Chapter V: Section I: Creation (3)

Canon Rawlinson, in Aids to Faith, 275, compares the Mosaic
account with the cosmogony of Berosus, the Chaldean. Pfleiderer,
Philos. of Religion, 1:267-272, gives an account of heathen
theories of the origin of the universe. Anaxagoras was the first
who represented the chaotic first matter as formed through the
ordering understanding (νοῦς) of God, and Aristotle for that
reason called him “the first sober one among many drunken.”
Schurman, Belief in God, 138—“In these cosmogonies the world and
the gods grow up together; cosmogony is, at the same time,
theogony.” Dr. E. G. Robinson: “The Bible writers believed and
intended to state that the world was made in three literal days.
But, on the principle that God may have meant more than they did,
the doctrine of periods may not be inconsistent with their
account.” For comparison of the Biblical with heathen cosmogonies,
see Blackie in Theol. Eclectic, 1:77-87; Guyot, Creation, 58-63;
Pope, Theology, 1:401, 402; Bible Commentary, 1:36, 48; McIlvaine,
Wisdom of Holy Scripture, 1-54; J. F. Clarke, Ten Great Religions,
2:193-221. For the theory of “prophetic vision,” see Kurtz, Hist.
of Old Covenant, Introd., i-xxxvii, civ-cxxx; and Hugh Miller,
Testimony of the Rocks, 179-210; Hastings, Dict. Bible, art.:
Cosmogony; Sayce, Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia,
372-397.

(_b_) The _hyperliteral interpretation_ would withdraw the
narrative from all comparison with the conclusions of science, by
putting the ages of geological history between the first and
second verses of _Gen. 1_, and by making the remainder of the
chapter an account of the fitting up of the earth, or of some
limited portion of it, in six days of twenty-four hours each.
Among the advocates of this view, now generally discarded, are
Chalmers, Natural Theology, Works, 1:228-258, and John Pye Smith,
Mosaic Account of Creation, and Scripture and Geology. To this
view we object that there is no indication, in the Mosaic
narrative, of so vast an interval between the first and the second
verses; that there is no indication, in the geological history, of
any such break between the ages of preparation and the present
time (see Hugh Miller, Testimony of the Rocks, 141-178); and that
there are indications in the Mosaic record itself that the word
“_day_” is not used in its literal sense; while the other
Scriptures unquestionably employ it to designate a period of
indefinite duration (_Gen. 1:5_—“_God called the light Day_”—a day
before there was a sun; _8_—“_there was evening and there was
morning, a second day_”; _2:2_—God “_rested on the seventh day_”;
_cf._ _Heb. 4:3-10_—where God’s day of rest seems to continue, and
his people are exhorted to enter into it; _Gen. 2:4_—“_the day
that Jehovah made earth and heaven_”—“_day_” here covers all the
seven days; _cf._ _Is. 2:12_—“_a day of Jehovah of hosts_”; _Zech.
14:7_—“_it shall be one day which is known unto Jehovah; not day,
and not night_”; _2 Pet. 3:8_—“_one day is with the Lord as __ a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day_”). Guyot,
Creation, 34, objects also to this interpretation, that the
narrative purports to give a history of the making of the heavens
as well as of the earth (_Gen. 2:4_—“_these are the generations of
the heaven and of the earth_”), whereas this interpretation
confines the history to the earth. On the meaning of the word
“_day_,” as a period of indefinite duration, see Dana, Manual of
Geology, 744; LeConte, Religion and Science, 262.

(_c_) The _hyperscientific interpretation_ would find in the
narrative a minute and precise correspondence with the geological
record. This is not to be expected, since it is foreign to the
purpose of revelation to teach science. Although a general concord
between the Mosaic and geological histories may be pointed out, it
is a needless embarrassment to compel ourselves to find in every
detail of the former an accurate statement of some scientific
fact. Far more probable we hold to be

(_d_) The _pictorial-summary interpretation_. Before explaining
this in detail, we would premise that we do not hold this or any
future scheme of reconciling Genesis and geology to be a finality.
Such a settlement of all the questions involved would presuppose
not only a perfected science of the physical universe, but also a
perfected science of hermeneutics. It is enough if we can offer
tentative solutions which represent the present state of thought
upon the subject. Remembering, then, that any such scheme of
reconciliation may speedily be outgrown without prejudice to the
truth of the Scripture narrative, we present the following as an
approximate account of the coincidences between the Mosaic and the
geological records. The scheme here given is a combination of the
conclusions of Dana and Guyot, and assumes the substantial truth
of the nebular hypothesis. It is interesting to observe that
Augustine, who knew nothing of modern science, should have
reached, by simple study of the text, some of the same results.
See his Confessions, 12:8—“First God created a chaotic matter,
which was _next_ to _nothing_. This chaotic matter was made from
nothing, before all days. Then this chaotic, amorphous matter was
subsequently arranged, in the succeeding six days”; De Genes. ad
Lit., 4:27—“The length of these days is not to be determined by
the length of our week-days. There is a series in both cases, and
that is all.” We proceed now to the scheme:

1. The earth, if originally in the condition of a gaseous fluid,
must have been void and formless as described in _Genesis 1:2_.
Here the earth is not yet separated from the condensing nebula,
and its fluid condition is indicated by the term “_waters_.”

