In Beginning…

Just what was there when God began creating? This is a question even very young children ask. Notably, from the text of Genesis 1:2, there was God, his spirit, the darkness, the deep, and the untamed earth, presumably covered in primordial waters. We do see in the following verses that God speaks and whatever he commands comes to be: light, sky, dry ground, the moon and stars, the sun, etc.

That these things are not necessarily a result of creation ex nihilo but merely “there” with God, may be surmised from the text of Genesis 1:1, which begins literally in the Hebrew with “in beginning,” not “in the beginning.” This either indicates that (1) it was meant to be read as “in beginning,” (2) it was meant to imply the definite article the, or (3) it was meant to be read as “in a beginning.” I prefer the third option, which is detailed in a previous post. The third option seems to indicate that as the beginning of creation was but a beginning in the space-time continuum, then there was something prior to that beginning.

Furthermore, Genesis 1:1 is an overview or topic sentence/verse that summarizes the rest of the chapter from verse 2 to verse 31. It is not to be read as purporting creation ex nihilo and then verse 2 follows from it with all the things having been created in verse 1. Rather, verse 1 is to be read as a title or introduction to the chapter and book of Genesis, let alone the whole Torah and entire Bible.

Thus, to properly read Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, is to read verse 1 as an introductory summary of the chapter and verse 2 as detailing the first part of the narrative account, setting the scene as it were. Nowhere in the verses there or to follow is there an indication of creation ex nihilo.

Neither does the ancient near eastern (ANE) worldview or mindset, of which the ancient Hebrews were a part, allow for such a conception of creation ex nihilo. Both the ANE worldview and the Hebraic worldview of Genesis 1 simply take for granted that matter is, without concerning itself with the eternality of matter or lack thereof. Simply put, the ancient authors were making sense of the world around them as they knew best, even as we do today, with limited knowledge and understanding.

For instance, when we consider physical, solid matter today, we think of it as solid. In fact, however, it is not, for there are many, many small microscopic molecules and atoms that make up the matter we behold as solid. Between these small bits of matter is space. Presumably, if we were deft or slender enough, we might stretch our hand or finger through the space in “solid” matter. Not only that, we find that matter, made up of these very tiny molecules and atoms, is not solid and firm, as appears to be the case, but is constantly humming or vibrating, whirring about in place, one atom or molecule near against another, presumably held in place by electromagnetic forces.

What all this has to do with Genesis 1:1-2 is this: as the ancient Hebrews did not know what we know, though with limited understanding, so they with limited understanding knew what they did know. However strange or audacious or outlandish their views might seem to us, who are so “scientific” and “knowledgeable,” we must remember to set aside our prejudices of the past, of past persons or cultures or peoples, and try to think as they did. We must examine what they thought as they thought it–albeit as best we can–without presuming that they were stupid, simply because they were ignorant of things we barely have a grasp on ourselves.

Questions

A number of questions rise, at least, in my mind, when I read the text of Genesis 1:1-2: where did all these things come from? How did things come into being by the simple word of God? Where were all these things before God began creating? What does it mean that God spoke and saw? How did his voice reverberate from a nonphysical state into a physical one? How did the view of his sight take in the physical realm? Is God’s relationship with matter much like the relationship of the human soul with the human body? Is God the mind of matter? Is matter the body of God?

Where did all these things come from?

Why does the text of Genesis 1 begin with verse 2 stating that the spirit of God was hovering over the waters, over which was the darkness of the deep, beneath which was the unformed earth? It seems to be indicating that there was something present with God when he began creating: was God creating ex nihilo, that is, “from nothing,” as I have been taught? Or was he simply rearranging the matter already present? If the matter was already present, then was it always present or did God create it from nothing prior to the beginning of verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 1? If God created it from nothing prior to the beginning of Genesis, then why didn’t the author of Genesis write that down? And if the Bible, including Genesis, is the Word of God, why doesn’t it clearly state that God created the world out of nothing?

