Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

1 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. ⁶ And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." ⁷ So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸ God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. ⁹ And God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹ Then God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." And it was so. ¹² The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. ¹⁴ And God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. ²⁰And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." ²¹ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." ²³ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. ²⁴ And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²⁶ Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." ²⁷ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ²⁸ God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." ²⁹ God said, "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. ³¹ God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

^2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ² And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³ So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. ^4a These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

            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. Babylonian cosmology has been demythologized. 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 will be introduced 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 text is not myth or saga, but Priestly doctrine, sacred knowledge preserved and handed down by many generations of priests.  The emphasis is that faith is capable of being declared 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 in light 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.[1]  H. Paul Santmire,[2] views the development of the text as dealing with first things, salvation, last things, and all things.  

God's primary work is to form and fill.  There was a "formless void," which was transformed by six days.  The form is given in the first three days, as light and darkness, up and down, land and sea, are distinguished.  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 to some extent. However, it remains astonishing that much agreement exists between science and this account.[3] 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 a 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.[4] 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.[5]

            Genesis 1:1-2 tells us that in 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."[6] 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.[7]

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.[8] 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 whole 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.[9] 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.[10] 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.[11] 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.”

Genesis 1:6-8 describes the second day of creation. Here is a striking example of a time-bound insight we have now abandoned. The cosmology that finds expression in the idea of the firmament bears impressive testimony to the science of antiquity, which rationally relates the order of the universe to human engineering. For this reason, one must not base theology on the literal sense of the passage. A theological doctrine of creation should follow where the biblical witness leads by claiming current knowledge of the world for a description of the divine work of creation, using the resources that are at hand. Theology will not do justice to the authority of the biblical witness if it tries to preserve the time-bound ideas with which the biblical account of creation works instead of repeating in its own day the act of theologically appropriating contemporary knowledge.[12] ⁶ And God said, "Let there be a dome (rq' , means "to beat, stamp or spread out") in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." ⁷ So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. The point is to divide the destructive power of water. It can exist only in this separation. It will have its determination by the creative Word of God. It becomes a creature. It is no longer chaos but cosmos.  ⁸ God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. We find the creation of the living space of humanity. In precise correspondence to the announcement made in the creation of light, it consists in the establishment of a boundary. God has said No to a world in which humanity would be lost. Humanity has the assurance that God will protect it. God has good intentions toward humanity. Yet we do not see the pronouncement of the goodness of this act on this day. 

Genesis 1:9-13 describe the third day of creation. It continues the establishment of boundaries begun on day two. we find the actualization of the living space of humanity. ⁹ And God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. We have again the divine pronouncement that what God has created is good because creation is in accord with the will and purpose of God. ¹¹ Then God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." And it was so. ¹² The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. The divine work on this day receives a second divine pronouncement of the goodness of the creative activity of this day because it remains within the purpose of God. ¹³ And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. As God created heaven by the separation of water from water, so God created the earth by its separation from the water under heaven. This time in the form of the terrestrial sea, that which is past, the text now reveals, rejects, displaces, and banishes, subordinating it to the cosmos and coordinating and associating with it. God acts again by the Word, and God does so by commanding the water of the lower cosmos to retreat and to gather in its special place, so that one can envision the dry land as a habitable place on the one side, and the sea in its separation on the other. Already with creation mercy, help, deliverance, and emancipation the creator offers promises and assurances to a threatened creation. The text brings this out unmistakably by the creation of the earth and the separation of the land from the sea. However, this is not what makes the earth habitable, a place of life. It becomes such by the Word of God. Because this land is dry and fruitful, people can live on the earth and of the earth. Future creation will be the furnishing of this house. However, the twofold work of the third day is its construction. According to the explanation now given, a creature is alive when through its seed it can continue in the existence of similar creatures, and in addition can bear fruit. In the creation saga, this miracle is just as significant as the miracle of the separation of heaven from earth. The enclosure and limitation of the sea is the negative side of the miracle and secret of the third day of creation. Where in virtue of the Word of God there can be no presence and power of water or sea, there we have the earth. The secure establishment of the earth by the removal and the gathering of the waters is the positive meaning of this Word of God on the third day. That this work has the character of a conflict lies in the fact that the waters of the upper as well as the lower cosmos constitute the sign of chaos that God has negated. God has rejected the cosmic possibility or impossibility of chaos.

