How was this world created?

Faith & Science Conversation
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Can someone explain in a logical non contradictory fashion how the world was created?

Perhaps with some insight of science?

I don’t get the separating the expanse of water above (sky) and below.

Why is the sky called water when its not water. If we assume the Book ought to be taken in context of the period it was written, wouldn’t a divine spirit write in a way that either forward looking (scientifically) or at least in a way that stands the test of time scientifically? (Ie. Shouldn’t have written water above but rather should have written the areas above and below so that it’s integrity stands either way).

Thanks, :blush:

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The main reason I know of why it would make sense to write it that way is that’s what everyone believed at the time, and if you told them otherwise, it would seem implausible to them. Thus, we must keep in mind that some phraseology has a specifically ancient audience in mind.

Before I go any further, I should specify that I am a paleontologist who has studied other areas of science, and am not an expert on the ancient near east.

My thoughts on how the world was created are basically the following:
Sometime around 13.8 billion years ago, God did something to cause a large amount of mass in a singularity to rapidly expand, followed by exponential expansion, as it did so, it cooled and formed particles, likely with some sort of guidance to create a matter-antimatter imbalance. Skipping forward to about 5 billion years ago, God guided a series of collapses within a gas cloud in the galaxy we now live in, and from those, stars with proplanetary disks formed. Within one of those, as planetesimals formed, God caused the formation of a dozen or so large bodies, perhaps five or six were cool enough to accumulate gas, and become gas giants. Smaller bodies then accumulated closer to the star. The gas giants then migrated outward, causing many smaller bodies to begin drifting inward. Two of the larger bodies formed on the same orbit, within the habitable zone, on lagrangian points of each other, God then caused perturbations in the orbit of the smaller body, resulting in it crashing into the larger body at a somewhat oblique angle. This formed a debris disk, which the coalesced into a very large moon. This large moon would keep the planet’s axial tilt much more stable, and thus make it more suitable for life. Within the liquid water that began to accumulate on the surface of this planet God caused the exact set of molecules needed to form simple cells to form and come together.

As to interpreting the earliest chapters of Genesis, I would consider the time span of seven days to be symbolic of completion, and the main point to be “God made everything, so no creature in the sea is going to challenge him, the way they do in the beliefs of all the other cultures around you.”

As to creation of humans, my thought (this is speculative) is that God guided evolution the produce members of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens about 300,000 years ago in east Africa, then directly created Adam and Eve in what is now the Persian Gulf something like (very roughly) 100,000 years ago. My speculation is that Adam and Eve were the first humans to have a soul, to have a complicated language, and other uniquely human traits which are not observed elsewhere. As to original sin, I would recommend reading the opening post in the discussion of A. Suarez’s Treatment of a Pope’s Formulation for Original Sin Transmission.

Again, these are my thoughts, not a definitive answer.

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For the same reason it describes man as created from dust when when we are not any such thing. It is the simple lack of modern terminology and language to describe these things as we do today. But it not difficult to substitute the terminology we would use today for it to make good sense. Instead of “dust” try the word “matter”, and instead of “water” try the word “fluid” which includes both liquid and gas. Not only is the sky composed of an atmosphere of gases but looking farther out we see that many other things are composed of gases also, with whirlpools forming galaxies and solar systems as well as large pools and eddies of gas in the nebulae all around us.

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In my opinion the world was created by God. The story of Noah and the flood is very interesting to me. when I read Genesis 2:6 it says that streams came up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.

Apparently it did not rain water from the atmosphere. A question is Where did the water come from to cause the flood? I once heard a person speculate that the world was surrounded by a layer of ice crystals high up in the atmosphere. Genesis 1:9 says God said “let the water under the sky be gathered into one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. For me this would answer the question of where the water came from to flood the earth.

In Genesis 9:14 God says whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy life.

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Yeah, but doing so will violate Biologos’ mandate that scientific stuff here be “mainstream science”. :smile:

Perhaps familiarizing yourself with Thales of Miletus’ might facilitate an appreciation of his proposal that the underlying source/origin/root of all matter is an ultimate underlying substance and undemonstrable principle ἡ ᾰ̓ρχή [hē arkhḗ] which he claimed was “water”.

Thales of Miletus (c. 620 B.C.E.—c. 546 B.C.E.)

