Revelation of the Bible

Chapter 1: Creation of something from nothing In In order to understand creation in the book of Genesis, one needs to understand the meanings of the concept of nothingness. The reason for this is simple; it is due to the fact that we are told that God has created something from nothing. This simple statement implies that there was nothingness in existence. The question therefore is what is nothingness? In order to grasp the concept of nothingness, one could only use an analogy to explain it. This is due to the fact that it is impossible to define nothingness in simple terms. One can’t define nothingness in terms of its opposite by saying that there is nothing there, or by saying that it is empty space, or by saying it is void of anything. Each of these words define something but not nothing. It is similar to the concept of zero in mathematics which parallel the concept of nothingness but it is not the same. A discussion of the history of Zero and the struggle that humanity had in defining it is given by Professor Robert Kaplan, author of The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero and former professor of mathematics at Harvard University. Here is one paragraph of his article published by Scientific American, January 16, 2007. “The mathematical zero and the philosophical notion of nothingness are related but are not the same. Nothingness plays a central role very early on in Indian thought (there it is called sunya), and we find speculation in virtually all cosmological myths about what must have preceded the world's creation. So it is written in the Bible's book of Genesis (1:2): "And the earth was without form, and void." Professor Kaplan sums it well, but we still do not know what nothingness is (the reader is encouraged to read Professor Kaplan’s article and his book for better insight). It is clear therefore that none of these definitions or explanations defines accurately the concept of nothingness. Therefore, we are forced to use an analogy to explain the concept of nothingness. Consider the following scenario; what if planet earth was made only of water and that a person was sitting in the center of the planet. Now than, when that person looks around what does he sees other than his own body? The answer is obviously nothing. Why is that so? This is due to the fact that the mind cannot form any geometric single point or line or three-dimensional structure of any kind within the body of water. It is clear that the reason for this phenomenon is the fact that there is uniformity within the water. Therefore, we can say that nothingness is literally equal to absolute uniformity. This is only one half of the analogy. The other half of the analogy which can further explain nothingness is discussed below. Consider now the entire universe, fill this universe, say with equal squares, now, erase the outline of those squares, what have you got? If one considers carefully this exercise, it will become clear that once you clear up all the outlines of the squares, then the only thing that remains is the universe itself. This however, leads us to another concept and that is the concept of ONE. So now we have two concepts that we were not familiar with before, the concept of nothingness and the concept of one. The question is why are these concepts important? The following sections will attempt to clarify the answers both from the scientific and biblical viewpoints in regards to nothingness as an existence before creation, and the concept of one relating to the entire creation itself. In short, this book explains creation and Genesis from both points of view.