59. The different nations of the earth have formed to them-selves widely divergent ideas of the creation; ideas always in harmony with their degree of scientific advancement. Reason and science concur in admitting the fantastic character of certain theories. The explanation of the subject now given through spirit communication is confirmatory of the opinion which has long been adopted by the most enlightened exponents of modern science.
This explanation will no doubt be objected to, on the ground that it is in contradiction with the statements of the Bible; but a careful examination of those statements shows us that this contradiction is more apparent than real, and that it results from the interpretation which has been given to expressions whose meaning is allegorical rather than historical.
The question of the personality of Adam, regarded as the first man, and sole progenitor of the human race, is not the only one in regard to which the religious convictions of the world have necessarily undergone modification. The hypothesis of the rotation of the earth round the sun appeared, at one time, to be in such utter opposition to the letter of the Bible, that every species of persecution was directed against it, and against those who advocated it. Yet the earth continued to move on in its orbit in defiance of anathemas; and no one, at the present day, could contest the fact of its movement without doing violence to his own powers of reasoning.
The Bible also tells us that the world was created in six days, and fixes the epoch of this creation at about 4000 years before the Christian era. Previously to that period the earth did riot exist. At that period it was produced out of nothing. Such is the formal declaration of the sacred text, yet science, positive, inexorable steps in with proof to the contrary. The history of by the formation of the globe is written in indestructible characters in the worlds of fossils, proving beyond the possibility of denial that the six lays of the creation arc successive periods, each of which may have been of millions of ages. This is not a mere matter of statement or of opinion. It is a fact as incontestably certain as is the motion of the earth, and one that theology itself can no longer refuse to admit, although this admission furnishes another example of the errors into which we are led by attributing literal truth to language which is often of a figurative nature. Are we therefore to conclude that the Bible is a mere tissue of errors ? No; but we must admit that men have erred in their method of interpreting it.
Geology, in its study of the archives written in the structure of the globe itself, has ascertained
the order of succession in which the different species of living beings have appeared on its
surface, and this order is found to be in accordance with the sequence indicated in the book of
Genesis, with this difference, viz., that the earth, instead of issuing miraculously from the
hand of God in the course of a few days, accomplished its formation under the impulsion of
the Divine will, but according to the laws and through the action of the forces of nature, in the
course of periods incalculable by us. Does God appear less great and less powerful for having
accomplished the work of creation through the action of forces, and according to laws, of His
own ordaining? And is the result of the creative energy less sublime for not having been
accomplished instantaneously? Evidently not; and puerile indeed must he the mind that does
not recognise the grandeur of the Almighty Power implied in this evolution of the worlds of
the universe through the action of eternal laws. Science, so far from diminishing the glory of
the Divine action, displays that action under an aspect still more sublime, and more consonant
with our intuitive sense of the power and majesty of God, by showing that it has been
accomplished without derogation from the. laws which are the expression of the Divine will
in the realm of nature.
Modern science, in accordance with the Mosaic record, proves that man was the last in the
order of creation of living beings. But Moses puts the universal deluge at the year of the
world 1654, while geology seems to show that the great diluvian cataclysm occurred before
the appearance of man, because, up to the present time, the primitive strata contain no traces
of his presence, nor of that of the animals contemporaneous with him. But this point is far
from being decided. Various recent discoveries suggest the possibility of our being destined
to ascertain that the antiquity of the human race is much greater than has been hitherto
supposed; and should this greater antiquity become a matter of certainty, it would prove that
the letter of the Bible, in regard to the date assigned by it to the creation of man, as in regard
to so many other matters, can only be understood in an allegorical sense. That the geological
deluge is not that of Noah is evident from the lapse of time required for the formation of the
fossiliferous strata; and, if traces should eventually be discovered of the existence of the
human race before the geological deluge, it would be evident either that Adam was not the
first man, or that his creation dates back.
From The Spirit's Book - Chapter III - Creation - The Biblical Account of the Creation - Ed Federação Espírita Brasileira FEB
