Audio Lectures by Father Thomas Hopko - The Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia
Written Observation by Fr Symeon Elias - The Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A.
Written Observation by Fr Symeon Elias - The Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A.
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." President Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation, Jan. 17, 1961.
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Apr 28, 2010
| Darwin and Christianity - Part 8: The Genesis Account (part 2)
Fr. Tom Hopko continues his series on Darwin with his 2nd reflection on the creation story in Genesis.
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49:07
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Here I was hoping that the remainder of these talks would be Orthodox boilerplate and I would be limited to silence except for compliments and sending Father Tom high fives. But less than six minutes into this one and I had to stop and make a challenge. Father Tom again punches the fact that he sees in the opening of Genesis that God is acting upon something that already existed, some mysterious waters and chaos. I want to make an appeal to common sense, and to the syntax of both writers. What Father Tom is suggesting would make the opening text read. "In the Beginning was the heavens and the earth, without form and void, and God entered into matter and started creating " In volume eight I explained why the Hebrew writer had to have been stating - not merely implying that creation was "from nothing" because he named the creation of everything he could see and know. Without those "things" he said God created, there was "nothing left." So Creation in that person's mind has to have been from "nothing." Father Tom would have to supply me with the abstraction that this primitive Hebrew would have held as existing outside of "creation" the something upon which God acted.
I'm willing to release the term "Day" from a specified period of time. There is no dating system in Genesis, there is no calendar, there is no definition of what a day is except by the context of the text itself. This is obvious that day means simply "an unspecified period of time." We need to conceptualize it so that we may be able to verbalize it, so we call it "day."
I reject completely that the meaning of the first sentence of Genesis can be made to mean, "In the Beginning was the heavens and the earth, without form and void, and God entered into matter and started creating." Genesis does not say it, and except by committing violence upon the first sentence, which seems an odd way to begin a study of Genesis and violence upon the conceptually concrete language of the Semitic people, you can't make Genesis say it. The very phrase, "In the Beginning." Beginning of what? What was the word in Hebrew? ראשׁית rḕshı̂̂yt, the “head-part, beginning” of a thing. What was the thing here? Creation of the heavens and the earth and everything of which that or those primitive Hebrew writer(s) held a concept.
In the beginning God Created. Even though the keepers of the oral traditions of Creation and the scribes who reduced those traditions to writing would not have had a clue, we hold the knowledge that you cannot speak of the creation of matter without speaking of the creation of time/space. And just as surely as Genesis is not "teaching" natural science, it is commenting on it and it is talking about the beginning of everything humans at that time could comprehend. "In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth." Not "In the Beginning was the heavens and the earth - self existent, without a creator." It doesn't matter how "mysterious" were the waters over which the Holy Spirit hovered, they did not exist until God created the Heavens and the Earth, or better stated, "everything humans at that time could comprehend." As it happens, the text stands the test of time and the phrase, "In the beginning God created," still functions of the entire creation that is complex and multilayered, and multi-universes and eons of time and any other grand scheme we want to view it. In the Beginning God Created - covers that. As we saw in the Hubble pictures and as astrophysicists and astronomers will tell you, galaxies are still being created, and the theoretical physicists will tell you that most likely universes are still being created.
The next use of the word, ראשׁית rḕshı̂̂yt, the “head-part, beginning” is in reference to the beginning of a Kingdom. Genesis 10:10. It doesn't even hint at the idea that the Kingdom existed before it began, which would be an absurd abstraction, if you think about it.
If you examine the words of the Septuagint it means not just a point, the beginning of time, but in the first force, the first principle, the first energetic-principle that made things be.
I'm willing to release the term "Day" from a specified period of time. There is no dating system in Genesis, there is no calendar, there is no definition of what a day is except by the context of the text itself. This is obvious that day means simply "an unspecified period of time." We need to conceptualize it so that we may be able to verbalize it, so we call it "day."
I reject completely that the meaning of the first sentence of Genesis can be made to mean, "In the Beginning was the heavens and the earth, without form and void, and God entered into matter and started creating." Genesis does not say it, and except by committing violence upon the first sentence, which seems an odd way to begin a study of Genesis and violence upon the conceptually concrete language of the Semitic people, you can't make Genesis say it. The very phrase, "In the Beginning." Beginning of what? What was the word in Hebrew? ראשׁית rḕshı̂̂yt, the “head-part, beginning” of a thing. What was the thing here? Creation of the heavens and the earth and everything of which that or those primitive Hebrew writer(s) held a concept.
