Kingdom of Life

Above: Distant galaxies seen through the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA/ESA/STSci)

———————————–

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he 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 an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning — the second day.

Genesis 1:1-8 (NIV)

———————————–

Obviously this is dealing with the creation of the universe. “In the beginning” — of what? God’s existence? No, it appears to be in the beginning of the universe as we know it — the natural realm, matter and energy. The universe began when God created the heavens and the earth.

Who and what existed, and what was going on before creation, is a subject that is really outside the scope of the Genesis account, and outside the scope of the Bible as a whole. There may be some passages that allude to it, but if so, they elude me at the moment.

Nor is Genesis intended to be a comprehensive natural history of the universe. Genesis is concerned with the relationship between God and his creation, including humanity. That does not mean it has nothing to say about natural events, just that that is not the area of emphasis.

Of course, people 3,000+ years ago did not have the scientific knowledge of the universe we have today. But they could gather some basic truths from the Genesis account, truths which we can also rely on today.

For one thing, God created the universe. It did not just happen to somehow, accidentally come into existence. Its creation was deliberate. The word translated “created” in verse 1, the Hebrew verb bara’, refers specifically to God’s originative activity. Secondly, God did not kick things off and then go into retirement. He continued to be involved in directing and guiding the development of the universe and this world.

I am not an astrophysicist, but if we assume that modern scientific theories about the development of the universe are substantially correct, the early ‘moments’ of the universe were characterized by complex changes and developments in the arrangement of matter and energy, occurring in accordance with physical laws. It might, from our perspective, seem likely to have been quite chaotic, but there was actually a great deal of order being imposed.

The Hebrew word yom (”day”, in verses 5 and 8) does not always refer to a 24-hour period, and the text does not tell us exactly how much time is meant here. Biblical scholars have offered many different interpretations. Modern science tells us that a considerable amount of time was involved in the development of the universe, and I can see no good reason to doubt this.

At the same time, we must remember that God is sovereign over His creation and over the physical laws which He put in place to govern it. His actions do not require a natural explanation. In other words, we should learn what we can about the universe while remembering that God trumps nature.

Above: The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and Companion Galaxy (NASA/ESA/STSci/AURA)