Genesis 1:14-19 describe the fourth day of creation. Here is another striking time-bound statement. Here it is not so much a matter of outdated cosmology as it is one of outdated controversy. In opposition to the Babylonian creation epic, which relates the creation of the stars to the formation of the firmament, the creation story puts first the dividing of land and sea in verse 10 and the creation of plants. One might see here a result of the exactitude with which it describes the mechanical function of the firmament. The erection of the vault of heaven means that the waters under it gather, and therefore in other places dry land appears in verse 9 and vegetation can sprout in verses 11-12. ¹⁴ And God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. The surprising later placing of the stars intends to depreciate them in comparison with the divine rank that the stars had in the religious world around Israel, especially Babylon. In the Bible, the stars simply have the lower function of lamps or signs for the seasons.  Von Rad in his commentary on Genesis will stress the polemical point of this passage. Of course, this controversy as to the divinity or creatureliness of the stars is no longer relevant in modern thought. However, the interest of the story in an inner nexus in the sequence of the individual acts of creation finds natural expression in a modern depiction of the world of creation. This time, however, the formation of the earth comes after that of the stars and galaxies, and within the galaxies of the solar system.[13] And God saw that it was good. We again see the divine pronouncement of the goodness of this creative activity because it accords with the will and purpose of God. ¹⁹ And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. This day begins with the furnishing of the cosmos. The question now is not of its persistence, but is wealth, which it owes to the will and Word of God. The things God makes here serve the purpose of orientation. They show how a day forms out of evening and morning. They give humanity and the animal kingdom around humanity indications both for the necessary course and for the free formation of their life. They offer them guidance in time and space. They show them the boundaries within which the natural life proceeds and according to which humanity for its part can order its life and direct its undertakings. They make it possible for humanity to see its history has history, to take up a position in relation to it, and therefore to be not merely its object but its subject, albeit a creaturely and earthly subject. In this way, they give light to the lower cosmos. They cannot see to it that humanity has this determination and receives a summons to the fulfillment of it. Here, too, creation and covenant are two different things. However, by creating these heavenly bodies God sees to it that humanity can possess this determination. God and humanity would not be what they are if the covenant lacked or could lack this presupposition in creation. Because God is the merciful Lord, because humanity is the covenant-partner who shares but also needs this divine mercy, and because God is at the same time the creator of this humanity, it belongs to creation that God should give humanity this objective direction to distinguish for its part that which God distinguishes and wills humanity should distinguish. That is what the cosmos of humanity should not merely be orientated by God but orientating for humanity. In a series of eschatological passages, the Bible speaks of a cessation of their function and therefore of their shining. We have thus to reckon with the fact that on the biblical view, the end of the world will consist in a passing away of heaven and earth, in the cessation of the function of the heavenly bodies and in the extinction of their particular light, but that the heavenly bodies themselves will not pass away. God will preserve them and give them a new function. The wisdom and patience of God, which has founded human history, has a definite goal, and the finite time granted to humanity in relation to this history has an end.

Genesis 1:20-23 describe the fifth day of creation. We have the completion of an entirely new creation under the protection of the firmament. Yet, the land separating from the sea, the seat of hostile territory, and the waters that are above, show that this life will need protection and is always close to hostile territory. Life will always exist with hostile frontier. ²⁰ And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." ²¹ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." ²³ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. This entirely new creation clearly distinguishes from the first creation of the first autonomous living creatures. The spectacle offered in these spheres is one to inspire confidence. For what are fish and fowl compared with humanity? How favored humanity is by the comparison. God saw that what God created on the fifth day in these inhospitable regions was also good. However, that is not the end of the story. For we now have for the first time the reference to a blessing that God bestowed on creation. The text informs us of the fertility, multiplication and expansion of these aquatic and aerial denizens. A thing is blessed when it is authorized and empowered, with a definite promise of success, for one particular action as distinct from another that is also a possibility. The procreation of posterity, and therefore the existence of nature in the form of natural history, of a sequence of generations, is a definite venture where it has the form of a spontaneous act of a creature qualified for the purpose. In God’s blessing of the fish and birds, we really transcend the concept of creation and enter the sphere of the dealings God has with the creation. What we have here is the beginning of its history, or at least an introductory prologue, which announces the theme of this history, that is, the establishment of a covenant between God and the creation of God that moves independently like God and renews itself by procreation after its kind. What the text reveals is the grace that does not will that the fashioning of finite nature, for all its difference from the divine, should be futile or unfruitful. The goodness of the Creator does not allow this finite nature to exist in its relative independence and self-propulsion without permission and hope. God wills in all friendliness to bear, surround and rule it in the exercise of the freedom granted to it. 

