Creation and Its Records

CHAPTER II.

_THE EL­EMENT OF FAITH IN CRE­ATION._

In the ex­tract placed on the ti­tle-​page, the au­thor of the Epis­tle clear­ly places our con­clu­sion that God “es­tab­lished the or­der of cre­ation”--the lines, plans, de­vel­op­men­tal-​se­quences, aims, and ob­jects, that the course of cre­ation has hith­er­to pur­sued and is still cease­less­ly pur­su­ing,[1] in the cat­ego­ry of _faith_.

Of course, from one point of view--very prob­ably that of the writ­er of the Epis­tle--this con­clu­sion is ar­gued by the con­sid­er­ation that the hu­man mind forms no dis­tinct con­cep­tion of the for­ma­tion of sol­id--or any oth­er form of--mat­ter _in vac­uo_, where noth­ing pre­vi­ous­ly ex­ist­ed. And what the mind does not find with­in its own pow­er, but what yet _is true_ in the larg­er spir­itu­al king­dom be­yond it­self, is ap­pre­hend­ed by the spir­itu­al fac­ul­ty of _faith_.

[Foot­note 1: [Greek: Kataertisthai tous aionas]. This im­plies more than the mere orig­inat­ing or sup­ply­ing of a num­ber of ma­te­ri­al, or­gan­ic, or in­or­gan­ic (or even spir­itu­al) forms and ex­is­tences. What­ev­er may be the pre­cise trans­la­tion of [Greek: aion], it im­plies a chain of events, the cause and ef­fect, the type and the plan, and its evo­lu­tion all in­clud­ed.]

But from an­oth­er point of view, the im­me­di­ate ac­tion of faith is not so ev­ident. If, it might be said, the law of evo­lu­tion, or the law of cre­ation, or what­ev­er is the true law, is, in all its bear­ings, a mat­ter to be ob­served and dis­cov­ered by hu­man sci­ence, then it is not easy to see how there is any ex­er­cise of faith. We should be more prop­er­ly said to _know_, by in­tel­lec­tu­al pro­cess­es of ob­ser­va­tion, in­fer­ence, and con­clu­sion, that there was a Law Giv­er, an Ar­ti­fi­cer, and a First Cause, so un­lim­it­ed in pow­er and ca­pac­ity by the con­di­tions of the case, that we must call Him “Di­vine.”

And many will prob­ably feel that their just rea­son­ing on the sub­ject leads them to knowl­edge--knowl­edge, i.e., as ap­prox­imate­ly cer­tain as any­thing in this world can be.

But the text, by the use of the term [Greek: aion], im­plies (as I sug­gest­ed) more than mere pro­duc­tion of ob­jects; it im­plies a de­signed guid­ance and pre­con­ceived plan­ning. If it were mere­ly as­sert­ed that there is a first cause of ma­te­ri­al ex­is­tence, and even that such a cause had enough known (or to be in­ferred) about it, to war­rant our writ­ing “First Cause” with cap­itals, then the propo­si­tion would pass on all hands with­out se­ri­ous ques­tion. But di­rect­ly we are brought face to face, not mere­ly with the iso­lat­ed idea of cre­ation of tan­gi­ble forms out of noth­ing (as the phrase is), but rather with the whole his­to­ry and de­vel­op­ment of the world and its in­hab­itants, we see so many con­flict­ing el­ements, such a pow­er of nat­ural forces and hu­man pas­sions war­ring against the progress of good, and seem­ing to end on­ly too of­ten in dis­as­ter, that it be­comes a mat­ter of _faith_ to per­ceive a Di­vine prov­idence un­der­ly­ing and over­rul­ing all to its own ends.

The fact is, that di­rect­ly we make men­tion of the “aeons”--the world's age his­to­ries--we are met with that Pro­tean prob­lem that al­ways seems to lurk at the bot­tom of ev­ery re­li­gious ques­tion: Why was _evil_ per­mit­ted? Mr. J.S. Mill, many read­ers will rec­ol­lect, con­clud­ed that if there was a God, that God was not per­fect­ly good, or else was not om­nipo­tent. Now of course our lim­it­ed fac­ul­ties do not en­able us to ap­pre­hend a re­al­ly ab­so­lute and un­lim­it­ed om­nipo­tence. We _can_ on­ly con­ceive of God as lim­it­ed by the terms of His own Na­ture and Be­ing. We say it is “im­pos­si­ble for God to lie,” or for the Almighty to do wrong in any shape; in oth­er words, we are, in this as in oth­er mat­ters where the fi­nite and the In­fi­nite are brought in­to con­tact, led up to two nec­es­sary con­clu­sions which can­not be rec­on­ciled. We can rea­son out log­ical­ly and to a full con­clu­sion, that giv­en a God, that God must be per­fect, un­lim­it­ed and un­con­di­tioned. We can al­so rea­son out, _pro­vid­ed we take pure­ly hu­man and fi­nite premis­es_, an­oth­er line of thought which for­bids us to sup­pose that a Per­fect God would have al­lowed evil, suf­fer­ing, or pain; and this leads us ex­act­ly or near­ly to Mr. Mill's con­clu­sion.

When­ev­er we are thus brought up to a dead-​lock, as it were, there is the need of _faith_, which is the fac­ul­ty where­by the fi­nite is linked on to the In­fi­nite. For this faith has two great fea­tures: one is rep­re­sent­ed by the ca­pac­ity for as­sim­ilat­ing fact which is spir­itu­al or tran­scen­den­tal, and there­fore not with­in the reach of fi­nite in­tel­lect; the oth­er is rep­re­sent­ed by the ca­pac­ity for re­liance on, and trust in, the God whose in­fi­nite per­fec­tions we can­not as fi­nite crea­tures grasp or fol­low.

