A Compendium of the Doctrines of Genesis 1-11

Doctrine One

A Personal Supreme Being 

Exists and has revealed Himself

God revealed His existence in Genesis, which was composed by Moses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Moses probably used written documents from both the pre—and post-Flood eras. The Council of Trent affirmed the divine authorship of Genesis, and the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1906 upheld the Mosaic authorship of Genesis. That God revealed His existence is a category 1 doctrine, de fide credenda. Vatican I decreed that God’s existence can be known with certitude by the light of human reason from created things. It also formally defined the existence of God and condemned as heresy the denial of God’s existence.

Genesis says that God conversed with Adam and Eve and made known His will to them. They passed on their knowledge of God, their origin, and the origin of the world to their descendants. Seth and the succeeding pre-Flood patriarchs passed this knowledge on to Noah. Cain and his descendants had this same knowledge, as well. Men believed in only one God, and both polytheism and atheism did not arise until after the Flood.

The question of the human authorship of the books of the Bible must be distinguished from questions of inspiration and inerrancy. These have been clearly defined and repeatedly affirmed by the Church’s Magisterium. Though the Church has made no definitive statement concerning authorship of the books of the Bible, the PBC in 1906, as was mentioned earlier, upheld Moses as the author of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. The Commission said he had direct revelation from God and may have edited or paraphrased existing sources under divine inspiration. He wrote in his own hand, or used scribes, or authorized the final product produced by others under his direction. The PBC allows for glosses and explanations by subsequent inspired writers to be added to the original text. You will see in the last chapter of Deuteronomy, for example, the account of Moses’ death.

Fr. Warkulwiz gives a long description of the Documentary Hypothesis controversy with its denial of Moses as the author of the Pentateuch. The theory proposes multiple authors using materials from many different periods, some very old and some not so old, that were rearranged and rewritten by an unknown number of anonymous inspired authors. Even today, there is no real agreement among the Hypothesis’ adherents concerning who wrote what. Its presuppositions reflect something of the evolutionary ideology of its day. The all-embracing idea of evolution, whether consciously or unconsciously, is applied to the books of the Bible, whereby the origin of the books begins to imitate the evolution of living species. The DH is a theory involving much speculation but little documentary support. In the 1970s, 17,000 clay tablets were found in the ancient city of Ebla, dating back to 2,500 BC, or about 1,000 years before Moses. One of the claims of the DH proponents is that the names of El and YHWH (YAHWEH) came after Moses’ time, but yet are found in these tablets. Modern day discoveries show that writing was indeed very common long before Moses’ time, but fail to persuasively support the idea that the Hebrew religious records were not put into writing until after the death of Moses.

The Pentateuch claims Moses as the author (see Ex. 17:14). The New Testament does likewise, as it contains numerous statements by Jesus himself (see John 5:46-47; also, Mark 10:5, Mark 12:26, Luke 24:27, and John 7:19). As Fr. Warkulwiz points out, there are many other flaws in the theory. For instance, modern linguistics supports Moses as the author of Genesis. In the early 1980s, a computer analysis of Genesis done at the Technion Institute in Israel concluded that It is most probable that the Book of Genesis was written by one person. He also cites the well-respected biblical scholar Msgr. John Steinmuller, who said: Those passages which are directly attributed to Moses by Sacred Scripture must be believed by DIVINE FAITH to have Moses as their author, and the substance of the other parts of the Pentateuch is THEOLOGICALLY CERTAIN to be of Mosaic origin. Hence, it would be an ERROR IN FAITH to deny the Mosaic origin of those passages of the Pentateuch which are directly attributed to him, and it would be at least TEMERARIOUS to deny the Mosaic origin of those parts which constitute the substance of the Pentateuch.

Concerning the literal-historical truth of Genesis 1-11, there is no evidence whatsoever within those texts that they are anything other than what Moses presented them as, namely, a literal-historical document. This is the unanimous understanding of the Fathers of the Church, which they received from the Apostles, who received it from Christ. The liturgy of the Church confirms that this is genuine Catholic Tradition. The PBC in 1909 rejected arguments denying the literal historical nature of Genesis 1-3, which, by the way, covers thirteen of the sixteen doctrines of Genesis. It rejected the idea that these chapters contain legends, part history or part fiction composed for the edification of souls. It did allow for manifest use of figurative language, such as that which is currently used in modern English; it was never meant to be used to rewrite the text in such a way as to change its basic meaning. It is said that teaching natural science is not the purpose of the Bible. While true, that does not mean biblical assertions about the natural world are subject to reinterpretations contradictory to the literal-historical meaning of the words. It is necessary to interpret Scripture with faith in its accuracy, rather than reinterpret it so as to forge an agreement with contemporary scientific conventions.

Doctrine Two

God Created the Whole World 

from Nothing

This is a very short summary of 60 pages of the text. God’s creation of the world from nothing is a divinely revealed doctrine. It was formally confirmed by the 4th Lateran Council in 1215, and again by Vatican Council I in 1870. The 4th Lateran Council also affirmed that God ALONE created the world. Although Genesis does not give an account of the creation of the angels, Sacred Scripture implies and Sacred Tradition holds that they were created IN THE BEGINNING. The 4th Lateran Council and Vatican Council I formally declared that the angels were created from nothing at the beginning of time. In 1329, Pope John XXII condemned the notion that God created an eternal world. Pope Pius XII clearly stated that natural science is unable to give assured answers concerning the origin of the world.

The first verse of Genesis states: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Hebrew verb translated created is bara, which is used in Scripture exclusively for divine activity. It always has God as its subject. It is never associated with matter out of which God produces something. In Genesis 1:1 and elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures, it expresses creation out of nothing (creation ex nihilo). In the beginning means that creation marks the start of time and the course of history. The history of the world began at the beginning of Creation Week; and the history of man began at the end of Creation Week, when God created man and gave him dominion over the world. Since Genesis is an historical document that tells what happened at the very beginning of time, there is no such thing as pre-history.

