Fall 2024
|
|
By David Dickenson
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “As the tension [between science and religion] is prolonged, the conflict visibly seems to need to be resolved in terms of an entirely different form of equilibrium—not in elimination, nor duality, but in synthesis. … And the reason is simple: the same life animates both” (1). I believe he is correct, and I would like to show why I think Genesis 1 supports the idea that the same life animates both science and religion. In doing so, I will focus on mysterious elements in Genesis 1 that are seemingly not good. Paying attention to these features alongside God’s good creation leads to some interesting possibilities.
The Beginning
Genesis 1:1–2 introduces God’s creative activity. Two seemingly “not good” features stand out. First, the earth is “formless and void” (tohu vavohu [1:2]) (2). When these words show up together elsewhere in the Bible (e.g., Jeremiah 4:23; Isaiah 34:11), it is because things are not good. Jeremiah, for instance, uses the words with reference to Judah’s devastation, depicting a pre-creation state where the heavens have no light (4:23), and there are no people, birds, or crops growing (4:24).
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “As the tension [between science and religion] is prolonged, the conflict visibly seems to need to be resolved in terms of an entirely different form of equilibrium—not in elimination, nor duality, but in synthesis. … And the reason is simple: the same life animates both” (1). I believe he is correct, and I would like to show why I think Genesis 1 supports the idea that the same life animates both science and religion. In doing so, I will focus on mysterious elements in Genesis 1 that are seemingly not good. Paying attention to these features alongside God’s good creation leads to some interesting possibilities.
The Beginning
Genesis 1:1–2 introduces God’s creative activity. Two seemingly “not good” features stand out. First, the earth is “formless and void” (tohu vavohu [1:2]) (2). When these words show up together elsewhere in the Bible (e.g., Jeremiah 4:23; Isaiah 34:11), it is because things are not good. Jeremiah, for instance, uses the words with reference to Judah’s devastation, depicting a pre-creation state where the heavens have no light (4:23), and there are no people, birds, or crops growing (4:24).
...it appears that evolution and agency go together like hand and glove. |
Second, “darkness was over the surface of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). Again, darkness is often not good (e.g., Job 3:3–9; Proverbs 2:13). Alongside the darkness, however, we are told that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2 NASB). Note the parallelism:
And darkness was over the surface of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
What is not good is there, but so is God. This tension reveals itself in all six days of Genesis 1.
Day One
On the first day, God creates light, separating it from the darkness (1:3). Even though darkness serves the function of night (1:5), only the light is called good (1:4). We have a hint that not all is well.
Day Two
On the second day (1:6–8), God separates the waters below from those above, creating the heavens/sky. Intriguingly, this is the only day when we are not told that “God saw” that the result “was good.” Why could that be? Could it be that “the heavens are not pure in His sight” (Job 15:15; cf. Job 25:5)? Is the text hinting at something?
Day Three
On the third day, God completes his work of day two by moving the water to form seas and land (1:9–10). As a second act, he makes plants appear (1:11–13). God sees that “it was good” twice (1:10, 12), making up for day two’s omission. However, something is arguably still not good.
In the Bible, and generally in the ancient Near East (ANE), the sea is routinely associated with evil. Consider Psalm 74:13: “You divided the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.” Or consider Isaiah 27:1:
In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
With His fierce and great and mighty sword,
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.
Interestingly, this same language describes God’s restraint of evil in creation (see Isaiah 51:9).
Day Four
Day four (1:14–19) parallels day one. There, God created light. Here, God creates “lights,” namely the sun, moon, and stars (3). In the ANE, these “lights” were associated with gods. Genesis 1 is anti-polytheistic: No “gods” are mentioned anywhere, which is an unusual feature for the ANE. But does that mean that the author sees no reality behind the gods of the nations? Given what we are seeing about the presence of what is not good as creation unfolds, it is worth asking if the narrator thought of not-all-good “gods” (i.e., angels and demons) that could rebel against the creator’s good intentions.
Consider Deuteronomy 4:19. “And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven” (italics added).
