Creation of the world

“ We can pass the boundaries of our own, and enter into other systems; and from thence, into eternity itself: ascending from region to region, from world to world, from the creature till we reach the abode of the great Creator, who is the first cause of all things; and then, with ravished eyes, gaze on that glorious Luminary of the moral world, till we are amazed, delighted, and overpowered, with the splendor of his infinite perfections. ”

“ But there was a time before creation, before this beautiful fabric of the world was made, before even chaos itself, or the production of the rude matter, of which the world was made. And this time must be affirmed, not only as to material creation, but to that of angels and spiritual beings. Reckon we never so many ages, or myriads of ages, for the commencement of creation, yet it certainly began, and there was a time before that beginning. For, by the definition, creation is bringing that into being which was not before. ”

“ Here hast thou that noble human race, that delightful creation, which has been granted sense and immortality. How it bears on it the image of the infinite God, and the likeness to Him, that wilt thou recognise by the variety of His creations. As in a looking-glass wilt thou see the worth of this thy human race. ”

“ In this completion of our conception of the Absolute Experience, we now see sufficient reason to speak, in a generalised sense, of a World-Will, as absolutely free, and still as absolutely rational. This Will we can regard, if you choose sufficiently to spiritualise your term, as the World-Creator, but not as if the creation were an abstractly separable act, existent apart from the world's existence, and not as if this creation were, properly speaking, a causal process. ”

“ In a word, they have not arrived at the conception of the Creator as infinite and eternal, and that his acts are in eternity, not in time. Nor have they a conception of a creation by law—a creation through the Logos—that eternal Reason, that all-providing Wisdom—whose hand stretched the line upon it, and whose right hand held the plummet; a scintilla of which enlightens every man that cometh into the world. ”

“ The genesis of creation in all its components, and the history of mankind, are the successive unfolding and realization of the infinite in a progressive scale. For, in its necessary development, it becomes matter, organism, sense; and in man it acquires intellect with the consciousness of itself. Here commence all the phases of the development of man recorded in history: phases of a progressive civilization, which are but necessary unfoldings and modifications of the infinite ”

“ The world as constituted, the creation which we contemplate and admire, is in all its parts and dispositions a system of means and ends, a combination of instruments end skillfully-balanced agencies, a bright ever-discoursing record of the Eternal Mind, which yet shrouds itself in light inaccessible and utterly unfathomable to the comprehension of all created, finite intelligences, whether human or angelic. ”

“ Till then I hold by my antiquated tenets, that our world, nay, the whole material universe, was created about six or seven thousand years ago, and that in a state of physical excellence of which we have in our present fallen world only the ‘vestiges of creation.’ I conclude by mentioning that this view I have held now for nearly thirty years, and, amidst all the vicissitudes of the philosophical world during that period, I have never seen cause to change it. ”

“ These facts clearly shew how all the various organic forms of our world are bound up in one—how a fundamental unity pervades and embraces them all, collecting them, from the humblest lichen up to the highest mammifer, in one system, the whole creation of which must have depended upon one law or decree of the Almighty, though it did not all come forth at one time. ”

“ And here we have (as I think will be seen one day) the whole rationale of Creation—we have the conception which brings into line the phenomena of the visible and material world and their genesis, with the genesis of thoughts in our own minds, and their passage into visibility and expression; we have the conception which unites the mental and material, and which makes the whole Creation luminous with meaning. ”

“ Long promised and awaited, the complement of man's creation, or, rather, a true and new creation, bringing to humanity, with love and heavenly pardon, the solution of every question, the answer to every doubt!
During the long series of centuries which separates these two great mysteries, these two great supernatural facts, the creation and the redemption of man, the human race, guided by its own light, has not for a moment ceased to search after divine truths and the secret of its destiny. ”

“ A pious expositor very justly observes, By faith assenting to Divine revelation, and not by reason we understand the truth and wonders, the reasons and causes, the manner and end, of the creation of the world. Reason indeed tells us that there was a creation, consequently a Creator; but reason without Divine revelation could never have discovered the circumstances and manner of the creation, which wholly depended upon the will of God. ”

“ The method pursued in creating the world, presenting a regular 400 succession of astonishing events, was doubtless intended to convey useful instruction to mankind. Considering the almighty power of the Creator, his fiat would have been sufficient instantly to produce the whole apparatus of nature, in beautiful and regular order. But he proceeded by degrees in this work, probably to teach us, that, after working six days, we also should rest on the seventh. ”

“ The work of creation was to take the materials that existed from all eternity, that never were created or made out of nothing, to take these self-existent materials and organize them into a world. This is called creation. ”

“ And what is the spiritual world, but an outbirth or derivation from the Divine Mind? Creation is, properly speaking, production,—a sending forth, as it were, by the Infinite God, of indefinitely various forms and existences from Himself. ”

“ The evolution, as we should say, of the order of nature gives fixed and visible embodiment to the wisdom of God. We must conclude, therefore, that [Pg 319] the poet indicates the complete idea of the world as a cosmos governed by subtle all-pervading law for moral ends. The creation of the visible universe is assumed to begin, and with the created before Him God sees its capacities, determines the use to which its forces are to be put, the relation all things are to have to each other, to the life of man and to His own glory. ”

“ I will not discuss here which of the two views concerning creation; the origin of the world in one moment of time, or a gradual evolution of the world and its potentialities, is the more worthy of the creative power of God. Manifestly the greatness and magnificence of creation will in no way be compromised by the concept of evolution. ”