2. The beginning of activity in matter would manifest itself by
the production of light, since light is a resultant of molecular
activity. This corresponds to the statement in _verse 3_. As the
result of condensation, the nebula becomes luminous, and this
process from darkness to light is described as follows: “_there
was evening and there was morning, one day_.” Here we have a day
without a sun—a feature in the narrative quite consistent with two
facts of science: first, that the nebula would naturally be
self-luminous, and, secondly, that the earth proper, which reached
its present form before the sun, would, when it was thrown off, be
itself a self-luminous and molten mass. The day was therefore
continuous—day without night.

3. The development of the earth into an independent sphere and its
separation from the fluid around it answers to the dividing of
“_the waters under the firmament from the waters above_,” in
_verse 7_. Here the word “_waters_” is used to designate the
“primordial cosmic material” (Guyot, Creation, 35-37), or the
molten mass of earth and sun united, from which the earth is
thrown off. The term “_waters_” is the best which the Hebrew
language affords to express this idea of a fluid mass. _Ps. 148_
seems to have this meaning, where it speaks of the “_waters that
are above the heavens_” (_verse 4_)—waters which are distinguished
from the “_deeps_” below (_verse 7_), and the “_vapor_” above
(_verse 8_).

4. The production of the earth’s physical features by the partial
condensation of the vapors which enveloped the igneous sphere, and
by the consequent outlining of the continents and oceans, is next
described in _verse 9_ as the gathering of the waters into one
place and the appearing of the dry land.

5. The expression of the idea of life in the lowest plants, since
it was in type and effect the creation of the vegetable kingdom,
is next described in _verse 11_ as a bringing into existence of
the characteristic forms of that kingdom. This precedes all
mention of animal life, since the vegetable kingdom is the natural
basis of the animal. If it be said that our earliest fossils are
animal, we reply that the earliest vegetable forms, the _algæ_,
were easily dissolved, and might as easily disappear; that
graphite and bog-iron ore, appearing lower down than any animal
remains, are the result of preceding vegetation; that animal
forms, whenever and wherever existing, must subsist upon and
presuppose the vegetable. The Eozoön is of necessity preceded by
the Eophyte. If it be said that fruit-trees could not have been
created on the third day, we reply that since the creation of the
vegetable kingdom was to be described at one stroke and no mention
of it was to be made subsequently, this is the proper place to
introduce it and to mention its main characteristic forms. See
Bible Commentary, 1:36; LeConte, Elements of Geology, 136, 285.

6. The vapors which have hitherto shrouded the planet are now
cleared away as preliminary to the introduction of life in its
higher animal forms. The consequent appearance of solar light is
described in _verses 16_ and _17_ as a making of the sun, moon,
and stars, and a giving of them as luminaries to the earth.
Compare _Gen. 9:13_—“_I do set my bow in the cloud._” As the
rainbow had existed in nature before, but was now appointed to
serve a peculiar purpose, so in the record of creation sun, moon
and stars, which existed before, were appointed as visible lights
for the earth,—and that for the reason that the earth was no
longer self-luminous, and the light of the sun struggling through
the earth’s encompassing clouds was not sufficient for the higher
forms of life which were to come.

7. The exhibition of the four grand types of the animal kingdom
(radiate, molluscan, articulate, vertebrate), which characterizes
the next stage of geological progress, is represented in _verses
20_ and _21_ as a creation of the lower animals—those that swarm
in the waters, and the creeping and flying species of the land.
Huxley, in his American Addresses, objects to this assigning of
the origin of birds to the fifth day, and declares that
terrestrial animals exist in lower strata than any form of
bird,—birds appearing only in the Oölitic, or New Red Sandstone.
But we reply that the fifth day is devoted to sea-productions,
while land-productions belong to the sixth. Birds, according to
the latest science, are sea-productions, not land-productions.
They originated from Saurians, and were, at the first, flying
lizards. There being but one mention of sea-productions, all
these, birds included, are crowded into the fifth day. Thus
Genesis anticipates the latest science. On the ancestry of birds,
see Pop. Science Monthly, March, 1884:606; Baptist Magazine,
1877:505.

