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    Christianity Down To Earth
    Christianity Down To Earth
    Christianity Down To Earth
    Ebook413 pages7 hours

    Christianity Down To Earth

    By Edwin Walhout

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    About this ebook

    If you are interested in theology and have a bit of philosophical interest, this is for you. Four historical mindsets and how they shaped the doctrines of Christian faith. See also the basic companion volume, Theology 101.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEdwin Walhout
    Release dateDec 11, 2010
    ISBN9781458018984
    Christianity Down To Earth
    Author

    Edwin Walhout

    I am a retired minister of the Christian Reformed Church, living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Being retired from professional life, I am now free to explore theology without the constraints of ecclesiastical loyalties. You will be challenged by the ebooks I am supplying on Smashwords.

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      Book preview

      Christianity Down To Earth - Edwin Walhout

      Christianity Down To Earth

      Where We Are and Where We Should Be Going

      by Edwin Walhout

      Published by Edwin Walhout

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2010 Edwin Walhout

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

      The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.

      Cover design by Amy Cole (amy.cole@comcast.net)

      Consult Smashwords.com for additional titles by this author,

      including an introductory treatment of theology entitled Theology 101

      (type Walhout in the search box).

      Table Of Contents

      1 Orientation

      Part I: The Hebrew-Christian Mindset: Concurrence

      2 God and Creation

      3 God and Humankind

      4 God and Sin

      5 Sin and Punishment

      6 God and Covenant

      7 God and Israel

      8 God and Jesus

      9 Jesus and the Apostles

      10 The Apostle Paul

      11 The Apostle John

      Part II: The Greco-Roman Mindset: Docetism

      12 Greek Philosophy

      13 Christology

      14 The Old Roman Creed

      15 The Nicene Creed

      16 Chalcedon and Beyond

      17 Church Organization

      Part III: The Medieval Mindset: Papism

      18 Papism

      19 The Medieval Mission

      20 The Renaissance

      21 The Reformation

      Part IV: The Modern Mindset: Phenomenalism

      22 Enlightenment

      23 Subjectivism

      24 The Social Gospel

      25 Fundamentalism

      26 Neo-orthodoxy

      27 Concluding Perspective

      1

      Orientation

      What I propose to do in this book can be articulated in two steps:

      a. Isolate four major worldviews (mindsets) involved in the history of Christianity.

      b. Trace the effect these mindsets have had upon the Christian church and its theology.

      I take the original mindset of the Bible writers, the Hebrew-Christian mindset, as normative and definitive, judging subsequent developments in the history of the church by that standard. I find much of what has entered the tradition of Christian theology to be incompatible with the original thought patterns of such people as Moses, David, Jeremiah, John, Paul, Luke, etc.

      What I propose to do, accordingly, is to analyze the major worldviews that have appeared in western thought (I call them mindsets), especially the original Hebrew mindset within which Christianity first emerged, and then utilize that mindset as the definitive standard by which to evaluate certain developments that took place as the gospel moved into the Greco-Roman world, then into the barbarian world of the middle ages, and thence into the modern world.

      I will be isolating these four major mindsets: a) that of the ancient Hebrew-Christians, b) of the Greco-Roman world, c) of the medieval barbarians, d) and of the modern Enlightenment movement. In each case I will be trying to analyze not only the basic philosophy of life of the times, but also then how this way of thinking affected how people thought about Jesus and the gospel, how this carried over into the way the church was organized and run, and what effect that contemporary style of Christianity has had upon the way western culture developed. All of this in constant interaction with the Biblical norm.

      Part One

      The Hebrew-Christian Mindset: Concurrence

      2

      God and Creation

      It is of more than casual significance that the book of Genesis begins with an affirmation that God created the heavens and the earth. Whether or not this implies that God created the universe out of nothing, the overwhelming emphasis of the first chapter of the Bible is that there was a process in the formation of the world as we know it, and that this process was a direct function of God. Step by step God formed and shaped the materials of the physical universe into the cosmos which now exists. There are several implications of this Hebrew affirmation that call for articulation.

      a) God and the world are inseparably connected.

      When we think of God we must also immediately and invariably think of the world which he has created. Similarly when we think of the world we must immediately and invariably think of God as its creator.

