Bible, Genesis and Science
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1.1. THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF CREATION1.1.1. First Day: Genesis 1:1-5The big bang"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1). This well-known first verse of the Bible seems to refer exclusively to the creation of the planet Earth and its blue sky. Yet, as we know from modern science, the Earth is not alone in the universe. There is a myriad of other objects in the sky, which are older than the Earth formed only 4.6 billion years ago. This is rather late compared to the 15 billion years old universe. So if Genesis 1:1 related "in the beginning" to time zero of the whole universe, we would have a first paradox. But as Saint Augustine in The City of God Against the Pagans (book XI, chapter IX) stated, the term heavens in the first place refers to the celestial universe, the invisible world of the angels, and earth to the totality of the terrestrial universe, the visible world1. Heavens is mentioned before earth, which means that the angels were created "in the beginning" and the physical universe thereafter. The invisible and visible world form a duality heaven / earth. Inside the frame earth of this duality is found again a smaller duality heaven / earth, that is space and matter of our observable physical world. At the same time, Genesis 1:1 also refers to this duality, which comes up to an implicit restriction of the frame. Before Einstein's general relativity one thought that space is Euclidian (flat), infinite and has always existed. This was due to the identification of space with naught. However, all of this is wrong because physical space is curved, possibly finite and only exists since the big bang. And it is not identical with naught but constitutes space-time as points out famous physicist Stephen W. Hawking in A Brief History of Time: "The situation, however, is quite different in the general theory of relativity. Space and time are now dynamic quantities: when a body moves, or a force acts, it affects the curvature of space and time – and in turn the structure of space-time affects the way in which bodies move and forces act. Space and time not only affect but also are affected by everything that happens in the universe. Just as one cannot talk about events in the universe without the notions of space and time, so in general relativity it became meaningless to talk about space and time outside the limits of the universe." This is why not only matter but also space had to be created. Time zero of the physical world began with the big bang, which created dilating space and matter. In addition, the big bang must have been a supernatural event since it doesn't make sense to speak of physical things before the big bang. This is why the big bang cannot have a natural cause because, physically speaking, there was only naught "before" it. The coming into existence of the physical universe ex nihilo, that is out of naught, is physically not understandable2. These four most important points of the big bang are perfectly resumed by the first verse of the bible:
Within smaller frames, Genesis 1:1 also refers to our globe and the atmosphere as well as to the continents and the oceans, although other passages more explicitly relate to it, as we are going to see. Consequently, we see that the verse has multiple significance because of the multireference, which solves the apparent paradox mentioned above. The Milky Way"The earth was formless and void, and darkness lay upon the face of the abyss, a wind of God was hovering over the surface of the waters" (Gen 1:2). This second verse is linked to an explicit restriction of the frame contrasting with the implicit restriction made by Gen 1:1, which is contained in the same text due to the multireference. We will encounter explicit restrictions several times. They are characterized by a new creation of an earth or a heaven. Gen 1:6-8 for instance speaks of the creation of a firmament again called "heaven", for Gen 1:1 already mentions the creation of "the heavens" before. So there must be several heavens, big and small ones with different properties. The original Hebrew text effectively writes heavens in the plural. The same happens concerning earth in Gen 1:9-10, which qualifies the emergence of the continent, again called earth, as something new and independent, although earth is already mentioned by Gen 1:1 and 1:2. Consequently several earths must exist too, big and small ones, which correspond to the big and small heavens to form together several dualities heaven / earth. This comes up to restrictions expressing that the big is recognizable in the small. Thus, also Gen 1:2 is linked to an explicit restriction, because this verse again defines earth. This restriction concerns a reduction to the universe limited by our galaxy, the Milky Way, because it is the next logical step after the implicit restriction of Gen 1:1 from the invisible world to the physical world introduced by the big bang (see figure 3): the big bang essentially produced hydrogen and more or less regularly dispersed it into space. The gas then regrouped and first formed nebula galaxies. This is the stage which Gen 1:2 refers to, for hydrogen is, according to the number of atoms, the main component of water and consequently prefigures "the waters" this passage speaks of3. This primitive matter was "desert" at first, that is more or less spread out regularly in space, almost uniform in all places and therefore without clues like a sandy desert. It had a very weak density in space, so that there was much "void" between atoms. With regrouping in stars and galaxies, black holes appeared, which are real "abysses", for they gobble neighboring matter and stars because of such a strong gravitational field that they even absorb light and of course let neither escape. We consequently cannot observe them directly, with the result that "darkness lie open the surface" of them4. As it happens, in the center of our galaxy is a black hole. And the Milky Way forms, as many others galaxies, a spiral disc "hovering" 5 slowly around its center like an immense whirlwind.
