NOTES for Gen 1:1-2

These words are the very first in the Bible; with them the whole biblical narrative begins, and they contain a striking and very important revelation. The fact alone that the world has a beginning largely determines our attitude both toward the world and toward our own life. The world in which we live and of which we are part arose from nothing; it was created by the will of the Creator. This gives us the possibility of thinking that both the world and we ourselves are not the absurd toy of blind forces. On the contrary, at the foundation of our being lies the design of Almighty God. Saint Basil the Great wrote in the fourth century that since the world has a beginning, it will certainly have an end. In the saint's opinion, the beginning of the world already testifies that the world, and our existence, has a purpose, and a day will come when this purpose is reached.

Today let us touch God's design only by faith; only by faith do we enter the completion of the history of the created world. But in its very first lines the Bible tells us that the Spirit of God is present and active in the world, in our life. An exact translation allows the movement of the Spirit "over the waters" to be compared with the flight of a bird over a nest in which its chicks are growing. The word of God speaks of the abyss, of the chaos that creation remains without God's intervention. But the Spirit of God is present and active, and in this we are given a foretaste of His victory.