1.3 Creation
The Formation of Worlds
The universe includes an immeasurable multitude of worlds, both visible and invisible. It encompasses animate and inanimate beings, the heavenly bodies moving through space, and the subtle fluids that fill space.
The universe did not create itself. If it had existed from all eternity in the same way as God, it could not be the work of God. Reason therefore leads to a clear conclusion: since the universe cannot be self-created and cannot be the product of chance, it must be the work of God.
God created the universe by the divine will. Nothing expresses that sovereign power more simply than the image of creation brought forth by command: light is willed, and light appears.
How Worlds Are Formed
As far as human understanding can grasp, worlds are formed by the condensation of matter scattered throughout space. From this dispersed matter, organized bodies gradually take shape.
Comets may be understood, according to this view, as a beginning of the condensation of matter, with worlds in process of formation. Yet it is unreasonable to attribute to them the superstitious influence often imagined. All celestial bodies have their role in certain physical phenomena, but not in the exaggerated sense often supposed.
The Renewal of Worlds
A fully formed world can disappear, and the matter composing it can again be dispersed through space. Worlds are renewed, just as living beings are renewed.
This continual transformation shows that creation is not fixed in a single, unchanging state. Worlds arise, develop, dissolve, and contribute once more to the larger order of the universe.
The Limits of Human Knowledge
The duration required for the formation of worlds, including the earth, is not something human beings can determine with certainty. That knowledge belongs to the Creator alone.
Any claim to know precisely how many ages were required for the formation of worlds goes beyond what can truly be known. In matters so vast, wisdom includes recognizing the limits of human understanding.
The Formation of Living Beings
Living beings did not appear on the earth all at once in a finished and orderly world.
In the beginning, everything was in chaos. The elements were mixed together without distinction. Gradually, each thing took its proper place, and when the globe reached conditions suited to them, living beings appropriate to that state of the earth appeared.
The earth already contained their prototypes, waiting for the favorable moment to develop. Organic elements began to combine as soon as the force that had kept them apart ceased to act. In this way, the prototypes of living beings were formed. These remained latent and inert, like a chrysalis or a seed, until the proper time came for each species to emerge. Then the beings belonging to each species appeared, gathered, and reproduced.
Before the earth itself was formed, these organic elements existed, so to speak, in a fluidic state in space, among spirits or on other worlds, awaiting the formation of a new globe on which a new cycle of existence could begin.
This idea is not foreign to what can be observed in nature. Chemistry shows that, when conditions are right, the molecules of inorganic bodies unite and form crystals with a regular structure proper to each kind. A slight change in those conditions can prevent the elements from combining, or at least prevent their orderly arrangement. The same reasoning can be applied to organic elements.
Seeds of plants and animals can remain preserved for many years without developing. They require the proper temperature and environment before growth begins. Grains of wheat have been seen to germinate after centuries. In such cases, a latent life principle remains present, waiting only for favorable circumstances in order to unfold. What is seen in everyday life may therefore help explain what took place in the earliest periods of the globe.
There is no diminishment of divine power in understanding living beings as having emerged from primordial disorder through the action of the forces of nature. On the contrary, such a view accords with the idea of a sovereign intelligence governing all worlds through eternal laws. The origin of life's elements themselves still lies beyond human knowledge. That mystery remains guarded, and there are limits to inquiry.
Even now, certain creatures still appear to arise spontaneously. Yet their primitive prototype has always existed in a latent state. Human and animal tissues contain countless larval prototypes waiting to emerge when the decay necessary to their existence begins. A microscopic world sleeps within matter and awakens when conditions permit.
The human species was also present among the organic elements of the terrestrial globe and appeared at the appropriate time. This is the sense in which humanity may be said to have been formed from the dust of the earth.
No certainty can be reached regarding the ages in which humans and other living beings first appeared. Human calculations on this subject remain speculative.
As for why human beings no longer appear spontaneously as they did at the origin, the beginning of things remains among the divine secrets. Yet one explanation can be given. Once the first humans had spread over the earth, they absorbed into themselves the elements necessary for their formation and thereafter transmitted those elements according to the laws of reproduction. The same occurred with all other species of living beings.
The Peopling of the Earth: Adam
The human species did not begin with a single man.
