Disciplines

In between the doctrines of religion and science, stands the philosophical perspective of metaphysical cosmology. This ancient field of study seeks to draw logical conclusions about the nature of the Universe, man, god and/or their connections based on the extension of some set of presumed facts borrowed from religion and/or observation.

Cosmology is often an important aspect of the origin beliefs of religions and mythologies that seek to explain the existence and nature of the reality. In some cases, views about the creation (cosmogony) and destruction (eschatology) of the Universe play a central role in shaping a framework of religious cosmology for understanding humanity's role in the Universe.

A more contemporary distinction between religion and philosophy, esoteric cosmology is distinguished from religion in its less tradition-bound construction and reliance on modern "intellectual understanding" rather than faith, and from philosophy in its emphasis on spirituality as a formative concept.

Physical cosmology

With Isaac Newton and the 1687 publication of Principia Mathematica, the problem of the motion of the heavens was finally solved. Newton provided a physical mechanism for Johannes Kepler's laws and his law of universal gravitation allowed the anomalies in previous systems, caused by gravitational interaction between the planets, to be resolved. A fundamental difference between Newton's cosmology and those preceding it was the Copernican principle that the bodies on earth obey the same physical laws as all the celestial bodies. This was a crucial philosophical advance in physical cosmology.

Modern scientific cosmology is usually considered to have begun in 1917 with Albert Einstein's publication of his final modification of general relativity in the paper "Cosmological Considerations of the General Theory of Relativity," (although this paper was not widely available outside of Germany until end of World War I). General relativity prompted cosmogonists such as Willem de Sitter, Karl Schwarzschild and Arthur Eddington to explore the astronomical consequences of the theory, which enhanced the growing ability of astronomers to study very distant objects. Prior to this (and for some time afterwards), physicists assumed that the Universe was static and unchanging; subsequent modeling of the universe explored the possibility that the cosmological constant introduced by Einstein in that paper may result in an expanding universe, depending on its value. Thus the big bang theory was proposed by the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître in 1927 and rapidly confirmed by Edwin Hubble's discovery of the red shift in 1929 and later by the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson in 1964.

Recent observations made by the COBE and WMAP satellites observing this background radiation have effectively, in many scientists eyes, transformed cosmology from a highly speculative science into a predictive science, as these observations matched predictions made by a theory called Cosmic inflation, which is a modification of the standard big bang theory (see also Kalam cosmological argument). This has led many to refer to modern times as the "Golden age of cosmology."

Metaphysical cosmology

• What is the origin of the Universe? What is its first cause?
• Is its existence necessary?
• What are the ultimate material components of the Universe?
• What is the ultimate reason for the existence of the Universe?
• Does the cosmos have a purpose?

Religious cosmology

In some origin beliefs, the universe was created by a direct act of a god or gods who are also responsible for the creation of humanity (see creationism). In many cases, religious cosmologies also foretell the end of the Universe, either through another divine act or as part of the original design.

Both Christianity and Judaism rely on the Genesis narrative as a scriptural account of cosmology. See also Biblical cosmology and Tzimtzum.

Islam relies on understanding from the Qu'ran as its major source for explaining cosmology.

Certain adherents of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism believe that the Universe passes through endless cycles of creation and destruction, each cycle lasting for trillions of years (e.g. 331 trillion years, or the life-span of Brahma, according to Hinduism), and each cycle with sub-cycles of local creation and destruction (e.g. 4.32 billion years, or a day of Brahma, according to Hinduism). The Vedic (Hindu) view of the world sees one true divine principle self-projecting as the divine word, 'birthing' the cosmos that we know from the monistic Hiranyagarbha or Golden Womb.

Many religions accept the findings of physical cosmology, in particular the big bang, and some, such as the Roman Catholic Church, have embraced it as suggesting a philosophical first cause.

Others have tried to use the methodology of science to advocate for their own religious cosmology, as in intelligent design or creationism.

Christian Cosmology

Creation according to Genesis refers to the creation of the heavens and the earth by the Hebrew deity YHWH Elohim as depicted in Genesis, the first book of the Pentateuch (as well as of the Hebrew and Christian Bible). The text spans chapters 1 and 2 of the book of Genesis. There are many English translations, including those from the original Hebrew and from the Latin Vulgate.

The Genesis creation accounts have long been the subject of debate among scholars on several fronts; the most hotly debated issues relate to authorship, textual criticism (specifically, whether there is a single or dual account), and interpretation of the text (particularly in the context of scientific knowledge regarding the age of the Earth and origins of biological species).

