Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. The Desiderata
The American painter Normal Rockwell, who had a way of capturing the pathos of a tender individual moment of universal import, has a well known painting of an old sailor and a little boy, perhaps his grandson, standing on a hill looking out to sea. We are behind them and cannot see their faces, but we know they are gazing out at the sea, and we imagine the marvels, the mysteries and the adventures hidden in the memory of the sailor and anticipated by the boy, as they look toward that great ocean.
It is my hope that this cosmological excursion will help us both look at the universe and the marvels and mysteries it entails with fresh eyes. Please pardon my use of poetic license, I wonder and then I wander where my heart and my intuition take me. It is meant to be more like a tapestry in which I weave together and reunite with disinterested love what never should have torn asunder in the first place. Your friend, Roland
The difference between the material creation and the timeless realm--from which time/energy/matter/space come and which stands behind and sustains the material creation--is motion.
Motion is the difference. The cause of motion is force, and force results from willed action.
Motion or movement result in change. Even our math, such as geometry, describes proportion, which implies changes in proportion.
The whole universe is in motion, and it is the motion which results in electrodynamics, disequilibrium, the motion of the plants, thermodynamics, and even the movement of light which travels to bring us its life giving properties.
Earthly life itself is motion, and when motion stops, death has taken place.
Thus there is a profound difference in potential between the timeless, motionless realm, and the physical creation, and this difference in potential is what allows the transfer of energy to the created mass via the mechanism of motion.
A example of potential is in the separation of charges, which creates an E field and the force for movement of the charged particles. In the case of the relationship between the timeless spiritual realm and the material creation, there is both difference in discrete degree and in potential.
The two realms are of different discrete degrees (there are two kinds of degrees - discreet degree, as in end, cause and effect, or inner and outer; and there are continuous degrees, such as temperature or acceleration). The spiritual realm and the material creation are two separate realms, of discrete degrees, yet they are connected.
The spiritual realm is the cause of the material. The spiritual realm is timeless; and yet the movement of time is caused by the timeless. We cannot measure the timeless spiritual realm, but we can infer it by analogy and correspondence; and more importantly, we can see its effects.
I will discuss causation later; and also conjecture concerning the difference in potential. But first, please permit me a bit more groundwork. Bear with me, because although there is a simple, but not simplistic, logic in what I say, the value is in the intuitive side.
This is not meant to be a treatise on cosmology, rather it is meant to awaken the reader to marvel anew at the majesty of it all. The scientist and the physicist are at a slight disadvantage in this regard because there is a tendency for them to get bogged down in the details of their work.
It takes someone like an Einstein (or a little child) to ask the questions that may permit us to look at phenomena with fresh eyes. If this little paper should accomplish this even in the slightest degree for the reader with a disinterested love of what is, then I will be most gratified.
We are all used to talking about motion. In fact, we are fascinated by it. We love our fast cars, high speed trains, our particle accelerators, and we award gold medals to the ones who run or swim faster than anyone else. Kids thrill to the motion of swings and roller coasters; and music puts many of us in synchronous motion with the beat of the song.
But we must be careful not to take motion, as a physical phenomenon, for granted. We owe our very existence to the motion of the universe, moving in interlocking orbits, spinning perpetually, and in which we live and move and have our being. It is indeed fitting that motion should be a priority in physics and Newton's laws.
However to make my case, I must also draw attention to the stillness, which is often overlooked, because it is from stillness that the beginning of the universe takes place.
It is on the periphery of the still eye of the hurricane that the storm forces gather. It is in (relative) stillness that we rest and are refreshed for renewed activity. It is the pregnant pause that contains unspoken meaning which speaks volumes. The moment without words is where a fateful decision takes shape that will alter a destiny for good or for ill.
The music of Mozart and Beethoven cannot occur without pauses and rests between the notes. Scientist, inventors, and kids need time, lots of time free of busy work, to quietly ponder, explore, tinker and pursue what to others appears like play or folly, but which is the seedbed of inspiration, discovery and progress.
