Part 1 of 3
Over the next 3 articles, I want to give my account of the story of Creation as told both in the Bible (I believe in a literal account of Genesis) and what Science tells us; as well as some explanation of what older generations have believed about Creation and why. Sometimes we read overly familiar passages of Scripture flippantly and with dismissive abandonment and, in so doing, we miss some great details that should definitely not be missed and cause gaps in our understanding of what was believed in the past and what we now believe in our modern day. This has caused unnecessary confusion about what some ancients believed and even with what some more modern thinkers such as C.S. Lewis have stated. So, without further ado, this series will be long enough on its own, The Story of Creation: A Thoughtful Perspective.
The First Day
On Day One of History, which preceded planet Earth’s history, the Story of Creation is more fully the story of the entire Universe having been formed, God created all 109 non-synthesized elements of the Universe. At this time God created all Matter that would ever exist; as Matter, once brought into being by the Creator, can neither be created nor destroyed by anything within Nature, but only change forms. It is likely that the Big Bang, still being outside of Time, was instantaneous in its ignition and, in the first 12 hours of creation, was the very act of God bringing forth this Void of elements, that were “without form” in their singular and unbonded formats, rushing from the very mind of God, at the Word of God, exploding the great singularity with great heat within the first fractions of Time to form the chaos of the Deep. This was the genesis of the laws of Physics, the canvas that God would use to paint His masterpiece, and the bounds He would establish over the next few days. The clock of History began ticking as the elements proceeded to their original, though chaotically randomized, positions. (In 1650, Archbishop James Ussher calculated the date of the creation of the world as October 23rd, 4004 BC at 6 PM (Gregorian); his reasoning was October 24th (Gregorian) was the Autumnal Equinox, and the Hebrew traditional start of the New Year; also, it was a Sunday or first day of the week. Further, the ancient Hebrews believed the day began at sundown of the day before, generally reckoned to be 6 PM regardless of actual astronomical or observable sunset.) This is Genesis 1:1; it does not have any gaps in Time, but rather, is the explanation of the production of the canvas of Space, Time & Matter that God would use to form the intricate and vast Universe with which He would display His power, majesty and glory.
Next, the Holy Spirit “moved”, a Hebrew word that means to flutter, move or shake, literally vibrated, the face of the chaos. His next creative act would be to order the elements and form the laws of Chemistry in accordance with His orderly nature. 12 hours later God commanded, “Let there be light”, but God is light. This was the real action of God infusing His very nature into Creation so that the laws of the Universe would be in harmony with and, in essence, a reflection of His unchanging and orderly nature. God Himself would enter His creation for the first time in the act of bringing light, heat and water, the 3 essential requirements to produce life for His own glory as a tangible expression of His nature. To be clear, this was not God becoming the Universe or forming lesser gods within Creation but was Him displaying Himself through His handiwork for the benefit of His creatures who would be given conscious awareness.
This deep, chaotic Void was described as water. Water molecules consist of more than simply hydrogen and oxygen ions. These ions have electric charges and form dipoles (2 poles, like our planet has). Water is not inert, its ions are dynamic, always rotating and vibrating. All biomolecules are dependent on water. We are mostly made up of water; specifically structured, liquid crystalline water, which is imbued with a multitude of electromagnetic frequencies.
Next, the Holy Spirit “moved” (a Hebrew word that means to flutter, move or shake, literally vibrated) the face of the chaos. His next creative act would be to order the elements and form the laws of Chemistry in accordance with His orderly nature. The vibrations of God that ordered the arrangements of the elements on Day One continue in Nature as all molecules remain in a state of motion just as they were ordered to do. This clearly indicates God not only created in the past but continues a sustaining power into the present as well. Hebrews 1:1-4 states, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. So, the Word of John 1 that spoke all creation into existence imbued Creation with His word (expressed informationally as DNA) starting on Day Three when God established the nature and laws of Biology and continues, to this very moment, His sustaining work of Creation. The unchanging nature (expressed in the laws of Physics, Chemistry, Matter, Space and Time) and the very Word itself (expressed in Biology) continue only as long as He wills it to do so. Should the Conductor of the Music of the Spheres give a cosmic cutoff, all vibrations would cease as the instruments of Space, Time, Matter, Physics, Chemistry and Biology would immediately respond to His grand command and fade into eternity as though they had never existed.
