In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Genesis 1:1-5 opens the canonical text of the Bible with an emphasis upon God as creator.
Genesis 1:1-2:4a is the first of two accounts of creation, even though it reflects an historically later account, deriving as it does from the priestly account, likely written during the exile. The biblical account opens by introducing the reader to a God who creates for good. God builds a beautiful home in which humanity, as representatives of God on earth, may care for that which God has provided. It does not present a theory. It presents a creed, a belief. In the canon, it takes its place as situating the story of the Patriarchs within the larger theme of the love and concern of God for humanity. One should read the Babylonian creation epic for some background as to what this author is arguing against. Whereas each of the orders of creation in the Babylonian story — the watery deep, the heavens, the sea, the dry land, the heavenly bodies — are gods and not mere inanimate objects, in Genesis 1 they are inert creations of the one God. The priestly account demythologizes Babylonian cosmology. Gone are the many gods and their wars that created the earth. In their places are the logical and ordered processes of a transcendent God creating a universe into which God will introduce a species who are nothing less than God’s own children. The God who established a covenant with the family of Abraham and with Moses is the creator of the world. The myths of Ras Shamra may form background, but scholars are beginning to interpret that relationship differently.
The structure of Genesis 1 is not random. Unlike the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian account of creation, in which multiple gods war for control of a chaotic universe, Genesis 1 has only one God, namely 'Elohim, the God of Israel. There is no cosmic sea goddess, Tiamat, who must be vanquished to create the world. There is only God's spirit, hovering like a restless wind made by beating wings over the tehom, a word from the same root as Tiamat's name; only in Genesis, the tehom is merely a deep abyss of swirling water.
Babylonians thought of all the natural formations that God creates in Genesis 1 as actual gods! If, as many scholars believe, the writing of the priestly account of creation was during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, this account is a remarkable response to the prevailing view. For the Babylonians, the god Anu was also the sky. The goddess Ki was the earth. Shamash was the sun. Sin was the moon. All of nature was composed of various gods humans were to worship, according to the Babylonians. By presenting them with an alternative view of the creation of the universe, close enough to their own to be recognizable to them, the Israelites produced a brilliant piece of theological subversion. It is as if the whole chapter preaches one message: "Yes, the universe was created, but by the One God, our God, the only true and living God. All these other things you worship are just inanimate objects in nature, which our God created."
In addition, the one true God creates in a quite different way than does Marduk in the Enuma Elish. Marduk creates the earth by splitting the rebel Tiamat's body into two halves like the halves of a clamshell. The upper half forms the bubble above the sky and the lower half the bubble under the earth, beyond which God filled the universe with water. This is a very bloody, "hands-on" process. According to the author of our text, however, the One God creates with a word. God speaks and there is light. God need not manipulate coarse matter physically. God only says, "Let there be …" and there is!
God used a set of words to bring order out of chaos and light out of darkness. Such words are not simply describing something. They are “performative utterances,” in the words of J. L. Austin, creating the reality they are describing. Words have always been critical to the creative work of God. In Genesis, this work continued when “God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night” (Genesis 1:5). God created day and night when God called these periods day and night. Then God went on to use words to create Earth and seas, vegetation, birds, cattle, and finally humankind. At the end of this creative work, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (v. 31). God used divine words to create a good world for us to enjoy.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth with words alone, and our speech continues to create the world that we live in. As Christians, our challenge is to take words seriously as we follow Jesus, the One who is the Word of God in human form (John 1:14). Finally, we need words that reflect the truth of Jesus, the Word of God, who became flesh and dwelled among us. “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you,” said Jesus; “for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another” (John 13:34).
Once an idea takes root in our minds, we cannot undo them. There is no unlearning. There is only relearning. Abraham Joshua Heschel once said that “words create worlds.” They are not mere metaphors and images on a page. They are the archive of ideas, the power to transform the world by transforming the people who call this world home. Words are an event inviting others to an encounter, the mediation of experiential ideology. What kind of world are your words creating?[1] The language we use in talking about ourselves has a powerful influence on how we behave. The quality of the inner dialogue we have with ourselves is a key to motivation.