The relationship between the stillness of the timeless realm and the motion of the creation is perhaps the key to unlocking the secret to an unending supply of clean energy to power our cities and run our factories.
Motion implies relative motionlessness. And absolute motion, such as we behold in a universe in perpetual motion, implies absolute motionlessness. And because we know of no such absolute motionlessness in the creation, it must be not of the creation. The movement of time implies timelessness. And because the material creation knows only time, timelessness is a discreet degree, not a continuous one, in relation to time.
Movement is in the current. The energy is in the field. Movement is in the creation, but the force that endows creation with potential is the ether field that intuitive scientists such as Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell were sure existed. Their only error was in assuming that the ether was a physical substance.
Unfortunately our current crop of purveyors of science are locked into the politically correct theory of the day which traps them into going along to get along and not rock the boat. There are billions of dollars in grant money available for string theory and for finding a boson, so no one dares to say the the emperor has no clothes.
There is an excellent website that lists misunderstandings about electricity, and the author, an electrical engineer, says that too many science teachers tell their students that current is a flow of "electricity." And that the electricity is delivered in "little railroad cars" inside the wire. Or that the flow of current moves at the speed of light inside the wire.
Whereas current is a flow of charge, energy is in the field surrounding the wire moving at the speed of light, and the flow of charge often flows slowly or does not even flow at all (in alternating current), when it oscillates back and forth.
Similarly, students are taught that space is a vacuum, that the universe is running down, and that gravity is a property of the object itself. Whereas, in fact, space is filled with a field that is not itself matter, but which births, sustains, envelops, and regulates the material creation. This luminiferous ether field may in fact be what is called dark energy. It is also the source of gravity which is not the weakest, but the stronger force. ( See some of my other posts in which I describe the relationship between time, energy, matter, and space. There can be no space without matter)
The universe is not running down, but is perpetually sustained and reinforced by the omni directional force of the pre-time ether wind. Just what is keeping the electrons spinning after all these billions of years?
The ether or pre time wind is also the source of gravity.
Matter is being created even as we speak, and I conjecture that forming or pre-formed matter may be the mysterious dark matter.
Could it be that physics is veering off into unverifiable and unfalsifiable multi dimensional realms because the fundamental big bang, pull gravity, the anthropic principle, and the Weltanschauung of an eternal, cyclical (oscillating) universe are in error and thus go nowhere? As Gertrude Stein commented when asked about Oakland: "there's no there there. "
Einstein admitted that quantum mechanics (which ironically he helped to establish) does work for solving some issues (even as the reverse square law works quite nicely for an engineer working with local gravity), but he did not think that it would lead to fruit bearing intuitive discoveries.
I suspect he would feel similarly today and shake his head at some of the unfalsifiable physics theories that tempt one to conjecture they are ad hoc diversions from the hard question: what have physicists done in the past 30 years that is bearing fruit and helping humankind. (The Hubble telescope and the Mars landing don't count - they are engineering feats).
Professor Einstein stated that whatever space is, it is not no thing. He knew there is some sort of energy out there.
It is also worth noting, for example, that Isaac Newton himself did not ascribe gravity to the object. Though he furthered our ability to mathematically measure and predict its behavior, he was unsure of just what gravity is.
The late Dr. Stanley Jaki, Templeton prize winner and eminent historian of science, pointed out that science was stillborn over and over again in cultures where the world view underlying science was that of cyclical time and an eternal universe.
A purposeful creation, a universe compatible with and knowable through human reason, and a view of time and history having a beginning and leading purposefully somewhere, such as we have had in the Christian West, uniquely fosters and sustains ongoing scientific progress.
If time leads somewhere--a somewhere ordained by God and in accord with His purposes and ineffable wisdom, then the means of getting there must also contain the same purposefulness and wisdom.
The means must be compatible with the end. The means do not justify the end.
And thus the big bang does not sit right with my intuition. It is a violent and inhuman beginning, and one which strains credulity. Rather than being the majestic beginning one sees in the galaxies, the birth of a butterfly, or the beginning of a symphony, it is an adolescent boy's fantasy of blowing things up. It lacks rigor.
