God is spirit, and energy is physical? God’s power is not something you can measure.
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Correct an Actual infinite cannot be measured, a potential can be measured.
I believe energy is the ability to do work. It’s not material. God is Spirit which is the infinite actuality of energy. An infinite actuality of energy, can do all things, is immeasurable, unapproachable ,unbounded, unchanging and allows for only itself. A power that could melt the entire universe instantaneously as Peter suggests. How can a God like that create anything? we have a three possibilities.
- A pantheists unites the energy, hence they conclude all things are God.
- Classical theist separate the energy totally and state all things are not God.
- I’m suggesting a middle way, a total separation of energy yet in God and claim All things are In Him not of Him.
I think this is what the bible is teaching. Gen 1,2 describes a worldless creation (Gods self removal, crucifixion) creating a juxtaposition within God. Space (heavens, a nothing) is the opposite of full, earth is the dead body of Christ under the chaos waters of death. All things which the universe was formed come from the juxtaposed earth contained in a space. Gen 1vs1-2, was only possible by the work of Christ on the cross. Christ accomplished more on the cross than redemption. He accomplished a particular redemption within a universal creation!
Genesis 3- and following describe a resurrection, Light from darkness, forms Life from Death.
Jesus work is the “way opener” for all things to exist in God and not be of God.
That’s why I think reading Genesis as metaphysical gospel truth is the best way forward to unite Christian Faith and Science. It also provides evangelistic opportunities as Christ work is the focus. God brings Life out of Death. Just like the creation narrative, in Christ so to you can be raised to life in Christ, so trust in Him!
so much more productive than arguing over firmaments, days ect. 
It is physical though, including the physics of potential energy.
What does that mean? How does it connect the spiritual realm with the physical? I see no relation.
An actual Infinite energy melts physics, matter, strings, vibrations 
. It simply just is. It is unbounded, there is no space in which any change can occur. No space, no material, no time. it’s not physical as embodied or measurable, but it is real, unbounded ability that can do things. It cannot be placed in correspondence with anything but itself.
I’m not totally sure, I’m trying to figure it out! LOL
classical theistic presupposition of God doesn’t allow for the connection. The two cannot unite, they are wholly independent in that model. God and energy are viewed as two separate things. That is also the problem with the classical theistic presupposition. It separates God from his ability to work. It cannot explain clearly how God works (ability of energy). The opposite extreme position suggests Gods energy and the universe are the same thing and thus he can easily control all things directly Of himself. Hard determinists are pantheistic. Calvin was aware of this.
in more familiar terms a middle position would be that of Compatibilism, meaning, our freedom is real (we own our actions), but this freedom exists within the determinative will of God without contradiction. I am applying the same middle position to ontology/ energy and the creation of the universe. This mid position would be described as panentheism, or all things in God but yet separated by something without contradiction. This position only has explanatory power with Christ as the center. Hence Chrisenthesim. The union is his incarnation, the separation is his death. All things are somehow held together by the work of Christ in the middle.
Obviously a work in progress!
Cantors Infinite set theory mathematically proves the distinction, between Actual and potential infinites, The actual cannot be counted the potential can. His work started me thinking this way. https://youtu.be/UPA3bwVVzGI
I certainly believe in God’s ‘actual omnipotence’ along with his other ‘omni-‘ attributes, but I’m not seeing what you’ve gained by an esoteric (as in abstruse 
) definition that does not communicate, at least not to me. The way he exercises the aforementioned attribute and the ones I alluded to is not something I expect that we are going to be able to get a handle on, since they are in essence miraculous.
How is ‘actual infinite energy’ different from ‘actual omnipotence’? The latter is willed in execution and the former not? But then we could talk about God’s will with respect to his omnitemporallity, and that would have implications about ‘actual infinite energy’ being unwilled.
just found this quote
“We don’t rightly understand anything until we understand its connection with Jesus Christ.”
St. Augustine
I don’t see any difference. They are the same.
