§ 40. The religious consciousness which is here our basis contradicts every representation of the origin of the world which excludes anything whatever from origination by God, or which places God under those conditions and antitheses which have arisen in and through the world.
Acts 17²⁴, Rom. 1¹⁹· ²⁰, Heb. 11³. 1. The New Testament passages quoted above lead us to reject any more definite conception of the Creation. The expression ῥήματι is merely the negative of any closer definition, so as to exclude all idea of instrument or means. It is quite consistent with it and equally correct to say that the world itself, since it came into existence through the spoken word, is the word of God.1 Thus we may be satisfied to put forward this negative character as a standard of criticism for that which has, as it seems to us, wrongly intruded itself as a more exact definition of this conception in Dogmatics. For as our immediate self-consciousness represents finite being only in the identity of origination and continuance, we find in that self-consciousness neither motive nor guidance for a treatment of origination taken by itself, and therefore we can take no particular interest in it.
The further elaboration of the doctrine of Creation in Dogmatics comes down to us from times when material even for natural science was taken from the Scriptures and when the elements of all higher knowledge lay hidden in Theology. Hence the complete separation of these two involves our handing over this subject to natural science, which, carrying its researches backward into time, may lead us back to the forces and masses that formed the world, or even further still. On this assumption we may patiently await the result, since every scientific endeavour which works with the ideas ‘God’ and ‘world’ must, without being dependent on Christian doctrine or becoming so, be limited by the very same determinations, if these two ideas are not to cease to be two.
- As the New Testament passages give no material for a further development of the doctrine of Creation, and dogmaticians have always referred back to the Scriptures even when confusing their problem with that of philosophy, we must, in the first place, pass in review the Mosaic narrative and the Old Testament passages, which really in a sense are wholly dependent on it. The Mosaic account was undeniably received by the Reformers as a genuinely historical narrative.2 Luther’s statements, however, are chiefly directed against the allegorical interpretation, and Calvin’s view really excludes any use of the narrative for the development of a genuine theory. It is an advantage in every way that nothing on the subject has become a part of Confessions of Faith, especially as (if we do not force ourselves to look upon the second account in Genesis as a recapitulating continuation of the first) the difference between the two is of such importance that we can hardly attribute to them a genuine historical character. If we further take into consideration that in the Old Testament passages referring to the Creation sometimes the same simplicity prevails as in the New Testament,3 and that sometimes the Mosaic statements, although made fundamental, are very freely handled: 4 also that nowhere is a purely didactic use made of this account, and that Philo, who absolutely rejects the ‘six days’ in the literal sense, must certainly have had predecessors who did the same— in view of all this we may conclude pretty certainly that in that age the literal interpretation was never universally prevalent, but that there always survived a somewhat obscure but healthy feeling that the old record must not be treated as historical in our sense of the word. We have therefore no reason to maintain a stricter historical interpretation than the Hebrews themselves did in their best days.
Supposing, however, we were right in assuming that the Mosaic description was an historical account communicated in an extraordinary way, it would only follow that in this way we had attained to a scientific insight we could not otherwise have acquired. But the particular pieces of information would never be articles of faith in our sense of the phrase, for our feeling of absolute dependence does not gain thereby either a new content, a new form, or clearer definition. That is why it cannot be the task of Dogmatics to give an explanatory commentary or a criticism of such comments.