THE STORY OF CREATION AS TOLD BY THEOLOGY AND BY SCIENCE

The History of the Creation with which the Bible commences, is not
a mere incidental appendage to God's Revelation, but constitutes
the foundation on which the whole of that Revelation is based.
Setting forth as it does the relation in which man stands to God
as his Maker, and to the world which God formed for his abode, it
forms a necessary introduction to all that God has seen fit to
reveal to us with reference to His dispensations of Providence and
of Grace.

It is, however, not uncommonly asserted that this history cannot
be reconciled with a vast number of facts which modern science has
revealed to us, and with theories based on observed facts, and
recommended by the unquestioned ability of the men by whom they
have been brought forward. At first sight there does seem to be
some ground for this assertion. Geology, for instance, makes us
acquainted with strata of rock of various kinds, arranged in exact
order, and of an aggregate thickness of many miles, which are
filled with the remains of a wonderful series of plants and
animals, these remains not being promiscuously collected, but
arranged in an unvarying order. It seems impossible that all these
plants and animals could have lived and died, and been imbedded in
the rocks in this exact succession, in six of our ordinary days.
Astronomy directs our attention to changes now going on in the
starry heavens which occupy ages in their development, and points
to traces in the constitution of our own world which seem to
indicate that it was formed by analogous means. Physiology reveals
to us the fact that the different varieties of plants and animals
now in existence are not separated from each other by well defined
lines of demarcation, but shade into each other by almost
imperceptible gradations; and geological researches show that
while the existing species of animals are the representatives of
those which lived and died at a period in which we can find no
traces of man, they are not identical with them, but that either
the old species must have died out, and been replaced by a fresh
creation, or a considerable change must have taken place in the
course of ages. These facts are held to be incompatible with the
account of creation given by Moses, and hence it is inferred that
a record, which appears to be so widely at variance with admitted
facts, cannot be entitled to the authority which is claimed for
it, as a fundamental portion of a Revelation made by the Creator
Himself.