One interesting thought, God doesn’t need the creation in order to create! He is eternally creating, the eternally begotten Son. That Actual omnipotence is expressed in the eternal Son regardless of the creation. That appears to me why there is such a strong link in scripture between the son and creation. God is Changeless. If we hold this as true we cannot say creation is something new to God, a change in God (not allowed), So in some sence Christ and creation are in union, yet separated from God. The only metaphysical separation I can see between Creation and God is the cross. And yes Omnitemporality like Compatibilism is the only way. Again that’s a middle position affirming Both in and out of time yet no contradictions.
You just made God’s existence of the same order of the existence of a rock. Infinities don’t work the way you’re saying.
God’s infiniteness is not a physical one; there wasn’t anything physical until He called it into existence. “God is spirit”, and always has been, and spirit doesn’t require any volume for it to exist in.
You’re confusing God with Creation again: God’s energies are not the energies of the universe.
Nor is omnipotence “infinite energy”: the word in Greek is Παντοκράτωρ, “Pantokrator”, and it doesn’t mean God has infinite energy, it just means that all the power and authority that exist are His.
Not so – in an infinite universe, there can be an infinite amount of water along with an infinite number of buckets. It’s just like with the number line: the set of all integers is infinite in size, and the set of all non-whole fractions is infinite in size, and yet both are infinite subsets of the set of all rational numbers.
No, it was Jesus deciding the job was done. The scripture doesn’t say that the Father caused the Son’s death, it says “When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished.” And bowing His head, He yielded up the spirit.”
The entire passage depends on πρωτότοκος meaning “opener of the way”: here’s Paul’s opening and under it all the phrases that connect with “opener of the way” –
firstborn over all creation.
- in Him all things were created
- All things were created through Him and for Him
- He is before all things
- in Him all things hold together
Each of those four is an aspect of being “opener of the way”, but not of “firstborn” as in offspring.
The concluding paragraph of that article rests on Lightfoot, and ignores previous statements in the same article, for example:
In the New Testament usage, the emphasis is placed not on the tokos but instead upon the protos. The word stresses superiority and priority rather than origin or birth.
The original meaning of the word is giving birth for the first time. Later it came to mean the first-born or first in rank. This is the N. T. meaning. In the N. T. the -tokos element is clearly implied only in Luke 2:7
(emphasis mine)
Given that Paul here is likely writing against some Gnostics, the philosophical meaning is to be preferred even if the context didn’t support it!
BTW, Lightfoot is wrong in several ways here:
In context the term cannot refer “to the Eternal Word” but “not to the Incarnate Christ”; Cyril of Alexandria would be admonishing Lightfoot to steer away from heresy because “Eternal Word” and “Incarnate Christ” are the same Person, the one Person of the Logos made flesh. Thus “Incarnate Christ” cannot be a reference to “the humanity of our Lord” because the one Person of the Logos made flesh is the Incarnate Christ.
For Paul goes on to say of the same One, “And He is the head of the body, the church”, which refers to the Ascended Logos made flesh.
Well of course Genesis wouldn’t say that, because it is concerned with God’s actions in time, not from the perspective of eternity!
What I mean is that events in the timeline as perceived by fallen humans do not necessarily match the events from an eternal perspective.
There’s no circularity unless you insist that the timeline of existence as we fallen humans perceive it trumps the eternal. From the eternal perspective there is no problem with the first moment of existence being at the Annunciation when by God’s word through Gabriel the Eternal Logos became flesh as a single cell in the Virgin’s womb. Just as Jesus being the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world isn’t a problem (and isn’t merely anticipatory), Jesus being made flesh before the foundation of the world isn’t a problem unless we insist that the fallen human perspective is the true perspective.
Whatever the case regarding that, Jesus is still called the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, which meant that God’s plan always included Incarnation and death.
Says who? Why is “dark, chaos, void” necessarily “negative”?
In fact given the polemic nature of the account, they can’t be! Darkness and chaos as negative was an aspect of Egyptian religion; the polemical point of the Genesis writer is to stand all that on its head.
I don’t think the scriptures tell us about any such God,
That isn’t what the scripture says – it says that He Himself is the Πρωτότοκος, the Proto-tokos, the “way opener”. Since He does not change, He was always the Prototokos, even prior to Creation, and it is thus His capacity to take on the material that made material existence possible – not His work, but He Himself.
