Creation and the Fall – Analysis and Commentary on Genesis, Chs. 1 – 3 (Part I and II) Justin Synnestvedt

Part I - Overview

IntroductionHaving taught philosophy and comparative religion for a long career, I think the two

subjects fit together very well, although some would say religion and philosophy are incompatible. Someone said (I think it was Heidegger) that religion starts with answers, while philosophy starts with questions. I understand his point. Biblical (so-called Abrahamic) religion often seems opposed to rational thought and modern science, especially today. Contemporary stories of religious violence support that view. But I think it is well to think philosophically about religion. Although this will not ‘make a believer’ of anyone, it is a useful and satisfying work, if undertaken with a positive attitude of looking for truth and seeking wisdom (which is what philosophy should be doing).

Many years of teaching showed me that students typically enjoy the critical comparative study of religions. But understandably, when it comes to examining their own religious upbringing, students are often uncomfortable. They may feel their beliefs are under threat or will appear silly. Some more ‘sophisticated’ students report that they aren’t ‘religious,’ because the ideas and behaviors they have learned from their family traditions make no sense to them, and don’t fit into their modern world viewpoint or way of life. Often I find they have rejected religion wholesale, without careful thought or understanding.

In the western world, traditional religions are under fire, in recent generations, with three main results. First, there is a ‘fundamentalist’ reaction around the world – including in the US and other developed Western nations.1 Secondly, there are many who have rejected religion altogether, because it seems to contradict their scientific orientation, for example in Western Europe and communist nations (e.g. China, Cuba, East Germany). Most Americans, on the other hand, still identify with religious traditions.2 Maybe it is because US history doesn’t include the kind of repression and in-fighting of religious factions, or the relations between religion and royalty that is found in European history. Thirdly, there are those who are looking for new religions. For more than a century, ‘Westerners,’ especially in the US, have been studying and embracing so-called philosophic or Eastern religions, like Buddhism and Hinduism. And more recently, there is no shortage of New Age religions, including a heavy dose of those which claim some discovery of latter day revelations, like the Book of Urantia,3 which try to integrate science and ‘other worldly’ principles.

I should be open about my own religious biases. I was literally nurtured in the spirit of Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th century Enlightenment thinker whose ideas strongly influenced the romantic writers of the 19th century, as well as the Transcendentalists.4 I was raised in a town near Philadelphia - Bryn Athyn, Pa - that was founded to support, teach and implement Swedenborg’s revealed religious ideas. He was a Swedish scientist and a theologian who strongly encouraged rational criticism and personal examination of both nature and scriptures.

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His Heavenly Secrets, published in Latin in Amsterdam from 1749 – 1756, is a twelve volume work, primarily concerned with a detailed explanation of Genesis and Exodus, in relation to the rest of the Old and New Testament scriptures, as well as reports of his spiritual experiences. 5

The Bible is foundational to the way Western thought, values and history have evolved. I shouldn’t have to remind people of this fact, but given our culture’s gradual loss of interest in reading generally, and subsequently the increasing ignorance about history and literature, it seems useful. So regardless of students’ personal religious beliefs or lack of belief, I’ve always encouraged them to become familiar with the Bible, through direct reading (rather than from film or hearsay accounts). I’m very grateful to my parents - especially my mother - who read the King James Bible6 to me until I was old enough to read it myself. I also thank my many teachers who were always open to any serious and decent attempt to understand and argue about these stories, on the part of a critical adolescent such as I was. I apologize for any interpretations here to the degree that they differ from what I was taught about scripture, but my views are also a function of many years of study in a wide range of religious, scientific and philosophic ideas. I hope you who read this essay will react, and give me your own views, so long as you are willing to argue rationally, and not make dogmatic pronouncements.

