Chaos Theory Part 2

This may be a bold blog post. I request your patience. I will attempt to prove — or at least be unable to disprove — my first hypothesis about chaos reigning in the early universe and ending when God separated light from darkness in Genesis 1:4. 

First, some good news:  scientists have already done a portion of my work for me.  In preparing to write this post, I came across articles in which physicists were able to establish that the universe was in a chaotic state at its beginning or very soon thereafter. Of course, I want to study the Bible to find out  whether I can confirm what scientists have written. But the groundwork is set. I will still need to argue successfully that the chaos ended at the separation of light from darkness, though. One article that I read discussed findings by Motter & Gelfert which supported the conclusion that chaos began soon after the Big Bang (the term that some scientists have used to refer to the birth of the universe) and ended soon afterward.* 

I was tempted to type out for you some scriptures which I think are essential to read before studying the early universe. We need to be respectful of the enormity of the topic and the possibility that at any particular time we might be trying to understand things that are not for us to understand. (See Psalm 131 for an exquisite picture of humility.) When I think of the notion of chaos in the early universe — which would mean that we, by definition, can’t pin down initial conditions — I am seriously concerned that we have begun to be in over our heads and should research something else. If only to save time, at least.

The Lord is never in over His head. Something that’s obvious but may have missed our attention during this study: the Lord is not susceptible to chaos. He is never on the inside of a chaotic state. He is outside of time. He created it. He can see forward in time and predict the future and He can see backward in time and know the state of things in perfect detail. (See Isaiah 46:9-10.) 

Any time we study the universe — on a small scale or on a large one —the most important things to learn are God’s characteristics as revealed in His Creation. “For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities — His eternal power and His divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…” (Romans 1:20) Another scripture passage to consider is this one: “For this is what the Lord says — He who created the heavens, He is God; He who fashioned and made the earth, He founded it; He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited — He says, ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, “Seek me in vain.” I, the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right.’” (Isaiah 45:18-19)

Let’s be sure that our heads are on straight and our hearts are in the right place before we proceed. What follows is a list of verses that I am hoping you will read at this point. Psalm 136:1-9 expresses what’s most important when we study: being aware of God’s love and our need for it. One would miss the mark if one didn’t acknowledge the role of Jesus Christ in the task of creation, described briefly in John 1:1-5. One might forget the preeminence of God and be idolizing His Creation if one didn’t call to mind that the universe is not eternal: take a look at Hebrews 1:10-12. One might forget the limits of our brains and experience if we neglected to recall the Lord’s words in Job 38:1-7. One might forget praising the Lord if one did not review what the 24 elders in heaven said in Revelation 4:9-11.

What would it mean about God if He created a chaotic phase in the early history of the universe? First, it might mean that He has told us everything we need to know about the birth of the universe. Secondly, it might mean that He desired to display His power to overcome chaos. Thirdly, He might have desired to detail His choice to establish order. Lastly, He might have been foreshadowing for us the end of chaos when Satan and death can no longer tempt or harm humankind. Perhaps you can think of other possibilities.

Let’s take a good look at Genesis 1:1-5:

Verse 1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Verse 2: Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Verse 3: And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Verse 4: God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Verse 5: God called the light “day” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning — the first day.

My first task is to establish that the period prior to verse 4 contained chaotic behavior. Well, the earth was “formless and empty,” and even though the heavens had been created they contained no stars or other heavenly bodies.  (Those weren’t created until verse 14.) I don’t think that chaos was out of the question. Some alternate translations of the Hebrew word for “formless” are chaos, confusion, disorder, chaotic mass, and complete chaos. Some alternate translations to “empty” are void, nothing, empty space, and bottomless emptiness. Those words applied to the earth. Notice that in verse 2, the earth is described as formless and empty, and yet there are “waters.”  How can something empty have waters, whatever those were? The earth was in a strange state, to say the least, and so were the “heavens” (which were everything other than earth). I don’t claim to know everything about what scientists or mathematicians might have theorized or even observed experimentally in a particle collider that would apply in this instance, but I maintain my opinion that chaos was at least a possibility. 

Why do I think that the Lord established order — and chaos ended — when light and darkness were separated? At least some level of order was created. Limits were set on the amount and distribution of darkness in the universe. The Hebrew word for darkness can also be translated as confusion, uncertainty, ignorance, obscurity, disorder, death, destruction, misery, wickedness, and sorrow. Not fun. Definitely something that we want to have limited and ordered by God. And if darkness became ordered in some way, so did light. Notice that the Lord didn’t say that anything was “good” before the creation of light. In 1 John 1:5, we are told this: “This is the message we have heard from him [Jesus] and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” That’s a mouthful, and that’s utterly essential!

I suggest that a chaotic period may have taken place while the Spirit of the Lord was”hovering” in verse 2. One reason I think that is because the Hebrew word translated as “hovering” can also be translated as “fluttering”, and definitely calls to mind images of a bird hovering. The same Hebrew word is used as a reference to what a bird does over its young (Deuteronomy 32:11) and what God does when He shields Jerusalem (Isaiah 31:5). Perhaps the end of chaos, when light and darkness were separated, was a compassionate act of God. I expect that it was His mercy.  

The fact that humankind were born into an orderly universe says something about what the Lord intended for us. The fact that the Lord placed limits upon what Adam and Eve were allowed to do in Eden says something about the orderly behavior required of us by God.

Here’s an especially wonderful verse; hopefully it will inspire all of us to study more on the subject of light. “For God, who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6)

References: * News release 7-Sep-2010 regarding study presented in the journal Communications in Mathematical Physics entitled, “(Non)Invariance of Dynamical Quantities for Orbit Equivalent Flows.”

Note: The New International Version of the Bible has been used in this blog post with the exception of one or two uses of the Complete Jewish Bible translated by David H. Stern.