The “Genesis” and the Contemporary Science (First part)

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleშესაქმე და თანამედროვე მეცნიერება (I)
3. Language term English
4. lemma author Pataridze, Tamara
5. lemma category Scientific theories and disciplines > Modern physics: Relativity - Orthodox theological tradition and practice > Biblical interpretation - Scientific theories and disciplines
6. Publication date 2015
7. lemma manifestations გული გონიერი ("The intelligent Heart", Religious and Educational Journal)
8. Keywords Creationism - Big Bang
9. Url Click Here
10. Lemma body

    1. The author of this paper analyses the story of the Creation (Genesis, BiBle) in the light of the contemporary scientific theories dealing with the origin of the universe. His principal claim is expressed at the beginning of the paper with the quotation of the words of the Patriarch of Georgia Ilia II arguing that “someone who interprets the biblical story of Creation against the new scientific theories is a person who has failed in his understanding of the biblical story, as well as in his understanding of the scientific theory”.

       “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”:

       The term “heaven” is applied to the part of the cosmic space involving all astronomic objects. Nevertheless, according to the Bible, the astronomic object - earth was created during the second day.  This could have been interpreted as a contradiction between the Biblical story and the scientific theory, but, in fact, there is no contradiction at all.  Indeed, M. Antadze argues that “the heaven and earth” as expression is usually used to say “whole universe” (See: Ps. 101.26; Is. 65.17; Jerem. 33.25). In patristic tradition, this locution expresses the unity of the visible and invisible worlds. Therefore, the “heaven” is interpreted as a space for angelic/noetic beings. This suggests that the “earth” is the visible universe while the “heaven” means the invisible universe. Thus, at the beginning of the Creation, the frontier was established between the visible and invisible and heaven was included in the physical world.

       To the initial singularity, - which is the state of universe before the Big Bang, - the infinite density was proper, thought to have contained all the mass of the mater. According to Stephen Hawking, all scientific observations confirm that there was a beginning for the Universe. However, our knowledge related to the evolution (inflation) of universe after the Big Bang suggests us nothing about what was the reality before this initial singularity.

       The Famous Christian apologist, John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, analyzes Stephen Hawking’s ideas. He argues that according to the laws of physics, one must recognize that the universe was originated from nothing. However, the existence of God could be suggested thanks to the fact of preexistence of the laws of physics to the universe.

       Antadze suggests that the biblical wording about the earth that was “formless and empty”, with “darkness over the surface of the deep” describes the initial singularity of universe before the inflation. He highlights that for the contemporary theologians there is an agreement about the compatibility between the biblical concept of Creation from nothing and the concept of the universe originated after the Big Bang. The latest universe is supposed to pass through the development managed by the Divine providence. Thus, these theologians think that, first, God created the universe from nothing, and second, this creation from nothing is evidenced scientifically, on the basis of the theory of the Big Bang. Finally, all created matter had experienced the development strongly directed by Divine providence.

       What about the “Spirit of God hovering over the waters” ?

       Recognizing that in the Biblical story water is presented as an initial and basic element of the created universe, M. Antadze is looking for the scientific proves of the same crucial importance of water in the nature, in order to draw the parallel between the Bible and the science. He notices, that according to the scientific evidences, water played a crucial role in the matter of apparition of life on the earth. Water is the basic element of morphology and the biosphere of the earth.Antadze relies to the research curried out by Masaru Emoto, a Japanese researcher arguing that the human consciousness has usually an effect on the molecular structure of water. His photographs of ice crystals have shown that the emotional "energies" and "vibrations" could change the physical structure of water which has his memory. Relying on this argumentation M. Antadze tries to suggest that the water structure implicitly contains information about the Creation. In his eyes the water was charged by God to play a role of the matrix of universe and to allow the rotation of information in it. It is a fundamental substance allowing for the functioning of universal mechanisms. Thanks to its structural memory, water is preserving information over the time establishing links between the entities composing our ecosystem.

       In the eyes of M. Antadze, this scientific data demonstrating the crucial role of water is in accordance with the biblical claim related to water’s importance in the story of Creation.