In the Beginning God – Genesis 1:1

Presuppositional apologetics is a mouthful, to be sure.  “Presuppositional” means our most basic beliefs that we accept without defending them, or perhaps without being able to defend them.  “Apologetics” is making a defense of what we believe.  So presuppositional apologetics is not arguing the existence of God as if that was a question, but assuming His existence and showing how that explains all that we hold as true.  For example, I believe that there are real rights and wrongs, like it is right to care for babies and not harm them.  But that can only be true if there is a God who has made that a right or a wrong.  Moses is taking what we might call a presuppositional approach to the existence of God as he writes Genesis 1:1.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

There is no more majestic statement in Scripture.  To be sure there have been those who think it better translated, “When God began to create the heavens and the earth,” but it seems best to view it as an absolute statement that describes the first day of creation.  As Exodus 20:11 says, “For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them.”

Are we to understand “the heavens and the earth” to be the whole universe, or more specifically our particular planet?  Though some understand “heavens and earth” to include the entire universe, this does not seem to be a perspective found, in general, in the Scriptures, so it is best to leave it at the world as we see it.  If that is the case, we are not given a picture of our solar system’s creation, nor our universe, though we must infer from God’s creative activity regarding our earth, that our solar system and universe were created in the same way.

And so, the “beginning” here is the point in time of our planet’s creation.  And time does not make sense unless there are a series of cause-and-effect events that follow one another, so that we can speak of past events and conceive of future events.  We may say that “the beginning” is the beginning of time, though in our current understanding, we would have to say that this occurred at the beginning of the universe, and much time might have expired between the beginning of the universe and the creation of earth.

Unlike the creation stories of other cultures, God does not create himself, or is not one of many gods, and is certainly not in conflict with anyone, but is in sole possession of divine qualities and, alone, creates all that is.  We are led to believe that He is eternal.  No attempt is made to defend His existence.  It is merely stated as fact.  As Paul has said, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20, NIV).  This is previous knowledge given to all God’s creation, though we have found ways to deny it, stuffing it down inside like a traumatic memory, only to find it pushing itself out at the most inconvenient moments.

He is God, the term elohim being used, which is, in fact, the plural of el or eloah, the common terms for God.  Though it is plural, it is used with a singular verb.  Is it the plural of majesty (as when his or her majesty speaks of “we” as if this singular person is too glorious to be viewed as singular), or is it a hint at God’s triune nature?  To those who did not yet understand that God was a trinity, this might be the best explanation, but to those of us who have gained this intimate knowledge of who God is, His triunity makes the most sense of this use of the plural elohim.