Overview

The opening of Genesis tells the biblical story of creation and how it was completed. The first verse of Genesis 1 begins with a description of how God (Hebrew: Elohim) created Heaven and Earth. The text thus begins by establishing a series of dualisms (heaven and earth, light and dark, day and night etc) by which the created order is progressively completed, with God creating or completing by means of the movement of his "spirit" (Hebrew: ruach) moving across the deeps (Hebrew: tehom). Creation is started or completed both by speaking (e.g. "Let there be light") and actively working ("dividing the light from the darkness") over a period of six days.

The text

The account opens with the statement: "In the beginning, Elohim (God) created the heavens and the earth." This is taken by some interpreters as a summary statement for what follows, and by others as a description of God's initial creative act. Some translators (eg. NRSV) prefer "In the beginning when Elohim created the heavens and the earth, .." thus linking the first and second sentences.

תהו ובהו

"Creation week"

• First day: God creates light. (The source of light is not mentioned; it is described by some as a "primordial light".) The light is divided from the darkness, and "day" and "night" are named.
• Second day: God creates a firmament and divides the waters above it from the waters below. The firmament is named "heaven".
• Third day: God gathers the waters together, and dry land appears. "Earth" and "sea" are named. Then God brings forth grass, herbs and fruit-bearing trees on the Earth.
• Fourth day: God creates lights in the firmament of Heaven, to separate light from darkness and to mark days, seasons and years. Two great lights are made (note: they are not named), as well as the stars.
• Fifth day: God creates birds and sea creatures, including "great sea serpents" or "great whales". They are commanded to be fruitful and multiply.
• Sixth day: God creates wild beasts, livestock and reptiles upon the Earth. He then creates Man and Woman in His "image" and "likeness". They are told to "be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it." Humans and animals are given plants to eat. The totality of creation is described by God as "very good".
• Seventh day: God finishes his work of creation, and rests from His work. He blesses and sanctifies the seventh day.

Commentators have noted that the number seven has been embedded into the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3 in a number of ways. The word "God" occurs 35 times (7 × 5) and "earth" 21 times (7 × 3). The phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each. The first sentence of the account contains 7 Hebrew words, and the second sentence contains 14 words, while the verses about the seventh day (verses 1-3 of the second chapter) contain 35 words in total.

Toledoth of the heavens and the earth

Eden narrative

The text continues with what some consider to be a different account of creation. (Others consider it to be an account of the details of Day 6, whereas the previous chapter presents a broader view. ) It is often referred to as the "Yahwist" version (see below) because it refers to the deity as YHWH elohim (where the first account simply uses Elohim). This account has man (adam) being created first out of the dust of the ground (adamah), when "no bush of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprung up." A garden is then planted "in Eden, in the east" and God puts the man in the garden to tend it.

We are given a description of four rivers which water the garden: the Pishon, the Gihon, the Hiddekel (Tigris) and the Euphrates. Several locations are mentioned, including Cush and Assyria. Scholars thus generally consider that Eden was located in Mesopotamia, though differences of opinion exist and creationist advocates of a global flood theory contend that due to the total destruction of the antediluvian world it is impossible for Eden to be precisely located.

We are introduced to the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God then decides the man needs a companion and makes the animals and birds, presenting them to him for naming, but none are suitable. Lastly, he creates woman (ishah) from one of the man's (ish) ribs. A statement instituting marriage follows: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

The story of man's expulsion from Eden then follows, building upon the setting and characters introduced here.

Authorship

According to Jewish tradition the first 5 books of the Bible, known collectively as the Torah or Pentateuch, were written by Moses. This tradition was adopted by the earliest Christians - for example, John the Evangelist presents Jesus as having accepted Mosaic authorship (John 5:46-47). The modern scholarly view is that the Torah was written by a number of authors at various times betwen the 9th and 5th centuries BC; the Creation story in Genesis is now usually seen as composed of two, originally separate, accounts, both based on Mesopotamian mythology, and combined during the Babylonian exile as an answer to those myths.

Modern textual critics posit that the first two chapters of Genesis are a composite of two different literary strands: the "Yahwist" (9th century BC), and the "Priestly" (7th century BC); and that the strands were compiled by an unknown redactor (but often suspected to be Ezra). One such scholar wrote, "The book of Genesis, like the other books of the Hexateuch, was not the production of one author. A definite plan may be traced in the book, but the structure of the work forbids us to consider it as the production of one writer." (Spurell xv). These strands were first identified by their different choice of the name of God.

