Genesis 1:1-5, the first day.

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

This could be viewed as a heading or introduction to the section. It could however be also viewed as the first part of the description. This study will assume it is the latter. Verses 6-9 of this same chapter show that although the heavens and earth were created first, they as yet were formless and empty, with the shaping and definition to come later. At this stage, they were just the raw materials which were yet to be shaped and formed. This verse could be understood to mean 'in the beginning, God created matter, reality, and the universe in their rawest, most basic forms'.


Genesis 1:2
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The 'earth' was not yet a planet. It had no form, that is, no shape. It was essentially a hunk of un-molded clay, a bucket of wet cement. In verse 1 God created the cement. In verse two we see that what has been created is 'waters', that is matter contained in liquid form. The whole universe is a space [the heavens] completely filled with matter [the earth, in the form of 'waters']. God here is standing over his creation as an artist before a blank canvas (having just made the canvas himself) or a sculptor before a block of unshaped marble (which he just created).


Genesis 1:3 
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 

We can see in verse 14 that the creation of actual sources of light (sun, moon, stars) did not occur for some time yet. So what is this 'light' that God creates here? The next verse shows us that at this time, light and darkness were mixed, blended. They had not yet been separated in the way they are for us, when we perceive them. But isn't that an illogical statement? Can light and dark be blended, when one is by definition the absence of the other? You may answer yes, but I would answer no. Therefore, I must assume that the light being talked about here is not light as we know it. I think a certain clue as to what sort of 'light' is meant here can be found in verse 4;

Light is separated from darkness, light is declared to be good, and darkness is not declared to be good, almost as a contrast, the missing declaration conspicuous by its absence.

'God saw that the light was good'. The darkness is not described as good. God created light, which was good, and darkness, which was not.

I would like to suggest (firstly, as light and darkness cannot mutually co-exist in our understanding of them, and secondly because he had not yet made any of the 'lights' which come in verse 14) that what God was creating here was the difference between 'good' and 'not good', or as we call them, good and evil. Genesis 1 is written as a poem, not as a piece of systematic theology, and so the word 'light' is used poetically to talk about about the creation of morality as a concept.

God created light first, and then afterwards separated light from darkness. This suggests that previously they were mingled, a sort of proto-light. This might suggest then, that He first created a 'scale of light', that is, all the possibilities of morality. He first created the universe, reality and matter. He then created the laws of right and wrong, of good and not-good, the full scale of right and wrong, of all possible deeds, thoughts, or motives. He first created the whole list, every possibility, and then began to refine the chaos.



Genesis 1:4 
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.


God next made a separation in the great scale of morality. Light no longer meant 'proto-light' (all possible deeds thoughts or actions with no inherent goodness or badness). Proto-light was gone, morality was attached to deeds. Some things were designated 'light' (good), and other things were designated 'dark' (not-good). Light was not in the form of any light we know (daylight, moonlight, starlight), it was a more pure, raw, light; light in its very essence. Its presence was good, its absence was not. Its absence was called Darkness. He made the two mutually exclusive; for Light to exist it must be separated from the darkness.

The really fascinating part is the creation of moral darkness. The only reason I can think of for moral darkness (evil) to exist is free will. For 'choosing-the-light' to exist, darkness must also exist as the alternative (if there is only good to choose, then the choice between good and evil has been already made for you). This implies three things. Firstly, that freewill is an inherent part of 'light', that freewill is good, and righteous. Secondly, paradoxically, the good 'freewill' cannot exist without darkness as an alternative option, making the creation of evil a necessity if you want pure light, and thirdly, that the amount of good brought about by creating freewill sufficiently outweighs the amount of bad risked by the creation of evil, which justifies God in allowing evil to exist.

God refined the list of possibilities created in proto-light into two categories, creating right and wrong. The fundamental and basic rules of our universe which determine morality, justice and conscience. He made them before he even made anything that lives, and while they came after matter itself (suggesting matter is amoral), everything else which came after was created under the wing of this momentous creation; the plumb-line of righteousness (Isaiah 28:17 I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line).

However, believing that in Genesis 1:3-4 the light God created was moral light does not necessarily mean that visible light was excluded from that creation. The fact that God uses the words light and darkness to symbolise good and evil (not just here but all throughout the bible) suggests that He made light (in the sense that we understand it) to be the physical symbol of good, and darkness to be the symbol of the absence of goodness, that is, evil.