As for the "wind of God", it refers to the gases that, at high speed, are attracted to the center, like in a cyclone. It is entirely appropriate here to speak of a wind, because most of the atmospheric winds are caused, among other factors, by gravitation. The "wind of God" on the other hand is more difficult to understand: it refers to the image of the Creator, which centers of gravitation like galaxies and stars reflect. In nature, there are innumerable images reflecting the Creator to varying degrees. First of all, it is humankind that holds the image of God according to Gen 1:26, but, on a lower level, also animals (for instance the Lamb of God) and the Sun (see Celestial and terrestrial plants, The six levels of evolution and The psychological sense of Saint Mary's apparitions). It is also possible that this passage is an allusion to the fact that the laws of nature are not exclusively responsible for the formation of the universe and that the hand of God played an invisible role therein. Our solar systemAs known from cosmology, the stars inside the galaxies also first formed spiral nebulae, but on a smaller scale6. They were little by little compressed by gravitation, which at a certain moment started nuclear fusion transforming hydrogen into helium and, in certain big stars, successively into the other chemical elements up to iron (the higher ranked elements in the periodic system were formed by other processes). The colossal energy thus liberated caused the stars to shine. Our Sun is a star. So it was born by a nebula too – created 4567 million years ago by the explosion of a massive star, a supernova – transforming itself into a spiral nebula. In the arms of this spiral nebula formed still smaller spirals, from which originated the planets. Apart from hydrogen, it also contained, in different proportions and in form of interstellar dusts and ice, all the ninety-two chemical elements existing on earth. In the beginning of the formation of the solar system, water was omnipresent because oxygen is, after hydrogen and helium, the most abundant element in the universe. And water is precisely formed from hydrogen and oxygen. Yet the solar wind – starting with the nuclear activity of the Sun only one million years after the supernova – soon drove much of the gaseous material out of the planetesimals that formed the four inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) some 110 million years later. At this stage the solar system was rather hot so that the water in the inner region was gaseous. This is why the four inner planets lost much water and what is considered the Earth's first atmosphere rapidly disappeared. Much of this material was attracted by the outer planets, especially by Jupiter and Saturn, the rest being blown into interstellar space. This is why they are essentially composed of frozen gases, that is, like the Sun, of hydrogen and helium, but with much water as well. The inner planets, on the other hand, have relatively little water. The Earth has most of it. This is why it is discussed whether the Earth received additional water through a collision with a big comet, which are aptly called dirty snowballs. Such a collision may also have provoked the formation of the Moon. In any case, we can see in the early terrestrial spiral disc (when the Sun was not yet entirely formed and did not emit its solar wind blowing out the water of it) another approach to "the wind of God hovering over the surface of the waters".
The big rainThe future Earth, being exposed to a real rainfall of matter, became more and more heated, since a collision is partly transforming its energy into heat. And these collisions became more and more violent because with the growth of the mass of the Earth its gravitation continually intensified. At a certain stage, the Earth formed an incandescent sphere of molten stone. In the molten state, stone can be mixed with various gases, especially with water vapor. However, when stone cools and becomes firm, it must release all the gases it contains in the liquid state. When the terrestrial crust formed by cooling, the water vapor and the other gases were consequently released. They rose to the surface by volcanoes or other openings to form a dense and boiling atmosphere. When in turn this atmosphere cooled down, the vapor condensed and fell on the ground in form of a torrential rain giving birth to the primitive ocean, which initially covered the whole surface of the globe.
