Fortunately I don’t have a lot that needs clarifying. No doctrine of any kind. I think of it as God existing first and acting on matter to shape and guide it. It is doubtful that everything we see in the living world could have come about through random mutation alone even in the deep time we think the universe has had. But if everything we associate as coming from consciousness - including awareness and intention - has always existed that can be thought of as the mind of God. I liked this post from Fred_W on May 27 of this year while I was away from these forums:
Any valid comparison between what ‘God’s Word’ tells us and what ‘God’s Creation’ tells us must put both into the same form of interpretation. We do not interpret the Creation literally, we interpret it epistemically. Words are man-made and translation is interpretation by definition. Genesis must be given an epistemic translation. Such a translation would read, “In the beginning, God created space and matter. And the matter was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was vibrating over the fluid matter.” Seems to be amazingly accurate. Ancient Hebrew had no better words in its vocabulary to say that with the syntax found in Genesis.
In particular I like this way (my bolding) of understanding Genesis, not that I think my interpretation coincide’s with this member Fred’s idea. But I find it useful from my POV. One of the questions it addresses is the mind/body problem of how matter in any form gives rise to mind and how mind has any control over a material body. It isn’t a material explanation of anything but it does suggest how mind and matter could ever have gotten together. Science alone hasn’t been able to touch that one. Brains can be studied directly by science but not the consciousness which they support. If consciousness starts out as the mind of God then the paraphrase (translation?) contained in that quote makes a lot of sense. It isn’t a purely material explanation, but who expects that regarding anything to do with God?