Bibliotheca Sacra 42 (1885) 201-24.
Public Domain
ARTICLE I.
CREATION; OR, THE
BIBLICAL COSMOGONY
IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE.1
BY JAMES D. DANA, LL.D., SILLIMAN PROFESSOR
OF GEOLOGY AND
MINERALOGY,
THE grand history of creation with
which the Bible
opens is thrown into the region of myths or dreams by
two classes of writers: the scientific, who know
the many
positive scientific errors in the accepted
interpretation,
and see no method of harmonizing the two diverse
records; the exegetical, who hold that exegesis
alone
should determine the meaning of the chapter.
One such short-sighted exegete, for
example, referring
to Professor Guyot's
recent work, seeks to enforce his
various objections by such remarks as the following:
"Biblical
interpretation is older far than geology"!
"Skill
and knowledge in the physical sciences by no
means necessarily involve skill and knowledge in the
science of interpretation." "A man may
have consider-
able knowledge about terminal moraines, and little
or no
such knowledge about the origin, history, and
diction of
1 Creation ;
or, the Biblical Cosmogony in the Light of Modern Science.
By
phy in the
Scribner's Sons. 1884.
[For Professor Dana's former statements of
his views upon this subject,
see articles by him in BIBLIOTIIECA SACRA, vol.
xiii. (1856) pp. 80-130,
631-655, and vol. xiv. (1857)
pp. 338-413, 460-525, and 854-874.--EDS.]
VOL. XLII. NO. 166.-APRIL,
1885. 14
204 Creation. [April,
mogony, and that the brief
review of the majestic march
of events before man makes a wonderfully befitting
pre-
lude to God's message of law
and love to man, constitu-
ting the Bible.
I do not mean to say that Professor Guyot's views as to
the interpretation, or as to the meaning of the
Hebrew
words in which the oldest form of the document
appears,
are in every case beyond question. But I do claim
for them
the first place among all the interpretations that
have
been offered. It is now thirty-five years since
Professor
Guyot, two years after his arrival in
at my house one evening, his views on the first
chapter of
Genesis. I listened to his interpretations of the
successive
verses with increasing interest to the end, and with in-
creasing admiration and affection for the
earnest, simple-
minded, and learned Christian. Professor Guyot took up
the subject after years of training in biblical as
well as
natural science, and pursued it with deep and
honest,
searchings for the truth,
believing both in the Bible and
in Nature, and in the inspiration and truth of the
first
chapter of the Bible.
For convenience of reference I here
insert
THE COSMOGONY OF
GENESIS.1
CHAP. I.-1 In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was waste and
void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of
the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be
light: and there was light. 4 And God saw
the light, that it was good : and God divided the
light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day,
and the darkness he called Night. And
there was evening and there was morning, day first.
6 And God said, Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters, and
let it divide the waters from the waters: 7And God made the firmament,
and divided the waters which were under the
firmament from the waters
which were above the firmament : and it was so. 8
And God called the
firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there
was morning, day
second.
1 The few variations from the
Authorized Version have been made by
Professor
Wm. G. Ballantine.
1885.] Dana: Creation. 205
9 And God said,
Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together
unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it
was so. 10 And God
called the dry land Earth ; and the gathering together
of the waters called he
Seas : and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring
forth grass; the herb yielding seed, and the fruit
tree yielding fruit after his
kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth : and
it was so. 12 And the
earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed
after his kind, and the tree
yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after
his kind: and God saw that it
was good. 13 And there was evening and
there was morning, day third.
14 And God said, Let there be
lights in the firmament of the heaven to
divide the day from the night ; and let them be for
signs, and for seasons,
and for days, and years : 15 and let
them be for lights in the firmament of
the heaven to give light upon the earth : and it
was so. 16 And God made
the two great lights ; the greater light to rule
the day, and the lesser light
to rule the night : he made the stars also. 17
And God set them in the firma-
ment of the heaven to give
light upon the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and
over the night, and to divide the light from the
darkness : and God saw that it was
good. 19 And there was morning
and there was evening, day fourth.