8. The introduction of mammals—viviparous species, which are
eminent above all other vertebrates for a quality prophetic of a
high moral purpose, that of suckling their young—is indicated in
_verses 24_ and _25_ by the creation, on the sixth day, of cattle
and beasts of prey.

9. Man, the first being of moral and intellectual qualities, and
the first in whom the unity of the great design has full
expression, forms in both the Mosaic and geologic record the last
step of progress in creation (see _verses 26-31_). With Prof.
Dana, we may say that “in this succession we observe not merely an
order of events like that deduced from science; there is a system
in the arrangement, and a far-reaching prophecy, to which
philosophy could not have attained, however instructed.” See Dana,
Manual of Geology, 741-746, and Bib. Sac., April, 1885:201-224.
Richard Owen: “Man from the beginning of organisms was ideally
present upon the earth”; see Owen, Anatomy of Vertebrates, 3:796;
Louis Agassiz: “Man is the purpose toward which the whole animal
creation tends from the first appearance of the first palæozoic
fish.”

Prof. John M. Taylor: “Man is not merely a mortal but a moral
being. If he sinks below this plane of life he misses the path
marked out for him by all his past development. In order to
progress, the higher vertebrate had to subordinate everything to
mental development. In order to become human it had to develop the
rational intelligence. In order to become higher man, present man
must subordinate everything to moral development. This is the
great law of animal and human development clearly revealed in the
sequence of physical and psychical functions.” W. E. Gladstone in
S. S. Times, April 26, 1890, calls the Mosaic days “chapters in
the history of creation.” He objects to calling them epochs or
periods, because they are not of equal length, and they sometimes
overlap. But he defends the general correspondence of the Mosaic
narrative with the latest conclusions of science, and remarks:
“Any man whose labor and duty for several scores of years has
included as their central point the study of the means of making
himself intelligible to the mass of men, is in a far better
position to judge what would be the forms and methods of speech
proper for the Mosaic writer to adopt, than the most perfect
Hebraist as such, or the most consummate votary of physical
science as such.”

On the whole subject, see Guyot, Creation; Review of Guyot, in N.
Eng., July, 1884:591-594; Tayler Lewis, Six Days of Creation;
Thompson, Man in Genesis and in Geology; Agassiz, in Atlantic
Monthly, Jan. 1874; Dawson, Story of the Earth and Man, 82, and in
Expositor, Apl. 1886; LeConte, Science and Religion, 264; Hill, in
Bib. Sac., April, 1875; Peirce, Ideality in the Physical Sciences,
38-72; Boardman, The Creative Week; Godet, Bib. Studies of O. T.,
65-138; Bell, in Nature, Nov. 24 and Dec. 1, 1882; W. E.
Gladstone, in Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1885:685-707, Jan. 1886:1,
176; reply by Huxley, in Nineteenth Century, Dec. 1885, and Feb.
1886; Schmid, Theories of Darwin; Bartlett, Sources of History in
the Pentateuch, 1-35; Cotterill, Does Science Aid Faith in Regard
to Creation? Cox, Miracles, 1-39—chapter 1, on the Original
Miracle—that of Creation; Zöckler, Theologie und
Naturwissenschaft, and Urgeschichte, 1-77; Reusch, Bib.
Schöpfungsgeschichte. On difficulties of the nebular hypothesis,
see Stallo, Modern Physics, 277-293.

V. God’s End in Creation.

Infinite wisdom must, in creating, propose to itself the most comprehensive and the most valuable of ends,—the end most worthy of God, and the end most fruitful in good. Only in the light of the end proposed can we properly judge of God’s work, or of God’s character as revealed therein.

It would seem that Scripture should give us an answer to the
question: Why did God create? The great Architect can best tell
his own design. Ambrose: “To whom shall I give greater credit
concerning God than to God himself?” George A. Gordon, New Epoch
for Faith, 15—“God is necessarily a being of ends. Teleology is
the warp and woof of humanity; it must be in the warp and woof of
Deity. Evolutionary science has but strengthened this view.
Natural science is but a mean disguise for ignorance if it does
not imply cosmical purpose. The movement of life from lower to
higher is a movement upon ends. Will is the last account of the
universe, and will is the faculty for ends. The moment one
concludes that God is, it appears certain that he is a being of
ends. The universe is alive with desire and movement.
Fundamentally it is throughout an expression of will. And it
follows, that the ultimate end of God in human history must be
worthy of himself.”

In determining this end, we turn first to:

1. The testimony of Scripture.

This may be summed up in four statements. God finds his end (_a_) in himself; (_b_) in his own will and pleasure; (_c_) in his own glory; (_d_) in the making known of his power, his wisdom, his holy name. All these statements may be combined in the following, namely, that God’s supreme end in creation is nothing outside of himself, but is his own glory—in the revelation, in and through creatures, of the infinite perfection of his own being.