In the beginning God Created. Even though the keepers of the oral traditions of Creation and the scribes who reduced those traditions to writing would not have had a clue, we hold the knowledge that you cannot speak of the creation of matter without speaking of the creation of time/space. And just as surely as Genesis is not "teaching" natural science, it is commenting on it and it is talking about the beginning of everything humans at that time could comprehend. "In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth." Not "In the Beginning was the heavens and the earth - self existent, without a creator." It doesn't matter how "mysterious" were the waters over which the Holy Spirit hovered, they did not exist until God created the Heavens and the Earth, or better stated, "everything humans at that time could comprehend." As it happens, the text stands the test of time and the phrase, "In the beginning God created," still functions of the entire creation that is complex and multilayered, and multi-universes and eons of time and any other grand scheme we want to view it. In the Beginning God Created - covers that. As we saw in the Hubble pictures and as astrophysicists and astronomers will tell you, galaxies are still being created, and the theoretical physicists will tell you that most likely universes are still being created.
The next use of the word, ראשׁית rḕshı̂̂yt, the “head-part, beginning” is in reference to the beginning of a Kingdom. Genesis 10:10. It doesn't even hint at the idea that the Kingdom existed before it began, which would be an absurd abstraction, if you think about it.
If you examine the words of the Septuagint it means not just a point, the beginning of time, but in the first force, the first principle, the first energetic-principle that made things be.
One cannot talk about pre-time and outside of time and then even hint that matter is the real eternal being upon which the God of Genesis acted to "make it better than the mysterious waters and chaos" without sinking into the paradigm of the primordial paganism of humankind. All pagan systems begin with a pre-existing cosmos, some ephemeral ether, some something, other than non-being. Even though the idea of "out of nothing" was not fully formed and explicated, it fits the text far better than the violence done to it to make it NOT say that.
I think I understand the temptation to cede to the evolutionists the chaos of the primordial ooze, from which they believe sprang all life. How convenient it would be to loosen the means of "creation" to allow for the Darwinist mythology! AND absolutely I would and I could but not by doing violence to the text and violence to the creator.
I don't know the means by which God created "anthropos" any more than I can understand the strange energy that animates me. I will grant that Father Tom follows Saint Basil the Great's caution concerning the "cosmologies" of his era, "If there is anything in the system which seems probable to you, keep your admiration for the source of such perfect order - the wisdom of God." Father Tom clearly does this.
However, I still say, that even though Genesis does not clearly state that God's creation was "from nothing," that is, it does not specifically state that, it is a moot point since biblical tradition and the church's tradition have both affirmed that God did create from nothing, and the Genesis text not only does not preclude it, one has to do violence to the original language and culture to make it say otherwise.
When humans contemplate the beginning, they are contemplating when "THINGS" came to BE. All throughout the course of TIME, THINGS come to BE, and some things cease to be. In Genesis that kingdom that came to be, ceased at another point in time to be. What are the opening words of the creed? "I believe in God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth" - this phrase would almost fit the paradigm Father Tom seems to be systematically building and here states with emphasis that God may have been merely acting upon something, some "chaos and mysterious waters" that already existed. But what are the next words of the creed? "And of ALL THINGS, seen and unseen." Does this not also mean visible and invisible? known and unknown? inside our perceptions of matter and outside our perceptions of matter? The energies we know and the energies we do not know? also, the cosmological views we comprehend and the cosmological views we do not yet perceive? also the sky and the ground we perceive and the galaxy populated space/time (universes populated) continuum and the sub-atomic world we do not directly perceive but have by investigation proved to be present?
When humans contemplate the beginning, they are contemplating when "THINGS" came to BE. All throughout the course of TIME, THINGS come to BE, and some things cease to be. In Genesis that kingdom that came to be, ceased at another point in time to be. What are the opening words of the creed? "I believe in God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth" - this phrase would almost fit the paradigm Father Tom seems to be systematically building and here states with emphasis that God may have been merely acting upon something, some "chaos and mysterious waters" that already existed. But what are the next words of the creed? "And of ALL THINGS, seen and unseen." Does this not also mean visible and invisible? known and unknown? inside our perceptions of matter and outside our perceptions of matter? The energies we know and the energies we do not know? also, the cosmological views we comprehend and the cosmological views we do not yet perceive? also the sky and the ground we perceive and the galaxy populated space/time (universes populated) continuum and the sub-atomic world we do not directly perceive but have by investigation proved to be present?
