parsees,
139-161, 302-309; also our quotations on pp. 347-349; Monier
Williams, in 19th Century, Jan. 1881:155-177—Ahura Mazda was the
creator of the universe. Matter was created by him, and was
neither identified with him nor an emanation from him. In the
divine nature there were two opposite, but not opposing,
principles or forces, called “twins”—the one constructive, the
other destructive; the one beneficent, the other maleficent.
Zoroaster called these “twins” also by the name of “spirits,” and
declared that “these two spirits created, the one the reality, the
other the non-reality.” Williams says that these two principles
were conflicting only in name. The only antagonism was between the
resulting good and evil brought about by the free agent, man. See
Jackson, Zoroaster.

We may add that in later times this personification of principles
in the deity seems to have become a definite belief in two
opposing personal spirits, and that Mani, Manes, or Manichæus
adopted this feature of Parseeism, with the addition of certain
Christian elements. Hagenbach, History of Doctrine, 1:470—“The
doctrine of the Manichæans was that creation was the work of
Satan.” See also Gieseler, Church History, 1:203; Neander, Church
History, 1:478-505; Blunt, Dict. Doct. and Hist. Theology, art.:
Dualism; and especially Baur, Das manichäische Religionssystem. A.
H. Newman, Ch. History, 1:194—“Manichæism is Gnosticism, with its
Christian elements reduced to a minimum, and the Zoroastrian, old
Babylonian, and other Oriental elements raised to the maximum.
Manichæism is Oriental dualism under Christian names, the
Christian names employed retaining scarcely a trace of their
proper meaning. The most fundamental thing in Manichæism is its
absolute dualism. The kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness
with their rulers stand eternally opposed to each other.”

Of this view we need only say that it is refuted (_a_) by all the arguments for the unity, omnipotence, sovereignty, and blessedness of God; (_b_) by the Scripture representations of the prince of evil as the creature of God and as subject to God’s control.

Scripture passages showing that Satan is God’s creature or subject
are the following: _Col. 1:16_—“_for in him were all things
created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and
things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities
or powers_”; _cf._ _Eph. 6:12_—“_our wrestling is not against
flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the
powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the
spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places_”; _2 Pet.
2:4_—“_God spared not the angels when they sinned, but cast them
down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be
reserved unto judgment_”; _Rev. 20:2_—“_laid hold on the dragon,
the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan_”; _10_—“_and the
devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone._”

The closest analogy to Manichæan dualism is found in the popular
conception of the devil held by the mediæval Roman church. It is a
question whether he was regarded as a rival or as a servant of
God. Matheson, Messages of Old Religions, says that Parseeism
recognizes an obstructive element in the nature of God himself.
Moral evil is reality, and there is that element of truth in
Parseeism. But there is no reconciliation, nor is it shown that
all things work together for good. E. H. Johnson: “This theory
sets up matter as a sort of deity, a senseless idol endowed with
the truly divine attribute of self-existence. But we can
acknowledge but one God. To erect matter into an eternal Thing,
independent of the Almighty but forever beside him, is the most
revolting of all theories.” Tennyson, Unpublished Poem (Life,
1:314)—“Oh me! for why is all around us here As if some lesser God
had made the world, But had not force to shape it as he would Till
the high God behold it from beyond, And enter it and make it
beautiful?”