Genesis 1:3-4

Verses 3-4:

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.

Comments:
Light seems to me like the next reasonable, logical step in the formation of the world. First, to have the light shine upon the world, and second, to regulate how much time any given part of the world spends in light or in darkness - to set the hours of the day in the rotation of the earth, for there to be enough light for the living things that are to be put upon the earth, but not too much - or some other formative step in ordering or organizing things that can be construed as dividing the light from the darkness and creating cycles of day and night on the earth.

Light is necessary for all living things on this world; even ones that can survive in complete darkness still at some point rely upon complex ecosystems that would not be able to maintain themselves without light on some of the living organisms (both flora and fauna) that are a part of them.

This fact makes light very powerful as a symbol, and both light and sources of light are significant in scripture, with great meaning whether the light referred to is literal or symbolic. (we can also see in the scriptures that water, as another thing necessary for life, is symbolically important and meaningful when referred to in scripture, whether it is literal or symbolic water)

One other thing interesting to me, is that in these verses it does not explicitly say that God created the light at that time - by God’s word it was commanded to be upon the earth, God brought it and divided it from the darkness, arranged for the world to have the light that it would need, but the words “created” and “made” are not used in reference to the light at this time. Which does not necessarily mean that God did not ever create the light.

Perhaps, in the beginning of everything (and not just the beginning of this world and everything on it) God did create the light (the existence of light, not just sources of light) and thus came before it even if in a sense they are both eternal and have always existed, always were. I believe that as far as we could measure or comprehend in a finite mortal existence in three dimensions, God and light are both eternal, that light existed before this particular universe existed, just as the laws of nature, of physics and mathematics existed. (though not constrained by our current limited understanding and limited ability to create notations and languages to describe them)

Thus, in the earth’s creation, I feel it more a matter of bringing light to the earth, rather than the very concept and essence of light being created at that time.

Genesis 1, Verse 2, excerpt

Verse 2, excerpt:

“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

Comments:

I really love the poetic sort of way this sounds. It’s not just about the idea of the spirit, soul, mind, or will of God passing over the waters, to me it invokes the idea of God’s influence coming into (or being in) contact with the surface of the waters, the seas, or perhaps all of the still-unfinished surface of the world that in this description could have been imagined or believed by the writer to have been bathed in liquid all over - or, in a more literal way, if it were molten in what has been suggested to have been one of the actual earliest stages in the formation of the earth. But even if none of this sentence is to be taken literally, I still believe it to be a beautifully poetic way to say that God’s influence was upon the still-unfinished world.

Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 2 (also through verse 31)

Genesis Chapter 1:

Verse 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.

Comments:

(also with reference to the rest of the chapter, verses 3-31)

Here we have the first indication that the creation was a process, done in stages. God didn’t simply materialize a fully-formed and organized world environment with complex interactive ecosystems of adaptable living things and the weather and tides with a moon and the planet in its orbit around the sun in the solar system in its place in the universe, all just at the same instant. (nor, in speaking to Old Testament prophets such as Moses, did God oversimplify and claim to have done so) I might believe that with advanced planning (no matter how quickly an infinitely intelligent God might be able to plan it, even seeming instantaneous to us, perhaps) and everything previously arranged just so, God could possibly do such a thing instantly (or in a way that would seem instantly to us) but the fact that it wasn’t done that way, nor did God claim to have done so, suggests to me that it wouldn’t have been the best way to form and organize the earth. It seems to me more logical, more natural, more wise, to do this kind of work in stages, making sure each stage is just right and good, before proceeding on to the next. Which seems right to me with the way I believe God works; in keeping with laws of physics and nature and the universe, in wisdom and order, organized with thought put into it and even if God already knew each stage of work in the creation process would be right, to still check and see that it was, at each step. Like someone who would be patient and allow time for each step in the process to be organized in the optimum way naturally, not like someone with a deadline or with something to prove who wants results immediately and would, for example, simply cause all the microscopic life in the oceans to have multiplied and achieved an ideal equilibrium in some sort of instant method utilizing loopholes in the laws of physics and nature so that the plants, fish and other larger life to be put into the oceans could also be added instantly and have their water already ideally suited for them. The patient God would organize the oceans and introduce the microscopic life and allow them time to multiply and adapt and achieve just the right balance naturally, and then cause the larger (non-microscopic) forms of life to appear, in a gradual way that wouldn’t entirely ruin the balance that the microscopic life had achieved.