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CHAPTER II.
_THE ELEMENT OF FAITH IN CREATION._
In the extract placed on the title-page, the author of the Epistle
clearly places our conclusion that God "established the order of
creation"--the lines, plans, developmental-sequences, aims, and objects,
that the course of creation has hitherto pursued and is still
ceaselessly pursuing,[1] in the category of _faith_.
Of course, from one point of view--very probably that of the writer of
the Epistle--this conclusion is argued by the consideration that the
human mind forms no distinct conception of the formation of solid--or
any other form of--matter _in vacuo_, where nothing previously existed.
And what the mind does not find within its own power, but what yet _is
true_ in the larger spiritual kingdom beyond itself, is apprehended by
the spiritual faculty of _faith_.
[Footnote 1: [Greek: Kataertisthai tous aionas]. This implies more than
the mere originating or supplying of a number of material, organic, or
inorganic (or even spiritual) forms and existences. Whatever may be the
precise translation of [Greek: aion], it implies a chain of events, the
cause and effect, the type and the plan, and its evolution all
included.]
But from another point of view, the immediate action of faith is not so
evident. If, it might be said, the law of evolution, or the law of
creation, or whatever is the true law, is, in all its bearings, a matter
to be observed and discovered by human science, then it is not easy to
see how there is any exercise of faith.
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