The idea of God allotting gods to the nations could sound strange, even troubling. An analogy might help: consider the director of a play managing willful actors who don’t always do as they ought. The lead actor might despise the director. Two other actors might be having an affair. The play, however, is an effort to bring good from an imperfect cast. In Genesis 1, we see the good play. The not-good elements are cracks in the curtain that hint at what is happening behind the scenes. The book of Job is similar—the title character never sees how Satan had asked for permission to make him suffer. Creation plays an important role in both books, and both tend to leave the curtain closed, except for the cracks.
Day Five
Intriguingly, the fifth day finds God creating “sea monsters [tanninim]” (1:21). Recall Isaiah 27:1. “And He killed the dragon [tannin] who lives in the sea.” The word is the same, but is the concept?
One might object that the creation of these creatures is declared to be “good” (Genesis 1:21), so it must be different from the “bad” of Isaiah 27:1. However, tannin is not the only word used for the evil entity in Isaiah 27:1. Another is nakhash, the same word used for the sinister “serpent” who prompts the fall of humanity in Genesis 3. The “behind the scenes” metaphor helps us understand what is happening. Genesis 1 describes what God is doing (the director’s good intentions). Genesis 3 reveals a sinister actor with whom he is working. Biblical passages like Isaiah 27 that refer to conflict in creation, then, are not foreign to Genesis, but are appreciated when Genesis 1 is considered alongside Genesis 3. Creation involves God’s mysterious restraint of evil, but the creator’s own activity is described accurately as “very good” (1:31). We need not taint the director’s intentions because of unruly actors.
Day Six
The sixth day is the most interesting. There, God says, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (1:26). Interpreters through the ages have scratched their heads over “us” and “our.” Unfortunately, space disallows a survey of opinions. Many interpreters, however, see a reference to a “divine council,” or “gods” (4). This interpretation would fit the behind-the-scenes view. By using “us,” God refers to the actors who have been there, in hints, all along. Again, one might find this troubling.
If “us” includes the divine council, that could mean that God is not acting alone in man’s creation (5). While the next verse does affirm that humanity is created in God’s image, the “us” in 1:26 implies that other “divine” beings are involved (6). Troublingly, many of these beings, by their own choices, are not good. Again, the creation of the tanninim is good, but Isaiah tells us that this same creature is not good. God’s creation is good; creaturely rebellion is bad.
An Evolutionary Synthesis?
Some think that Genesis 1 completely rejects the deities of its pagan environment, focusing instead solely on God and his universe (7). What if this “naturalistic” reading is onto something, even as it is incomplete? I propose that the “us” in Genesis 1:26 refers to God alongside the “natural” agents he created. The only “actors” explicitly mentioned have been animals and possibly the sun, moon, and stars. Perhaps Genesis 1 is “naturalistic” in that way (cf. Genesis 1:11, 24). God, together with the occupants of his creation, creates humans.
As we have seen, however, it seems evident that supernatural agents exist behind the scenes. The text demands a fusion of what we can see and what we can only glimpse through cracks in the curtain. There is something sentient, even ominous, about nature. While this matter can be touchy in scientific circles, I suggest that this theological observation perhaps has to do with the mysterious realities of consciousness and agency in living things. While finer points continue to be debated, it appears that evolution and agency go together like hand and glove (8). While God’s direction is impeccably good, he works with agents who sometimes rebel. Darwin’s battle for existence (not good) is understood today alongside the equally important role of things like cooperation (good) (9). It is not one or the other but both that God, the good director, works with to achieve his purposes.
God’s intention is purely good. His creatures’ intentions are something less. Contemplating how these realities interact is vital for our spiritual understanding. Worry not, though, for although forces seen and unseen “meant evil,” the important part is that “God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Teilhard was onto something. The same life does animate both biology and theology. While this article raises at least as many questions as it answers, it suggests that Teilhard’s desired synthesis is worth pursuing.
References
(1) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Thought, 2008), 283–84.
(2) Translations are taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org.
(3) Day five also corresponds to day two, and day six to day three. This pattern in the text is widely recognized.
(4) See, e.g., Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 5.
