[Footnote 1: The Scripture clearly recognizes the two opposing lines. In
one place we read, "Thou hast given them a law which _shall not be
broken_;" in another, "All things work together for good to them that
love God."]

It is by Faith, then--combined with only a limited degree of knowledge,
founded on observation and reasoning--that we understand that "the aeons
were constituted by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen
were not made of things which do appear" (the phenomenal has its origin
in the non-phenomenal).

While allowing, then, the element of Faith in our recognition of a
Creator and Moral Governor of the world, our care is in this, as in all
exercises of faith, that our faith be reasonable. We are not called on
to believe so as to be "put to confusion," intellectually, as Tait and
Balfour have it.




CHAPTER III.


_THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION STATED_.

It will strike some readers with a sense of hopelessness, this demand
for a reason in our faith. A special and very extensive knowledge is
required, it seems, to test the very positive assertion that some have
chosen to make regarding the "explosion" of the Christian faith in the
matter of Creation.