Genesis 1:24-31 is the sixth day of creation. We have the termination of creation, but not its completion. Creation is not complete because it has concluded. God rested on the seventh day. The completion of creation is the joyful readiness in which the Creator and creature, the master and the work that God now can survey, are now conjoined, and together anticipate the common history that now commences. ²⁴ And God said, "Let the earth (adamah) bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. Human beings do not occupy a separate day, but rather, are part of the sixth day. This may suggest the close connection between human beings and the creatures of the land. The biblical creation saga views humanity in all its individuality. Yet, it does so not in isolation, but in this environment and company. Humanity is in association with the various tame, creeping, and wild beasts of the land that like itself, and like the fish and fowls before them, but now immediately and unavoidably, as the inseparable companions of humanity, are living creatures. By living, we mean in independent movement and multiplying themselves by free facts of generation. If it is true that creation finds its conclusion in humanity, it is equally true that this Creator has given humanity precedence over inanimate and animate nature. Humanity has more nobility than the rest of creation, and yet has need of them as of all that went before, where they for their part have no need of humanity. Humanity, created with the beasts by the will and Word of God, freely hears and obey this Word. Humanity will constantly have before it in the animal world immediately around humanity the spectacle of submission to this Word that, if it is not free, is in it its own way real and complete. Thus, at every point it is inferior to humanity, and yet the companion and forerunner of humanity. Living things are inferior, for humanity alone bears the image of God. Humanity alone will hear and obey the Creator. God offers humanity alone the honor of being the partner of God in the covenant of grace. With humanity alone, will there be an independent history. However, in all these things, the beast will be a constant companion. The salvation and perdition of humanity, the joy and sorrow of humanity, will be reflected in the weal and woe of this animal environment and company. Not as an independent partner of the covenant, but as an attendant, the animal will participate with humanity, the independent partner, in the covenant, sharing both the promise and the curse that shadows the promise. Significantly, the creation of humanity and of these living beings is the work of the same day. The earth is to produce them. They are to proceed from the earth. Their existence and nature belong to the earth, to its destiny and preparation as the dwelling-place of humanity. According to the Word of the Creator, they belong indissolubly to the humanity who lives on the earth. However, its execution consists in the fact that God made them as God made the heavenly firmament, the lights, the fish and fowls, the land animals, and later humanity. 

Genesis 1: 26-28 detail the future nature of the human culture, the unique relationship that is to exist between the human being and the rest of the created cosmos. ²⁶ Then God said, "Let us, referring to the heavenly beings the surround God in the heavenly court,[14] make humankind (adam) in our image, according to our likeness. The point here is that the creation of humanity is the result of a concerted act on the part of God.  And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." ²⁷ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. We should note that the Old Testament makes little of the concept of the image of God: Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1, 3, 9:6, and Psalm 8:6-7. Of course, the daring equation of the man Jesus with the divine image is an unprecedented and radical innovation. The image and likeness, repeated in Genesis 5:1ff, implies that the image is still true of the descendants of Adam. Paul implies as much in I Corinthians 11:7 by referring to the male gender as made in the image of God. In I Corinthians 11:7-8, Paul followed common Jewish exegesis of his time by limiting divine likeness to the male gender, combining with Genesis 2:22-24. It became the basis for promoting the inferiority of women and the refusal of ordination to women. Paul likely got this idea of deriving the image of God for women through the man from the idea that she came from the rib of Adam. The problem, of course, is that the verses link the creation of both male and female directly to the image of God. In any case, the image remains, regardless of the differences in the genders.[15] Christian theology presupposes human destiny is toward fellowship with God based on this notion of human creation in the image of God.[16] ²⁸ God blessed them, even as God blessed the animals made on the fifth day, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." ²⁹ God said, "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. God wants humanity to look carefully at what God has given them, especially the multiplicity and variety of life that lays before humanity. It all exists for the sustenance of humanity. The author stresses that everything that has the breath of life is for humanity. This story of creation derives the human task of rule directly from the fact that humans are representatives of God in the divine rule over creation. This is the point of the statement here, where the divine image and likeness have a direct link to rule over earthly creatures. In this way, our human dominion has a link to the dominion of God. As the image of God, humans are the vicars of God preparing the way for the dominion of God over the world.[17] The work of Phyllis A. Bird argues directly against the popular exposition by Barth, who argued that the image of God reflects the relationship that exists in male and female, based on linking “Let us make” and the creation of male and female.[18] She says that the point of image and likeness in this passage has to do with the dominion that God assigns to humanity.[19] When secularity cut itself off from such religious roots and became excessive in its abuse of its dominion or power over creation, it sought to turn around and blame religion.[20] The image ceases to be such if it bears no similarity to the original. Of course, human beings may be poor images that bear little similarity to their original, but a total loss of similarity eliminates the whole idea of an image. Conversely, the image is the sharper, the greater the similarity. When we read here of human beings representing God, the point is that humans are according to the image of God, but not to the same degree. Sin distorts the image. In Christian theology, however, Jesus is the image of God with full clarity. Thus, in the story of humanity, the image of God was not achieved fully at the outset. It was still in process. The full actualization of the image and likeness awaits participation in the transformation into the image of Christ. The point is that human beings are not fixed beings. They have an unfinished nature.[21] ³¹ God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. Everything is created for a purpose, and at the end of the sixth day, God looks at it all and calls it "very good" – it is all functioning as he intended. This statement of creation being good and very good has its justification only in the light of the eschatological consummation. Only in the light of the eschatological consummation may one say things of our world, given all its confusion and pain. Yet, those who say it despite the suffering of the world honor and praise God as their Creator. The verdict “very good” does not apply simply to the world of creation in its state at any given time. Rather, it is true of the whole course of history in which God is present with the creatures God has made in incursions of love that will finally lead it through the hazards and sufferings of finitude to participation in divine glory.[22] ^[23] And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