I don’t see that it’s more productive at all, since it skips the critical element of reading the first Genesis Creation account as the ancient literature it is-- an account of the mighty accomplishment of a great King, an account of the establishment and filling and inauguration of the Earth as God’s temple, and a polemical crush-job taking down Egyptian and ANE deities and showing them as nothing but things created by YHWH-Elohim.
That’s an invented problem – systematic theology has never had an issue with it at all: as Genesis 1 sets forth, God works through His Word.
You mention Cantor and set theory; but Cantor’s work on sets shows that an infinite set can contain another infinite set – without having to “reduce” itself at all. The set of positive integers contains the set of integers divisible by three, and the set of prime integers, and even though all three of those have the same cardinality the latter two are subsets of the first – thus showing that an infinity can have another infinity within it. Indeed Augustine said something along those lines, that God created from Himself, yet not as though He was diminishing Himself but rather was remaining Himself while making that which is not Himself.
Especially pointed since the two are not the same: actual omnipotence does not require infinite energy.
CAREFUL! “Creating” and “begetting” are two different things; as the Creed puts it, the Son is “begotten, NOT made”, i.e. not created.
Firstly, Troy, of course I agree that God is an actual infinite being and the greatest possible being. One of his defining characteristics is that he is self-existent, unlike all his creation which depends on him not only for the first moment of existence but also for every continuing moment because he gave his creatures contingent being, not self-existence. This is the great flaw in atheism and in the thinking of its scientific apologists (e.g. Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Victor Stenger, etc. etc.) viz. a failure to distinguish between true nothingness and existence. Any change from one state to another state require a potentiality which is actualised by some energy or force, but a state of true nothingness has no potentiality to change and is the total antithesis from the pure being which is God. That’s why the atheists’ philosophical argument fails miserably because once they have admitted that the existence of the universe requires explanation because it is clearly not self-existent. So they finish up as Lawrence did in his book ‘A Universe from Nothing’ with a pre-universe state of affairs from which our universe emerges which includes a space-time vacuum with quantum activity which is of course nothing at all like nothing, as philosopher David Albert and cosmologist George Ellis have pointed out with devastating scorn.
This is the nothing of which I spoke and it most certainly has not been created by God. And this ‘nothing’ is most certainly not God’s self-removal from the cross. I’m deeply puzzled why your persist with this idea. The incarnate God, Jesus Christ, gave up his spirit on the cross and descended into the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. Why do you think this creates an ontological vacuum? What scriptural justification can you advance for this hypothesis?
Great point. Agree
I
I suggest it can do both! it defeats local ancient Gods and can also defeat our present day Greek gods of philosophy as well. I would suggest the NT union of the creation narrative and Christ’s work an evangelistic tool toward the greek culture same as in Moses time. Christ is the wisdom the Greeks have been seeking. Christ solves both the Jewish dilemma, atonement for sins, but also the Greek dilemma, existence
“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” Colossians 2:8,
I stand corrected again you are right.
“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” (John 10:18)
My main point was death was not of human cause but divine,Jesus/ God decides to be incarnate, die and resurrect by his own will. Outcomes are natural, real human lives and dies and lives again.
I’m trying to read the Genesis narrative as Gospel truth. That is the point of the discussion. How could one read the genesis narrative as gospel?. I’m suggesting that is the best way forward for the discussion of Christian faith and science.
Terry I have to thank you, Ontological Vacuum!! exactly the phrase I’m looking for!! That’s what space is. My primary proof text is Genesis 1vs1,2. The wordless creation of space, with the qualities of dark, chaos and desolation. Accurate description of Death. Then God Forms Light, Order and Life, A resurrection!
God created this vacuum a space, we exist in this space. In the beginning he created The Heavens (Vacuum, space) and earth. The singularity called earth can be viewed as a sacramental description of Jesus, Body (earth) Blood (water). If you want it to be allegorical fine. Im suggesting possibly more metaphysical/philosophical even reality. BTW this view helps clarify transubstantiation.
Why am I insisting? , because to create a vacuum you have to remove something.
