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Essay | Philosophical Commentary
Metaphysics in The Book of Genesis
An Analysis of Wisdom, Earth, The Spirit of God, and the Firmament
There hasn’t always been human consciousness…it has to have arisen from prior phenomena that weren’t instances of consciousness.
(Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained — Chapter 7)
The colloquial mind of the average Westerner perceives the Biblical creation story cartoonishly — a bearded celestial being who snaps his fingers 6 times until the 7th day when such snapping grows wearisome.
To the credit of this general sentiment, the Bible readily lends itself to excessively anthropomorphic readings because it was written in several loosely held-together narrative forms (i.e., many disparate stories of human-like characters involved in ostensibly inhuman-like affairs.)
Furthermore, when framed through this general sentiment, these stories make for immensely entertaining premises in humor.
However, to the discredit of this general sentiment, its origin resides in abdicating a deeper hermeneutical analysis of the Bible—particularly, one informed by philosophy and science, which are themselves endeavors too often viewed as unconditionally condemned in the Bible.