20 And God said,
Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving
creature that hath life, and let fowl fly above
the earth in the open firma-
ment of heaven. 21
And God created the great sea monsters, and every
living creature that moveth,
which the waters brought forth abundantly,
after their kind, and every winged fowl after his
kind : and God saw that it
was good. 22 And God blessed them,
saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply
in the earth. 23 And there
was evening and there was morning, day fifth.
24 And God said,
Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his
kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the
earth after his kind : and
it was so. 25 And God made the beast of
the earth after his kind, and cattle
after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind
and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness: and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the
air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon
the earth. 27 So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he him ; male and
female created he
them. 28 And God blessed them, and God
said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:
and have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing
that moveth upon the
earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have
given you every herb bearing seed,
which is upon the face of all the earth, and every
tree, in the which is the
fruit of a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be
for meat. 30 And to every
beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and
to every thing that
creepeth upon the earth, wherein
there is life, I have given every green herb
206 Dana: Creation. [April,
for meat: and it was so. 31 And God saw every thin; that he
had made,
and, behold, it was very good. And there was
evening and there was
morning, day the sixth.
CHAP. II.-1 Thus the heavens
and the earth were finished, and all the
host of them. 2 And on the seventh day
God ended his work which he had
made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all his
work which he had
made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day,
and sanctified it: because that
in it he had rested from all his work which God
created and made.
In the following pages I briefly review and
explain
Professor
Guyot's interpretation, without following pre-
cisely the order in his work,
adding in some parts other,
thoughts of his from our many conversations,
where they
could aid in the illustration of the subject-thoughts
which,
with more leisure than was afforded him in the few
last
weeks of his life, he would probably have brought
into
his volume. Where we differ on any point I make
men-
tion of it. I have also here
and there added an argument
in support of his views.
I. In approaching the subject we have to
recognize
the fact that man's comprehension of any idea communi-
cated by another is limited
by the amount and character
of his knowledge and beliefs, and that the
interpretation
of the terms employed in the communication would
be
determined thereby. For example, the idea of space
about the earth would necessarily take shape in the
mind
as that of a solid firmament with men who never
had any
other idea on the subject, even if the author
imparting
the idea were divine. The idea of fluid in space,
whether
liquid or gaseous, would become that of waters to
those
who already believed in the "waters above the
heavens."
(See
148th Psalm, from which Professor Guyot makes a
citation. The general expression "plants
means to ordi-
nary men ordinary plants, such as are everywhere in
view; and only to one, educated in science or
philosophy
are the essential attributes of a plant present in
the sim-
plest of the species.
Accordingly, the terms or words by
which the ideas in the Bible cosmogony are expressed
must necessarily, although these ideas were divinely
com-
1885.] Dana: Creation. 207
municated, bear some impress of
want of knowledge or
comprehension. This important
psychological fact is not
referred to by Professor Guyot.
My attention was drawn
to it nearly thirty years since by the eminent
theologian
of
I suppose it to be far from certain that Moses
was the
inspired man who received from God the record of
his
creative works. It seems probable that the record
was a
chapter of sacred truth among men long before
his time,
and that it was the source of the early monotheism
of the
world, and of some of the cosmogonic
ideas associated
with this belief.
II. The brief review of creation in Genesis sets
forth
only the grand stages of progress in the creative
work,
or those great events that marked epochs in the
history.
Such
it should have been if written by a man of supreme
intelligence and exalted philosophy,
and such it must be
if God is the author. The number of these epochs
in the
account is eight. A method of interpretation
that puts
among the eight an event not of this epochal
character
should, therefore, be received with doubt.
III. System under law pervades God's works, and
the
discovery of it is one great end of all
philosophic study of
nature. Professor
Guyot looked for system in the arrange-
ment of the Mosaic record,
as well as in the relations of
the works themselves; and the result he reached is
in
itself profound testimony to its divine origin.
