creation myth

or cosmogony

Symbolic narrative of the creation and organization of the world as understood in a particular tradition.

Not all creation myths include a creator, though a supreme creator deity, existing from before creation, is very common. Myths in which the world emerges gradually emphasize the latent power of the earth. In other creation myths, the world is the offspring of primordial parents, derives from a cosmic egg, or is brought up from primordial waters by an animal or devil. Humans may be placed on earth by a god or rise from its depths or from a cultic rock or tree. There are often three stages of creation: that of primordial beings or gods, that of human ancestors who are often semidivine, and that of humans. Creation myths explain or validate basic beliefs, patterns of life, and culture. Rituals dramatize the myth and, particularly in initiations, validate the community's organization and rankings.

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Introduction

also called  cosmogonic myth 

 philosophical and theological elaboration of the primal myth of creation within a religious community. The term myth here refers to the imaginative expression in narrative form of what is experienced or apprehended as basic reality (see also myth). The term creation refers to the beginning of things, whether by the will and act of a transcendent being, by emanation from some ultimate source, or in any other way.

Nature and significance

      The myth of creation is the symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood by a particular community. The later doctrines of creation are interpretations of this myth in light of the subsequent history and needs of the community. Thus, for example, all theology and speculation concerning creation in the Christian community are based on the myth of creation in the biblical book of Genesis and of the new creation in Jesus Christ. Doctrines of creation are based on the myth of creation, which expresses and embodies all of the fertile possibilities for thinking about this subject within a particular religious community.

      Myths are narratives that express the basic valuations of a religious community. Myths of creation refer to the process through which the world is centred and given a definite form within the whole of reality. They also serve as a basis for the orientation of man in the world. This centring and orientation specify man's place in the universe and the regard he must have for other humans, nature, and the entire nonhuman world; they set the stylistic tone that tends to determine all other gestures, actions, and structures in the culture. The cosmogonic (origin of the world) myth is the myth par excellence. In this sense, the myth is akin to philosophy, but, unlike philosophy, it is constituted by a system of symbols; and because it is the basis for any subsequent cultural thought, it contains rational and nonrational forms. There is an order and structure to the myth, but this order and structure is not to be confused with rational, philosophical order and structure. The myth possesses its own distinctive kind of order.

      Myths of creation have another distinctive character in that they provide both the model for nonmythic expression in the culture and the model for other cultural myths. In this sense, one must distinguish between cosmogonic myths and myths of the origin of cultural techniques and artifacts. Insofar as the cosmogonic myth tells the story of the creation of the world, other myths that narrate the story of a specific technique or the discovery of a particular area of cultural life take their models from the stylistic structure of the cosmogonic myth. These latter myths may be etiological (i.e., explaining origins); but the cosmogonic myth is never simply etiological, for it deals with the ultimate origin of all things.

      The cosmogonic myth thus has a pervasive structure; its expression in the form of philosophical and theological thought is only one dimension of its function as a model for cultural life. Though the cosmogonic myth does not necessarily lead to ritual expression, ritual is often the dramatic presentation of the myth. Such dramatization is performed to emphasize the permanence and efficacy of the central themes of the myth, which integrates and undergirds the structure of meaning and value in the culture. The ritual dramatization of the myth is the beginning of liturgy, for the religious community in its central liturgy attempts to re-create the time of the beginning.

      From this ritual dramatization the notion of time is established within the religious community. To be sure, in most communities there is the notion of a sacred and a profane time. The prestige of the cosmogonic myth establishes sacred or real time. It is this time that is most efficacious for the life of the community. Dramatization of sacred time enables the community to participate in a time that has a different quality than ordinary time, which tends to be neutral. All significant temporal events are spoken of in the language of the cosmogonic myth, for only by referring them to this primordial model will they have significance.

      In like manner, artistic expression in archaic or “primitive” societies, often related to ritual presentation, is modelled on the structure of the cosmogonic myth. The masks, dances, and gestures are, in one way or another, aspects of the structure of the cosmogonic myth. This meaning may also extend to the tools man uses in the making of artistic designs and to the precise technique he employs in his craft.