(_a_) _Rom. 11:36_—“_unto him are all things_”; _Col. 1:16_—“_all
things have been created ... unto him_” (Christ); compare _Is.
48:11_—“_for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it
... and my glory will I not give to another_”; and _1 Cor.
15:28_—“_subject all things unto him, that God may be all in
all._” _Proverbs 16:4_—not “The Lord hath made all things for
himself” (A. V.) but “_Jehovah hath made everything for its own
end_” (Rev. Vers.).

(_b_) _Eph. 1:5, 6, 9_—“_having foreordained us ... according to
the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his
grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure
which he purposed in him_”; _Rev. 4:11_—“_thou didst create all
things, and because of thy will they were, and were created._”

(_c_) _Is. 43:7_—“_whom I have created for my glory_”; _60:21_ and
_61:3_—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are
secured, that “_he may be glorified_”; _Luke 2:14_—the angels’
song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of
salvation: “_Glory to God in the highest_,” and only through, and
for its sake, “_on earth peace among men in whom he is well
pleased_.”

(_d_) _Ps. 143:11_—“_In thy righteousness bring my soul out of
trouble_”; _Ez. 36:21, 22_—“_I do not this for your sake ... but
for mine holy name_”; _39:7_—“_my holy name will I make known_”;
_Rom. 9:17_—to Pharaoh: “_For this very purpose did I raise thee
up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be
published abroad in all the earth_”; _22, 23_—“_riches of his
glory_” made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;
_Eph. 3:9, 10_—“_created all things; to the intent that now unto
the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be
made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God._” See
Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man; “God in man and man in God,” in
Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565,
568. _Per contra_, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45,
88-98, 143-146.

Since holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, to make himself, his own pleasure, his own glory, his own manifestation, to be his end in creation, is to find his chief end in his own holiness, its maintenance, expression, and communication. To make this his chief end, however, is not to exclude certain subordinate ends, such as the revelation of his wisdom, power, and love, and the consequent happiness of innumerable creatures to whom this revelation is made.

God’s glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something
without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within,
like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man,
praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in
himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be
self-respecting. Pythagoras said well: “Man’s end is to be like
God.” And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end
in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau: “This is the
glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind,
Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for
me, and me for Him.” Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God
glorifies himself in communicating himself.” The object of his
love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions
self-communication.

E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are
only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the
highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself
his own end: (_a_) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite
being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can
be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (_b_)
For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be
to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (_c_)
he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an
end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because
(_d_) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their
happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and
conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect
Ruler; and (_e_) without this highest welfare and happiness of his
creatures God’s own end itself becomes impossible, for he is
glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized
by, his intelligent creatures.” Creation can add nothing to the
essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside
himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old
theologians therefore spoke of God’s “declarative glory,” rather
than God’s “essential glory,” as resulting from man’s obedience
and salvation.

2. The testimony of reason.

That his own glory, in the sense just mentioned, is God’s supreme end in creation, is evident from the following considerations:

(_a_) God’s own glory is the only end actually and perfectly attained in the universe. Wisdom and omnipotence cannot choose an end which is destined to be forever unattained; for _“__what his soul desireth, even that he doeth__”__ (Job 23:13)_. God’s supreme end cannot be the happiness of creatures, since many are miserable here and will be miserable forever. God’s supreme end cannot be the holiness of creatures, for many are unholy here and will be unholy forever. But while neither the holiness nor the happiness of creatures is actually and perfectly attained, God’s glory is made known and will be made known in both the saved and the lost. This then must be God’s supreme end in creation.

This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God’s plan. God
will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God
voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he
will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment.
Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared
by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be
hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca: “Ducunt volentem
fata, nolentem trahunt.” W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But
some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy
will with all.” Christ baptizes _“__in the Holy Spirit and in
fire__”__ (Mat. 3:11)_. Alexander McLaren: “There are two fires,
to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall
gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out
of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up
us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be
consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.” Hare,
Mission of the Comforter, on _John 16:8_, shows that the Holy
Spirit either _convinces_ those who yield to his influence, or
_convicts_ those who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double
significance.

(_b_) God’s glory is the end intrinsically most valuable. The good of creatures is of insignificant importance compared with this. Wisdom dictates that the greater interest should have precedence of the less. Because God can choose no greater end, he must choose for his end himself. But this is to choose his holiness, and his glory in the manifestation of that holiness.

_Is. 40:15, 16_—“_Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket,
and are counted as the small dust of the balance_”—like the drop
that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the
scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are
all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He
created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a
drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important
that God should be glorified than that the universe should be
happy. As we read in _Heb. 6:13_—“_since he could swear by none
greater, he sware by himself_”—so here we may say: Because he
could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to
swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (_Ps. 89:35_). We
infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his
holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.