Furthermore, it violates the principle of macro-micro parallel symmetry, such as obvious similarity between the configuration of the sun and the planets and that of the the nucleus and its electrons, or the spiral galaxy and the hurricane.
If it leaves God out, it also leaves reason out. The era of the big bang bandwagon will have proved unfruitful and perhaps fateful, if in its trail, our best and brightest fail to invest their youth and vigor in research that will prove beneficial in practical ways compatible with life affirmation and mutuality.
The big bang has its problems. Just how this singularity came to be in time conflicts with the fact that time cannot exist without matter. Not to mention the fact that if the singularity was the densest thing that ever was, nothing could escape from its gravitational field.
Much is made of the expanding universe, because it is co opted by the big bang proponents. Perhaps the universe is expanding and I think it may well be expanding; but this does not prove the big bang any more than an expanding galaxy proves the galaxy began with an explosion or a growing hurricane means it began with an exploding singularity.
Einstein once said, in a comment directed to his fellow physicists, "caring for man and his destiny must always constitute the principal interest of all technical efforts. Never forget that in the midst of your diagrams and equations."
If our tax dollars are funding foolishness, flights of fancy, and creative ways of expressing chaos, blind chance, violence, and an Alice in Wonderland search for the cleverest "theory of everything" to garner a prize, then we are hood winking and degrading ourselves and the next generation.
We don't need another theory of everything. For the past 60 years we have had too many Einstein wanna bes (who soon become never-wases) trying to imitate Einstein (who did little laboratory work and stayed on the theoretical side). Einstein was a genius of inspiration, intuition and hunches. His imagination and thought experiments were grounded in inspired genius.
But he was a once every hundred years kind of a guy. I wish there had been a debate between our best selling theory of everything purveyors and a colleague of Einstein, like Banesh Hoffmann for example. He could have turned to the know it all purveyor and say "I knew Albert Einstein. He was a friend of mind. And you, sir, are no Albert Einstein.
We need more physicists willing to do the hard work (Edison's definition of genius !% inspiration and 99% perspiration). We need more of Lockheed's famed Skunk Works. We need more Hewletts and Packards, and more Jobs and Wozniaks tinkering in the garage, and ushering in our last great transformational revolution and Silicon Valley. I think the next great breakthrough in energy research will come not from physicists but from the electrical engineers, who are grounded in reality and who love to experiment and invent.
Of course, I too can be accused of a flight of fancy when I say (I make no claim that this is my idea; I am only repeating what sits well with me) that the universe began with a whoosh, not a bang; or when I maintain that gravity is a phenomenon of the pre time field, not a property of matter. Or when I claim that the universe is finite, not infinite or eternal; and that gravity runs the spins, and involving and evolving spirals that power our sources and sinks. Perhaps it is a quaint notion that there be power in the field.
I think I have intuition and common sense on my side. My science kit's magnet and iron filings and my kitchen cling wrap show me that there is force in magnetic and electrostatic fields. As a former investigator, my instincts tell me that things happen in patterns, and so I suspect that these may be local phenomena of a larger pattern. If there are little fields, there are probably similar ones, and bigger ones somewhere (or everywhere).
I watch the spiraling water going down the drain in my shower stall, and I observe the swirling eddies form in the river, and my hunch is that I will see similar phenomena writ small and writ large. I see satellite photos of a hurricane, and I see video footage taken from a pilot less plane in the still eye of the hurricane. My hunch is that the universe began with something along these lines.
Finally, my coup de grace. Math is the universal language of nature. The same inverse square formula that describes the decreasing intensity of the sound waves, also works for electromagnetism and for gravity. The same parabolic function on my algebra test works for the trajectory of NASA's test rocket. If mathematical formula describe and predict phenomena in multiple domains, they just might apply to the creation event also.
Thus if math aptly describes and predicts the behavior of phenomenon across multiple domains, then there must be something similar or symmetrical about the phenomena themselves in different domains.