“ The one essential thing in the doctrine of Creation is that the origin of our world and of the things upon it came about at some period of time in the past by a direct and unusual manifestation of Divine power; and that since this original Creation other and different forces and powers have prevailed to sustain and perpetuate the forms of life and indeed the entire world as then called into existence. ”

“ Consequently the substances of the spiritual world, being in the constant endeavor to produce the image of the Creator, accomplish their effort according to the degree of the acting substance and the form in which the acting substance operates. Thus the Creator's vital action, through the successive discrete degrees in creation, in the mind of man produces love and wisdom in the human degree; in animals, their instincts; in plants, their life, and in matter, its varied properties. ”

“ Moreover, you confound creation with formation. By creation matter received existence immediately, without “roundabouts”; for creation is not movement, and therefore needs no time. This creation of matter was the work of God alone; but the formation of the earth was successively brought about, according to God's plan, through the exertion of the natural powers, which were not created to remain idle, but to carry on the objects intended by their Creator. ”

“ I am going to assume another thing—the existence of the Creator, the Supreme Governor of the universe, having under his control the whole realms of the spiritual and the material world; alike capable of giving existence to spiritual entities and to material organisms, and capable of uniting them by any connection and for any purpose that might seem to him good. ”

“ Here again, however, I must remind you that creation, as maintained against such materialistic evolution, whether by theology, philosophy, or Holy Scripture, is necessarily a continuous, nay, an eternal influence, not an intervention of disconnected acts. ”

“ For, if the supernatural term precedes substantial creation in excellence and perfection of being, if it is its end and its type, it is evident that, in the general order and harmony of the cosmos, its natural place is between the Theanthropos and substantial creation. ”

“ When God had made the world, and furnished it with a variety of creatures, suited to the different elements of which it is composed; had created man after his own image, far superior to all the other species of beings, endued with rational faculties, whom he therefore constituted lord over them, situated in a residence curiously and beautifully adorned, and plentifully stored with every thing adapted for sustenance and delight ”

“ Having considered the generation of this system, we shall be able to advance to a similar consideration of the origin of the great world-systems, and thus to embrace the infinitude of the whole creation in one conception. ”

“ Nevertheless, the creatures have different degrees in existence insofar as the creation goes, for capacities are different, but all of them are good and pure, then afterward they are polluted and defiled. Although there are different states of creation, yet all of them are beneficial. Glance thou over the temple of man, its members and its parts. ”

“ The step, then, by which the earth became, a human habitation, was an immeasurable advance on all that existed before; and therefore there is a question which we are, it seems, irresistibly prompted to ask, Is this the last such step? Is there nothing beyond it? Man is the head of creation, in his present condition; but is that condition the final result and ultimate goal of the progress of creation in the plan of the Creator? ”

“ We have seen, thus far, how there came into the thinking of mankind upon the visible universe and its inhabitants the idea of a creation virtually instantaneous and complete, and of a Creator in human form with human attributes, who spoke matter into existence literally by the exercise of his throat and lips, or shaped and placed it with his hands and fingers. ”

“ Every history of the creation, and every traditionary account, whether from the lettered or unlettered world, however they may vary in their opinion or belief of certain particulars, all agree in establishing one point, the unity of man; by which I mean that men are all of one degree, and consequently that all men are born equal, and with equal natural right, in the same manner as if posterity had been continued by creation instead of generation, the latter being the only mode by which the former is carried forward; ”

“ Can’t you see that one is a story of the real creation; and the other is the human mind’s interpretation of the creation––an interpretation made according to the way the human mind thinks the creating ought to have been in matter? ”

“ Universal creation is an immense harmony, of which the Earth is but an insignificant, rather uninteresting, and unfinished fragment.
XXIII.
Nature is a perpetual future. Progress is law. Progression is eternal. ”

“ Thus creation is the process by which the Eternal Creator works out His own image, His own ideas, in and through that which is formless, that which has no name, which is nothing but possibility,—dead earth, namely, or Matter. ”

“ Here we come to the first demand which the doctrine of creation makes on us by way of premises. In order that there may be creation there must be a primary Self-existent Spirit, whose will is supreme. ”

“ Suns, worlds, men, animals, plants, minerals, forces, energy, mind and matter, yes, even Spirit, manifests this Principle. The Principle manifests in the creation and destruction of worlds; in the rise and fall of nations ”

“ The Creator recognizes the introduction of sentient existence and volition by blessing this new work of his hands, and inviting the swarms of the newly peopled world to enjoy [Pg 217] that happiness for which they were fitted, and to increase and fill the earth, inaugurating thus a new power destined to still higher developments. ”

“ What theology calls original sin, modern philosophy the brute inheritance—the ape, and the goat, and the tiger—is dying out of man. The perfecting of human nature and of human society stands out as the goal of creation. In a sense, all creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. ”

“ The beaver makes its hole, the bee makes its cell; man alone has the power of creating. The mason makes, the architect creates. In the same sense that we say God created the universe, we say that man is also a creator. The creation of the universe was the Eternal Thought taking reality. ”

“ But each separate step in the program of creation was a separate and distinct act of creation. The creation of the vegetable kingdom, with its innumerable species, was at every step a new act of creative activity, as was the creation of the animal kingdom. And man was as distinctive a creation as anything that preceded him, for, as we have seen, there was created in him that which had not existed in vegetable or animal, the plane of the spiritual, with its inmost receptacle of God to enable him to become the moral image and likeness of his Creator. ”