Genesis, science, and Jesus

In a recent podcast episode entitled, The Chemists, John Dickson discussed the worldview that the opening chapter of Genesis presents and how that relates to science and ultimately Jesus. Here is what he said:

"One of the key differences between the ancient Pagan way of thinking of, say, the Egyptians or Babylonians, and the Hebrew or biblical worldview is on this question of the orderliness of nature. Pagan creation narratives tended to stress the random, haphazard nature of the physical world. The classic is the Babylonian Enuma Elish, read out loud to the population every Babylonian New Year’s Day in Babylon. It says physical world is an after-thought, fashioned out of wreckage of a war of gods. Tiamat and Apsu—the mum and dad of the gods—go to war against their kids for making too much noise. But mum and dad ended up losing to the young warrior god, Marduk, who fashions the universe out of the bits and pieces of the carnage. The story embodies the common pagan idea that creation is ‘haphazard’ & ‘tainted’: matter is ‘alien’ stuff—accidental, unpredictable, possessed.

If that was your perspective, and you read Genesis 1, you’d be immediately struck by all ways Genesis stresses the beauty, orderliness, and goodness of physical creation. Pagans thought of creation as a kind of ‘war’; but Genesis sees it as a ballet: calm, patterned, graceful. Each creative scene in Gen 1 has 4-fold pattern:

(1) commences with a simple command,

(2) tells of the fulfillment of the command,

(3) includes an elaboration of the command, and

(4) concludes with the day formula, “there was evening, there was morning.” 

The first paragraph sets up the pattern for the rest of the show:

[1. Command] And God said, “Let there be light,” and

 [2. Fulfillment] there was light. 

[3. Elaboration] God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”

[4. Day formula] And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. (Genesis 1:3–5)

And on it goes through the chapter like a carefully choreographed dance …

There’s a theological point being made here: the universe is not accidental; it’s the work of an orderly mind.  Then there’s the way the days correspond to each other like a canvas to a painting: days 1, 2, 3 are the canvas, days 4, 5, 6 are the painting. It’s hard to picture, so we’ll put an image in the show notes. But basically, day 1 is the canvas to day 4’s painting, Day 2 is the canvas to Day 5’s painting, and day 3 is the canvas to Day 6’s painting. So, On Day 1 ‘light’ itself is created; on Day 4 the actual ‘lights’ of the ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ are put in place. On Day 2 the ‘vault’ of the sky is created along with its counterpoint, the waters of the sea; and on Day 5 the sky is filled with birds and sea is filled with fish. On Day 3 the ‘land’ and ‘plants’ are created; on Day 6 animals and humans are created to walk on the land and enjoy the produce. This deliberately leaves Day 7 hanging, as a day of rest, to reflect on the newly filled canvas of creation.

Then there’s the very interesting comment repeated through the Genesis creation account that God made things “according to their kinds” and, what’s more, that God put certain creative powers in things so that they too could produce things according to their kinds. So, in Gen 1:11 we read:

“Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: [so the land becomes a co-creator with God] seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds …

The point begin made is that the genius of the Creator is imprinted into physical reality, into nature, so that acts with certain aims to produce certain outcomes that reflect God’s intention. There are tons of other ways Genesis makes this point, but the basic idea is that the creation isn’t accidental. It’s ordered and rational and is a functioning whole that acts according to certain rational principles.

It’s a remarkable departure from ancient pagan thinking. It’s true that the best Greek philosophers came to roughly the same conclusion centuries later. Aristotle, for example, (900 years after Moses) said the Forms of things exist within the things themselves. So he would say something like “the form of the oak tree is in the acorn. The form of the adult human is already in the foetus”. And so on. And so nature operates in orderly fashion, following the direction, we might say the equations, that are built into matter itself. All things act according to organising principle inherent in them, which Aristotle called the logos. Behind the logos, he insisted in Metaphysics Book 12 is the MIND, Unmoved Mover, the final cause of all motion and purpose. God!!

What the Jews had been saying for centuries … the Greeks declared by logical deduction. Nature operates according to the principles of rational genius, and the genius behind it all is the Mind of God. This is why John’s Gospel is so happy to employ the Greek philosophical word logos. I talked about this more in an Undeceptions single recently – can’t remember what it’s called – but the basic point is, John says:

“In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God and the logos was God …”

And then he shocks us with:

“The logos became flesh and dwelt among us!”

In other words, the rational Genius of the creator – the same genius imprinted in creation – actually became a human being, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the logos. Jesus is the genius of creation. John wasn’t alone. Paul says something similar:

“In Jesus all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things have been created through him and for him … and in him all things hold together.”

It’s right to think of Jesus as a first-century Galilean Jew, a historical figure we can investigate with the rules of historical enquiry. But from the beginning, from our earliest documents, Christians were saying much, much more about him. They were saying He is the genius by and through which creation came into being … and, what’s more, He is the ongoing principle that holds them all together in every moment. This is why the first modern scientists all saw their work as a kind of worship. Because when they understood the mathematics of planetary motion or the chemistry by which certain things happen, they are glimpsing the logos, who had a historical name, Jesus. "