"All things seen and unseen is an immutable category defining what may be known by man (science/philosophy and experience) and what is not known by the same in ANY ERA of man's history and in the future into infinity. This is an immutable category, i.e. not subject to change; unchanging and unchangeable.
So the writers of Genesis pictured their "cosmos" in the cosmological language of their era, as existing between a great vault of water, we know to be the atmosphere and the subterranean waters, we now view as tectonic plates. Now our own cosmology includes probably trillions of galaxies, maybe an infinity of galaxies, since even light has its limits and can only reflect to us inside the confines of the space/time paradigm. What is actually out there past the edges of our present perceptions we do not have a clue. But mathematically we know that this infinity is merely engulfed by yet another infinity which is engulfed by yet another infinity. We also know that in the opposite direction that the energy spheres of molecules are but homes for the smaller energy spheres of atoms, which are but homes of the smaller energy spheres of sub atomic particles, which are but homes of smaller energy sphere we haven't really named yet, and on and on. These energy spheres probably exist into micro-infinite-infinities (plural) just as surely as there is the same toward the macro-infinities, and all of existence is an unfolding and enfolding, ever organically unfolding and enfolding beyond our comprehension. Okay then. What part of this macro and micro cosmology is not covered in "and all things seen and unseen?"
Father Tom speaks of the "mysterious waters" upon which the Holy Spirit brooded. "Hudor" in the Greek, the word had both literal and symbolic meaning. Not very much mysterious about it, except that we don't know exactly what the tellers of the story were trying to picture. Father Tom obviously needs it to be the primordial ooze of the Darwinists. I could not help but notice how much the Aurora Crown of Jupiter's north pole looked like the very Ikon of the Holy Spirit brooding over the waters. Not suggesting anything here just as a visual artist enjoying the image.
What I thought was a hint has turned into an assault. Father Tom actually says that 'there was the matter' without form and void and God "entered into it" and things began to happen. I'm sorry, I reject this. What is eternal, matter or God? The answer to that question governs whether or not you are pagan. Now Father Tom is NOT pagan, but to preclude "from nothing" from the Genesis story, would be like excluding the types and shadows grasped of the Holy Trinity's presence in the first words of Genesis. Just as certain as the writer could have had no way to communicate in his language, the abstraction of "creation from nothing" he also could have had no conception of the Holy Trinity.
I appreciate the way that Father Tom has brought the text to life, but I think this major point he is making is moot. I can say bluntly that God created and yet more that God sustains, that is the partial story of the biblical narrative vis a vis God and Creation. Not only does God sustain, he is in the process of renewing. That word "sustains" rings hollow and too close to the concept of "maintains" for my grasp of God's Creative energies and His ever-presence. God courses BEING into existence FROM NOTHING nano-second by nano-second (times to the infinite power) and holds NOTHING in common with Father Tom's previous cartoon of this stance where he mocked saying, "Some people have an idea of God's control of everything where God says, I think I'll let the leaf drop and the leaf drops. I think I'll let that bird die, and the bird dies." This truncation of the mental processes of the creator and sustainer of ALL THINGS SEEN and UNSEEN is in my view the ultimate anthropomorphizing of the massive power and intelligence that surely is the Creator, about whom nothing in our language may truly speak of Him, that is, concerning his essence, which is "wholly other" since that essence is outside of BEING. God not only courses being into existence from nothing, he is conscious of every energy in it, every human thought, emotion, every sub-atomic particle, every wisp of wind, and the slightest change of temperature. We move and breathe and have our being In Him, and we do it rightly when we are conscious of him in it all as he is conscious of each one of us.
What I thought was a hint has turned into an assault. Father Tom actually says that 'there was the matter' without form and void and God "entered into it" and things began to happen. I'm sorry, I reject this. What is eternal, matter or God? The answer to that question governs whether or not you are pagan. Now Father Tom is NOT pagan, but to preclude "from nothing" from the Genesis story, would be like excluding the types and shadows grasped of the Holy Trinity's presence in the first words of Genesis. Just as certain as the writer could have had no way to communicate in his language, the abstraction of "creation from nothing" he also could have had no conception of the Holy Trinity.