Also, if the same math describes a falling apple today as an apple falling 300 years ago, then we need not look to fantasy to make logical deductions of what happened at the beginning of the universe. We don't need a cosmic Wylie Coyote blowing up a singularity box of Acme dynamite, and then inventing ad hoc theories of what had to happen in the first second afterward to confabulate our story.
The phenomena I see around me today give me clues about what happened then. Algebra, geometry, and calculus, circles, spirals, whirlwinds and pressure will do nicely, thank you.
God does indeed take delight in order and symmetry. A type of symmetry that is often overlooked is the type alluded to by the great Swede Emanuel Swedenborg, who saw correspondences between the spiritual and the natural, and the symmetrical replication of form and process in the macro and micro scale. The barred spiral galaxies give us a clue as to how the universe began, even as does the hurricane. So do the bike wheel, river eddies, and the gyroscope. A poet might put it thusly:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour. William Blake's Auguries of Innocence
A see saw goes up and down, with one person going up when the other goes down. At the very center of the fulcrum is a place where up is translated into down. The same motion is both up and down in perfect symmetry and proportion. At the very center is a still place, neither going up or down, but which makes possible the outer opposite but harmonious motions.
At the center of a bicycle wheel is the hub. If you grab the wheel on one side and spin it one way, an equal and opposite movement is instantaneously created on the other side of the wheel. Lay a bicycle down and spin the wheel. An object at the center will merely revolve, whereas an object on the circumference will move at high speed. At the theoretical center, there is no movement.
In the eye of the dust devil or certain types of tornadoes, the upward movement of air in the center translates into the circular movement revolving around that center. Do you see the parallel with the curly E field or B field made by its fraternal twin when current flows longitudinally?
It is remarkable that the ether field respects the straight vector of a beamed particle or of a photon of light, permitting it to travel straight forever unless it is influenced by another force. In the case of the genesis of the universe and perhaps of the galaxies, the vectors go forth from the hub with linear and angular momentum; and like the rotating cursor arm on a radar screen, sweeping over the particulate matter within its sway, reinforcing them and making them glow, again just like the sweeping cursor on the radar screen lights up the blips it sweeps over.
And so it was and is that force moved out from the center with rectilinear, angular, circular and spiraling force creating pre time moving stillness in the field surrounding the still center. This field is the all pervasive and penetrating field which is the non material medium of translation of the spiritual into the material, of the timeless into time, of stillness into motion.
This spiritual ether field , the pre time wind and pre time force, is a field of the most remarkable properties. It is spiritual light, but we cannot see it with our eyes. It is still, not having physical movement, yet it contains geometric omnidirectional vectors of force like precessing string being wound around an ever expanding ball of string.
Even as iron is the most compatible element for magnetism, so light is the most compatible "element" for the field.
This luminiferous ether field is ephemeral and non tangible, and yet it is the source of gravity - the most ubiquitous, tangible and cogent force in all creation (If you have ever dropped an object on your toe, your Galilean experiment proved to you that the universe is real and that gravity is not a weak force).
Omni directional lines of force impress themselves gently upon us, and this push gravity bequeaths on each object a center of gravity, which it then honors. The lines of force move at many times, perhaps millions of times, the speed of light, and thus the action of gravity is instantaneous for all practical purposes. Newton's "action at a distance" does, in fact, describe the action of gravity because of the spooky speed involved.
Dr. Einstein said: "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." How touching it is when we see the child working beside father or mother using simplified tools to do something like mom or dad is doing.
Likewise, God so loves people that He permits us to understand, though often in a rudimentary almost child-like way, what He has created, and to understand and use mathematics, incredibly simple in some ways and yet somehow perfect and practical. How simple is the formula for the area of a circle or the Pythagorean theorem; yet how usable by our architects and engineers.
It is also touching that the incalculable power imbued into creation could gear down to ratios that are proportional to each created object. The bowling ball drops with a thud, but the delicate butterfly floats ethereally by.
