Everything was good and the human was very good

 

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, Yahweh 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.