      We do not normally do either of these things. It is customary, for example, in books on Systematic Theology to spend considerable time on the Doctrine of God, analyzing his attributes and various other matters. Eventually one comes to the matter of creation, but one has examined the concept of God first without that reference. On the other hand when scientists do their work they customarily think first about their subject matter and then sometimes as an afterthought try to connect what they learn with God.

      The original Hebrew mindset did not so separate God from the world and from its function and its history. For example, when the ancient Hebrews thought about the omnipotence of God they did not do so as an abstract attribute of God in himself, they did so in the concrete cares and concerns of daily living. They saw his power in the affairs of daily life. Likewise his love and justice. Always within the context of life and reality. Never in the abstract.

      Here is a typical sample, and hundreds like it could be cited. Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave none of them behind; and I will never again hide my face from them, when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 39:28-29) It is God who sent the Israelites into exile, and it is God who will bring them back and put his spirit in them. A modern historian might simply search the historical data available and detail the events and personages involved, without any reference to God at all.

      What does it mean that God is eternal, for example? We think of God in the abstract, as an incomprehensible transcendent mystical Being existing completely independent of the world, all by himself, outside of time, with neither beginning nor ending. Obviously it is possible to think of God this way. We do it all the time. But it needs strong emphasis that this is not the way the ancient people of Bible times thought about God. They thought about him always and invariably in the context of life and history, seeing him at work not only in the world of external nature but in the ongoing affairs of human interactions. If they were to speak of God’s eternity they would mean not timelessness but permanence throughout the constant passage of time.

      Hence, at the very outset of our investigation of the Hebrew way of thinking we must do our best to grasp this, to us elusive, way of thinking about God. Do not think of God only when you go to church or when you pray, but always and everywhere. Let it become part of your personal and mental makeup that you are aware every moment of the presence of an active and speaking God, a creator on whom you are dependent every moment for everything you are. We are always in the presence of the God who made us and who loves us and who is enabling us to be what he created us to be. Learn to see the hand of God not only in your own personal life but also in the affairs of world tensions.

      One might respond that it is possible and proper, even granting the connection of Genesis 1, to isolate the concept of God simply for the purpose of defining the term, much as one might isolate one item from a group merely for the purpose of clarity. This process, it might be argued, will indeed result in an abstract discussion of the nature of God, so that it is not only acceptable but imperative to do so. Be clear as to what you mean when you employ the term God.

      One might indeed argue this way, justifying the abstract character of some doctrines of God, but the fact remains that the Bible itself does not do this, and the Hebrew mentality does not. We would be arguing from some modern point of view, some contemporary mindset, but we would not be speaking from within the Biblical mindset. The Bible simply does not speak of God in the abstract, but always in the concrete. Never in purely intellectual terms, but always in the active terms of speaking and doing within the totality of the universe he created.

      b) God works within the universe.

      There is another feature of the story of creation in Genesis that is sometimes missed. The spirit of God is hovering over the unformed chaotic mass of matter out of which the universe is about to be formed. It is to be understood that it is precisely this spirit (wind, breath) of God that is the energy or power by which this chaotic mass is being formed and shaped into the cosmos that it eventually became.

      Modern scientists talk about a big bang that exploded some aboriginal mass of matter and set in motion the long long process of developmental formation of the galaxies, suns, stars, planets, moons, orbits – in short, the sum total of nature. We should learn to see this process, however it may eventually be described in scientific language, as the same as the pre-scientific terminology of Moses. Both accounts, Genesis 1 and modern science, posit a long developmental process by which the earth was gradually formed to become a suitable habitation for the human race.

      That spirit or wind or breath, as Moses puts it, is the spirit or breath of God. It is God at work within the mass of matter that constitutes the universe. We must, accordingly, learn to think of God not only as supernatural, far distant from us, but as actively involved in the continuing formation of the natural world. In terms of our planet earth we must see such natural phenomena as hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, thunderstorms, earthquakes, as well as the regular and more normal functions of natural law as the continuing creative power of God at work. This is how God has been working, within the natural processes of the universe, ever since the beginning of time, so that what we usually think of as natural law is in fact the spirit of God at work.

      c) The world itself is the means whereby God speaks.

