Articles
In the Beginning | Part 4: Day One - Earth
IN THE BEGINNING
Part 4
Day One - Earth
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1) In our last issue we began to look at the first day of creation, noting the fact that it began with the creation of “the heavens” which we know as the universe. This empty space that God created was the place that would begin to contain all that He would subsequently bring into existence. As we also noted, this marked the beginning of the physical realm (as opposed to the eternal spiritual realm in which God exists).
God, on this same day, also created the earth. The remainder of the biblical account of creation has to do with the creating and arranging of matter. As stated earlier, matter is anything that has weight and takes up space. Certainly the earth would fit that description. It is described in the next verse as being “...without form, and void.” In the original language of the Hebrew, “without form (tohuw) means to be “desolate, waste.” The word “void” (bohuw) means “vacant or empty.” Its environment is described as having been “...darkness...” or without the existence of light. This darkness is said to have been “...on the face of the deep, which is described at the end of the verse as “...the face of the waters.” From these descriptions we envision the earth as being completely covered with water in the midst of the total darkness of the vast emptiness of the universe. That picture is given definition in the divinely inspired words of Job’s confirm-ation of God’s amazing creative work, saying, “He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.” (Job 26:7)
In the book of Isaiah (written approximately 700 years before Christ came to earth), the writer reveals the spherical nature of the earth, saying, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth...” (Isa. 40:21, 22) This is an interesting statement when you consider what the prevailing ideas about the earth was at that time. It was commonly accepted that the earth was flat and riding on the back of some giant beast. When Columbus set out on his ocean voyage to circumnavigate the earth in the year 1492, people expected him to fall off the edge of the earth. Almost 2,200 years after Isaiah wrote those words describing the earth as a “circle,” the idea of the earth as a flat plain having an edge continued to be the common thinking of the day.
Isaiah’s insight into the earth being round (or spherical), predates by about 400 years, the earliest known record of anyone postulating that the earth was round. Aristarchus of Samos (c. 320 - c. 250 BC), the Greek astronomer and mathematician, is best known for being the first person to propose that the earth and the other planets rotate around the sun. He also suggested that day and night are caused by the rotation of the earth on its axis. However, his theories were not widely accepted in his day. Aristotle, who lived at about the same time (384 - 322 BC) did not agree with him, assuming that all of the heavenly bodies rotated around the earth. In either case, both of these Greek philosophers had the right idea that the earth was indeed round. It is noteworthy that the error of common thinking in the days of Isaiah are not found in his statement about the earth being a circle. This gives evidence to the reliability of the bible, and supports its claim of divine inspiration. It also demonstrates its accuracy on matters that we call science. The One who authored the Bible also created all that science seeks to under-stand. Therefore it will never contradict good science.
The creation of the earth involved much greater aspects than its shape or general appearance. As already noted, it involved the creation of matter. It is in fairly recent history that matter was discovered to be made up of smaller elements that have now been categorized into the Periodic Table listing the 102 known, naturally-occurring chemical elements, arranged according to their chemical makeup and ultimately by their atomic weight. Hence, the discovery of these basic elements became the knowledge of that which has to do with the molecular level of matter and ultimately the discovery of atoms.
By now, most people are familiar with the model of a single atom as that which looks similar to a miniature solar system in which positively charged electrons rotate like little planets around a center nucleus that consists of negatively charged protons and uncharged neutrons. The combined arrangement of various types of these atoms are the “things” of which the basic elements are made.
The fact that the earth was covered with water might remind us of the chemical description of water; H2O. It takes 2 atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen to make a single molecule of water. When we begin to consider the knowledge that God possesses to have thought up such an amazingly complex foundation on which to build all things, we can only echo the words that Isaiah recorded; “...The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His under-standing is unsearchable.” (Isa. 40:28b) Amen!
Atoms are incredibly small. They are measured in nanometers. One nanometer is equal to 400 millionths of an inch. An atom is approximately one half of a nanometer. About 3.5 million atoms could fit inside the period at the end of this sentence. And now, science can look inside of the individual parts of an atom (with its electrons, protons and neutrons) finding quarks, which are the currently-known smallest particles that make up an atom.
Atoms not only give matter its very substance, but they also are the source of all energy. The study of atomic energy involves another branch of science known as quantum mechanics. This brings us to the next part of God’s creation.
Light
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light;’ and there was light.” (Gen. 1:3) After the creation of space and matter, the next entity of the physical realm to come into existence was light. Light is an amazing thing. But who knows what light really is? It was not until the mid 1660s that Sir Isaac Newton discovered that by shining a beam of white light through a prism, that it was broken up into colors, called a spectrum. This discovery that white light actually contains all of the colors of the rainbow, led to another experi-ment by Thomas Young in 1801 that revealed that light travels in waves like the ripples of water that are generated when a stone is cast into a placid lake.
It wasn’t until the end of that century that the real properties of light were discovered. Through the efforts of Josef Stefan and Wilhelm Wien in 1879 and 1893 (respectively), it was found that these light waves varied in length (or color) based on the amount of heat being radiated from a hot object. It was in 1887 that Heinrich Hertz discovered that there were broader wavelengths in this spectrum that existed outside of visible light that we now know as radio waves (or sound waves). Then in 1895, Wilhelm K. Rontgen discovered wave lengths (also outside of visible light) that were closer together, known as X-rays.
Thus began the eventual discovery and realization of what we now understand as the electromagnetic field that consists of the entire spectrum of all levels of energy that exists throughout the universe, including sound, visible and invisible light, X-rays and gamma rays. Your microwave oven is the result of scientific research based on such knowledge of electromagnetism. Through science we are able to measure the varying amounts of energy radiated along that spectrum. Consider an illustration of this as seen in the difference between the emission of lightwaves as opposed to sound waves. If you have ever gone to a baseball game and sat in the stands near center field, you are familiar with the phenomenon that occurs when the batter steps up to the plate, and swings the bat at the approaching ball. You see the bat make contact with the ball, but don’t hear the sound of the crack of the bat until the ball is already well on its way into the air. Why? Because lightwaves travel faster (at 186,000 miles per second) than sound waves (at only 1,125 feet per second), therefore you see it before you hear it. Just think of all of these factors involved in the science of light - and all God had to do was speak it into existence!
To be continued...
- Gary V. Womack -
- In The Beginning part 4 2.doc (37.89 kB)
