The Imperfections of Omission in the Narrative of Moses
- An analysis of the imperfections of omission in the narrative of Moses and the limitations of revelation in conveying scientific knowledge.
- Revelation of scientific knowledge is bound to be imperfect due to the ever-evolving nature of scientific discoveries.
- The real difficulty lies in the narrative of Moses conveying an impression that contradicts the facts known to us.
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We may fairly ask,' he argues, of those persons who consider physical science a fit subject for revelation, what point they can imagine short of a communication of Omniscience at which such a revelation might have stopped without imperfections of omission, less in degree, but similar in kind, to that which they impute to the existing narrative of Moses? A revelation of so much only of astronomy as was known to Copernicus would have seemed imperfect after the discoveries of Newton; and a revelation of the science of Newton would have appeared defective to La Place: a revelation of all the chemical knowledge of the eighteenth century would have been as deficient in comparison with the information of the present day, as what is now known in this science will probably appear before the termination of another age; in the whole circle of sciences there is not one to which this argument may not be extended, until we should require from revelation a full development of all the mysterious agencies that uphold the mechanism of the material world.' Buckland's question is quite inapplicable to the real difficulty, which is, not that circumstantial details are omitted -- that might reasonably be expected -- but that what is told, is told so as to convey to ordinary apprehensions an impression at variance with facts. We are indeed told that certain writers of antiquity had already anticipated the hypothesis of the geologist, and two of the Christian fathers, Augustine and Episcopius, are referred to as having actually held that a wide interval elapsed between the first act of creation, mentioned in the Mosaic account, and the commencement of the six days' work. If, however, they arrived at such a conclusion, it was simply because, like the modern geologist, they had theories of their own to support, which led them to make somewhat similar hypotheses.
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以下のとおりお答えします。 前回にもまして格式語の多い難解な文章ですね。そんなわけで、またまた恥ずかしながら、原文の意味をどの程度正確に訳文できたか、あまり自信がありません。 「私たちがこう尋ねるのは妥当なことでしょう」と彼は唱えます。物理学は発見のための適切な主分野であると考える人たちについて、「絶対的全知」（神）との交渉を欠いて、どんな事柄を彼らは推察できるというのでしょうか？ 絶対的全知にかかっては、そのような（物理学の）発見は、手抜かりなどの欠陥がなくても、中絶の憂き目を見させられるかもしれません。絶対的全知ほどではないでしょうが、モーゼの既存の話に帰着するようなものにかかっても（同じで）、（両者は）本性的には似たようなものです。 天文学だけでも、非常に多くの発見がありました。ニュートンの発見の後ではコペルニクスが不完全だと知られたように、ラ・プラスの目にはニュートンの科学は欠陥ありと見えていたでしょう。これすなわち、18世紀のすべての化学的知識の発見は、現代の情報と比較すれば同じように不十分だったでしょう。今この科学の中で知られているものは、科学の全体的なサイクルにおいておそらく別の時代の終了の前に現われるので、発見によってそこから物質界のメカニズムを支持するすべての神秘的な作用の十分な展開を私たちが要請する限りは、科学の範囲内でこの所論が拡張敷衍されないもの（発見）はありません。 バックランドの質問は実際の難問にまったく適用できません。背景的な詳細が省略される―それは合理的に期待されるかもしれません―のではなく、ある印象を通常の理解に結びつけるのに、語られることが、事実と食い違って伝わるように語られるのです。実際、私たちは確かに、古代のある作家がすでに（今の）地質学者の仮説を予想していた、と伝え聞いています。また、キリスト教の教父アウグスティヌスとエピスコピウスの2人は、モーゼの説明に述べられた、創造の最初の行為と6日間の仕事の開始との間に経過する長い間隔があったと実際に考えていた、として引用されています。しかしながら、もし彼らがそのような結論に達したとすれば、それはただ、現代の地質学者のように、彼らが支持すべき自前の理論を持っていたからであり、そのことによって彼らが幾分似通った仮説を作ることに誘導されたからに他なりません。 以上、ご回答まで。
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It is refreshing to return to the often-echoed remark, that it could not have been the object of a Divine revelation to instruct mankind in physical science, man having had faculties bestowed upon him to enable him to acquire this knowledge by himself. This is in fact pretty generally admitted; but in the application of the doctrine, writers play at fast and loose with it according to circumstances. Thus an inspired writer may be permitted to allude to the phenomena of nature according to the vulgar view of such things, without impeachment of his better knowledge; but if he speaks of the same phenomena assertively, we are bound to suppose that things are as he represents them, however much our knowledge of nature may be disposed to recalcitrate. But if we find a difficulty in admitting that such misrepresentations can find a place in revelation, the difficulty lies in our having previously assumed what a Divine revelation ought to be. If God made use of imperfectly informed men to lay the foundations of that higher knowledge for which the human race was destined, is it wonderful that they should have committed themselves to assertions not in accordance with facts, although they may have believed them to be true? On what grounds has the popular notion of Divine revelation been built up? Is it not plain that the plan of Providence for the education of man is a progressive one, and as imperfect men have been used as the agents for teaching mankind, is it not to be expected that their teachings should be partial and, to some extent, erroneous? Admitted, as it is, that physical science is not what the Hebrew writers, for the most part, profess to convey, at any rate, that it is not on account of the communication of such knowledge that we attach any value to their writings, why should we hesitate to recognise their fallibility on this head?
