primordial nature the beginning

[dio9]

Is it debatable that both primordial nature and the spirit are without beginning? One school of thought says Spirit , AKA God , is without beginning but the creation was spoken into existence out of nothing but the word.

on the other hand Genesis 1:1-4 says a wind from God swept over the face of the waters . It appears here to me the waters were also without beginning.

1 In the beginning when God created[a] the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light�; and there was light.

Question, is primordial nature without beginning?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by dio9]

The bible in Genesis 1:1 makes no statement of infinity about either God or the elements. It states there was a "beginning" for what was created, "in the beginning God created..." So there was a "beginning" for that particular creative activity. There is no statement therein that says how long God existed prior to that act.

To illustrate: A couple, talking about their married life, state "In the beginning we just couldn't agree about finances..." Is there a way to say from this statement how old the couple are? Do we presume the couple began to exist at the beginning of their marriage? Can we infer infinity from the statement, since naturally they had to exist prior to their marriage?

The infinity of the Creator is explicitly stated eleswhere in the bible, all we can gather however from Genesis chapter 1 is that he logically existed prior to his creating the physical universe.

It appears here to me the waters were [strike]also[/strike]* without beginning.

Now the earth was formless and desolate, and there was darkness upon the surface of the watery deep, and God’s active force was moving about over the surface of the waters. - Genesis 1:2 NWT

Verse [2] of Genesis 1 can be read as a description of the condition of early earth, the second clause refering to "the surface of the watery deep" and "the surface of the waters", evidently refering to the surface of the planet. A reasonable reading is that since the waters were evidently on the surface of the planet, they did not exist as a body of water, prior to the creation of that planet; otherwise this would be like suggesting that someone drew a bath (of water) prior to the existence of the bath.


JW

*As has been said he notion of infinity is not presented in Genesis 1, so the "also" in this statement is inappropriate.

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THE PHYSICAL HEAVENS , THE PLANET EARTH and ...THE 7 CREATIVE DAYS OF GENESIS

[theophile]

[Replying to post 1 by dio9]

Is it debatable that both primordial nature and the spirit are without beginning? One school of thought says Spirit , AKA God , is without beginning but the creation was spoken into existence out of nothing but the word.

on the other hand Genesis 1:1-4 says a wind from God swept over the face of the waters . It appears here to me the waters were also without beginning.

I think it is intentionally ambiguous, and for us to discern. But I would venture that yes, there is some sort of "primordial nature" already there.

One of the original elements, the earth, is described in the beginning as "formless and void," such that God's creative activity is less about creating the element ex nihilo than it is shaping it so that it can support life and then filling it with life (which is precisely what we see unfold over Genesis 1).

I think you can see the other original element, the "deep" / sea, or Hebrew tehom, as a response to the dominant creation myth of the time, i.e., the Enuma Elish. There, the equivalent to Genesis 1's tehom, i.e., Tiamat (the chaotic sea / dragon), is slain by the lord God Marduk. It is out of the corpse of the chaos serpent that life springs...

In the bible, chaos / the sea / the serpent is not seen as needing to be killed to enable life but rather as needing to be worked with and somehow preserved. Hence the living serpent of Genesis 3...

This is (one of) the fundamental shifts that the bible makes from other mythologies: it recognizes that a little bit of chaos is essential to life.

And just think for a minute how true that is. Evolution / survival of species requires it: i.e., a diverse and ever-changing gene pool. The whole human pursuit of knowledge: where would it go without the spontaneous interruption of ideas outside the prevailing order? ...

The fact that humankind turns on the serpent and they become enemies (versus partners and friends) in Genesis 3 is, perhaps, the greatest fall and failure of humankind. It is the first curse that God declares... Because of it, instead of working with this chaotic, primordial element as God intended we instead seek order and control, and to crush chaos out of existence. That, IMO, is the bane of life, and what the Bible is fundamentally against.

(The bible is, as much as dissenters try to turn it into the exact opposite, a teaching against totalitarianism par excellence.)

[dio9]

[Replying to post 3 by theophile]

yes organized and not organized.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 1 by dio9]

Yes, think about humble hydrogen, like that is in a glass of water.

It is immortal. It has not changed since the beginning, and there is no reason to believe that every atom of hydrogen was created in anyone's version of a beginning.

So primordial nature does not only not have to have beginning, but can exceed in lifespan, anything you can conceive of - not itself!