Next we come to the matter of the source of the light. Chapter 1:5 states that there was a morning, day, evening and night, suggesting that in the first 'day' there was visible light. Where was the light coming from? You may disagree, but I believe that visible light needs a source. I know God could technically create light without a source, but here in creation he seems to be being systematic and pragmatic (see the growth of the trees and shrubs in chapter 2:5). I believe that God chose to embody all that moral and visible light entailed, and that therefore the light source was God Himself (we see that God lights the entire Heavenly city of Jerusalem Revelation 21:23 'The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.') He chose to be completely good, and to be the embodiment of goodness itself. As a result of this, He became the universe's source of visible light too, in its purest form. If visible light is the symbol of goodness, then God, choosing to embody all goodness, became a pure source of utterly pure, raw, blinding light.

We can see this double-meaning of light embodied in God elsewhere in the Bible too:

1 John 1:5 states 'God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.' 
1 Timothy 6:16a states 'God... alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light'

and here's a very interesting one about Jesus;
John 1:9 'The true light... was coming into the world'

God embodied 'true light'. Pure light, that existed before sun, moon or stars, that 'no-one has seen or can see' (1 Tim 6:16b). Jesus was at times too bright to look at (for example on the mount of transfiguration), but the light that he brought was not primarily visible light, but moral light.

We can see from elsewhere in the Bible that God also 'locked' his decision to embody moral light, and made it his permanent and irreversible state for eternity; He threw away the key, and bound Himself to permanent everlasting goodness. We can see this, because despite His omnipotence, Hebrews 6:18 states 'it is impossible for God to lie', and 1 John 3:9 states that 'he cannot sin'.

It may seem that I am over-analyzing what should be a simple and straightforward uncomplicated verse, but the way it is referred back to by the New Testament writers lead me to strongly believe that it is a profound and incredibly deep text, not a simplistic and straightforward one.


Genesis 1:5
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

There was a night and a day, an evening and a morning, but no sun? If at this time in pre-history, God was the only source of light so far created, then this could be understood to mean God came, and then went. His light came, and then his light left. The use of the words 'in the beginning' in verse 1 suggest that God entered into the linear world of time. The Bible tells us elsewhere that God exists outside of time, and so perhaps this verse suggests that after his creating work on the first day, God left for a while, to let the created matter be, or to let it develop.

The question must also be asked (mainly because it is such a contentious one in evangelical circles) of whether or not a literal day is meant here or not. I would argue that it is not, for two reasons. The first one is fairly obvious, in that there was no sun, or planets yet, and so the very concept of a literal day makes no sense at all in that setting.

The second (and most compelling) evidence for a non-literal 'day' refers forward briefly for a few verses, to the creation of the trees. Verses 1:11-13, state that the trees were created on the third day. Chapter 2 verse 5 states: 'Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground' This verse suggest clearly to me that God placed the plants in the ground in seed form, requiring watering and a man to work the ground. If not, why include this sentence? God created the seeds, but they were to grow following natural processes of watering and farming.

Next we scroll forward to the sixth day when the man and woman are made, (1:27-31), and are told in 2:15-17 that by this day all the trees were fully grown. If God was allowing trees and plants to grow by natural processes, and by the time the man was in the garden they were all fully grown, then the 'days' cannot be literal. I will therefore view the use of the word 'day' in the creation story to mean 'era' of creation.

(Just as a small side note, I find the inclusion in 2:5 of the reference to rain very interesting, because according to the story of Noah, the great flood in Genesis 6 was the first time rain fell on the earth. This reference to rain seems to have been written for the benefit of the Mosaic-age Israelite readers to assure them that it was for normal, natural reasons that the shrubs had not yet grown up. The next verse in 2:6 explains that the water they needed rose up through the ground from streams, and so the reference to rain seems almost pointless in being there, unless it was to reassure the reader that there was no 'magic' in the air or in the soil, the plants and trees grew normally as they would have done in post-Noahic Israel, requiring farming and rain. This again supports reading 'day' as 'era', because if it was natural normal soil, with no miracle working on God's part to speed up the process, then it cannot have been a literal day or three in which these things occurred.)

So we see, in the first 'day', the first era of God's creation he does these things (possibly in this order)...