The postulated sources are:

Genesis 1:1 to 2:3, which exclusively uses the word Elohim to describe God, is ascribed to the Priestly source, who uses only Elohim until the revelation of the Divine name YHWH (Yahweh) to Moses (Exodus 6:3). Genesis 2:4 to 2:24, which uses the words Yahweh Elohim to describe God, is ascribed to the Yahwist, who uses Yahweh exclusively. The combined form Yahweh Elohim, which appears only in Genesis 2 and 3, is thought to be the work of a later editor (known as R, for Redactor), who combined P, J and other texts into a single text, the five-book Torah, in the post-Exilic period.

Textual critics assert that the two passages tell the story of creation in different ways, and that there are inconsistencies between the two accounts. They conclude that the most probable explanation for the two inconsistent accounts is that a redactor combined the two independent creation stories into the final text which we have today.

Single vs. dual account

The single account theory

The dual account theory

The first chapter is associated with the Priestly source which typically portrays God as transcendental and remote. The very human story of the Garden of Eden with a strong female character is typical of the Jahwist-source.

The Priestly account has been interpreted as an assertion of monotheism in a context of most peoples in the ancient world believing that the various regions of nature consisted of multiple deities, with the sun, moon, stars, sky, earth, and water all being gods as well as gods of light and darkness, rivers and vegetation, animals and fertility. In this account, each day of creation takes two principal categories arranged in a cosmological and symmetrical order of divinity in the pantheons of the day and declares that these are not gods at all, but creations of the one true God. The final verse (2:4a) concludes: "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created", with the term generations referring to the genealogies in which the Greeks, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians placed their multiple gods.

In both accounts the ordering is determined by symbolic numerology rather than being a simple history. However, the Priestly account has a similar cosmogony to the great civilisations of the river basins, beginning with watery chaos which is then separated into the waters above and the waters below, followed by the earth separating from the engulfing waters. This relates to the agricultural and urban life of the Jews at that time. In contrast, the earlier Jahwist account begins with dry desert into which God brings water and fertile vegetation, reflecting their nomadic pastoral beginnings.

The dual perspective theory

Specific issues of textual interpretation

Literary intent

"In the Beginning"

Some understand the text to refer to the creation of order in the universe. They point out that In the beginning is not a literal translation of the Hebrew text into English. The Hebrew text lacks the definite article, and many have suggested it should be translated as When God began to create the heaven and the earth. This interpretation implies that there was unordered matter in the universe before God began to order it, and implicitly rejects the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.

Timescale

Another theory, propounded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) (note that Mormonism deviates from biblical, historical Christian beliefs and their bible and teachings do not correspond to the canonical Christian bible), holds that the word "day" may also be understood to mean "separate period of time," and thus the time-scale for God having organized the earth from existing matter could extend over thousands or even millions of years of "earth time," though by living on another sphere in the universe God's time-scale is at least a thousand years of earth time per one day. (Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 4,5:13)

Use of different words for God

The single account theory asserts that Hebrew scriptures use different names for God throughout, depending on the characteristics of God which the author wished to emphasize. They argue that across the Hebrew scriptures, the use of Elohim in the first segment suggests "strength," focusing on God as the mighty Creator of the universe, while the use of Yahweh in the second segment suggested moral and spiritual natures of deity, particularly in relationship to the man. (Stone 17). The dual account theory asserts that the two segments using different words for God indicates different authorship and two distinct narratives, in accord with the Documentary hypothesis.

Writing style

One of the principles of textual criticism is that large differences in the type of words used, and in the stylistic qualities of the text, should be taken as support for the existence of two different authors. Proponents of the two-account hypothesis point to the attempts (e.g. The Book of J by David Rosenburg) to separate the various authors of the Torah claimed by the Documentary Hypothesis into distinct and sometimes contradictory accounts.

Proponents of the single account argue that style differences need not be indicative of multiple authors, but may simply indicate the purpose of different passages. For example, Kenneth Kitchen, a retired Archaeology Professor of the University of Liverpool, has argued (1966) that stylistic differences are meaningless, and reflect different subject matter. He supports this with the evidence of a biographical inscription of an Egyptian official in 2400 B.C., which reflects at least four different styles, but which is uniformly supposed to possess unity of authorship. Similarly, the different names of God reflect his different attributes.