The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some
consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it
is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.
“Modern thought,” it is said, “worships and serves the creature
more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems
to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.” So the small boy
said his Catechism: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to
annoy him forever.” Prof. Clifford: “The kingdom of God is
obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.” All this is the
insanity of sin. _Per contra_, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329,
330—“Two things are plain in Edwards’s doctrine: first, that God
cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so
preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly
worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the
creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the
fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and
that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to
them.” But we would add that Edwards does not say they are
themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.

(_c_) His own glory is the only end which consists with God’s independence and sovereignty. Every being is dependent upon whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If anything in the creature is the last end of God, God is dependent upon the creature. But since God is dependent only on himself, he must find in himself his end.

To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal
it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The
creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our
worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his
own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our
little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness
of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our
prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and
welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He
creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his
glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies: “The glory
of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic
splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however,
consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is
given. Precisely because the manifestation of God’s goodness can
be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its
manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We
gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own
will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon us.” In
this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the
theory that God’s supreme end is the good of his creatures. God
does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the
manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less
than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself.
God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the
expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression
is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect
Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.” Shedd, Dogm.
Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.

God’s love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is
an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this
characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow,
and stops this self-communication which would make the good of
each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it.
The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets
of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration
restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity
and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a
Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need
utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God’s
presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.

The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to
realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever
wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake
of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially
sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except
for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only
love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley
more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began
to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the
money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back
him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With
him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings,
without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is
moral and religious at heart. “Arma virumque cano” is the only
first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself
speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know
little of Shakespeare’s life, but much of Shakespeare’s genius.

Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it
only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man
his true nature from his false nature. Not his private
peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal,
is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:
“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who
follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his
own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our
nobler needs.” Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a
brook, exclaimed: “What an imagination God has!” Caird, Philos.
Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct
from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which
God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his
wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life,
but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in
the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox
to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”

(_d_) His own glory is an end which comprehends and secures, as a subordinate end, every interest of the universe. The interests of the universe are bound up in the interests of God. There is no holiness or happiness for creatures except as God is absolute sovereign, and is recognized as such. It is therefore not selfishness, but benevolence, for God to make his own glory the supreme object of creation. Glory is not vain-glory, and in expressing his ideal, that is, in expressing himself, in his creation, he communicates to his creatures the utmost possible good.

This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the
true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest
himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation
is an end in itself. But God’s self-manifestation comprises all
good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own
interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The
monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of
his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of
thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of
the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the
members be supplied with streams of holiness and happiness. And so
for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself.
Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end.
But there is no higher end for God. “Only one being in the
universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be
subject to the ‘_higher powers_’ (_Rom. 13:1_). But there are no
higher powers to God.” See Park, Discourses, 181-209.

Bismarck’s motto: “Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor,
there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke’s motto:
“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man.
Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or
unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal
is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and
suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his
creatures.” Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life
is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep
itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal
depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not
alone, but like a gulf doth draw What’s near it with it: it is a
massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose
huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis’d and adjoined;
which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But
with a general groan.”

(_e_) God’s glory is the end which in a right moral system is proposed to creatures. This must therefore be the end which he in whose image they are made proposes to himself. He who constitutes the centre and end of all his creatures must find his centre and end in himself. This principle of moral philosophy, and the conclusion drawn from it, are both explicitly and implicitly taught in Scripture.

The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God’s end as our
end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance
upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of
moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no
happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the
ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search
after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings
happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It
is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so
connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot
properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a
matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into
his eternal glory.” That God will certainly secure the end for
which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is
the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of
encouragement in prayer. See _Psalm 25:11_—“_For thy name’s
sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great_”; _115:1_—“_Not
unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory_”;
_Mat. 6:33_—“_Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you_”; _1 Cor.
10:31_—“_Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do,
do all to the glory of God_”; _1 Pet. 2:9_—“_ye are an elect race
... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you
out of darkness into his marvelous light_”; _4:11_—speaking,
ministering, “_that in all things God may be glorified through
Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and
ever. Amen._” On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257;
Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32;
Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.

It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God’s
sake. _Jer. 45:5_—“_seekest thou great things for thyself? seek
them not!_” But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things
for God. Rather we are to “_desire earnestly the greater gifts_”
(_1 Cor. 12:31_). Self-realization as well as self-expression is
native to humanity. Kant: “Man, and with him every rational
creature, is an end in himself.” But this seeking of his own good
is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God’s glory. The
difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist
wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God.
Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his
lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in
Christ’s hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the
cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner
is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage.
The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is
something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of
the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God
the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see
Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.

