Genesis 0:0

Genesis 0:0

It is a universal truth that the few days following on the completion of a major task are always something of an anticlimax, when one experiences a dim sadness rather than the relief one was joyously expecting.

This was precisely God's case – and how, indeed, could He be expected to escape the great pattern He had created Himself? Indeed He could not, and that was a bit hard on Him in a way, as this law of wistful weariness was a by-product of His own creation.

The last few days had been especially busy. In six days, God had created the heaven and the earth, day and night, the seas and the dry land, grass and trees and fruit, lights in the firmament that men would later, rather unpoetically, call stars, and a variety of more or less accomplished moving creatures. Then He took a break and thought to Himself, behold, it is very good.

On the seventh day He rolled up His sleeves, chose one of His moving creatures and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Man became a living soul, destined to inhabit a garden eastward in Eden, and a very nice garden it was, with tall trees and fragrant flowers and frolicking animals. Man was very pleased indeed and so was God.

And that was it.

A few days elapsed which God spent delighting in His creation: the graceful young trees, the nonchalant tiger, Man playing hide-and-seek with monkeys.

Then came this dim sadness which God first put down to tiredness. He watched, as objectively as He could, Man taking naps, stroking bear cubs, picking flowers and fruit, fooling around with cats big and small, mimicking bird songs, paddling in the river, before He accepted the awful truth:

'Behold, I have created an imbecile.'

Now that was very unfortunate. In the excitement and exhilaration of the creating process, God had failed to think about what would then come of it; but an eternity spent watching Man tickling dogs or bombarding lions with cherry pits He now thought would be too much even for Him in His infinite patience.

God then decided to hold council with this part of Himself that some call the Serpent, out of a political correctness that does not help raise Man in God's esteem.

- 'What is the problem then?' asked God of Himself in His role as Serpent.
- 'My creation is totally, utterly uninteresting,' replied God in his role of Depressed Creator.
- 'Now that is a wild exaggeration and You know it. So why do You say so?'
- 'Because Man seems to think that I have given eternity unto him so that he could mess about, and I suspect that indeed he will never do anything else.'
- 'And why on earth would he do anything else, indeed? Did you make him any different from the bird or the butterfly? You expect of him fruit for which You have not planted the seed. You should know better.'

Prostrated, God the Depressed Creator thought. God in his role as Serpent resumed:
- 'One needs – how shall I put it – divine wisdom to make eternity productive. You gave him Time, but Time without Will is of no avail.'

- 'You have spoken the truth, said God the Sad Creator (he was already feeling somewhat less depressed; it is another universal truth that opening up about one's problems helps dispel one's feeling of powerlessness.) 'But – let Me think – if I give him Will, doesn't it imply that he should will something that he does not have?'
- 'Obviously,' answered God the Serpent patiently.
- 'So giving him Will also implies giving him Frustration? Another unpleasant by-product of my Creation, so to say?'
- 'Indeed.'

God the Sad Creator thought some more. Then he said, hopefully:
- 'But I should still give him a possibility to obtain what he wants?'
- 'Of course,' said God the Serpent wisely. 'Otherwise You will give him Despair, not just Frustration.'
- 'Hmm, it's all right then,' pondered God the Suddenly Relieved Creator. Then he hesitated for a second, and said, 'But... after... once he reaches his goal?'
- 'Back to square one then,' replied God the Serpent laconically.

God the Decidedly Discouraged Creator mused, 'Back to square one then... An eternity spent watching Man wasting Time foolishly in an unbearably twee garden...'

The sun set, the moon rose, the sun set and rose again, and God was still holding council with Himself.

God the Serpent became particularly loquacious.

- 'It is not enough to give him Will. You must give him a Sense of Urgency.'
- 'Urgency?'
- 'Yes. This exhilarating and awe-inspiring impression that he might not have enough Time to do what he wants. And that is not all. You must give him reasons to achieve his goals, reasons that are better than himself, external to himself.'

- 'I know! I will create other Men. Or even better! I will create small Men that will need his protection – better still, small Men that will grow up before his very eyes, to whom he will have to teach how to be full grown Men!'
- 'Ye-es, good, but that is not enough. He needs to feel responsible for them. Let him create them himself. Let them be his own creation.'

That was a bit much for God the Now Decidedly Perplexed. Let Man create, too? It was almost – it was almost...

- 'Making him in Your image, in a way, yes.'

God the Dumbfounded Creator rebelled: 'But what an overwhelming responsibility – I should know!'
- 'You've hit the nail on the head. Responsibility. That is precisely what You must give him. But be honest, is it only Responsibility you feel for Your Creation?'
- 'Of course not,' replied God the Dumbfounded Creator irritably, 'I feel... how shall I put it... A kind of irrational attachment... A kind of all-encompassing benevolence, too... Er...
- 'Love, in a nutshell?'
- 'All right, love. And why not? Why should I have bothered otherwise?'
- 'Sooo?'
- 'Oh. Yes, of course. Very good. Man gets Love in the bargain, too. A very good driving force. I should know.'

God had to admit that the whole chain of argument was unanswerable. He started recapitulating.

- 'All right. Urgency, Responsibility and Love. But still. That is so heavy – so heavy... Doesn't he risk getting Discouragement as yet another... by-product?'
- 'Assuredly. Quite right. Discouragement is a risk. And so is Loneliness. He needs a mate. An equal.'
- 'Oh, right,' said God the Gradually Reassured Creator a bit too quickly. 'So I'll create two Men, that's no problem.'