John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 seem to indicate that it is through Jesus the Christ that all things that are were made by and through him. In John 1:3, it states that “Through him [Christ Jesus] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (NIV). The word in the Greek for “made” here is ginomai, and means something like “to become, to be born, to come into being, to happen, to come about.” The term ginomai is used not to necessarily indicate a creation ex nihilo; it is used to discuss what comes about by means of another, the causation of events that follow from a prior cause.

Not only that, the second half of the verse, indicating that without Jesus “nothing was made that has been made,” indicates that through or by means of Christ Jesus all that which has been ordered or structured in the universe has been at the behest of Christ Jesus. It could be read as indicating creation ex nihilo, but this is a stretch, since the verse is not stating that from nothing everything came; rather, it states that everything that is and has been is the result of Jesus Christ’s structuring or ordering.

Or take Colossians 1:16, which states that “For in him [Christ Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him” (NIV). The Greek term here for “created” is ktizó, which means something like “create, form, shape.” This seems to indicate that Christ, being the means by which all things that are came to be as they are, was the Creator of these things, but not necessarily bringing them about ex nihilo; and while the linguistic latitude of the term ktizó allows for such creation, it does not necessitate or mandate it.

A third verse many cite as supporting creation ex nihilo is Hebrews 11:3, which states, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (NIV). Let’s take a look at key words of it in the Greek, though: “By faith we understand the aiōnas to have been formed by/in the word of God, so that not from that which appears that which is seen gegonenai.” To put it in English, it would read like this: “By faith we understand the eons/ages to have been formed by/in the word of God, so that not from that which appears that which is seen has been made/born/birthed.”

Many translations translate the word aiōnas as “worlds” or “universe,” but that seems to be outside of its linguistic latitude, as the term holds the meaning of “age or ages” and from which we get the word eon or eons. How translators get “worlds” or “universe” from “age or ages” seems to due to a theological or philosophical bias for creation ex nihilo as well as the second half of the verse, discussed shortly down below.

Additionally, a small note may be made, that the term for “word” in the verse could be translated as having embedded in it the preposition “by” or “in,” which one could surmise indicates that the ages of time were or are either (1) by the word of God or (2) in the word of God, that is, sustained in God’s very essence or being. What this might mean is that the verse is talking about the idea that time is literally in God’s hands.

Furthermore, the term gegonenai is derived from ginomai, which is discussed above, and simply means “made” or “ordered” or “structured” and not (necessarily) created ex nihilo.

It is the second half of the verse that can cause quite a bit of a stir, however, seemingly indicating that that which is seen comes of that which is unseen. While this may seem to imply creation ex nihilo, it need not necessarily. The reason for this is twofold: (1) that which is seen, the verse indicates, is birthed from the “unappearing” or that which is not seen: the image here is one of a child, once unseen in the womb of its mother, being birthed from a place of “unappearing” into a place of appearing. (2) Additionally, the context of the passage of this verse is all about living by faith, when sight fails us, living a life of faithfulness to God, even when we can’t seem to pinpoint his appearance or support or divine care; thus, the verse is not so much a statement on the physical state of the world or universe, but is about how God brings into being just what we need, pulling it out of time, at the right time–almost like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat and dazzles us with his work.

Still, where did all these things come from, all we see and experience around us? Presumably, they came from God. But where, then, did God come from? Presumably, from himself. But then how was God always with himself? And at what time in the “time” continuum of eternity past did he begin to create? And was there always time with God before God began creating the physical world?

Where were all these things before God began creating?

With God and matter, we have two options for each: either God is eternal or he is not, and either matter is eternal or it is not. If God is not eternal, then he has at least a beginning, even if no end; likewise with matter. The eternality of one or the other does not impugn the temporality of either, for temporality is but a measurement of the passage of events in something we like to call “time.”