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The diffculties and disputes which attended the first revival of science have recurred in the present century in consequence of the growth of geology. It is in truth only the old question over again－precisely the same point of theology which is involved, although the difficulties which present themselves are fresh. The school books of the present day, while they teach the child that the earth moves, yet [they] assure him that it is a little less than six thousand years old and that it was made in six days. On the other hand, geologists of all religious creeds are agreed that the earth has existed for an immense series of years－to be [to be=it should be] counted by millions rather than by thousands:and that indubitably more than six days elapsed from its first creation to the appearance of man upon its surface. By this broad discrepancy between old and doctrine is the modern mind startled, as were the men of the sixteenth century [startled] when [they were] told that the earth moved.
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It would have been well if theologians had made up their minds to accept frankly the principle that those things for the eiscovery of which man has faculties specially provided are not fit objects of a divine revelation. Had this been unhesitangly done, either the definition and idea of divine revelation must have been modified and the possibly of an admixture of error[must] have been allowed,or such parts of the Hebrew writings as were found to be repugnant to fact must have been pronounced to form no part of revelation. The first course is that which theologians have most generally adopted,but [it is adopted] with such limitation,cautels those who would know how and what God really has taught mankind, and whether anything beyond that which man is able,and obviously intended,to arrive at by the use of his natural faculties.
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The task which sundry modern writers have imposed upon themselves is to prove, that the Mosaic narrative, however apparently at variance with our knowledge, is essentially, and in fact true, although never understood properly until modern science supplied the necessary commentary and explanation. Two modes of conciliation have been propounded which have enjoyed considerable popularity, and to these two we shall confine our attention. The first is that originally brought into vogue by Chalmers and adopted by the late Dr. Buckland in his Bridgewater Treatise, and which is probably still received by many as a sufficient solution of all difficulties. Dr. Buckland's treatment of the case may be taken as a fair specimen of the line of argument adopted, and it shall be given in his own words.
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With the view of furthering these various lines of interest, I have undertaken a somewhat laborious enquiry, part of which has already been published in the International Scientific Series, and a further instalment of which is con tained in the present volume. The two works, therefore, " Animal Intelligence [1881] and Mental Evolution in Animals, although published separately, are really one ; and they have been divided only for the following reasons. In the first place, to have produced the whole as one volume would havebeen to present a book, if not of inconvenient bulk, at least quite out of keeping with the size of all the other books in the same series. Moreover, the subject-matter of each work, although intimately related" to* that of the other, is never theless quite distinct ' The first is a compendium of facts relating to Animal Intelligence, which, while necessary as a basis for the present essay, is in itself a separate and distinct treatise, intended to meet the interest already alluded to as attaching to this subject for its own sake ; while the second treatise, although based upon the former, has to deal with a wider range of subject-matter.
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The Hebrew race, their works, and their books, are great facts in the history of man; the influence of the mind of this people upon the rest of mankind has been immense and peculiar, and there can be no difficulty in recognising therein the hand of a directing Providence. But we may not make ourselves wiser than God, nor attribute to Him methods of procedure which are not His. If, then, it is plain that He has not thought it needful to communicate to the writer of the Cosmogony that knowledge which modern researches have revealed, why do we not acknowledge this, except that it conflicts with a human theory which presumes to point out how God ought to have instructed man? The treatment to which the Mosaic narrative is subjected by the theological geologists is anything but respectful. The writers of this school, as we have seen, agree in representing it as a series of elaborate equivocations -- a story which palters with us in a double sense.' But if we regard it as the speculation of some Hebrew Descartes or Newton, promulgated in all good faith as the best and most probable account that could be then given of God's universe, it resumes the dignity and value of which the writers in question have done their utmost to deprive it. It has been sometimes felt as a difficulty to taking this view of the case, that the writer asserts so solemnly and unhesitatingly that for which he must have known that he had no authority. But this arises only from our modern habits of thought, and from the modesty of assertion which the spirit of true science has taught us. Mankind has learnt caution through repeated slips in the process of tracing out the truth.