I appreciate the way that Father Tom has brought the text to life, but I think this major point he is making is moot. I can say bluntly that God created and yet more that God sustains, that is the partial story of the biblical narrative vis a vis God and Creation. Not only does God sustain, he is in the process of renewing. That word "sustains" rings hollow and too close to the concept of "maintains" for my grasp of God's Creative energies and His ever-presence. God courses BEING into existence FROM NOTHING nano-second by nano-second (times to the infinite power) and holds NOTHING in common with Father Tom's previous cartoon of this stance where he mocked saying, "Some people have an idea of God's control of everything where God says, I think I'll let the leaf drop and the leaf drops. I think I'll let that bird die, and the bird dies." This truncation of the mental processes of the creator and sustainer of ALL THINGS SEEN and UNSEEN is in my view the ultimate anthropomorphizing of the massive power and intelligence that surely is the Creator, about whom nothing in our language may truly speak of Him, that is, concerning his essence, which is "wholly other" since that essence is outside of BEING. God not only courses being into existence from nothing, he is conscious of every energy in it, every human thought, emotion, every sub-atomic particle, every wisp of wind, and the slightest change of temperature. We move and breathe and have our being In Him, and we do it rightly when we are conscious of him in it all as he is conscious of each one of us.
Father Tom, honestly is following the pattern of the pagans of the past (Fr Tom is Not a Pagan) but the pattern he is expounding is pagan, in that he is suggesting "autonomous energies" set in motion, as if God needs helpers. You can call these "autonomous energies" but still you are doing nothing more than reestablishing the cosmological hierarchies of the Gnostics and separating God from matter.
I have to view nothing more than the massive intelligence of my own bodily functions which HE designed, which function fully with little of my conscious effort, with massive complexity, sensors and enzymes and myriad chemicals and biological compounds, electrical and chemical systems and signals and electro-chemical signals, censor systems regulating and controlling every function of my biological life, and NONE of it functions without the Life Creating Energy with which HE ensouls (present active tense- ensouls me, not ensouled me), the which he lends to me nano-second by nano-second, and included in each nano-second of energy is his intelligence, his knowledge, his consciousness, now in this ETERNAL moment. I don't see how you can take this any other way without sinking into a degree or two of Deism. Now, Father Tom's cartoon expression of this might be God saying, "I think I'll give Father Symeon another heartbeat. And Father Symeon's heart beats a beat. I think I'll give Father Symeon yet one more heartbeat. And Father Symeon's heart beats yet another beat." Well, actually this is exactly what I believe. However, Father Tom's perception of it is at 33.3 RPM, or maybe the speed of a 19th century type-writer, when God's calculation of it is an infinitude of terabytes per nano-second to the power of infinity. His picture of this intelligence is a dismissive anthropomorphism, equating God's thought processes to our own. Now, he was not saying, he, Father Tom, thought that way, he was saying some people think that way. I think that way, and God returns the thought faster than the speed of light, with the complexity of eternity, and imbues me with Life.
By minute 20 Father Tom is sill making his case against the "from nothing" arguments of the opening passages of Genesis. Father Tom rightly states that the "Days in Genesis" are not our "earth rotation days." The days of Genesis could just as easily be eons, and I believe this is the better route to take.
Day One: In the first eon God called BEING into existence, and the earth "was without form and void." The Greek text, invisible and empty. Hebrew text, and the earth was "TOHU BOTU". Modern Hebrew scholars guess at what this means, they don't really have a clue. The only honest translation is to not translate it. But the earth was unseen and unready, and darkness was upon the abyss, and spirit of God bore upon the water. And during this eon something was added to this invisible emptiness and God made light to appear. This light had nothing to do with the light of the sun and he divided light and dark. This has to reference some energy, added to what he had made come INTO BEING - what he created that was then according to the clear syntax of the sentence, then acted upon. And not everything received the "light" since he divided the light from the darkness.
Day Two: Then in the next eon God caused dry land to appear.
Day Three: And the next eon God caused plant life to appear, commanding the EARTH to bring forth species of plant life with its self-generating seeds, each plant to reproduce itself.