George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate
view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is
ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of
permanent value in Edwards’s great essay on The End of Creation.
The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men
in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle
teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end
only in and through God.” Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the
glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our
existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in
ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in
ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared
by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring
us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is
absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to
our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed
before us, without making us content with a character unlike that
of the First Good and the First Fair.” See statement and criticism
of Edwards’s view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.

VI. Relation of the Doctrine of Creation to other Doctrines.

1. To the holiness and benevolence of God.

Creation, as the work of God, manifests of necessity God’s moral attributes. But the existence of physical and moral evil in the universe appears, at first sight, to impugn these attributes, and to contradict the Scripture declaration that the work of God’s hand was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). This difficulty may be in great part removed by considering that:

(_a_) At its first creation, the world was good in two senses: first, as free from moral evil,—sin being a later addition, the work, not of God, but of created spirits; secondly, as adapted to beneficent ends,—for example, the revelation of God’s perfection, and the probation and happiness of intelligent and obedient creatures.

(_b_) Physical pain and imperfection, so far as they existed before the introduction of moral evil, are to be regarded: first, as congruous parts of a system of which sin was foreseen to be an incident; and secondly, as constituting, in part, the means of future discipline and redemption for the fallen.

The coprolites of Saurians contain the scales and bones of fish
which they have devoured. _Rom. 8:20-22_—“_For the creation was
subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who
subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the
glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation_
[the irrational creation] _groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now_”; _23_—our mortal body, as a part of nature,
participates in the same groaning. _2 Cor. 4:17_—“_our light
affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more
exceedingly an eternal weight of glory._” Bowne, Philosophy of
Theism, 224-240—“How explain our rather shabby universe? Pessimism
assumes that perfect wisdom is compatible only with a perfect
work, and that we know the universe to be truly worthless and
insignificant.” John Stuart Mill, Essays on Religion, 29, brings
in a fearful indictment of nature, her storms, lightnings,
earthquakes, blight, decay, and death. Christianity however
regards these as due to man, not to God; as incidents of sin; as
the groans of creation, crying out for relief and liberty. Man’s
body, as a part of nature, waits for the adoption, and
resurrection of the body is to accompany the renewal of the world.

It was Darwin’s judgment that in the world of nature and of man,
on the whole, “happiness decidedly prevails.” Wallace, Darwinism,
36-40—“Animals enjoy all the happiness of which they are capable.”
Drummond, Ascent of Man, 203 _sq._—“In the struggle for life there
is no hate—only hunger.” Martineau, Study, 1:330—“Waste of life is
simply nature’s exuberance.” Newman Smyth, Place of Death in
Evolution, 44-56—“Death simply buries the useless waste. Death has
entered for life’s sake.” These utterances, however, come far
short of a proper estimate of the evils of the world, and they
ignore the Scriptural teaching with regard to the connection
between death and sin. A future world into which sin and death do
not enter shows that the present world is abnormal, and that
morality is the only cure for mortality. Nor can the imperfections
of the universe be explained by saying that they furnish
opportunity for struggle and for virtue. Robert Browning, Ring and
Book, Pope, 1875—“I can believe this dread machinery Of sin and
sorrow, would confound me else, Devised,—all pain, at most
expenditure Of pain by Who devised pain,—to evolve, By new
machinery in counterpart, The moral qualities of man—how else?—To
make him love in turn and be beloved, Creative and
self-sacrificing too, And thus eventually godlike.” This seems
like doing evil that good may come. We can explain mortality only
by immorality, and that not in God but in man. Fairbairn:
“Suffering is God’s protest against sin.”

Wallace’s theory of the survival of the fittest was suggested by
the prodigal destructiveness of nature. Tennyson: “Finding that of
fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear.” William James: “Our
dogs are _in_ our human life, but not _of_ it. The dog, under the
knife of vivisection, cannot understand the purpose of his
suffering. For him it is only pain. So we may lie soaking in a
spiritual atmosphere, a dimension of Being which we have at
present no organ for apprehending. If we knew the purpose of our
life, all that is heroic in us would religiously acquiesce.”
Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 72—“Love is prepared to take deeper
and sterner measures than benevolence, which is by itself a
shallow thing.” The Lakes of Killarny in Ireland show what a
paradise this world might be if war had not desolated it, and if
man had properly cared for it. Our moral sense cannot justify the
evil in creation except upon the hypothesis that this has some
cause and reason in the misconduct of man.

