must eventually return to water. Thales never knew how close he came. If he had meant and used the word spirit instead of water, he might one day yet be lauded for his vision and inspiration. But he didn’t; and now Thales is all but forgotten.
A little later another Greek thinker, Anaximander, suggested that the universe was a living mass filling all space. He called it the “infinite” and said that it contained motion. This was a step forward, even though some of Anaximander’s other ideas were strange ones indeed.
This line of thought paved the way for the Atomists, another group of early Greek philosophers. They agreed with some of their predecessors that change and diversity were due to the mixing and separating of tiny units, but said that these units or atoms were not as different in substance as previously thought. Each atom has motion, they declared, and by uniting in different ways and numbers, matter was formed. The atoms themselves never changed but were eternal and minutely small. Changes in form of life were accounted for by the coming-together of atoms; conversely, death resulted from the separation. Although some of their conclusions were far afield, the Atomist’s general concept may be viewed as another move in the right direction.
While the Apologists were attempting to defend and reconcile the Genesis version of creation with philosophy, the Skeptics on the opposite side were busy refuting their conclusions. This school of thought, founded by Pyrrho in about 300 B.C., contended that all so-called explanations of the nature of the universe were futile and a waste of time. It was in favor of giving up the search of despair; man did not know, could not know the nature of things. All man knew was what he could see and measure, and he should accept nothing else. Such a pessimistic point of view offered little in place of what was rejected.
It was Philo, the Jewish philosopher who lived during the time of Jesus, who first attempted to merge the Mosaic Bible version of creation with Greek philosophy. He taught that there were many powers or spirits that radiated from one source, God; and one of these, called the “Logos” was the creator of the world. Further, he taught everything in the universe is an expression or copy of an idea in the mind of God.
His teachings had a profound influence on religious writers, both Jewish and Christian. The early Christian scholars quickly identified Philo’s Logos with Jesus, who was the Christ, the Word—the agent of God in the creation of the world.
Then came Plotinus, in the third century A.D. His views were much like those of Philo. He concluded that from a pure God came beings, or emanations, flowing as light flows from a sun, without diminishing it. The further the light is from the source, the dimmer it becomes. At the far extreme is matter or darkness—the earth and fallen man—but between God and matter is the great soul-mind.
Modern theories of the origin of the universe fall chiefly into three groups. The first is materialistic Monism, which maintains that the world is just an accident; it is purely mechanical, self-existent, eternal—underived from and independent of any external cause. By a gradual process of evolution from a simple state, and by chance alone, it has attained its present complexity. The idea is not new but was first taught by Epicurus in 306 B.C. This is Evolutionism, and since it never quite explains what the original “simple state” was or how it came into being, the theory only defers the problem rather than answers it.
A second modern view asserts that the world is derived from an extraneous cause, either by emanation from or evolution of a Divine Being. This is pantheism. Spinoza, who lived in the seventeenth century, went so far as to declare boldly that everything in the universe is the manifestation of God, and that all existence is embraced in one substance: God, or Nature. Evil exists only for finite minds, he said, and dissolves when seen as part of the whole. Spinoza was thrown out of the synagogue for his views; he was called “intoxicated with God.” Nevertheless, he offered some sober and provocative ideas.
A third modern belief is one of outright creation of the world from nothing. This is Creationism and is the traditional religious viewpoint. God, as the Creator, is indivisible and therefore emanation is an impossibility. Further, the universe is not self-existent but was created and not from some primordial substance. The big-bang theory of modern science is corroborative, and the two are slowly moving close together. Matter is atoms, atoms are energy, energy equals spirit, spirit is of God.
Christian ideas about the origin of the soul subdivide into two classifications. Traducianism, first taught by Tertullian in about A.D. 200, is the doctrine that the soul is created from other souls or physical beings in the same way and at the same time the body is formed from other bodies at conception. Creationism holds that God creates a new soul for each body. For the church, the question has never been satisfactorily resolved. Even Augustine and Luther were undecided about the nature of the soul. The traditional philosophy of the church maintains that the soul is created at the moment when it is infused into the new organism.
Among the early Greek thinkers, Plato believed in the pre-existence of souls and their subsequent incarnation in bodies. A little later Philo and Origen, who also was excommunicated for his views, taught the Divine source of the soul and also its pre-existence and transmigration from spirit to matter, matter to spirit.
Indian philosophies, Brahmanism, the world’s oldest religion, and Buddhism, make a distinction between body and soul (Dualism) and teach that physical life is merely a transitory episode in the evolution of the soul. A few Indian sects believe, however, that incarnation takes place in the animal kingdom as well as in the human. The Jewish Cabala and the Gnostics (a mixture of early Christian and Jewish elements) taught much the same ideas, except that the reincarnation of the soul was confined to the human race.
The ancient Israelites were divided into two main schools of thought. The Pharisees believed in a spiritual existence and in immortality, including the pre-existence of the soul and its incarnation from spiritual to human life. The Sadducees were the Materialists, denying immortality and all spiritual existence. Men were born, they lived, they died; that was all, they said.
Although modern science has propounded many theories as to how some primeval gaseous substance evolved into the present harmony of the universe, it bestows no such attention upon the existence of the soul. If it exists at all, it says, it is unproved and unidentified—and, ipso facto, unlikely. In recent years, however, startling advances have been made in this very field (parapsychology), although the psychic powers of man have not yet been officially related to the soul or spirit in man by name.
Thus scholars have long struggled with the problems of the nature of man and the universe. They have in turn upheld, denied and compromised with the Mosaic Cosmogony as briefly outlined in that remarkable book, the Bible. Throughout the whole debate, the Genesis version of creation still stands firm and unrefuted. Because much of it is symbolic rather than literal, its profound depth and breadth—its esoteric meaning—escape the minds of those who would confine it to a literal interpretation.
The Edgar Cayce readings generally follow the Mosaic pattern in principle if not in detail. This is to be expected, since detail is lacking almost entirely in the Genesis account. The Cayce readings, however, throw a great deal of light on some of the missing elements. More than that, they supply sound and convincing explanations for shadowy passages that have long remained in the realm of speculation. Out of this wealth of material in the readings emerges a version of creation that is both comprehensive and understandable. Indeed, here is a simplified description of a complicated series of events that normally are almost beyond the reach of the human mind.
Much of the best knowledge of man is corroborated in the Cayce readings; but there are also areas of disagreement, especially as to the modern materialistic concepts of creation. This is not surprising, since its adherents not only disagree among themselves but reject any ideas of a spiritual concept. Their arguments are almost altogether theoretical