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Now assuredly we have here a most important issue, and as it is one the discussion of which will constitute a large element of my work, it is perhaps desirable that I should state at the outset the manner in which I propose to deal with it . The question, then, as to whether or not human intelli gence has been evolved from animal intelligence can only be dealt with scientifically by comparing the one with the other, in order to ascertain the points wherein they agree and the points wherein they differ. Now there can be no doubt that when this is done, the difference between the mental faculties of the most intelligent animal and the mental faculties of the lowest savage[savage=wild beast] is seen to be so vast, that the hypothesis of their being so nearly allied as Mr. Darwin's teaching implies, appears at first sight absurd. And, indeed, it is not until we have become convinced that the theory of Evolution can alone afford an explanation of the facts of human anatomy that we are prepared to seek for a similar explanation of the facts of human psychology. But wide as is the difference between the mind of a man and the mind of a brute, we must remember that the question is one, not as to degree, but as to kind ; and therefore that our task, as serious enquirers after truth, is calmly and honestly to examine the character of the difference which is presented, in order to determine whether it is really beyond the bounds of rational credibility that the enormous interval which now separates these two divisions of mind can ever have been bridged over, by numberless inter mediate gradations, during the untold ages of the past.
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The word beginning,' he says, as applied by Moses in the first verse of the book of Genesis, expresses an undefined period of time which was antecedent to the last great change that affected the surface of the earth, and to the creation of its present animal and vegetable inhabitants, during which period a long series of operations may have been going on; which as they are wholly unconnected with the history of the human race, are passed over in silence by the sacred historian, whose only concern was barely to state, that the matter of the universe is not eternal and self-existent, but was originally created by the power of the Almighty.' The Mosaic narrative commences with a declaration that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' These few first words of Genesis may be fairly appealed to by the geologist as containing a brief statement of the creation of the material elements, at a time distinctly preceding the operations of the first day; it is nowhere affirmed that God created the heaven and the earth in the first day, but in the beginning; this beginning may have been an epoch at an unmeasured distance, followed by periods of undefined duration during which all the physical operations disclosed by geology were going on.' The first verse of Genesis, therefore, seems explicitly to assert the creation of the universe; the heaven, including the sidereal systems; and the earth, especially specifying our own planet, as the subsequent scene of the operations of the six days about to be described; no information is given as to events which may have occurred upon this earth, unconnected with the history of man, between the creation of its component matter recorded in the first verse, and the era at which its history is resumed in the second verse: nor is any limit fixed to the time during which these intermediate events may have been going on: millions of millions of years may have occupied the indefinite interval, between the beginning in which God created the heaven and the earth, and the evening or commencement of the first day of the Mosaic narrative.'
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In one respect the theory of Hugh Miller agrees with that advocated by Dr. Buckland and Archdeacon Pratt. Both these theories divest the Mosaic narrative of real accordance with fact; both assume that appearances only, not facts, are described, and that in riddles, which would never have been suspected to be such, had we not arrived at the truth from other sources. It would be difficult for controversialists to cede more completely the point in dispute, or to admit more explicitly that the Mosaic narrative does not represent correctly the history of the universe up to the time of man. At the same time, the upholders of each theory see insuperable objections in details to that of their allies, and do not pretend to any firm faith in their own. How can it be otherwise when the task proposed is to evade the plain meaning of language, and to introduce obscurity into one of the simplest stories ever told, for the sake of making it accord with the complex system of the universe which modern science has unfolded? The spectacle of able and, we doubt not, conscientious writers engaged in attempting the impossible is painful and humiliating. They evidently do not breathe freely over their work, but shuffle and stumble over their difficulties in a piteous manner; nor are they themselves again until they return to the pure and open fields of science.
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Believing as we do that if the value of the Bible as a book of religious instruction is to be maintained it must be not by striving to prove it scientifically exact, at the expense of every sound principle of interpretation and in defiance of common sense,but by the frank recognition of the erroneous views of nature which it contains, we have put to analyse some of the popular conciliation theories. The inquiry can't be deemed a superfluous one, nor one which in the interests of theology had better be let alone. Physical science goes on unconcernedly pursuing its own paths. Theology,the science whose object is the dealing of Got with man as a moral being,maintains but[but=only] a shivering existence,shouldred and jostled by the sturdy growths of modern thought, and bemoaning itself for the hostlity which it encounters.Why should this be,unless because theologians persist in clinging to theories of God's produre towards man , which havelong been seen to be untenable? If,relinquishing theories,they would be contest to inpuire from the history of man what this procedure has actually been,the so-called difficulties of theology would,for the most part,vanish of themselves.
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