A question about the Christian theory of creation

[Kontiki]

Smash stuff good.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Calvin and Hobbes

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Why do men have a desire to build and to create?

We can acheive imortality of sorts with things we create. I don't think God needs that.

[Ben Kenobi]

I think we derive some pleasure simply from the creative process.

[Flip McWho]

And we are made in Gods image so everything that motivates humans, must motivate God as well. Well except for the sinful stuff. God doesn't do that.

[Berzerker]

Ben

'deep' has also been translated as 'abyss', which I think is the better understanding. You think of the ocean depths because they are like the abyss. Cold, dark, empty and void.

Don't forget void. The trouble here, is that we are relying on key words from one passage in order to come to an understanding of this period of creation.

Abyss, ocean, same thing... we're immediately taken to the spirit of God moving over the waters so context is provided by the next assertion. In biblical terminology I believe the word is tehom.

And notice how it says darkness was on the face of the deep? Was there no sun? That would appear to be the case given Genesis later claims the sun and moon were placed in the expanse to rule over the day and night. But does that make sense? At what point does the sun appear in the story? It appears "after" vegetation is growing on Earth. No, that ain't right. The sun has to be there for vegetation to grow. Maybe the sun is around before vegetation appears on Earth.

God said, "let there be Light" - and the Light is called "day", and the darkness He called "night". That is describing a spinning planet in close proximity to a star, true? The sun does appear earlier in the story, so why does the sun appear later on as if it didn't exist? Verses 1:14-16 are the problem, they make no sense. We're told plants are growing on Earth before the sun is made, but we know day is sunlight and day existed before plants. The first two verses (1:14-15) claim lights are placed in the firmament, but the third verse claims the sun, moon and stars are made. What are the lights in 1:14-15? The planets? How could the planets appear before the stars, even the star they orbit?

Actually, the first problem is the notion of creation. God created Earth but all God did was reveal the submerged land by gathering together the waters. If we're that loose with what it means to "create" in the biblical sense, then we can't be sure God created anything out of "thin air". With this in mind, we have some leeway to clear up inconsistencies posed by verses 1:14-16.

The sun provides the light God calls "day" in 1:5 before Heaven and Earth appear. But that doesn't mean the "light" is the sun, it means a spinning planet near a sun. We do know the sun would later rule the day, but is that because the sun was created at that point or does it mean the proto Earth was further away from the sun - "darkness was on the face of the deep"?

But after God's spirit hovers over the waters, day and night come into existence. What does that suggest? It tells me this planet was moved closer to the sun by the wind of God blowing across Tehom/watery deep. Whatever this conflict, the Earth would take on characteristics of this "God", rotation, tilt, even the appearance of celestial objects "placed" in the firmament. God made the stars? No, God produced a spinning planet with a tilt so that objects in the sky appear as they do.

Well, it isn't what Christians claim, again because of my point of believing that God is eternal, existing before anything else, and creating everything from himself.

But their/your belief isn't based on Genesis, being eternal is irrelevant to the story of Creation. The waters precede God in the story, and the Earth is submerged by those waters. This is the scene awaiting God...

The question is what does it mean when they say the earth was both empty and without form?

I like my question more, without form and void really doesn't tell us much given what we later learn about how Earth came into existence. If the Earth did not exist the author could have said so, but the language used to describe Earth is ambiguous. Thats why my question is relevant: what do you call "dry land" that is submerged? It aint dry, and it aint land, but it still exists. Move the water and it becomes dry land...

I think the best way to understand that, is how I have put it here. The matter has been created but is still under the abyss, and needs to be pulled from the abyss to take form.

But God did not create the matter, He revealed it by gathering together the waters - waters that precede God in the story. You seem to be claiming Heaven and Earth were created in 1:1, but they dont appear until the 2nd and 3rd day. Remember, Earth = dry land. So how could God create Earth if its submerged? If its under water, it aint dry and it aint land - so it aint Earth. See how your interpretation requires changing the definition of "Earth"? You say it was created under the water, but then it aint dry land and that means it aint Earth.

Any other Christians other then a dubious forgery?

Any proof its a forgery? I'm looking at what it says, and it says something requiring a far more ancient knowledge.

Look Berz, if this is worth my time at all, can you at least acknowledge a Christian ought to believe in an eternal Creator God who made the world, and everything in the universe?