This is not a perfect world. It was not perfect even when
originally constituted. Its imperfection is due to sin. God made
it with reference to the Fall,—the stage was arranged for the
great drama of sin and redemption which was to be enacted thereon.
We accept Bushnell’s idea of “anticipative consequences,” and
would illustrate it by the building of a hospital-room while yet
no member of the family is sick, and by the salvation of the
patriarchs through a Christ yet to come. If the earliest
vertebrates of geological history were types of man and
preparations for his coming, then pain and death among those same
vertebrates may equally have been a type of man’s sin and its
results of misery. If sin had not been an incident, foreseen and
provided for, the world might have been a paradise. As a matter of
fact, it will become a paradise only at the completion of the
redemptive work of Christ. Kreibig, Versöhnung, 369—“The death of
Christ was accompanied by startling occurrences in the outward
world, to show that the effects of his sacrifice reached even into
nature.” Perowne refers _Ps. 96:10_—“_The world also is
established that it cannot be moved_”—to the restoration of the
inanimate creation; _cf._ _Heb. 12:27_—“_And this word, Yet once
more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as
of things that have been made, that those things which are not
shaken may remain_”; _Rev. 21:1, 5_—“_a new heaven and a new earth
... Behold, I make all things new._”

Much sport has been made of this doctrine of anticipative
consequences. James D. Dana: “It is funny that the sin of Adam
should have killed those old trilobites! The blunderbuss must have
kicked back into time at a tremendous rate to have hit those poor
innocents!” Yet every insurance policy, every taking out of an
umbrella, every buying of a wedding ring, is an anticipative
consequence. To deny that God made the world what it is in view of
the events that were to take place in it, is to concede to him
less wisdom than we attribute to our fellow-man. The most rational
explanation of physical evil in the universe is that of _Rom.
8:20, 21_—“_the creation was subjected to vanity ... by reason of
him who subjected it_”—_i. e._, by reason of the first man’s
sin—“_in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered_.”

Martineau, Types, 2:151—“What meaning could Pity have in a world
where suffering was not meant to be?” Hicks, Critique of Design
Arguments, 386—“The very badness of the world convinces us that
God is good.” And Sir Henry Taylor’s words: “Pain in man Bears the
high mission of the flail and fan; In brutes ’tis surely
piteous”—receive their answer: The brute is but an appendage to
man, and like inanimate nature it suffers from man’s fall—suffers
not wholly in vain, for even pain in brutes serves to illustrate
the malign influence of sin and to suggest motives for resisting
it. Pascal: “Whatever virtue can be bought with pain is cheaply
bought.” The pain and imperfection of the world are God’s frown
upon sin and his warning against it. See Bushnell, chapter on
Anticipative Consequences, in Nature and the Supernatural,
194-219. Also McCosh, Divine Government, 26-35, 249-261; Farrar,
Science and Theology, 82-105; Johnson, in Bap. Rev., 6:141-154;
Fairbairn, Philos. Christ. Religion, 94-168.

2. To the wisdom and free-will of God.

No plan whatever of a finite creation can fully express the infinite perfection of God. Since God, however, is immutable, he must always have had a plan of the universe; since he is perfect, he must have had the best possible plan. As wise, God cannot choose a plan less good, instead of one more good. As rational, he cannot between plans equally good make a merely arbitrary choice. Here is no necessity, but only the certainty that infinite wisdom will act wisely. As no compulsion from without, so no necessity from within, moves God to create the actual universe. Creation is both wise and free.

As God is both rational and wise, his having a plan of the
universe must be better than his not having a plan would be. But
the universe once was not; yet without a universe God was blessed
and sufficient to himself. God’s perfection therefore requires,
not that he have a universe, but that he have a plan of the
universe. Again, since God is both rational and wise, his actual
creation cannot be the worst possible, nor one arbitrarily chosen
from two or more equally good. It must be, all things considered,
the best possible. We are optimists rather than pessimists.

But we reject that form of optimism which regards evil as the
indispensable condition of the good, and sin as the direct product
of God’s will. We hold that other form of optimism which regards
sin as naturally destructive, but as made, in spite of itself, by
an overruling providence, to contribute to the highest good. For
the optimism which makes evil the necessary condition of finite
being, see Leibnitz, Opera Philosophica, 468, 624; Hedge, Ways of
the Spirit, 241; and Pope’s Essay on Man. For the better form of
optimism, see Herzog, Encyclopädie, art.: Schöpfung, 13:651-653;
Chalmers, Works, 2:286; Mark Hopkins, in Andover Rev., March,
1885:197-210; Luthardt, Lehre des freien Willens, 9, 10—“Calvin’s
_Quia voluit_ is not the last answer. We could have no heart for
such a God, for he would himself have no heart. Formal will alone
has no heart. In God real freedom controls formal, as in fallen
man, formal controls real.”