Still, the relationship between time and matter, let alone God, is one wherein there lies a mind-bending problem. If matter has existed eternally and time has always been, stretching back into eternity “past,” if you will, then there is presumably no logical way to get to the moment in time we call “the present.” The reason is because as soon as we nail down the present as this very moment in which we now are, we pin down time to a particular moment in the spatiotemporal universe. If we pin down time to a particular moment, then that moment is essentially the end of the eternal flow of time that has come before and the beginning of the eternal flow of time that presumably follows.

An example might be this: if eternity is like infinity, and eternity is just an infinite number of moments linked one against another in a long chain of time, then like an infinite hole into which you might fall, you will never reach the bottom–and neither could you ever reach the top; indeed, top and bottom would neither truly, matter-of-factly exist, since you would only be falling or gliding or what-have-you through the space of the hole for an infinite number of moments, and seemingly remaining still, since the space of the hole itself is also infinite.

Another example is this: if eternity is like infinity, and eternity is just an infinite number of moments linked together in a long chain of events, then you could never get to this moment in time, because to pin down this moment in time would be as arbitrary a fixture of time as any other moment in time and, hence, all time is arbitrary.

Another example: you are at the starting line of a race, but each time you are about to begin the race, you are forced backward a yard–on and on, ad infinitum. So, you are never able to begin the race, let alone finish it.

Time as an infinity seems to work in this way: if there are innumerable numbers of events that transpire over time, which is no particular period at all, but is everlasting in either direction, having neither end nor beginning, then the events that transpire over time essentially collapse into one event and there is thus no distinction between events or between moments of time, so that all time is one and all events are one. What this means is in infinite time, let us say, “eternity,” there is no movement or motion, and all is one and one is all.

Now, there seems to be a relevant fundamental principle of reality that would be appropriate to cite at this moment, namely, the fact that all, both physical and nonphysical, is fundamentally located within a singularity, and within this singularity, there is plurality or diversity. Now, within plurality, there cannot be singularity, else plurality would cease to be plurality. But within the singularity of the universe and all therewith, there is, without endangering its status as a singularity, plurality or diversity.

You might imagine it this way: a number of objects or shapes or circles might be looped into one set or grouping, say, by drawing a circle around those objects or shapes. Then, the single grouping of a number of objects is a singularity within which there is a diversity or plurality. But, you might say, what of the maxim of the United States, namely, “out of many, one,” which indicates that within a plurality there is possible a singularity, which might also be deemed as a unity? But what is unity, but the collection of a plurality or many pluralities, such that those pluralities collapse into one, and then the reality of there being a singularity within which there is a plurality is upheld?

The Christian conception of this is to say, with the Jews and the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4), that God is one, and, as by divine revelation in the New Testament, that God is three. To be sure, he is one and he is three; thus, we preserve his singularity, while also acknowledging his plurality or diversity therewith. The Christian, then, affirms this most basic principle of reality, that there is a singularity underlying all reality and within that singularity, there is plurality, such that from the one comes the many.

Thus, it seems that all things are of God in one manner or another, whether as objects of his mind or extensions of his personal being: even as God is self-sufficient and his own being depends upon his very essence, so then must all things, being utterly dependent, be dependent upon God and his very essence for their being. That is to say, there is no thing that is that is not dependent upon God, whether upon his word or his nature or what-have-you, it is dependent upon God, as the maximally singular identity of reality wherein there is also diversity or plurality therewith.

The things that are must have, then, come about in a kind of transition from within the essence of God unto the extension of God, thereby still a part of God, though realized in another form. They are then ever eternal within and with God. Furthermore, the things which are not are, too, of God; now, by “not,” I mean that either they once were in a certain form, as alive, and now are not, as dead, or they are not yet in a certain form, as embodied upon the earth, but are still within the “mind” or “heart” or whatever of God.

How did things come into being by the simple word of God?

How, then, does an object transition from the essence, mind, heart, being, whatever of God unto his extension, being found released, as it were, forth from the emanation of his life force? To be sure, they move about from one station unto another by means of his will: he so desires that a thing should transpire or translate from one state unto another and it, by means of the force of his will, moves.

