The Creation
Many Christians take the story of the creation of the Earth in Genesis literally. Conversely, many scientists see it as unscientific hogwash that detracts from clear ‘scientific’ thinking. Both of these views are wrong.
I shall discuss the story in Genesis and other creation myths later on but what people fail to realise is that these stories are not about how the world was created but why. Suppose you meet an old friend who has recently got divorced and you ask him how he got divorced. You might get a quite factual account: we filled out this form, saw this person, went to this place and waited for this time. If you asked why he got divorced, however, you would get a very different account. It would be far from factual and what’s more, he would probably give a different account then his wife, children or friends would. The
how and the
why co-exist as if they were parallel worlds in different dimensions, occupying the same time and space but otherwise quite different.
In Greek mythology the creation starts with the Void (Chaos). From Chaos was born Gaia (the Earth). This equates to the creation story in Genesis:
First God made heaven & earth
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;
In Greek mythology Gaia gave rise to Chronos (time) and then Zeus (representing the human element in its most sublime form). This equates to the separation of the day and the night in Genesis and the creation of Adam.
Scientists have the concept of Entropy. Entropy is sometimes referred to as the amount of disorder. So something that is completely ordered has zero entropy. Something that is completely disordered has infinite entropy. It’s worth noting that left to themselves things gain entropy. So, for example, we create a car from a number of raw materials using very specialised techniques and processes. The car has low entropy in that if something is out of place even by a tiny amount, the car will fail to work. It was formed from things with high entropy. For instance, the steel was originally a mound of iron ore. If the mound we moved or reshaped it really makes very little difference. It had a high level of disorder. So adding intelligence (which is low entropy) brings down the entropy of what is around. Humans create order. Left to itself nature creates disorder. So the creation story could be seen as a lowering of entropy. God (who has zero entropy – He has absolute knowledge) creates something of lower entropy (human beings) who can, in turn, produce manufactured goods and other things that have lower entropy than the natural environment. This is why it says that ‘God created Man in His own image’. We have this creative capacity.
On the way to producing Mankind, there was the creation of time. Time has higher entropy than Human Beings (it is more disordered). When we talk about time we are talking about all mechanical processes. The working of a clock, the orbit of planets around the sun etc. When we revert to mechanical ways of working, rather than using our intelligence, we are gaining entropy – we are getting more disordered.
Chronos in Greek mythology is equated to Saturn in Roman mythology from which we get Saturnine and Satan (the devil). The reason why the devil is equated to time is that when we revert to mechanical and automatic ways of thinking we are moving back to the chaos – we are gaining entropy and moving away from God.
In the Koran the story of the creation of mankind is as follows:
15. al-Hijr: The Rock
...
26 Verily We created man of potter's clay of black mud altered,
27 And the jinn did We create aforetime of essential fire.
28 And (remember) when thy Lord said unto the angels: Lo! I am creating a mortal out of potter's clay of black mud altered,
29 So, when I have made him and have breathed into him of My Spirit, do ye fall down, prostrating yourselves unto him.
30 So the angels fell prostrate, all of them together
31 Save Iblis. He refused to be among the prostrate.
32 He said: O Iblis! What aileth thee that thou art not among the prostrate?
33 He said: I am not one to prostrate myself unto a mortal whom Thou hast created out of potter's clay of black mud altered!
34 He said: Then go thou forth from hence, for lo! thou art outcast.
35 And lo! the curse shall be upon thee till the Day of Judgment.
36 He said: My Lord! Reprieve me till the day when they are raised.
37 He said: Then lo! thou art of those reprieved
38 Till the Day of appointed time.
39 He said: My Lord! Because Thou hast sent me astray, I verily shall adorn the path of error for them in the earth, and shall mislead them every one,
40 Save such of them as are Thy perfectly devoted slaves.
41 He said: This is a right course incumbent upon Me:
42 Lo! as for My slaves, thou hast no power over any of them save such of the froward as follow thee,
43 And lo! for all such, hell will be the promised place.
Here, Iblis (the devil) saw that mortals were weak and that he would ‘mislead every one of them’. This is the tendency that humans have of reverting to mechanical ways of thinking and acting. When we are not aware we act mechanically and we gain entropy – we move away from God.
A comparison of the creation story in the Koran and the Bible is in
Wikipedia.
