The Placement of These Narratives at the Beginning of the Biblical Canon

2. The fact that the creation account rather than the birth of Israel stands at the head of the canon remains of considerable importance. The theological factors reflected in this ordering include the following:

(a) The Bible begins with a testimony to the universal activity of God. God's creative activity not only brought the world into being but also was effectively engaged in the lives of individuals and peoples long before Israel came into being. The canonical ordering reflects the actual sequence of God's activity in the world. God was at work on behalf of God’s divine creational purposes before Israel understood what this activity was all about.

(b) God’s actions in the world achieve priority of place over human knowledge of what God has done.  When Israel does begin to articulate the place of creation in the divine economy, this amounts to Israel’s “catching up” with what God has long been about. The development of a creation theology in Israel occurs secondary to God's actual engagement with the world. At the same such a creation theology probably emerged much earlier in Israel than has commonly supposed. Creation theology seems to be a given for those who first formulated a theology of Israel’s redemption (see Exodus 15).

(c) This canonical ordering corresponds to human experience of God's activity. Human beings in all times and places have experienced (even if they have not known) God's creative acts prior to and alongside of God's redemptive acts. Human beings receive their life and all their native gifts from the Creator quite apart from knowledge of its source. The redemptive work of God takes place within a world and individual lives that have been brought into being and sustained by God's care. God's redemptive activity does not occur in a vacuum, but within a context decisively shaped by the life-giving work of God within and without Israel.

(d) The position of Genesis 1-2 demonstrates that God's purpose in redemption does not, finally, center on Israel. God as Creator has a purpose that spans the world, and since divine deeds are rooted in the divine will God's redemptive activity must be understood to serve this universal intention. Israel's place in the purposes of God is clear only from within this creation-wide perspective. Israel's election furthers God's mission on behalf of the entire universe.

The Interrelatedness of Divine and Human

3. Traditional interpretations of Genesis have tended to favor the lofty formulations and familiar cadences of chap. 1 at the expense of the more "naive" story in chap. 2…Such views reinforce the traditional image of God as a radically transcendent Creator, operating in total independence, speaking the world into being.

Whatever the history of the transmission of these accounts, they now stand together as a single witness to the creation of the world. In this canonical perspective on creation each chapter stands in interaction with the other. Praiseworthy language about a transcendent Creator has been placed in a theological context in which other images for God and the God-creature relationship come more clearly into view, providing for a more relational model of creation than has been traditionally presented.

Both God and the creatures have an important role in the creative enterprise, and their spheres of activity are interrelated. God has shaped the created order in such a way that the Creator and the creatures share overlapping spheres of interdependence and creative responsibility. Moreover, the creatures are interdependent among themselves. Both human beings and animals depend on vegetation for their food (1:29-30); humans are to preserve the independent role of the animals (1 :22). In addition, the nonhumans depend on varying forms of dominion exercised by the humans.

God is God and freely brings into being that which is not God. The creatures depend on the Creator for their existence and continuing life. Chapter 1 stresses divine initiative, imagination, transcendence, and power in a way that chap. 2 does not. The position of chap. 1 implies that these divine characteristics should stand at the beginning and in the foreground in discussion. Yet, no simple or static hierarchy emerges, since some features of chap. 1 already lean toward chap. 2.

On the other hand, the realm of the divine and the realm of the creature are not two unrelated spheres; there are overlapping powers, roles, and responsibilities, to which image language testifies. God is not powerful and creatures powerless as if the Godness of God could be bought at the expense of creaturely diminishment. In the very act of creating, God gives to others a certain independence and freedom. God moves over, as it were, and makes room for others. Creation involves an ordered freedom, a degree of openness and unpredictability wherein God leaves room for genuine decisions on the part of human beings as they exercise their God-given power. Even more, God gives them powers and responsibilities in a way that commits God to a certain kind of relationship with them. Divine constraint and restraint operate in the exercise of power within the creation (e.g., God will not singlehandedly be involved in procreation), still further restrained by the promise at the end of the flood story.

Human beings have been given freedom enough to destroy themselves, though God does not will such destruction. God does not have a final and solitary will in place from the beginning regarding every aspect of the created order. Things may develop, divine and human creativity may continue (see Ps 104:30), in view of which God will make adjustments in the divine will for the world. Yet, these divine acts will always be in tune with God's absolute will regarding the life and salvation of all.

These chapters imply that the divine sovereignty in creation is understood, not in terms of absolute divine control, but as a sovereignty that gives power over to the created for the sake of a relationship of integrity. Such a view involves risk, since it entails the possibility that the creatures will misuse the power they have been given, which does occur. A reclamation of creation will be needed.

Creation from Nothing (Creatio ex nihilo)?

4. Some observations on "chaos"…

A different perspective on v. 2 seems appropriate. God's creative activity in the rest of Genesis 1 makes use of the "raw material" in v. 2 for new purposes. The author may not have had the philosophical perspective to call it "matter," but this verse testifies to a pre-temporal reality. As such, it describes a state of affairs prior to God's ordering that is not yet consonant with the divine purposes in creation (see the "not good" of 2: 18).

God relates to this pre-ordering situation in and through the wind/spirit. The writer thus confesses that God constitutes a reality prior to the "beginning," and in the form of an active reality (wind or spirit). Even at this point, God acts creatively. Genesis 1:2 thus leans toward the rest of the chapter when God makes use of raw materials. Hence, the situation does not run out of control or in opposition to God. God does not reject it or say no to it; God simply uses it as part of a more comprehensive creative activity. Once God has ordered creation, the realities of v. 2 become part of a new world order. No independent threat to the cosmos (or to God) occurs at any stage.

Although the doctrine of "creation out of nothing" has often been grounded in this verse (see 2 Macc 7:28; Rom 4: 17; Heb 11:3), it speaks almost exclusively of the ordering of already existing reality. We may justify a very limited use of this notion, only if we think of certain creative acts (sky and its luminaries). God brings everything else into being out of the not-yet-ordered reality, in the ultimate origins of which the author has no apparent interest. Any comprehensive doctrine of creatio ex nihilo must be found in other texts or theological perspectives.

(On relationships between these chapters and contemporary science, see the Overview.)

How the Future Dynamically Unfolds

5. In 2:18-23, God takes the human decision into account when shaping new directions for the creation. Divine decisions interact with human decisions in the creation of the world. Creation involves process as well as moment; it is creaturely as well as divine.

The future stands genuinely open here. All depends on what the humans does with what God presents. The question of not only how, but indeed whether humanity will continue beyond this first generation remains open-ended, suspended in this creative moment. What the humans decide will determine whether there will be a next human generation. Human judgment will shape the nature of the next divine decision, indeed the future of the world.

This situation is similar to our own…Human beings do not have the capacity to stymie God in some absolute way. But God has established a relationship with human beings such that their decisions about the creation truly count.