      Mention has been made above of the fact that the cosmogonic myth situates mankind in a place, in space. This centring is at once symbolic and empirical: symbolic because through symbols it defines the spatiality of human beings in ontological terms (of being) and empirical because it orients them in a definite landscape. Indeed, the names given to the flora and fauna and to the topography are a part of the orientation of humans in a space. The subsequent development of language within a human community is an extension of the language of the cosmogonic myth.

      The initial ordering of the world through the cosmogonic myth serves as the primordial structure of culture and the articulation of the embryonic forms and styles of cultural life out of which various and differing forms of culture emerge. The recollection and celebration of the myth enable the religious community to think of and participate in the fundamentally real time, space, and mode of orientation that enables them to define their cultural life in a specific manner.

Types of cosmogonic myths

      The world as a structure of meaning and value has not appeared in the same manner to all human civilizations. There are, therefore, almost as many cosmogonic myths as there are human cultures. Until quite recently, the classification of these myths on an evolutionary scale, from the most archaic cultures to contemporary Western cultures (i.e., from the assumedly simplest to the most complex) was the most dominant mode of ordering these myths. Recent 20th-century scholars, however, have begun to look at the various types of myths in terms of the structures that they reveal rather than considering them on an evolutionary scale that extends from the so-called simple to the complex, for, in a sense, there are no simple myths regarding the beginning of the world. The beginning of the world is simultaneously the beginning of the human condition, and it is impossible to speak of this beginning as if it were simple.

Creation by a supreme being

      The 19th-century scholars who took an evolutionary survey of human culture and religion (e.g., Sir James George Frazer (Frazer, Sir James George) and Edward Burnett Tylor (Tylor, Sir Edward Burnett)) held that the notion of the creation of the world by a supreme being (providence) occurred only in the highest stage of cultural development.

      Andrew Lang (Lang, Andrew), a Scottish folklorist, challenged this conception of the development of religious ideas, for he found in the writings of anthropologists, ethnologists, and travellers evidence of a belief in a supreme being or high god (monotheism) among cultures that had been classified as the most primitive. This position was taken up and elaborated by an Austrian priest-anthropologist, Wilhelm Matthäus Schmidt (Schmidt, Wilhelm), who reversed the evolutionary theory, holding that there was a primordial notion of a supreme being, a kind of original intellectual and religious conception of a single creator god, that degenerated in subsequent cultural stages. Though Schmidt's theories of cultural historical stages and diffusion and an original primordial revelation have for the most part been discredited and abandoned, the existence of a belief in a supreme being among primitive peoples (a notion discovered by Andrew Lang) has been proven and attested to over and over again by investigators of numerous cultures. This belief has been found among the cultures of Africa, the Ainu of the northern Japanese islands, Amerindians, south central Australians, the Fuegians of South America, and in almost all parts of the globe.

      Though the precise nature and characteristics of the supreme creator deity may differ from culture to culture, a specific and pervasive structure of this type of deity can be discerned. The following characteristics tend to be common: (1) he is all wise and all powerful. The world comes into being because of his wisdom, and he is able to actualize the world because of his power. (2) The deity exists alone prior to the creation of the world. There is no being or thing prior to his existence. No explanation can therefore be given of his existence, before which one confronts the ultimate mystery. (3) The mode of creation is conscious, deliberate, and orderly. This again is an aspect of the creator's wisdom and power. The creation comes about because the deity seems to have a definite plan in mind and does not create on a trial-and-error basis. In Genesis, for example, particular parts of the world are created seriatim; in an Egyptian myth, Kheper, the creator deity, says, “I planned in my heart,” and in a Maori myth the creator deity proceeds from inactivity to increasing stages of activity. (4) The creation of the world is simultaneously an expression of the freedom and purpose of the deity. His mode of creation defines the pattern and purpose of all aspects of the creation, though the deity is not bound by his creation. His relationship to the created order after the creation is again an aspect of his freedom. (5) In several creation myths of this type, the creator deity removes himself from the world after it has been created. After the creation the deity goes away and only appears again when a catastrophe threatens the created order. (6) The supreme creator deity is often a sky god, and the deity in this form is an instance of the religious valuation of the symbolism of the sky.