One phrase that Father Tom repeated again and again in his presentation of both stories was the phrase, "each after its own kind." Even though he repeated this again and again, as it would be impossible to relate the Genesis stories without repeating it again and again, he didn't give it any emphasis. This is really the only legitimate debate possible with Darwinists and Evolutionists of all stripes. Just what is a "kind" and how much creative expression exists in a "kind" over time and in extreme challenges of environment That is the legitimate arena where real science and real Christianity can engage and discover understanding.
One phrase that Father Tom repeated again and again in his presentation of both stories was the phrase, "each after its own kind." Even though he repeated this again and again, as it would be impossible to relate the Genesis stories without repeating it again and again, he didn't give it any emphasis. This is really the only legitimate debate possible with Darwinists and Evolutionists of all stripes. Just what is a "kind" and how much creative expression exists in a "kind" over time and in extreme challenges of environment That is the legitimate arena where real science and real Christianity can engage and discover understanding.
Day Four: And the next eon to the energy of "light" that had given the ground the ability to produce plant life, was added the sun and the moon and the day and night we know.
Day Five: And the fifth eon God commanded the earth, the heavens and the waters to bring forth animal life.
Day Six: And the sixth eon God made man, and stamped his own image and likeness upon him and breathed life into him.
Day Seven: And the next eon God rested, but humankind did not. Humankind responded to God's command in this eon, to "increase" to "multiply" to "fill" and to "subdue" and to "take dominion over" the earth. "God gave them his blessing and said: Have a lot of children! Fill the earth with people and bring it under your control. Rule over the fish in the ocean, the birds in the sky, and every animal on the earth."
I believe this contains more weight and does no violence to the text or other statements in the scripture that God created from nothing. This frees the story from the tyranny of time. In fact the text itself frees it from the tyranny of specified time, since we know from a literal reading that these days of creation are not our "days," the 24 hours of the earth's rotation. And truthfully if we state that a "day" was an "eon" we have said nothing, because we haven't a clue what an eon is. We are merely saying that in an unspecified span of time for which we do not have a clear knowledge, God Created, THE GOD who created everything seen and unseen created, the God of History did these things. As to the exact processes he used, we have hints, "let the earth bring forth" but we still do not know. I think the original Hebrew language will not support this translation, "Let the earth" as if God is passive and some other force is acting.
Father Tom is right; it is right to study everything about being, every "thing" and every "energy", all we see and all we do not see. Today's science is light years ahead of what Father Tom calls "natural sciences" (the Darwinist paradigm) addressing the "culture" and "consciousness" of Darwinism. Sadly, to understand Darwinism at this late date is more an exercise in sociology and the hypnotic trends of modern culture, than an exercise in REAL anthropology. We now understand that there are patterns of energy on a micro and macro scale, that makes of us "a tiny dot of perception on the Master's sanctuary wall." And that is fine because the perception we own is who HE has made us.
I believe this contains more weight and does no violence to the text or other statements in the scripture that God created from nothing. This frees the story from the tyranny of time. In fact the text itself frees it from the tyranny of specified time, since we know from a literal reading that these days of creation are not our "days," the 24 hours of the earth's rotation. And truthfully if we state that a "day" was an "eon" we have said nothing, because we haven't a clue what an eon is. We are merely saying that in an unspecified span of time for which we do not have a clear knowledge, God Created, THE GOD who created everything seen and unseen created, the God of History did these things. As to the exact processes he used, we have hints, "let the earth bring forth" but we still do not know. I think the original Hebrew language will not support this translation, "Let the earth" as if God is passive and some other force is acting.
Father Tom is right; it is right to study everything about being, every "thing" and every "energy", all we see and all we do not see. Today's science is light years ahead of what Father Tom calls "natural sciences" (the Darwinist paradigm) addressing the "culture" and "consciousness" of Darwinism. Sadly, to understand Darwinism at this late date is more an exercise in sociology and the hypnotic trends of modern culture, than an exercise in REAL anthropology. We now understand that there are patterns of energy on a micro and macro scale, that makes of us "a tiny dot of perception on the Master's sanctuary wall." And that is fine because the perception we own is who HE has made us.
As to the idea of "from nothing" not finding full development until much later than the recording of the Genesis Oral Traditions, I say, so what? The writer in the paradigm of his language mindset could not have stated it any clearer. He in fact, he eliminated any other possibility.