The Fathers of Holy Church gave long detailed homilies on the six days of Creation. Foremost are those of St. Basil the Great and St. Ambrose. St Ephrem, St. Augustine and St John Chrysostom also preached and wrote extensively on the Book of Genesis. They regarded creation of the world out of nothing as a basic truth of the Catholic faith. They defended it against the pagan doctrine of dualism and also against Manichaeism. Dualism asserted that there were two eternal and independent realities, spirit and matter. The Manicheans held that there were two sources of creation, the one good and the other evil. One author cites 41 passages from the Fathers affirming that God created all things from nothing. Throughout history, Jews and Christians alike have been certain that the creation of the world out of nothing is directly expressed in the first line of Genesis: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The words In the beginning have always been taken to mean the absolute beginning, when things other than God began to exist along side Him.

The Church has repeatedly professed in her creeds, conciliar decrees and papal documents that God created (or made) all things. In most of her proclamations ex nihilo is not stated, but it is implied. In 1215, the 4th Lateran Council made the first explicit statement, saying that God created out of nothing. Lateran 4 was responding to the Cathars, who claimed that a good deity created the world of the spirit, and an evil god was the author of the material world. The First Vatican Council, in opposing the errors of the nineteenth century, again explicitly affirmed that God created the world ex nihilo, emphasizing with an anathema that He created it in its totality.

With regard to the creation of the angels, Genesis is not specific. Some Fathers (e.g., St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Athanasius, and St. Ambrose) held that the angels were created before the corporeal world. Others, like St. Augustine and St Epiphanius of Salamis, held that they were created at the same time. The 4th Lateran Council later declared that the angels were created from nothing at the beginning of time. It stated that God from the beginning of time made at once (simul) out of nothing both orders of creatures, that is, the angelic and the earthly… . Vatican Council I reinforced this teaching by quoting the Lateran IV declaration.

The act of creation added nothing to God and subtracted nothing from Him. He continuously holds the world in existence. St. Bonaventure said that God’s continuous creative presence in creatures is like a seal leaving its imprint on running water for as long as it is impressed on it. The Church has also condemned the idea that things have arisen or emanated from the substance of God and the idea that the world was made by a being or beings other than God.

In the purely materialistic form of the theory of evolution, the distinction of creatures is an upward movement of undifferentiated matter/energy towards more organized forms, an ascent to greater perfection. The process is driven by natural causes alone, and the spiritual is just an epiphenomenon (symptom) of highly organized matter. Contrasting with evolutionism is emanationism. In emanationism, the distinction of creatures is a downward movement, from the infinitely perfect to the less perfect. It is a descent from God to spiritual beings to material beings. Emanation is an alleged cosmogonic process proposed as an explanation for the origin of things. It holds that all things proceed from the same divine substance, either immediately or mediately. Although the divine substance loses nothing of its perfection, it does give of its substance. An analogy is a reservoir pouring water into a river. The reservoir shares its substance (water) without losing its perfection of being a continuous reservoir, ad infinitum. Also, the process of emanation employs intermediates. Using the above analogy, the river would produce other things, such as streams, by the inherited powers of its waters. Emanationism was widely professed by non-Christian philosophers and theologians in the Middle Ages.

Emanationism conflicts with Catholic doctrine in three ways. First, it holds that God did not produce things ex nihilo but from His own substance. Vatican Council I, in addition to affirming Lateran Council IV teaching that God created from nothing, anathematized those who say that finite things, both corporeal and spiritual, or at least spiritual, have emanated from the divine substance. Second, emanationism holds that the emanation of things from God’s substance is a necessary process because it proceeds from God’s nature. God did not produce the world voluntarily but automatically. Thus emanationism denies that God created freely, a doctrine held in Catholic Tradition and formally defined by the First Vatican Council. Third, the theory uses intermediate causes in the emanation of creatures, thus denying immediate creation of creatures by God. It was pointed out earlier that God alone created the world and that no creature is able to participate in God’s work of creating ex nihilo. There is a Christian sense in which the word emanation is used. It means to come directly from God as a source without implying that He gives of His own substance. St. Thomas Aquinas used the word in a broad sense to include creation: . . . we must consider not only the emanation of a particular being from a particular agent, but also the emanation of all being from the universal cause which is God; and this emanation we designate by the name of creation.

St. Bonaventure neatly summarizes Catholic Tradition on the creation of the world, pointing out that a vestige of the Creator is found in all creatures: We must in general understand the following statements about the production of things, for by them truth is found and error refuted. When we say the world is made in time, we exclude the error of those who posit an eternal world. When we say that the world was made out of nothing, we exclude the error of positing an eternity with regard to the material principle. When we say the world was made by a single principle, we exclude the error of the Manicheans who posit a plurality of principles. When we say the world was made by one unaided and supreme, we exclude the error of positing that God has created lesser creatures through the ministration of intelligences.

The Fathers taught that the material world could not exist eternally alongside God because that would make it equal to God in some way. For example, Tatian the Syrian said: Matter is not without a beginning, like God, nor is it of equal power with God, through being without a beginning. The creation of the world was such a unique and stupendous event that even miracle isn’t a proper word for it. That word implies a violation or suspension of the laws of nature. In the act of creation, God created the laws of nature. Creation was the event that gave birth to history. For certitude about it, we need the clear testimony of an unimpeachable witness. We have such testimony in the Book of Genesis because it is the word of the Creator Himself.

There are many theories, or cosmologies, of how the universe began. Fr. Warkulwiz goes through a number of