1 - Creates reality, the universe and matter
2 - Creates the whole spectrum of do-able things, without any moral value attached of good or bad.
3 - Divides all do-able things into 'right' or 'wrong'
4 - Associates visible light with things that are right, and darkness with things that are wrong
5 - Chooses to permanently embody pure light, both in its physical form and moral state.
6 - Leaves his creation for a while.

I'm going to die one day. That sucks.

For the first time in my life, I had the following thought today (just now in fact)...

I don't want to die one day.

I realised why some people don't want their lives to end. I realise that I could be so much more, do so much more, know and understand so much more, if only I had the time. But I don't. My days are numbered, as are the days of every human, and so therefore the potential that lies within me as a person is tempered by the limitations laid upon my body.

The things we could achieve and become, the ability of our minds to learn and discover would be so much greater if they weren't cut short before we'd even really begun. I'm only 29, and so all this talk will probably sound idiotic to someone older and wiser who has had the time to meditate on and come to terms with mortality. For me however, this is the first time the real implications of the inevitability of death have hit me. I will never ever on this earth become what my mind has the potential to become if I had endless time.

It is a very very strange feeling.

As a Christian however, it is not a hopeless feeling. I will not end, I will merely go elsewhere, leaving behind my body, but remaining me.

Therefore, it is my fond hope that I will have eternity to grow, learn, develop, understand and explore 'life the universe and everything' into eternity. It just won't be here on earth, it will be in Heaven.

Some part of me wants to think 'oh but once Im there it will be pointless, because God will be there who already knows everything, so we can just ask Him'.

That, however, is a silly and simplistic argument. I expect God has not only loaded us with the elements of free will (wherein He observes with pleasure what we decide to do without His forcing us); I expect in Heaven he has also loaded reality and discovery with undefined potential, and will watch to see what we, of our freewill, make and discover in the absence of any specific command from Him. I think God is interested to see what we do on earth, what decisions we make, what we feel and how we choose. I think that he made person-hood, freewill and individuality, partially for the great joy of having others with whom to interact, communicate and develop relationship. The very nature of these things requires their objects to be independent of God in a sense (although He sustains and guides us), and so He gives the great risk and gift of free will. I think the nature of reality in Heaven will share some of the key characteristics of this risk and gift.

I wonder if the part of God who chooses to inhabit the linear time-based world of humanity chooses not to know what decisions we will make, chooses not to predetermine what we will do, so that free will may be real and pure? If so, the implications for the infinite possibilities and discoveries which may lie open to us in Heaven blow the mind. There are no limits, and quite possibly God will not be sitting above us all on a giant throne smiling indulgently as we discover the easter eggs he has hidden for us throughout the garden, possibly he will be watching us with fascination to see what new things we fashion, discover and create from the endless and glorious potential he has gifted us with in that future paradise where we will not die, and will grow ever more in knowledge and understanding.

Heaven is an unspeakably thrilling prospect.

How To Unshrink Clothes Using Vinegar? Don't do it!

Being a larger than average fella, I find it immensely frustrating when my t-shirts shrink in the wash and / or dryer. After some researching online I found various different videos and guides saying that I could un-shrink my clothes by;

1 - soaking them in distilled vinegar,

2 - putting them in sealed ziplock bags for 30 mins,

3 - washing them on hot (with laundry powder)

4 - and then tumble-drying them on hot.

The logic behind this was that the vinegar reacts with the glucose found in the cotton t-shirts, and when subjected to heat it expands, thus expanding and effectively un-shrinking the shirt.

I'm here to tell you from experience, don't do it! I'm afraid that despite the rather convincing videos and amateur articles out there, it's a hoax, and a load of quasi-scientific nonsense. I did this and just shrunk the bejesus out of my t-shirts even further, to my immense annoyance.

Spare yourself the expense, effort and nuisance of trying this method out, because it simply doesn't work.

I am now rewashing my t-shirts cold, and am just going to have to unstretch them the old-fashioned way - by letting them hang-dry.

A Fading Generation and How They Relate To Younger Adults

Older people from a slightly old-fashioned and conservative background in England, I have noticed, have not realised just how much adult culture has changed while they weren't paying attention.

