Creation belief: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Creation beliefs and stories describe how the universe, the Earth, life, and/or humanity came into being. The term creation myth is used by historians for a story of creation with deep explanatory or symbolic resonance for a culture. This terminology is often seen as offensive when used to describe stories which are still believed today, due to the term "myth" having a common-usage connotation of a story which is fictional. These beliefs and stories need not be a literal account of actual events, but may express what are perceived to be truths at a deeper level. Author Daniel Quinn notes that in this sense creation myths need not be religious in nature, and they have secular forms in modern cultures.

Many creation beliefs fall into similar categories: the fractionation of the things of the world from a primordial chaos, the separation of the mother and father god, from an ocean existing before the world, etc.

Some fundamentalist religious groups assert that creation beliefs should replace or complement so-called "scientific" accounts of the development of life and the cosmos. For a description of this debate, see creationism.

Science-based beliefs

Science, strictly speaking, deals only with that which is observable and repeatably observable. Anything that cannot be observed is by that very fact not scientific. Scientists look for patterns among observations, which give rise to hypotheses to be tested against further observations. If a hypothesis passes these tests, it is then called a theory, which again is subject to amendment or rejection based on new observations.

Limited to the scientific method, science cannot deal with non-repeatable events such as specific events in the past. However, science can be used to study the remains of these events and interpret them according to observed patterns. The whole universe is the remains of past events, so even though, strictly speaking, "scientific cosmology" is an oxymoron, when one assumes philosophical naturalism it is believed that an extrapolation from present, observed patterns can give an accurate picture of the past. Not everyone believes in philosophical naturalism, not even all scientists, but there are certain beliefs of creation which are based on science.

The scientific Big Bang theory is the dominant cosmological theory about the early development and current shape of the universe.

The modern synthesis is the dominant biological theory about the origin of human life on Earth. This combines Charles Darwin's theory of the evolution of species by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics as the basis for biological inheritance.

The origin of life itself on Earth is more contested. The RNA world hypothesis is one explanation which is considered scientific by some.

It should be pointed out that these science based beliefs are not ex nihilo beliefs, that is they do not start from nothing. They do not account for where the mass and energy of the universe came from, or for how life first began. In this respect they are like most creation beliefs, but notably unlike the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic beliefs, among others. The origin of life has many competing science based theories and the ultimate origin of the universe is widely believed to be a topic beyond scientific inquiry.

The stories of Genesis

The opening of Genesis tells the Biblical story of creation. Though the Biblical account of creation is very short, it sets the pattern for Biblical philosophy: God is assumed; He acts in history; and He communicates to and can be known by humans.

Many biblical scholars distinguish two separate creation stories:

1. The story of the creation in six days (Genesis 1:1–2:3)
2. The story of the day of creation (Genesis 2:4–24)

The two stories are not identical. There are arguments for and against their reconciliability.

The first story, Genesis 1

This story is an account of God (Elohim) creating the universe in six days and resting on the seventh day. The order of creation is:

• First day
  • God creates the heavens and the Earth. (1:1)
  • The Earth is dark and without form. (1:2)
  • God creates light. (1:3–5)
• Second day
  • God creates a "firmament" or a "dome", called "sky", to separate the heavens and Earth. (1:6-8)
• Third day
  • God separates the seas and dry land. (1:9–10)
  • God creates fruits and vegetation. (1:11–13)
• Fourth day
  • God puts lights in the sky to separate day and night and to indicate the passing of the seasons. The sun, moon, and stars are created. (1:14–19)
• Fifth day
  • God creates sea creatures and birds. (1:20–23)
• Sixth day
  • God creates living creatures for the land: wild animals, cattle and creeping things. (1:24–25)
  • God creates mankind, male and female, "in his own image". (1:26–31)
• Seventh day
  • The Sabbath (2:1–3)

The second story, Genesis 2

This story is an account of the day the LORD (Yahweh) created the world. It begins on the day of the creation (2:4) before plants, rain, and men (2:5).