You can believe what you want to believe, and you will. But Genesis doesn't support your belief.

Well, if you take 'deep' to mean 'abyss' then it makes much more sense.

They're the same thing, Ben. But you're arguing that "abyss" doesn't mean watery depths. What is it then? Space? Nothingness? Then how do you explain the waters over which God's spirit passes?

I have it right in front of me. I've been looking at Genesis 1 throughout the thread.

Then why are you giving me ****? All you had to do was read the verses I cited instead of acting like I'm mis-directing you to unrelated verses.

And this is why I wanted you to cite this. NIV says 'sky' instead of heaven both times the word is used, and gives 'land' instead of 'earth' to denote the dry ground

Sky, expanse, firmament, these are all references to Heaven and they are all used to divide the waters so it really doesn't matter which one we use. The point is "Heaven" cannot be the universe because it was used to separate the waters that were already in existence. And "land" is Earth - both are dry ground/land. If Earth is dry land, does it really change the meaning if we use dry ground instead of Earth? Genesis says God made the Seas by gathering the waters together, but God did not create the waters. So %70 of the planet's surface is covered by something God didn't create.

Which bible are you using Berz? I'm not saying your bible is wrong, just that I want to know where you are coming from, so I can work with that, rather then the NIV.

I have the NKJ but the verses I quoted were from NIV I think. But I use Strong's for more thorough definitions.

Heaven = sky, expanse, firmament - lofty, heights (the Enuma Elish begins with, "when in the heights").

Heaven = hammered-out bracelet, "rakia", or raqiya. This is why we get "firmament" in the Vulgate. When this gets confused by the other meanings of Heavens, i.e., sky, expanse, lofty, heights, we lose the notion that the Heaven used to separate the waters was solid.

And what is the "purpose" of this Heaven? To separate the waters...

Earth = dry land, not this planet.

Deep = Tehom = abyss, the ocean depths.

Tehom - from a prim. root meaning disturbance, conflict, surging water, "chaos".

This is the watery dragon Tiamat of Mesopotamian lore...

[Berzerker]

Btw Ben, if Earth = this planet, why didn't it appear until the 3rd day?

A day requires a spinning planet near a star, so the appearance of the Earth should have been on the first day. Of course, it took much longer for this stuff to happen so the days have a double meaning, a different chronology of events.

[Ben Kenobi]

Abyss, ocean, same thing... we're immediately taken to the spirit of God moving over the waters so context is provided by the next assertion. In biblical terminology I believe the word is tehom.

Not quite. Abyss means something somewhat different, a pit and a chasm from which there cannot be any escape. In this the sense of darkness in terms of evil which you refer is also present in the word abyss. Like the very bottom of the ocean floor, pitch black and void. This is what the deep is referring too.

And notice how it says darkness was on the face of the deep? Was there no sun? That would appear to be the case given Genesis later claims the sun and moon were placed in the expanse to rule over the day and night. But does that make sense? At what point does the sun appear in the story? It appears "after" vegetation is growing on Earth. No, that ain't right. The sun has to be there for vegetation to grow. Maybe the sun is around before vegetation appears on Earth.

He also says let there be light, without any sun or stars. So if it is possible for light to exist without sun or stars, then it is certainly possible for vegetation to grow. You are stuck in the normal workings of nature, whereas creation represents a radical departure from the normal rules.

God said, "let there be Light" - and the Light is called "day", and the darkness He called "night". That is describing a spinning planet in close proximity to a star, true?

Not necessarily. The only thing that exists at this point is the light and the earth. So God creates the light and seperates the light from the darkness. As you already noted, darkness was on the surface of the deep, so now you have light and darkness where the light is seperate from the earth.

"and let lights in the expanse of the sky give light unto the earth"

So whatever this first light is, the purpose is not to give light specifically on the earth, but to light everything.

This is the image I get. You have the earth in the abyss, and then all of creation is filled with light, so bright that you cannot see anything, appearing from everywhere equally bright, rather then from a single source. And then the light seperates itself from the abyss so that you can see shadows, and start to see in the light.

But their/your belief isn't based on Genesis, being eternal is irrelevant to the story of Creation. The waters precede God in the story, and the Earth is submerged by those waters. This is the scene awaiting God...

Only if you interpret the very first words as exposition. The fact that God is eternal is not irrelevant to creation, it has everything to do with it. If matter can exist without God, then who made God?

