Language of Creation

A book recommended by a Greek Orthodox friend.

Very fun read. Pageau presents a system for understanding ancient storytelling, which is concerned with the relationships and implications of opposing symbols. The general principles are compelling, like the respect for ancient perspectives on cosmology and the concept of matter as expressing literal words spoken by Heaven. Pageau is adept at drawing out biblical anologies, though I feel if it's used as a devotional, it's at risk of being eisegetical, forced, or frivolous.

Chapters

Part 1: Salvaging Creation from the Scientific Worldview

• 1 - Spiritual and Material Perspectives: Today's material perspective is devoid of the search for metaphysical manifestations of truth in our natural world.
• 2 - Coming Full Circle: The Copernican Revolution: The acquisition of material science knowledge has an inverse relationship with our spiritual insight. The shift from the geocentric model to the Heliocentric model follows the pattern of Adam and Eve's opening of eyes, realization of nakedness, and exile from the Garden of Eden.
• 3 - Returning to the Garden of Eden: To unlock the high-level and most relevant interpretation of the Bible, we must adopt the archaic worldview of the people living at that time.
• 4 - Reconstructing the Language of Creation: The earth is the lower, material half, while heaven is the upper, spiritual half. Taxonomy vs ancient bestiaries concerned with spiritual truth. H20 vs notions of liquid or fluid.

Part 2: Heaven and Earth in Biblical Cosmology

• 5 - Heaven and Earth: A Spiritual Perspective: Instead of matter & energy, the world is made of heavenly & earthly components - the extremes of the duality being matter without meaning vs spiritual meaning without corporeal existence. Knowledge is the joining of spiritual and corporeal realities and is a fundamental notion in biblical cosmology. The heavens cover the earth and inform reality with meaning and purpose, while matter supports the heavens and expresses spirit by making it visible and tangible.
• 6 - The Universe as a Language: The earth was without form and dark, but Creation is a manifestation of divine language, spoken into existence and founded on meaning. Ideally, we can maintain both a spiritual perspective to understand the meaning of the universe and a material perspective to understand how the universe works.
• 7 - Symbolism and the Spiritual Worldview: Heaven is the source of spiritual meaning, earth is the source of physical expression, and everything is analogous to a written word in a divine language. Cosmic words, or symbols, are simple facts that embody a higher truth. All events are both factual and meaningful at the same time. Creation is a series of embedded re-presentations of cosmic principles. Each part of the universe can reflect a miniature version of the whole. (Genesis 1:6-13 vs Exodus 14:16-22)
• 8 - The Linguistic Rules of Symbolism: Earth presents symbols that express Heavenly principles organized to express higher meaning by the rules of alphabet, vocabulary, and grammar and follow the basic patterns of knowledge itself.
• 9 – Example: The Cherubim of Ezekiel I: You must solve the puzzle of a dichotomy to decipher symbolic structures like Ezekiel’s cherubs. Cosmic categories like thrones, cherubs, and wheels are as fundamental to cosmology as space, energy, and time are to materialism. Eagle, human, bull and lion might seem random, but they perfectly describe the inner structures of this cosmology.
• 10 – Light and Darkness: A Spiritual Perspective: To the ancients, light played a role in the process of knowledge. Light is linked with spiritual reality, while dark is linked with corporeal reality. Corporeal reality asks a question with the power to host spiritual meaning when answered, so dark matters are considered a cause of revelation and manifestation. When ideas are too abstract to understand, we require detailed examples to appreciate its ramifications.
• 11– The Spiritual and Material Dimensions: The universe was created as a union of heavenly and earthly components, each with both a spiritual and material dimension. Dimensions are symbolized by a series of layers in vertical space, with top layers light and bottom layers dark. Things that are too high are too simple to understand, while things that are too low are too complex. True knowledge is complex enough to be tangible while simple enough to be meaningful.
• 12 - Example: Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream I: The image in the dream clearly depicts the different layers between heaven and earth, with upper portions rare, supple, and bright, and lower portions common, hard, and obscure and presented in a pyramid shape (perhaps a man in a robe).
• 13 - Example: Wisdom and Understanding: Wisdom is the first principle of creation, a cosmic seed that contains the whole universe as pure information. Wisdom is too simple and contains too much information, so the role of understanding is to stretch out the heavens and develop, explain, and detail the ramifications of this seed. Knowledge is the process and final result of these interactions.

