The first day of creation: things we are never going to understand

Genesis 1:2 The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day. (World English Bible, public domain)

There are plenty of possible questions about this passage, such as about how literally to take it, but I’d rather not explore the questions of what “day” means, and other such matters, important as they might be. I have some other questions in mind, questions that we will never understand in this life, and maybe not in the next one. We can, and may, have opinions about them, but the opinions are not strongly backed by the Scripture, or are not covered at all in the Bible, and Genesis 1 is interpreted in different ways by different people. For more on scriptural interpretation, see this post.

Questions:
If God spoke light into existence, what language did He use?
Does God, in this passage, mean God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, or some combination of them?
Who did God speak to?
If He/They spoke to some other entity, who was it, and why was this said?
Did angels, or some other entity, actually create the light, at God’s command?
Was the creation of light preceded (whatever preceded  means to an eternal God!) by planning?
Was the entire electromagnetic spectrum, of which light is only a small part, created at once?
Did the creation of light cost God effort or resources of some sort?
Does this passage actually refer to the creation of the sun, or was that created later?
Was there light elsewhere in the universe, but not on earth, or, on the other hand, was the light created for the earth, or perhaps for the solar system, spread throughout the universe somehow, after this initial creation?
Was light created from something else?

Interesting questions. (There are more questions about origins in this post -- toward the end.) I have no answers. Thanks for reading.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 7

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not.
The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say “if you please” to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health. As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here.  Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Sunspots 413

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: ". . . if we think we have truly understood God, even if we think so because we can quote a bunch of Bible verses, we are most likely making a fool of ourselves without knowing it. We know what God is like.  We know how God has chosen to act in this universe. Anything more requires poetry and quotation marks." Ken Schenck, "Practical Theology 3: God as Other."

Computing: I don't have an iPhone, but, for those who do, and there are a lot of you, check out Gizmo's Freeware's list of the best free iPhone Apps.

Humor: (Not really, but I don't have a category for this!) Fox News has an article, with photos, on 7 record-breaking tunnels, all used for transportation. Interesting, indeed.

Science: A solid piece of writing, at the BioLogos Forum, on the question of whether scientists are biased by their worldviews. It can happen, of course.

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Paul in Ephesians 1

Ephesians 1:15 For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which you have toward all the saints, 1:16 don’t cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, 1:17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; 1:18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 1:19 and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might 1:20 which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, 1:21 far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. 1:22 He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things for the assembly, 1:23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (WEB)

Paul does not pray for the physical health of the church in Ephesus, for their financial situation, nor that they won't be persecuted, nor that they will be effective evangelists. He prays that they might have a fuller understanding of the work of Christ! How often do I pray for that, for someone else? How often does someone else pray that for me?

This is the fourth in a series of posts on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here.

Thanks for reading. Pray effectively, for the right things.

God's Intelligent Design

Proverbs 3:19 The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
by understanding he established the heavens; (Quotations from the ESV)

Jeremiah 10:12 It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

Jeremiah 51:15 has exactly the same wording as Jeremiah 10:12.

These passages are not written as scientific descriptions, nor even, probably, as historical descriptions, but they are faith statements. The authors believed that God purposely brought about the way things are, and that only an infinitely wise and understanding God could have done it. In other words, these writers believed in an intelligent Designer. I do, too. (However, I have indicated, elsewhere, my problems with the Intelligent Design movement, if you care to read about them.)

Thanks for reading. Praise the Creator!

Knowledge and Understanding

"That is one of the pet falsehoods of your world! Is man's greatest knowledge more than a little? or is it therefore dangerous? The fancy that knowledge is in itself a great thing, would make any degree of knowledge more dangerous than any amount of ignorance. To know all things would not be greatness." George MacDonald, Lilith (public domain, 1895) Chapter XXVIII

The fact is, no man understands anything; when he knows he does not understand, that is his first tottering step--not toward understanding, but toward the capability of one day understanding. George MacDonald, Lilith (public domain, 1895) Chapter XXX

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) is one of two novels by Ursula K. Le Guin to be honored with both the Nebula and Hugo awards. (The other is The Dispossessed.) The first link in this paragraph is to the Wikipedia article on the novel, which discusses some of its aspects. I shall muse about some, too.

The novel gained notoriety because it described a race or species of humans who had no permanent sexual orientation. For most of the time, they are neither male or female. For a few days of each cycle, their sexual organs develop, and they experience intense sexual desire. They may become either male or female, depending on environmental cues. This makes such sentences as "the king was pregnant" possible. It allowed Le Guin to explore the importance of sexual roles in our own society, and to speculate about this fictional one, which lacked them. It also, by implication, examined the way the English language deals with such roles. (In case any one is interested, the novel is not about heavy breathing and ripping off clothing.)

In spite of our interest in sexual roles, and of the excellence of Le Guin's imagination, I submit that the novel is really about a more fundamental issue, communication and understanding.

The Ekumen is a loose organization of civilizations on many planets. When Gethen, where the novel takes place, is discovered, it sends individuals to Gethen, to learn as much as they can about life on this planet. These people are unobtrusive, and their origin was not discovered by the Gethenians. Then, Genly Ai, a dark-skinned male from Earth, is sent publicly, as the first Envoy from the Ekumen. It is his job to obtain permission to bring down the other personnel of his mission from the Gethenians, who are in stasis near the planet, and to start them on the road to joining the Ekumen. To do this, he must communicate in two languages not his own, with cultures not his own, and to beings whose gender orientation is not his. The cultural difference includes shifgrethor, a social fabric which the Envoy doesn't understand fully. It is something like face saving. He stands out physically, because he taller and darker than most Gethenians, and is in permanent kemmer, or sexual readiness. Genly Ai must use all his skills to communicate with the Gethenians, to understand them, and for them to be able to reciprocate.

The Ekumen wants Gethen to join it primarily so that communication of ideas will be possible. Gethen is seventeen light years from the nearest member planet, so trade will not be practical.

Genly Ai communicates with a number of persons, including the King of Karhide, one of the nations of Gethen, with some of the political leaders of Orgeryn, a rival nation, with many ordinary folk, and especially with Estraven, who is prime minister of Karhide as the book begins. It develops that, of all the leaders, only Estraven has really understood his mission, and the implications of it.

Gethen, or Winter, is a cold planet. Le Guin has done a superb job of describing how this fact influences eating, dress, transportation, and architecture, and of describing the weather and the climate. The cold of Gethen makes several parts of the book possible, especially an epic journey across the ice by Estraven and Genly Ai. During this trek, they learn to communicate telepathically.

One aspect of communication is the ansible. Using this, the Envoy tries to convince King Argaven that he really is an ambassador from other worlds. Argaven asks Genly Ai to ask the Ekumen what makes a man a traitor (he considers Estraven one). The Ekumen attempts to answer, across interstellar space, but the answer is no better than he could have obtained on Gethen.

Finally, a little on the structure of the novel. Much of it is Genly Ai's journal, or recollections. Much of it is Estraven's journal, sometimes giving a different viewpoint of the same events. There are also other viewpoints.

The only way to really grasp this great novel is to read it. And, although it is easily readable, it should be read more than once.

I plan to post again on this book. Thanks for reading.

A subsequent post considers religion in this novel.