The winds and cyclones that reigned then, remaining unequaled of power up today, would have represented an indescribable scenario to a possible spectator. As one knows today thanks to satellite images, cyclones like hurricanes and typhoons form cloud spirals turning around their center, and this precisely mostly above the sea in latitudes where it is hot, hence like formerly the windstorms on the boiling ocean in formation. Their spiral structure strongly resembles the one of galaxies (compare figure 1 and 2). These storms dried out the atmosphere and it is in their center that the rain was the most abundant, which is analogous to the gravitational collapse of galaxies and stars, which concentrated the biggest part of hydrogen in their centers. So we see on this scale another realization of "the wind of God hovering over the surface of the waters". Let us summarize the four references of Genesis 1:2 :
These references of Gen 1:2 are therefore based on the spiral structure of the diverse earths in formation, which are not yet very terrestrial because they are only composed of hydrogen and/or water mixed with dust. The Hebrew text of "the waters" is, by the way, effectively written in the plural like "the heavens" in Gen 1:1, which equally emphasizes its multisignificance here. All these references are linked to restrictions of the frame, which are made towards a single object of the preceding frame containing several such objects. On the first level, which is expressed by Genesis 1:1 (see The big bang), these objects are the galaxies, from which an explicit restriction is made to our galaxy (first restriction). Then inside our galaxy are the stars, from which only our Sun is important (second restriction). Finally, inside our solar system are the orbiting planets, from which the attention is given to the Earth (third restriction). These three restrictions are structured like on the first level through two dualities heaven / earth, the second one being contained inside the first one.
Like the reference of Gen 1:1 to the big bang, the reference of Gen 1:2 to the big rain does not imply a restriction of this kind, because the restriction is not made from several objects towards a single one but towards the element earth inside the superior duality. As we are going to see, this superior duality is a global duality spreading over the whole evolution. Another analogy with Gen 1:1 is based on the fact that during the big bang the primitive "water", that is hydrogen, came into existence out of space filled with energy (photons) according to Einstein's famous mass-energy equivalence by cooling down. In a similar way during the big rain, the water came into existence from space, the atmosphere, which contained steam cooling down to water. Night and dayStill during the first day, God created the light and separated it from darkness, night and day came into existence (Gen 1:3-5). The young universe indeed lived in darkness during hundreds of thousands of years after the big bang because the early universe was too hot for electrons to combine with hydrogen and helium nuclei. This prevented the photons, in other words light, to propagate. Therefore, total darkness reigned during this time. Only after sufficient expansion and cooling the universe could emit the light invisible and visible to the human eye, and became transparent so that it could have been observed. There was not yet much light at this moment however, because the universe was illuminated only with the formation of the first stars. This is why Gen 1:3 is also a indication to this formation of the first stars. This is however only a secondary reference, for this passage in the first place relates to another light than that of stars or, in general, that emitted by matter, since the stars were explicitly only mentioned on the fourth day (Gen 1:14-19). As we are going to see, the terms light or day are similarly multisignificant like heaven and earth. And since the diverse meanings must be understood hierarchically from the big towards the small, the first mention of light refers, like the first one of heaven, to the first level, that is to the angels' world. The six days illuminated by this light are consequently not identical with the days defined by the rotation of the Earth around itself, while it hides and shows its face to the Sun in a rhythm of twenty-four hours. In relation with the apparent paradox raised by Gen 1:11-13 – this verse mentions the creation of the trees before that of the Sun (Gen 1:14-16), which refers to celestial trees in the garden of Eden having no need of the Sun (see Celestial and terrestrial plants) – we have to suppose that Gen 1:3 before all wants to express the existence of a celestial light destined to illuminate these celestial trees and make them live. Since we do not know the length of a celestial day, except that it must be longer than a terrestrial day, because the celestial is always immensely bigger than the terrestrial, the six days of creation associated with this light are not at all in contradiction with the 15 billion years old universe. If the world was created within six earth-days according to young earth creationists, the relation between time and evolution would be linear. It may comfort them that this linearity is approximately valid on a logarithmic time scale as shows the following figure. This means that time from one main step of the evolution to the next step decreases exponentially, which is a much stronger argument against the exclusively fortuitous nature of evolution than if it was linear.