  • Aristotle defined wisdom as knowledge of certain principles and causes ( Metaph. 982 a2-3). He commenced his investigation of the wisdom of the philosophers who preceded him, with Thales, the first philosopher, and described Thales as the founder of natural philosophy ( Metaph. 983 b21-22). He recorded: ‘Thales says that it is water’. ‘it’ is the nature, the archê , the originating principle. For Thales, this nature was a single material substance, water.
  • In De Caelo Aristotle wrote: ‘This [opinion that the earth rests on water] is the most ancient explanation which has come down to us, and is attributed to Thales of Miletus ( Cael. 294 a28-30). He explained his theory by adding the analogy that the earth is at rest because it is of the nature of wood and similar substances which have the capacity to float on water, although not on air (Cael. 294 a30-b1). In Metaphysics (983 b21) Aristotle stated, quite unequivocally: ‘Thales . . . declared that the earth rests on water’. This concept does appear to be at odds with natural expectations, and Aristotle expressed his difficulty with Thales’s theory ( Cael. 294 a33-294 b6).
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I wouldn’t start with a creation myth from over two thousand years before Galileo. I’d start by looking out the window at the back yard.

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If the number of days for which God created this world was symbolic, we wouldn’t know which day if the week or what time duration at all is the holy day.

Doesn’t a symbolic interpretation of the world creation by God contradict the Holy Sunday for which we ought to observe on a regular basis then? For all we know, it ought to be every 7 years to observe the Holiness.

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I certainly don’t think that in the Bible God is making any attempt to explain to us how He created the Earth or the universe. The attitude we see in the book of Job is that we haven’t a clue as to how any of that was done. But perhaps some of us are in a better position to understand it now. We have certainly learned in the physics of cosmology that there was nothing simple about it whatsoever.

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You can easily create understandable rituals, like holy days, from a purely mythological tale.

Ever noticed how the Bible dedicated a entire book to just a generation or two, or how the gospels cover a generation and so on. But then you read in 11 chapters thousands of years.

The Hebrews were already using a week long cycle. It’s a pretty common cycle around the world. Same as roughly a 24 hour day.

Or ever noticed how revelation uses specific symbolism that is meaningless today. The only way we can understand the symbolism is to study the ancient symbolism.

The issue is that when it comes to genesis 1-11 modern people read this mythological poem and confide the genre for historical and autobiographical and confuse the symbolism for whatever they mix it up with.

Imagine if the culture you were in taught revelation as literal. There was literally a dragon that went to war. There was literally these monsters that rose up out of the ocean. That Rome was having a problem with a giant vampiric woman eating jews and Christians and that at some point Jesus was seen on a white Pegasus and pulled a sword out of his mouth. If you grew up in that worldview, you would struggle to understand the symbolism in revelation. You would confuse it’s entire purpose snd style. You would be in a box where questions were legitimate like “ How does Jesus not burn up when he renters the atmosphere and so you think satellites will pick him up once he’s near the moon? How does his horse not suffocate to death? Could we get radiation poisoning from the horse?

But if most of us heard those questions we would chuckle at the ridiculousness of it.

I think it’s the same for genesis 1-11. When you’re confused about it’s style, and it’s purpose, it leads to self created snags of is the sky water.

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I wish to thank Paraleptopecten Timothy Campbell for his recent article. It was well written. I wish to respectfully comment on the paragraph starting with “As to creation of humans”.

I too am only speculating, I do believe there is a process of evolution, however I don’t hold much of God’s creation with this view.

I personally have a background in computer science. Designing systems and programming. I understand the value of a program, it is tested over and over again until it performs as expected.

I understand and believe that all life contains a program called DNA. If one had the ability to understand its instruction set and could modify it, it would change the results of the living.

I marvel comparing our human anatomy with the bones of prehistoric animals and see how large and huge they are in many cases. This reminds me of how large the computers were when first designed and built in the late 40s, as time went on computers become smaller and smaller and much more efficient in operation. When you compare the early computers with our cell phones today you have to be amazed at the advancement in technology.

I see our father in heaven as being a super genius and scientist. Through the programming of various species He could easily test and change their characteristics by reprogramming the DNA in a cell. I can believe that the changes to the DNA resulting in one version after another (bootstrapping) of early Homo sapiens would end up with modern man that was able to support a soul.

Remember this is an opinion from a human being.

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If by “the world” you mean all of creation - everything other than God - then the answer is: “No, it can’t be explained.” That’s because all creation includes the laws of logic themselves. Without them, we can neither form concepts nor string together an explanation. Since you’re asking how those laws originated, you’re asking for something to which they cannot apply, namely, their own origin. So how God creates is necessarily a mystery and always will be.
Roy Clouser

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So are you going to perform genetic experiments on your children in order to get better models of them too?