Moreover, he is, as the Apostle John reveals, love. Thus, the force by which he moves one or another is by the force of his will of love. Even as lovers move one another by force of their love for and in and with one another, so God moves all the worlds and universe and all therewith by means of his love for and in and with them.

Still, how is it by means of his word, his speaking, that things come into being? Is it because the things, the matter of the world and the universe can “hear” and so abide or obey the word of God? We ourselves are able to train animals and perhaps even plants to do our will, so then how much more should God be able to have his will done by all things of nature?

Let us examine how the cause of the will translates or moves from the will to the willed, from the immaterial to the material, in hopes of better understanding how it is that the universe and the world together obeyed the word of God when he began creating.

The will, to be sure, is not a physical part of us, as there is no organ of the physical body or anything of the kind that can be pointed at as the will. It is, in many ways, wrapped up in the desires that we have, being a feeling we have for or against something, an urge, even. Desire of the will is what moves us to action, and how the will and the physical acts we take are interconnected is a highly complex study, but try we shall to understand.

God and Matter

The problem with God and matter is that God is not made of matter but he seems to have made matter, or at least organized and ordered it: how does a being that is not of matter relate to matter? As the greater can take on the lesser with relative ease, but the lesser takes on the greater with difficulty, if at all, so God, being spirit, and so greater, might impact or take on the nonspiritual or physical with relative ease. It is no contest for God to, say, become human; but for a human to become God is metaphysically and ontologically impossible.

The problem with this might be demonstrated with an analogy: imagine a perfect circle, uninterrupted at any point in its circularity. Let this perfect circle represent God. Now, imagine that a line intersects this perfect circle. Let this line be the material, temporal universe, which at some point in the time-space continuum intersects with the immutable, immaterial, and eternal divine.

The questions this analogy raises are several:

1. What does it mean for a line to intersect a perfect circle?
2. How does a perfect circle become intersected?
3. Is the intersection of the line and the circle tangential, that is, inessential; or does the line pierce through the circle completely, that is, essentially?
4. If a line intersects a perfect circle, is the circle still a perfect circle?
5. As a circle, no less a perfect circle, is self-contained and singular as well as whole or complete, what is an intersected circle? Does it remain a circle?

Now, all these theoretical questions regarding a circle and its intersection have practical application (insofar as theology is a practical subject) in terms of who or what God is, namely, how does God interact or relate to non-God things or beings? What does it mean for God to relate to non-God things? Is the relationship between God and matter tangential or essential? Is God still God (or, at least, still fully God), when he relates to matter?

What’s the Matter?

Let’s think for a bit about what matter is or might be conceived as.

Matter may be thought of as the substance or stuff of which the realm of reality in which we live is made. More than mere substance or stuff, which could just be about anything, matter is a kind of substance that appears to be what we call “material” or “physical.” Of course, this is no grand discovery or great admission, but is a basic and fundamental understanding of just what matter is.

We can think of matter as being the fundamental building blocks or foundation of this realm of reality, all the things and stuff that make up our reality: it’s all that we can touch, taste, see, hear, smell, and even feel.

Now, feeling is an interesting concept, because we can feel with our hands or feet or knees or even our whole bodies by touching things we can see and taste and smell and hear. But we can also feel things that we can’t see, taste, smell, hear, or even touch: take a pain, for instance, or an emotion or a thought or idea or even a word (not the kind we speak or write, but the kind we think). Some people might connect this sort of feeling with spirits or immaterial beings, but, while that may be valid, that is beyond the scope of this article.

Rather, let us focus on the matter that is at hand, namely, what we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear: the stuff we can feel in this way is what we ought to name as physical, meaning that there are little atoms or quarks, or whatever you will, all around us and inside us and on us, that we breathe in and out and in which we move and live and have our being.