Figure 4
1.1.2. Second Day: Genesis 1:6-8High and low waters"And God said: 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters'. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And God called the firmament heaven." (Gen 1:6-8). This firmament imposes, as already said, a second explicit restriction of the frame after that made by Gen 1:2 because it is a new creation of heaven. The restricted frame is now our solar system (see figure 3). This is however not simply a repetition of what Gen 1:2 already states on the solar system with its second reference, for the verse applies to an advanced stage in its formation after that of the spiral nebula (see figure 5). As for the firmament, which again is called heaven, we are going to see that it is related in the first place to the gravitational field of the Sun, which surrounds the planets like an immense vault and makes them rotate around it. On a lower lever, it does of course also refer to our atmosphere, as we are going to see. Gen 1:6-8 is certainly at the origin of the medieval idea of an immense vault spread above the terrestrial disc retaining the superior waters and raining from time to time on earth. This is however not what we inevitably have to believe from Gen 1:6-8. We can also see something else in it, without running the risk of taking this passage for the kind of drawings psychologists employ to establish a diagnosis according to the associations of their patients regarding the abstract structures. In fact, it is impossible to see anything in this account, in contrast to these drawings, without encountering serious contradictions. We already know that the nebula, which our solar system stemmed from, essentially contained hydrogen and water, both representing "the waters" Gen 1:6-8 is speaking of, and that with the beginning of the nuclear activity the Sun blew the volatile substances away from the inner region out of the solar system. A little part was attracted by the outer gaseous planets. This is without doubt a separation of the waters, in the midst of which are the four inner planets containing little water. On both sides of these planets are the Sun on one side and the large planets on the other side. So the high and the low waters are on what side? The answer to this is simple: the high and the low are, as commonly known, illusions provoked by gravitation. What we call high on earth is what is far from its center of gravitation. Correspondingly, low is what is near to it. In the frame of the solar system, the large planets are far from the center of gravitation, that is the Sun. This is why they represent the high waters. Correspondingly, the Sun represents the low waters. Thus "the waters" were separated in those that are above the firmament, in the large gaseous planets, especially Jupiter and Saturn, and those that are under the firmament, in the Sun. This is rather a unilateral separation in favor of the low, since the planets only constitute the 1/700th of the whole mass of the solar system (the mass of the inner planets is negligible), the rest being occupied by the Sun. But this is nevertheless a separation because the water blown out of the solar system must be taken in account too. Here, the firmament therefore means the solar gravitational space, which makes the planets move around the Sun as exactly as a train runs on rails, as if they were held by something really firm but invisible and transparent like a firmament.
The atmosphereThis is, as with the other verses, however not the sole meaning of Gen 1:6-8: as mentioned above, when the Sun emitted its solar wind, the solar spiral nebula disappeared – and with it what is considered the first terrestrial atmosphere – and left only dust and pieces of stone. Of this spiral, the Earth only kept the rotation around itself and around the Sun. From this moment on it did not form, like the other inner planets, by gravitational collapse anymore but by what in astrophysics is called accretion, that is by a slow agglomeration of pieces of rock dispersed on the orbit. During this accretion, a very important geological event happened: through the continuous infall of matter, the young Earth was heated more and more up to becoming liquid such that the heavy iron moved to the center forming a large iron core in the middle of the incandescent Earth. This core began to create Earth's magnetic field, which protects us from the solar wind because charged particles are deviated through the Lorentz force. From this stage, helped by the increase of gravitation, the Earth could retain most volatile substances so that a second atmosphere started to form. These volatiles especially formed since the appearance of the terrestrial crust, which did release them. The solar wind did not entirely eliminate the water from the four inner planets. The pieces of matter on the orbit of the future Earth conserved a certain part in the interior. The quantity compared to the firm matter was higher than one would believe (independently of the eventuality that a collision with a comet or another object did bring additional water to the Earth), since the water reserves existing on earth are not only found in the oceans but especially in the interior of the Earth mixed with magma. Consequently, when there was not yet an ocean, all water reserves were enclosed in the boiling stone. They are the low waters Gen 1:6-8 is speaking of and they are distinct from the high waters, which accumulated in the second atmosphere as water vapor during the continued cooling of the crust releasing all volatiles. The firmament that contributed to this separating effect was the magnetosphere because thanks to it the solar wind could not sweep away the atmospheric gases anymore. These two references of Gen 1:6-8 concerning firstly the solar system and secondly the Earth is sustained by the knocking similitude between the one and the other:
It is true that the water only represents a little proportion compared to the mineral matter of the mantle. This is why it is justified to ask if Gen 1:6-8 is really speaking of the water in it. However, there can be no doubt about this because Gen 1:9 specifies, as we are going to see, that the low waters do not constitute a single mass, which precisely means that, except water, there must be another constituent mixed with the waters. According to the same verse, these two masses are going to be separated and the other mass is identified to be the dry mass of the continent. Before the separation, the low waters were consequently mixed with the stony mass of the terrestrial crust when it was in fusion. Finally, Gen 1:6-8 also refers to the big rain. The separation of the waters took place in this sense that the atmosphere formed a thick and compact cloud layer around the Earth, the high waters. In present times, clouds form between 2000 and 18 000 meters. This margin was probably higher 4 billion years ago because the hotter the air is, the higher is the margin wherein clouds form. From this cloud layer, the water vapor rained out in the ocean, the low waters. In this context, the firmament therefore signifies the atmosphere, which is a kind of aerial field provoking the formation of clouds. We realize that the multisignificance of Gen 1:6-8 has three references to:
The analogy that bonds these references is therefore based on the presence of a firmament, a kind of field capable to hold waters within high and low regions.
1.1.3. Third day: Genesis 1:9-13The continent"God said: 'Let the waters under the heavens be gathered into a single mass, and let the dry land appear'. God called the dry land earth and the mass of waters ocean" (Gen 1:9-10). This new creation of earth is the third restriction limited to the planet Earth (see figure 3). So it refers to events that solely took place on earth: that "the waters under the heavens" shall be gathered into one place – or, according to the Greek translation, constitute a single mass – implies that before this gathering they are not at a single place yet. As we already said, this relates to the mix of the low waters with the stone in fusion in the mantle within the frame of Earth formation. This verse consequently resumes what is already stated with Gen 1:6-8 because the dry land shall appear, that is the continent elevate from the ocean, which implies that the land is already "dry" before elevating. The elevation therefore has nothing to do with the drying, which is an independent process linked to the previous gathering of the waters into one place as it happens during a literal drying when water is leaving another mass by evaporation and thus effectively gets to another place where henceforth it may constitute a single mass. The formation of the terrestrial crust is of course not such a drying by evaporation, but otherwise it is the same (see The big rain). Hence, the "drying" can only mean the formation of the terrestrial crust, during which the water vapor inside it was separated into the atmosphere, which is a first step in direction of the final gathering of the waters into the single place of the oceans. This is why Gen 1:9-10 first gives another aspect of the formation of the terrestrial crust and then adds an advanced stage in its formation, that is its elevation to the primitive continent. This is consistent with Gen 1:6-8, which does not only repeat what Gen 1:2 states on the solar system but also indicates an advanced state in its formation (see High and low waters). The continent (the dry land) effectively emerged from the primitive ocean initially covering all the surface of the planet, for when the fiery sphere of the young Earth began to harden, its surface was still more or less regular. So apart from volcanic islands, there were still no continents and no mountains, which can only form if there is a solid crust after millions of years of tectonic action in the Earth's mantle. This is why, when this one was not yet entirely formed, there were still no important elevations so that the primitive ocean covered almost all the surface of the globe with an average final depth of approximately 2000 meters. In addition, there was only one continent in the beginning, which drifted in the five present-day continents (Eurasia, Africa, America, Australia and Antarctica). The second reference of Gen 1:9 applies to the big rain. Here we have to mention that the frame of the big rain is Earth's surface including the atmosphere and the ocean. Furthermore, all references to the big rain, contrarily to the other references, indicate different properties of the same process: the big cyclones have always been present during the whole big rain referred to by Gen 1:2 as well as the thick cloud layer referred to by Gen 1:6-8 and the subsequent darkness referred to by Gen 1:18 as we are going to see. This is why "the waters under the heavens" are not the low waters, that is the ocean, of Gen 1:6-8 because otherwise Gen 1:9 would give an advanced stage in the formation of the ocean. This is why "the waters under the heavens" must give another aspect of the whole process of the big rain, which started at a time when there was still no ocean. However in the beginning of the big rain, a large quantity of water vapor was already in the atmosphere and the temperature was just on the point to allow the rain to not evaporate again from Earth's surface. Water vapor is a relatively heavy gas and is in present days only found within the first twenty kilometers of altitude of the atmosphere, which totals about one-thousand. Within that frame, the water vapor consequently constitutes low waters, which are mixed with the other gases of the atmosphere and consequently do not entirely constitute a single mass. These low waters filled up