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In the thought of God the heavens and the Earth, the upper and the lower world, were created together in a single principle which is substantial Wisdom — the absolute unity of the Whole. The union of Heaven and Earth, founded in principle (reshith) at the beginning of the work of creation, must be realized in fact by the cosmogonic and historical process culminating in the complete manifestation of this unity in the Kingdom of God (malkhouth). This union as actually realized implies a preliminary separation, manifesting itself in the chaotic existence of the Earth, an empty and barren existence plunged in darkness (khosheh) and the abyss (tehom). This abyss had to be filled, this darkness had to be illumined, this barren womb had to be made fertile, and finally by the united action of both worlds a being had to be produced, half of Heaven and half of Earth, capable of embracing in its unity the totality of Creation and of uniting it to God by a free and living bond, by the incarnation in a created form of the divine eternal Wisdom.
The cosmic process is the successive unification of the lower or earthly world, originally created in a chaotic and discordant condition — tohu va bohu. In this process, as revealed in the sacred record of Genesis, we see two principles or productive factors, the one absolutely active, God through His Word and Spirit, and the other partly co-operating by its own strength in the divine order and plan and bringing them to realization, and partly providing simply a passive and material element. For instance, it is said of the creation of plants and animals: vaïomer Elohim: tad’ sheh ha’arets deshe heseb maz’riah zerah, etc., et dixit Deus: germinet terra herbam viventem et facientem semen, etc.; and then: vattotseh ha’arets deshe heseb maz’riah zerah leminehou, etc. — et PRODUXIT terra herbam viventem et facientem semen iuxta genus suum. And further: vaïomer Elohim: totse ha’arets nephesh haïah leminah, etc. dixit quoque Deus: PRODUCAT TERRA animam viventem in genere suo. It is clear, then, that God does not directly create the various manifestations of physical life, but that He simply determines, directs and ordains the productive force of this agent called “Earth,” that is, earthly nature, primal matter, the soul of the lower world. This soul is in itself simply an indeterminate and inordinate force, but capable of aspiring to divine unity and desiring reunion with the heavens. It is upon this desire that the Word and Spirit of God act by suggesting to the inconscient soul ever more perfect forms of union between the heavenly and the earthly and impelling it to realize them in the medium of the lower world. But since the soul of this world is in itself an undefined duality (αόριστος δύας), it is also a prey to the action of the anti-divine principle which, having failed to constrain the higher Wisdom, besets its lower anti-type, the world-soul, forcing it to remain in chaos and discord and, instead of realizing the union of heavens and Earth in harmonious and regularly ascending forms, to produce inordinate and fantastic monsters. Thus, the cosmic process is, on the one hand, the peaceful meeting, love and marriage of the two agents, the heavenly and the earthly, while on the other it is a mortal struggle between the Divine Word and the lower principle for the possession of the soul of the world. It follows that the work of creation, being a doubly complicated process, can only advance in a slow and gradual manner.
The Bible has just formally told us that it is not the direct work of God; and the sacred record is amply confirmed by the facts. If the creation of our physical world had emanated directly and exclusively from God Himself, it would be an absolutely perfect work, a calm and harmonious production not only as a whole, but in each of its parts. But the reality is far from corresponding to such an idea. It is only from His own point of view which includes all (kol asher hasah) in a moment of vision — sub specie aeternitatis — that God can pronounce creation perfect — tob meod, valde bona. As for the various parts of the work considered in themselves, they deserve from the mouth of God only a relative approval or none at all. In that, as in all the rest, the Bible is in accord with human experience and scientific truth. If we consider the terrestrial world as it is and especially its geological and paleontological history, so well documented in our days, we find depicted there a laborious process determined by heterogeneous principles which do not achieve a firm and harmonious unity except after much time and great effort. Nothing could bear less resemblance to an entirely perfect work issuing directly from a single divine artificer. Our cosmic history is a long and painful parturition. We see in it clear signs of internal struggle, of shocks and violent convulsions, blind gropings, unfinished sketches of unsuccessful creations, monstrous births and abortions. Can all these antediluvian monsters, these paleozoa — the megatherium, the plesiosaurus, the ichthyosaurus, the pterodactyl and so forth — form part of the perfect and direct creation of God? If all these monstrous species were tob meod (valde bona), why have they completely disappeared from our Earth to make room for more successful, harmonious and balanced forms of life? Creation is a gradual and laborious process; that is a Biblical and philosophical truth as well as a fact of natural science. The process, implying imperfection as it does, also implies a definite progress consisting in a more and more profound and complete unification of material elements and anarchic forces, in the transformation of chaos into cosmos, that is to say, into a living body capable of serving for the incarnation of the divine Wisdom. Without going into the details of cosmogony, I will only indicate the three principal concrete stages of this unifying process.