Before going to Genesis, let me state my strong belief that Biblical scriptures need to be interpreted, and that any claim to “take them literally” leads to impossible contradictions, and a very unsatisfying picture of the world. Two contemporary scholars present this view well. Karen Armstrong, in The Bible, shows that literalist interpretations are a relatively recent development, which began in the late 18th century as a reaction to the rise of science thinking. Elaine Pagels, in The Gnostic Gospels and other works, shows that at the beginning of Christianity, there were many interpretations of scripture, and even many ‘gospels’ - especially those by mystical and philosophical ‘Greek’ thinkers - which competed for acceptance into the orthodox Christian canon.

In addition, I recommend another scholar, and member of the Academie Francaise - Rene Girard - whose ideas I came across only recently. He does an amazing job of arguing that Biblical religion differs from all so-called primal religions, which began in scapegoating and murderous violence that is covered over and hidden by their mythologies. By contrast, Biblical texts show - not obviously at first, but gradually more and more clearly from Genesis to Revelation, and especially in the ideas and life of Jesus - that using violence to bring social order is a terrible error, and a misunderstanding of the spirit of revelation. In Biblical scriptures, scapegoating is never hidden or justified.7

The Bible as a Love Letter Take a minute to ‘deconstruct’ the notion of a Bible. It is said to be ‘The Book.’

Believers say it is the ‘revelation’ of God, God’s Word ( DBR YHWH in Hebrew). To claim that God speaks to humans, in one way or another, is of course problematic. Does God have a mouth? Did God’s words make audible sounds in the physical realm? Were they ‘inspired’ into the listener’s mind? Did the latter have a visionary experience in

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some transcendent realm? What language did God speak? Does God have a gender? 8 And so forth. But for me, a deeper question is the suggestion that God communicates with humans at all. Communication implies that God is human, in some essential way. After all, speech is the essence of humanness. But more, for what purpose was (is) the Word given? Many Jews and Christians believe it to be the set of laws and beliefs which God intends for them to follow; which indeed they must follow. But for what reasons?

Does God want to control everything? Is God a Super Ego? And if he is the source of all things – the ‘ultimate reality’ - does he not already control everything, including humans? Why was this Biblical set of laws and beliefs given long after humans first inhabited the earth? Were there earlier revelations? Is writing required? Why wasn’t it built into human awareness from the beginning? Anthropology certainly shows that all human societies have had religious behavior and thought from the beginning, so has there always been revelation? Finally, why was the earth – and indeed all the earths, and all that is contained in them, including humans – why was it all created? And why does human life start in this natural realm, where God cannot be directly present with people, since he is somehow beyond nature?

All these questions are complex and difficult, and believers might think it is presumptuous even to ask them, let alone try to answer them. In this essay, I won’t deal with these questions in any detail, but I think they belong to a set of interlocking ideas that can be explained satisfyingly. But first, let me give a general answer that suggests what they all have in common. It is simply this: God is Love. That is the essence of God, and the essence of his relation to the whole universe, especially to mankind. I take this idea as the proper starting point for answering any of the questions outlined above, and it will be the principle on which to base my analysis and commentary about Creation and The Fall in this essay. Needless to say, this principle can’t be proven; but that does not mean a person is irrational to hold it.

To make sense of the texts about Creation and The Fall, we need first to think about how love, happiness and choice are interrelated. Put briefly, if you love someone, your intention is to do what benefits that person - what brings that person happiness. That’s the nature of love. If you love yourself, it is the same - you intend happiness for yourself. We speak about loving ‘things,’ but that is not said properly. It typically means, we love ourselves, and we think those ‘things’ can or do bring us happiness. Often self-love is frustrated, however, because it is confused with self-gratification, and the effort to make others do our bidding. Selfishness is no way to find happiness. So ‘real’ love is aimed at others, as well as ourselves, and its nature is to try to benefit them - to bring them happiness.

Suppose we love someone - a friend, sibling, parent or child. How can we benefit that person? How can we ‘make them happy’? The answer is we can’t. We can’t make anyone happy. We can give expressions of our love, and make efforts to benefit the loved one, but without the other seeing our expressions or efforts as beneficial, or believing they will in fact bring happiness, then the other won’t be happy, no matter how genuinely and passionately we may wish it. Happiness must be seen as happiness, and freely accepted as happiness. It cannot be imposed - only offered.