If God is an Actual Infinite, He is an All in All a completed totality (the greatest being). Then self removal is the only logical way to create anything.
The problem with God as a completed infinity is that pantheism is unavoidable. The cross opens a way into actual infinitive without a modal collapse (all is of God). If the cross has created an ontological vacuum, we can say Jesus is the way to be IN God but not OF God
Cantor was a Christian who’s set theory was derived from his belief in the actual infinitive. he said
“The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds.”
His mathematical instinct was ridiculed since the time of the greeks, as the suggestion of the actual infinite would destroy mathematics. He proved everyone false. the potential can exist within the actual without destruction.
Joseph Warren Dauben in his 1979 piece on Cantor stated “A typical argument used by Aristotle and by the scholastics involved the “annihilation of number.” Were the infinite admitted, it was said that finite numbers would be swallowed up by any infinite number or magnitude. For example, given any two finite numbers a and b, both greater than zero, their sum a + b > a, a + b > b. However, if b were infinite, no matter what finite value a might assume, a + 
I’m simply using Cantor set theory and applying it to theology. The potential Universe is held together and not destroyed by Gods totality because of Christ work.
“All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3)
John 6:51…… And the bread that I will give for the life of the Cosmos is my flesh.”
John 14:20 “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
Mark 10:27 Jesus said, “ with man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”
Here we see the solution to the One (all in all ) and the Many (all things) God makes this impossible paradox possible thru the work of Jesus Christ.
Christianity has an answer for the Greek mind, The cross of Christ. The Christian gospel reconciles the two fundamental questions of reality; religion and rationalism (faith and science). This Gospel duality manifests itself as a religious good news to the Jews and an ontological good news to the Greeks. The apostle Paul explains “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:21). These seemingly opposed viewpoints, religion and rationalism find their true satisfaction and unity in Christianity.
Yes correct (honestly I’m no mathematician) but Cantors simple proof got me thinking about all this.
Cantor proved a distinction between potential or countably infinite (natural numbers, whole numbers, integers, and rational numbers), and the actual infinitive numbers which cannot be counted (real numbers). This simple but profound proof establishes there are greater and lesser infinities! God being Actual in his nature deserves the same distinction. He cannot be placed in correspondence with anything but himself (he is a completed totality). And if this is the case how can we escape pantheism. The only solution is that the potential (created things) are somehow justified within the actual and maintained as separated. The question becomes what justifies our potential existence in a actual and how.
Strong’s exhaustive “From an unused root meaning to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), that is, desert; figuratively a worthless thing; adverbially in vain: - confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, (thing of) nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness. From an unused root (meaning to be empty); a vacuity, that is, (superficially) an undistinguishable ruin: - emptiness, void. The dark; hence (literally) darkness; figuratively misery, Destruction, Death, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness: darkness, Night, Obscurity.”
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. ([Isaiah 5:20]
I can’ t call those initial conditions good by any measure. And Gods power only produces Good. So how can he apply power and get this state above, I see only two options.
- The stated negative initial condition is somehow “Good”. Formed by Gods good power. (classical presupposition)
or - God can create something by privation of power, then form good out of that " I form ( by input power) light and create (by privation) darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things. (Isa 45:7)
God is light. A privation of light creates darkness, a privation of order creates chaos, a privation of life creates death.
This negative state is the ontological separation between us and God, this state defeats pantheism by utter juxtaposition. It establishes His Holiness. Isa 48:11 “… I will not give my glory unto another”. But God forms potential and increasing Good from this negative foundational essence. If we can grant this initial negative state we have also created a stable theodicy. If the essence of all things is negative, we would expect negative in creation (chaos, desolation, darkness).
day and night world
snake in the garden world
ignorance to wisdom world
darkness to light world.
death to life world
A call for humanity to subdue the earth and devil world
On the other hand we are not tossed into eternal ontological separation either. All things are In Christ, nothing created without him. So the initial negative state can only be the death of Christ. Hence “all things” arrive safely IN God (In Christ) , yet Not Of God (ontological juxtaposition by privation). “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the cosmos.” (Hebrews 1:2)
That is superbly put! I’m going to have to try to remember it.