We have already mentioned the first, determined by universal gravitation, which makes the lower world a relatively compact mass and creates the material body of the universe. There is the mechanical unity of the whole. The parts of the universe, while remaining external to one another, are nevertheless held together by an indissoluble chain, the force of attraction. In vain they persist in their egotism; it is belied by the insuperable attraction which impels them towards one another, the primordial manifestation of cosmic altruism. The soul of the world achieves its first realization as universal unity and celebrates its betrothal with divine Wisdom. But, roused by the creative Word, it aspires to a more perfect unity; and in this aspiration it frees itself from the ponderable mass and transforms its potentiality into a new subtilized and rarified material called ether. The Word takes possession of this idealized material, as the proper medium of its formative action; projects imponderable fluids into all the parts of the universe; envelops all the members of the cosmic body in a network of ether; manifests the relative differences of these parts and places them in fixed relationships, and thus creates a second cosmic unity more perfect and more ideal, the dynamic unity realized by light, electricity and all the other imponderables, which are simply modifications or transformations of one and the same agent. The characteristic of the agent is pure altruism, an unlimited expansion, a continual act of self-giving. However perfect in itself the dynamic unity of the world may be, it merely envelops the material mass in all its parts; it does not take inward possession of them, or penetrate them to the depth of their being and so regenerate them. The soul of the world, the Earth, sees in the luminous ether the ideal image of its heavenly beloved, but does not in reality unite with it. Nevertheless, it aspires always towards this union, and will not confine itself to the contemplation of the heavens and the shining stars, to immersion in the fluid ether; it absorbs the light, transforms it into living fire and as the fruit of this new union produces from its loins every living soul in the two kingdoms of plants and animals. This new unity, the organic unity, with inorganic matter and the etheric fluids as its base and medium, is the more perfect in that it forms and governs a more complicated body by a more active and universal soul. In the plants, life is objectively manifested in its organic forms; it is felt by the animals in its movements and subjective effects; and lastly it is comprehended by man in its absolute principle.
The Earth which, originally void, formless and plunged in darkness, was to be gradually enveloped by light, and given form and diversity; which, in the third epoch of cosmic growth, had only vaguely felt and confusedly expressed, as in a dream, its creative potentiality in the forms of vegetable life, those first combinations of the dust of Earth with the beauty of the heavens; which for the first time in this plant-world emerges from itself to meet the heavenly influences, then separates from itself in the free movement of the four-footed animals and rises above itself in the airy flight of birds; the Earth, after diffusing its living soul in countless species of vegetable and animal life, finally concentrates and returns upon itself and assumes the form which enables it to meet God face to face and to receive directly from Him the breath of spiritual life. Here, Earth knows Heaven and is known of it. Here the two terms of Creation, the Divine and the non-Divine, the higher and the lower, become one in reality, are actually united and enjoy that union. For true self-knowledge is impossible except by a real union, since perfect knowledge must be realized, and real union must be conceived in idea to be perfect. For this reason the supreme union, that of the sexes, is called “knowledge” by the Bible. The eternal Wisdom, which is in principle the unity of all, and entirely the unity of opposites — a free and reciprocal unity — finds at last a subject in which and through which it can realize itself completely. It finds it and rejoices. “My delight,” she says — my supreme delight — “is in the sons of Man.”
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