(5) Michael Heiser sees the divine council in his view but compares the statement to a person saying “Let’s get pizza” when that individual alone goes and purchases it (Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible [Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015], 39–40).
(6) The word “divine” in biblical scholarship is not limited to the God of Israel, who is portrayed in a class of his own as creator of all. The word applies also to beings we would more commonly refer to as angels and demons.
(7) For an approach that treats Genesis 1 as dismissive of mythological elements, unlike later prophetic literature, see Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part One: From Adam to Noah (Skokie, IL: Varda Books, 2005).
(8) For an excellent overview of living systems and the importance of agency, see Raymond Noble and Denis Noble, Understanding Living Systems, Understanding Life Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).
(9) See, e.g., Martin A. Nowak and Sarah Coakley, eds., Evolution, Games, and God: The Principle of Cooperation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013).
David C. Dickenson earned his Ph.D. in New Testament from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri and his B.S. in Business from Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas. He is a published author and a frequent presenter at the Evangelical Theological Society. His interaction with science has been the most surprising chapter of his faith journey, by far, and he hopes to help others navigate that path. He currently lives with his wife and four children in Neodesha, Kansas, where he serves as a pastor.
And darkness was over the surface of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
What is not good is there, but so is God. This tension reveals itself in all six days of Genesis 1.
Day One
On the first day, God creates light, separating it from the darkness (1:3). Even though darkness serves the function of night (1:5), only the light is called good (1:4). We have a hint that not all is well.
Day Two
On the second day (1:6–8), God separates the waters below from those above, creating the heavens/sky. Intriguingly, this is the only day when we are not told that “God saw” that the result “was good.” Why could that be? Could it be that “the heavens are not pure in His sight” (Job 15:15; cf. Job 25:5)? Is the text hinting at something?
Day Three
On the third day, God completes his work of day two by moving the water to form seas and land (1:9–10). As a second act, he makes plants appear (1:11–13). God sees that “it was good” twice (1:10, 12), making up for day two’s omission. However, something is arguably still not good.
In the Bible, and generally in the ancient Near East (ANE), the sea is routinely associated with evil. Consider Psalm 74:13: “You divided the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.” Or consider Isaiah 27:1:
In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
With His fierce and great and mighty sword,
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.
Interestingly, this same language describes God’s restraint of evil in creation (see Isaiah 51:9).
Day Four
Day four (1:14–19) parallels day one. There, God created light. Here, God creates “lights,” namely the sun, moon, and stars (3). In the ANE, these “lights” were associated with gods. Genesis 1 is anti-polytheistic: No “gods” are mentioned anywhere, which is an unusual feature for the ANE. But does that mean that the author sees no reality behind the gods of the nations? Given what we are seeing about the presence of what is not good as creation unfolds, it is worth asking if the narrator thought of not-all-good “gods” (i.e., angels and demons) that could rebel against the creator’s good intentions.
Consider Deuteronomy 4:19. “And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven” (italics added).
The idea of God allotting gods to the nations could sound strange, even troubling. An analogy might help: consider the director of a play managing willful actors who don’t always do as they ought. The lead actor might despise the director. Two other actors might be having an affair. The play, however, is an effort to bring good from an imperfect cast. In Genesis 1, we see the good play. The not-good elements are cracks in the curtain that hint at what is happening behind the scenes. The book of Job is similar—the title character never sees how Satan had asked for permission to make him suffer. Creation plays an important role in both books, and both tend to leave the curtain closed, except for the cracks.
Day Five
Intriguingly, the fifth day finds God creating “sea monsters [tanninim]” (1:21). Recall Isaiah 27:1. “And He killed the dragon [tannin] who lives in the sea.” The word is the same, but is the concept?
One might object that the creation of these creatures is declared to be “good” (Genesis 1:21), so it must be different from the “bad” of Isaiah 27:1. However, tannin is not the only word used for the evil entity in Isaiah 27:1. Another is nakhash, the same word used for the sinister “serpent” who prompts the fall of humanity in Genesis 3. The “behind the scenes” metaphor helps us understand what is happening. Genesis 1 describes what God is doing (the director’s good intentions). Genesis 3 reveals a sinister actor with whom he is working. Biblical passages like Isaiah 27 that refer to conflict in creation, then, are not foreign to Genesis, but are appreciated when Genesis 1 is considered alongside Genesis 3. Creation involves God’s mysterious restraint of evil, but the creator’s own activity is described accurately as “very good” (1:31). We need not taint the director’s intentions because of unruly actors.
