God Created the Earth

I was thinking about a creationist friend of mine today, and reflecting upon creation and meaning.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." With this short sentence the author who would be called "Moses" pierces the pretensions of Babylonian religion, and co-opts a victorious empire into the praise of the God of a defeated people.

There is no method ascribed to God in the verses that follow - no recipe that we could understand. God just says, and it happens. No fine detail, no instructions.

I think there's power here. Sure, the story of Genesis is compatible with the Big Bang Theory  (dreamt up by a priest) but in the great scheme of things it's compatible with any scientific model of the origin of the Universe.

Even steady state theory. Because even if the Universe has existed forever this is not incompatible with a God beyond time and space creating it.

Because the Creation story is not about science. It's about meaning. A bold statement that, in the midst of chaos, we believe in the God of logic. That we believe in a God who makes in a sensible order. We don't believe in Tiamat the chaos dragon, killed and ripped apart so the universe might exist. We believe in a God so powerful that ripping the fabric of reality would be no problem. So logical and rational that doing so would be out of the question. So like us that God says the stars thrown across the carpet of space are 'good" - so longing for company that humans are made in God's image.

We don't really believe in any particular model of how God created the world.

We just believe the world is how God reveals meaning to us.