the ocean, where at last they did constitute a single mass, that is an almost single chemical compound, the sea salt and other constituents added to the ocean only later through washing out continental rocks. Furthermore, this process dried out the atmosphere and is therefore another aspect of the whole big rain. The ocean and the continent form a new duality heaven / earth, the smallest within the material evolution, for the primitive continent is called earth, which indicates an explicit restriction (see The Milky Way). In the same sentence, the waters are called ocean. This is an explicit indication to the general duality heaven / earth held by the couple ocean / continent. As already mentioned concerning the big rain, this restriction is different from the three others, because there is no reduction from many objects to a single one, but from a global duality to its element earth, as we are going to see. This restriction indicates the end of the multireference concerning the material evolution, because also Genesis 1:1 began with a restriction of this kind. The sea and the land have very tangible characteristics of heaven / earth, that is the apparently infinite transparency and vastness of the sea, and the material and earthy aspect of the ground on which we live. The medium of this heaven is the water lived in by fish, who defy the law of gravitation similar to birds, which fly around in the aerial heaven, and to angels, who move about in the spiritual space. To make a point, let us resume all restrictions and references: as Gen 1:2 implies four and Gen 1:6-8 three references, both verses ending with the big rain, Gen 1:9 also has one less, that is two references, resumes the second reference of Gen 1:6-8 by describing an advanced stage in geology, and finishes its last reference with the big rain. As we shall see, the fourth day has only one reference, which is consistent with the diminishing number of references of the other days. So the multireference is entirely regular for all corresponding verses as shows the next figure.
Figure 5
Celestial and terrestrial plantsStill during the same day, seed bearing plants and fruit trees were created (Gen 1:11-12), which is the first mention of life. However, seed plants did appear on firm ground only around 350 million years ago, which is much later than the time of the origin of life. This is why we have here a new achronology similar to that of Gen 1:1, where heaven does not refer in the first place to the space surrounding the planet Earth but to the world of the angels. Another problem is that the creation of the Sun is only mentioned on the fourth day (Gen 1:14-19), although the formation of the Sun is implicitly mentioned on the second day. This is another achronology linked to the context of the plants in that vegetal cells cannot live without the light of the Sun. We will approach this apparent paradox in detail in the next section. The author of Genesis, who was Moses to believe the tradition7, may have ignored the almost simultaneous formation of the Earth and the Sun. It is consequently not excluded that he first mentioned the formation of the Earth and then that of the Sun because of his ignorance. On the other hand, one probably guessed in his time that plants cannot live without daylight. So if he had written the account basing himself on his own knowledge, he would certainly not have mentioned the creation of the Sun after that of plants. This paradox is consequently too evident to suppose that it is simply due to a distraction of the author or of some hypothetical revisers. It is, on the contrary, intentionally associated with the paradox of the day whose creation is also mentioned before the Sun in Gen 1:1. As we have seen, this implies that the six days of creation do not refer to twenty-four-hour days but are associated with the celestial light (see Night and day), which among others makes live celestial herbs and trees. In fact, the description of the paradise by the book of Revelation mentions trees of life that do not need the Sun since God himself spreads his light on them and on all other cohabitants (Rev 22:2-5). Herbs and celestial trees are also described in Gen 2:8-9, which indicates a garden of Eden with a tree of life similar to the one of the knowledge of good and evil. God did create these celestial trees together with the celestial world. That's why the account mentions them before the creation of the Sun, although the same passage also refers to all terrestrial plants on a lower level. There are a lot of models about the origin of life called abiogenesis but non of them are conclusive. In any case, the first life appeared some 3.8 billion years ago in the primitive ocean in the form of micro-organisms that no longer exist today. On the other hand, blue bacteria, which almost ascend back to the origin of life and thrive in hot waters, still live today at some places where the water is heated by the interior of the Earth. One knows little of the first living organisms, except that they must have been autotrophic, that is they did not nourish themselves from other living organisms. They have probably been chemotrophs, cells that obtain energy by chemical interaction with their environment. This is why they do not need the light of the Sun and the above paradox may also be a hint to this fact. They were consequently comparable to the later appearing phototrophs living through photosynthesis. These vegetal microorganisms determined the course of events for a very long period. During two billion years they produced oxygen and at the same time degraded the atmospheric carbon dioxide. They prepared thus the environment for the first heterotrophic cells appearing about 1.8 billion years ago stemming from vegetal cells. This are animal organisms, which need oxygen and nourish themselves from biological substances.
