John 1:1-3 In the beginning ....

John 1:1-3 John opens with a philosophical observation relating Jesus to the Greek theories of first causes. Aristotle, several hundred years earlier, had identified four categories of causes: formal cause; material cause; efficient cause; and final cause.

•    A change or movement's material cause is the aspect of the change or movement which is determined by the material which the moving or changing things are made of. For a table, that might be wood; for a statue, that might be bronze or marble.

•    A change or movement's formal cause is a change or movement caused by the arrangement, shape or appearance of the thing changing or moving. Aristotle says for example that the ratio 2:1, and number in general, is the cause of the octave.

•    A change or movement's efficient or moving cause consists of things apart from the thing being changed or moved, which interact so as to be an agency of the change or movement. For example, the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, or a person working as one, and according to Aristotle the efficient cause of a boy is a father.

•    An event's final cause is the aim or purpose being served by it. That for the sake of which a thing is what it is. For a seed, it might be an adult plant. For a sailboat, it might be sailing. For a ball at the top of a ramp, it might be coming to rest at the bottom.(Downloaded from Wikipedia, April, 2014)

John in various places in his writings addresses most or all of these. Here he jumps immediately to final causes. Aristotle had understood that he could not make sense of the universe, and the apparent universal operation of cause and effect, without including an immovable mover who was at the outset, not subject to this law. Whether John was explicitly invoking Greek philosophy, or simply invoking Jewish scripture describing creation (Genesis 1), or melding the two, he specifically identifies here the word of God as that creative agent. In verse 14 he then identifies Jesus as this word of God.

          John's explanation of creation differs from the model of the universe that says that after God created it, He took His hands off and let matters take their course according to natural law. John says that all things came into being through Him. This aligns perfectly with Genesis 1, which describes the process by which God spoke into existence specific things.

•    God created matter in various phases (solid and liquid are called out in 1:1& 10)

•    God created light, and by implication laws of physics that enable it. (1:3)

•    God created space, the concept of distance and volume (1:8)

•    God separated land & sea and thus created the habitat into which He would place man. (1:9-10)

•    God created biological life in plant form, and in considerable detail grass, herbs, and trees (1:11-12)

•    God created stars, the sun, and the moon (1:14-18) with a specific purpose to establish a rhythm of day and night, and seasons, and also for signs.

•    God created sea animals that live in the water, and those that fly in the air. (1:20-21)

•    God created animals that live on the land, of various sizes and types, with various mechanisms for locomotion, and to reproduce replicas faithfully. (1:24-25) Note that the concept of the genetic code was implicit in creating plants, but the faithfulness of reproduction is not explicitly called out until here. Perhaps this is because cross-breeding animal species, or the concept of evolution, seems most prone to wild flights of error as it pertains to animals. But Genesis specifically says God created the various types of animals specifically and directly, and John echoes this statement with the statement that all things were created through the Word.

•    God created humans, in His own image and likeness. (1:26-27) Thus He explicitly made humans different from animals. Most importantly is that Genesis 2:7 says that God made man a living soul. Presumably this pertains to more than just the level of intelligence of man vs animals, but includes the spiritual dimension of humanity.

          John goes even further. John 1:3 says that nothing came into existence apart from the action and agency of the Word of God. In other words, it is not just the classes of items that God created to then reproduce after their kind. Each individual instance of an item in a class was also brought into being through the specific action of the Word of God. Many people today believe that some children are not needed, are excess, unintended, or even "unwanted". This is directly counter to the revealed truth that God specifically took action to create them. The Word of God specifically took action to call each person into existence, for the specific purpose of having a relationship with him or her. God so desires relationship with each person that the circumstances of their birth are unimportant.