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If a good willed parent thought she could ‘make her child happy’ - i.e. cause, force or impose happiness on the child - would she do it? Not if she truly loved that child. If the child does not willingly accept the happiness, it isn’t the child’s happiness; it is only an apparent happiness, an artificial product of a domineering parent, who wishes to impose her will on the child (most likely for her own sake). Of course people are famously ignorant about what will bring true happiness, to themselves or to others. That’s the major lesson to be learned in life, in my opinion. But God is never mistaken about what brings happiness, and he never imposes his will or dominion over others. That would contradict love, and God is love. So God knows people can be happy only if they accept his love willingly, and return it by loving others and trying to benefit them in turn. He can do nothing to force this outcome; just provide endless opportunities. If a person chooses to be unhappy, not even God can prevent it; that would contradict his essence, his loving nature.

With these general philosophical thoughts in mind, let me analyze and comment about some of the specific texts in this famous story. I don’t intend to do a thorough job; time and my lack of expertise won’t allow that. What’s more, many, many books have been written about these few chapters of the Bible – and many studies published about even a single phrase or word in the text. And still more humbling, Swedenborg said two centuries ago that volumes could not disclose all the deep spiritual truth to be found hidden even in the least ‘jot and tittle’ of the Hebrew text, should one understand the innermost meaning. 9 My hope then is only to clarify my own thinking in general about what these stories tell us of life, and to share with friends and students with whom I have many times discussed these texts. I hope readers will think about them more, and raise their own questions, and find the delight of looking for truth that is satisfying and reasonable, more than memorized and dogmatic.

Part Two - Creation A

Creation - Genesis Ch. 1“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It is often said that God

created “from nothing” (ex nihil). Indeed this is what the editorial comment says in the King James study Bible I am using. This claim is presumably made to show that God’s creation is ‘absolute;’ i.e. it is not, like many ‘creation myths,’ a matter of God altering, rearranging, or bringing order upon some preexisting reality –some primordial chaos - that was there before God came on the scene. There wasn’t any ‘scene’ for God to come upon. Before God, there was nothing. To the believer, this makes sense.

However, the orthodox doctrine of creation ex nihil is very misleading; in fact it is false. Creation from nothing is impossible. Advocates would perhaps say, ‘Yes, for human agents, and even for the human mind, it is impossible, but for God nothing is impossible.’ Instead I would suggest that some things are impossible, even for God. Being good, God cannot do evil; God cannot make humans who are not free to reject him; and God cannot create out of nothing. But in fact, he creates out of something – not out of something external and preexistent to him, but out of himself, which is the ultimate something, the ultimate reality, “Being Itself.” These are ideas that any student of Hinduism or Buddhism would find familiar, comfortable, and sensible. But from the beginning of Christianity, theologians of orthodoxy have more and more

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emphasized faith without reason, perhaps as a means of organizing and controlling a church of those who wished to come to Christ and the Word.

The Bible is God’s gift of guidance, for all humans to find the happiness that he intends for them. It is a holy book, a religious book, a spiritual book. Its purposes are eternal. Why then do so many persons consider it to be a book about a limited and questionable human history, or about the origins of this earth, or about understanding nature? There may be parts of the Bible that clearly refer to historical events and places. That is natural, for it to have been intelligible to the people and in the culture where it was first given - people who were aware of and steeped in their traditions, who honored their ancestors, and who understood nature barely at all. But the purpose and value of the revelation lie in its spiritual lessons. Would these truths not have to benefit anyone willing to accept the offer of happiness, in whatever place and time she or he may live? For this reason, much – no, most - of the message is not on the surface. It must be found by looking for the coherence and power of the interior truth of scripture, rather than being told to accept the confusing and contradictory literal stories in which it is so interestingly wrapped.