I think Krauss may have been on the discussion panel with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and some others on an Asimov symposium where the topic was “Nothing”. It was a fascinating discussion as they tried to differentiate between different meanings and pin down what each one meant by the word.
[I think this is the one I’m thinking of: https://youtu.be/1OLz6uUuMp8
I watched it a few years ago and immediately went back to the start and listened again.]
Except this is a misunderstanding of infinities! “To create a vacuum” merely requires the initiation of a new universe, a new infinity. Recall that our universe is currently expanding, and it doesn’t need anything to expand into.
Sorry, but the Hebrew “שָּׁמַ֖יִם” includes all the stars (and galaxies) along with the realm of the heavenly court (and in Jewish lore it also includes the Garden of Eden [it got removed from the Earth and is now Paradise], the throne room of God, and a couple of other distinct realms) – you can’t just decide it’s a vacuum.
Nor does the text allow for such a vacuum; the universe is immediately presented as “the deep”, a concept of water that has no bottom or border (later as a great reservoir of dark, chaotic waters [that, for example, God tapped for the Flood]). [note: whether or not the deep is scary differs between ancient writers; I stand with those who hold the deep and darkness are only scary because of human limitations]
BTW, a bit of trivia about infinities: it is possible to have a container with an infinite surface area but a finite volume – in introductory calculus courses this is sometimes brought in as a container that can’t hold enough paint to paint its exterior.
Please note that the negative meanings are all figurative. I don’t see any reason in the text to take them figuratively here.
My measure is the text, and nothing in the text indicates that they are to be taken negatively.
This also mixes the figurative with the objective.
You have yet to reference a text where this is the case, and it’s still contrary to Colossians where the Son is the Way-Opener. It is in His capacity to take on flesh that we find the root of Creation.
No, I’m not saying our timeline trumps the eternal, whatever that means. I’m saying that our timeline is real and has resulted from the eternal God’s creation as expressed in both scriptural and scientific terms. In scripture, this history has a beginning and is ongoing and has passed through the events of Christ’s incarnation and redemptive work culminating in Calvary and resurrection. Science theorises that the universe began with Big Bang and that our history is taking place 14.3 billion years later.
In scripture, you (and Troy) only have to compare Gen. 1:1 with Luke 1:35 to know that the two are separate events, not one event. Of course they are related, but contrary to your (tongue in cheek?) claim to be able to see events from an eternal perspective (!), conflating them creates a huge logical dilemma which you apparently do not see. Scriptural history traces the story of mankind from the Garden of Eden to Mary’s parental home in Nazareth and tells us of the Archangel Gabriel’s annunciation of her impending motherhood of the One who will be called Son of God. As soon as she says yes, Christ is implanted in her womb. If this is the first moment of creation then where has the prior 14.3 billion years of creation’s history gone? The fact that God sees everything in the created timeline from his eternal perspective doesn’t mean you can simply wipe out all history prior to the Incarnation on the basis of God’s eternal nature because we know from scripture that God himself willed this history to happen. Nor can your say that God created all the prior history at the moment of the Incarnation because that would inter alia mean that he had created all the sin which caused the Incarnation to happen in the first place. Unless you can address this conundrum, your hypothesis has no substance.
What you can reasonably propose is that God created heaven and earth in order to accomplish the salvation of sinful men in due course, but then you have to wonder why God choose to create such a mind-blowingly prodigious ever-expanding universe as ours if that was the limit of his creative ambition. This is why I am inclined to believe that there are pockets of intelligent life throughout the universe who have also been confronted with the same fundamental choice between God’s friendship and self-regard and who may need a Saviour if they fail the test. (Incidentally, have you heard recent reports that the Americans have kept secret their discovery of landed or crashed alien craft with alien pilots still in them?)