Even the air can be thought of in this way and in the space between are molecules and atoms that can be thought of as small tiny bits of matter, so fine that we can hardly expect to ever see or touch or whatever them, without the aid of something like a microscope or whatever is needed to see things that small.

Now, it’s in this matter that we live, but its density is dispersed in various ways so that we can move about in it and breathe it in and live in it–and live as it, for we ourselves are made up of matter: indeed, we are matter as well.

All this matter, then, is what we can sense with our five senses: taste, touch, sight, smell, sound. What we touch, we feel–physically or materially.

Feeling It All Out

What we feel (how might we say it?) nonphysically or immaterially, however, is what we might call a substance of a different kind or of a different realm of reality or of a different reality altogether.

Without positing multiverses here, let us take for granted for the moment, that there is a reality or realm wherein we feel with our five senses and that there is a reality or realm wherein we feel without these five senses: a kind of sixth sense, if you will.

We might even go so far as to say that it is this sort of thing that actually makes us enlivened and alive, because matter in and of itself, all the physical stuff that makes up the world we see, touch, smell, taste, and hear, doesn’t seem capable of doing anything at all without the infusion of motion by the nonphysical feeling that drives us to hurt or rejoice or hate or love or disdain or care for or simply live and be alive.

Indeed, we might even go so far as to say that our drive for survival is a part of this immaterial feeling. And we might call this feeling “spirit” or “God” or “divine.”

Such an idea isn’t too far off from the Apostle John’s conception of the divine as the Logos or Word, the divine reason of the world: while he focused on God and the divine being reason or thought or mind, we here focus on God as being feeling. Unlike the colloquial understanding of feeling, this feeling is not so much or solely or just emotion, but is the immaterial “substance” or “stuff” of the realm of reality that we cannot access with our five senses; it is the realm of reality accessed by our sixth sense, the one by which we feel things inaccessible to our five senses.

When we awaken to life as newborn babies–indeed, even before, when the zygote forms from the sperm and the egg cell–something comes into that little body of matter and soon-to-be flesh to enliven it and make it what we see as alive.

Some might take issue with this for one reason or another, either wanting no talk of the immaterial or wanting more colloquial talk of it. I resist both because the strict materialist is without a full understanding of the realm of reality in which we all live each and every day and the “colloquialist” is without a full understanding of the feelings that we have: neither can make true sense of the pains or emotions we feel or the thoughts we have or the life that we not only inhale with each breath but also live out in our bodies; we are at once both more than mere atoms bouncing off each other and more that mere feelings as colloquially understood.

Relating Back to the Matter

But the question at hand is not whether there is nonphysical “matter” or immaterial “stuff,” but how the nonphysical, especially in the form or being of God, relates to physical matter or material stuff. Or, in terms of our feeling, how does what we feel relate to what is physical?

Descartes posited that it was somewhere in the pineal gland, in the middle of the brain, that the nonmaterial soul resided and connected with the body by moving fluid in the brain and so causing the body to move. This, however, only begs the question, for how does the nonphysical soul move the physical fluid in the brain or even relate to it? How can the non-material interact with the material?

A presupposition I believe that is held by some of us, myself included, is that the immaterial and the material cannot interact in any way whatsoever, distinct and different as they are in kind and substance. For how can what is not physical touch what is physical? Or how can the physical touch the nonphysical? And yet, it seems, at many moments throughout the day, we are touched by the immaterial and we touch the immaterial, not only through our emotions or thoughts, but also through the feeling of which I speak above.

Let us examine our state of feeling: we feel an emotion or have a thought, and these move us to a certain state of attitude whereby we form a kind of belief that determines a kind of intention of which comes a certain action. Now, acts of the body might be different than acts of the mind or the heart, since these bear no physical impact or impartation, but acts of the body are those that take place in the physical realm and are those we can judge by our five physical senses.

