The Creation of God — Edition Insights

From Genesis to Physiology

The table of contents reveals a deliberate arc. Chapters V through XIV engage directly with biblical narratives—creation, Eden, the deluge, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and the monarchy—treating them as historical or literary artifacts. Then, from Chapter XVI onward, Hartmann shifts to organic life, animal tissues, food, elimination, and the soul. This transition implies that the same analytical lens applied to scripture can be turned on the human organism. The chapter "The Scriptural God—The Creation" (VIII) is followed by "The Creation of God—Abraham" (IX), suggesting a progression from deconstructing divine attributes to tracing how a patriarch became a vehicle for the god-idea.

The Body as a System of Masters and Servants

In the excerpt on master tissues, Hartmann divides the body into two hierarchies: the voluntary muscular and nervous tissues, which he calls "the all-important tissues," and the involuntary organs that serve them. He writes that the former are "capable of development, progressively, acquiring intelligence," while the latter "perform their functions in the same manner instinctively all through life." This distinction mirrors his broader argument about religion: just as the body has a ruling class of tissues, so human societies and their gods may be products of an evolved, educable faculty—the nervous system—that generates ideas and then treats them as sovereign.

The Nervous Tissue and the Mystery of Mind

Hartmann acknowledges that the nervous tissue is "a little more difficult to comprehend" than muscle, because its operations—sensation, memory, thinking—are hidden inside the skull. He notes that "among the masses it is a mystery to-day." This admission is key to his project: by grounding thought in physical tissue, he aims to demystify the soul and, by extension, the concept of God. The chapter "The Soul—What is It?" (XXIII) follows logically from the physiological sections, suggesting that Hartmann intends to explain religious belief as an emergent property of neural processes, not as evidence of a supernatural realm.

Readers should note that Hartmann's argument depends on the completeness of his physiological claims, which reflect late-nineteenth-century science. The book's value lies less in its medical accuracy than in its ambitious attempt to synthesize biology, biblical criticism, and rationalist philosophy into a single naturalistic account of religion. Pay attention to how he uses the body's hierarchy as a metaphor for social and theological structures.

Reading Hartmann’s calm dissection of belief, I thought of my grandfather’s worn Bible, the pages soft as cloth. He never questioned, just read. Nehemiah’s rebuilding felt like that—a quiet, stubborn construction of hope. This other book, The Bible, King James version, Book 16: Nehemiah — Inside the Classic, gave me the same strange feeling: that we build our shelters, and then call them home.