In today's English society, it is profoundly inappropriate and offensive for any one adult to give a public 'dressing-down' to any other adult, regardless of whether one is in their seventies and the other is in their twenties. The idea that this sort of thing is appropriate is long out-of-date, and only adhered to by those without any real relationship with younger adult peers.

In just the last few weeks I received a loud, confrontational telling off from an older man in the street because he felt my car was parked too far on the curb of the road. I'm sorry to say the episode did not end peacefully. The truth is, his sudden (and rather obnoxious) headmaster-style telling off took me completely by surprise, and having had neither warning nor time to prepare for the onslaught, the older gentleman got a pretty offended reaction from me.

Some friends of mine very recently received the same treatment (although over a different issue) in a similarly public setting. They all felt just the same afterwards as I had done; shocked and outraged.

I'm not sure if it happens upon turning eighteen, but certainly from age twenty-one onwards, in today's society all adults are peers, and outside of the military or a high-powered business setting, we are all aware that we should be treated as such. The level of insult implied, and aggravation provoked by an older person taking it upon themselves to deliver a good old-fashioned telling off to a younger adult, is on a similar level to if they had randomly hit one of my infant children. It's so insulting that many younger adults such as myself find ourselves either retaliating with some considerable force, or absolutely resenting that person for a very long time afterwards. What back in the day might have been relatively acceptable behaviour from older folk has now become a recipe for inspiring serious ageism among the less grace-giving, and for causing un-necessary resentment and relational schism in any given community where it occurs.

The generational divide can be quite easily seen, certainly among Christians and church leaders; it is rare to find someone in their fifties who will loudly berate a fellow-adult in any setting whatsoever in the church. It is not so rare the older you look. 

Now as I approach turning thirty, I hope I can 'stay young' in my mindset. While I intend to age with dignity, and not spend my life trying to act like I'm still seventeen, I nevertheless want to keep my finger on the pulse of English culture, to have peers of all ages, and to know how to treat them in a way that inspires peace, rather than just venting a loud blustering rebuke onto them and destroying any hope of a resolution based on mutual good will.

Why does God allow suffering?

Ah, the age old question. That wonderful question which so many people have posed to me in a smug and triumphant tone, as if there is no possible answer I could give that would be satisfactory...

If the Christian God is all powerful, and all loving, how can he allow bad things to happen and suffering to occur in the world?

I'm going to have a go at answering this one.

I'm also going to have a go at giving what is an extremely complex theological answer in easily understood ordinary language. The answer will be 'what Christians believe', and therefore will reference the Bible as it's source and explanation.

The first part of the answer is to point out that the question is starting from a completely nonsensical place. The Bible does not teach that God is all-powerful in the way many people today understand it; it says that 'all things are possible with God', but also that it 'is not possible for Him to sin'. It says that 'nothing is impossible for God' but also that 'he cannot lie' and 'he cannot be unfaithful to himself'. God is capable of doing anything within goodness, but cannot do anything within evil. He is omnipotent within goodness, but powerless within evil.

No being anywhere can be capable of perfect good and absolute evil, because to be capable of one is to be incapable of the other. The two possibilities are mutually exclusive. It is a nonsense, like saying a cup of tea is also a rhinoceros, or a Christmas card is also a mathematical equation. The Bible says that God is both the most powerful being there is, and also incapable of evil. Therefore, Christians cannot believe that any creature capable of the full goodness of God and also the full evil of Satan exists. We must start from the point of being clear about God's omnipotence - he is only able to do good, and is not 'omnipotent' in the way people asking the question usually mean. No-one is omnipotent in the way they usually mean, because it is not possible logically for anyone to be. It's a nonsense concept.

The second part of the answer is to point out that, being only good, God cannot break the rules. There are rules of the universe, and when Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden sold all of us to the Serpent, they did so 'legally'. If God could have simply waved a magic wand and set things straight again, he probably would have done, but to do so would have been to break the rules, and he could not do wrong. God, being only capable of good, could not just undo that agreement. When the world and everything in it was sold to Satan, it became 'fallen' and polluted. The very fabric of nature contracted a strain of evil as it passed into his ownership, and so did all life forms which were formally under Adam's 'jurisdiction'. Everything in the earth became damaged and degraded in its DNA, though Adam, Eve and Satan entering into a binding contract. God could not just rip up the contract. Thus, despite God's original plan, thanks to Adam, Eve and the devil, we live in a broken and fallen world, which is not how it was ever intended to be by the Creator.