I’m sure that St. Paul would be astonished by your treatment of his use in Colossians 1:15-20 of what many scholars see as an early Christian poem or hymn designed to counter false teachers in the church in Colossae who challenged the pre-eminence and supremacy of Christ. The first part of the passage is clearly about Christ as Son of God, image of the Father through whom all things were created, and reminiscent of the first verses of John’s gospel. The second equally clearly speaks of the incarnate Son Jesus Christ who was born of the Holy Spirit from the beginning of his earthly life and was the first both in time and in dignity to do so. All mankind then had the opportunity to come to new life through their reception of the Spirit. The term consistently used in scripture is “first born” - I looked at 10 translations of Col. 1:15-20 - and “way-opener” appears nowhere.
On the subject of Lightfoot, an eminent Greek and biblical scholar, I quoted his review of the early Fathers of the Church in which he stated he had found unanimity among them that in the vital context of creation (as opposed to Christ’s relationship to the Church, etc.) ‘protokos’ in Colossian 1 refers to the pre-incarnate Son of God, not to the incarnate Christ. Frankly, I’m surprised you feel able to say he was wrong. Others in the article make the same point.
Why is the interpretation of the Fathers important? As the article says: “Another clear clue as to the meaning of prototokos in the days of the New Testament is the manner in which the early church Fathers used and interpreted it. Since these Fathers spoke and read Greek, and lived in the same culture to which Paul and the Apostles wrote their letters, their interpretation and understanding of prototokos is important.”
There are other matters I could take issue with, but this has already been too long, so I look forward to your comments.
Ok, My main point is that
-
Pantheism affirms Gods Actuality, but denies His holiness
All things are of God -
Classical Theism Affirms Gods Holiness but denies His Actuality
All things are not of God -
I’m seeing a middle way, that affirms God Holiness and Actuality.
All things are In God but not Of God.
your being consistent with the classical position #2 which is fine
I’m trying to develop position #3
Its a empty space first God then fills later with stars in the text.
Position number 3 would say we are expanding into God. A potential Infinity expanding into a Actual Infinite. Whereby our expansion doesn’t change God, just Like Hilbert’s hotel paradox.
interesting …
Maybe I haven’t been paying close enough attention (and/or senior memory is evidenced ), but I missed that! What is ‘denying his actuality’ (example, please), and what kinds of things ‘are not of God’?
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I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.” (Ecc 3:14,15)
God views the entirety of time as a single instance, Gods power is greater than the flow of time. Jesus work in our world Has universal implications forward and backward in time. His atonement covers sins past present and future. All sins of the elect are paid for in full at the cross, that is my understanding. Before I was born my sins where covered by Jesus blood in Gods view.
Romans 8-29 "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined (before time ) , he also called (In time) ; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified (Future Time)
I am suggesting the power to Create the universe was also a necessary work of Christ. He accomplished the particular redemption of His people while also creating the universe. No Jesus, No universe. God’s creative work occurs In dark places. I’m suggesting these three awesome events are spatial temporally entangled.
- The dark of creation in Genesis 1 vs 1-2
- The dark waters of Mary’s womb
- The dark desolation of the cross. Darkness covered the land when he died Luke 23:44 and placed in dark tomb
The classical position would assert God does not have actual infinitive energy (ability to do work). It would assert God created energy from nothing. All things are made from energy. So all things are not Of God. God and everything Is eternally separated. This position asserts God is Holy not Actual. No actual energy created everything from nothing.
I’m seeking a different approach. God is Holy and Actual, The creation is through Jesus the eternal actuality of God. But to avoid pantheism we need a juxtaposition of Gods energy not the living Jesus, The crucified lord. His death. That’s why I’m insisting on the cross as the essence of creation, The Son is placed in a juxtaposed state, Jesus is Light, Ordered, and Alive. The initial creation is Dark, Chaotic and dead. All things are then formed from this juxtaposition. We can honor both Gods Actuality and His Holiness. All things Made through the work of Jesus and are held together in him. The Cross was plan A. It created a universe and redeemed a people.
“Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.” (Jeremiah 32:17)
Of Jesus it is said
He is thrust from light into darkness, and driven out of the world. (Job 18:18)
“to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be lighted with the light of life.” (Job 33:30)
“And the same one who descended (death) is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.” (Ephesians 4:10)]
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24) this means a people and a universe.
The Nicene Creed states; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God,] Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; By whom all things were made [both in heaven and on earth];