The likelihood of parallel inconsistent accounts

However, those who argue that the differences in the accounts are irreconcilable point to several historic factors that would have allowed the contradictory accounts to survive uncorrected. Prior to the modern era, factors that would have made correction difficult included mass illiteracy, hand copying of manuscripts prior to the printing press, early rules preventing translations of the scriptures into common languages, church discouragement and punishment of critical analysis of scripture, and the church's canonization of texts as they were. In early times, there were few incentives or opportunities to criticize or correct scriptural text.

How apparent the differences are depends on the translations. For example, some modern English Bibles translate the two different words for God--Yahweh and Elohim--both as God. Others, however, such as the King James and Revised Standard Versions, translate Elohim as God, and Yahweh as LORD. In addition, some translations (e.g. the New International Version) have rendered the start of the second section as the day when, since the Hebrew beyom ("in the day") is an idiomatic expression for "when". So the NIV regards Ch. 2 as a review of past events--rather than the literalistic on that day, as if it were a first recording of events.

The dual perspective theory

Ms. Reis analyzes Genesis 1 as God's narrative and Genesis 2 as man's narrative. In Genesis 1, the style of narration is very orderly and logical, proceeding from basics like heaven and earth, through plants and animals to man and woman. And everything is "good" or "very good." Ms. Reis suggests that the story-teller has a bit of whimsy in noting how perfect everything is from God's view.

In contrast, in Genesis 2, man tells the story from his own self-centered perspective. Man is created first, and there are a few flaws. For example, Man is alone, without a woman (in contrast to Genesis 1, where the two were created simultaneously). Where Genesis 1 repeats the phrase "heaven and earth" several times, Genesis 2 uses "earth and heaven." Moreover, Genesis 2 contains a notice that "there was no one to till the ground." The implication that the ground must be tilled contrasts with the completeness implied in Genesis 1.

Even the words used in Genesis 1 suggest serenity, the godly plane of existence. For example, in Genesis 1, the word for God is Elohim, the generic and distant God, while God's name in Genesis 2 is the personal and sacred YHWH Elohim, the Lord of Gods. Even the verb of making is different in the two narratives; in the first narrative the verb is the Hebrew "arb" which means "create from nothing," something that only God can do. In contrast, the verb in the second narrative means "make;" God "made earth and heaven." Furthermore, Man and Woman are both formed from pre-existing matter, in contrast to their creation ex nihilo in the first chapter. This brings God's act within the range of human experience. There are also details about where to find gold and lapis lazuli--but only in the second narrative.

Ms. Reis argues that Genesis 1 and 2 make sense either way, just as for Kurosawa's Rashomon. They make sense as two different stories. Or they make sense as two narratives of the same story from different personal perspectives: that of God and that of man.

Summary of interpretations — Genesis 1:1-2:3

Literalist

Let there be light (Gen 1:3)
Let there be a firmament.. (Gen 1:6)
Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together.. (1:9)
Let the earth sprout vegetation.. (1:11)
Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven.. (1:14)
Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly.. (1:20)
Let the earth bring forth living creatures.. (1:24)
Let us make man in our image.. (1:26)

Alternatively, some literalists prefer to insert a "gap" of time into the creation week story, most typically between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, into which geologic time can be inserted. This is a response to the findings of modern science regarding the age of the Earth, and is known as Gap creationism. Gap creationists believe that the events of creation week constitute the "restitution" of the planet Earth from a pre-existent state of chaos.

Day-Age

Literary framework

Days of proclamation

Summary of interpretations — Genesis 2:4-3:24

Literalist

Symbolic history

Metaphor or allegory

Use of the literal reading to date creation

Such calculations assume the literal accuracy and reliability of the Genesis account, and are inconsistent with mainstream history (see The Bible and history) and science (see Young Earth creationism).

Esoteric cosmology

Common themes addressed in esoteric cosmology are emanation, involution, evolution, epigenesis, planes of existence, hierarchies of spiritual beings, cosmic cycles (e.g., cosmic year, Yuga), yogic or spiritual disciplines, and references to altered states of consciousness. Examples of esoteric cosmologies can be found in Gnosticism, Tantra (especially Kashmir Shaivism), Kabbalah, Sufism, Surat Shabda Yoga, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, the Fourth Way teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, the teachings of Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, Gnostic circle and in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, as well as the book "God Speaks" by Meher Baba.