The First Chapter of Genesis as the Rock Foundation for Science and Religion

From the FOREWORD. IT is a remarkable fact in connection with both science and religion that the teachers in both realms have persistently overlooked the provision God has made that each should supplement the other. His evident intention is that science should enlarge the borders of the religious sphere and that the Bible as a teacher of religion should not only keep abreast of scientific attainment but even lead the way to higher intellectual results. While this is true of the whole Bible it is particularly so of the opening chapter of that book. In earlier ages it served as an exercise of faith that was reasonable only because it formed a part of records that all through the ages have been regarded as the word of God and that all along bore the imprints of the Maker of all things. But in an age when science has advanced so as more nearly to comprehend its truth, it stands as a monument to a wisdom more than human. As such it lends its warrant to other records that are based upon it. But before proceeding to develop thoughts along this line it may be well to outline a brief summary of the argument. Consider first the cosmogony of Genesis I. Geology has already established some propositions that are universally acknowledged to be correct. 1st. The earth was once covered with water and everything was at a very high temperature. 2d. Owing to rapid evaporation of water from the earth's interior heat, dense clouds formed in the upper atmosphere which excluded the light from the heavenly bodies, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 3d. After a time there were upheavals of the earth's crust and the continents began to appear. 4th. As cooling proceeded, precipitation would diminish the density of the overhanging clouds, and light could penetrate them enough to make a distinction between day and night, and to permit the existence of low forms of vegetable and animal life, long before one could locate the heavenly bodies. 5th. Vegetable life appeared before animal life. 6th. Low forms of animal life followed the first appearance of vegetable life. 7th. Following these, the higher forms of animal life appeared. To say nothing of any others, here are seven propositions, reached by purely scientific methods, and yet they are clearly stated in the first chapter of Genesis. The writer of that chapter must have known something in general of the subject that he was writing upon.