I respectfully suggest that these three chapters of Genesis on which I am focusing, and in fact the first ten and a half chapters up to the appearance of Abraham, are deeply and primarily symbolic and contain truths about God and the human condition that will never be improved upon, although they will certainly be better understood. So, on the one hand, these stories should not be accepted as historical and scientific truths that the faithful must accept, under threat of damnation. Nor, on the other hand, should they be viewed with benign tolerance as attempts of people from early ignorant and unsophisticated cultures to understand and make meaning out of the events of nature that we now understand better, even if they appear on the surface to be such.

Notice it is said that God created ‘the heavens and the earth’ in that order - not earth and heaven. And notice also that there is no mention of hell. It is probable, according to scholars of biblical Hebrew, that ‘the heavens and earth’ here simply refer to the sky, and the earth under it, as it appeared to and was thought about by the people of the time. Furthermore, the Hebrew writers probably had a similar view of cosmology as other peoples in the ancient Near East. Indeed, the idea of an orderly whole Cosmos was probably not thought about philosophically before the Presocratic Greek thinkers, like Pythagoras. Many people believed the Gods dwelt in the sky, and they had no sense of a transcendent or ‘spiritual’ realm beyond nature. Biblical Hebrew writers may well have thought that God dwelt ‘above the heavens,’ but it seems very unlikely that the word translated in English as ‘heaven’ (or ‘heavens,’ since cultures of that area seemed to think of a domed heaven above the earth, and a heaven beyond that one) carried the same subtle or symbolic variation in meaning as it might today. Furthermore, as George Benthien points out, Hebrew has only about 2500 separate root words, compared to over half a million words in English. So variations in meaning had to be determined according to context.10

If later developments in Jewish and especially Christian thought have suggested that God revealed eternal and spiritual truths, specifically including the idea of an eternal heaven which is beyond space and time, then perhaps Biblical revelation used ordinary language to represent or ‘reveal’ extraordinary ideas, by means of poetic symbols, and one would have to interpret the literal meaning to find the higher sense. This could be true, even if the people who wrote this account did not understand what they wrote in the same way as later, deeper thinkers might do.

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This is my belief. It makes sense, if this is a spiritual book somehow given to humans (not invented by them), that ‘the heavens’ and ‘the earth’ here can mean the spiritual heaven, and the spiritual earth, although they did not say so literally, because they could not do so. In other words, contained within the words and thoughts of those inspired to write them are truths of which they were unaware.

When we read various translations, interpretations and commentaries about the Bible, it is well to keep in mind the amazing and complex interconnection of its ideas – although the texts were composed over a period of perhaps four thousand years, from the Assyrian roots of early Genesis to the book of Revelation, written about 100 C.E. I feel safe to say nothing about it is obvious!

It is said that heaven is “created.” Heaven can’t be the ‘abode of God,’ since God isn’t limited to an abode; but it is (or is intended to be) the abode of humans with God. Heaven is the first thing created, because it is the goal of creation. Heaven represents the happy state of humans which is God’s eternal purpose. All creation aims at human happiness, which is heaven. Creation is designed for that end. And Biblical scripture is the (some would say indispensable) means to that end.

Similarly, ‘earth’ here is not the land in which these people lived, who probably had no idea of a totality of which their experience was only a small part. Nor is it the whole terraqueous globe of the natural world that concerns men of modern science. Least of all is it the entire ‘universe’ of nature, as it has been considered by philosophy and religion of later times. Again, thinking in terms of symbolism (or even poetry), ‘earth’ represents the initial state of all humanity, or better, the initial state of every human being, at birth. Furthermore, because humanness rests in minds more than in bodies, ‘earth’ here symbolizes the mind of every person (or all mankind generally) before she or he has become truly human, i.e. spiritually fully developed. Expanding this thought, it can be said that the ‘days of creation’ do not represent some ancient cosmology, but are the ‘days’ or the stages that every human goes through ideally, as she or he progresses toward the goal of spiritual humanness - the goal of ‘regeneration’ and the heavenly happiness which attends one who reaches that goal (whether or not the person is still living on earth.)