I think it worth pondering the considerations of Karl Barth at this point. With all its manifold presuppositions, consequences, and reservations, this whole saga has aimed and moved towards humanity as the true occupant of the house founded and prepared by God, the central creature on the ground and in space and in the midst of all others, the one being capable of and participating in light. Only when humanity is created can we say that God saw all that God had created, and that it was “very good.” Even humanity is not an end. Only with reservation can we describe humanity as the crown of creation. Strictly speaking, the Sabbath is the crown of creation. However, the work concluded and terminated on the sixth day with the creation of humanity that is the object of this complete divine rest and joy. God created humanity as male and female, in the image of God and after the likeness of God. The image consists, as humanity itself consists, as the creature of God. Humanity would not be humanity if it were not for the image of God. The meaning and purpose of God at creation is willing into existence a being who can be a real partner, capable of action and responsibility in relation to God, to which the divine form of life is not alien and can bear divine life. Humanity was created as this being. However, the divine form of life, repeated in the human being created by God, consists in that which is the obvious aim of the “Let us.” In the being and sphere of God there is a counterpart, a genuine but harmonious self-encounter and self-discovery, a free coexistence and cooperation, an open confrontation and reciprocity. Humanity is the repetition of this divine form of life, its copy and reflection. Humanity is this first in the fact that humanity is the counterpart of God, the encounter and discovery in God being copied and imitated in the relation of God to humanity. However, humanity is it also in the fact that humanity is itself the counterpart of fellow human beings and has in them a counterpart, the coexistence and cooperation in God being repeated in the relation of human beings to other human beings. Thus, the analogy between God and humanity is simply the existence of the I and the Thou in confrontation. This is first constitutive for God, and then for humanity created by God. The analogy is a free differentiation and relation. In this way, God wills and creates humanity as a partner who can enter a covenant relationship within the being of God. The grace of the creation of humanity, in which all creation is now revealed as an act of the creation of God, consists in the fact that God sets humanity in fellowship with God as a being existing in free differentiation and relationship. More than that, it consists in the fact that God has created humanity in fellowship with God in order that in this natural fellowship God may further speak and act with humanity. What distinguishes humanity from the beasts? In the case of humanity, the differentiation of sex is the only differentiation. The saga does not say that humanity is to exist in groups and species, in races and peoples, and so on. The only real differentiation and relationship is that of human beings to human beings, and in its original and most concrete form of man to woman and woman to man. Humanity is no more solitary than God. However, as God is One, and God alone is God, so humanity as humanity is one and alone, and two only in the duality of its kind, that is, as the duality of man and woman. In this way, humanity is a copy and imitation of God. In this way, humanity repeats in its confrontation of God and humanity the confrontation in God. In this way, humanity is the special creature of the special grace of God. Humanity is simply male and female. Whatever else they may be, it is only in this differentiation and relationship. As the only real principle of differentiation and relationship, as the original form not only of humanity’s confrontation of God, but also of all intercourse between human beings, it is the true creaturely humanity in the image of God. Humanity will always be humanity before God and among its fellows only as humanity is man in relationship to woman and woman in relationship to man. As humanity is one or the other, he or she is human. Since this makes him or her human, humanity distinguishes itself from the beast and every other creature, existing in the free differentiation and relationship in which God has chosen, willed and created humanity as a partner with God. The fact that God created man and woman will be the great paradigm of everything that will take place between humanity and God and of everything that will take place between human beings. The fact that humanity was created and exists as male and female will also prove to be not only a copy and imitation of the Creator as such, but at the same time a type of the history of the covenant and salvation that will take place between humanity and the Creator. In all future words and actions of God, God will acknowledge that God has created humanity male and female, and in this way in the image and likeness of God. God created them male and female, in this true plurality. All else refers to humanity in this plurality. In every other differentiation and agreement, they will always be male and female. Every other differentiation and agreement will continually prove to be preliminary or supplementary as compared with the fact that they are male and female. This strictly natural and creaturely factor, which is held in common with the beasts, is not in any sense an animal element in humanity but the distinctively human element, not in itself but because it has pleased God to make humanity in this form of life an image and likeness, an witness, of the divine form of life. In consequence of their divine likeness, humanity is distinguished from all other creatures, and in the first instance from all other creatures with autonomous life, by a superior position, by a higher dignity and might, by a greater power of disposal and control. It is only in this relationship, in dependent connection with humanity, that the animal kingdom can and will participate in the mystery of all creation as it is revealed in humanity, and in the promise of this mystery. In this way, in basic subordination to humanity, and as its comradely followers and environment, they too are witnesses and to that extent partakers of the divine image and the history promised to humanity with its special creation. Humanity is not their Creator. Hence, humanity cannot be their lord. In the dignity and position of humanity, it can only be the creaturely witness of God and representative of God to them. Humanity can carry out a commission in relation to the rest of creation. However, humanity does not possess the power of life and death. Human lordship over animals is a lordship with internal and external limitations. What distinguishes humanity and gives humanity authority and power is the fact that God has honored humanity, through the grace of God, to be the image of God in the uniqueness of its plurality as male and female. The animals in their multiplicity are not confronted by different groups and species of humanity, but, for all the provisional and subsequent differentiations in every individual, by the one humanity, male and female. Humanity, male and female, created as the reflection and image of God, needed and was granted the divine blessing for its future activity. From this, we learn that the divine likeness of humanity does not affect in the slightest the creatureliness that it has in common with all other beings and in which, with all other beings, it is dependent on the aid of God. In virtue of the divine likeness, humanity is directed in all its acts to hear this friendly Word of God. 

