There is a phrase that runs through the entire
first chapter of the book of Genesis, which narrates the creative work. A
sentence that is repeated six times and has no more than one word, introduced
by a colon. This phrase is: good! This is the epilogue of each day of
creation, the affirmation of the good existence of the creature. God calls
his own work good. He has done it. It's good. God, the only
creative subject, by affirming the goodness of things, makes them independent,
frees them. Created by God, they are good by themselves.
When humans
make something, a painting, a house, we leave our mark, the imprint of our
personality on what we do. But when God creates, what is done has its own
consistency. For this reason, he remains expelled from the realm of the
divine. This is one of the possible theological meanings of the plural of
what is created: the waters, the luminaries, the herbs, the
animals. For ancient mythology, the Sun and the Moon, in the singular,
seem unique in their kind and are individualized as divine persons. In the
Genesis account they become luminaries and this plural gender introduces them
into the world of creation.
But suddenly a change occurs in God's
speaking. For his last creative act, God says: Let's make a human
being. Let's do. When it came to creating the rest of the things,
Genesis expressed itself in an impersonal way: Said God. But now, for the
first time, the Creator is no longer spoken of, but the Creator
speaks. Instead of it, an I. And more than an I, a you
in which the I says to itself: let's do. Before, what the Creator did was
told. Now the phrase takes on a personal meaning.
It is a self that
speaks in the plural: let's do. That means no me outside of him. It
is the plural of absolute majesty: a self that talks to itself and can only
talk to itself. And when God takes the word personally, a person appears who
does not need to be mediated by gender, someone who is no longer created
"after his kind." That's why it's not plural because being
many, each one is unique and unrepeatable. Each one is unique, with
its own name, in the image of God.
God takes one last look at what he has
created. And now he turns out… very good. God compares. He
surpasses himself. There is a scope that is stated differently: “very”
(good), that is, of a higher level than everything else.