Of course there are many wise people who have suggested heaven and hell are states of mind, and not places. Jesus says “The kingdom of God is within you.”( Luke 17:21) Whether or not there is an eternal (i.e. non-temporal), personal existence after death, it is not hard to believe from our own experience that each of us can be either in heaven or in hell at various times, depending on our mental state. This is not to deny the ‘reality’ of heaven or hell, but to suggest they are not primarily material places.

Hell is not mentioned at all in the Genesis account, although there was language available to express it in Hebrew, and the idea did occur later in the Bible. I think this is because hell was not intended or created by God; it was created by humans. How so? If humans are to receive happiness from God, they must accept it, as was said above, freely and willingly. The choice of happiness is not a true choice unless the choice of unhappiness is a real possibility. Accepting God’s offer is only meaningful against the possibility of rejecting God, even though separation

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will mean unhappiness. The potential for this rejection and its consequences existed when this choice of genuine happiness was offered, but it did not exist in actuality, and ideally it might never have existed. Of course the person who rejects God does so thinking of his or her own happiness, but it is a wholly selfish, perverted and false sense of happiness. I wouldn’t call it an error though, because ignorance excuses; the rejectors however are not asking to be excused.11

“And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Gen 1: 2)

Again, the language here has generated books’ worth of discussion and argument. Some translations have used ‘a mighty wind’ or ‘a divine wind’ instead of ‘the spirit of God;’ and ‘swept’ instead of ‘moved;’ others have used ‘brooded,’ which I like. Since the same Hebrew word can mean breath, spirit or wind, depending on context, and moved, brooded or swept equally depend on context, we can see how much liberty the translators might have to choose what expresses their own sense of the text. They have to guess what the authors had in mind, and that is partly a function of the translators’ own religious views.

At birth everyone’s mind is ‘without form and void;’ and there is no knowledge, so it is dark as well. This ignorant state lasts, in a sense, into adulthood as well, if one is thinking of the need for regeneration, or the development of a higher, truly human character. Nonetheless, the Spirit of God is said to be ‘brooding’ over the mind of each person, like a mother bird which is vigilant and ever concerned for its offspring’s wellbeing and growth.

With an infant, there is no ‘light’ – i.e. no rational knowledge – but there is consciousness, and sensation in the child’s experience; and there is memory. Soon the child is able to see patterns in its memory, including a whole complex of pleasant feelings like loving voices, warm embraces, the touch and taste of the breast on lips and milk in the mouth, etc. She or he recognizes that a limited part of this experience is controllable, e.g. that she can cry. So the child cries, with the intention of reliving the remembered pleasures.

There is no truth in this primitive mind, and no objective distinction between sensation and memory, between inner and outer, between self and others. The child is passive, until she or he can make a choice, i.e. until the child can represent the world in his or her thought, and try to repeat the pleasant feelings any way it can. If the mother is ‘good enough,’ 12 she will respond appropriately to the child’s cries, which will engender in the child a sense of confidence, as well as the idea that she or he is in control. Of course, soon this latter belief will be tested by reality. The mother may postpone or oppose the child’s satisfaction, and the child will begin the long, difficult road of learning the difference between what is desired and what is attainable, and how to get it. “Light” comes to the mind gradually, and by stages that depend on experience, aptitude and ‘teachability.’ But this light, which comes from the God, exists from the beginning. It has two forms – the light of nature and the light of the higher world.

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.” (Gen 2:3)

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I am reminded of Plato’s parable of The Cave, in which two worlds are described - the world of nature, which is governed by the Sun , and the mental or spiritual world, which is governed by the Good. The natural world is said to be an “offspring” of the Good. 13 The compatibility between Plato’s thinking and Christian beliefs has been seen almost from the beginning, although ‘Neo-Platonism’ was later rejected by the orthodox fathers of the Christian church who emphasized community and obedience to authority more than philosophical thought.

