59- Cultures have held widely differing ideas about creation, according to their degree of understanding. With the support of science, reason has recognized the improbability of some of these theories. However, the one given by the Spirits confirms the opinion long acknowledged by more enlightened individuals. The objection to such a theory is that it seems to contradict the sacred texts, but a serious examination will lead to the realization that this contradiction is more apparent than real and that it results from the way an allegorical meaning is interpreted.
The issue of the first man, personified in Adam, as being the exclusive progenitor of humankind, is not the only religious belief that has had to be modified. At one time, the movement of the earth around the sun appeared so contrary to the Scriptures that all kinds of persecutions were carried out under such a pretext. Nevertheless, the earth continued to move despite the anathemas and no one today would dispute it without insulting reason itself.
The Bible also tells us that the world was created in six days and it establishes the time of its creation at about 4,000 years before the Christian era. Before then, the earth did not exist at all – it was created out of nothing. It is a solemn text, yet physical science, inexorable science, has proven the contrary. Earth’s formation is indelibly written in the fossil record, and it has been proven that the six days of creation represent successive periods, each lasting perhaps many hundreds of thousands of years. This is not a theory, a doctrine or an isolated opinion. It is a fact as solid as is the movement of the earth around the sun, a fact that theology can no longer refuse to accept, and it demonstrates the error that one can fall into by attributing literal truth to often-figurative language. Should we thus conclude that the Bible is in error? No, rather, people err in the way they interpret it.
In excavating earth’s archives, science has discovered the order in which different living beings have appeared on its surface, and this order is in agreement with the one indicated in Genesis. The difference, however, is that instead of having issued miraculously from the hand of God in only a few hours, the work of creation did indeed occur according to God’s will, but through the laws of natural forces over millions of years. But does that make God any less great and powerful? Is the sublimity of God’s work lost because it did not appear instantaneously? Of course not. We would have to have a petty idea about the Divinity not to recognize the divine omnipotence in the eternal laws established to govern the world. Far from diminishing the divine work, science shows it to us under a more magnificent aspect that better conforms to our notions of God’s power and majesty precisely because the work was done without disregard for the laws of nature.
Science places humankind last in the order of the creation of living beings and is in tandem with the Mosaic record on this point. However, that record puts the universal flood at 1,654 years after the earth’s creation, whereas geology shows us that this great cataclysm occurred before humankind even appeared. So far, no traces have been found in the primitive layers that would attest to the presence of humans or of animals which, from a physical standpoint at least, would be of the same category. However, nothing has actually proven this to be impossible. Since many discoveries have already raised questions about this issue, it is possible that at any moment the material certainty of the anteriority of the human race may come to light. In that case, as well as in others, the Biblical text would be shown to portray an allegory. The actual issue lies in determining whether or not the geological cataclysm was the same one as that of the Noah story. We know that the time needed to form the fossil layers does not allow any confusion; therefore, as soon as any vestiges of human existence prior to the great catastrophe are found, it will be proven either that Adam was not the first man, or that his creation has been lost in the night of time. There is no arguing against fact, and it would have to be accepted in the same way as the movement of the earth and the six days of creation.
The existence of the human race prior to the geological flood is no doubt still hypothetical, but consider the following: Affirming that humans first appeared upon the earth 4,000 years B.C., and if all of them except for a single family were wiped out 1,650 years later, then the entire current population of the earth must have originated from the time of Noah, i.e., 2,350 years B.C. However, when the Hebrews migrated to Egypt in the eighteenth century B.C., they found a densely populated and highly civilized land. History also shows that at the same time India and many other lands were flourishing as well, and this fact does not take into account the chronological tables of certain cultures that go back even farther. Thus, it would have been necessary for the descendants of a single individual’s family to have populated, from the twenty-fourth to the eighteenth century, i.e. 600 years, all the vast regions that had been known about at the time (supposing that others had not been populated). It would also have been necessary for the human race during this brief period to have evolved from its primitive state of total ignorance to the highest degree of intellectual development. Both suppositions are in contradiction to all anthropological laws.
Human race diversity supports this contradiction. Climate and customs undoubtedly produce modifications in physical characteristics, but these modifications can only be carried so far, and physiological examinations prove the existence among some races of constitutional differences more profound than could be produced by climate alone. The crossing of races produces intermediary types and tends to erase extreme characteristics. It does not produce these characteristics, however; it only creates varieties. Thus, for the crossing of races to have occurred, it would be necessary for there to have been distinct races in the first place. But how could there have been distinct races if they all came from one ancestor and especially in such a short time? How could anyone believe that in only a few centuries a few descendants of Noah had been transformed to the point of producing the Ethiopian race, for example? Such a metamorphosis would be as unlikely as the theory of a common origin for wolves and sheep, aphids and elephants or birds and fish. Once more, nothing can prevail against the factual evidence. On the other hand, everything can be explained if we admit that humans existed prior to the time commonly assigned to their appearance; that their origins were diverse; that Adam, who lived 6,000 years ago, populated an uninhabited region; that “Noah’s flood” was a localized catastrophe rather than the great geological cataclysm; and finally, that we take into account the allegorical form characteristic of the Oriental style, which can be found in all the sacred books of every culture. That is why it is prudent not to lightly accuse as erroneous those doctrines which, like so many others, could someday enjoy a retraction from individuals who currently oppose them. Rather than being lost, religious ideas become even greater when they march in step with science. This is the only way to keep from being vulnerable to skepticism.
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