Part 3: Heaven and Earth on the Human Scale

• 14 - Humanity and the Image of God: Adam is “in the image of God,” meaning humanity is a symbol of the Creator within creation. He is the embodiment of divine knowledge, acting as a mediator between heaven and earth. This knowledge transcends itself into a form of metacognition.
• 15 - Adam as Microcosm: The Breath and the Body: Adam is created by joining a body from the earth and a breath from heaven. His existence is centered on knowledge, which refers to the union of heaven/spirit and earth/body. Human’s impetus in the universe is informing matter with meaning and expressing meaning with matter. This encompasses all human activity, including reproduction, technology, government, and science.
• 16 - Example: Manna and Flesh: Manna is seeds descended from heaven, and quails are flesh ascended from the earth. Breadmaking is like the materialization of manna. You use flour (a fine, white substance) symbolizing condensation, and make it into bread, symbolizing solidification. Quail’s preparation for consumption is a process of refinement – meat must be cleaned, tenderized, and cooked. Making bread and preparing meat are significant in the Bible as symbols of lowering meaning and raising matter for the union of heaven and earth at the human level.
• 17 - Adam as Mediator: Naming Animals and Hosting Angels: Adam is the descendant of heaven and earth and the bridge that provides the necessary communication between heaven and earth. Adam names and eats animals. Naming and eating are closely related in biblical cosmology as two examples of putting matter under the influence of your spiritual authority.
• 18 - Example: Abraham as Mediator I: Abraham acted in his role of mediator between heaven and earth when the Lord appeared to him by the Oaks of Mamre. Abraham and Sarah hosted and fed messengers (angels) from God. The tree represents the spatial axis. In a transaction between heaven and earth, Abraham receives heavenly information from angels (the promise of a seed, a future offspring) in exchange for earthly food (refined flesh and vulgarized bread).
• 19 - Sexuality as Microcosm: Adam’s Reproduction: The duality of male and female is the basis of procreation. Heaven and earth is the secondary cause of all manifestation and is the basic pattern from which all of reality was modeled. Adam is the union of heaven and earth at the cosmic level, and this union translates into a sexual union at the human level. The male is responsible for materializing meaning into seed, and the female is responsible for refining matter into food. The seed consumes the food and turns into the body that hosts its meaning.
• 20 - Sexuality as microcosm: Adam’s multiplication: Adam simultaneously refers to an individual and humanity at large because Adam is the principle of the entire human race, multiplied by a male-female dichotomy. In biblical cosmology, every single word in the language of creation has a meaning that crosses multiple levels of reality, from the universal to the particular. Because of these analogies, Bible stories can be read at multiple levels of interpretation. Every concept simultaneously refers to four scales of humanity: cosmic, individual, communal, and intercommunal.
• 21 - Example: Nebuchadnezzar’s Dreams II: In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the statue itself corresponds to the individual scale of interpretation because it is a human figure with its body parts. The head is the source of breath and language for the body, so it is the brightest and rarest metals. The lower levels are sources of power (arms) and support (legs), so they are harder and more common metals.
• 22 - Example: Raising a Nation from the Earth: When Moses climbs the holy mountain to receive a heavenly name from God, he then descends the mountain to transmit this identity to the nation of Israel and raise them from slavery in Egypt, he is a mediator between heaven and earth. The mountain is a symbol of the spiritual axis. As an identity, “being” or “I Am” suggests nothing specific but implicitly contains all of creation in its scope. The revelation of God’s identity was only the first step towards the materialization of this heavenly seed. The materialization of God’s identity required the following agreement between spiritual and corporeal realities: “All that the Lord has spoken [breath] we will do [body].” (Exodus 19:1-8)

Topics

• Abel
• Abraham
• Adam
• Anointing, Anoint, Anointed
• Body
• Bread
• Breath
• Cain
• Copernican Revolution
• Creation
• Dark
• Dentrocentric Perspective
• Dimension
• Earth
• Flesh, Meat
• Generalization
• Head
• Heaven
• I Am
• Identity
• Interpretation
• King
• Knowledge
• Language
• Law
• Light
• Man, Male
• Manna
• Material, Material Perspective, Materialism
• Meat
• Mediator, Bridge
• Moses
• Nebuchadnezzar
• Opposite
• Pillar
• Priest
• Quail
• Refinement
• Seed
• Seth
• Sexuality, Gender Roles, Procreation, Reproduction, Sex, Gestation, Pregnancy
• Specialization
• Spirit, Spiritual Perspective
• Symbol, Symbolism
• Tetramorphic Cherubs, Cherubim of Ezekiel
• Tithing, Tithe
• Vulgarization
• Wisdom
• Woman, Female, Mother

Vocabulary

• didactic: intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive.
• hegemony: leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others.
• subsume: include or absorb (something) in something else.

(The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis - A Commentary by Matthieu Pageau, 2018.)