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Analysis of The Creation This opening excerpt of Genesis lays down the situation in which the Creation occurs. It is very interesting to dissect the statements within this particular passage because it asserts the nature of both God and goodness, but also of evil. It stands as a paradox with many other ideas of the the Bible and of the Church, and in this way I believe some of its meaning may have been lost through the centuries and through different translations. This beginning excerpt from Genesis is as follows: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. The first line, And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Of the whole excerpt, this particular sentence appears to have some very important clues about the state of everything before God made the earth. To announce that the earth is without form and void isn't the the same as claiming that there was an absolute void, but to make an assertion about the shapelessness of the earth before the creation.
This chaotic abyss, which is also an arid wilderness, could be far from the vacuum of worthlessness and nonexistence it is often translated as being. It could be instead a ground full of potential, or the necessary material of creation. The void in this more particular sense is a place instead of a vacuous nothing, and it is the place where God performs His different acts of creation; i. e. dividing earth from sky, sea from land, day from night. This one sentence allows for both God's creation, as well as the primordial soup.
In the next sentence of the excerpt, it mentions the waters already being present at the time of the creation. This may extend to other things in this void, such as volcanoes and mountains, and every other basic piece of earth in its natural state. The next line is And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. This line, while it may not have as many implications about the nature of existence before creation, has some clues about the writer's vision of God. God moving on the face of the waters refers to the way that birds land and move over water.
As they flap their wings, they move and change the surface of the water. This movement would look otherworldly in the times that Genesis was originally written. This is also tied into the way that gods or duties were looked at in the ancient world; Egyptian gods and symbols incorporated the appearance of birds. This sort of description seems to allude to the majestic and powerful quality of birds, and moreover it alludes to the unexplainable. It is therefore not particularly surprising that God's movement and action in creation would be described in a way that incorporated or resembled that of birds.
A second interesting thing about this part of the sentence is that is says that he moved on the waters. This means that the waters were already there, that he did not actually create the waters. This can again show that the creation occurred upon a primordial soup. It hints that the Earth already existed at the time of the creation of the world, and may not have been created by God. The question that follows is, who then created it?
What else was on the earth before God stepped in and entered his work? In this spot can be entered all of the scientific arguments which are constantly raged about religion and the nature of existence. This could refer to the moment when creatures first ventured out of the ocean, or it could mean continents dividing, or any number of scientific occurences in long past history that marked the beginning of life on Earth. The next two sentences are And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. Light is good in a practical way along with being good in a symbolic way. God creates the light before he completes the other steps of creation. It is like a person turning on the light in his or her workroom before working; it is a necessary step to ensure that the result of the work is the desired result.
This also infers that all the work of the creation that followed was exactly what God intended; he set up the situation in which he would create before he began with creation, which proved that there was forethought; it signifies that God had a plan for the creation of the world. James refers to the good gifts that come from the Creator, and this symbolic factor applies to the light. The word good is frequently used to signify character, and moral goodness; it is in this sense that God is good. If everything was made in the creation under this light, or goodness, then everything that made was and is inherently good. There is another idea that must be emphasized with reference to goodness. The term good may be utilized in either an absolute manner, or in a relative way.
Absolutely speaking, only God is good, because he alone possesses goodness in an infinite manner. While it is a fact that only deity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, possesses goodness absolutely, it is also true that human beings can be good relatively speaking. The sentence goes on to say, and God divided the light from the darkness. It is not saying that the darkness is necessarily bad. It really is not saying anything about the nature of darkness, but only that while light was created by God, the darkness was already there. This is very interesting; if it were created by God, then it would mention that he had made it.
This brings up huge questions, such as who made the darkness? What is the darkness? God is able to separate the light from the darkness, so he apparently has power over it. Though he has control of the darkness, it is obviously not preferred over light.
This leads to the belief that day is preferred over night. Exploring the nature of light further can reinforce the idea that God is the only diet, and is all powerful. All light must have a source, and God was its creator and therefore is the light's source. This then means that the darkness has no source, it is merely the lack of light. From this it can be extrapolated that goodness comes from the source of God, and badness does not come from an alternative source; it is simply the lack of God. In this idea we find a problem because the usual church teachings are that evil comes from the Devil; does this then mean that the Devil is the source of darkness?
Furthermore, if all things that come from God are fundamentally good, then wouldn't this apply to the devil because he is a fallen angel? These arguments can go in infinite circles. One idea that could be taken from such an assertion is something that Milton touched on in his book, Paradise Lost. The devil is put forth as the protagonist in that work, and Milton does this to show how seductive evil can be. Even though something may come from God originally, it can still be bad and even though there is good within it, it is not good.
This general principal is easy to understand and identify in more extreme cases. For example, a unrepenting murderer is a man, and was made by God who is the source of all goodness, but that does not change that he is a murderer and evil to a certain degree. This would also apply to more subtle cases within our daily lives. If a person is a liar, are they evil as a murderer is?
From this excerpt in Genesis, it is easy to see the many paradoxes in Christian belief. While it hints at the nature and origin of goodness, it does not at all touch on the nature of god. It also leaves some room for a different creator, which shows the circles that theology can weave when a small amount of text is over analyzed.
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