So, the answer to the question becomes a little clearer in the light of these two points. God does what he can, but cannot break the rules. Adam and Eve legally sold the world, and all of us to Satan, causing it and our race to become broken and fallen, and introducing pain and suffering into the equation. God cannot just step in and stop it all, because he is unable to. He cannot do wrong, and to rip up the contract which they formed with the devil (eating the fruit etc) would be wrong. So he doesn't allow suffering because he wants to, he allows it because he must.

Near the end of my degree

Its mid-February, and I'm back at Cliff College for the last short period before my graduation later this year. I can't believe I'm coming to the end of my degree at last / already!

For quite a while now I have been somewhat intentionally neglecting this blog, because for a while the majority of my creative writing energies have been going into writing books, translating modern paraphrases of old texts, and writing essays. However, I am at such a monumental crossroads bookmark moment of my life that I feel I would regret it if I didn't make an entry here.

I worked very hard this past three years to get a first, but it's looking more and more likely that I'll only get a 2:1. Ah well. At least I can say I gave it my absolute very best effort, but alas, even my very best efforts when combined with 2 very young infant children, and a pretty unwell wife mean that I'm probably not going to be the one to break the 6-year-long streak of no-one graduating with a first.

And I really have given it everything. After these 2 weeks I have another 6 weeks at home to complete and submit all my essays, and after that I am done. The amount of focus and effort I have put into this degree has really shown in how much I have neglected other areas, specifically fitness and any serious effort at a healthy body and physique. Which is a very diplomatic way of saying that I've become an even bigger fatter git than ever I was when I started.

The various stresses of life have meant that using food as a mood stabilizer has been more and more tempting, and the pressures have mounted and my moods have been in ever increasing need of stabilization. However, the light at the end of the tunnel is so close now, that I am getting excited for all this college pressure to be done and over with so that I can wake up in the morning without any pressure, anxiety or deadlines, with a clear and unburdened mind.

I can really feel the sleep debt and stress avalanche beginning to build up in me. It's a bit like when I lost Grandad; the feelings are very numbed, but I recognize that they are there nevertheless, squashed under the surface, producing their unpleasant fruit and obvious signs & symptoms. I am probably going to need a really good relaxed summer of little to no pressure or responsibility so I can really really relax and unwind, and get into a more mellow and peaceful groove of life, in which the mood swings are considerably less, and therefore the need (and yes it is a need) to use food as a stabilizer will be significantly reduced. In short, once I have rested and recovered, I am going to go to town on getting my body thin and in shape again.

Joel will have started attending day care 5 mornings a week by that time, Caleb will be crawling and or walking and hopefully sleeping through the night, Sydney will (please God) have her driving license and be able to have the independence she needs, and so with any luck all the stress and weary slog of balancing a marriage with a degree with work with parenthood with church with everything else will be reduced right down, meaning that the burden on me is so much lighter.

Every summer between each year of the degree it has been that way; as I have no lectures to attend, textbooks to read (and understand) or essays to write, I have found I can cope with going running again, I can cope with a stricter diet, and with so many more positive practices for a healthy and thin body. Because each summer has been this way, I have a lot of hope that when the degree is completely done, and not even a mild anxiety hovering on the edge of my thoughts, I will be massively freed up even more so than before, and though it will take time, I will get down to my goal (12 stone) and be proud of the way I look again.

signing out...

Jimlad

Being An Author Square Two

Today something significant happened. I got an email from the digital publishing people to let me know that my first royalty payment is about to come through. This is very exciting for me, because since March of this year I have been writing and publishing digital books, and have not earned one penny. It's been mental at times, but at last I am about to actually move from square one to square two.

If anyone was wondering, that is the reason I haven't been blogging every few days as I did for the previous two or three years. I have been putting my writing skills to a different task - writing books. And it's starting to pay. Now I'm not under any illusions that having got my first £10 royalty check means Im going to be JK Rowling any time soon, or ever, but nevertheless, it just feels good to know that a business I started, selling my own work, from scratch, is about to see the first tiny green shoots of making some money and having some success. Financially speaking I know its nothing more than a couple of drinks at Costa Coffee, but its the inner satisfaction of knowing that I earned that, from nothing. I expect to get addicted to that feeling.