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Methodical Study of the Pentateuch Kardecian   Portuguese  Spanish

Year 8 - N° 372 – July 20, 2014

ASTOLFO O. DE OLIVEIRA FILHO  
aoofilho@gmail.com
       
Londrina, 
Paraná (Brasil)  
 
 
Translation
Jon Santos - jonsantos378@gmail.com
 

 
 

Genesis

Allan Kardec

(Part 11)
 

Continuing with our methodical study of Genesis - Miracles and predictions according to Spiritism by Allan Kardec which had its first edition published on January 6, 1868. The answers to the questions suggested for discussion are at the end of the text below.

Questions for discussion

A. What are the reasons/usefulnesses of the law of destruction?

B. Why did the early writings of the ancient peoples were religious?

C. Is for science to reveal the true genesis of the universe?  

Text for reading

215. True life, for animal as well as for human beings, dwells no more in the corporeal envelope than in a garment. True life lies in the intelligent principle that pre-exists and survives the body. This principle requires the body to develop itself through labor, which it must perform on brute matter. The body is consumed in this labor, but the Spirit is not; rather, it leaves the body each time stronger, more lucid and more capable. Thus, what does it matter if the Spirit changes its envelope more or less frequently! It is no less spirit because of it.

216. Through the incessant spectacle of destruction, God teaches humans how irrelevant they should consider their material envelope and awakens them to the idea of the spiritual life, making them desire it as compensation.

217. On the contrary, one may ask: could not God achieve the same result by other means, without obligating the living beings to destroy one another? Since all is wisdom in God’s work, we must assume that such wisdom not be lacking any more on this point than on others; if we do not understand it, we must attribute it to how little evolved we are. However, we can try to find the reason using this principle as our compass: God must be infinitely just and wise. Therefore, we seek God’s justice and wisdom in all things and we bow down before what surpasses our understanding.

218. A primary usefulness that arises from such destruction – a purely physical one – is this: organic bodies are sustained with the aid of organic matter; only this matter contains the nutrients necessary for their transformation. As instruments of action for the intelligent principle, bodies have the need for incessant renewal, Providence makes them serve their mutual sustenance. That is why beings nourish themselves with one another. This, it is the body that nourishes itself from the body, but the spirit is neither destroyed nor altered. It only stripped of its envelope.

219. There are also moral considerations of a high order. Struggle is necessary for the development of the Spirit. It is this struggle that exercises its faculties. Those that attack in order to obtain their food and those that defend themselves in order to preserve their life, compete in astuteness and intelligence, and thereby increase their intellectual powers. One of the two succumbs; but in reality, what has the stronger or more skillful taken from the weaker? Nothing more than its garment. The spirit, which is not dead, will take another body later.

220. In the less evolved beings of creation, those who still lack the moral sense or in which intelligence has not yet replaced instinct, struggle will not have no other driving power than the satisfaction of a material need. However, one of the most imperative needs is that of nutrition. They therefore struggle solely to survive, i.e. to capture or defend their prey, since could not be stimulated by a higher motive. It is in this first period that the soul takes its first steps and prepares for life.

221. In humans, there is a transition period in which they are barely distinguishable from the brute. In the early ages the animal instinct dominates and struggle still has for its intention the satisfaction of material needs. Later on, the animal instinct and the moral sense counterbalance each other. Humans then struggle no longer to nourish themselves but to satisfy their ambition, pride and their need to dominate. To do so, they must continue to destroy. However, as the moral sense takes over, sensitivity develops and the need to destroy decreases; it even ends up disappearing, since it becomes hateful. Then humans become horrified at bloodshed. Nevertheless, struggle is always necessary for the evolution of the spirit, because even when at has reached the point that seems at peak to us, it is still far from being perfect.

222. It is only at the expense of its activity that it acquires knowledge and experience, and rids itself of the last vestiges of animality. However, from that time onward, struggle, rather than being bloody and brutal, becomes purely mental. Humans struggle against difficulties and no longer against their fellow beings.

223. Chapter IV - Role of Science in Genesis. The history of the origin of almost all ancient peoples mingles with that of their religion; hence their first writings were religious in nature, and since all religions are connected to the beginning of things - which also includes humankind – the these religions have on the formation and arrangement of the universe is relative to the knowledge at the time as well as the knowledge of their founders. That is why the first sacred writings were also the first writings on science, as they were during a long time, the sole code of civil law.

224. In the early ages, the means of observation were unavoidably highly imperfect; the first theories concerning the system of the world have to have being tainted with blatant errors. Moreover, such means could only be the result of the development of intelligence and the consequent understanding of the laws of Nature. As humans evolved in their knowledge of those laws, they also grasped the mysteries of creation and rectified their former ideas about the origin of things.

225. People were unable to solve the problem of the creation until the time that science provided the key to it. It was necessary that Astronomy open the doors of infinite space to enable them to probe in its depths; that through the power of calculus they could determine with accuracy the precise movement, position, volume, nature and role of the heavenly bodies; that physics reveal the laws of gravitation, heat, light and electricity; that Chemistry teach them about the transformations of matter; and mineralogy, the materials that form the surface of the globe; that Geology teach them to read in the geological strata the globe’s formation. It behooved botany, zoology, paleontology and anthropology to initiate them into the filiation and succession of organically structured beings. With the archaeology, they can follow the footprints of mankind across the ages. In other words, by complementing one other, all the sciences were to contribute to indispensable knowledge to understand world’s history.

