A. Of all the ancient Geneses, which is the one closest to the data of modern science?
B. If the Bible has divine origin, why does it contain errors?
C. Should religion move forward with Science?
Text for reading
235. Role of science in genesis - Undoubtedly, God, which is all truth, cannot induce humans to error, either knowingly or unknowingly; otherwise, God would not be God. Thus, if the facts contradict the words attributed to God, then we must logically conclude that either God did not speak them or such words have been misunderstood.
236. Out of respect for texts regarded as sacred, should we impose silence on science? That would have been something as impossible as keeping earth from rotating. Religions – whichever ones they may be – have never gained anything by upholding patent errors. Science’s mission is to discover the laws of Nature, and since those laws are works of God, they cannot be contrary to religions founded on truth.
237. If religion refuses to move forward with science, then science will advance by itself. Only stagnant religions need to fear the discoveries of science. Such discoveries are not threatening except to those who allow themselves to be outdistanced by progressive ideas, remaining immobilized in the absolutism of their beliefs.
238. The Genesis is divided into two parts: the history of the formation of the physical world and that of humankind considered from its two-fold principle: body and spirit. Science is limited to studying the laws govern matter; regarding human beings, it studies only the corporeal envelope. For this aspect, it has grasped with unquestionably precision the main parts of the mechanism of the universe and the human body. Thus, concerning that crucial point, it can therefore complete the Genesis of Moses and rectify its faulty parts.
239. But the history of human being from the spiritual perspective is linked to a special order of ideas that is not within the domain of science per se, and therefore science has not made it an object of its investigations.
240. Philosophy, which more particularly has this genre of study among its attributions, has formulated only contradictory theories concerning the point at issue, from the pure spirituality all the way to the denial of the spiritual principle altogether - and God even – with no other bases than the personal ideas of their authors. Thus, philosophy has left the issue undecided for lack of sufficient verification.
241. This issue, however, is of utmost important for human beings, because it addresses the problem of their past and future. The problem of physical world affects them only indirectly. What is important for them more than anything else is to know where they came from and where they are going; whether they have already lived and if they will continue to do so, and what fate is reserved for them. Concerning all such matters, science is mute.
242. All religions are in agreement as to the principle of the existence of the soul, without, however, demonstrating it. Even so, they are not in agreement as to the soul’s origin, nor its past or its future, especially - and this is essential – as to the conditions upon which their future fate depends. Most of them impose on the beliefs of their followers a picture of the soul’s future that could only be accepted on blind faith because it cannot hold up under serious examination.
243. From the disagreements regarding the future of human being, both doubt and disbelief have arisen. However, disbelief has left a painful emptiness. Humans regard with anxiety the unknown, which, sooner or later, they will inevitably have to penetrate. The idea of nothingness chills them. Their conscience tells them there is something beyond the present, but what? Their development reason no longer allows them to accept stories that comforted them in childhood, taking allegory for reality.
244. Hence the uncertainty, and uncertainty about matters of the future life makes people throw themselves frantically into things of the material life. Such is the unavoidable effect of times of transition: the edifice of the past collapses but that of the future has not yet been built.
245. To date, the study of the spiritual principle in Metaphysics was purely speculative and theoretical; in Spiritism, it is entirely experimental. With the help of the faculty of mediumship, more developed nowadays and especially more widespread and thoroughly studied, humans are in possession of a new instrument of observation. Mediumship has been for the spirit world what the telescope has been to the astral world and the microscope to the infinitely small world.
246. Mediumship has enabled humans to explore and study with their own eyes, so to speak, the spirit world’s relations with the corporeal world; to isolate, in the living human, the intelligent being from the physical being, and to see them acting separately. Once relations with the inhabitants of the spiritual world were established, it was finally possible to follow the soul in its evolutionary ascent, its migrations and its transformations. One could finally study the spiritual element. That is what previous commentators on Genesis lacked in order to understand it and rectify the errors.
