054. I. The Question Of Creation.
I. The Question Of Creation.
1. Several Spheres of Creative Work.—There can be no actual separation between matter as substance and its primary qualities, though there is a real distinction for abstract thought. But there is no such inseparable connection between matter and its orderly forms. The latter we may think entirely away from the former. They are actually separable. The fact is manifest in many instances. Cohesive attraction loosens its grip and solid bodies disintegrate and dissolve. Chemical compounds are resolved into their discrete elements. Organic forms decay and fall again into dust. The earth was once a chaos, formless and void. This is a truth of Scripture (Genesis 1:2), and a truth of science as well. It was the same in substance then, as now with its plenitude of orderly forms. But while the substance may exist without these forms it must ever be present in them. Idealism may speculatively question or even deny the reality of substantial being in the cosmos, but must ever practically confess it. Positivism may ignore this reality, but, with its confessed agnosticism, retains no right to dispute it. But as matter and its orderly forms stand apart in the manner stated, they constitute distinct spheres respecting the question of creation. The reality of being is given us through its properties as apprehended in sense-perception, or through its activities as apprehended in consciousness. That which is extended in space and divisible into parts, which has form and color, is more than its properties, is indeed substantial being as the necessary ground of such properties. That which thinks and feels, which reasons and constructs the sciences and philosophies, which is creative in aesthetic spheres, which is personally active in a moral and religious life, is more than its faculties, more than its manifold forms of thought and feeling, of rational and moral agency, is indeed the reality of being as the necessary ground of these multiform powers and activities. There is equally the reality of being under both the properties of body and the activities of mind. But as these properties and activities unerringly point to the reality of being, so they equally point to an essential distinction of being. The two classes of properties and activities, the one of body and the other of mind, have nothing in common. The cognition of them is in totally different modes. With these profound distinctions, there must be an essential difference between material and spiritual being. Hence the eternity of the former could be no proof of the eternal existence of the latter. Even if both have their original in the creative work of God, it must be through distinct energizings of his will. It thus more fully appears that the distinction between material and spiritual being deeply concerns the question of the creative work of God.
2. Question of Creation Threefold.—All that is here required is to bring together the distinctions previously made, and to point out the result respecting the work of creation. The question whether matter is eternal or a creation is distinct and complete in itself. The question respecting the creation of the orderly forms of matter, as they stand in the cosmos, is equally distinct and complete in itself. Further, if the eternity of matter were conclusively proved, neither the eternity of the cosmos nor its naturalistic origination could follow as a consequence. Finally, the essential distinction of mind from matter, and of its faculties and activities from the properties and orderly forms of matter, separates the question of its creation from that of both the others. Neither the eternity of matter nor the naturalistic evolution of the world in all its lower orderly forms could give any account of the existence of personal mind. Thus the question of the creative work of God has respect to three distinct spheres. We might still make a further distinction inclusive of all living forms of existence below man, which would raise the three to four.
These distinctions are so real and obvious, and the separation of the question respecting matter itself from the other spheres of creation so complete, that a sweeping contrary may well be thought strange. Yet there is such a contrary. “If the first cause is limited, and there consequently lies something outside of it, this something must have no first cause—must be uncaused. But if we admit that there can be something uncaused, there is no reason to assume a cause for any thing.”[270] Dr. Cocker takes the same position. Indeed, he indorses the view of Spencer, or, rather, he indorses his own with that of Spencer. “With what reason can we admit that some things do exist that never were created, but others cannot so exist? If substances are eternal, why not attributes? If matter is self-existent, why not force? If space is independent, why not form? And if we concede the eternity of matter and force, why not admit the eternity of law —that is, uniformity of relations? And if so much is granted, why not also grant that a consequent order of the universe is also eternal?”[271] In speaking of “things” supposed to exist without having been created, there is reference to space, and time, and number, as well as to matter; and the position is that an admission of the eternity of any one “tends to the invalidation of every proof of the existence of God.” Neither space, nor time, nor number is a creatable entity in any proper sense of the term. Nor could their eternity in any sense or measure invalidate the proofs of theism. The existence of space and the existence of orderly forms in space are entirely separate questions. Law has no ontological existence, but is simply an expression of the order of things. Hence to speak of an eternal law is to assume an eternal order of existences. Whether the universe as an orderly existence is eternal or of time-origin is a question of fact, and one the decision of which is in no sense contingent upon the creation of matter. The time-origin of the universe is a truth of science as well as of Scripture. There is no surer truth of science. As an origination in time, it is dependent, and must have a sufficient cause. God only is such a cause. Therefore God is. The eternity of matter could not invalidate this proof.
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