Furthermore, and supremely, we learn that humanity does hear this friendly Word of God. Humanity does receive the blessing of God for its propagation as well as for its actualization as a being in the divine image. Even the wrath and judgment of God that may overtake humanity does not indicate any retraction, but only a special form, and in the last analysis the most glorious confirmation, of the permission and promise given to humanity. We will show that humanity does not have this divine likeness to itself and cannot maintain the image itself. The repetition of this image of God is a concern of divine restoration and renewal. The existence of this divine likeness is present as hope in God as Creator. God is faithful to the things God has made, and therefore, not even the Fall can overthrow the image and likeness of God. Humanity has good reason to look to Jesus Christ, different from humanity and yet, for that reason the presence of genuine humanity, as the fulfillment of the divine promise. When men and women beget children by divine permission and promise, they realize in themselves the sign of this hope. This human activity is the sign of the genuine creaturely confrontation in open differentiation and joyful relationship that is the image and likeness of the divine form of life. In itself and as such, their activity is no doubt a denial of their divine image and likeness and laden with all the moral sickness that is a consequence of this denial. However, this does not alter the fact that this activity as such is the sign of the hope given to humanity; the sign of the Son of Man and of the community belonging to Him. If humanity, if male and female necessarily point beyond themselves in this activity, if their activity has meaning only in the fact that it is the realization of this sign, this again does not alter the fat that in realizing this sign they participate in that to which they themselves point. They point to Jesus Christ and the Church, in the being of this human being corresponding to creation by God, even before they know God, even before they believe in Jesus Christ, even before God calls them to the Church. It does not alter the fact that in all their humanity, willingly and wittingly or not, they may have their hope in the divine will and plan that has this human being as its goal, and may live in the strength of the truth and certainty of this hope. This is what one must say of the power of the blessing given to humanity. Of the range of the friendly Word of God that is spoken to human beings at the beginning of their way as the special creature with independent life that they are. This friendly Word affirms that the natural being and activity of humanity, irrespective of individual vagaries, is fundamentally and finally destined to be a sign of the fact that the One of whom they are the image and likeness has in and with their creation constituted God their pledge and hope. 