It has often been noted by linguists that ‘anything can symbolize anything.’ Poets know this too. In other words, since the connection between a symbol and what it ‘represents’ is humanly created, it is arbitrary in its origin. This is obvious in ordinary language. New words are not chosen because they represent something; they are made to represent by being chosen. The spoken English word ‘blue’ has no natural connection with the color blue. But of course meaning is social and conventional, so there must be mutual agreement to let a word symbolize its referent, or there can be no communication. This being said, it does seem that there are indeed certain ‘objects’ in nature that are natural symbols, because they are so widely accepted across cultures. Light is one of these.

It is not surprising that in many archaic myths the sun is a god. A more developed mythology might say that the sun is created by God. Indeed, the Bible says this too. But the sun (and moon and stars) were not created until the fourth day in the Genesis account, whereas light came on the first day. It must be symbolic. And what it symbolizes is truth. What’s more, the light came from the mouth of God (“And God said …”)

What is truth? It is a quality of ideas – more specifically, of statements or claims, or beliefs (whether or not they are stated) - and these things can only be in minds. So truth must be mental. It is not ‘in the world of nature.’ But beliefs or claims are true if they represent reality (i.e. the way things are); and they are false if they do not represent reality. However, God’s words must always represent reality, so whatever comes from the mouth of God is true. God’s word forms reality. For believers then, to accept God’s word is to know reality. If we want to know reality, our ideas must be true, and insofar as they are true, we have objective knowledge. Of course reality may be the way things are in the natural realm, which we can know through objective scientific examination. The higher realities, which people think of in moral or religious terms, must be found by some other way.

As said above, the message of the Bible aims at human welfare and happiness. Natural happiness and success are a necessary, but secondary part of the journey we call ‘life.’ Natural motives of self-interest and pleasure seeking cause children and adults to gain knowledge – to learn ways to accomplish their goals. Ideally, self-interest also teaches every person the practical necessity of separating her or his desires and emotions from the ability to be reasonable and objective, to put off immediate reward for long-term gains, and to recognize the need to account for other people’s concerns. ‘Grownups’ may still be self-centered in their goals, but they will learn more and more about what works in their world; and they will learn the ‘rules’ and demands of their society. In an ordinary and decent community, every person will be told of moral or ‘higher’ values, which are said to transcend personal selfishness, and which should govern each evolving human.

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“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 made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. …” (Gen 1:14)

The existence of and thought about higher truths is, I think, the meaning of the fourth ‘day’ of human development. The heavenly bodies represent the need for humans to see something that lifts their thoughts away from worldly and natural perspectives. We can escape from selfish motivation, and if we learn ideas about morality and spirituality. The stars symbolize those principles that transcend nature, or the ‘earthly’ view.

Swedenborg suggests that the “greater light” (or sun) enlightens the minds of those in the highest stage of development, who receive truth directly, since they love the truth because it is true; whereas the “lesser light” (the moon, which governs the night) illuminates those who receive truth indirectly, as ‘reflected light,’ since they seek truth only as a means to something else.14 This is parallel to what was said earlier here, that there are two kinds of light, or truth - i.e. natural truth and spiritual truth. All the ‘days’ of creation mark, as said above, the progression from the ignorant and selfish natural condition of every person at birth to the wise and loving spiritual condition of a ‘reborn’ or ‘regenerated’ person - i.e. a fully realized human.

I won’t try to analyze in detail these various stages, but I think we can make sense of the literal text by keeping in mind what we think of as typical ways in which a person develops mentally and humanly. In the first stages - the first three ‘days’ - the text mentions a series of divisions, distinctions or separations that mark the world into more and more categories: heaven and earth, darkness and light, evening and morning, water and land, non-living and living. The human mind develops by its ability to see differences (as well as to recognize sameness). For a child, the main difference it attends to is between pleasure and pain. But this is totally subjective, and involves no truth in her or his mind.

