What Is a Beginning?
Last week’s homework assignment was three-fold:
What is a "beginning"?
What began "in the beginning"?
What was there before the beginning?
If you’re at all familiar with my writing, you’ll recognize this as one of the chapters in my first book. So, there will be some overlap with that volume, but I’m also including some things here that didn’t make it to the printer.
What is a “Beginning?”
Simply put, a “beginning” is the start of something. It’s the point we go from “was not” to “was” (or “is”).
What began “In the Beginning?”
To get to this answer, it’s helpful to look at the rest of the verse:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. — Genesis 1:1
There are three things beginning here; can you see them? Let me highlight the key clues in the text for you:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Do you see them yet?
Time
The key ingredient of any beginning—indeed, of any creative act—is time. Without time, we could not distinguish between “before,” “now,” and “after.” We would have only one everlasting “now.” In short, anything that exists outside of time is, by definition, existing in eternity. So here, in the third word of the Bible, we see the creation of time.
One might be inclined to ask, as my firstborn did every time I taught this lesson, “How do we know that time actually began and that it didn’t pre-exist God’s creative acts?” We could get all philosophical and talk about infinite series and how if time didn’t have a beginning, we never would have gotten to where we are today (i.e., “now”), and indeed the majority of apologists from whom I learned in my early years argue in this very fashion. But it’s a bit easier just to let God do the talking:
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, — 2 Timothy 1:9 (LSB)
Do you see the answer? No? How about in my other favorite translation, the NASB:
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity — 2 Timothy 1:9 (NASB)
Wait…that’s identical to the LSB. Now I’m about to show you why it’s a good idea to consult multiple versions from different translation families…because the Greek expression πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων (“pro chronos aionion”) can be rendered in a few different ways:
“before time eternal” (interlinear)
“before the times of the ages” (YLT)
“from all eternity” (LSB, NASB)
“before the world began” (KJV)
“before the ages began” (ESV, ERSV)
“before time began” (Berean Standard Bible, CSB, HCSB, ISV, NAB, NET, NKJV)
“before the beginning of time” (NIV, NLT)
When we consult versions that are approached with a more “thought for thought” translation philosophy verse a more “word for word” approach (I discuss translation philosophies in “Are Our Current Bible Translations Reliable?”), it becomes clearer that when Paul wrote “before time eternal” he had in mind the beginning of the ages—the beginning of time itself. So yes, time had a beginning…and we didn’t have to resort to philosophical machinations to prove it (Hebrews 4:12).
Space
“…God created…the heavens…”
The Bible speaks of three distinct locations when it uses the word “heaven”:
the sky (Genesis 8:2; 2 Samuel 21:10),
outer space (Psalm 19), and
God’s “throne room” (Psalm 123:1, Matthew 5:34)
We know that Genesis 1:1 isn’t speaking of the sky, because that wasn’t created until Day 2 (Genesis 1:6–8); and it cannot be speaking of God’s throne room because God is eternal (i.e., exists outside of space and time) and thus, so must his abode. So, when God created “the heavens,” it means He created space itself: height, width, and depth. Think about it…if He didn’t create space first (or at the same time as the earth), where would He put it?
In class, I used a stretchy piece of fabric, an orange, and some marbles to describe Einstein’s idea that space could be thought of as a fabric on which matter rests, and that gravity isn’t actually a force (as Newton had envisioned), but is really just a deformation of the fabric of spacetime that causes other masses (and even light) to travel along a path in curved spacetime.
As an interesting side node, Einstein’s field equations can be solved in such as way as to have space without matter (called “Minkowski spacetime”); but it is not possible to solve them such that matter exists without space. Talk amongst yourselves…I’m all verklempt.
Matter
“…God created…the earth…”
The earth is made of matter, so…‘nuff said. But along for the ride is energy.
The Bible calls this out in Genesis 1:3 when God said “let there be light” (light—or more precisely “visible light”—is electromagnetic energy that is detectable by the human eye), but if we are allowed to import a little bit of extra-biblical knowledge here, it’s possible to see that matter and energy are a package deal.
Earlier, I mentioned Albert Einstein. You may have a passing familiarity with a “simple” little equation he came up with:
But do you know what it means? In simple mathematical terms, it means that the amount of energy (E) in matter is equal to its mass (m) times the speed of light (c) squared. You probably knew that already, but do you know what the implications of this simple equation are?
I’ll let Dr. Jason Lisle summarize one of them for you:
Contrary to popular belief, E = mc^2 does not mean that mass can be converted into energy, or energy into mass. Rather, it means that mass is energy, and energy is mass.
— Jason Lisle, The Physics of Einstein, p. 152. (Emphasis in the original)
If you don’t yet have a copy of The Physics of Einstein, you need to fix that now.
What was there before “the beginning?”
The obvious Sunday school answer here is, “God.” But if we concern ourselves only with the physical world, the next obvious answer is “nothing.” But as I like to say, before the “the beginning” in Genesis 1:1, there wasn’t “nothing”—there was “less than nothing,” because there wasn’t even a place in which to put “nothing.”
So, how amazing is God that not only did He create all the stuff in the universe, but He actually created space (and time!) in which to put that stuff.
Homework
At the end of class, one of the students asked, “What was the earth made of in the beginning?”
I think that’s a great question to address in our next class, so grind your mental gears on that for the next six days and we’ll see what happens next week.