Of the six days of Genesis, the first three are
like the
last three in having light as the work of the first of the
three days, and in having two great works on the last of
the three. There is, thus, a parallelism in
movement
between the two halves, or the first and second
triads.
On
the first day, the light was the light
of the universe,
dependent on the constitution of matter; on the
fourth
day, the first of the second triad, it is light from the sun,
moon, and stars to the earth.
Further: the first triad included the events
connected
208 Dana: Creation. [April,
with the inorganic
history of the earth, the last of which,
on the third clay, was the arrangement of the
lands and
seas; the second triad was occupied with the events
of the
organic history, from the creation of the first
animals to
man.
Further: the third day, or last of the first
triad, ends
with the creation of plants, as its second great
work, or
the introduction of the new element, life, which
was to be
the chief feature of the progress during the
succeeding
era; and on the sixth day, the last of the second
triad, the,
second great work is the creation of man, a being made
"in the image of God," and destined through his
spiritual
nature to immortal progress.
This system in the divine record is not a
figment of the
student's fancy. It is a fact; a fact that
displays purpose
in the author of the document, and knowledge
beyond
that of ancient or any time, and philosophy more
than
human.
IV. The first verse of the chapter, besides
proclaiming
God
the creator of the " heavens and the earth,"
teaches tfrat
the beginning of the heavens and the earth was the
begin-
ning of the existing
universe. The words imply that the,
heavens and the earth began to exist in some
state or con-
dition; which condition, as
regards the earth, was one
waste and void," or, as another translator
writes it
"formless and naught."
The actual condition is partly indicated by the
work of
the first day, "Let light be, and light
was." The light
was the first light of the universe. The phenomena
of
light have been proved to be a result of molecular
action,
and to be dependent upon fundamental qualities of
matter
as now constituted. Man has ascertained the
wave-lengths
in the vibration of molecular force corresponding
to light
of different parts of the spectrum, and also other
laws of
light. He has found, moreover, that the laws of heat
and of electrical and chemical action are so
involved with
those of light that all these conditions are
convertible and
1885.] Dana: Creation. 209
one in molecular origin. The fiat "Let light
be" was,
consequently, the beginning of
light, heat, and electrical
and chemical action in matter, which matter till
then was
inert; the beginning of laws of action which have
since
remained unchanged; the beginning of the activity
which
led to chemical combinations, and later to systems
of
worlds, to suns and to planets; the beginning,
therefore,
of "the Generations of the Heavens," or
of the develop-
ment of the universe.
The physical facts with regard to light--which,
it
should be noted, are not modern facts, but as old as
the
first creative day thus prove to us that the
"waters,"
upon the face of which the Spirit of God moved when
the fiat of the first day went forth, were not
literally
waters, whatever the strict meaning of the Hebrew
word;
nor was "the earth" a defined sphere in
space.
V. The word day in the chapter, with the
accompany-
ing expression, evening and morning, is a
stumbling-block
to many. The ordinary exegete finds only 24-hour
days,
and stands to it that the earth in its revolution
was the
timepiece then in use. Professor Guyot concludes from
the five: different uses of the word
"day" in the narrative,
and the fact that it is employed for three days
before
there was a sun to divide the day front the night (an
argu-
ment which others have
used), that the earth's day of
twenty-four hours may not be, and cannot be, the
day of
Genesis ; and, hence, that the days were unlimited
periods
--time of whatever length the work in each case re-
quired; and that the
expression "evening and morning"
indicates, by a familiar metaphor, the beginning
and con-
summation of each work. If, as is now clear, the
Genesis
is an account of the creation of the universe,
days of
twenty-four hours, measured off by the revolving
earth,
can have no place, in the history. Moreover, it is
hardly
possible that Moses, who wrote, "A thousand
years in thy
sight are but as yesterday when it is past,"
and, "Before
the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst
210
Dana: Creation. [April,
formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting
to
everlasting, thou art God," entertained so
belittling an
idea of the Creator and his work. Before the first
day
there was no literal evening; there was darkness; and
then,
as the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters, at
the fiat, there was light. The succession was
"evening
and morning," a beginning and a consummation
of the
great work.