Genesis 2:1-4a is the seventh day of creation. We have the genuine completion of creation on this day. ^2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ² And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³ So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed (separated) it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. The Sabbath affirms the goodness of God as creator and the creation that God made. The fact that God rested means that God did not continue the work of creation. God was content with the creation of the world and humanity. God was satisfied to enter into this relationship with this reality distinct from God, to be the Creator of this creature, to find in these works of the Word of God the external sphere of the power and grace of God and the place of the revealed glory of God. The saga reveals a limit. God had fixed it for God and had now reached it. This rest shows the freedom of God and the love of God. Speaking of the rest of God, the biblical witness tells us that what God was within the divine self, and had done from eternity, God had now in some sense repeated in time. God did this in the form of an historical event, in the relation of God to the creation of God, the world and humanity; and that the completion of all creation consisted in the historical event of this repetition. What does this mean? God was not content create and then leave what God had created alone. Further, this rest means that the humanity will look need to look beyond itself for completion. It will have to seek and find what God intends to undertake and do in this fellowship. The clear inference is that creation, and supremely humanity, rested with God on the seventh day and shared this freedom, rest, and joy, even though it had not yet any work behind it from which to cease. Its Sabbath freedom, rest and joy could only look back the work of God and not its own. Its freedom, rest and joy could be grounded in those of God and consist only in its response to the invitation to participate in them. That God rested on the seventh day, and blessed and sanctified it, is the first divine action that humanity is privileged to witness. That humanity may keep the Sabbath with God, completely free from work, is the first Word spoken to humanity, the first obligation laid on humanity. It is decided that the history of the covenant that begins here is to be the history of the divine covenant of grace. With this decision, creation is completed as the revelation of the will of God with regard to the existence and being of the creation of God. ^4a These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

We see this purposeful creation in the structure of Genesis 1. During the first day, God creates "light" (which science tells us is an object) but calls it "day." God is not merely creating light, but rather the function of time. On the second day, God "separates" the waters, creating the function of weather. On the third day God creates vegetation in order to provide food.  In other words, God begins by creating the functions of time, weather and food -- all the things that are necessary for human existence (and the things we talk about the most). The fourth and fifth days, God installs functionaries like the sun and moon (interesting that they are created after night and day) and the animals that are to be fruitful and multiply. And then, the sixth day, is the creation of humankind, whose function is to care for the creation, have "dominion" over it and reflect the image of God within it (1:26-27). Everything is created for a purpose, and at the end of the sixth day, God looks at it all and calls it "very good" – it is all functioning as he intended.

Why does God rest? God is not tired.  It appears God is building a temple. For the ancient person, the gods rested in temples. If the gods are resting it means security and stability for the human beings who worship them. In this sense, “rest” refers to engaged, ruling, and order. In the first six days, God sets things in their proper order and for their proper purpose. God is now ready to dwell in the temple. The seventh day is a “God with us” moment in the sense that God moves into creation in order to dwell with us. In the first six days, God builds a house. On the seventh day, the house becomes a home. The Creator delights in creation enough to want to be with it. God derives pleasure from what God has created. The outcome of creation is divine rest as God moves in and settles down with creation. The point of the story is not a scientific account, which in fact misses the point. The point is that creation is the place where God lives in which God delights. 

I offer a reflection involving my two favorite theologians, Karl Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg. I would note their disagreement over whether the creation saga contains any hint of opposition to the creative will of God. Barth will say yes and Pannenberg will say no. I have a tendency to think Barth is right on this. 