The figure known as Adam was neither the first human being nor the only one through whom the earth was populated. Humanity was already present through more than one line, and the origin of the human race cannot be reduced to one individual alone.
Adam is placed, more or less, in the period traditionally assigned to him, around 4,000 years B.C. Yet the man preserved in tradition under that name is better understood as one who survived one of the great cataclysms that reshaped the earth's surface in different ages. From him came one of the races that still exists today.
This understanding fits more closely with the laws of nature. The degree of human progress already achieved long before the time of Christ could not reasonably have been accomplished in only a few centuries. If all humanity had begun only at the date commonly assigned to Adam, such development would be difficult to explain.
For that reason, Adam may be regarded, with good reason, as a symbolic or allegorical figure representing one of the earliest ages of the world.
The Diversity of Human Races
The physical and moral differences seen among the various human races arise from conditions such as climate, ways of living, and customs.
Human beings shaped by different environments do not develop in exactly the same way. Even two children born of the same mother, if raised far apart under very different conditions, may come to show striking differences in character and habits. What appears among individuals in a family can appear more broadly among peoples.
Humanity did not appear everywhere on the globe at the same time. Different regions were populated at different periods, and this difference in timing also contributed to human diversity. As human beings spread across the earth, they encountered new climates and conditions of life. Over time, these influences, together with interbreeding among different groups, produced new human types.
These differences do not mean that humanity is divided into separate species. All human beings belong to one and the same family. Varieties within the human race no more destroy its unity than varieties of the same fruit make them belong to different species.
For that reason, no outward distinction can cancel the deeper bond that unites all people. All are brothers and sisters in God. All are animated by the same spirit, and all are moving toward the same end.
Human diversity is real, but it does not divide humanity at its root. Beneath differences of form, culture, and development, the human family remains one.
The Plurality of Worlds
The worlds that move through space are not empty.
All globes are inhabited, and Earth is far from occupying the highest place in intelligence, goodness, or perfection. The belief that this small planet alone was favored with reasoning beings comes from human pride. It imagines the universe was created for Earth alone.
Creation is broader and wiser than that. God has populated all worlds with living beings, each contributing to the final purpose of Providence. To suppose that life exists only on one isolated point in the universe would be to deny divine wisdom. Nothing is made without purpose. The countless worlds spread through space were not created merely to delight the eye. There is nothing in Earth's position, size, or composition that would justify thinking it alone is inhabited while so many similar worlds remain empty.
Diversity of Worlds
The various worlds do not all share the same physical composition.
They differ greatly from one another, and for that reason the beings who inhabit them do not all possess the same bodily organization. Living beings are formed in harmony with the conditions of the world where they dwell. Just as fish are suited to life in water and birds to life in the air, the inhabitants of other globes are adapted to the environments proper to them.
This diversity should not be surprising. Human beings already recognize on Earth that different conditions require different forms of life. The same principle extends throughout creation. Worlds unlike ours must naturally be inhabited by beings unlike us in their physical structure.
Light, Heat, and Conditions of Life
Distance from the sun does not prove that a world is deprived of light or warmth.
It is a mistake to assume that the sun is the only possible source of heat and illumination. Even on Earth, electricity reveals powers that are not yet fully understood. On some worlds, it may play a far greater role than it does here. There may also be forms of matter and forces unknown to us, just as the beings who live there may be organized very differently from human beings.
Life exists according to the conditions intended for it. If fish had never been seen, it would be difficult to imagine how creatures could live in water. In the same way, people struggle to imagine forms of life suited to worlds unlike their own. Yet this difficulty comes from the limits of human experience, not from any impossibility in nature.
Earth itself offers hints of this wider reality. In polar regions, long nights are lit by electrical phenomena such as the aurora borealis. If such effects are possible here, there is no reason to deny that on other worlds electricity, or other forces unknown to us, may provide what their inhabitants need for light and heat. Those worlds may therefore contain within themselves the conditions necessary for the life appointed to them.
The Universality of Life
Life is not confined to one form, one environment, or one world.
Across the universe, beings exist in conditions suited to their nature and purpose. The variety of worlds points not to disorder, but to the richness of creation. Each world has its role, each order of beings its place, and all are directed toward the fulfillment of Providence.