Genesis 1 calls its readers to ponder the origins of the universe and our role within it. We receive a glimpse into the world as God would have had it — filled with seeming opposites that are really companions, whose coexistence makes the universe possible: light and darkness, sea and dry land, plants and animals, male and female, God and humanity. Unlike the unrelenting chaos and struggle described in writings about the Babylonian or Canaanite pantheons, God's universe works in harmony with each element serving its appointed function. Unlike the Babylonians or the Canaanites, who lived in constant unease concerning the capriciousness of their gods (whose care for human beings was less than one might desire), the Israelites placed their faith in a God of justice who practiced mercy, and who created humanity as a parent creates a beloved child, regardless of the chaos that child could be expected to reintroduce into the ordered universe.
The text is not myth or saga, but Priestly doctrine, sacred knowledge preserved and handed down by many generations of priests. The emphasis is that one can declare faith objectively. The atmosphere is one of sober theological reflection rather than awe or reverence. Israel made a break with the view of creation as a conflict between god and chaos. There is no hint of that here.
Many of us are accustomed to viewing this text through the lens of the wars between creationists and evolutionists. Some would want to harmonize the account with science. In the 20th century, science and religion have spent much of the time throwing rocks at one another. Now, there can be common cause. Science and religion both have an interest in preserving the planet.[2] The development of the text deals with first things, salvation, last things, and all things. [3]
God's primary work is to form and fill. There was a "formless void," which six days of God creating transformed. God gives the form in the first three days, as God distinguishes light and darkness, up and down, land and sea. Then, in the last two days, there is a frenzy of activity to fill the world. The story shows how God created, not with a magical "poof," but in a series of interdependent steps. As created in the image of God, we stand in a special relationship with rest of creation, yet it is still a relationship. Every detail is so precise that even a child can understand it.
Genesis 1 depicts the creation of the world as a sequence of forms. As the days of creation follow each other, we first have light and darkness, then water and the firmament, then the earth, vegetation, and stars, then fishes and birds, finally land animals, and last of all humans. Modern science might change the order. However, it remains astonishing that much agreement exists between science and this account.[4] More surprising than differences, of which we will note below, is the measure of material agreement in light at the beginning, humans at the end, light prior to the stars, plants springing forth from the earth, the function of vegetation as a presupposition of animal life, and the close relation between human and land animals on the sixth day, as distinct from fishes and birds on the fifth day. We can find agreement in the basic sequence in the development of creaturely forms. The sequence may be different at some points form that of modern science, but science today has also arrived at this own idea of a sequence in its understanding of the world. E. Schlink says that the chief difference between the sequence in the modern view and that of Genesis 1 is that in Genesis 1 the individual working of the creatures is according to concrete orders that are already set, whereas modern research has increasingly come to think that the orders proceed from the working. Genesis 1 is already acquainted with the idea of creaturely agencies’ sharing in the work of creation. Thus, the earth brings forth both vegetation and land animals. In this account, however, the thought of an ongoing development in the course of which different forms of creaturely reality arise out of those that precede is an alien one. The remoteness of the text from the idea of an evolution of the forms of creaturely reality stems from Genesis 1 establishing an order for all time so that each of the works of creation would have lasting duration. Each creature receives from its outset the lasting forms of its existence. As he sees it, to do justice to the full biblical witness, the teaching on creation has the task of uniting the interest of this account in the constancy of the order that God has established with the concept of ongoing creative activity. The idea of unbreakable natural laws does enough justice to the concern of Genesis 1. The theory of evolution has given theology an opportunity to see the ongoing creative activity of God not merely in the preservation of a fixed order, but in the constant bringing forth of things that are new.[5] Such a possibility arises from reflection on the notion in II Isaiah of the creative acts of God in history bringing forth new things, opening the door for the ongoing creative activity of God in nature as well. The notion of emergent evolution becomes an interesting possibility for Christian theology.[6]
