Genesis 1:24-2:3

Last week, we left off with Days 6 and 7 of creation. Those two days are unique from the rest of the creative events cataloged in Genesis 1 and so deserve special consideration.

Day 6 includes the creation of man, not in the sense of “male” but in the sense of mankind, humanity. Unlike Genesis 2, Genesis 1 does not treat the creation of the male followed by the creation of the female. God creates humanity, “male and female he created them.”

If you pay close attention to the relevant text (Genesis 1:26-31) you will find several distinctive elements:

1. In contrast to the rest of creation, God almost seems to take counsel with himself before creating humanity. All of creation through this point has been a fiat: “God said,” and it was. Only here does God first stop and declare his intention before creating.

2. God’s taking counsel with himself is not him talking to himself. “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” God is not speaking in the “royal we.” If God is a communion of persons, then his image and likeness will also be a communion of persons, hence, God creates not isolated individuals but persons — plural — destined for communion. We already have a suggestion of the Trinity.

3. God’s taking counsel with himself also points to what Vatican II (and Pope St. John Paul II) regularly emphasized: that the human person is the only creature God wanted for himself — both for himself as God and himself as a human being. The rest of creation already serves purposes (e.g., the sun and moon as temporal markers) or will (e.g., when God puts the rest of creation under human dominion). They fill in the spaces (e.g., fish in the sea or birds in the air). But God wants man not for some function but for himself — i.e., to enter a personal relationship of love, which is part of what being in God’s image and likeness entails.

4. Being made in God’s image and likeness gives the human person a unique status in creation. No other creature bears that characteristic, even the angels. Over time, theologians have been developing what that means: free will (as opposed to mere instinct), intellect, a soul or spiritual dimension, the capacity for love.

5. “Male and female he created them.” Sexual differentiation is presented by the Bible as part of God’s will, his design for creation. It is neither irrelevant nor accidental. Even in Antiquity, that text was revolutionary. Remember that, for the ancient Greeks, same-sex intercourse was preferable to male/female relations because women were thought to be congenitally inferior. Aristotle considered women “misbegotten males,” i.e., a prenatal developmental defect resulting in a deformed male with parts missing. So, the contemporary pretend that sexual differentiation is at best a personal option is neither new nor, at root, compatible with true Judaism or Christianity. It affirms the essential equality of man and woman.

And, unlike the rest of creation, God immediately starts pouring out blessings (and commands, which suggests they are just two sides of the same coin) on the couple. Two stand out:

First, God’s first gift is fertility: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Fertility is not a curse nor even something merely neutral. It is God’s first gift to the newly-created man and woman. They can by their love bring new persons into the world. In that way, they continue the work of creation in its most important dimension: that of persons made in God’s image and likeness. That perspective is wholly alien to the contemporary flight from fertility, embodied in contraception, sterilization, and deliberate rejection of parenthood.

Second, God’s second gift is dominion. While man is called through and in love to bring other persons into the world — since human persons are unique in Genesis 1 — he is also called to take care of the rest of creation, which is subordinated to his dominion not to abuse but to use. Responsible human dominion over creation also continues the work of creation through the use of man’s faculties such as intellect (part of what it means to be in God’s image and likeness). God may not give people houses but he gave them trees and the brains to figure out what to do with them.

Finally, Day 6 differs from all that precedes it because only then does God examine what he created and declare it “very good.” Only when man — his image and likeness responsible for continuing the work of creation — is in place is creation “very good.” And, while God always sustains his creation (since it is not self-sufficient) he does not explicitly in Genesis 1 create anything further, because he’s charged his viceroy to share that mission. God does not go off on some deistic vacation from creation, but he has engaged a co-creator to work with him.

On Day 7, the “heavens and the earth and all their array” completed, God rests, blessing it and making it holy. The “Lord’s Day” is thus not a human invention or peculiarly confessional custom. It is presented as part of the very structure of creation, something willed and intended by God himself without denominational consideration. That, too, deserves consideration in our modern, time-flattened world.

It is hard to find an appropriate work of art to illustrate Days 6 and 7. Burne-Jones, whom we examined last week, is one good example. Another is the contemporary Jewish-American artist, Ilan Block, whose modern depiction of this text (according to the Jewish name for the book, “Bereishis 1:27” shows man and woman standing hand-in-hand in a paradise in which both they and the world almost appear to be on fire — the fire of unity in love — is another. But most art depicting human creation follows the sequence of Genesis 2, i.e., first the male, then the female. On top of that, many of those creation depictions also already include some portent of man’s fall.

I am, therefore, using a most common (though not, therefore, less important) work: Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” from the Sistine Chapel. I know that Adam here is represented as the male (e.g., one commentator even notes you can see an extra rib poking out of him) but indulge me to reinterpret the scene. I picked this work because I want to see in Adam humanity-at-large, where man is presented as awaiting God’s enlivening touch. Michelangelo in one sense captures what Genesis 1 is saying: humanity on one side, a little lower, seated on the earth, God on the other, arriving from the heavens. The dynamism is from God’s side: it is clear he is reaching out to the otherwise impassive figure waiting for life. And, in some sense, that about-to-but-not-yet-touching-touch harkens to the deliberative process preceding human creation.

It also reminds us that man is not the master and lord of his own life (an important thing to remember amid advocacy for “the right to choose” and “the right to die”) but receives that life as a gift from God. And the Father does not arrive in this scene alone. While we may not have the Trinity, the Father certainly brings along a host of angelic witnesses.