      In creation myths of the above type, the creation itself or the intent of the creator deity is to create a perfect world, paradise. Before the end of the creative act or sometime soon after the end of creation, the created order or the intent of the creator deity is thwarted by some fault of one of the creatures. There is thus a rupture in the creation myth. In some myths this rupture is the cause of the departure of the deity from creation.

      An African myth from the Dogon peoples of West Africa illustrates this point. In this myth the creator deity first creates an egg. Within the egg are two pairs of twins, each pair consisting of one male and one female. These twins are supposed to mature within the egg, becoming at maturation androgynous (both male and female) beings, the perfect creatures to inhabit the earth. One of the twins breaks from the egg before maturation because he wishes to dominate the creation. In so doing he carries a part of the egg with him, and from this he creates an imperfect world. The creator deity, seeing what he has done, sacrifices the other twin to establish a balance in the world. The creation is sustained by this sacrifice, and it is now ambiguous, instead of the perfect world intended by the god.

      This myth not only shows how a rupture takes place within the myth itself but also points out the fact that the characteristics of the supreme creator deity noted above seldom exist apart from other mythological contexts. The widespread symbols of dualism (the divine twins), the cosmic egg, and sacrifice are basic themes in the structure of this African creation myth. In myths of this kind, however, prominence must always be given to the might of a powerful creator sky deity under whose aegis the created order comes into being.

Creation through emergence

      In contrast to the creation by a supreme sky deity, there is another type of creation myth in which the creation seems to emerge through its own inner power from under the earth (Earth Mother). In this genre of myth, the created order emerges gradually in continuous stages. It is similar to a birth or metamorphosis of the world from its embryonic state to maturity. The symbolism of the earth or a part of the earth as a repository of all potential form is prominent in this type of myth. In some myths of this type (e.g., the Navajo myth of emergence), the movement from a lower stage to a higher one is initiated by some fault of the people who live under the earth, but these faults are only the parallels of an automatic upper movement in the earth itself.

      Just as the supreme-creator-deity myth forms a homology to the sky, the emergence myth forms a homology to the earth and to the childbearing woman. In many cases the emergence of the created order is analogous to the growth of a child in the womb and its emission at birth. This symbolism is made clear in a Zuni myth that states,

Anon is the nethermost world, the seed of men and creatures took form and increased; even as in eggs in warm places speedily appear . . . Everywhere were unfinished creatures, crawling like reptiles one over another, one spitting on another or doing other indecencies . . . until many among them escaped, growing wiser and more manlike.

      The underworlds prior to the created order appear chaotic; the beings inhabiting these places seem without form or stability, or they commit immoral acts. The seeming chaos is moving toward a definite form of order, however, an order latent in the very forms themselves rather than from an imposition of order from the outside.

      From another perspective the emergence myth is homologous to the seed. When the homologue of the seed is referred to, the meaning of fertility and death (death rite) are at once introduced. The seed must die before it can be reborn and actualize its potentiality. This symbolism is dramatically presented in a wide range of funerary rites: one is buried in the earth in hope of a renewal from the earth, or the earth is the repository of the ancestors from whom the new generation emerges. In every case, emergence myths demonstrate the latent potency immanent in the earth as a repository of all life forms.

Creation by world parents

      Closely related to the above type of myth is the myth that states that the world is created as the progeny of a primordial mother and father. The mother and father are symbols of earth and sky, respectively. In myths of this kind, the world parents generally appear at a late stage of the creation process; chaos in some way exists before the coming into being of the world parents. In the Babylonian (Babylonia) myth Enuma elish, it is stated,

When on high the heaven had not been named

Firm ground below had not been called by name,

Naught but primordial Apsu, their begetter,

(And) Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all,

Their waters comingling as a single body;

      The Maori make the same point when they state that the world parents emerge out of po. Po for the Maori means the basic matter and the method by which creation comes about. There is thus some form of reality before the appearance of the world parents.