I like my question more, without form and void really doesn't tell us much given what we later learn about how Earth came into existence. If the Earth did not exist the author could have said so, but the language used to describe Earth is ambiguous. Thats why my question is relevant: what do you call "dry land" that is submerged? It aint dry, and it aint land, but it still exists. Move the water and it becomes dry land...

Hence my interpretation of 'earth' as 'matter'

You seem to be claiming Heaven and Earth were created in 1:1, but they dont appear until the 2nd and 3rd day.

Well the NIV has no mention of heaven being created other then in the very first verse. When God seperates the waters, the upper expanse is called 'sky' one of the synonyms of sky is heavens. Creating the heavens and the Earth is very different, matter and spirit.

Any proof its a forgery? I'm looking at what it says, and it says something requiring a far more ancient knowledge.

Then why wasn't it accepted by those who got to read it first hand?

Then why are you giving me ****? All you had to do was read the verses I cited instead of acting like I'm mis-directing you to unrelated verses.

Because I wanted you to crack it open yourself so that we could have a productive discussion rather then applying guesswork to the verses. This is really very painstaking stuff, and it's important that we are both on the same page. It's frusterating enough trying to discuss sky and heavens and earth when you are both working from the same source, let alone saying that the verse might be so.

Oh, and the word earth when talking about the planet can certainly include water. Earth really has three meanings,

1. the planet in it's entirety
2. matter
3. dry ground

Berz, I just want to say thank you for the cordial discussion. It's been very fun talking about these issues. I don't know if I can convince you that God did create everything, but this has been fun nevertheless.

So thank you.

[Ben Kenobi]

A day requires a spinning planet near a star, so the appearance of the Earth should have been on the first day. Of course, it took much longer for this stuff to happen so the days have a double meaning, a different chronology of events.

I'm not touching the timeline.

'And then there was morning, and then there was evening, the first day.'

And that's not even getting into the whole notion of a creation day.

[Berzerker]

Holy ****, you already responded!

Not quite. Abyss means something somewhat different, a pit and a chasm from which there cannot be any escape. In this the sense of darkness in terms of evil which you refer is also present in the word abyss. Like the very bottom of the ocean floor, pitch black and void. This is what the deep is referring too.

Hmm...thats a good insight into what the land looked like before the waters receded (or the land rose). Without form and void is what the deep ocean floor looks like (well, we got critters now of course).

He also says let there be light, without any sun or stars. So if it is possible for light to exist without sun or stars, then it is certainly possible for vegetation to grow. You are stuck in the normal workings of nature, whereas creation represents a radical departure from the normal rules.

But He defines the word "Light", He calls it "day" and the darkness "night". Thats describing the normal rules...

Not necessarily. The only thing that exists at this point is the light and the earth. So God creates the light and seperates the light from the darkness. As you already noted, darkness was on the surface of the deep, so now you have light and darkness where the light is seperate from the earth.

"and let lights in the expanse of the sky give light unto the earth"

So whatever this first light is, the purpose is not to give light specifically on the earth, but to light everything.

This is the image I get. You have the earth in the abyss, and then all of creation is filled with light, so bright that you cannot see anything, appearing from everywhere equally bright, rather then from a single source. And then the light seperates itself from the abyss so that you can see shadows, and start to see in the light.

Thats alot...the text has God calling the light "day", and just
"day"

Only if you interpret the very first words as exposition. The fact that God is eternal is not irrelevant to creation, it has everything to do with it. If matter can exist without God, then who made God?

But Genesis is clear on the matter of matter, the waters were not created by God. Genesis is depicting a situation before creation and a description of what happened during creation.

Well the NIV has no mention of heaven being created other then in the very first verse. When God seperates the waters, the upper expanse is called 'sky' one of the synonyms of sky is heavens. Creating the heavens and the Earth is very different, matter and spirit.

So God created the sky/heavens to separate the waters? I dont know how that means the sky/heavens = universe. The waters are on either side of this expanse and were already there when the heavens were made.

Then why wasn't it accepted by those who got to read it first hand?

It wasn't? Or do you mean the modern scholars who've analysed it? Is it a modern forgery or an ancient forgery?

Oh, and the word earth when talking about the planet can certainly include water. Earth really has three meanings,

1. the planet in it's entirety
2. matter
3. dry ground

But God wasn't talking about the planet nor was he talking about the water, only the dry land exposed by the receding waters recieved the name "Earth". What did God call the dry land? Earth...
We dont need 3 options, God gave us 1 option.

