By a universally normal everyday reading, the first 12 verses of Genesis 1 constitute explicit information on the Earth as a life-supporting ecology. Thus, even vs. 1-2 plainly and directly refer to the beginning of that Earth.
But Henry Morris popularized the idea that vs. 1-3, instead of constituting such life-affirming information, refers directly to the fact that God created space, matter and energy.
I call this kind of idea the Cosmic Physics Hermeneutic, or the CPH.
Many CPH models of the account have been proposed since Morris proposed his. Some of those models claim all first eight verses for the CPH.
Basically, the CPH rejects the Earth-first reading as informationally and metaphysically inferior. This is because modern Secular skeptics think that the most objective and valuable way to understand origins is to begin by understanding cosmic physics. So the CPH joins that 'club', by tacking God on as the Creator of a blandly secular conception of cosmic physics:
This may be true enough as far as it goes. But it is just a 'creationary' secular bit of information on cosmic physics: from the 'bottom, up'. This is because the deep reality of cosmic physics is not that space and matter are created, but, rather, that they are finely tuned for water-based life and for the Earth's cosmically unique role in supporting that life. In other words, the deep reality of cosmic physics is that it reflects God's own values. He is, after all, the Living God, not some 'wooden boy' version of a Creator who only sometimes is pleased to be a 'real boy'.
Indeed, not one CPH model of Genesis 1 so much as broaches the possibility that the Creation account might maximally address that very value of the Earth. For, it would take many more words to (a) tell of the greatest values of Creation from the 'bottom, up' than to (b) tell of those values from the 'center, outward'.
It is not wrong to do (a). Nevertheless, Genesis 1 itself must be (b). It surely can be (b) within a universally normal everyday reading.
The CPH is not just 'bottom, up'. It thereby fails to distinguish just what sort of Creator is being referred to: What does He most care about? Is He the 'creator' according to Deists? Is He some pagan deity? The CPH has no hope of making clear what is His relationship to us.
----Actually, the CPH does make that clear, but not for any good. It suggests only that the Creator is some 'physics' snob, Carl Sagan wannabe, who wants to join the Secularist Club regarding 'what cosmic physics is'.
In short, so what that the Biblical Creator created space and matter? So, what?
To think that 'cosmic physics' is how Genesis 1 explicitly begins and proceeds is comparable to a 'physics first' way of verbally introducing a specially made wedding dress to the hopeful guests at a wedding. Specifically, it is like thinking that the ideal way to introduce them to the dress, and to the mastery of its tailor, is by not even mentioning the dress until after 'gloriously' telling them that 'everything ultimately is made of the same blandly secular constituents as everything else.'
This is not to say that Genesis 1 implies nothing about cosmic physics. On the contrary.
Nevertheless, as Apostle Paul reminded the Early Church, the mark of paganism, secularism, and atheism is the denial of the universally self-evident life-affirming Divine Design (Romans 1:20-23) of the whole Creation.
So the best that the CPH accomplishes is to try to win a race by ever only 'keeping even' with the opponent's refusal to get anywhere near the finish line. Worse, it renders the Biblical Creator and Redeemer as a 'physics' snob.
CPH models of Genesis 1 are logically possible only because of the grammatical ambiguity of its first verses. But, for too many readers, this begs the question of why does Genesis 1 involve ambiguity? To answer this, we need to realize just how Natural Language works.
Consider our own every statements on self-evident and valuable topics. Such statements involve a lot of ambiguity. But that ambiguity is not there to allow our meaning to be obscure. Much less is that ambiguity an effort, on our parts, to be sure that many in our audience twist our meaning due to many of our terms' equivocal nature. The ambiguity in our normal language efforts is simply a 'side effect' of our addressing our audience 1) on a less or more known topic 2) in a powerfully brief, and natural values-centered, way.
So the ambiguity in Genesis 1 is not there to allow its meaning to be obscure. Much less is that ambiguity an effort, on the part of the account's author, to be sure that many of us twist its meaning due to many of its terms' equivocal nature. The ambiguity is simply a 'side effect' of its addressing us 1) on a universally known topic 2) in a powerfully brief, and natural values-centered, way.
The topic is so naturally evident to us that the author lets that be the main guide to our interpreting it. And it is a forwardly-building flow of information. And it is touched only with whatever emphases that serve its topic, including even sequences of mention.
So it is that Genesis 1 reflects the nature of our own everyday simple sets of statements on a single natural valuable topic. To think otherwise of any part of the account is to admit that it either (X) is a flawed effort at plain communication or (Y) is a less or more esoteric body of...whatever.