Janet, in his Final Causes, 429 sq. and 490-503, claims that
optimism subjects God to fate. We have shown that this objection
mistakes the certainty which is consistent with freedom for the
necessity which is inconsistent with freedom. The opposite
doctrine attributes an irrational arbitrariness to God. We are
warranted in saying that the universe at present existing,
considered as a partial realization of God’s developing plan, is
the best possible for this particular point of time,—in short,
that all is for the best,—see _Rom. 8:28_—“_to them that love God
all things work together for good_”; _1 Cor. 3:21_—“_all things
are yours._”

For denial of optimism in any form, see Watson, Theol. Institutes,
1:419; Hovey, God with Us, 206-208; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:419,
432, 566, and 2:145; Lipsius, Dogmatik, 234-255; Flint, Theism,
227-256; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 397-409, and esp. 405—“A wisdom
the resources of which have been so expended that it cannot equal
its past achievements is a finite capacity, and not the boundless
depth of the infinite God.” But we reply that a wisdom which does
not do that which is best is not wisdom. The limit is not in God’s
abstract power, but in his other attributes of truth, love, and
holiness. Hence God can say in _Is. 5:4_—“_what could have been
done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?_”

The perfect antithesis to an ethical and theistic optimism is
found in the non-moral and atheistic pessimism of Schopenhauer
(Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung) and Hartmann (Philosophie des
Unbewussten). “All life is summed up in effort, and effort is
painful; therefore life is pain.” But we might retort: “Life is
active, and action is always accompanied with pleasure; therefore
life is pleasure.” See Frances Power Cobbe, Peak in Darien,
95-134, for a graphic account of Schopenhauer’s heartlessness,
cowardice and arrogance. Pessimism is natural to a mind soured by
disappointment and forgetful of God: _Eccl. 2:11_—“_all was vanity
and a striving after wind._” Homer: “There is nothing whatever
more wretched than man.” Seneca praises death as the best
invention of nature. Byron: “Count o’er the joys thine hours have
seen, Count o’er thy days from anguish free, And know, whatever
thou hast been, ’Tis something better not to be.” But it has been
left to Schopenhauer and Hartmann to define will as unsatisfied
yearning, to regard life itself as a huge blunder, and to urge
upon the human race, as the only measure of permanent relief, a
united and universal act of suicide.

G. H. Beard, in Andover Rev., March, 1892—“Schopenhauer utters one
New Testament truth: the utter delusiveness of self-indulgence.
Life which is dominated by the desires, and devoted to mere
getting, is a pendulum swinging between pain and ennui.” Bowne,
Philos. of Theism, 124—“For Schopenhauer the world-ground is pure
will, without intellect or personality. But pure will is nothing.
Will itself, except as a function of a conscious and intelligent
spirit, is nothing.” Royce, Spirit of Mod. Philos.,
253-280—“Schopenhauer united Kant’s thought, ‘The inmost life of
all things is one,’ with the Hindoo insight, ‘The life of all
these things, That art Thou.’ To him music shows best what the
will is: passionate, struggling, wandering, restless, ever
returning to itself, full of longing, vigor, majesty, caprice.
Schopenhauer condemns individual suicide, and counsels
resignation. That I must ever desire yet never fully attain, leads
Hegel to the conception of the absolutely active and triumphant
spirit. Schopenhauer finds in it proof of the totally evil nature
of things. Thus while Hegel is an optimist, Schopenhauer is a
pessimist.”

Winwood Reade, in the title of his book, The Martyrdom of Man,
intends to describe human history. O. W. Holmes says that Bunyan’s
Pilgrim’s Progress “represents the universe as a trap which
catches most of the human vermin that have its bait dangled before
them.” Strauss: “If the prophets of pessimism prove that man had
better never have lived, they thereby prove that themselves had
better never have prophesied.” Hawthorne, Note-book: “Curious to
imagine what mournings and discontent would be excited, if any of
the great so-called calamities of human beings were to be
abolished,—as, for instance, death.”

On both the optimism of Leibnitz and the pessimism of
Schopenhauer, see Bowen, Modern Philosophy; Tulloch, Modern
Theories, 169-221; Thompson, on Modern Pessimism, in Present Day
Tracts, 6: no. 34; Wright, on Ecclesiastes, 141-216; Barlow,
Ultimatum of Pessimism: Culture tends to misery; God is the most
miserable of beings; creation is a plaster for the sore. See also
Mark Hopkins, in Princeton Review, Sept. 1882:197—“Disorder and
misery are so mingled with order and beneficence, that both
optimism and pessimism are possible.” Yet it is evident that there
must be more construction than destruction, or the world would not
be existing. Buddhism, with its Nirvana-refuge, is essentially
pessimistic.

3. To Christ as the Revealer of God.