VI. The
dividing of the waters from the waters by a
firmament is the recorded work of
the second day. The
beginning of activity in matter took place on the
first or
preceding clay; the appearance over the earth of
dry land
amid the gathered waters was to be the work of the
third
or following day. The historical event of chief impor
tance between the two was the
making of the earth.
This division of the "waters from the
waters" has usu-
ally been interpreted as a separation, by an expanse
or
firmament, of waters of the earth's surface from
the
waters, that is, the clouds, above; or, of the earth's
molten
surface from the clouds. Such an event is too
trivia? for
a place among the eight great works, and also is
out of
place on the second day. It accomplished nothing, for
it
left the earth under its swaddling-band of clouds.
The
events of the first and third days help us to
understand
that of the second or intervening day.
On the first day, matter was endowed with force:
The
next great event was the making of the universe thus
begun;
it was the dividing-up of this now active matter,
diffused
through the immensity of space; the subdividing
and
arranging of it, until the system of the universe
had been
developed, and ultimately the earth had become a
defined
sphere, with the "heavens of heavens," or a
great expanse,
around it. The
words describe sufficiently well such a
division of the " waters from the
waters"; or, perhaps,
more strictly, the final result, the earth separated
from
the diffused matter of space in which, on the first
clay, it
was still involved. By the fiat, the rotation of
matter in
1887.] Dana: Creation. 211
space was begun (if this was not part of the work of
the
first clay), and the system of the universe was
carried for-
ward. The earth, though thus defined, was still an unfin-
ished earth.
It matters little what may be the literal
meaning of the
word translated "firmament." Although
regarded gen-
erally among the Jews as
signifying a solid firmament, it
is far from certain that Moses, who was versed in
all
Egyptian
learning, so considered it.1 Professor Guyot
quotes from verse twentieth of the narrative the expres-
sion, "fowl that may
fly above the earth in the open
firmament," as evidence on this point.
VII. The gathering together of the waters into
one
place, called seas, and, thereby, the appearing of
the dry
land, was the work of the first half of the third day. After
the defining of the earth in the solar system--at
first, no
doubt, a liquid sphere--slow cooling and
consolidation
went on and, finally, the condensation of the larger
part
of the enveloping vapors took place, covering the
sphere
with water. Still later, the waters were gathered
into
one place and the dry land appeared, thus
determining
the arrangements of the surface, and making the
sphere
ready for living species. With this finishing event
the
inorganic history of the the
earth was brought to an end.
Geological readings reach back to this period of
the
first dry land--that of the so-called Archaean era, the
geography of which era is now pretty well
understood.
Of
the earth in its molten state the science has no facts
from observed rocks, and derives its conclusions and
con-
jectures mostly from facts and
general principles in chem-
ical and physical science.
VIII. The second fiat of the third day commences
with the words, "Let the earth bring forth
grass, the herb
Professor
Guyot places the actual defining of the earth under
the work
of the third day, instead of with that of the
second day, as above. The
order and character of the events are the same in the
two methods of
arrangement.
212 Dana: Creation. [April,
yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding
fruit." In the
expressions, "yielding seed," "having
seed in itself," the
words describe, with wonderful precision, as
Professor
Guyot observes, the characteristic of a living
species,
distinguishing it from mineral hr
inorganic substances.
Beings
having powers of growth and reproduction were
now facts, and this was the great creation. These
powers
are exhibited in the simplest plants; and hence the
new
creation was in an important sense complete,
although
represented at first only by the lower tribes of
plants.
Obedience
to the fiat, "Let the earth bring forth," con-
tinued in after time; new and
higher species coming forth
in succession, and ordinary fruit-trees not until
the later
part of geological time, long after the Coal
period..