      We should not overlook the repeated emphasis in Genesis 1 that God brought all the modifications of the universe into existence simply by speaking. And God said. … We do not customarily use this language in our theological talk today.

      How does God speak? What does God say, if indeed he says anything at all? Genesis 1 says God spoke the world (nature) into existence. It seems clear enough from this Biblical perspective that if we want to listen to God we need to listen to nature. Nature is what God spoke, and for that matter, what he continues to speak. That is an essential part of the message of Genesis 1.

      People sometimes do not want to think God speaks in nature, or at least not in all of nature. Does God speak in destructive hurricanes, in devastating floods, in severe droughts and famines, in genetic anomalies, in nuclear warfare, in incurable disease?

      The Hebrew answer, difficult as it may be, is: if it happens, God is speaking in it. God created the entire world by speaking, so that his speech pervades everything that exists and everything that happens within the world. Not just his action, but also his speech. Notice how in the following psalm, God is said to speak not only to nature but also to Israel.

      Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem!

      Praise your God, O Zion!

      For he strengthens the bars of your gates;

      he blesses your children within you.

      He grants peace within your borders;

      he fills you with the finest of wheat.

      He sends out his command to the earth;

      his word runs swiftly.

      He gives snow like wool;

      he scatters frost like ashes.

      He hurls down hail like crumbs—

      who can stand before his cold?

      He sends out his word, and melts them;

      he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.

      He declares his word to Jacob,

      his statutes and ordinances to Israel.

      He has not dealt thus with any other nation;

      they do not know his ordinances.

      Praise the LORD!

      (Psalm 147:12-20)

      People sometimes think that God speaks only in the good things, but that the bad things of life are to be attributed to some other demonic force. Not so. In Psalm 147 God not only sends the hail but also melts it. The Hebrew mentality saw God active in everything that happened, and they likewise heard his voice in everything that happened. It was part of the mentality of all God-fearing Jews to acknowledge that even in evil situations God is involved and is speaking.

      Listen, for example, to Job, as he cries out against the injustice of what is happening to him, God gives me up to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, and he broke me in two; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces. (Job 16:11-12) Job does not understand why God is doing this, but he does not doubt that it is God who does it. He may not understand, at this point, what God is saying to him by the troubles he endures, but in time he will hear at least something from God. Job may not get all the answers he wants but he does hear God challenge him, Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? And Job’s response will be, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me. … Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:3-6)

      The world is what it is precisely because God made it that way, and he made it that way by speaking it into existence. The world is the product of God’s speech and the avenue by which he continues to speak. Accordingly, if we really want to hear what God says we need to hear that divine creative voice mediated and transmitted by the events that happen within the world he created. Everything. If we cannot manage to do that we will not manage to understand the mentality of the people who wrote the Old Testament.

      This point cannot be overstressed. The Old Testament mentality begins with the understanding that the world itself is the product of God speaking, with the corollary that nature is the vehicle by which God’s word is expressed.

      On the contrary, our mentality today, when asked pointblank, How does God speak? responds almost without thinking, By the Bible. To recognize that the Bible itself begins with a different answer is no denigration of the authority of the Bible. The Hebrew mindset begins with listening to God, not only in the vibrations of the physical environment, but also in the vicissitudes of human life and history. The Hebrew mindset sees God everywhere, and it hears God everywhere. If we wish to enter into that mindset we must begin where the Hebrew people themselves began, learning to hear God’s speech via the course of nature and of history.

      This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears

      all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.

      This is my Father’s world, I rest me in the thought

      of rocks and trees, of skies and seas, His hand the wonders wrought.

      In the rustling grass I hear Him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.

      d) The term heavens and earth means the totality of the physical universe.

      In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

      This is an unfamiliar translation of the opening words of Genesis, but the point to be made here is that the two terms heaven and earth together form the entirety of the created universe, the cosmos. Whether the first verse is an independent clause or a subordinate clause is immaterial at this point. The heavens and the earth, taken together, constitute the whole world.