Genesis 1:6 shows the origin of Space itself as God firmly established the boundaries of the entire Universe and prepared the specific place inside it where He would set the focus of all Creation; a remarkable expression of Himself created to join in the eternal fellowship with, and perfectly expressed love of, the Godhead. But first He would create a place for this unique creature to dwell that would be the primary focus of the next 3 days of this story. The entirety of the remainder of God’s Creation would be ordered for the benefit of, would be viewed from the residence of and for the observation by, God’s grandest creation - Mankind. Finally, God concludes Day One by establishing a tradition that all Science would continue to use to this very day – Nomenclature. He begins the process of naming everything, including the heavenly bodies both corporately as stars, and individually calling every one of them by their name (Psalm 147:4 - He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.); a pattern which humanity will continue beginning with Adams’ naming the animals through today’s scientific nomenclatures that individuate the broader types of plants and animals established and named by God (fish, birds, etc.).
The Second Day
Day Two, then, began as Night (named so by God) started the second phase in a pattern forming specific periods of time and that God would use to a greater extent on Planet Earth. Here God specifically laid the foundations of our planet. He set the boundaries of the ocean (He called Seas); and, since it seems water was involved, the atmosphere as well, using Space to order the molecules into water and atmosphere and likely ignited Earth’s core as well in preparation for work He would do since the ball of air and water would likely begin rotating at this time. Day and Night would be evidenced by earth’s position to a specific source of light, for now God Himself. The vantage point here, then, is from one physical place on Earth; which is a narrowing of the vantage point from the chaotic Deep to physical Space, Time and Matter, to the Firmament at the fixed boundaries of Earth, to Pangea on the planet, to a Garden on Pangea, to a place in the Garden where God would set in motion the story of how He interacts with His creation personally through scenes of creation, judgement, redemption, restoration and eternal fellowship.
The Second Day has a mathematical quality to it. Not only does it confirm the Day-Night pattern, but God divides. Mathematics is an innate function. Mathematics wasn’t created by God, rather it exists necessarily by virtue of its own being. As a function of the orderly nature of God, Mathematics are set both inside and outside the boundaries of Nature – much like God who is also a necessary entity, and as such exists without need of a creator. However, the difference between Math and God is that numbers, sets and units cannot create anything, they just are. God is (the term that defines this quality of God is His aseity) but He is also all-powerful possessing an unembodied mind that produced all that we see and all that we can’t simply by the spoken Word of that power.
According to verses 9-13, God put Land where He wanted it and established the laws of Biology. The two-fold nature of this creative day seems to suggest that it was done during the two main periods of time that divided the Third Day. This may be conjecture on my part, but it seems likely that after God switched off the light ending the Second Day, he caused the foundations of Earth that had been laid on Day Two to bring forth an above-water landmass. Here the great basement rocks of the continents were set into their tectonic plates in a perfect singular landmass, called Pangea by scientists today, God named it Land and so established the Mineral Kingdom. This premise is further supported by the singular nature of both the waters being gathered into one place, which God named Seas, and so letting “the” dry “land” appear. In all the emphasis of the singular here, it stands out that the water is named in the plural, “Seas” and not merely “Sea”. It would seem that God intended that bodies of water which stretched through real space in specific directions should be individual and diverse from one another or else it would have been called simply a Sea; but God named the singular body of water Seas; meaning, even in the singular body, there were parts that made up the whole and, in some ways, that were different one from the other even if only in their directional recession from Pangea.
The Third Day
It seems that by the time light appeared marking the halfway point of the Third Day, Land was finished enough to begin dressing it and firmly establishing the laws of Biology for the Plant Kingdom. God, for the first time, created life, but remained outside His creation for now using only His Word as the producing force that injected life into the elements of creation. This producing force created a reproducing nature that continues to this day. Though this was life indeed, there was no mobility or ability of creativity on the part of this lower Kingdom of Life. Now God began to prepare unconscious life that would sustain life to higher forms of life in the coming days yet to be. As darkness of another Night loomed bringing a close to the Third Day, the light of God’s tangible presence within the bounds of Nature was to be replaced with a natural source of light that would allow life of this lower Kingdom, and the 2 higher Kingdoms of Life yet to be created, to continue existing. This physical presence of the eternal God inside His Creation, Who exists outside Time and Space, would continue to be only periodical until He would take up residence for about 34 of our Earth years on this planet starting in the womb of a virgin and, inside Time, begin the plan God had already completed outside of Time before the Fourth Day began.
To be continued…