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Scientist are presently experimenting on human embryos.

"A scientist in New York is conducting experiments designed to modify DNA in human embryos as a step toward someday preventing inherited diseases, NPR has learned.

For now, the work is confined to a laboratory. But the research, if successful, would mark another step toward turning CRISPR, a powerful form of gene editing, into a tool for medical treatment."
,
A team of scientists is working on an experimental vaccine that hijacks your DNA to build up resistance to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

In my opinion, experimenting with the alteration of DNA could cause unintended consequences. Who knows, we may end up with a Frankenstein.

I believe the human body must serve God’s purposes not ours.

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Well I don’t believe in the Deist watchmaker God and I don’t believe we are wind up toy machines produced by a great designer. I believe in the SELF-organizing process of life, where we come about by growth, choices, learning, and evolution, and God has the Biblical role of shepherd seeking a relationship with us. To put us into the role of tools made for an end by a designer is to undermine the most fundamental foundation of human ethics from Kant where human beings are never a means to an end but always an end in ourselves as good parents see and treat their own children.

As for the exploration of our own genetics to understand all the data it provides for where we come from as well as for dealing with medical problems, I am all for that. I will only oppose it when parents try to use this to exert more control over their children (even what sex they are) – I don’t think that is right. The human body must serve the purpose of the person whose body it is and not the purpose of the parents let alone the purpose of their religion.

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I believe there is a misunderstanding as to my last statement, where I said I believe the human body will serve God’s purposes not ours.

When I look at the following verses, that creation is for the purpose of God waiting for his children who have free will to be revealed.

Rom 8:19-21 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that our physical lives will die someday, and our soul will be liberated from its bondage to decay, is it not God’s purpose to have children who love, understand and embrace him? So from this perspective I say our human bodies are meant to serve God’s purposes not ours.

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:+1: Good Point! Sin destroys free will!

Mmmm… I tend to say that being an end in ourselves means we choose our own purpose. On the other hand, I also tend to say this… “hell is our heart’s desire, while heaven is God’s desire for us.” So I think you are right. There is a sense in which our greatest happiness and well being is in becoming as God intends us to be according to His purpose. Jesus seeks to bring us a greater freedom. But it is not a freedom to indulge in the self-destructive habits of sin. It is freedom to participate in the limitless work of love and creation.

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i have created a page on my website that shows exactly what happened with the Creation of the Earth.

i just started this forum today, so don’t know if posting a link here will be accepted. If not, then go to Discipledave(dot)com and click the link, bottom Right that says Evolution of Earth.

http://discipledave.com/Earth.html

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Where exactly do you get the asteroid impacts increasing temperature & rotation rate, and how is an increase in rotation rate significant?

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Earth most certainly didn’t start as a ball of water and oceans (max depth = 7mi) compared to the size of the earth (~4000mi to the center of the core), are nothing more than puddles on our planet. The atmosphere is a thin shell, maybe comparable to the skin on an apple.

Vinnie

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Michelle Thaller has a great Ted Talk entitled we are dead stars.

13.8 byo the universe starts expanding outward in all directions. Its really hot. As it expands, it cools and particles condense out. Early in the universe we have hydrogen forming and some helium. We know that when we look to the deepest regions of space we are seeing the past as it takes light time to travel across interstellar and more importantly, intergalactic distances. We see early galaxies and their composition matches what the Big Bang predicts.

Eventually material starts coming together under gravity to form stars which heat up due to friction and nuclear fusion starts. Hydrogens fuse into heliums in the core until this fuel is used up. Eventually the star has to now start fusing helium atoms into higher elements and so on. Something very interesting will happen during this transition. Our sun is expected to do it in a few billion years and the earth will not fare well in the process. Unfortunately, we can only get up to around iron (#26) on the periodic table from nucleosynthesis (the building of high elements in the cores of stars). Everything at that point has to form in the core of a dying star that is going nova. The sun is probably a third generation star. We formed along with it out of a solar nebula about 4.6 byo.

The majority of the elements beyond hydrogen and helium all seem to have formed from nucleosynthesis in the cores of stars.

That is my understanding, off the top of my head, anyways.

Michelle offered a great quote in the speech. Something about realizing that the iron in her blood that makes it red, was formed in the core of a dying star. It is truly remarkable and aside from the incarnation, easily the greatest story ever told.

Vinnie

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