For a maturing mind, the distinctions that count for more are distinctions between real and unreal, true and false, beneficial and harmful. And later, in adulthood, we can distinguish selfish from loving, moral from immoral and eventually natural from spiritual, or worldly from heavenly. These latter distinctions are, of course, made with the half of our minds which sees, knows and understands - our intellect; they don’t determine what choices we will make based on those distinctions, whether for better or for worse, since the latter depend on our will, which is free. The development symbolized by these ‘days’ then is the ideal; there are those who will choose to remain spiritually arrested, and therefore won’t attain the full happiness intended by the Creator.

Swedenborg describes at great length the meaning of various elements of the creation story, while stating repeatedly that it is beyond any human mind to understand all that is contained in Biblical scripture. Not even ‘angels’ can come to understand it fully. Indeed, not only is there deep meaning in every part of Biblical scripture. The whole of nature itself and every part of it represent spiritual truths. And these in turn represent the human mind in its fullness. And this in turn is ideally a mirror of the Divine Love and Wisdom15 As the evangelist John said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was

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God.” (John 1:1) There is a one-to-one correspondence between the Word (not the literal text, but the truth contained there), God, Creation and Man.

Every ‘day’ of creation is described as ‘the evening and the morning.’ This is not our ordinary way of marking a day; but it is the way orthodox Jews represent days, and it is an appropriately positive way of thinking about the passing of time. It makes sense, since going from darkness towards the light is consistent with the whole theme of moving towards the light, of human development and regeneration, and a reminder that the intended goal of every life is not death and nothingness, but endless life, growth and happiness in a world not limited by time and space.

At one level, the days of creation show a progression from the metaphysical and hard to imagine down to the ordinary and familiar. By the third day, sea and land are created, and the environment is set for life to arise. First comes plant life: “And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind …” (Gen 1:12) On the fifth day, animals of the sea and of the air: “the moving creature that hath life and fowl that may fly.” (Gen 1:20) And on the sixth day, “beasts of the earth” and finally “man.” (Gen 1:24, 26)

Note that all these living things are described by what they do: yield seed, move, fly, creep, multiply, and in the case of man, “replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over … every living thing.” (Gen 1:28) These are activities - not static qualities. I think all these activities are symbolic of the stages of ideal mental growth in anyone, from first consciousness to full spiritual maturity. And so the creation of “man” in the sixth day is the achievement of spiritual ‘manhood’, or fulfilled humanity, in individuals, and in the life of human societies, when both are governed by a true order and relationship to the Creator. If you wish, this is the first and ultimate ‘Utopia.’

Do humans have a ‘vegetative’ stage of growth? Of course. In infancy, our minds are passive, conscious of sensations and memories, reacting to stimuli, but basically unaware and unreflective. If this vegetative state occurs in adult life as the result of a brain injury, we think it is a sad and dehumanizing event. If someone chooses to ‘vegetate’ as a habit, or for any length of time, we look on it as mental sloth or a character fault. Spiritually we can vegetate too. If we are aware of the higher truth – the ‘light’ as it is said here – but merely bask in it without reacting, then we remain undeveloped, unfulfilled and incapable of real happiness.

It’s the same with the other days or stages of human development. Each is natural and appropriate in its place, but progress is intended by the author of it all, and happiness in the ultimate degree requires human development to its ultimate degree – i.e. to the stage here called ‘man,’ which is said to be achieved on the ‘sixth day.’

Unlike plants, animals ‘move’ in various ways. Sea creatures can easily propel themselves, or they can float. They can be active, or asleep, but in any cases the sea supports them, and they are, so to speak, comfortable. Although their motion is three-dimensional, their experience is limited to their immediate surroundings. As a symbol of human or spiritual development, perhaps this motion of marine animals represents a minimal effort to develop, and

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an unwillingness to go beyond what is comfortable and familiar. Birds, by contrast, leave the earth’s surface, and can overcome gravity by their efforts. And they can see clearly at great distances. Perhaps birdlife in humans is the awakening of abstract, conceptual thought. We begin to represent the world in generalities, and get the ‘big picture,’ which can make us objective. We can guide our lives by what is distant in time, or even by what is seen only in imagination.