And you're welcome

[Berzerker]

Regarding the 6 "days" of creation and a 7th day of "rest", with 5 outer planets the asteroid belt would have been the 6th planet. Now the Earth is the 7th planet. An African creation myth says creation took 4 days with a 5th day for rest. If the Earth was at the asteroid belt it would have been the 4th planet from the sun, and now the asteroid belt (Heaven) is the 5th orbit from the sun.

The two stories are mirror images of the same story, really weird. Reminds me of another African story of God walking thru some people with a hat of 2 colors so that people on either side would see 2 different images.

[beingofone]

Originally posted by Bill3000



0/1 = 0 in all cases. 1/0 is undefined and is by definition a mathematical singularity. lim(x-->0) 1/x can be equal to -infinity or infinity, depending on which side you are taking the limit from.

How could you miss the point by like a trillion lightyears?



You can`t even tell what I am talking about.



You think you made a point but you are just oblivious to the topic.





If you ever actually want to talk - let me know.

[Terra Nullius]

The early Greeks tended to view the world as flowing by necessity out of some basic raw material. For them the world always was and always will be. What is here now simply came from something which was here before. All they wanted to know, then, basically was what was the nature of the basic stuff which was continually being rearranged to form the variety of things they found around them.
...
If everything which is now simply came from something which was here before, what are we to make of the Judaeo-Christian account of creation?
...
Basically his (Thomas') position was this. There is nothing contradictory in the notion of a perpetually existent universe. Nor is there anything heretical in the belief that God could have created such a world. Furthermore, Aristotle's three conditions of motion pose no problem for the creation of the universe for the simple reason that creation is not a motion.

What Thomas is saying is this. For the world to be created it is not necessary that God precede the world in time. Rather, He must precede it in power. A thing is created to the extent that it depends for its being on another. Hence even if the world had no beginning in the past, it would still be created because it depends for its existence on God.
...
At best, one can only establish that the world in its present state was preceded by the world in some radically different state....
In other words, St Thomas accepts, as a matter of religious Faith that the world is created in time. From the standpoint of philosophical demonstration, however, he thinks that the case is beyond establishment for either side. Yet whether or not one believes the world to be created in time or perpetually existent, the world is, for him, created.

A Simplified Introduction to the Wisdom of St Thomas
Peter A. Redpath

[Terra Nullius]

http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/article_exnihilo_copan.html

Tatian became the "first Christian theologian known to us who expressly advanced the proposition that matter was produced by God" . Following on his heels, Theophilus of Antioch asserted it more forcefully: "God has created everything out of nothing into being." While Theophilus commended Plato's belief that God is uncreated, he disagreed with the notion that matter existed co-eternally with him, which would make matter equal to him: "But the power of God is manifested in this, that out of things that are not He makes whatever He pleases." With Irenaeus, the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo was well established. He also argued that the world was not coeternal with God:
...

Consequently, Christian apologists like John of Damascus came to distinguish between God's "creating" or "making" and his "generating" or "begetting." The former refers to producing something that is essentially or ontologically distinct from its creator while the latter refers to that which is derived from the essence of God.17 Augustine himself simply declared that God "created heaven and earth out of nothing."18

Same page:

The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 formally declared:

We firmly believe and simply confess that there is only one true God ... the Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal; who from the very beginning of time by His omnipotent power created out of nothing [de nihilo condidit] both the spiritual beings and the corporeal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_belief

However, in these traditions, the belief that God gave shape to pre-existing things was not unheard of, and that idea became more fully articulated especially under the influence of Greek philosophy. In both Judaism and Christianity, belief in creation "from nothing" began to dominate the traditions sometime in the second century C.E., in part as a reaction against classical philosophy.
Departing from this tradition, some modern scholars have argued that these statements and all others are still susceptible to ambiguous interpretation, so that creation ex nihilo may not be clearly supported by ancient texts, including the Bible.

[Bill3000]

Originally posted by beingofone


How could you miss the point by like a trillion lightyears?



You can`t even tell what I am talking about.



You think you made a point but you are just oblivious to the topic.





If you ever actually want to talk - let me know.

I don't need to. Get your mathematical logic right if you want to use it. It's quite simple.