But Henry Morris popularized the idea that vs. 1-3, instead of constituting such life-affirming information, refers directly to the fact that God created space, matter and energy.
I call this kind of idea the Cosmic Physics Hermeneutic, or the CPH.
Many CPH models of the account have been proposed since Morris proposed his. Some of those models claim all first eight verses for the CPH.
Basically, the CPH rejects the Earth-first reading as informationally and metaphysically inferior. This is because modern Secular skeptics think that the most objective and valuable way to understand origins is to begin by understanding cosmic physics. So the CPH joins that 'club', by tacking God on as the Creator of a blandly secular conception of cosmic physics:
- 'In the absolute chronological beginning of creating, God created space and matter.'
This may be true enough as far as it goes. But it is just a 'creationary' secular bit of information on cosmic physics: from the 'bottom, up'. This is because the deep reality of cosmic physics is not that space and matter are created, but, rather, that they are finely tuned for water-based life and for the Earth's cosmically unique role in supporting that life. In other words, the deep reality of cosmic physics is that it reflects God's own values. He is, after all, the Living God, not some 'wooden boy' version of a Creator who only sometimes is pleased to be a 'real boy'.
Indeed, not one CPH model of Genesis 1 so much as broaches the possibility that the Creation account might maximally address that very value of the Earth. For, it would take many more words to (a) tell of the greatest values of Creation from the 'bottom, up' than to (b) tell of those values from the 'center, outward'.
It is not wrong to do (a). Nevertheless, Genesis 1 itself must be (b). It surely can be (b) within a universally normal everyday reading.
The CPH is not just 'bottom, up'. It thereby fails to distinguish just what sort of Creator is being referred to: What does He most care about? Is He the 'creator' according to Deists? Is He some pagan deity? The CPH has no hope of making clear what is His relationship to us.
----Actually, the CPH does make that clear, but not for any good. It suggests only that the Creator is some 'physics' snob, Carl Sagan wannabe, who wants to join the Secularist Club regarding 'what cosmic physics is'.
In short, so what that the Biblical Creator created space and matter? So, what?
To think that 'cosmic physics' is how Genesis 1 explicitly begins and proceeds is comparable to a 'physics first' way of verbally introducing a specially made wedding dress to the hopeful guests at a wedding. Specifically, it is like thinking that the ideal way to introduce them to the dress, and to the mastery of its tailor, is by not even mentioning the dress until after 'gloriously' telling them that 'everything ultimately is made of the same blandly secular constituents as everything else.'
This is not to say that Genesis 1 implies nothing about cosmic physics. On the contrary.
Nevertheless, as Apostle Paul reminded the Early Church, the mark of paganism, secularism, and atheism is the denial of the universally self-evident life-affirming Divine Design (Romans 1:20-23) of the whole Creation.
So the best that the CPH accomplishes is to try to win a race by ever only 'keeping even' with the opponent's refusal to get anywhere near the finish line. Worse, it renders the Biblical Creator and Redeemer as a 'physics' snob.
CPH models of Genesis 1 are logically possible only because of the grammatical ambiguity of its first verses. But, for too many readers, this begs the question of why does Genesis 1 involve ambiguity? To answer this, we need to realize just how Natural Language works.
Consider our own every statements on self-evident and valuable topics. Such statements involve a lot of ambiguity. But that ambiguity is not there to allow our meaning to be obscure. Much less is that ambiguity an effort, on our parts, to be sure that many in our audience twist our meaning due to many of our terms' equivocal nature. The ambiguity in our normal language efforts is simply a 'side effect' of our addressing our audience 1) on a less or more known topic 2) in a powerfully brief, and natural values-centered, way.
So the ambiguity in Genesis 1 is not there to allow its meaning to be obscure. Much less is that ambiguity an effort, on the part of the account's author, to be sure that many of us twist its meaning due to many of its terms' equivocal nature. The ambiguity is simply a 'side effect' of its addressing us 1) on a universally known topic 2) in a powerfully brief, and natural values-centered, way.
The topic is so naturally evident to us that the author lets that be the main guide to our interpreting it. And it is a forwardly-building flow of information. And it is touched only with whatever emphases that serve its topic, including even sequences of mention.
So it is that Genesis 1 reflects the nature of our own everyday simple sets of statements on a single natural valuable topic. To think otherwise of any part of the account is to admit that it either (X) is a flawed effort at plain communication or (Y) is a less or more esoteric body of...whatever.