“Beasts of the field”, “cattle”, and “creeping things” inhabit the land - as wildlife, or in cultivated herds. Some are harmful (like poisonous reptiles) and others are beneficial (like earthworms). Some are dangerous (like lions) and others are docile (like sheep), some can be controlled (like horses) and others resist control (like hyenas). Symbolically, our animal life is our emotions and feelings - the irrational mind that can motivate us for good, or lead us astray. In any case, it is to be subordinated to our higher thought processes, and subjected to the guidance of truth and reason.

It is interesting that animals are not spoken of as a source of meat. Cultivated plants and their products are specified for that purpose in Genesis. (Gen 2:16) It seems that animals could be used, for wool, or milk, or transportation, but not killed for their flesh. And although animals clearly kill each other in the wild, the account here suggests that it was not intended from the beginning. “To every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: …” (Gen 1:30) Although this seems wildly idealistic and against what we know of animal nature, as well as the life of archaic human societies, again it can be thought of as symbolizing yet another stage of spiritual evolution. Our emotional life, sensations and desires are to be controlled, and put to service in our lives, but they are not to be killed for food. They were given for useful purposes, and should not be destroyed unnecessarily.16

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” (Gen 2:2-3)

To follow:

Part III - Creation B

Genesis Ch. 2

Part IV - The Fall

Genesis Ch. 3

11

1This was a study, from 1987 - 1995, funded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and directed by Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby, which led to a series of 5 volumes from the U. of Chicago Press, and 3 or 4 additional related volumes.2

Perhaps 85% of Americans claim some religious affiliation, compared to perhaps 30% - 50% in the UK. Statistics are very difficult to evaluate, depending on the organization that is collecting them, the language of the questions, and such problems as the fact that France, since the time of Napoleon, is not allowed to collect such data.3

Published in 1955 in Chicago, the origins of this book are controversial, and may go back 30 years before its publication.4

See, for example, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay on Swedenborg in his book Representative Men, 1850. For Emerson, Swedenborg represents ‘the mystic.’5

For an on-line translation of Swedenborg’s works, see www.heavenlydoctrines.com or www.eswedenborg.com . 6

There are many, many translations of the Bible, but from my experience and from what experts tell me, the King James translation seems to be an accurate, as well as beautiful, translation of the oldest sources available. Unfortunately the so-called ‘Elizabethan’ or Shakespearean English is sometimes difficult for modern readers.7

A good introduction is James G. Williams (ed), The Girard Reader (NewYork: Crossroad Publish Co, 1996).8

In what follows I will refer to God as ‘he,’ without further justification, but I realize many problems attach to this idea as well.9

Cf. e.g. Swedenborg’s Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, #97.10

See George Bethien, “The Language of Genesisis 1” at website www.gbenthien.net .11

There is only one unforgiveable sin which is said to be the “blasphemy against the Spirit” (Mat 12:31).This is because one who does not want forgiveness rejects it; it isn’t a punishment by God. He wants to give everyone happiness, but can’t force it on anyone who rejects him, i.e. rejects the spirit of God which is love.12

English Psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott (1896-1971) spoke about the importance of a “good-enough” mother or caretaker. As a parent I like this expression which suggests parenting doesn’t need to be impossibly difficult.13

See The Divided Line, and The Cave, which occur respectively at the end of Bk VI, and the beginning of Bk VII of Plato’s The Republic, 508e - 519e.14

See, for example, Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Explained # 527.15

See Emanuel Swedenborg, The Divine Love and Wisdom, first published in Latin, Amsterdam, 1763.16

In Part IV I’ll look at the meaning of eating what is forbidden, in the context of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.