Searching After God's Heart: Genesis 1

It starts out, “In the beginning.” I assume that means the beginning of the Earth, perhaps time as well. Regardless, God was there and the pushing force that started the universe. Questions about where God originated are currently unanswerable. The first action/verb used in the entire Bible is create (d— it is past tense). Kenneth Burke especially believes that this shows that the ultimate action is to create. In a way, I would have to agree with Him, though our human ability to create is limited to taking already created things and only making a new concoction of the old stuff. God’s way of creation is to speak. He uses the “Word.” Perhaps this indicates that everything was made through Christ. I have heard the metaphor said before that God is the thought, Christ is the word, and I don’t think the holy spirit was mentioned, but I will hazard a guess that it is the lips/tongue. Anyway, I think this is really cool because, as a speaking person, I find that the closer a phrase is to the truth, the more powerful and striking it is. That could imply that God’s word is so true that as He spoke, everything in the universe manipulated itself to conform to the word He was speaking. Just a thought. Very Burkian.

God made the heavens and the Earth. So heaven is temporary and measured by time? It can be destroyed? Is it just a palace of God’s construction for himself like a king would build one? Or does the term “the heavens” merely refer to the sky? So many questions. It says the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Is God’s spirit hovering over everything. I’d like to think so. What about underwater? Surely He has dominion there as well. Perhaps a translation thing or even just a you-know-what-I-mean thing by the author. 

I think that God shows his vast understanding through the diversity of things He does. For us mortals, it is impressive for somebody to be well-versed in a couple of different fields, such as botany and mechanics. That is a knowledgeable and busy person. However, God was the master and creator of everything!!! He’s nuts.

I also see a clear pattern where the things that God creates perpetuate themselves. There are always seeds that reproduce or things like water and rocks that slowly make and unmake themselves in cycles. I wonder if any plants could die in Eden. I doubt the plants did, but the fruit did at least when it was eaten, and it could surely get rotten or else the seeds would never come out. So was there already a design of cycles that included death as a natural part of it. But still, maybe the actual plants lived forever. But does that mean that the Garden was going to have unlimited expansion. What if Adam and Eve had had children. God tells them to fill the earth... could it have gotten too full if nobody ever died? Or was there a cycle of death already in place? This implication seems contrary to God’s reaction when Adam ate the fruit, unless God only meant that the soul would die, and He always intended the body to die. Or He could have known that man would fall and made it so that the body would die. Or He could have even planned to expand the Earth, but I think He would have known to make it the right size in the first place. Maybe that’s why He made Mars... so we could move there eventually.

Chapter one says that God created man in His own image. Perhaps this means that Jesus didn’t take on our form to come down to Earth. Instead, we had just taken on His form all those years ago, and He was waiting to walk among our ranks as one of us. That would make sense if Christ is the Word and matter manipulated itself to God’s Word. While I do think the idea that we are in God’s image allowed Jesus to come among us, I think that it has to do with the idea that we have spirits, and so does God. None of the other animals seem to have spirits, though who am I to say for sure. God gives us, as humans, the right to rule over them. I do think this means we, as a ruler, have an obligation to tend to and take care of nature. However, this also gives us the right to take from it. It is our discretion, but I do think that we, as a race, have not been very good rulers of this Earth. We do terrible things to it, and it is a beautiful creation of God’s. I do wonder how a person can look at all of creation and say there is no God. All a matter of perspective and what idea is in your head when you are looking, I guess.

I don’t even want to get into the day argument. I don’t know if six days is to be taken literally or metaphorical, or even both. Frankly, I don’t think it matters. God created. That is the gist of chapter one, and He did a pretty stinking good job. The Bible even says so. When God sees something as good, it is good. God is goodness. He is the standard of all goodness, and God saw that His creation was good. We, too, can see how good His creation is every time we take the time to look.