Universal movements and forces are complex geometries that an Einstein and Riemann intuit and then describe in the complex formulas. Yet it is permitted that local gravity obey every high schooler's inverse square law with absolute predictability, making it understandable and usable by our students, engineers and NASA scientists too.
Does the concept of a mother field enveloping, protecting, regulating and nurturing its children seem old fashioned or unscientific? How about the love of a parent for the child or the child for the parent?
I was sitting outside on the patio the other day. It was a sunny, warm, balmy gentle day. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I was indoors, because the blue canopy above, the golden sun on high, and the gentle breezes caressing the trees felt like home to me. I also palpably sensed for the first time what I have come to know through my explorations in physics: an ineffable field securely surrounds us and presses upon us and the good earth, in which I felt at home and secure.
Many of us have had an aquarium with exotic fish swimming or elegantly suspended in the beautiful self contained environment of their warm watery world. The fish is not consciously aware of the water that supports it, nor of the planning and preparation that went into the placement of the pump, filtration, sea weed, light, and the daily attentive care of the owner.
The Catholics have a beautiful expression: "Father God and mother earth." God created the mother field to birth and sustain the material creation. We love the sea, the sky, and the stars. We are delighted by the zebras and parrots, and the cats and the dogs we share this world with.
We appreciate the bounty of food and are grateful for our parents and our partner.
We love the earth, but it is the Creator Who gave it to us. This planet is not a mathematician, but God is. And if, unlike our aquarium fish, we can appreciate and even grasp some of His calculus, geometry and engineering concepts, then we are, to that extent, compatible with Him.
As a psychologist and counselor for almost a quarter of a century, I can tell you that behind all the issues, drug use, crime, confusion and depression, there is one issue that that stands out and which I hear all the time from teens and adults.
"My father was not there for me."
With couples with troubled relationships, what comes to the fore is that the wife wants something from her husband that he seems incapable of giving.
And so you have the spectacle of the good provider--steady, solid citizen husband, respected in the community, even church--yet unaware that his wife is secretly unhappy and his daughter feels he is not there for her.
What he is missing is the Father Spirit, from which would come the mysterious agape love our children and spouses need to see and know exists. Of course, after searching, they can find it on their own, but it is easier for them if it comes through the husband and father.
Though some rare men may be of the stature of George Washington or Enoch from the beginning, most men must first come to realize their inadequacy through failing, and some, through suffering and searching, then seek and find a bond with their Creator.
Sustained along the way by his love of truth and a love of principle, he is honorable and has a fire in his belly for justice. He tends to stand for what is right and goes as far as his earthly strength will take him. Then realizing his need for something more, his searching nature draws the compassion of the Father.
His love of principle and his honor breed respect in his family, and they may one day come to love the good that is in him. And because the good in him is not his but is actually from the Creator, his family's respect and perhaps, one day, love for this good is the same as love for God.
I will never forget the true story I read of the sea captain in the days of the sailing ships who was at sea for months at a time. His wife and daughter loved him dearly. Even though he was away for long periods of time they still felt safe and secure. He was a man of impeccable honor who could be trusted. He was also kind and wise. He had the Father Spirit.
It does not matter if our aquarium fish does not know that we are the ones who care for him. Nor does it matter if all the animals are oblivious of the Creator.
But it matters and it matters profoundly if a human being is oblivious of Father God; or horror of horrors, is made to doubt Him or doubt the existence of love and truth, through the cruelty, betrayal, neglect, or intellectual confusion of those he or she had looked to for guidance.
And so it is, dear reader, that a parent, teacher, or professor's job is minimally to at least validate on the outside what the child or student knows in his or her heart on the inside.
Alexandre Solzhenitsyn was asked to account for the great tragedies that occurred under the brutal communist regime he and fellow citizens suffered under.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn offered the following explanation:
"Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.' Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."
It is gratifying to know that Einstein did not forget Who he called "Der Alte" (the Old One).
He is quoted saying "Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me
that it is not yet the real thing. The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One. I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice."
