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.