Pastor Spomor, in the first comment, said the following:

Romney’s statement is a good example. He uses the term “Creator”. Which is good, but strictly speaking, Mormon teaching is that god is a mere re-arranger of pre existing matter, and hence not a Creator in the Judeo-Christian sense.

I was commenting on his comment, not on the article itself.

By the way, apologies to Pastor Spomer for calling him Pastor Spooner several times.

This may be heresy to some, but it seems to me that what is at stake is the meaning of the opening lines of Genesis, not the nature of God or of creation. If, in the cosmology of the time, “chaos” was thought of as the absence of “something,” then God bringing order out of chaos is the act of an Almighty Creator, not the act of something less than a God who can create ex nihilo.

The point of Genesis is that God created the heavens and the earth. The question of exactly how he did it is not the point of Genesis. Most Christians accept that Genesis is not a literal account of creation. God creates light on the first day, but doesn’t create the sun, moon, and stars until the fourth day. Where was the light coming on the first day? How were there days before the creation of the sun, since a day is defined by earth’s rotation and the apparent position of the sun in the sky?

Genesis is an account of the creation of the world couched in terms of the cosmology of the Ancient Near East. It isn’t a scientific account.

In terms of Genesis (both Genesis 1 and 2) we need to carefully discern the difference between what is being taught as truth and the vehicle or mode in which the teaching is taught. Both Genesis 2 (the older tradition) and Genesis 1 (the ‘newer’ tradition use commonly held versions of ‘the beginning’ in their historical and cultural setting: First Millenium BC Palestine: [Genesis 2] and 6th century BC Babylon [Genesis 1]

More importantly however is the real difference between a god who or ‘brings order out of chaos’ or the God Who creates everything [heaven and earth; visible and invisible] ex nihilo.

This harkens back to the centuries old ‘debate’ on “God”. According to one vision, God is the Supreme Being, the Supreme example of “being” of which everything else that exists also shares. IN other words He is the Supreme Being among beings [He would thus 'refashion' pre-existing 'stuff' or 'bring order out of chaos'.

According to the other vision of God, God is 'above every other Name' [Philippians 2], “In Whom we live and move and have our being” [Acts 17] “greater than which one cannot conceive’ {Anselm] ‘the pure act of ‘to-be’ [Aquinas] God is and we can only approach Him through analogy. In this vision God needs nothing from anything or anyone. He acts in pure giving [ex nihilo]. Creation is love in action, rather than some form of ‘subduing chaos’ which is ultimately an act of violence.

If God is perceived to be a threat to creation and to our freedom, as was thought over the centuries, than ‘the role of faith/religion’ in a society would need to be proscribed or ‘limited’ However, if God’s act of creation is ‘ex nihilo’, an act of love (gift) then He is the Source not only of creation itself, but its beautiful order and our freedom as well. In this case, faith/religion would not be seen as a threat to the culture and political order but its enhancement etc.

The Anchor Bible volume Genesis translates the opening lines as follows:

When God set about to create heaven and earth—the world being then a formless waste, with darkness ofer the seas and only an awesome wind sweeping over the water—God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.

The editor, E. A. Speiser, points out the following:

If the first sentence states that “In the beginning God created heaven and earth,” what ensued was chaos (vs. 2) which needed immediate attention. In other words, the Creator would be charged with an inadequate initial performance, unless one takes the whole of vs. 1 as a general title, contrary to established biblical practice.

In Volume I of the Schocken Bible, Everett Fox translates the opening lines of Genesis as follows:

At the beginning of God’s creating of the heavens and the earth,
when the earth was wild and waste,
darkness over the face of Ocean,
rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters—
God said: Let there be light! And there was light.

The note for verse 2 is as follows:

when the earth . . . Gen I describes God’s bringing order out of chaos, not creation from nothingness. wild and waste: Heb. tofu va-vohu, indicating “emptiness.” Ocean: The primeval waters, a common (and usually divine) image in ancient Near Eastern mythology. rushing-spirit: Others, “wind.” The Hebrew word ruah can mean both “spirit” and “wind.” See Ps. 33:6. The image suggested by the word (see Deut. 32:11) is that of an eagle protecting its young.

If what you say is correct. Then there is no God. This creature, whatever one calls it, took existing matter and rearranged it.

I hardly think that the existence of God depends on Genesis saying God created the world (universe) from nothing.

If something is going to be a religion worthy of the name, it must address and account for the ultimate things, if I may, the First Things. Where did everything come from? What is there? Where is it going? If an answer to these questions is finite, then it is not an answer, and we must keep looking.
God bless

The New American Bible says of the opening verses of Genesis:

Until modern times the first line was always translated, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Several comparable ancient cosmogonies, discovered in recent times, have a “when…then” construction, confirming the translation “when…then” here as well. “When” introduces the pre-creation state and “then” introduces the creative act affecting that state. The traditional translation, “In the beginning,” does not reflect the Hebrew syntax of the clause.

* [1:2] This verse is parenthetical, describing in three phases the pre-creation state symbolized by the chaos out of which God brings order: “earth,” hidden beneath the encompassing cosmic waters, could not be seen, and thus had no “form”; there was only darkness; turbulent wind swept over the waters. Commencing with the last-named elements (darkness and water), vv. 3–10 describe the rearrangement of this chaos: light is made (first day) and the water is divided into water above and water below the earth so that the earth appears and is no longer “without outline.” The abyss: the primordial ocean according to the ancient Semitic cosmogony. After God’s creative activity, part of this vast body forms the salt-water seas (vv. 9–10); part of it is the fresh water under the earth (Ps 33:7; Ez 31:4), which wells forth on the earth as springs and fountains (Gn 7:11; 8:2; Prv 3:20). Part of it, “the upper water” (Ps 148:4; Dn 3:60), is held up by the dome of the sky (vv. 6–7), from which rain descends on the earth (Gn 7:11; 2 Kgs 7:2, 19; Ps 104:13). A mighty wind: literally, “spirit or breath [ruah] of God”; cf. Gn 8:1.

The translation of the opening lines of Genesis from the Jewish Publication Society Study Bible is as follows:

When God began to create heaven and earth—the earth being unformed and void and a wind from God sweeping over the water—God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

A note to verse 2 says:

This clause describes things just before the process of creation began. To modern people, the opposite of the created order is “nothing,” that is, a vacuum. To the ancients, the opposite of the created order was much worse than “nothing.” It was an active, malevolent force we can best term “chaos.” In this verse, chaos is envisioned as a dark, undifferentiated mass of water.

Both the New American Bible and the JPS Study Bible thus agree that when creation began, something already existed. I think it makes sense to say that in the account in Genesis, God does not create (or at least not create everything) ex nihilo. He brings order out of chaos.

Dear David,
But please look again at the text which you quote. First, God created the heavens and the earth which were initially ‘without form and shape’. Then He begins to impose order. If water and wind existed prior to God, then we should not worship him, because he would not be God. We would need to continue our search for whatever the ultimate source of all things is. Fortunately, the true Creator has drawn near us-

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. Acts 17:24-25

For by him ALL THINGS were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17

And

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him ALL THINGS were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. John 1:1-3

I’m not suggesting that you believe that God is less, but that He is more, that His is omnipotent, that in principle, there is no conceivable rival to His power. This understanding of God is essential to the various proofs saints offer to His existence, such as Paul in Acts 17 and Descartes in his axiom that God is that of which nothing greater can be conceived.
God bless

Pastor Spomer,

Isn’t that consistent with the Biblical account of creation? “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth— and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters . . . ” Clearly water and wind existed prior to God’s creation. Also, darkness existed. This was not creation ex nihilo.