226. On the other hand, before humans possessed such elements of evaluation, all Genesis commentators, whose reasoning ran up against material impossibilities, spun around in the same circle being able to depart from it. They were able to do so only when science paved the way by breaking through the old edifice of beliefs; then the aspect of everything changed. Once the guide wire was found, the problems were quickly ironed out. Instead of an imaginary Genesis, they had a positive [and in some ways] an experimental Genesis. The domain of the universe extended into infinity. We followed the gradual formation of the Earth and of celestial bodies, according to eternal and immutable laws which demonstrated much better to the the grandeur and wisdom of God than did that of a miraculous creation, suddenly out of nowhere – like a set change in full view of a theater audience – because the Divinity has suddenly changed its mind after an eternity of inaction.

227. Accordingly, since it is impossible to conceive the Genesis without the data supplied by science, it can be said with entire truth that science is called to provide a true Genesis, according to the laws of Nature.

228. However, as it now stands in the 19th century, has Science resolved all the difficulties of the problem of Genesis? Certainly not, but it is unquestionable that is has irretrievably destroyed all crucial errors and has laid down the most important fundamentals based upon irrefutable data. Properly speaking, the points still uncertain are issues of minutiae, whose solution whatever may be in the future, cannot harm the whole.

229. Of all the ancient geneses, the one that comes closest to the modern scientific data - notwithstanding the errors it contains (today demonstrated by evidence), is undoubtedly that of Moses. Some of these errors are more matter or perception than reality. They derive either from false interpretation given to certain words, whose primitive meaning have been lost when passing from one language to another through translation, or whose meaning has changed with people’s customs, or also derive from the allegorical form peculiar to the Eastern style, taking it literally rather than searching for the spiritual meaning.

230. The Bible, obviously, contains facts that reason developed by Science could not accept today, and others that seem strange and objectionable because they are derived from customs that are no longer ours. But alongside that, there would be no bias in recognizing that it contains great and beautiful things. The allegory takes up considerable space in it, and behind this veil it hides sublime truths that will comes to light if we look at the essence of the thought, disregarding the nonsense.

231. Why was this veil not lifted earlier? On one hand, due to lacking the understanding that only science and a healthy philosophy could provide, and, on the other hand, due to the effect of the principle of absolute immutability of faith, the consequence of an overly blind respect for the literalness before which reason should bow down, and consequently the fear of compromising the structure of beliefs framed on the literal sense.

232. Because these beliefs were rooted in a primitive starting point, it was feared that if the first link of the chain were broken, then the entire weave of the network would end up coming undone. Thus, eyes remained shut. However, shutting one’s eyes to danger does not to avert it. When a building leans, is it not more prudent to immediately replace the bad stones with good ones rather than, out of respect for building’s age, wait for the problem to become unfixable, thereby making it necessary to rebuild it from top to bottom?

233. In taking its investigations into to the ends of the earth and into depths of the heavens, Science has irrefutably demonstrated the errors in the Mosaic Genesis when taken literally, and the physical impossibility for things to have happened in the exact way they are textually recorded. In doing so, science struck a deep blow to long time popular beliefs. The orthodox faith thus became unsettled because it believed that its foundation stone had been pulled out from under it. But which one would be right? Science, moving ahead prudently and progressively over the solid ground of calculation and observation, without stating anything before having the evidence at hand, or a written narrative at a time when it completely lacked the means to observation?

234. After all, who will prevail: someone who says that two plus two equals to five and refuses to verify it, or someone who says that two plus two equals four and proves it? But then, one might ask, if the Bible is a divine revelation, has God made a mistake? If it is not a divine revelation, it lacks authority and Christianity collapses for lacking a foundation. One of two things applies: either science is wrong or it is right. If it is right, then a contrary opinion cannot be true. There is no revelation that can prevail over the authority of facts. 

Answers to Proposed Questions 

A. What are the reasons/usefulnesses of the law of destruction?  

Two reasons stand out in the law of destruction. A primary usefulness that arises from such destruction – a purely physical one – is this: organic bodies are sustained with the aid of organic matter; only this matter contains the nutrients necessary for their transformation. As instruments of action for the intelligent principle, bodies have the need for incessant renewal; Providence makes them serve their mutual sustenance. That is why beings nourish themselves with one another. This, it is the body that nourishes itself from the body, but the spirit is neither destroyed nor altered. It only stripped of its envelope.

A second usefulness stems from the necessity of the struggle for the development of the Spirit. It is this struggle that exercises its faculties. Those that attack in order to obtain their food and those that defend themselves in order to preserve their life, compete in astuteness and intelligence, and thereby increase their intellectual powers. One of the two succumbs; but in reality, what has the stronger or more skillful taken from the weaker? Nothing more than its garment. The spirit, which is not dead, will take another body later. (Genesis, Ch. III, items 21-24.) 

B. Why did the early writings of the ancient peoples were religious?  

The reason lines in the fact that the history of the origin of almost all ancient peoples mingles with that of their religion; hence their first writings were religious in nature, and since all religions are connected to the beginning of things - which also includes humankind – the these religions have on the formation and arrangement of the universe is relative to the knowledge at the time as well as the knowledge of their founders. That is why the first sacred writings were also the first writings on science, as they were during a long time, the sole code of civil law. (Genesis, Ch. IV, item 1)

C. Is for science to reveal the true genesis of the universe?  

Yes, people were unable to solve the problem of the creation until the time that science provided the key to it. It is impossible to conceive the Genesis without the data supplied by science, it can be said with entire truth that science is called to explain the true Genesis, according to the laws of Nature. (Genesis, Ch. IV, items 2 and 3)

 

 

 


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