      Even though the world parents are depicted and described as in sexual embrace, no activity is taking place. They appear as quiescent and inert. The chthonic (underworld) structure of the earth as latent potentiality tends to dominate the union. The parents are often unaware that they have offspring, and thus a kind of indifference regarding the union is expressed. The union of male and female in sexual embrace is another symbol of completeness and totality. As in the African myth from the Dogon referred to above, sexual union is a sign of androgyny (being both male and female) and androgyny, in turn, a sign of perfection. The indifference of the world parents is thus not simply a sign of ignorance but equally of the silence of perfection. The world parents in the Babylonian and Maori myths do not wish to be disturbed by their offspring. As over against the parents, the offspring are signs of actuality, fragmentation, specificity; they define concrete realities.

      The separation of the world parents is again a rupture within the myth. This separation is caused by offspring who wish either to have more space or to have light, for they are situated between the bodies of the parents. In some myths the separation is caused by a woman who lifts her pestle so high in grinding grain that it strikes the sky, causing the sky to recede into the background, thus providing room for the activities of mankind. In both cases an antagonistic motive must be attributed to the agents of separation. In the Babylonian and Maori versions of this myth, actual warfare takes place as a result of the separation.

      Over against the primordial union of the world parents, there is the desire for knowledge and a different orientation in space. After the separation, lesser deities related to solar symbolism take precedence in the creation. The sun and light must be seen in these myths as representing the desire for a humanizing and cultural knowledge as over against the passive and inert forms of the union of the parent deities. From the point of separation, the mythic narrative of the world-parent myths states how different forms of cultural knowledge are brought to man by the offspring, the agents of separation. The separation of the world parents is the sign of a new cosmic order, an order dedicated to the techniques, crafts, and knowledge of culture.

Creation from the cosmic egg

      In the Dogon myth referred to above, the creation deity begins the act of creation by placing two embryonic sets of twins in an egg. In each set of twins is a male and female; during the maturation process they are together thus forming androgynous beings. In a Tahitian myth, the creator deity himself lives alone in a shell. After breaking out of the shell, he creates his counterpart, and together they undertake the work of creation.

      A Japanese (Japanese mythology) creation narrative likens the primordial chaos to an egg containing the germs of creation. In the Hindu (Hinduism) tradition the creation of the world is symbolized in the Chandōgya Upaniṣad by the breaking of an egg, and the universe is referred to as an egg in other sources. The Buddhists (Buddhism) speak of the transcending of ordinary existence, the realization of a new mode of being, as breaking the shell of the egg. Similar references to creation through the symbol of the egg are found in the Orphic texts of the Greeks and in Chinese myths.

      The egg is a symbol of the totality from which all creation comes. It is like a womb containing the seeds of creation. Within the egg are the possibilities of a perfect creation (i.e., the creation of androgynous beings). The egg, in addition to being the beginning of life, is equally a symbol of procreation, rebirth, and new life. In a version of the Dogon, one of the twins returns to the egg in order to resuscitate the other.

Creation by earth divers

      Two elements are important in myths of this type. There is, first, the theme of the cosmogonic water representing the undifferentiated waters that are present before the earth has been created. Secondly, there is an animal who plunges into the water to secure a portion of earth. The importance of the animal is that the creature agent is a prehuman species. This version of the myth is probably the oldest version of this genre. This basic structure of the earth-diver myth has been modified in central Europe in myths that relate the story of the primordial waters, God, and the devil. In these versions of the earth-diver myth, the devil appears as God's companion in the creation of the world. The devil becomes the diver sent by God to bring earth from the bottom of the waters. In most versions of this myth, God does not appear to be omniscient or omnipotent, often depending on the knowledge of the devil for certain details regarding the creative act—details that he learns through tricks he plays upon the devil.

      In still different versions of this myth, the relationship between God and the devil moves from companionship to antagonism; they become adversaries, though they remain as co-creators of the world. The fact that the devil has had a part in the creation of the world is one way of explaining the origin and persistence of evil (evil, problem of) in the world.