Genesis 1:1-2 tells us that 1in the beginning (bereshith) when God (Elohim) created (bara) the heavens and the earth, which we need to understand as introducing the activity that is the subject of the clause. The emphasis is on the activity rather than its temporality. Something like “In the beginning of God creating the heavens and the earth” is the intent. Given the nature of this activity, it does occur at the beginning of time. The theological principle is that the only creative principle resides in God. It affirms only one creative, caring God throughout the cosmos. The divinely ordered world reflects the covenant of grace between God and humanity. The statement affirms that which transcends humanity in unknown heights while affirming the reality of the human realm and the interconnection between them. Yet, 2the earth was a formless void (tohu wabohu) and darkness covered the face of the deep, describing the pre-creation condition. One might translate it as "waste and schmaste" or "formlessness and normlessness."[7] Earth is a watery mess, even while a wind(spirit, breath) from God swept (soared, swooped) over the face of the waters. The Spirit is life-giving, involved directly in creation. God preserves creation from being ungodly or anti-godly. God creates harmony and peace, as creation becomes the theater and instrument of the acts of God, as well as an object of divine joy in which God invites creation to participate.
The Bible begins with God. It does not even try to prove, give evidence, or demonstrate its belief in God. God is eternal, while everything we know is temporal, having a beginning and end. The Bible begins with the creative activity of God. God is the source and origin of the material world. God graciously conferred existence on individuals. The beauty of the doctrine of creation is that of a reality distinct from God, one that is not an echo of God, and a reality that God affirms and with whom God desires fellowship. God preserves creation, continues to care for it out of love and goodness toward what God has created. God will bring creation to what Paul declares in I Corinthians 15:28, in which God will be all in all. This creative activity of God occurs within time, as in the symbolic reference to seven days. God takes time seriously. Creation is a testimony to the patience of God, who nourishes growth through time. The result of this creativity activity is unambiguously “good.” God takes delight in what God has created. It often puzzled me that after the verse, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” the next phrase is, and "the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep" (1:2). For some Bible scholars, this means something evil or negative in opposition to God. However, we now know it as “chaos,” formless matter. The image I have in mind is the lump of clay I have before I start fashioning it into something I want to make. In the same way, the first part of creation is to have chaos, a formless mass, a kind of raw material that God uses for creative activity, a state of affairs that is not yet in harmony with the divine purposes in creation. Suddenly a "wind from God" sweeps over the face of the waters, a divine wind or spirit that begins to work in a creative way with the raw material of "the deep." God does not reject or say no to this chaotic material -- God simply uses it as part of the ordering of Creation. God works with it, to mold and shape it into what God intends.[8]
Well, chaos has been quite the rage for several years. One bestseller was by James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science. Another was by an IU professor, Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, and Bach. Paul Davies is a scientist who has written on this matter in The Mind of God. Several books from John Polkinghorn and the Templeton institute have sought to combine some of this new way of looking at science and combining it with the biblical story of creation. Chaos theory is all the rage as people try to apply it toys, washing machines, Agent of Chaos, Applied Chaos, Angel of Chaos, Beyond Chaos, Bordering on Chaos, and even a bestselling business book, Thriving on Chaos. If you want insight into chaos, you can find it many places. Biologists apply it to construct a model of biological systems. People have used advanced math to model everything from population growth, to arrhythmic heart palpitations, from the spread of epidemics to the sounds of dripping faucets. String theory seeks to resolve in creative tension the apparent conflicts between quantum physics and Einstein's theories.[9] All of this is an effort to develop a Theory of Everything. Well, I find it dangerous to simplify a complex theory. However, chaos theory suggests that very small occurrences can produce unpredictable and sometimes drastic results by triggering a series of increasingly significant events. Complex and unpredictable results can and will occur to the entire system with relatively small actions.
