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XVII.

GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE ACCORDING TO THE THEORY OF RESTITUTION.

I HAVE shown in my last lecture that the attempt to include those periods of the earth's history to which the fossils bear witness, in the time which has elapsed since the completion of the six days of creation, has failed. I will now examine the theory according to which the geological periods are placed before the six days of creation.

So far as I know, this theory was first brought forward by the Scotch clergyman Dr. Thos. Chalmers ; it was first expressly defended by Buckland, and it has since been adopted and developed by many, and has been much modified in detail; in Germany especially by Kurtz and A. Wagner.'

In its main outlines the theory is as follows:Between the first act of creation of which the first verse of Genesis speaks, and the first act of the first

1 Chalmers, writing in 1804, said that it had been asserted by some that geology, by placing the earth's origin at an earlier period than that assigned to it by Moses, had undermined belief in the inspiration of Holy Scripture, and all the comforting truths which it teaches us. But he adds, this is a groundless fear. The books of Moses in no way fix the age of the earth. In 1814 he developed this view at greater length in his Examination of Cuvier's Theory of the Earth. Cf. H. Miller, Testimony, p. 107.

? In the second edition of his Geschichte der Urwelt; also by Schubert, Raumer, Hengstenberg, Richers, Reinsch, Keerl, Wolf. (In Germany first by Hezel, p. 178; see Zöckler, Gesch. der Beziehungen, ii. 513.)— V. de Bonald, Westermayer, Vosen, and others.

third verse Even before

day of the Hexameron, of which the speaks, there was a long period of time. the Hexameron, the earth was formed, and was a dwelling-place for created beings. This earlier form and this earlier animal and vegetable world was annihilated by a catastrophe, the results of which Genesis describes in the second verse. Thereupon the earth received its present form, and its present animal and vegetable world; and this Moses describes from ver. 3 onwards. In other words, the Hexameron treats, not of the first formation of the earth, and of the first creation of organized beings, but of a re-formation of the earth and of a re-creation of organized beings; for which reason this has been called the theory of restitution.

There can be no question of any contradiction between geology and palæontology and the Bible, according to this theory, for no direct point of contact is left. The interpreter of the Mosaic Hexæmeron need take no notice of what the geologists say about the formation of the earth from a gaseous mass or from a watery or igneous ball; of their teachings concerning the origin of the Azoic, Palæozoic, Mesozoic, and Cainozoic formations, and about the animal and vegetable world, whose remains are buried in these strata; for all this belongs to a period which preceded the six days of the first chapter of Genesis. The Biblical history of the earth only begins where the palæontological history of the earth leaves off.1 When

1 "Revelation leaves two large blank leaves between the first and second, and also between the second and third verses of the Biblical account of creation, and on these human science may write what it will in order to

the last fauna and flora of the paleontological period had been destroyed, God created first the plants, then the animals of the water, air, and land; and these still exist in their descendants, and therefore belong to the time unnoticed, or described as the recent period by paleontology, which is the science of the organic beings of the prehistoric or primæval world.

Besides the advantage of harmonizing completely and thoroughly with geology and palæontology, the theory of restitution has the further advantage of making the literal interpretation of the six days admissible. For there is no doubt that after the desolation which closed the earlier history of the earth, the appearance of light, the rising of the vapours, the appearance of dry land, and the creation of the still existing fauna and flora might have succeeded one another quickly, and could have been completed in six periods of twenty-four hours.

If, therefore, we ask first whether this theory is exegetically admissible, I answer unhesitatingly in the affirmative.

fill up those gaps in natural history which revelation has purposely left. Revelation has only given to each of these blank leaves a superscription, a summary of their contents. The first one runs: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' It does not say how this happened, how long it took, what followed afterwards, what evolutions and revolutions took place before the state of things was reached which is described in ver. 2. Human science may fill up the blank as it can. On the second blank leaf is written: And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' Revelation does not tell us what was the influence of the Spirit of God on the waters, what results and forms it called forth from them. The eye of the seer did not behold what took place in the dread deep so long as it was covered with darkness, he did not know it, and therefore has not described it. It was only when there was light that he could distinguish what occurred, and it is only then that his narrative begins." Kurtz, Bibel und Astronomie, p. 397.

I have already shown that we can assume that in the Hexameron a re-formation of the earth, and not its first formation, is described; that the thohu wabohu of the second verse was not the first condition of the earth, but the separation between a previous state and that which was established by the six days of creation, and still exists; and that a period of indefinite length elapsed before the first day of creation. From the side of Theology, therefore, there is no objection to be made to the theory in question.

No doubt it might be thought strange that Moses should say nothing of the earlier history of the earth, and of the organisms which according to this theory must have existed on it. If we read the account in Genesis without regard to the results of scientific inquiry, it conveys the idea that organic life first began on the third day, that the plants which were created on the third day, and the animals which were created on the fifth and sixth days, were the first and only ones ever created by God. The author of Genesis does not seem to suspect, certainly the readers of Genesis up to the last century did not suspect, that a number of plants and animals had existed, and had been destroyed, before God said on the third day, "Let the earth bring forth grass." But this objection may be removed. Moses did not intend to write a complete history of the earth's development, but only a history of the preparation of the earth as a dwelling-place for man; he therefore mentions what relates to man, and passes over in silence whatever has no such relation. We have already laid stress on this in noticing what

1 See p. 111.

Moses says about the stars, and about the separation of water and land.' If we keep this stedfastly in mind, we shall see that Moses must have spoken of the creation of plants and animals in so far as they are appointed for the service of man. He implies this himself when he says that God had made man the ruler over the animal world, and had appointed the plants for food for him and his subjects. From this point of view Moses could pass over in silence the plants and animals buried in the strata; for it is a recognised fact that they were not contemporaneous with man, and consequently did not exist directly for his use. They and the minerals stand to man in the same relation, indeed they are organic bodies which have become mineral, and they are therefore no more mentioned than are the minerals.

Moses nowhere says that God had created nothing which was not mentioned in the Hexameron. He teaches that everything which exists besides God was created by God, and that everything which man sees around him was created in one week of creation, in a certain order and for a certain purpose, for man. After the truth, that nothing which has existed has come into existence without God, had been expressed with sufficient clearness in the statement, "God created the heavens and the earth," there was no reason for enumerating and describing all the separate parts of creation, and all the separate phases of the creating and forming activity of God, including those which stood in no near relation to man.

But there is still one difficulty left: How does the

1 See pp. 195 and 223.

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