And so I close this little essay by saying that if my search for truth has led me to God, then I am indeed a very blessed person. I vouchsafe and hold dear what I read as an undergrad decades ago and will never forget, this affirmation of science, art, and the human spirit by Joseph Conrad.
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should
carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined
as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to
the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one,
underlying its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in
its colours, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and
in the facts of life what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and
essential--their one illuminating and convincing quality--the very truth
of their existence. The artist, then, like the thinker or the scientist,
seeks the truth and makes his appeal. Impressed by the aspect of the
world the thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into facts--whence,
presently, emerging they make their appeal to those qualities of our
being that fit us best for the hazardous enterprise of living. They
speak authoritatively to our common-sense, to our intelligence, to
our desire of peace or to our desire of unrest; not seldom to our
prejudices, sometimes to our fears, often to our egoism--but always
to our credulity. And their words are heard with reverence, for their
concern is with weighty matters: with the cultivation of our minds and
the proper care of our bodies, with the attainment of our ambitions,
with the perfection of the means and the glorification of our precious
aims.
It is otherwise with the artist.
Confronted by the same enigmatical spectacle the artist descends within
himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be
deserving and fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is
made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which,
because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept out
of sight within the more resisting and hard qualities--like the
vulnerable body within a steel armour. His appeal is less loud, more
profound, less distinct, more stirring--and sooner forgotten. Yet its
effect endures forever. The changing wisdom of successive generations
discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist
appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to
that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition--and, therefore, more
permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder,
to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity,
and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all
creation--and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that
knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity
in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in
fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all
humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
_________
Below I have included some of Clarke's Commentary (in the public domain) on Genesis 1.
Perhaps after reading my essay, you are in a frame of mind to now read the first few verses of Genesis 1 and grasp in a lightning flash the majesty and the mystery of what the ancient writer of Genesis 1 (and Mr. Clarke in his commentary) were trying to convey with the unscientific words available to them.
Perhaps like the good Professor Einstein who apologized to Newton (who he said had taken science as far as he could with what he had to work with at the time), we may apologize to the giants on whose shoulders we have stood, but whose writings we used as a foil to promote our own cleverness instead of humbly acknowledging that they may have been more insigthful than we in our youthful hubris realized.
The following is the beginning of Genesis 1 along with excerpts from Clarke's Commentary
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Genesis 1:1.2
The heaven and the earth - As the word שמים shamayim is plural, we may rest assured that it means more than the atmosphere, to express which some have endeavored to restrict its meaning. Nor does it appear that the atmosphere is particularly intended here, as this is spoken of, Genesis 1:6, under the term firmament. The word heavens must therefore comprehend the whole solar system, as it is very likely the whole of this was created in these six days; for unless the earth had been the center of a system, the reverse of which is sufficiently demonstrated, it would be unphilosophic to suppose it was created independently of the other parts of the system, as on this supposition we must have recourse to the almighty power of God to suspend the influence of the earth's gravitating power till the fourth day, when the sun was placed in the center, round which the earth began then to revolve. But as the design of the inspired penman was to relate what especially belonged to our world and its inhabitants, therefore he passes by the rest of the planetary system, leaving it simply included in the plural word heavens. In the word "earth" every thing relative to the terraqueaerial globe is included, that is, all that belongs to the solid and fluid parts of our world with its surrounding atmosphere. As therefore I suppose the whole solar system was created at this time, I think it perfectly in place to give here a general view of all the planets, with every thing curious and important hitherto known relative to their revolutions and principal affections.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The earth was without form and void - The original term תהו tohu and בהו bohu, which we translate without form and void, are of uncertain etymology; but in this place, and wherever else they are used, they convey the idea of confusion and disorder. From these terms it is probable that the ancient Syrians and Egyptians borrowed their gods, Theuth and Bau, and the Greeks their Chaos. God seems at first to have created the elementary principles of all things; and this formed the grand mass of matter, which in this state must be without arrangement, or any distinction of parts: a vast collection of indescribably confused materials, of nameless entities strangely mixed; and wonderfully well expressed by an ancient heathen poet: -
Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, caelum,
Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, Quem dixere
Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles,
Nec quicquam nisi pondus iners; congestaque eodem
Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum.