Day Six
The sixth day is the most interesting. There, God says, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (1:26). Interpreters through the ages have scratched their heads over “us” and “our.” Unfortunately, space disallows a survey of opinions. Many interpreters, however, see a reference to a “divine council,” or “gods” (4). This interpretation would fit the behind-the-scenes view. By using “us,” God refers to the actors who have been there, in hints, all along. Again, one might find this troubling.
If “us” includes the divine council, that could mean that God is not acting alone in man’s creation (5). While the next verse does affirm that humanity is created in God’s image, the “us” in 1:26 implies that other “divine” beings are involved (6). Troublingly, many of these beings, by their own choices, are not good. Again, the creation of the tanninim is good, but Isaiah tells us that this same creature is not good. God’s creation is good; creaturely rebellion is bad.
An Evolutionary Synthesis?
Some think that Genesis 1 completely rejects the deities of its pagan environment, focusing instead solely on God and his universe (7). What if this “naturalistic” reading is onto something, even as it is incomplete? I propose that the “us” in Genesis 1:26 refers to God alongside the “natural” agents he created. The only “actors” explicitly mentioned have been animals and possibly the sun, moon, and stars. Perhaps Genesis 1 is “naturalistic” in that way (cf. Genesis 1:11, 24). God, together with the occupants of his creation, creates humans.
As we have seen, however, it seems evident that supernatural agents exist behind the scenes. The text demands a fusion of what we can see and what we can only glimpse through cracks in the curtain. There is something sentient, even ominous, about nature. While this matter can be touchy in scientific circles, I suggest that this theological observation perhaps has to do with the mysterious realities of consciousness and agency in living things. While finer points continue to be debated, it appears that evolution and agency go together like hand and glove (8). While God’s direction is impeccably good, he works with agents who sometimes rebel. Darwin’s battle for existence (not good) is understood today alongside the equally important role of things like cooperation (good) (9). It is not one or the other but both that God, the good director, works with to achieve his purposes.
God’s intention is purely good. His creatures’ intentions are something less. Contemplating how these realities interact is vital for our spiritual understanding. Worry not, though, for although forces seen and unseen “meant evil,” the important part is that “God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Teilhard was onto something. The same life does animate both biology and theology. While this article raises at least as many questions as it answers, it suggests that Teilhard’s desired synthesis is worth pursuing.
References
(1) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Thought, 2008), 283–84.
(2) Translations are taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org.
(3) Day five also corresponds to day two, and day six to day three. This pattern in the text is widely recognized.
(4) See, e.g., Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 5.
(5) Michael Heiser sees the divine council in his view but compares the statement to a person saying “Let’s get pizza” when that individual alone goes and purchases it (Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible [Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015], 39–40).
(6) The word “divine” in biblical scholarship is not limited to the God of Israel, who is portrayed in a class of his own as creator of all. The word applies also to beings we would more commonly refer to as angels and demons.
(7) For an approach that treats Genesis 1 as dismissive of mythological elements, unlike later prophetic literature, see Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part One: From Adam to Noah (Skokie, IL: Varda Books, 2005).
(8) For an excellent overview of living systems and the importance of agency, see Raymond Noble and Denis Noble, Understanding Living Systems, Understanding Life Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).
(9) See, e.g., Martin A. Nowak and Sarah Coakley, eds., Evolution, Games, and God: The Principle of Cooperation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013).
David C. Dickenson earned his Ph.D. in New Testament from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri and his B.S. in Business from Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas. He is a published author and a frequent presenter at the Evangelical Theological Society. His interaction with science has been the most surprising chapter of his faith journey, by far, and he hopes to help others navigate that path. He currently lives with his wife and four children in Neodesha, Kansas, where he serves as a pastor.