Thursday 18 August 2016

Precosmic Chaos II

Three observations on the previous post. First-

Creation Hymn

Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.

Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.
Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

-copied from here.

Rig Veda echoes Genesis.

Second -

I asked whether void or chaos preceded cosmos but maybe both did? See here: virtual particles constantly beginning and mutually annihilating (chaos) in vacuum (void).

Third -

A single creator before the creation would be a self without other which is like a square without sides. Thus, I would rewrite Genesis, deleting the words in brackets:

"In the beginning (God created the heaven and the earth and) the earth was without form..."

I suggest that the bracketed words be understood as a myth, like the gods emerging in the Ginnungagap.

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But I don't believe God was merely a myth. Rather, He is an actual Being who pre existed everything which exists from all eternity. I truly don't think it is possible for anything have existed if God had not created SOMETHING at the Beginning.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
But what of the argument that the creator before the creation would be a self without other which is like a square without sides?
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But the Catholic Church holds that God, in order to BE God, would have to be absolutely free of LACKING anything. God has been infinitely happy and "self sufficient" from all eternity. God did not NEED to create the universe at the Singularity or have intelligent races evolve. I've quoted Dante at other times from the DIVINE COMEDY to the effect that God created new lives because He desired others to exist.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
But it is the "...in order to BE God..." that some of us see no need for. It is very difficult to find a common starting point for discussion.
Paul.

Paul Shackley said...

I still think that "self" and "other" are interdependent like "up" and "down" or "left" and "right." I identify part of what I experience as "myself" by contrast with that which is other. If I were all, then there would be no basis for such a distinction and thus no reason to think of "I" or "myself."
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Your first comment after my second note: I was trying to argue that if God was lacking in any thing then He could not logically be God.

And I don't believe "interdependency" can logically apply to God. God's thoughts and mind must logically be eternally and infinitely sufficient for Him. Else he would not be God. I know, we seem to have reached an impasse!

Sean