      This is a usage of the term heaven that is no longer customary among Christians in the twenty-first century. In Genesis the term heaven means that part of the universe that is not the planet earth. It would include the moon, the sky, the planets, the stars, galaxies, and everything in space. Interestingly, the name of one of our planets, Uranus, is directly derived from the Greek word for heaven, ouranos). However, the term heaven usually means nothing of the sort, nothing physical at all. If you ask someone if he is going to heaven you are not asking him if he is going to Uranus, you are asking if he is going to go to be with God after he dies.

      This is not yet the place to examine the term heaven in detail, or why it has acquired such a different meaning, but the point is merely that we should be aware that our present usage of the term heaven is vastly different from what it was in the Old Testament. We are not going to understand the Hebrew mentality if we ignore or forget what the ancient Hebrews meant by the term. They simply had no interest in or concern for the kind of question we ask when we wonder whether or not we will go to heaven when we die.

      e) The term day in Genesis 1 means an indefinite period of time.

      The story of creation in Genesis 1 is organized into seven sections called days. the Hebrew word is yom. God spoke various changes into existence, and Moses refers to the sequence of these changes as days. The primary meaning of the term day, both in Hebrew and in the English translation, is a twenty-four hour period, among the Israelites reckoned from sunset to sunset.

      Both languages, however, employ the term in a variety of ways, indicating some other duration of time. The term sometimes means daylight as contrasted with night time, Day and night will not cease. It can mean a period of indefinite time. For example, one might say to someone who is complaining about something or other, You will get your day in court. He may never get into a legal procedure, but the meaning would be simply that the truth of the matter will eventually be shown. One might ask what the term connotes in the phrase, the day of the Lord. Twenty-four hours? Probably simply the indefinite time in the future when the Lord will achieve his purpose.

      The point is that one cannot insist that the process of creation as described in Genesis 1 is one literal week of seven days. Once this is recognized the way is opened up to accept any length of time which competent scientists may suggest. The meaning of the days would simply be that there are recognizable stages in the process whereby God brought our world into existence. That process is clearly a step by step preparation of the planet Earth for human habitation. Adam and Eve could not have survived in any of Genesis’ first five days of creation.

      f) Genesis 1 suggests a natural process under the creative direction of God.

      Scientists who examine Genesis 1 sometimes fault the author (whom we assume to be Moses) for specifying a sequence of events that is impossible. How could there be light on Day 1 without the sun and moon light-bearers of Day 4, for example?

      But one must understand that what we have in Genesis 1 is primitive science, not the product of investigation and research such as we have today. Surely there is light that does not originate in the sun or moon, for example static electricity and lightning. Or perhaps the term should be understood as meaning light in the form of energy or power, as if God said, Let there be energy. This is not to rewrite the Bible but to acknowledge that the ancient Hebrew terms cannot be forced into modern English meanings. Those ancient terms often have a wide breadth of meaning, as do many English words.

      At any rate, the process which Moses presents in the first chapter of Genesis is a continuous, sequential, progressive process culminating in the preparation of earth to receive and support humankind. Its duration is open-ended so far as the backward look is concerned; we do not know when it began; we can accept whatever estimate reliable scientists suggest.

      First there is light; let us think energy. This light-energy permeates the chaotic, formless mass out of which God is shaping a world. It causes change. We visualize enormous energies at work violently within the whirling substances. Out of it gradually come the galaxies and constellations and the planets and the small sphere we now call Earth.

      Second, around this Earth came an atmosphere. In the sky appeared clouds bearing moisture that in time would fall as rain upon the earth. Water began to collect upon the surface of the earth as well.

      In the meantime, thirdly, on the surface of the earth changes were taking place that resulted in high mountains and deep canyons. The canyons were filled with water forming oceans and lakes and rivers. As these waters appeared, dry land also appeared between them, and on this dry land vegetation gradually began to grow.

      Fourth, all the while these thing were happening on the surface of the planet Earth, the roiling process of change continued in space (heaven). Sun, moon, and stars were developed around the earth, shedding light and power upon its surface, enabling the processes of vegetative life and plant growth.

      Fifth, life began to develop into a great variety of forms: fish in the sea and birds in the air.

      Sixth, life continued to expand and diversify, producing all kinds of animals on the earth itself. We could well include the age of dinosaurs in this category, the sixth day. Then, after the animals have appeared, God created humans, on the same day as the animals, which suggests by the same process. The same divine energy that had caused all the changes in the universe and on the planet Earth now on the sixth day of creation brought the process to a climax in the creation of animals and humankind.

