In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. An ancient Christian hymn connects the philosophical and personalized term of “Logos” to the very act of God’s creating all things seen and unseen. John repeats this hymn and affirms its underlying assumptions about God and creation. The Greek word “logos” means “word”, “speech”, “reason”, “principle”, “standard”, and “logic” and was understood to be present in all of creation. Every person has within them this Logos. This is what allows humanity as a part of the created order to reflect upon all of creation including itself and reach out to that which is ultimate. Such human reason is not the possession of humanity but is a human expression of that reason which permeates and orders the universe. The logos’ ordering of the stuff of chaos allows life to be, to be realized, to come into being. Such a life coming to pass is not simply the biological processes of a biosphere but the universe’s dynamism including the ever-present underlay of chaos that makes such life possible. Such an understanding is expressed in all major religions.
Early Christian thought identifies this “logos” with the Son. John is stating that Jesus is the “word”, “speech”, “reason”, “principle”, “standard”, and “logic” understood to be present at and in all of creation. The Father begets or generates the Son from his very self just as the sun begets or generates light and yet if it was not for the light itself we would not know that there was Sun. Also, there is that nature of the Sun that is not of light but by its very nature generates light for if light was not generated then that which does indeed generate light could not be. Without the sun there is no light. Without the light there is no sun. The two are one and the same but distinct. That which is created, therefore, is not intrinsic to the nature of that which is the creator and can remain uncreated or become uncreated without affecting the nature of the creator. However, that which is generated or begotten is intrinsic to that which generates or begets. To not be generated or begotten means that that which would generate or beget cannot exist. Therefore, God begets the Son rather than creating the Son. John understands this begotten Son as the one through which the universe is brought forth.
God's movement as the begotten Son at “the beginning” is to bring life out of the maelstrom of chaos. Yet, the stuff of chaos finds it source in God. Chaos in and of itself only holds within it the potential to bear life while only God is the source of such life. Chaos underlies reality not as a constant threat of de-evolving but as the malleable “stuff” of creation. Chaos threatens us for we have no hold over it but it is in no way a threat to God. It is important to notice that John begins this Gospel in such a way that the original readers of the Gospel would have automatically understood that such a beginning is meant to bring to mind the first book of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament). The Hebrews held an understanding of the Word of God being the dar Yahweh, that which brings forth all that is seen and unseen. The ancient belief of the Hebrews as communicated in Genesis 1 and the philosophical thought of the Greeks are being syncretized in order to bring ancient Jewish thought into the widely dispersed philosophical systems of the Greek Gentile world.
Both the Genesis and the Gospel of John do not necessarily speak of God’s creating the universe ex nihilo, “out of nothing.” The beginning of Genesis can also be read “When God began to create…” which hints at chaos’ presence at creation. The formlessness of chaos and the emptiness of life exist because God wills it so but such a reality does not fully express God’s desire but is part and parcel of the expression that is to come. One can even say that creation is ongoing and that any apparent chaos is part and parcel of such an ongoing creation. Such a reading does not threaten the view that all that exists which is not God has no reality outside of God. Creatio ex nihilo is not threatened. It is simply not explicitly addressed even though it may be implicitly understood.
There is one thing to keep in mind. Too often in the West we envision creatio ex nihilo in such a way that one imagines God residing in the midst of nothingness, in the midst of a void, and because of our anthropomorphizing of God we imagine God somehow affected by a divine “loneliness.” Yet, creatio ex nihilo, properly understood does recognize nothingness as being no other thing. The term creatio ex nihilo can properly be understood as “creation from no other thing.”
Rather, than imagining God residing in the midst of nothingness, we should envision nothingness as openness. There is only God and all that there is is God’s very Self. There is no such thing as nothingness. There is only divine Presence. Rather than envisioning nothingness, absence, one should imagine an encompassing, overwhelming presence willing to create something never before seen, witnessed or encountered as an expression of will and love. Rather than imagine “Divine Loneliness” we can imagine “Divine Possibility.” All possibilities are ever present before God, and God is ever open to them. Since God creates as an act of will, utterly free and utterly loving, dependent upon no-thing, then creation itself is utterly open since to create any thing from any other thing would consign and inhibit creation with boundaries and parameters independent of and alien to God’s will. This utter openness of God has been understood as God’s transcendence and God’s immanence and lays the foundation of our understanding of those events that reveal God and what we often call “miracles.”
All worlds realized and unrealized are due to God’s openness and will but are bounded. The universe (or our encounter with what we call “the universe”) that allows our selves to move and have our being is also the same universe that also moves us from dust to dust and ashes to ashes. The nature of our own fragility, the fragility of creation, and the nature of death and decay is also that which allows life to be, to come to fruition, to blossom, to expand, to encounter and to be encountered. Where humanity is concerned we can say that we are the universe’s self-contemplation, hence, we must be aware of the wonder and fragility of not just our own existence but that of creation itself. Our encounter with the said universe is also our encounter with our said selves. The material and immaterial aspects of our very selves are intrinsically finite just as the universe in which we find ourselves is intrinsically finite no matter the grand and overwhelming realities of such a universe. God’s openness has declared through Christ that we are not wholly defined by a finite reality but by the infinite reality of God’s will and love. Creatio ex nihilo can only be properly understood in this way.
The first chapters of both Genesis and John are primarily about a universe in which “Life” (zoe) itself is present and permeates all that is. Only such a presence is able to bring about life (bios) in all of its manifestations. Life (bios) is Life (zoe) ever unfolding itself. Since creation is ongoing then all such beginnings are of the initial creation of our universe even if such beginnings are separated by the meanest or grandest measure of time. The act of creation spoken of in both Genesis and John is, therefore, present to us rather than simply residing in the past. This may be why both procreation and artistic inspiration (among others) can be understood as semi-divine acts or blessed acts, as mitzvahs, that cooperate and continue to unfold God’s initial act of creation.
Chaos can be viewed as a subjective term. Chaos bears no threat against God so what humanity encounters as chaos may be to God openness. Chaos certainly threatens us because as created beings there are limits to our finite existence and there are other things created which do indeed threaten that finite existence. This is what we call chaos and from which are such distinctions as change, death, sin, history, time, and decay find definition.
Chaos’ intrinsic presence as part and parcel of creation and God’s undergirding presence in creation brings forth all such beginnings. God is present in all such beginnings simply because there is no place that God is not. Chaos is indeed present in our lives and in the universe but such chaos exists only to be ordered by God to such an extent that Life begets life. Existence comes forth. The chaos that threatens us is not an evil to escape or exorcise but a reality to surrender to God.
The Rev. Adrian A. Amaya
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