In the dif­fi­cult scheme of the world's gov­er­nance, in the storms, earth­quakes, pesti­lences, suf­fer­ings of all kinds--signs of fail­ure, sick­ness, and de­cay, and death, signs of the vic­to­ry of evil and the fail­ure of good--we can on­ly _be­lieve_ in God, and that all will is­sue in righ­teous ends. And our be­lief pro­ceeds, as just stat­ed, on two lines: one be­ing our spir­itu­al ca­pac­ity for know­ing that GOD IS, and that we, His crea­tures, are the ob­jects of His love; the oth­er be­ing the fact that we on­ly see a very lit­tle end of the thread, or per­haps on­ly a lit­tle of one thread out of a vast mass of com­pli­cat­ed threads, in the great web of de­sign and gov­er­nance, and that there­fore there is wide ground for con­fi­dence that the end will be suc­cess. We re­ly con­fi­dent­ly on God. If it is asked, Why is it a part of faith to have a child­like con­fi­dence in an un­seen God?--we re­ply, that the main ori­gin of such con­fi­dence is to be found in the won­der­ful con­de­scen­sion of God ex­hib­it­ed in the In­car­na­tion, the Cross, and the Res­ur­rec­tion.

This is not the place to en­ter on a de­tailed ex­am­ina­tion of the es­sen­tial im­por­tance of these great cen­tral facts of Chris­tian be­lief in es­tab­lish­ing faith in the un­seen, and dis­tin­guish­ing its grasp from the blind clutch­es of creduli­ty; but a sin­gle con­sid­er­ation will suf­fice at least to awak­en a feel­ing of a wide _vista_ of pos­si­bil­ity when we put it thus: Do we won­der at the spec­ta­cle of a righ­teous man, pass­ing his life in suf­fer­ing and pover­ty, seem­ing­ly strick­en by the Di­vine hand?--But is not the case al­tered when we re­flect _that the Hand that thus smites is a hand it­self pierced_ with the Cross-​nails of a ter­ri­ble hu­man suf­fer­ing, un­der­gone sole­ly on man's ac­count?

It can be proved eas­ily, by ex­haus­tive ex­am­ples, to be the case, that wher­ev­er the fi­nite is brought in­to con­tact with the In­fi­nite, that there must be a dead-​lock, a lead­ing up suc­ces­sive­ly to two con­clu­sions, one of which is al­most, if not quite, con­trary to the oth­er. A very strik­ing in­stance of this is the ques­tion of Pre­des­ti­na­tion and Free-​will. From the fi­nite side, I am con­scious that I am a free agent: I can will to rise up and to lie down. It is true that my will may be in­flu­enced, strong­ly or fee­bly, by var­ious means--by the ef­fect of habit, by the in­her­it­ed ten­den­cy of my con­sti­tu­tion, by some present mo­tive of temp­ta­tion, and so forth: but the _will_ is there--the mo­tive-​in­flu­ence or in­clin­ing-​pow­er is not the will, but that which af­fects or works on will. A _mo­tive_ pulls me this way, an­oth­er pulls me that; but in the end, my _will_ fol­lows one or the oth­er. I can, then, do as I please. On the oth­er hand, In­fi­nite Knowl­edge must know, and have known from all eter­ni­ty, what I shall do now, and at ev­ery mo­ment of my fu­ture be­ing: and for Om­nipo­tence to know from all eter­ni­ty what will be, is, in our hu­man sense, prac­ti­cal­ly undis­tin­guish­able from the thought that the Pow­er has pre­des­tined the same; and man can­not of course al­ter that. Here, then, by sep­arate lines of thought, we are brought to two op­po­site and ir­rec­on­cil­able con­clu­sions. It is so al­ways. We can­not our­selves imag­ine how a fixed set of laws and rules can be fol­lowed, and yet the best in­ter­ests of each and ev­ery one of God's crea­tures be served as tru­ly as if God di­rect­ly wield­ed the ma­chin­ery of na­ture on­ly for the spe­cial ben­efit of the in­di­vid­ual. The thing is un­think­able to us: yet di­rect­ly we rea­son on the nec­es­sar­ily _un­lim­it­ed_ ca­pa­bil­ity of a Di­vine Prov­idence, we are led to the con­clu­sion that it must be pos­si­ble. Here then is the province of _Faith_.[1]

[Foot­note 1: The Scrip­ture clear­ly rec­og­nizes the two op­pos­ing lines. In one place we read, “Thou hast giv­en them a law which _shall not be bro­ken_;” in an­oth­er, “All things work to­geth­er for good to them that love God.”]

It is by Faith, then--com­bined with on­ly a lim­it­ed de­gree of knowl­edge, found­ed on ob­ser­va­tion and rea­son­ing--that we un­der­stand that “the aeons were con­sti­tut­ed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do ap­pear” (the phe­nom­enal has its ori­gin in the non-​phe­nom­enal).

While al­low­ing, then, the el­ement of Faith in our recog­ni­tion of a Cre­ator and Moral Gov­er­nor of the world, our care is in this, as in all ex­er­cis­es of faith, that our faith be rea­son­able. We are not called on to be­lieve so as to be “put to con­fu­sion,” in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly, as Tait and Bal­four have it.