II Maccabees is a condensed version of an earlier work by Jason of Cyrene the work was written between 160 to 180 BC. If the mother of the Maccabees children (II Maccabees) could make the statement about the "God who brought into existence all that exists out of nothing," what difference would it make that the concept of "creation out of nothing" might not have become fully formed until the late 300s A.D., nearly 500 years later? The question is, is this true? Did God create out of nothing and does the Genesis text actually allow for any other interpretation?
So using Father Tom's repetitive methods: To suggest that the nature of revelation has been expanding, as humans gained the capacity to comprehend, is correct. This is the record. Along with that expanded revelation of God has been an expanded understanding of the parameters of the nature of BEING. Yet the story was transmitted through Oral Tradition and two variations of the same story were written down and then combined, and what did the opening line of the great saga state? "In the Beginning, there was heaven and earth, and the earth was without form and invisible and darkness was upon the face of the abyss, then God created." NO. We can't make the text say that. Why not? Who or what is eternal? This is the very ground of all Paganism, the belief that matter was eternal and entities gods, struggled with each other and manipulated it. The fact that this was not clearly stated until x date and fully formed until y date means nothing. Christology, and the place of the Holy Spirit was not fully formed until the same era. Now, just as we clearly see God the Word and God the Holy Spirit present in ALL the texts of the Creation, so we see the fact that God Created out of nothing. Father Tom seems to be straining at a gnat to try to create the primordial ooze for the Darwinists, and one does not have to do violence to the text to see the possibility of the eons of time and the era when some creative energy operated upon the deep and caused the earth to bring forth plant life. But quite literally Father Tom has to reverse the order of the story to provide for the earth of preexistence upon which the Creator worked. Again, it would have to read, "In the beginning was the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the abyss and then God moulded something from what was preexisting." What could it possibly be that God created, that first day, if it was not the heavens and the earth, without form and empty, "TOHU BOTU". Are we going to quibble about the fact that the story tellers told the story in the cosmological terms they perceived at the time? We can see in the billions of galaxies the myriad examples of formless darkness that still exists with us today. And we would be correct to say that that initial WORD, "come to be" is still happening, we KNOW galaxies and worlds are still being formed.
II Maccabees is a condensed version of an earlier work by Jason of Cyrene the work was written between 160 to 180 BC. If the mother of the Maccabees children (II Maccabees) could make the statement about the "God who brought into existence all that exists out of nothing," what difference would it make that the concept of "creation out of nothing" might not have become fully formed until the late 300s A.D., nearly 500 years later? The question is, is this true? Did God create out of nothing and does the Genesis text actually allow for any other interpretation?
So using Father Tom's repetitive methods: To suggest that the nature of revelation has been expanding, as humans gained the capacity to comprehend, is correct. This is the record. Along with that expanded revelation of God has been an expanded understanding of the parameters of the nature of BEING. Yet the story was transmitted through Oral Tradition and two variations of the same story were written down and then combined, and what did the opening line of the great saga state? "In the Beginning, there was heaven and earth, and the earth was without form and invisible and darkness was upon the face of the abyss, then God created." NO. We can't make the text say that. Why not? Who or what is eternal? This is the very ground of all Paganism, the belief that matter was eternal and entities gods, struggled with each other and manipulated it. The fact that this was not clearly stated until x date and fully formed until y date means nothing. Christology, and the place of the Holy Spirit was not fully formed until the same era. Now, just as we clearly see God the Word and God the Holy Spirit present in ALL the texts of the Creation, so we see the fact that God Created out of nothing. Father Tom seems to be straining at a gnat to try to create the primordial ooze for the Darwinists, and one does not have to do violence to the text to see the possibility of the eons of time and the era when some creative energy operated upon the deep and caused the earth to bring forth plant life. But quite literally Father Tom has to reverse the order of the story to provide for the earth of preexistence upon which the Creator worked. Again, it would have to read, "In the beginning was the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the abyss and then God moulded something from what was preexisting." What could it possibly be that God created, that first day, if it was not the heavens and the earth, without form and empty, "TOHU BOTU". Are we going to quibble about the fact that the story tellers told the story in the cosmological terms they perceived at the time? We can see in the billions of galaxies the myriad examples of formless darkness that still exists with us today. And we would be correct to say that that initial WORD, "come to be" is still happening, we KNOW galaxies and worlds are still being formed.
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