Indeed, the feeling that we each have is unique unto each one of us and cannot be perceived by any of the five senses that our bodies have and engage with. It does seem, though, that by means of our feeling that we are able to perceive the feeling or feelings of another, even without the communication commonly had by the five physical senses we have. Thus, what I am thinking or feeling is entirely locked up within myself and imperceptible to the five senses without the regular and usual common means of communication of the five physical senses, but seems possibly perceived by the feeling that each of us apparently has; so that if I feel a certain feeling about an event or subject, it may be shared with others via not merely the common channels of communication, namely, the five physical senses, but might also be channeled from one person to other by means of a feeling of feeling.

This brings to mind the beetle-in-a-box argument, wherein a beetle is in a box and you “know” or think you know it is so because someone told you and what they describe to you seems to be the same as what you might have seen once or twice. However, without ever opening the box will you ever really know (1) whether there actually is a beetle in the box or (2) whether what is described as a “beetle” actually is indeed a beetle. What is within is not possibly known by the five physical senses: only what a body or person does in their body is what can be firmly known or observed. Whether the feeling in a person is there or is anything like the feeling in another cannot truly be known by another–what can only be known is the representation of that feeling by the one unto the other by means of the five physical senses or means by the usual means of communication.

Still, there are times when there is a “knowing” or an understanding of two persons, seemingly united in soul, by means of the feeling that each one of them share with the other, so that there is no need for communication via the usual means, the five physical senses.

I confess that I do not know how the immaterial relates to the material or vice versa, only that it does, since I see it in action.

Perhaps, the immaterial or God relates to the material like this:

Imagine, if you will, a marionette. It has strings and the strings are pulled by a puppeteer, which causes the marionette to move. Now, the marionette is in some ways an extension of the puppeteer, for the “life” of the marionette is based in the life of the puppeteer: as the puppeteer is, so is the marionette; however, as the marionette is, so is not necessarily the puppeteer. For the relation of causation and connection is directionally slanted from the puppeteer toward the puppet, though the puppet does relate toward the puppeteer in some manner, however less or so much smaller. The soul or the immaterial might be considered the puppeteer of the body or the material; and, as the soul initiates change or motion or action in the body, so the body moves or results in some different state of being or action than before.

What of evil?

If God is the cause of all, then what of evil? It seems a number of biblical references indicate that God is no stranger to evil, that he is even, indeed, the instigator or cause of evil (take the account of Job, for instance). But how can a God who is supposedly all-good be any partaker of evil?

An argument here might suffice:

1. As anything presupposes its opposite, so evil presupposes its opposite.
2. The opposite of evil is “not-evil” or, colloquially put, “good.”
3. Good exists in degrees and kinds, such that there are better goods than lesser goods.
4. An ultimate good caps the line of goods, so that there is no infinitude of goods.
5. The ultimate good is ultimately good, such that it is the supreme good.
6. This supreme good we might call “God.”
7. Thus, evil presupposes the existence of “God.”

Now, evil might presuppose the existence of a God, even the God of the Bible or Judeo-Christian religion, but how can God even have dealings with evil?

It seems that this hinges upon an understanding of good and God that presupposes that there is only a binary (good/bad) fact of reality, when, in fact, there are gradations or degrees of good and bad. Thus, one thing is bad at one time and good at another. Or one thing is good, while still another is even better. That God has dealings with evil is no impugnment upon his character as good, but only shows him all the more good, as being shrewd to even use evil toward his own good end or ends.

Still, where does evil come from, if not from God? For how could God be wholly good, if evil were of him too?

Evil has been likened to the shades or shadows, which, though not light, are caused by the light. God, however, unlike the light, is both light and darkness or shadow. But he is also only good and not evil at all. Indeed, when John the Apostle states that in God there is no darkness at all, he is metaphorically and poetically painting a binary picture of the world, of God and evil: in the world, there is light and there is darkness; God is the light and evil is the darkness.

But this is not the world in which we truly live: the ideal is so far from the real.

Whether we shall ever discover the answer to the problem of evil, one thing is certain, along with G. K. Chesterton, we can all say that the reason there is the problem of evil is because of me.