Throughout this study, I refer to the discussion by Karl Barth.[24] He begins by say that obviously, the things God has made do not have their existence within themselves. Nor do the things God has made exist for themselves. The things God has made are not their goal or purpose, nor their ground and beginning. Its destiny lies entirely in the purpose of its Creator as the One who speaks and cares for it. The things God has made have their right, meaning, goal, purpose, and dignity lie in the fact that God as the creator has turned toward it with divine purpose. What was and is the will of God in doing this? We may reply that God does not will to be alone in the glory that belongs to God. God desires something else besides God. God is the One who is free in love. In this case we can understand the positing of this reality, which otherwise is incomprehensible, only as the work of the love of God. God wills and posits the things God has made because God has loved it from eternity, because God wills to demonstrate the love God has for it, and because God wills to reveal and manifest it in the co-existence of God with the things God has made. It would be a strange love that was satisfied with the mere existence and nature of the other, then withdrawing, leaving it to its own devices. The first aspect of creation the Bible invites us to consider is the realization of the divine purpose of love in relation to the things God has made. God loves the things God has made. This is the unique feature of the covenant in which the love of God is exercised and fulfilled. Its external basis, that is, the existence and being of the creature with which God is covenanted, is the work of the will and achievement of God. The creation of God is the external basis of this covenant. The inner basis of the covenant is simply the free love of God, or more precisely the eternal covenant that God has decreed in God as the Father with the Son as the Lord and Bearer of human nature, and to that extent the Representative of all creation. Creation is the external basis of the covenant. We find this aspect of creation in Genesis 1:1-2:4a. It describes creation as the work of power and planning, almost like a temple. What will finally take place in this account is the summit of creation, man and woman created in and after the image of God. Humanity does not end the history of creation, nor is it humanity who ushers in the subsequent history. Rather, the rest of God is the conclusion of the one and the beginning of the other. That is, the free, solemn, and joyful satisfaction with that which has taken place and which God has completed as creation, and the invitation by God for humanity to rest with God. The goal of creation, and at the same time the beginning of all that follows, is the event of the Sabbath of the freedom of God, Sabbath rest and Sabbath joy, in which humanity has been summoned to participate. Sabbath is the event of divine rest in face of the cosmos completed with the creation of humanity, a rest that takes precedence over all the eagerness and zeal of humanity to enter upon the work humanity wants to do. God created humanity to participate in this rest. 

Pannenberg thinks that this chapter of Genesis calls for evaluation considering the exilic renaissance of belief in creation and a theology of creation. The creative action of God occurs at the beginning or founding of the world. The founding of the world at the first was contemporary relevance, rather, in that the concern is with an order that stands unshakable right up to the present. In this regard, the account corresponds to cosmogonic myths, especially the Babylonian Enuma Elish epic, which stands behind it. Nevertheless, the description of the divine creation action Genesis 1 differs profoundly from the mythical presentation. The unrestricted nature of the action of the Lord corresponds to what we read in II Isaiah and the Psalms concerning the action of the one and only God in creation and history. This story gave classical expression for ages to come to this unrestricted nature of the power of God in creation. It did so by focusing on the divine Word of command as the only basis of the existence of creatures. Creation on this view did not need to include a battle with chaos as it did in the Babylonian epic or a struggle with the sea like that of the Ugaritic-Canaanite Baal, of which we still find echoes in the Psalms. The effortless nature of the simple command illustrates the unrestricted nature of the power at the disposal of the Creator. Psalm 29, 93, and 104 portray the kingship of God as without beginning or end, not attained by a fight with chaos. This idea may be mythical as well, in contrast to some who claim it has an anti-mythical origin. The prophetic view of the working of the Word of God in history may lay behind this presentation of creation from the exilic period. He points out that the idea that all things come into being through a magically operative word or through the royal command of God is also in the Egyptian Memphis theology related to the royal God Ptah. One also finds it later in the Apophis myth describing the sun-god Re. He admits that one can find no literary connection between such texts and Genesis 1. In any case, the concept of creation by the divine Word is not as such the unique feature in the biblical view of creation. However, what he does find distinctive is that which creation by the Word demonstrates, which is the unlimited freedom of the act of creation, like that of the historical action of the God of Israel. This unlimited freedom of the creative action later found expression in the formula “creation out of nothing,” first found in II Maccabees 7:28, but also compare Romans 4:17 and Hebrews 11:3. However, Hellenistic Jewish writings contain the idea of creation out of shapeless primal matter, such as in Wisdom 11:17, a notion that recurs in second century apologists Justin (Apol. 1. 10. 2) and Athenagoras (Suppl. 22.21). Yet, Tatian argued that God must have also brought forth such primal matter. He points out that Theophilus of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyons played an important role in establishing the doctrine of creation out of nothing. Such reflections lay the groundwork for him to argue that Karl Barth is quite wrong to give this nothing of “nothing” a reality under the name of “nothingness.”[25] He does so only as opposition and resistance in the face of which God asserts positive divine will. The point Pannenberg wants to make, in contrast to Barth, is that Genesis 1 does not refer to any resistance to the creative activity of God. The unrestricted power of the divine Word of command rules out any such idea. He also argues against the view of “nothing” by Jurgen Moltmann in God in Creation, resting on speculation that identifies nothing as the space that God gives creatures as God withdraws, is a materially unfounded mystification of the subject. His point is that the unique character of the biblical concept of the creative action of God rules out any dualistic view of the origin of the world. The world is not the result of any working of God with another principle such as we find in the Timaeus of Plato or the process philosophy of Whitehead. In the view of Whitehead, for example, God works by persuasion, not by mighty creative action. Pannenberg admits that such a notion of divine persuasion is attractive, pointing to L. S. Ford The Lure of God, J. Cobb, God and the World, D. R. Griffin, all seeking an alternative to creation out of nothing. Pannenberg admits that such a notion is consistent with the patience and kindness of God as God deals with the creatures God has made, especially as God relates to them with love and seeks them out in suffering with them. Pannenberg grants that once God has called them into existence, demonstrating that they owe everything to God, then God respects their independence in a way that is analogous to the description by Whitehead. He finds truth in the contention that in order to achieve divine ends, God works by persuasion and not by force. Such patience and humble love do not come from weakness, however, but express the love of the Creator, who willed that the creatures God has made should be free and independent. He admits that process theologians have rightly argued that creation out of nothing makes the existence of evil a difficulty. Why would God, creating with unrestricted freedom, not create a world without evil? Yet, in their clear presentation of God with restricted power, they open the door for it being irrational to trust this God in gaining victory over evil. The classical expression of creation in Genesis 1 also opposes a dualistic view for the same reason in that it limits the power of God. Pannenberg urges that we need to hold together the freedom of the divine origin of the world on the one hand and God holding fast to what God has made on the other. Such notions belong together. We might deduce the link from the concept of divine love as the origin of the world. The love and freedom of God are inseparable. As he sees it, the Trinitarian explication of the concept of divine love avoids misconceptions. As he sees it, the biblical concept of creation needs a Trinitarian basis.[26]