Pam Walatka points out that the word “chaos” comes from the Greek word for formless matter. It does not have a shape that lasts through time. It is not predictable. Chaos is all the random stuff without pattern that exists in the universe. She points out that heat is a form of chaos. Any physics book will define heat as the random movement of atoms. The higher the temperature, the greater is the randomness of the movement of the atoms. Yet, heat is also essential to living things. All living things have heat. Life cannot exist without the random movement of atoms. If heat is chaos, and life cannot exist without heat, then life cannot exist without some degree of chaos. A dead person is a cold stiff. A live person is warm and flexible. She points out that you know randomness occurs in your life. It also occurs in your body at the atomic level. Her conclusion is simple. Therefore, learn to appreciate the chaos in your life, because chaos is keeping you alive.[10] Chaos theory reminds us that even when it appears we are living in chaos, there are patterns of order that are appearing if only we are patient even to discern them.
Genesis 1:3-5 describe the first day of creation, first of the sequence of forms we find in this depiction of creation. The creation of day and night - through the activity of creating and separating light from primordial darkness - allows for the basic reckoning of time. 3God spoke light into existence. This simple statement suggests creation by a free, divine decision declaration. When creation separates itself from its origin, it does so to its own hurt, for it falls into falsehood and error. 4God saw that the light was good. The apparently senseless suffering of creatures and the entrance of evil in creation make it difficult to postulate a Creator who is both omnipotent and good. A belief in creation must assume that the work of creation is good and according to the will of God. The creation of light is in accord with the divine purpose. Suffering and evil will always cast doubt on the goodness of creation.[11] The primary doubt regards the goodness of the work of creation. Thus, each individual act of creation is in accord with the divine purpose and receives divine approval as “good,” with humans receiving special importance with the pronouncement of “very good” and as the conclusion of the whole work of creation in 2:2. The goodness of creation depends on humans and their being in accord with the divine purpose in creation. Of course, the opening chapters of Genesis show that the historical form and experience of humanity do not show the goodness that the creator ascribes to them.[12] 5God also separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. There was evening and there was morning, the first day. Time can commence. The works of God take place during the day and in the light. Light depends upon God for its existence and continuing presence. Light has no power generating from within itself. It derives its dignity and power from God. God grants time for that which God has made. Existing in time, it belongs at the side of God, expressing the affirmation of God and the possibility of God choosing it. God turned toward creation in gracious good pleasure. To have time is to allow finite things to exist in the presence of God. Created things live under the divine Yes, and thus receive divine preservation and shelter.
Certain hymns capture some of the spirit of these few verses. “Morning has broken like the first morning,” wrote Eleanor Farjeon in 1931. Maltbie D. Babcock (1901) wrote, “This is my Father’s world.” For him, “all nature sings, and round me rights, the music of the spheres.” The birds “declare their maker’s praise. Even if “the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” Therefore, since “this is my Father’s world,” “I rest in the thought,” the Lord “speaks to me everywhere,” and “the Lord is king, let the earth be glad.”
[1] —Jim Keat, “Words Create Worlds,” Thirty Seconds or Less, February 28, 2014, http://thirtysecondsorless.net/words.
[2][Note: Some use the term "fragile planet Earth." I cannot use this! The planet has been here for about four billion years. My guess is that it will be here another four billion years. What is fragile is the human race.]
[3] H. Paul Santmire in Interpretation, 45:366-379, 1991
[4] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 116.
[5] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 118-9.
[6] Pannenberg Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 122-3.
[7] (J.W. Rosenberg, HarperCollins Study Bible)
[8] (Terence E. Fretheim, "The Book of Genesis," The New Interpreter's Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994], 356).
[9] (www.students.uiuc.edu/~ag-ho/chaos/chaos.html, June 22, 1999).
[10]Pam Walatka, "Chaos in Everyday Life," 1996, www.wildhorses.com, June 22, 1999.
[11] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 162-3.
[12] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 162-3.
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