1.1.4. The last three days: Genesis 1:14-31The global dualityOn the fourth day, the stars, the Sun and the Moon have been created (Gen 1:14-19), which implies a paradox because the stars are implicitly mentioned on the first day and the Sun on the second day. In order to understand, why it is only an apparent paradox, we need to go deeper into the text and take all the evolution into account, that is the material, biological and human evolution, which began with the first humans and ended with Christ. One can divide this integral evolution into different levels at the example of the material evolution, which is divided into four levels. Each level contains two dualities, from which the second one is comprised in the first (see figure 3 and 6 below). We thus get six levels: the first four levels represent the material evolution, the fifth level the biological evolution and the sixth the evolution of humanity up to Jesus Christ. For a more simple representation, let us consider that these two last levels also have two dualities with four elements. They could of course be subdivided even more.
This integral evolution gives a sequence of alternating elements heaven and earth, with heaven always surrounding the next element earth. With the atmosphere, the elements heaven begin to materialize, while before they represent nearly empty space, which shows that the invisible world becomes more and more visible, that is material, as model on the planet Earth. This materialization therefore extends to all levels up to Christ, the incarnated God, and the duality heaven / earth is not only expressed in the interior of the levels but also globally across all levels. In other terms, the levels are cut into two halves, in those before and those after the planet Earth. The former manifest heaven and the latter earth thus expressing a global duality. To better figure that out, the integral evolution is represented in form of a circle and the global duality is expressed by its half-circles. Hence the whole physical, biological, and human evolution ends up with Christ, who rejoins the first level, which stemmed from God. And since Christ is the Son of God, this circle of evolution is perfectly buckled and it seems that Col 1:15-16 is evinced: "He is the image of the invisible God, It is correct that the first account of creation does not explicitly refer to Christ. Only the second account announces him according to the multireference, as we are going to see on the next page. The two accounts are, however, closely associated with one another and complete themselves mutually, the first one relating the creation of the angels, the terrestrial world, and man; and the second one zooming in on the life of the angels and of man, that is to say on their fall and their future redemption by Christ. This is why it has to be implied in the first account.
The six levels of evolutionLet us return now to our paradox: by mentioning the creation of the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, which serve to separate the day and the night, the light and the darkness (Gen 1:14-19), the fourth day repeats what the first day already points out reporting a similar separation into night and day (Gen 1:3-5), which is connected with the celestial world (see Night and day). This repetition of the creation of the day has the same meaning as the repetitions of the terms heaven and earth made by Gen 1:2, 1:6-8 and 1:9, which always express restrictions of the frame. This allowed us to establish the dualities of the first four levels. The new creation of the day thereby also expresses a restriction of the frame, but one that is linked to the global duality in that the restriction is made to the element earth of this duality, that is to the entire second half-circle, which is restricted to the planet Earth. This is confirmed by other arguments: the celestial light comes from God and thereby penetrates the invisible world from the exterior since God is exterior to his creation. This implies a restriction for if there is an exterior there must be an interior too. In the case of the first mention of the day, this restriction is made to the invisible world, that is to the first element of the first half-circle of the integral evolution (see figure 6), which is flooded by the light of God. The second mention of the day is related to the Sun, the Moon and the stars destined to illuminate the Earth. This exterior, from where comes the light, implies the restriction to the interior of earth space, more exactly to the terrestrial atmosphere, in the space of which we live and move, and whose air we breathe. The atmosphere is the first element of the second half-circle and is penetrated by the light of all celestial bodies found in the first half-circle. This is another reason why the two creations of the day refer to the global duality. Incidentally, since the first light comes from God and the second one especially from the Sun, there is another confirmation of the image of God held by the Sun. We can consequently conclude that the fourth day is not focused on the formation of the celestial bodies but on the light they emit. This is why it refers to an event that took