Genesis as an allegory for philosophy

The story of creation in Genesis can be read as an allegory for the teachings of philosophy, as pursued according to my method. What follows is a survey of such a reading.

0. Contents

• 1. Summaries and project
• 2. The silent void: to set aside all prejudice
• 3. Separations as fundamental distinctions
• 4. Darkness of error banished
• 5. Creation of sensible kinds in logical order
• 6. The life of man

1. Summaries and project

Creation, as summarized by the Catholic Study Bible, is divided into seven days as follows:

1. Heavens and light are made
2. Waters established on their own
3. Dry land made and vegetation added
4. Specific lights fashioned in the sky
5. Fish and sea creatures made to fill the water
6. The animals are created for the land, and then, finally, humans
7. Epilogue— God rests after completing all creation and is in total control

Philosophy, as summarized by Spinoza’s exposition of Descartes, involves these four steps:

1. to lay aside all prejudices,
2. to discover the foundations on which all things ought to be built,
3. to uncover the cause of error,
4. to understand all things clearly and distinctly.

The project of this reading, then, is to interpret those seven days as falling, allegorically, under these four headings. This explains the arrangement of the rest of this post.

2. The silent void: to set aside all prejudice

Genesis begins:

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth – and the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters— (1:1–2)

Just as creation begins from utter formlessness and chaos, philosophy must begin from nothing: it cannot begin from any preconceived ideas that you may have been raised with, but must instead seek the intrinsically evident “foundations on which all things ought to be built”, which must come from the fundamental distinctions, as is seen in what follows. It was in search of these foundations that Descartes doubted, although his pursuit was, in some important ways, misguided.

3. Separations as fundamental distinctions

Genesis moves on to describe three “separations”, viz.:

1. God separates the light from the darkness. (1:3–5)
2. God separates the earth from the heavens. (1:6–8)
3. God separates the land from the sea. (1:9–10)

Bodily separation is the best possible image for the process of mental distinction, which is what is represented here. Philosophy begins with some fundamental distinctions; the mind’s former chaos is divided into order.

The separation of light from darkness may be taken as the image of the first division, between being and non-being, or, which is the same thing, the conceivable and the unconceivable, the intelligible and the unintelligible. The best metaphor for understanding is by analogy with bodily sight, and light is everything that is visible.

The separation of earth from the heavens may be taken as the image of the second division, between matter and form. The sky, with its constant stars and perfect regularity, was the most constant thing in the life of ancient humans; it is also the source of light. So, it represents form, which is the immutable source of knowledge, as contrasted with the fleeting earth.

The separation of the land from the sea may be taken as the image of the distinction between substance and accident. Although the earth and the sea are both mutable, the sea is constantly moving due to the tides, whereas the earth is more stable, and also more “firm” from our terrestrial perspective. So, it represents substance, which is that which remains unchanging in the apparent things that we understand.

4. Darkness of error banished

With the fundamental distinctions laid down, God goes on to create the living creatures, which represent the sources of our knowledge of sensible things. Those will be treated together in the next section. But in between creating plants and animals, interrupting the series of the living things, God creates the specific lights in the sky, which distinguish the day from the night. (1:14–19)

In the context of Genesis, this interruption establishes a parallel between the first three days and the following three days. As the Catholic Study Bible pointed out in the cited enumeration, the first and fourth day are broadly dedicated to light, the second and fifth to the waters, and the third and sixth to the land. Philosophically, this separation of the plants from the other kinds could be interpreted as signaling their lower importance, as may be explained next.

However, this is the second introduction of light, and a more explicit division between light and darkness than the first time around. It also comes soon after the fundamental distinctions. So, more properly, it may be philosophically interpreted as representing the third step in Spinoza’s Descartes: when the principles have been found upon which all the sciences should be built, it is not difficult to uncover the cause of error, and to distinguish clearly the true from the false. All errors may be traced to a confusion of what the principles distinguished.

5. Creation of sensible kinds in logical order

Having moved the creation of the lights to the previous section, the creation of living creatures may be explained in order. They are created in this sequence:

1. Plants (1:11–13)
2. Non-human animals (1:20–25)
3. Human beings (1:26–31)

It may be noted that this is the precise order into which these three groups are arranged by the division scheme of Porphyry’s Isagoge. I will explain why I believe that this precise division and order may be taken to be philosophically fundamental rather than arbitrary.

The three groups represent the sources of our knowledge of sensible things, which are Aristotle’s four causes. One of the causes is not represented here, which is material cause. Material cause may be said to be represented alike by living and by non-living things, since it means only that a thing, to be known, must be apparent to the senses. Since not all that appears to the senses is understood, this is not a sufficient source of knowledge, though a necessary one; so, it is understandably excluded.

Plants, as the most primitive living beings, represent efficient cause. Since the most intricate features of plants were not yet known, and indeed are still unapparent to most untrained eyes, plants have traditionally represented living beings at their most basic level, and so, the bare fact of having life, understood in a basic sense as animation or self-motion. This is nothing other than an object having its own efficient cause within itself, i.e., that which explains the position of its motions in space and time. Since living beings are capable of moving themselves instead of being moved by something else, they are more understandable to us than non-living beings.

The infrahuman animals, besides being alive like plants, also evidently have senses, and so, represent formal cause. Animals undertake specific motions which they order in accordance with appearances that they receive within themselves, and so, the formal cause of their movements is also within them rather than having to be looked for without them. Animals, understood traditionally as sensitive living beings, are more understandable to us than non-sensitive living beings because they have three of their four causes within their own aspect.

Finally, human beings, which are rational animals, represent final cause. Human beings are able to make explicit connections of their motions to their form, which is to say, to sensibly communicate whether and how their motions are in accordance with their concept of themselves and of the motion. This is nothing other than the final cause of their motions being, to that extent, included within their own appearance, without having to be sought after through further inquiry. Human beings are the most intelligible to our understanding, having all four causes of their motions potentially discoverable within the very manifold that they present to the senses.

Since living beings are created in logical order, from the least to the most intelligible, the creation story is a great allegorical illustration of the sources of our knowledge. Comparing each kind with the previous provides a complete picture of how we come to understand the sensible world. This is as much philosophical sophistication as could be hoped for from the figures of a myth.

6. The life of man

The story of creation is finished, and God has gone to rest. (2:1–3) Some events in the life of the first human beings are also illustrative of things that we know from philosophy.

First, we have the naming of all the animals (2:19–20), which is traditionally associated with science and learning in general. We may assume that, in giving names to all the animals, Adam was also figuring out their place in the system of the world. In case the logical ordering of the previous part had not been clear enough, this explicitly finishes the sequence from Spinoza’s Descartes: the man understands all things clearly and distinctly.

Second, we have the fact that none other than the woman, taken from his flesh and sharing his nature, was a companion suited to the man. (1:20) This shows that human beings engage in friendships in a deeper sense between themselves than they ever could with the infrahuman animals, which is an important teaching of philosophy. Since human beings are rational, they can teach each other and achieve unity of purpose, allowing them to cooperate in ways other animals cannot.

Third, the woman is simply named “Woman” at first. She is only named “Eve”, meaning that she is “the mother of all the living”, after she has sinned. This, together with the fact that the naming of the animals happened before she was even created, is illustrative of the fact that parenthood is opposed to rational inquiry, which is the highest end of human beings. While Adam and Eve must reproduce to fill the earth, (1:28) the story still gives indications of how reproduction is an inferior, though permissible, state of human life, as the Catholic Church acknowledges. (CCC 922)