EVOLUTION AND GENESIS 115 



"anthropomorphism," where God is represented 

 as speaking, acting, resting, like a human being. 

 Nothing was clearer to the inspired writer than 

 the fact that God is a pure spirit, yet the oriental 

 imagination naturally pictured the Deity, Jahweh, 

 the eternal, self-existent God, under human form. 

 So, too, He was represented as appearing to our 

 first parents and freely conversing with them. On 

 this_point Father Hull says : 



Some would take the narrative as literally as possible, and 

 suppose that God took an apparitional form as a sort of sub- 

 limated man ; and in that form He walked and talked and 

 argued. The more modern tendency would be to dispense with 

 such apparitional forms, and reduce the occurences to the mental 

 order; for instance, that God's commands mean merely His 

 efficacious will issuing in effect; that His speaking to Adam 

 was merely a mental impress in man's inner consciousness, etc. 

 The apparitional view is possible, but the mental view is per- 

 fectly orthodox, so long as it is maintained that something did 

 historically occur corresponding to the symbol. It must be 

 upheld that God did impress some command on Adam's con- 

 science; that Adam really experienced the feeling of a bad 

 conscience ; that he realized he had done wrong and had brought 

 punishment on himself, etc. In this way the historical and 

 religious validity of the story is preserved; and this is at once 

 necessary and sufficient for orthodoxy. 8 



Yet there is never any need of straining the 

 meaning of the Scripture account. Admitting an 

 Almighty Creator, as we must do, it is childish 

 to question His power, nor need we doubt His 

 condescension with the creatures He has called 

 into being. With these statements premised we 



* Examiner, March 27, 1920, p. 126. 