- 'Hmm, no,' replied God the Serpent thoughtfully, 'I didn't see it quite that way. I don't think an alter ego might completely save him from Loneliness. What he needs is a mate that is strong where he is weak, and vice versa.'
- 'All right, all right, I'll see about that later,' replied God the Slightly Fed Up Creator.

The problem was vast and formidable in its simplicity. God wanted to break it down into small parts and attend to the most urgent elements first. He must give Man Will; the Sense of Urgency; Responsibility; Love; a protection against the Discouragement that was bound to emerge from all the pressure Man would be under.

- 'Right, I'll start with Will,' God decided. But his omnipotence did not save him from perplexity. The will to do what? And how does one impose it? How can one say to someone else, I command you to will?

- 'Well, it's a bit like the Sense of Urgency,' suggested God the Serpent, not unreasonably. 'Both Will and the Sense of Urgency imply limits. One can only will or want something that is difficult to achieve, remote, mysterious. You see, You have given Man everything. You have shown him everything. You have deprived him of the desire to look for himself, to seek, to learn. Seeing is satisfying, but discovering is infinitely more thrilling. You must stop showing him, You must – how shall I put it – hide and then reveal. And reveal as a reward, so that Man will have to surpass himself, go beyond his own limits, earn the revelation.'

This was only Phase One of the solution, and God was already feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of the task ahead of Him. What should He hide to Man? What should He encourage him to seek? And how should He encourage him? Surely not by commanding him?

- 'Of course not,' exclaimed God as a Serpent, who had over God the Sad Creator, the Infinitely Well-Meaning God, the cruel advantage of absolute lucidity. 'If You command him to seek, You annihilate his will; to awake his Will, You have to awake his Curiosity; to awake his Curiosity, You must hide something from him while making him understand that this thing exists. And that way –'
- 'That way, the thing I will wake in him is Rebellion,' objected God the Sentimental.
- 'That's exactly what I was going to say,' resumed God the Ruthless. 'I'm afraid that this cannot be avoided. You cannot tell him, 'Go and find the thing I have hidden from you'. That would be as boring – and as little dignified, for that matter – as a game of hide-and-seek.'
- 'So, I must...?'
- 'So, you must say, 'I have hidden this thing from you and I forbid you to try and find it.''
- 'Hang on, hang on,' said God the Sentimental with dismay. 'You mean I must become his – his enemy?'
- 'Well, in a way, yes. In his eyes, that is. Until he understands.'
- 'But I love him!' wailed God the Sentimental with despair. 'How will he understand that if I become his enemy? How will he give Me some love in return if I become his enemy?'

God the Ruthless kept silent. God the Ruthless was giving God the Sentimental the space He needed to think. Slowly, slowly, despair lessened and became sadness, and then resigned wistfulness.

- 'I suppose I wanted everything, right from the word go. I can't command Man to love any more than I can command him to be free and to stand on his own two feet. He will have to learn. He will love his little Men. He will love his Mate. One day my Creation will be full of Men and their Mates. They will love one another.'
- 'Or not', objected God the Ruthless, who had to counter the Sentimental version of Himself with an objectivity bordering on cynicism.
- 'Or not, indeed', resumed God the Sentimental with unabated firmness, 'but they will learn, eventually. They will see that this Love has come from somewhere – that it has come from Me – that it is a reflection of what I feel for them – that it is a reflection of what I long for them to feel for Me – once they understand. They will thus – they will thus – perfect My Creation. They will make it complete. And understanding this, the love I feel for them, the task I assign them – completing my Creation – will be revelations in themselves. But it will take time. I can see that. It will take time.'

It was infinitely sad. And infinitely logical.

- 'Right, now, Urgency,' resumed God the Ruthless. 'If he has eternity to break your commandment, his laziness will win over his Will.'
- 'Now wait,' protested God the Sentimental with horror, 'if I take eternity away from him, I must make him –'
- 'I know. An ephemeral creature. A mortal creature, if I can coin a phrase. Yes indeed.'
- 'Now You're going too far,' moaned God the Infinitely Well-meaning. 'I started off giving him everything, and now you are asking Me to – to forbid him things, to take things away from him, and finally to condemn him to – to death?'

This was the moment that Man chose to call God with an excited voice, thus interrupting the council that was to shape his destiny.
- 'Hey, Lord, look! Look! Quick!'

Man was doing a headstand.

Between God the Sentimental and God the Ruthlessly Logical, there was a silence.

- 'So,' resumed the latter, striking while the iron was hot, 'You must give him commandments to break and make him a mortal creature, yes. Unless You want him to be a puppet. Unless You are satisfied with having created an imbecile. Unless You don't care about having no respect for him.'
- 'If I can have no respect for him I will be unable to love him', assented God the Sentimental sadly.

So, confused and melancholy, but now resigned and almost serene, God called Man and said:

'You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.'

- 'Excellent', said God the Ruthless with admiration. 'I wouldn't have done better Myself. Instead of condemning him to death, you give him a choice and make him responsible... Very clever indeed. As for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – I'll say, well done. What is it, anyway? Where does that come from?'
- 'Erm, I'm not sure myself what it is', replied God the Infinitely Well-Meaning, a bit embarrassed. 'Maybe I'm finding it out as I go along, so to speak... Realising that by wanting to do absolute good I created stupidity and would have deprived Myself, ultimately, of feeling respect and real love for My creatures... That if I want to encourage them to stand on their own two feet I must seem to be hurting them – in the short term... that there is no real Creation without responsibility... Well, you know what I mean,' he ended diffidently.

And there was evening and there was morning, and God saw that He was overwhelmed with sadness and bursting with love but certainly not bored anymore, and behold – it was very good.

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