light, matter, action1

I’ve just started on a series of books that take a theological look at the early chapters of Genesis. The plan is to read John Macarthur’s “The Battle of the Beginning”, Thielicke’s “How the World Began” and “In the Beginning” by Bavinck.

This is distinct from books that have exegetical or textual concerns, some of which I’ve read over the years.

I’m into Macarthur and am both encouraged and disappointed.

The encouragement comes from him taking the text as written and setting out to understand it as God’s word to us, for our instruction about us, God and the cosmos in which we share an inter-penetrating contiguous reality. I don’t think many authors attempt to do this. On the whole, authors on Genesis make continual excursions into hat tipping to modern materialism, excuses for evolutionary speculation or white fear at Christian faith being found at to be . . well, supernatural.

However, rather than staying with his strength, Macarthur does drop into some strange holes: paragraphs on Adam’s navel, for instance; sheer waste of space; and the old Aristotelian mistake that species ( a modern concept) are what God created (in Genesis we are told that God created ‘kinds’) and that they are fixed. He addressed this more accurately in the later part of the book, but at its first mention he makes the mistake. The fixity is not of species, but of kinds, for which we possibly don’t have a definition.

Critics fail to understand some basic facts of the history and philosophy of science and lampoon Genesis for crimes not committed, thereby lampooning themselves, as it happens. One of the basic facts of course, is that Edward Blyth, who was what would be called today a ‘creationist’, first introduced the notion of natural selection. Darwin, true to form, did not acknowledge the debt: a trait he was well versed in (check an interesting article on this at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1754)

Macarthur then attempts to understand God’s creating ‘light’ as some sort of localised source: seemingly an attempt to have a sun substitute prior to the sun’s creation on day 4.

He also goes into some odd byways when it comes to the earth’s early state, the creation of the firmament and separation of waters. Many do this (both critics and supporters of the ‘Genesis makes sense’ view), I think reading back into these early days the nature of the earth and the cosmos as we have them today. I don’t think that this is always wise.

It strikes me that the words referred to, while I don’t discount them, may be being used figuratively: in the proper sense, that is. By this I mean a figure of representation, not a figure, of ‘they mean something completely different but still convey the meaning the figure denies’.

For example, when light is created on day 1, it must by implication entail the creation of the entire electromagnetic spectrum: perhaps creation of the energy ‘infrastructure’ of the cosmos, without which there ain’t nuthin.

Let’s look at Gen 1:1-5 more closely

Ge 1:1-5
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 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, one day.

2: the earth was formless and void. Macarthur goes into long description about it being a muddy wasteland. But does not ‘formless and void’ mean that it has no form and there is nothing there. Is it not that the earth was not in existence on the first day?

In ‘the darkness over the surface of the deep’ Macarthur considered it referring to deep oceans. I don’t think this is necessary. If there was no earth, then what could the ‘deep’ be: perhaps the cosmos in its entirety, absent of energy; perhaps just space, or with the waters, a mass in a fluid-like state awaiting energisation (which might have followed instantly upon the creation of the deep and waters) the introduction of light (energy), then, is perhaps the energisation of the cosmos. Could the separation of light and darkness be not only the provision for pacing time, in principle, but also be the formation of matter as we know it, distinct from energy (although we know they are interchangeable . . .often with a noisy bang).

My proposal may fall down with God calling the light day and the darkness, night, but perhaps not. With the formation of energy and matter, the separation of night and day becomes possible. But was there such diurnal variation from day one? Maybe not, as evening and morning are names of times and markers of the passing of time. They do not require alternating lighting conditions, only the passage of time. After all, the astronomical markers of time passing are not made and that purpose is not served, until day 4.

What is really striking here is that from day one, we have the personal: the Spirit was moving over the surface, hovering, say some translations: here is the God who is love, bringing forth his creation. I note the difference from the violence of pagan stories, I also note that pagan stories pre-suppose a cosmos for their tales, but here we have a real creation, not merely a modification of the pre-existing. Ah the poverty of pagan nonsense!

Next we have the expanse formed. Macathur goes into great detail about canopy theories, the making of terrestrial atmosphere, and so on. All pointless I think, if earth is not yet made.

Here God is engaged in ‘stretching out’ his cosmos. Humphries notes that most frequently in references to the heavens throughout the OT, this concept of ‘stretching out’ is employed. Perhaps aspects of inflationary theories are correct and just the duration is wrong! Humphries also makes it clear that it is beside the point to refer to time as an absolute, as it is not. The 6 days clearly refer to earth gravitational frame of reference. Other durations pass in other frames of reference, as we well know from Relativity theory. It is simply nonsense, I suspect, to discuss time as an absolute, it is always with respect to a frame of reference. Now if God ‘stretched out’ time-space during creation, then any questions about time outside of the earth FOR are empty.

So here we have God stretching, separating and on day 3, commencing the formation of astronomical bodies, or at least ‘earth’, the name given to the dry land.

Here water elides into H2O and the seas are formed: a planet is on the way.

Then on day 4 the lights and so on are made, so there may not have been diurnal lighting variation before that time: as only here are the bodies made which could effect that.

So how did evening and morning occur before this? Doesn’t matter, I suggest. As an example, go to either of the poles in mid summer or mid winter and tell me if days pass. They do, but the light doesn’t change!

I'll post more as I keep reading.