      Accordingly, when we read this Genesis account in the twenty-first century we need to make accommodation for the primitive nature of the science being reported. If we do this openly and honestly, then it will appear that Moses is by far the most insightful and profound philosopher of ancient times, much closer to the truth than the speculations of the early pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. What Moses wrote is, as the Apostle Paul wrote a millennium later, inspired by God and profitable for our study and reflection.

      It may well be that our modern scientific advances far outstrip Moses and the ancient Hebrews who absorbed his teaching, but when all is said and done, we can still affirm that what modern science is doing is putting meat on the bones of Genesis 1. Moses has presented a bare but very perceptive outline of how he envisioned the way in which the earth was prepared for human occupation, and modern science is filling in the details.

      When, however, we speak of Moses as the author of Genesis, we need always to remind ourselves that it is God who inspired him to write as he did. Similarly, when we examine the natural processes by which the Earth came to be what it is, we need also to remind ourselves that this too is the work of God. We must not eliminate God from the writing of Genesis, and we must not eliminate God from the process of natural change.

      By the same token, when we say God created the heavens and the earth we must not eliminate the natural processes that the creative work of God brought into play. And, in the same vein, when we say God inspired the scriptures we must not eliminate the human persons who penned them. To say that God inspired the Bible does not imply that Nahum and Haggai and James and Jude did not write it. To say that God created the world does not imply that there was no natural function by which he did it. On the contrary, God formed the world by means of the natural laws which he brought into operation. Similarly he inspired the Bible by means of the real persons whom he nudged to write.

      g) The divine and the natural are concurrent.

      We often think of what God does and what humans do as two separate items. Similarly we think what nature does and what God does are two different things. We would not be able to say God makes it rain if we take that position seriously. We know the natural forces that cause rain to fall from the clouds, so if nature does it, God does not do it. We do not think there can be two causes for one result.

      But Moses in Genesis 1 and 2 suggests a different relationship. In Genesis 2:5, for example, he writes that there was not yet any vegetation growing in the ground for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and water the whole face of the ground. Moses affirms that there are natural laws governing the fall of rain and the growth of plants, but he does not eliminate God from those processes. It is God who is in the process of creating nature and developing its functions. Moses wants us to understand that both are active simultaneously: God is doing what he does, and nature is doing what it does. Both at the same time and in the same events. This is what the term concurrent is intended to say. For the same event, the growth of plants, there is a divine cause and there is a natural cause, working concurrently.

      Both insights are required for us to have adequate knowledge of the truth of the matter. Hence to provide a scientific answer to some question is not to deny the need for a theological answer as well. And vice-versa, to suggest a divine answer to some human question is not to deny the need for a natural answer. To say that there is a divine origin to the universe is not to deny there is a natural origin. To say there is a natural origin is not to deny that there is a divine origin. In the ancient Hebrew mindset both are not only valid but required. We do not have a grasp of the whole truth if we have only the scientific answer, and we do not have a grasp of the whole truth if we have only the theological answer. We need them both for a full understanding of the truth. God created the world, but he created it by bringing about the operation of powerful natural forces.

      There have been modern thinkers who say that the more scientific data we discover, the less we need God. If we can explain everything by describing the natural forces that cause it, then what do we need God for? But this way of thinking assumes that it is either/or not both/and. Moses writes that God and nature are both/and; these modern thinkers assume that God and nature are either/or.

      The basic mindset of ancient Hebrew thinking is that in the entirety of nature, including man and human history, God is active and functional and speaking, sovereign over the way nature functions, including the way humans function. This way of thinking does not eliminate the reality of natural law, nor does it eliminate the reality of human choice and decision. What it does insist on is that we see and hear God in everything that happens in nature and also in everything that happens in human life. This is the doctrine of concurrence, and I employ the term to embrace the entire Hebrew-Christian mindset.

