- And God said Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
- And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
- And God said Let the earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself upon the earth: and it was so.
- And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
- And the evening and the morning were the third day.
And God said Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear: and it was so."
First we must identify what is meant by the waters under the heaven." This can only refer to the swirling protogalaxies" of hydrogen helium beryllium and lithium. In other words everything that was not a void" or empty space. All these protogalaxies" would have been under the heaven" in exactly the same sense that every star and planet is under space when viewed from that particular star or planet. So the waters under the heaven" can only refer to ALL the concentrations of matter swirling around in specific areas of space the billions of protogalaxies" comprising only the lighter elements. It was this material the hydrogen helium beryllium and lithium (together with the associated dark matter) that was to be gathered together unto ONE place" in each protogalaxy". I emphasize the word one" because we know from Day Two that the waters" had already been separated into specific concentrations that formed the protogalaxies". So the description of the protogalaxies" being gathered together unto one place" can only mean that the matter forming these protogalaxies" was being condensed by gravity into one place". And that was essential for the next stage of building the universe. To understand why we need to examine the conditions necessary to produce the number of elements required to create and sustain life the elements that constitute the Periodic Table. As we have already seen the Big Bang created the lightest elements of hydrogen helium deuterium and lithium. However it did not produce sufficient heat to produce the heavier elements. Furthermore … elements with 5 and 8 neutrons and protons are extremely unstable and hence cannot act as a bridge to create elements that have a greater number of protons and neutrons."1 In the 1950s Fred Hoyle an English physicist at Cambridge University had a moment of insight which went a way to resolving how the heavier elements could have been created. As Kaku says in a stroke of genius Hoyle realized that IF there were a previously unnoticed unstable form of carbon created out of three helium nuclei it might last just long enough to act as a bridge allowing for the creation of higher elements. … When this unstable form of carbon was actually found it brilliantly demonstrated that nucleosynthesis could take place in the stars rather than the big bang."2 However not all stars are heavy enough to produce the heat necessary to create the heavier elements. This requires heavier stars with greater gravity. According to Rees such stars can reach a billion degrees" and thus release further energy via the build-up of carbon (six protons) and by a chain of transmutations into progressively heavier nuclei."3 But once we get to iron which has the most tightly bound" nucleus energy must be added" to create the even heavier elements beyond iron. And so as Rees says a star therefore faces an energy crisis when its core is transmuted into iron … and …the consequences are dramatic."4 The intense gravity causes the core of the star to implode which releases enough energy to blow off the overlying material in a colossal explosion creating a supernova."5 The supernova then fertilizes so to speak the universe by blasting its mix of elements into space. The debris thrown back into space contains this mix of elements. Oxygen is the most common followed by carbon nitrogen silicon and iron. The calculated proportions … depend on the … types of stars and the various evolutionary paths they take …"6 This mix of elements was a pre-requisite for life. As Kaku says our true mother sun was actually an unnamed star or collection of stars that died billions of years ago in a supernova which then seeded nearby nebulae with the higher elements beyond iron that make up our body."7 It is this mechanism for converting the lighter elements into all the heavier elements that make up the Periodic Table that Genesis is clearly referring to in this verse. When the waters" (the lighter elements) are gathered together unto one place" the gravity becomes so intense that it creates a supernova; and in the process all the heavier elements are created and strewn across a specific area of the universe. This process would have been happening at different times and different places throughout the universe and indeed is continuing to this day. Genesis describes this change in the constitution of the matter into the heavier elements with the words and let the dry land appear." The methodology is exactly in line with the methodology applied in Genesis up to this point. Likewise the use of words to symbolize a change in the nature of a substance as it undergoes change is also entirely consistent with the linguistic technique. In this case the contrast between the waters" and the dry land" is patently obvious one is a more dense and heavy than the other. But what we find when we get to the next verse is that not all the waters" had been converted into dry land".And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good."
Here we see that both the waters" and the dry land" emerged from this process. And the change in the constitution of the material is again emphasized by God naming the material. In this case as the Earth" and Seas" again in capitals. This is the last instance when this naming takes place in Genesis. The message is therefore quite clear; all the material and forces necessary for a stable and predictable universe were in place. The naming as we saw in Day One indicates that the change in the structure and constitution of the universe was such that it had become certain. The quantum properties had been converted into the measurable and deterministic Classical laws. Another important point to note is that it is precisely this conversion process that gave rise to our own planet Earth as it did across the universe. So the Earth" refers to the process in general as well as telling us that our own planet was a consequence of precisely the same process. As Kaku says our Sun and the Earth are the result of an unnamed star or collection of stars that died billions of years ago in a supernova which then seeded nearby nebulae with the higher elements beyond iron that make up our body." Once the correct balance had been achieved Genesis then tells us that it was made irreversible" by an observation: And God saw that it was good." The universe was now ready to embark on its true purpose. As an analogy instead of building a house as we imagined in Day One lets imagine that we are building a factory in this case a cosmic factory. In Day One all the material was delivered to site. In Day Two all the materials were divided up and moved to where they were to be used. In Day Three the materials were mixed and applied to build the factory. Now the cosmic factory is ready to start manufacturing the product the cosmic product life. The next stage of the origin of the universe and life set out by Genesis reveals truly remarkable insight by its author/s. And science is only now beginning to discover what Genesis revealed thousands of years ago.And God said Let the earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself upon the earth: and it was so."
On the face of it Genesis appears to have departed from the established methodology followed up to this point. Although Genesis tells us all the elements that constitute the Periodic Table had been created it appears that we are now skipping a number of processes and jumping straight to a description of plants and trees growing on the Earth; the kind of plants and trees we see outside our windows every day. To understand this apparent departure from the methodology we have to refer to certain verses at the beginning of Chapter Two. These verses summarize what had happened in the six days referred to in Chapter One and describe what the Earth planet Earth looked like at the end of the six stage process. The verses are as follows:- These are the generations of the heaven and of the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens
- And every plant of the field before it was in the earth and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the ground.
And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind: and God saw that it was good."
Here we have confirmation that the basic structures of life the basic DNA were created and made irreversible" with an observation. The particles and atoms were compelled to form the basic structures of life and those structures were made permanent with an observation. Life was made irreversible" right across the universe. So when we come to the end of Day Three we find that we have our cosmic factory and cosmic machines; we also have the cosmic ingredients and the cosmic recipe; and now we get the first stage in the creation of the intended cosmic product life. Day Three then ends with the usual allocation of a time-slice of the process.And the evening and the morning were the third day."
The time-slice here encompassed two distinct but almost simultaneous stages; the creation of the heavier elements almost immediately followed by the creation of basic DNA. Quite incredible! This evidence which supports the Genesis account is another reason why I fear that the intelligent design" argument may be setting itself up for a fall. Having devoted so much of their energy to disputing the theory of Evolution science may soon agree that the theory doesnt constitute scientific evidence for the creation of life. But at the same time science will have shown that life was created in the stars and then developed once it encountered the right environment. And of course the argument will then be that the intelligent design" argument was wrong in ascribing the creation of life to God. In the next article we will look at Day Four as Genesis focuses in on our own solar system. But we will start with a closer look at the relationship between quantum theory and the words And God said …" followed by And God saw …"----------------------------------------------------------------------
This series of articles is based on the book A Final Theory of God by Joseph BH McMillan. JosephBHMcMillan.com