Ovid.
Before the seas and this terrestrial ball,
And heaven's high canopy that covers all,
One was the face of nature, if a face;
Rather, a rude and indigested mass;
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd and unframed,
Of jarring seeds, and justly Chaos named.
When this congeries of elementary principles was brought together, God was pleased to spend six days in assimilating, assorting, and arranging the materials, out of which he built up, not only the earth, but the whole of the solar system.
The spirit of God - This has been variously and strangely understood. Some think a violent wind is meant, because רוח, ruach often signifies wind, as well as spirit, as πνευμα, does in Greek; and the term God is connected with it merely, as they think, to express the superlative degree. Others understand by it an elementary fire. Others, the sun, penetrating and drying up the earth with his rays. Others, the angels, who were supposed to have been employed as agents in creation. Others, a certain occult principle, termed the anima mundi or soul of the world. Others, a magnetic attraction, by which all things were caused to gravitate to a common center. But it is sufficiently evident from the use of the word in other places, that the Holy Spirit of God is intended; which our blessed Lord represents under the notion of wind, John 3:8; and which, as a mighty rushing wind on the day of Pentecost, filled the house where the disciples were sitting, Acts 2:2, which was immediately followed by their speaking with other tongues, because they were filled with the Holy Ghost, Acts 2:4. These scriptures sufficiently ascertain the sense in which the word is used by Moses.
Moved - מרחפת merachepheth, was brooding over; for the word expresses that tremulous motion made by the hen while either hatching her eggs or fostering her young. It here probably signifies the communicating a vital or prolific principle to the waters. As the idea of incubation, or hatching an egg, is implied in the original word, hence probably the notion, which prevailed among the ancients, that the world was generated from an egg.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God said, Let there be light - הי אור ויהי אור Yehi or, vaihi or. Nothing can be conceived more dignified than this form of expression. It argues at once uncontrollable authority, and omnific power; and in human language it is scarcely possible to conceive that God can speak more like himself. This passage, in the Greek translation of the Septuagint, fell in the way of Dionysius Longinus, one of the most judicious Greek critics that ever lived, and who is highly celebrated over the civilized world for a treatise he wrote, entitled Περι Ὑψους, Concerning the Sublime, both in prose and poetry; of this passage, though a heathen, he speaks in the following terms: - Ταυτῃ και ὁ των Ιουδαιων θεσμοθετης(ουχ ὁ τυχων ανηρ,) επειδη την του θειου δυναμιν κατα την αξιαν εχωρησε, καξεφηνεν· ευθυς εν τῃ εισβολη γραψας των νομων, ΕΙΠΕΝ Ὁ ΘΕΟΣ, φησι, τι; ΓΕΝΕΣΘΩ ΦΩΣ· και εγενετο. ΓΕΝΕΣΘΩ ΓΗ· και εγενετο."So likewise the Jewish lawgiver (who was no ordinary man) having conceived a just idea of the Divine power, he expressed it in a dignified manner; for at the beginning of his laws he thus speaks: God Said - What? Let There Be Light! and there was light. Let There Be Earth! and there was earth." - Longinus, sect. ix. edit. Pearce.
Many have asked, "How could light be produced on the first day, and the sun, the fountain of it, not created till the fourth day?" With the various and often unphilosophical answers which have been given to this question I will not meddle, but shall observe that the original word אור signifies not only light but fire, see Isaiah 31:9 Ezekiel 5:2. It is used for the Sun, Job 31:26. And for the electric fluid or Lightning, Job 37:3. And it is worthy of remark that It is used in Isaiah 44:16, for the heat, derived from אש esh, the fire. He burneth part thereof in the fire (במו אש bemo esh): yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha! I have seen the fire, ראיתי אור raithi ur, which a modern philosopher who understood the language would not scruple to translate, I have received caloric, or an additional portion of the matter of heat. I therefore conclude, that as God has diffused the matter of caloric or latent heat through every part of nature, without which there could be neither vegetation nor animal life, that it is caloric or latent heat which is principally intended by the original word.
