So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. — Genesis 1:27 (ESV)
Okay, let’s be clear here. We’re still on my questions from two days ago. If truth itself created the universe, why is there evil? What happens to free will if God sees the future? What happens to responsibility?
You’re saying that our being created in God’s image is going to help answer those questions. I get that our creativity lets us play God, and that does give us some perspective. We’ve handled little questions like, “Can He create a rock so heavy He can’t lift it?”
But how can this answer the big questions?
By teaching us to see things differently. In Genesis 1:27 we’re told, twice, that we’re created in God’s image.
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
In Hebrew, you can emphasize things by repeating them. This image of God thing must really be important, but there’s a twist. Up through Genesis 2:4, the Bible depicts creation—ending with the Sabbath in Genesis 2:1–4.
Then it starts over in Genesis 2:5 with physical details. It describes the creation of Adam in its historical context.
When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. — Genesis 2:5–7 (ESV)
This repeats the creation of Adam from a different point of view—inside of time. It’s like Google street view.
Why write the same thing twice from two different perspectives? Is that just repetition for emphasis too?
It’s all about chronology. The two passages are two different points of view. In Genesis 1:27, this all happens on day six, while the plants were created on day three.
But in Genesis 2:5–22, God makes man, then some of the plants, then some animals.
Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. — Genesis 2:19 (ESV)
So you do think the literal six day view is wrong.
No, that’s not it. I don’t want to say that one view is right; I don’t think any of them are perfect. Human understanding is just too simple-minded.
My point is that these two contrasting descriptions sound like two points of view of the same thing. God’s point of view obviously isn’t the same as ours anyway. I think Genesis includes two different versions of the same thing to show us that.
This isn’t something that we’re going to fully understand (this side of eternity, anyway), but C.S. Lewis illustrated it beautifully in The Chronicles of Narnia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia
In The Chronicles of Narnia, the characters jump between our world and the world of Narnia, discovering that time in one world doesn’t track with time in the other. The two worlds aren’t synchronized.
The title seems to suggest that. In English, you can emphasize things by putting them in the title.
In a wondrous twist, Lewis’s lesson on time has acquired a new layer. Read the Wikipedia article all the way to the end and you’ll see that people now debate the chronology of The Chronicles of Narnia. How ironic is that?
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was written and published first, but the sixth book (The Magician’s Nephew) is a prequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Some folks say that the books should be read in the order they were published. Others say they should be read in “internally chronological order.” Collections of The Chronicles of Narnia are available in either order. I wonder if Lewis saw that one coming.
So, God’s different point of view includes a different chronology. Okay, but how does that answer my questions?
I think you’ll start to see that after we work through some examples. This’ll get back into our being created in God’s image and what happens when we create little fictional universes.
So, that’s tomorrow’s lesson?
Yes, at least. God’s dominion over time is a subject you can spend a lifetime studying. Our being created in His image is no less wondrous.
See you tomorrow.
