CREATION. In the ideas implied by this term a subject of vast extent and most profound interest is sug gested; at the same time, one in reference to which but little can be said to be so certainly known or distinctly understood, as to afford adequate satisfaction to that curiosity which is so naturally excited in the human mind with respect to it, and which has evinced itself in all ages by the discussions, whether of a theological or of a philo sophical nature, which have so largely occupied the atten tion both of religious and scientific writers.
In the present article, on a point of so much importance in Biblical literature, we shall endeavour to give as compre hensive a sketch of existing views as our limits will permit ; and to do this the more satisfactorily we must, in the first instance, observe the due distinction between the several branches of the inquiry, and the attainable sources of know ledge on the subject. These are, of course, comprised under the two main heads of reason and revelation. We shall, in the first instance, offer some elucidations of the views derived from each of these sources separately, and then advert to the degree in which they bear khan each other, and to the connection and degree of accordance or discordance between them, real or apparent ; and though, in so doing, we must necessarily touch upon some points on which considerable and even violent controversy has been called forth, yet we shall endeavour most strictly to avoid all discussion in a polemical spirit, and to confine ourselves to the dispassionate statement of what appear to be the best established views of the actual facts.
In the first place, then, the doctrine of revelation on this point, in the most general view, is chiefly founded on the simple ascription of the original formation of all things to divine power, and on the title of the ` Creator' applied to the Deity. This is the constant language of all parts of Scrip ture, both of the Old and New Testaments ; and in the meaning of the term 'create' we must seek the origin of those views which constitute the theological and revealed belief respecting the mode in which the world had its be ginning.
The meaning of this word has been commonly associated with the idea of ` making out of nothing.' But when we come to inquire more precisely into the subject, we can of course satisfy ourselves as to the meaning only front an examination of the original phrases.
Now, in the Hebrew Scriptures three distinct verbs are in different places employed with reference to the same divine act, —viz. create, 1'M1 form or fashion; now, though each of these has its shade of distinction, yet the bust critics understand them as so nearly synonymous that, at least in regard to the idea of making out of nothing, little or no foundation for that doctrine can be obtained from the use of the first of these words. They are used indifferently and interchangeably in many passages ; as e.g. in Isa.
7, where they all three occur applied to the same divine act.
The Septuagint renders N12 indifferently by 7roieIe and Kriketp. But especially in the account of the Creation in Gen. i. the verbs are used irrespectively in verses 7, t6, 21 29i etc.; and, comparing Gen. i. 27 and ii. 7, man is said to have been created, yet he is also said to have been formed out of the ground. Again, in the Decalogue (Rood. xx. the verb is rivv, made, not created. In Gen. i. the Septua gint has lr *ow throughout.
On such a point much weight will he ascribed to the opinion of Dr. Pusey, professor of Hebrew at Oxford, who has distinctly stated his view that the word lsrl] implies neither positively, on the one hand, a formation out of nothing, nor, on the other, positively a formation out of existing materials, but that it is absolutely indefinite and neutral as to either of these conditions (Buckland's Bridge water Treatise, note, p. 22). Thus he observes that the original expression ` let there be light' (Gen. i. 3) by no means necessarily implies that light had never before existed (ibid. note, 26). Upon the whole, he considers the only difference between the three verbs to lie in the degree of force in the expression ; t.nz, create, being simply the stronger and more emphatic word to express more forcibly the absolute power of the Creator.