247. The spiritual and the material worlds are in constant contact and are thus in solidarity with each other, both have their share of action in Genesis. Without knowledge of the laws governing the former, it would be impossible to build a complete Genesis as it is for a sculptor to give life to a statue.
248. Chapter V - Ancients and modern world theories - The first idea that humans formed about the earth, the movement of the stars and the constitution of the universe had to have been based at the beginning solely on the senses perceive. Not knowing the most elementary laws of physics and the forces of nature, and having nothing except sight as a means of observation, they could only judge by appearances. Seeing the Sun appear in the morning on one side of the horizon and disappear in the afternoon, on the opposite side, they naturally concluded that the sun revolved around the Earth, which remained stationary. If, at that time, someone had told them that the opposite occurred, they would have responded that such could not be; they would have stated, “We see the sun changing of places and did not feel the earth moving.”
249. The short distance of excursions, which rarely went beyond the limits of the tribe or valley, could not allow themselves prove that the Earth was round. Besides, how could it be imagined that the Earth was a ball? After all, people would not have been able to stand up except on the top, and assuming the earth to be inhabited over its entire surface, how could people be living in the opposite hemisphere with head down and feet up?
250. The matter would have seemed even less possible with the earth’s rotational movement. Even nowadays, when the law of gravity is known, there are relatively knowledgeable people who do not realize this phenomenon; one should not be surprised that early humans did not even suspected it. Hence, to them the earth was a flat, circular surface like a millstone, extending out of sight in the horizontal direction. Thus the expression still used "go to the ends of the world." Its edges, depth, interior, and lower surface were unknown.
251. The sky, appearing in concave shape, was [according to common belief], in fact seen as a dome, whose lower edges rested on the earth and marked out its boundaries; it was a vast dome filling with sky. Without any notion of the infinite or space – incapable of even conceiving of it - people thought that this dome was composed of solid matter; hence the designation of the firmament, which has survived the belief and which means firm, resistant (from Latin firmamentum, derivative of firmus and from the Greek herma, hermatos, firm, support, prop, support point).
252. The stars, whose nature they could not suspect, were simply bright spots of various sizes, attached to the the dome as hanging lamps, arranged on a single surface; therefore, all were the same distance from earth, in the same way that they are represented inside certain domes painted blue, to imitate the blue sky. While today’s ideas are totally different, the use ancient expressions have been preserved. It still stated, for instance: the starry canopy, under the dome of heaven.
Answers to Proposed Questions
A. Of all the ancient Geneses, which is the one closest to the data of modern science?
The one closest to the modern scientific data - notwithstanding the errors it contains that are today demonstrated by the evidence - is unquestionably that of Moses. Note, however, that a few errors are more apparent than real; they arise either from false interpretation given to certain terms, whose original meanings have been lost when passing from one language to another through translation or whose meaning has changed with people’s customs, or from allegorical form peculiar to the Eastern style, taking it literally rather than searching for its spiritual meaning. (Genesis, Ch. IV, items 5 and 6.)
B. If the Bible has divine origin, why does it contain errors?
There is no revelation that can override the authority of facts. Undeniably, it is not possible that God, being all truth, misleads men into error knowingly or unknowingly; otherwise God would not be God. Thus, if the facts contradict the words that are attributed to God, then we must logically conclude that either God did not speak them or such words has been misunderstood. This is where lies the cause of the errors contained in the Bible, as mentioned in the previous question. (Genesis, Ch. IV, items 7 and 8.)
C. Should religion move forward with Science?
Yes. Religions, whichever they are, have never gained anything by upholding patent errors. If religion refuses to move forward with science, then science will advance by itself. Only stagnant religions need fear the discoveries of science. Such discoveries are not threatening except to those who allow themselves to be outdistanced by progressive ideas, remaining immobilized in the absolutism of their beliefs. Any religion that would not be in contradiction with the laws of nature at any point would have nothing to fear of progress and would be invulnerable. (Genesis, Ch. IV, items 9 and 10.)
