Creative Analysis of Genesis

Creativity Analysis of Genesis In our textbook, Echoes of Eden (2013), Jerram Barrs explores a key idea from another scholar, Daniel Loizeaux: the consideration of creativity under four categories: Perfection Diversity Profusion Inventiveness After reading Genesis 1:1-31, reflect on each of these key aspects of God’s creative process. Then, analyze how each of these four elements function within God’s creation of the world. Present a minimum of one specific example from the passage to support your analysis of each element. Your paper should be two to three-pages in length and formatted in standard APA formatting.  Here is the reference from the book explaining the four categories: Daniel Loizeaux considers God’s creativity under four headings. He writes: “How God’s imagination daily loads us with benefits. Contemplate this embarrassment of riches from a four-fold aspect: their perfection, diversity, profusion, inventiveness.” 2 I am indebted to Loizeaux’s discussion in my own exploration of these four aspects of God’s creative genius. Perfection If we look under a microscope at anything God has made to see it in all its detail, we will discover that the more we see, the more amazing is his creative genius. A closer view enables us to see new and unimagined beauties and infinitesimally tiny wonders. Look at the structure of a leaf, a diamond, a snowflake, or a human cell. If we compare any product of human technology to any work of God—for example, try looking at an object made of polished steel, copper, or bronze—and try the same experiment in magnification, we very soon will observe the difference. What God has made is lovely to our eyes, but our own works, viewed under a microscope, show their flaws. Diversity Think of the many different varieties of birds, insects, trees, and flowers; or for an even more extraordinary example, the infinite variety of snowflakes, sunrises, sunsets, or—more importantly—human beings: no two are exactly the same. Several times over the past few years my wife and I have traveled to Naples, a city on the Gulf Coast of Florida, to stay for a few weeks in a friend’s home just five minutes’ walk from the beach. Each afternoon when we are there we join the many other people who return to the beach to watch the sun go down over the Gulf—each day it is glorious, and each day it is different. In each moment of each sunset there is constant change, and yet every moment has its own glory and perfect beauty. Profusion God loves abundance: think of those daily sunsets or the flowers in a meadow, or the stars in the night sky—if you can get away from bright city lights to see them, such as out in a deep forest, in a desert, or high up on a mountain. In such a setting, the sky seems to be nothing but stars. Indeed, astronomers tell us that there are sixty billion galaxies in the universe, and that each one of these galaxies contains between ten billion and a hundred billion stars. Our sun is just one of these untold billions of stars. Such profusion is unimaginable to us. I remember going hiking in the Sierra Mountains in Central California with my sons and a friend and his family. We slept out in the open, and one night we set out our sleeping bags by the shore of a small lake at about eleven thousand feet. It was a clear night and we lay there looking up at the stars. The number of them and the brightness of their light overwhelmed us. Then the moon rose over the mountains across the lake, and I burst out with the words of Psalm 8:   O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. . . .   When I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars, which you have set in place . . . (vv. 1–3)   Then, together we sang hymns and songs of praise. We had to express something of our awe and wonder at the loveliness of this world and of the glory of its Maker. Inventiveness We admire men and women who come up with new designs, and rightly so. But just think how this activity is only an infinitesimally tiny copy of the inventiveness of the Lord, who delights in making all things new—not just at the beginning of the creation, but every day.