With reference to the introduction of life,
science has
no explanation; for no experiments have resulted,
in mak-
ing from dead matter a
living species. We can only say,
"God
created." The growing plant is on a higher level
than that of ordinary molecular law; for it controls
and
subordinates to itself chemical
forces, and thereby is ena-
bled to make out of mineral matter chemical
compounds
and living structures which the forces without this
con-
trol are incapable of. Only
when growth ceases, and
death consequently ensues, does ordinary chemical law
regain control, and then decomposition commences. More
than this, the living being, before it dies,
produces germs
which develop into other like forms, with like powers;
and thus cycles of growth are continued
indefinitely. In
making its tissues, the living plant is storing force
for the
sustenance and purposes of beings of a still higher
grade
--those
of the animal kingdom ; beings that cannot live on
mineral materials. There is, hence, reason for
believing that
the power which so controls and exalts chemical
forces,
raising them to the level required by the
functions of a
plant, cannot come from unaided chemical forces; and
much less that which carries them to a still higher
level,
--that of the living, sentient animal.
1885.] Creation. 213
In the Bible record, the creation of plants
preceded that
of animals; and this order is sustained by facts
from
nature. For the reason just stated, the plant, as Guyot
says, "is the indispensable basis of all animal
life." Fur-
ther, the lower species of
plants are capable of existing
in waters hotter than animals can endure; and,
therefore,
the condition of the waters of the globe would have
suited them very long before they were fitted for
animal
life; very long, because diminution in temperature
must
have gone on with extreme slowness.
Professor Guyot
observes, further, that, since vegeta-
tion uses the
animal-destroying gas, carbonic acid, as a
means of growth, it served to purify the ancient
waters
and air, and, hence, was a befitting part of the
inorganic
division of the history. He also well says that
the living
principle fundamental to the plant was prophetic
of a
higher organic, era beyond, that of animal life.
Distinct remains of plants have not yet been
found in
Archaean
rocks.
These rocks have been so changed by
heat that relics of plants would have been
obliterated or
obscured, had they existed. Some of the rocks
contain
great quantities of graphite, or black lead, a
variety of
carbon that in some cases (as in Carboniferous slates
in
the action of heat on coal beds. The graphite which
is
common in the Archaean rocks
of
many as evidence that Archaean
time had marine plants in
great abundance.
IX. On the fourth
day, "God said, Let there be lights
in the firmament of heaven." In a subsequent
sentence, the
words are: " made the two great lights,"
"the stars also."
But
the purpose of the lights is set forth in detail in each
of the five verses relating to the day's work:
"to divide
the day from the night"; to be "for
signs, and for seasons,
and for days, and years"; "to give light
upon the
earth"; to rule over the day, and over the night
"; "to
divide the light from the darkness"; "the
greater light
214 Dana: Creation. [April,
to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the
night."
The
great purpose of the sources of light was, therefore,
accomplished by them, whether they
were "made" or
made to appear. It was fully accomplished when the
sun
became to the earth the actual source of day and night
and seasons, and that would have been when it first
shone
through the earth's long-existing envelope of
clouds.
Professor
Guyot speaks of this envelope as consisting of
electrically lighted vapor, and
calls it a photosphere,
resembling, in some respects, that now about the
sun; and
he observes that the sun, moon, and stars became
visible
only after its disappearance. The modern "
a result of electric disturbances over the
present cold
sphere; and there can be no doubt of the vastly
greater
intensity of such disturbances during the period
of the
earth's cooling. But, whatever the fact as to
the electric
light about the earth when the temperature had
greatly
diminished, there is no doubt that the envelope of
clouds
was of long continuance, and that the time was
slowly but
finally reached when the earth was free from it.
One of
the sublimest passages in
literature is the reference to the
work of the third day in creation, contained in
God's
answer to Job "out of the whirlwind "
(chapter xxxviii.);
and, although often quoted, it may well be
introduced
here