1.2. Correlation of the Biblical Narrative

about the creation of the world with scientific hypotheses

A topical topic is the comparison of the Six Days with scientific views on the origin of the world. It is repeatedly found on the pages of both church authors and anti-church writers, because it was with scientific data that they tried to refute the truth of the Holy Scriptures and through this to cast doubt on the truth of the Christian faith itself. As a result, many works have been written to reconcile the scientific data with the description we see in the book of Genesis.

But I will not review the currently available hypotheses. The exact sciences teach us that before solving a problem, we must try to find out the fundamental possibility of the existence of its solution. It may not exist. We know that the primordial world and the world in which we exist are separated from each other by one event – the Fall. What happened in the Fall? Man himself fell, he lost the original purity that he had, he lost his original abilities. And through the fault of man (and for man's sake), the earth (but not paradise) fell under a curse. What do we have? Dressed in "leather garments", a person with his fallen mind cognizes the world that has fallen under a curse, submitted to vanity and corruption, and, studying this world, tries to compare what he sees with what is described in the Book of Genesis, where each act of creation is accompanied by the word: "And God saw that it was good."

We don't know exactly how the world has changed. Therefore, even if we come up with the most accurate model of its existence after the Fall, we cannot extend it to the time before it. Therefore, the existing "contradictions" of the Six Days – such as the obvious geocentrism of the biblical picture of the world, the creation of light and plants before the creation of the stars, the special order in the finds of the remains of living beings – contradict only the modern structure of the world, and nothing more. And then the world was just different. We do not know what the creature was like before this fall, nor do we even know what Adam's mind was like before he fell, and therefore it is certainly a little rash to try to compare what we see now with what we might see if we were in Adam's place.

But there are still questions concerning the world after the Fall. How to explain the discrepancy between the biblical chronology and the supposed age of the earth and its inhabitants? And why are there no human remains among the remains of ancient animals? The following should be said here. First, the order in which the remains are arranged indicates who died in what order, rather than being born. Secondly, the world was created for man. What prevents us from assuming that man was relocated from paradise to the cursed earth after certain processes took place on it and it became more or less suitable for life (for example, the dinosaurs became extinct)? After all, there is still a certain moment between the curse of the land and the expulsion of people. And outside of paradise, during this moment, as many years as you wanted. This is only a hypothesis, but it is scientifically consistent. Then there is no point in comparing the "age of the universe" with the life expectancy of human beings as indicated in the Bible.

In this regard, the polemics between evolutionists and creationists become uninteresting. After all, both of them, in order to prove their views, operate with facts relating to the fallen world.

We know that this world in which we exist will be renewed, that it will be preserved for the fire to come, and that all works in it will be burned up, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:7-10). By the way, why not compare the biblical revelation about the end of the world with the data of science? But such studies are practically non-existent.

In this regard, of course, we must be quite cautious both in attempts to reconcile or, on the contrary, to identify discrepancies between scientific data and the biblical narrative, and to the conclusions about the truth or falsity of faith that are drawn on the basis of these attempts.

1.3. The Creation of Man

At the beginning of the Book of Genesis we see two accounts of the creation of man (Gen. 1:26-28; 2:7, 18-25). Why is that? In one of these stories (Gen. 1:26-28), the creation of man is placed in the general outline of the biblical narrative of creation, and we see that man is created on the same day as other animals. In this sense, man is not honored by the fact that he is given a special day on which he would be created, man fully belongs to this created world, on the one hand. On the other hand, the creation of man is preceded by a certain Council, because we see that in the entire narrative of the creation of the world it is said first: "And God said, Let it be... and it became so," and even sometimes interpreters note that the verb "bara" used in the first verse of the book, that is, "we will create", which denotes a fundamentally new creation, is mentioned twice more in this narrative, namely in connection with the creation of life and in connection with the creation of man. So, at the creation of man, a stop is made and it is said: "Let us make man in Our image /and/ in Our likeness", and the purpose is determined: "And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air... And over all the earth... And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him" (Gen. 1:26-27). Here the difference between man and the rest of creation is clearly emphasized. Why? Because it is man who is vouchsafed the honor of being the bearer of the image of God. Sometimes attention is drawn to the fact that it is originally said: "Let us make man in our image and after our likeness," but man is created "in our image." Sometimes it is believed that image and likeness are simply synonyms, and sometimes it is believed that different things are still denoted here, and the image relates, say, more to the inner essence of this or that phenomenon, and the likeness to the external. St. Basil the Great commented on this passage as follows: "We have one thing as a result of creation, and we acquire the other of our own free will. At the first creation we are granted to be born in the image of God; but by our own will we acquire existence in the likeness of God" [10, p. 16]. That is, likeness to God is the task that this created man receives and for the sake of which all the other commandments are given to him in paradise.

The second account of the creation of man (Gen. 2:7, 18-25) is more detailed. And we also see in him the duality of man, that is, his belonging both to the material world, and to the spiritual world: God took the finger of the earth, and created man from it, and breathed into him the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). In a conversation with Motovilov, St. Seraphim of Sarov (and other fathers have this) says that before God breathed the breath of life into man, Adam was like a cattle. That is, the materiality of man, on the one hand, is noted, and on the other hand, his sublime dignity, when man is honored with the breath of life from God Himself. It is no accident that in the Psalms David says: "What is man, that Thou rememberest him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him? Thou hast humbled him not much before the angels: Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor; Thou hast made him ruler over the works of Thy hands; He put all things under his feet" (Psalm 8:5-7). That is, man is the concentration of two worlds: within himself he must bring and bring the entire material world closer to God.

Sometimes one hears the opinion that the words "breathed into him the breath of life" (Gen. 2:7) mean that the human soul is divine by nature.

The term "inhaled", of course, can be interpreted in different ways. It is clear that it is one of the anthropomorphisms of the Holy Scriptures, that is, when the same words are used in relation to God as to man. Say, "and God looked," "and God smelled the fragrance of the sacrifice," or, say, "God covered with His hand," or "their voice came to My ears." All of this, of course, does not mean that God has hands, feet, and ears. This is done to designate certain actions of God. The Church has never considered that the human soul is divine in nature. Man is a creature completely, including the human soul is also created. That is, it cannot be said that any part of the Divine nature came out and became the human soul.