place during the big rain. At this stage, there was a thick cloud layer around the Earth such that a possible observer standing on Earth's ground would never have seen any celestial bodies. Consequently there was profound darkness on earth similar to the darkness of the early universe. Only with an atmosphere that was sufficiently dried out, cloudless openings appeared more and more in the sky allowing the light of the Sun, the Moon and the stars to shine on Earth's surface. This is similar to the creation of the day of the first day: as only with sufficient cooling down of the early universe the photons could propagate freely (see Night and day), also the cloud layer did only disappear with sufficient cooling down of the atmosphere. This reference of the fourth day is also consistent with the diminishing number of references of the previous days in that it has only one reference, namely to another aspect of the big rain, that is its initial darkness resulting in the blue sky scattered with white clouds we know from present times. Let us now summarize the relation between days and levels: as shown by figure 3 and figure 5, the first three days are linked to the first three levels in that the nth restriction is made from the nth level during the nth creation day, which is consequently situated on the transition from the nth level to the next one as shown on figure 6. Since on the fourth day the surface of the Earth is illuminated by the Sun, the Moon and the stars, a restriction is made from the whole first half-circle, which we commonly call the astronomical sky, to the surface of the Earth, which will be inhabited by plants, animals and man. The fourth day is therefore, like the third day, also situated on the transition from level three to level four. As we are going to see, this is similar with the 5th and 6th day. One can therefore conclude that, in contrast to the first three days, the last three days are linked to the last three levels in that a nth restriction is made to the nth level during the nth creation day. In this manner, the behavior of all six days is symmetric regarding the global duality (see figure 6). This is why the six days of creation refer to the six levels of evolution by means of multiple references. On the fifth day, the animals living in water and the birds were created (Gen 1:20-23). The first animal microorganisms appeared much later after the plants but also evolving at first in the ocean. As mentioned above, the ocean is a heaven for water animals, that is their living environment. This is why their creation implies a fifth restriction from the ocean to its inhabitants, that is to the fifth level. Consequently, the fifth day is located on the transition from the fourth to the fifth level. This is sustained by the birds because their heaven is the atmosphere, which is also on the fourth level referred to by the fourth day in the frame of the atmosphere and the ocean of the big rain. This is why the fifth day is a transition from this level to its inhabitants. According to evolutionary biology, birds stem from reptiles, which previously conquered the firm ground. Hence, they appeared much later than the water animals, that is around 150 million years ago. So one may argue that the birds should be mentioned on the sixth day because it is then when God created all land animals (Gen 1:24-25). However this achronology of the birds follows exactly the same logic as the other ones. In other words, it also refers to the celestial world because birds have a similarity with angels and water animals because they live all in a medium representing heaven. This is another reason why all animals living in such a heaven are mentioned first. Thereafter, on the sixth day, God created all animals living on the ground (Gen 1:24-25) and finally man in his image, male and female (Gen 1:26-31). Since humans descend from the animal kingdom, this implies a sixth restriction from the fifth to the sixth level. The fifth day is consequently found on the corresponding transition. God gave man and animals all plants as food (Gen 1:29-30). Since some carnivorous or omnivorous animal species have always been present during evolution, this is another hint to the paradise lived in by the angels before their fall, that is before they did eat the forbidden fruit, as we shall see on the next page. Thus, God completed his work and rested on the seventh day and sanctified it (Gen 2:1-3). According to the previous placements of the six days, the seventh day must be placed on the time of Christ. As we shall se on the next page, the final purpose of the creation of the whole physical world is indeed the redemption of all angels and humans completed through Christ who is "the Son of Man" and "master of the sabbath" (Mat 12:1-8). This is why the time of Christianity is a kind of sabbatical age of history. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
NOTES
Next page Home | Table of Contents | Introduction | Summary of Salvation History | Short Answers to Ten Pertinent Questions | References | Free Electronic Bible | Search this site | Contact Last updated on April 15, 2008 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
