The Creator
That some entity created all there is, meaning the entire universe, is unimaginable.
It has been postulated that the universe just is, that it exists with no Creator necessary, that the universe is simply the fundamental reality, without need for a Creator, a first cause. No god or goddess, no Mind, no Consciousness, no Singularity, no Strings attached—it is what it is.
Of course, this leaves a lot to be explained, if indeed, there is something that needs explaining. Maybe acceptance of such an ultimate reality is as close to actualization as a human being can get. But is this a mindset placed by God?
The history of humankind, what little we know of it, illustrates that most of us on the planet have a sense of a Being, often called God, or called something else but with the same essence. Does this prove there is a God? Certainly not! We can all be completely wrong.
A Major Confrontation
Some time in the past a series of legends or generational stories began circulating among an ancient people known as the A’bru.[1] Eventually, they were committed to writing during the time of Moses, in the mid-second millennium before the common era, a date of approximately 1500 BCE.
The earliest accounts of these are recorded in the book called the Hebrew Bible. There are multiple versions of what we refer to as “creation accounts” in the first book of this Bible.[2] One begins in Genesis 1:1 and runs through Genesis 2:3.[3] Here the word for the Creator is transliterated as Elohim or El.[4]
The second account begins at Genesis 2:4 and runs through Genesis 3:24 or 4:26, depending on one’s view. The third is merely the first two verses of chapter 5:
This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. (Genesis 5:1-2)
The first account reads: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). “Beginning” is assumed to mean the creation of the universe, since the passage goes on to describe, blow by blow, how all there is came to be. An ancient and poetic description of the process may be seen in the account, yet the basics are plain. Verse 27 says: “So God created man in his own mage, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” This verse is very similar to that of Genesis 5:1-2 quoted above.
The second account translates the Hebrew Yahweh as God, thus distinguishing this account from the first. The first is thought to be the oldest of the three, because the word Yahweh came into use during the time of Moses, as is evident from Exodus chapter 3. The first verse of the second creation account is: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD[5] God made the earth and the heavens” (Genesis 2:4).
The Creator
It all starts with the Creator. Either there is a Creator, or all of existence is a mystery.
How does one know what is what? Ecclesiastes 3:11 gives a credible answer:
He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Solomon, the likely author of the verse, stated poetically the human condition that resonates with us, because we have an awareness of the truth expressed. However, all we need to do is look around us at the world in which we live to see something supremely gigantic and quite preposterous yet real, which tells us there is more than the eye can see.
Theologians call this “general revelation,” and it is shared by all human beings. This may explain why history confirms that human beings have always had a “god sense” about them that turns into religion. Yet, there is a built-in limit.
In the eighth century before the common era, the prophet Isaiah clouded the waters. Yahweh, the personal name of the God of Israel—the El or Elohim—revealed to Isaiah the following:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Mystery indeed! Eternity is placed into humans, but there is a limitation placed there by the Creator.
Adam and Eve
Whether one
believes in a literal Adam and Eve is irrelevant, at least to many of us Bible
believers. I myself do believe in an actual Adam and Eve who were the first
truly human creatures and that they did not evolve from lower or more ancient organic
forms. In addition, I suspect their creation to be rather recent, as geological
time goes. My sense is that the evolutionary process implanted into all living
forms simply could not develop a creature made in God’s image. And we will
continue the concept of “image” in the next chapter.
[1] A’bru is only an approximate spelling. In time the word Hebrew was used to denote this primitive middle eastern tribe whose origins are unknown.
[2] Some insist there is only one creation account, others say three. I am among the latter.
[3] The chapter and verse designations were added during the common era, about mid 2nd millennium. Some errors were made in assigning verse numbers, as is obvious to those who study the Scripture.
[4] To transliterate is to use, as here, English letter equivalents for Hebrew letters.
[5] The large and small caps combination of “LORD” indicates the underlying Hebrew word is Yahweh.