---

[1][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.]  

[2] in Interpretation, 45:366-379, 1991

[3] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 116.

[4] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 118-9.

[5] Pannenberg Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 122-3.

[6] (J.W. Rosenberg, HarperCollins Study Bible)

[7] (Terence E. Fretheim, "The Book of Genesis," The New Interpreter's Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994], 356).

[8] (www.students.uiuc.edu/~ag-ho/chaos/chaos.html, June 22, 1999). 

[9]Pam Walatka, "Chaos in Everyday Life," 1996, www.wildhorses.com, June 22, 1999.

[10] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 162-3.

[11] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 162-3.

[12] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 116-7.

[13] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 117-8.

[14] For Barth we have to do with a concert of mind, act, and action in the divine being itself and not merely between God and non-divine beings. For if we wish to speak of a plurality of Elohim in this connection, we cannot dispute the fact that in ascribing to them an active part in creation, and calling their image the image of God, we give to the term its most proper sense, and thus endow them with the attribute of true deity. The well-known decision of early exegesis was that we have in Genesis 1:26 a reference to the divine tri-unity. One may object that this statement is rather too explicit. The saga undoubtedly speaks of a genuine plurality in the divine being, but it does not actually say that it is a Trinity. On the other hand, an approximation to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the picture of a God who is the one and only God, yet who is not for that reason solitary, but includes in the divine being the differentiation and relationship of I and Thou, is both nearer to the text and does it more justice than the alternative suggested by modern exegesis in its arrogant rejection of the exegesis of the Early Church.

[15] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 214-5 and Systematic Theology Volume 3, 390.

[16] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 180.

[17] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 203.

[18] Church Dogmatics III.1, 191ff, esp. 205f; III.2, 323-4.

[19] Phyllis A. Bird, Harvard Theological Review, 74:2, 1981, 129-159.

[20] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 204.

[21] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 216-7.

[22] Pannenberg Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 645.

[23] Pannenberg Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 645.

[24] Church Dogmatics III.1 [41.2]

[25] Church Dogmatics III.3, 289-368.

[26] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 12-19.