Biblical Considerations and Account concerning Creation
Ideas about creation have varied widely among cultures, reflecting different stages of understanding. As knowledge has advanced, reason and science have shown that some traditional explanations are improbable. Yet a view of creation that recognizes divine action through lawful development answers many difficulties that arise when sacred narratives are taken only in a literal sense.
What appears to be a contradiction between spiritual teaching and sacred scripture is often more apparent than real. The difficulty usually comes from interpreting figurative language as if it were strict historical and scientific description. When allegory is read as allegory, conflict diminishes.
The belief that Adam was the sole and exclusive progenitor of all humanity is not the only religious idea that has required revision. There was a time when the motion of the earth around the sun seemed contrary to scripture, and persecution was justified in the name of that reading. Yet the earth continued its course regardless of condemnations, and reason eventually prevailed. The same principle applies elsewhere: facts do not bend to interpretation, and interpretation must yield when evidence is clear.
The Bible speaks of the world being created in six days and places creation only a few thousand years before the Christian era. Taken literally, this would mean that the earth did not exist before that time and was created out of nothing in a brief span. Physical science has shown otherwise. The formation of the earth is recorded in the fossil layers, and the so-called six days may be understood as successive periods of immense duration, perhaps extending over hundreds of thousands of years or more.
This does not diminish God. On the contrary, it enlarges the idea of divine power. A creation unfolding through enduring and universal laws is no less sublime than one imagined as instantaneous. It may be even more worthy of the Divine, because it reveals wisdom operating without disorder, miracle without contradiction, and power expressed through the very laws that govern nature.
Science has also established the order in which living beings appeared on the earth, and in broad outline this agrees with the sequence given in Genesis. The difference lies in the mode of action. Instead of beings appearing all at once in a few hours, creation may be understood as having occurred according to the divine will through the gradual action of natural forces over vast periods of time. The sacred account preserves the truth of order and purpose, while science clarifies the process.
The same need for discernment appears in the question of the flood. According to a literal chronology, the universal flood occurred not long after the creation of the earth. Geology, however, points to a great cataclysm belonging to a period before the appearance of humankind. Primitive layers have not yielded traces of humans or of animals belonging to the same physical order. This does not absolutely prove that humanity did not exist earlier, since future discoveries may always alter what is materially certain. But if traces of human existence prior to that great catastrophe were found, the conclusion would be unavoidable: either Adam was not the first human being, or his origin is lost in a far more remote past than commonly supposed.
Facts cannot be argued away. They must be accepted in the same spirit that led people to accept the motion of the earth and a nonliteral understanding of the six days.
Even if the existence of humanity before the geological flood remains hypothetical, serious difficulties arise when one insists on a narrow chronology. If humanity began only a few thousand years before the Christian era, and if all people except one family perished in a flood, then the entire present human race would have had to descend from that single family within a remarkably short time. Yet history shows that several ancient civilizations were already populous, organized, and advanced not long afterward. Egypt, for example, was already flourishing when the Hebrews arrived there, and India and other lands also possessed long-established cultures.
That would require the descendants of a single family, within only a few centuries, to populate vast known regions and to rise from primitive ignorance to developed civilization. Such an assumption conflicts with the ordinary laws observed in anthropology and in the slow formation of societies.
Human diversity presents another difficulty. Climate and way of life can certainly modify physical traits, but only within limits. Examination of human groups shows constitutional differences more profound than climate alone can account for. The mixing of races can produce intermediate forms and soften extremes, but it does not create the original extremes. For such mixtures to occur, distinct human types must already have existed.
If all people descended from a single stock in so short a time, how could such marked differences have appeared? It is not reasonable to suppose that only a few generations could produce the full variety of the human family. The evidence points instead toward a longer and more complex human history.
These difficulties become more understandable if several points are admitted: that humanity may have existed earlier than a common chronology allows; that its origins may have been diverse; that Adam, rather than being the father of all humankind, may have represented the population of a particular region; that Noah's flood may have been a local catastrophe rather than the same event identified by geology; and that sacred language, especially in ancient Eastern traditions, often speaks in symbol and allegory rather than in scientific precision.
Religious ideas need not be weakened when they are brought into harmony with science. They become greater when understood in a way that respects both spiritual meaning and observable fact. Such harmony protects belief from needless conflict with reason and removes one of the causes of skepticism. Truth is not injured by clearer understanding. It is honored by it.