• The man is formed. (2:7)
• The LORD plants the garden of Eden and places the man in it. (2:8)
• The trees grow in the Garden, including the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (2:9)
• Description of the rivers of Eden. (2:10–14)
• The man is put in garden to care for it. (2:15)
• The man is commanded not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (2:16–17)
• The LORD decides the man should not be alone. (2:18)
• The LORD creates animals and birds and has Adam name them. (2:19–20)
• The creation of the first woman. (2:21–22)
• The man and the woman form the first family. (2:23–25)

Reconciling the two stories

The order of creation in the two stories are significantly different. The deity is also referred to differently in each story. However the stories are consistent within themselves. Some interpreters claim that the second story is an expanded version of the first that explains what happened in detail to the creation described in the first story. Others state that some of the events are arranged out of their chronological order. There is also dispute about the nature of tense in Biblical Hebrew, and some scholars state that because of this, the second account does not contradict the first. According to this theory, the second account is a retelling of the first from an anthropocentric viewpoint.

More liberal interpreters typically hold that the passages in Genesis are not to be interpreted literally, but are rather a symbolic or poetic account of the creation of the universe. Some believe that they are based on the prevailing knowledge of the physical world at the time that they were written. Others do not believe that the two accounts can be reconciled. This point of view is most associated with the documentary hypothesis, which proposes that the two accounts were written by two separate authors and then concatenated by a later editor.

It is possible to view Genesis as an allegory for the process of humankind's development of self-awareness and the emergence of human intelligence from a previous animal state. In this interpretation, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is a key component as the Serpent claims it holds the power to impart understanding that would rival God's. The humans take a bite and get the ability to understand, but they do not eat the whole fruit, and so get only a partial understanding. Immediately they become ashamed of their nakedness, presumably because it belies their animal nature. God expels them from the Garden of Eden, which represents a contented animal existence, to toil in the world and face strife and conflict.

Time in the creation stories

One difference between the two stories is that the first is about the six days of creation, while the second is about the day of creation. This apparent contradiction in two verses that are so close together has troubled many commentators (see A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom by A.D. White, 1896, Dover Publications, 1960, page 5). The distinction is concealed by some translations, such as the New International Version. One explanation for this difference is given by the documentary hypothesis.

There is a sharp distinction between Young Earth creationists and Old Earth creationists who hold contradictory views regarding the age of the Earth. Young Earth creationism holds to the wording of the first story, where the Earth was created in six days. Young Earth creationists usually date the Earth at somewhere around 6,000 years old using the genealogies and other details in the Bible; the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar of Bishop James Ussher presents one famous interpretation of these details). Young Earth creationists usually reject the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

Old Earth creationists do not hold to the wording of either story and claim that the Earth is millions of years old. For example, Day-age creationism holds that the six days referred to are not ordinary 24-hour days, but rather much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years); the Genesis account is then sometimes interpreted as an account of the process of evolution. Some believe that the six day period refers to the time spent by light traveling from the center of the universe at the time and point of creation.

God as absolute origin

Creationists in the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church assert that God is the origin, out of nothing (Latin: ex nihilo), of all things that exist apart from God, who exists eternally. The Church holds as an unchangeable tenet of Christian faith, that:

"... three things are affirmed in these first words of Scripture: the eternal God gave a beginning to all that exists outside of himself; he alone is Creator (the verb "create" - Hebrew bara - always has God for its subject). The totality of what exists (expressed by the formula "the heavens and the earth") depends on the One who gives it being. — (Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Creation - Work of the Holy Trinity" 1.2.1.1.4.2.290 [1])

Here, clearly, creation is described as an absolute beginning, which includes the assertion that the very existence of the universe is contingent upon a necessary, uncreated being, a God who is not himself created. Therefore the doctrine of creation places the knowledge of God central in the pursuit of the knowledge of anything, for everything comes from God. The "supernatural" refers ultimately to God alone. Nature is denied any divinity.

This doctrine of creation, generally speaking, is also shared by Judaism, Islam, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. The strictness to which adherents are required to accept these views, and the sense in which these definitions are official, vary widely.

Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430), embarrassed by Christians who would not accept this doctrine, wrote against them in his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim). This translation is by J. H. Taylor in Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, volume 41.

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion." [1 Timothy 1.7]

The Babylonian creation myth is described in Enûma Elish, a 12th century BC poem preserved on seven clay tablets.

In the poem, the god Marduk arms himself and sets out to challenge the monster Tiamat. Marduk destroys Tiamat, cutting her into two halves which become the Earth and the sky. Later on, he also destroys Tiamat's husband, Kingu, and uses his blood to create mankind.

Reference

A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia

There are two major creation myths.

In the first myth, the universe began as a cosmic egg. A god named Pangu, born inside the egg, broke it into two halves: The upper half became the sky, the lower half became the earth. As the god grew taller, the sky and the earth grew thicker and were separated further. Finally the god died and his body parts became different parts of the earth.

In the second myth, Tao is the ultimate force behind the creation. With tao, nothingness gave rise to existence, existence gave rise to yin and yang, and yin and yang gave rise to everything. Due to the ambiguous nature of this myth, it could be compatible with the first myth but it could be explained in a way to better fit the modern scientific view of the creation of universe.

In the beginning was only ocean. Then a hill became visible rising from the ocean, and at this point the first god awoke (The cosmology of Heliopolis held that this first god was the sun god Ra, that of Memphis that it was the earth god Ptah). The first god began to create other gods, who proceeded to create the various aspects of the world.

In Hindu philosophy, the existence of the universe is governed by the triumvirate- The Trimurti of Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Sustainer) and Shiva (the Destroyer). The sequence of Avatars of Vishnu- the Dasavatara (Sanskrit: Dasa—ten, Avatara—incarnation)is generally accepted by most Hindus today as correlating well with Darwin's theory of evolution, the first Avatar generating from the environment of water.

Hindus thus do not see much conflict between creation and evolution. An additional reason for this could also be the Hindu concept of cyclic time (unlike the concept of linear time in many other religions). In fact, time is represented as a wheel- 'Kaala Chakra'- Wheel of Time

An interesting point is that though Brahma is considered the Creator, unlike Vishnu and Shiva, there is no temple of worship for Brahma, reasons for which form part of myths.

The account in the Qur'an has only one creation story. It is based on the Biblical version (Man created from water: Surah al-Furqan 25; Man created in diverse stages: Surah Nuh 14; Man created from clay: Surah as-Saffat 11, Surah al-Sajdah 7-9; Man created from muddy dirt or scum: Surah al-Hijr 15)

The god Izanagi and goddess Izanami churned the ocean with a spear to make a small island of curdled salt. Two deities went down to the island, mixed there, and bore main islands, deities, and forefathers of Japan. See Japanese mythology#Creation of the world.

The Maya of Mesoamerica creation story is recounted in the book "Popol Vuh". In the beginning there is only sky and sea, personified as a trinity of gods called Heart-of-Sky. They decide that they want someone to praise them. They begin by saying "Earth", which appears on demand from the sea. This is followed by mountains and trees, and Heart-of-Sky establish that "our work is going well". Next for creation are the creatures of the forest: birds, deer, jaguars and snakes. They are told to multiply and scatter, and then to speak and "pray to us". But the animals just squawk and howl. They are consequently humbled and will become servants to whoever will worship Heart-of-Sky. So Heart-of-Sky try to make some more respectful creatures from mud. But the results are not great, and they allow the new race to be washed away. They call upon their grandparents, who suggest wood as an appropriate medium. But the wooden people are just mindless robots, so Heart-of Sky set about the destruction of this new race by means of a rain-storm. This causes the animals to turn against the wooden people; even their pots and querns rebel, and crush the peoples' faces. The wooden people escape to the forests and are turned into monkeys. Heart-of-Sky then make yet another attempt at creating a suitably respectful race, and finally succeed by fashioning humans out of maize-corn dough.

Ahura Mazda created 16 lands, one by one, such that each would be delightful to its people. As he finished each one, Angra Mainyu applied a counter-creation, introducing plague and sin of various kinds.