The Immediate Cause of the First Light
A few people object to the Bible’s creation account because, they say, it leaves no room for research. No law of physics can explain what God did and why.
The Genesis account says that the first light appeared in the universe by divine fiat. God commanded and it was so. One of the Psalms says the same. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm (Psalm 33:9).
Yet if we read carefully we will discover something interesting. As we said before, God’s commands may be the ultimate cause of everything, but they are not always the immediate cause. The first light had a source, according to the Bible. Sources are physical and scientists can study them. The source of the first light was the darkness.
Creation “ex nihilo” means creation from or out of nothing. Neither this phrase nor this idea appears in the Moses’ creation account. The Bible does not say that God created the first light out of nothing.
For centuries it has been hard to understand the formation of the first light. Now physicists understand it better. Physical causes, the kind that scientists can reproduce and investigate in the laboratory, made the first light shine out from the darkness. This fact should change our understanding of the place of God’s command in the chain of causes. We cannot of course oblige God to speak every time we want to run an experiment. Yet physicists can at will make light shine from properly prepared darkness. Therefore the ultimate cause of the light, God’s command, is not involved at present when physicists make light shine out from darkness in the laboratory. We should understand that some of God’s commands were decrees governing physical phenomena. Our laws of physics are our approximate knowledge of those decrees. To the extent that our knowledge is accurate, we can predict the results of experiments from the laws of physics.
The Genesis account says that the first light appeared in the universe by divine fiat. God commanded and it was so. One of the Psalms says the same. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm (Psalm 33:9).
Yet if we read carefully we will discover something interesting. As we said before, God’s commands may be the ultimate cause of everything, but they are not always the immediate cause. The first light had a source, according to the Bible. Sources are physical and scientists can study them. The source of the first light was the darkness.
Creation “ex nihilo” means creation from or out of nothing. Neither this phrase nor this idea appears in the Moses’ creation account. The Bible does not say that God created the first light out of nothing.
For centuries it has been hard to understand the formation of the first light. Now physicists understand it better. Physical causes, the kind that scientists can reproduce and investigate in the laboratory, made the first light shine out from the darkness. This fact should change our understanding of the place of God’s command in the chain of causes. We cannot of course oblige God to speak every time we want to run an experiment. Yet physicists can at will make light shine from properly prepared darkness. Therefore the ultimate cause of the light, God’s command, is not involved at present when physicists make light shine out from darkness in the laboratory. We should understand that some of God’s commands were decrees governing physical phenomena. Our laws of physics are our approximate knowledge of those decrees. To the extent that our knowledge is accurate, we can predict the results of experiments from the laws of physics.