That there is latent light, which is probably the same with latent heat, may be easily demonstrated: take two pieces of smooth rock crystal, agate, cornelian or flint, and rub them together briskly in the dark, and the latent light or matter of caloric will be immediately produced and become visible. The light or caloric thus disengaged does not operate in the same powerful manner as the heat or fire which is produced by striking with flint and steel, or that produced by electric friction. The existence of this caloric-latent or primitive light, may be ascertained in various other bodies; it can be produced by the flint and steel, by rubbing two hard sticks together, by hammering cold iron, which in a short time becomes red hot, and by the strong and sudden compression of atmospheric air in a tube. Friction in general produces both fire and light. God therefore created this universal agent on the first day, because without It no operation of nature could be carried on or perfected.
Light is one of the most astonishing productions of the creative skill and power of God. It is the grand medium by which all his other works are discovered, examined, and understood, so far as they can be known. Its immense diffusion and extreme velocity are alone sufficient to demonstrate the being and wisdom of God.
Genesis1:14
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
And God said, Let there be lights, etc. - One principal office of these was to divide between day and night. When night is considered a state of comparative darkness, how can lights divide or distinguish it? The answer is easy: The sun is the monarch of the day, which is the state of light; the moon, of the night, the state of darkness. The rays of the sun, falling on the atmosphere, are refracted and diffused over the whole of that hemisphere of the earth immediately under his orb; while those rays of that vast luminary which, because of the earth's smallness in comparison of the sun, are diffused on all sides beyond the earth, falling on the opaque disc of the moon, are reflected back upon what may be called the lower hemisphere, or that part of the earth which is opposite to the part which is illuminated by the sun: and as the earth completes a revolution on its own axis in about twenty-four hours, consequently each hemisphere has alternate day and night. But as the solar light reflected from the face of the moon is computed to be 50,000 times less in intensity and effect than the light of the sun as it comes directly from himself to our earth, (for light decreases in its intensity as the distance it travels from the sun increases), therefore a sufficient distinction is made between day and night, or light and darkness, notwithstanding each is ruled and determined by one of these two great lights; the moon ruling the night, i.e., reflecting from her own surface back on the earth the rays of light which she receives from the sun. Thus both hemispheres are to a certain degree illuminated: the one, on which the sun shines, completely so; this is day: the other, on which the sun's light is reflected by the moon, partially; this is night. It is true that both the planets and fixed stars afford a considerable portion of light during the night, yet they cannot be said to rule or to predominate by their light, because their rays arc quite lost in the superior splendor of the moon's light.
And let them be for signs - לאתת leothoth. Let them ever be considered as continual tokens of God's tender care for man, and as standing proofs of his continual miraculous interference; for so the word את oth is often used. And is it not the almighty energy of God that upholds them in being? The sun and moon also serve as signs of the different changes which take place in the atmosphere, and which are so essential for all purposes of agriculture, commerce, etc.
For seasons - מועדים moadim; For the determination of the times on which the sacred festivals should be held. In this sense the word frequently occurs; and it was right that at the very opening of his revelation God should inform man that there were certain festivals which should be annually celebrated to his glory. Some think we should understand the original word as signifying months, for which purpose we know the moon essentially serves through all the revolutions of time.
For days - Both the hours of the day and night, as well as the different lengths of the days and nights, are distinguished by the longer and shorter spaces of time the sun is above or below the horizon.
And years - That is, those grand divisions of time by which all succession in the vast lapse of duration is distinguished. This refers principally to a complete revolution of the earth round the sun, which is accomplished in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 48 seconds; for though the revolution is that of the earth, yet it cannot be determined but by the heavenly bodies.
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
from Biblos. com and Clarke's Commentary on the Bibletext courtesy of Sacred Texts