      3

      God and Humankind

      All of the above in Chapter 2 should be understood and taken for granted when we examine the Genesis account about how God created Adam and Eve. God himself is deeply involved in the existence of humans. In Genesis 2 God breathes his own spirit into Adam in order to bring him to life. We simply cannot analyze human life and history without always factoring in this divine origin and continuing presence in our lives. The ancient Hebrew mindset was thoroughly imbued with the ways and will of God, not only in external nature, but especially within the ongoing development of human life, civilization, and history.

      What follows now is an analysis of the major features of the Biblical accounts of the creation of Adam and Eve, and an attempt at articulating some of its implications for the way in which the ancient Hebrews viewed the relation between God and man.

      a) Adam is a symbol of the whole human race.

      Genesis 1:26 says, Let us make humankind in our image. The Hebrew word for humankind is adam. So when we think of Adam as one individual person we should also think of Adam as the entire human race. Whatever Genesis says about Adam it is intending to say about everybody. To use a different English idiom we could say Adam is Everyman.

      b) Humans are created out of the same materials as everything else.

      Genesis 2:7 says, The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground. In Hebrew there is a play on words here. The English word man is adam in Hebrew, and the English word ground is adamah in Hebrew. The implication is that man, humankind, is somehow identical with the ground. That is what we are made of, the same thing that the ground or earth is made of. That is why God can later remind Adam, You are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19)

      In more contemporary terms we might say that we are made of the same elements and genetic structures that everything in the world is made of. So it should not be surprising to us to learn that the human body is more than 97 % identical genetically, for example, with that of apes. That is what Genesis teaches us already long ago.

      c) Human beings are created by the breath of God.

      Genesis 2:7 says that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. A casual reading of this passage would suggest something like a sculptor fashioning a lifesize model out of clay, shaped like a human being, and then giving the clay model mouth to mouth resuscitation, bringing the clay model to life. In Moses’ parable we visualize God doing something like that, making a body out of the mud and bringing it to life by breathing into its nostrils.

      It should give sincere Christians no difficulty to recognize that this too, as all of Genesis 1 and 2, is a pre-scientific way of writing. The essential elements are that God has been causally involved in the appearance of humans in the world, and that humans are made of the same materials as everything else. We should not be misled by the visualization we sometimes make about a clay model coming to life. Nor should we be upset when conscientious scientists do their best to explain the origins of the human species. They are trying to fill in the scientific details of the outline given by Moses in Genesis.

      What then is the breath of God that transforms the body of dust into a living being? What does that mean in terms more up to date than those of Moses?

      We may begin to answer that question by stating first what it is not. It is not what we sometimes refer to as a soul. There is nothing in the Genesis accounts, either chapter 1 or chapter 2, that even remotely suggests that there was some pre-existing entity called soul that God injected into the body of dust. Genesis does not teach the pre-existence of the soul, nor even for that matter, that there is any such thing as a soul. It cannot be found in these two chapters.

      What Genesis 2 does say is that God breathed into the body in such a way that the body became a living being. The word breath in Hebrew is ruach and is translated either as breath or as wind or as spirit. It is the same word as used in Genesis 1:2, a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

      So we should make a connection between what was happening throughout the entire creation process and what is happening here in the creation of Adam as a living being. It is part of the same process. The spirit of God, or the wind of God, or the breath of God – all the same thing – swept over the entire mass of matter out of which the universe was being formed, and it also, as part of that creative process, swept into that tiny bit of matter that became the human race. That is what Moses writes under the inspiration (breath, wind, spirit) of God.

      This breath of God should not be understood as mere raw power, as if only the sheer creative power of God was the cause of our human existence. As we have noticed in the case of the creation of the earth, the appearance of humans on the earth is a product also of the speaking of God. Let us make man in our image, says God. And that is what happened, humans appeared on the earth. The point here is that the word and the power of God go together. When God says something, something happens; and vice-versa, when something happens, like the world being shaped or humans appearing, it is because God is speaking. The event is the same as the speech of God.

      So God is speaking by means of the appearance of humans on earth, as well as exercising his almighty power. Our very existence as humans in the world should, accordingly, challenge us to hear what God is saying to us about why we exist and what we should be doing with our lives.

      d) Human beings are created in the image of God.

      The affirmation that human beings are created by the breath of God does not, in itself, suggest any sense of uniqueness for humans. On the contrary, it suggests sameness, for it is the same spirit of God that was the formative energy in the

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