Ex Nihilo?

As children of the Western Enlightenment and its subsequent devotion to empiricism and rationalism, we approach the ancient Hebrew Scriptures with certain presuppositions. Some of those presuppositions can be inbred so deeply within us that we become completely unaware of them. A prominent example of this appears in the way we speak about human origins. We ask a set of questions such as, "Where did the universe come from?", "Has matter always existed", and "Did God create the world we experience or did it come from the process of evolution?" Those who want to defend the authority of the Bible (and those who want to attack it) oftentimes approach the beginning of Genesis with similar questions since, Christian and non-Christian alike, we are all children of the Enlightenment.

However, what if these were NOT the questions of the ancient Hebrew people? What if their set of questions were entirely different? What if they didn't really even care about where matter came from? In his book The Lost World of Genesis One, Wheaton professor John H. Walton suggests precisely this. Walton, who has immersed himself in the original texts of the ancient near east, contends that Genesis 1 says absolutely nothing about the material origins of the universe. In fact, he points out, a close examination of Genesis 1:2 reveals that the author actually assumed matter (i.e. "stuff") already existed when God "created" the heavens and the earth. One wonders where "the waters" came from in verse 2. Answer: the writer didn't care about the question of material origins as we do. He was up to something totally different.

So what was he up to? Walton claims that the writers of Genesis 1 sought to explain the functional origins of the world, not the material origins as we would like to read the story. The question in their minds was not, "Where does everything come from?" but "How is there order and function in the world?" and "To what end is this world created?" This changes everything. If the writer of Genesis wanted to communicate how order was brought out of chaos (the literal implication of the Hebrew word bara which we translate "create") and did not intend to provide us with an orthodox doctrine of ex nihilo, then to ask the text to give us an account of material origins is a foreign imposition on the text and an anachronism.

So what does all of this mean? Well, its implications are radical. It means that when science produces an account of material origins (such as the "big bang" or "theory of evolution"), it cannot contradict the Bible since the Bible and modern science are addressing different questions altogether! It is perfectly rational to believe that evolution accounts for our material origins, but to also accept the authority of Genesis 1 as an account of the functional origins of the cosmos. The fundamentalist demand that we contort Scripture such that it answers our modern questions was an attempt made in good faith by people who wanted to cling to the Bible as a source for truth. Ironically, in their fervor for preserving the Bible, fundamentalists (and most evangelicals) actually did a great deal of damage to the Scriptures by making it less credible to the scientific community who came to believe that they had to choose between their scientific work and their religious beliefs.

To make this even more simple, Genesis one wants to tell us this: God made this world for a purpose and organized it to accomplish that purpose (which, by the way, was to serve as a temple for himself in which he could rest). Science, on the other hand, attempts to tell us where stuff came from. It's like we're arguing over which statement is true: does 2 + 2 = 4 or does a square have 4 sides? The answer is "yes!"

I find this liberating because I can accept the findings of modern science (yes, even evolutionary theory) and still hold to the authority, inspiration, and accuracy of the Bible. And doing so is not some sort of cop-out or desperate hermeneutical gymnastics. It is in fact being a faithful exegete of Scripture.

Now more questions come to my mind about theistic evolution such as "If God used survival of the fittest (a very bloody affair), then what does this say about God's nature?" or "At what point did evolving monkeys actually 'take on' the image of God?" But regardless of these quandaries, I am thankful to be able to read the Bible and accept it without having to turn off my brain and scream "you're wrong!" at 98% of the scientists in this world.

So the next time someone starts spouting off about how Christians who believe in evolution are subverting the faith and undermining Scripture, I will simply him them that "I believe you are imposing a set of foreign questions on a text which was never meant to field them. You've been handed a love letter from your wife and are reading it like a Toyota manual. Read it like it was meant to be read and you'll figure it out."

This post is a reflection on John Walton's book "The Lost World of Genesis One" which I highly recommend.