      Mircea Eliade (Eliade, Mircea), a noted 20th-century historian of religions, has pointed to another theme in certain Romanian versions of this myth. After God has instructed the devil to dive to the bottom of the waters and bring up the earth, the devil obeys, diving several times before he is able to bring up and hold on to a small portion of earth. After the creation of the world from this small portion of earth, God sinks into a profound sleep. This sleep is a sign of mental exhaustion, for only the devil and a bee know the solution to certain details of the creation, and God must, with the help of the bee, trick the devil into giving him this vital information. God's sleep, according to Eliade, is a sign of his passivity and disinterest in the world after it has been created, and it harks back to certain archaic myths in which the supreme deity retires from the world after its creation, becoming disinterested and passive in the relationship to his work.

Doctrines of creation

      Some of the major types of creation myths have been presented above. It is from myths of this sort and their dominant themes that theological and philosophical speculation have been developed in the various religious communities throughout the world.

Basic mythical themes

Primordiality

      In several myths it is stated that the primordial stuff of creation was some form of undifferentiated matter (e.g., water, chaos, a monster, or an egg). It is from this undifferentiated matter that the world evolves or is made. In the case of the egg and monster symbols, there seems to be a notion of a definite original form, but the egg is undifferentiated; for its form is vague and embryonic, and the monster figure—containing all of the forms of chaos in a terrible way—expresses the theme that chaos is not only passive (as is water) but resists creation. Although creation results as a modification of the primordial matter, however, it is this matter that determines and sets the limits to the extension of the world in space and time. Thus, in communities in which myths of this type find their expression, there are periods of mythical-ritual renewal at certain cyclical periods in which the world returns to its original chaos to rise again out of this initial state.

      When it is stated that the supreme being created the world and that there was no primordial matter prior to his being, then the determination of the world is in the mind and will of the deity. This leads to distinctive conclusions regarding the destiny of the world and man. The end (and meaning) of the world is thus not determined by the primordial matter but by the deity who created the world. It is he alone who determines the preservation, maintenance, and end of the world.

Dualisms (dualism) and antagonisms

      In emergence myths there seems to be an easy movement from one stage of creation to the next, but, as has been shown in the Navajo myth, at each subterranean level there is some type of antagonism among the developing embryonic creatures. This is one of the reasons for the separation of the creatures and the movement to another level. Though the emergence myths portray the mildest form of this antagonism, it is still present in myths of this sort.

      In the world-parent myths there is antagonism between the offspring and the parents. This is a conflict between generations, expressing the desire of the children to determine their own place and orientation in existence against the passivity of the parents.

      A dualism and antagonism is found again in the cosmic-egg myths, especially in the myths in which the egg contains twins. One twin wishes to take credit for the creation of the world alone, interrupting the harmonious growth within the egg before maturation. The faulty creation by this evil twin accounts for the ambiguous nature of the world and the origin of evil.

      This observation applies equally to the dualistic structure in some versions of the earth-diver myths. The devil moves in the various versions of this myth from the companion to the antagonist of God, possessing the power to challenge the deity.

Creation and sacrifice

      In many cosmogonic myths, the narrative relates the story of the sacrifice and dismemberment of a primordial being. The world is then established from the body of this being. In the myth (Mesopotamian mythology) Enuma elish, the god Marduk, after defeating Tiamat, the primeval mother, divides the body into two parts, one part forming the heavens, the other, the earth. In a West African myth, one of the twins from the cosmic egg must be sacrificed to bring about a habitable world. In the Norse Prose Edda, the cosmos is formed from the body of the dismembered great Ymir, and, in the Indian (Hinduism) Ṛgveda (Rigveda), the cosmos is a result of the sacrifice of man.

      In these motifs of sacrifice, something similar to the qualification of the undifferentiated matter of creation is suggested, for, just as the primal stuff of creation must be differentiated before the world appears, the sacrifice of primordial beings is a destruction of the primal totality for the sake of a specific creation.

      When the victim of the sacrifice is a primal monster, the emphasis is on the stabilization of the creation through the death of the monster. The monster symbolizes the strangeness and awesomeness occurring when a new land or space is occupied. The “monster” of the place is the undifferentiated character of the space and must be immobilized before the new space can be established.

      In a myth from Ceram (Molucca Islands), a beautiful girl, Hainuwele, has grown up out of a coconut plant. After providing the community with their necessities and luxuries, she is killed and her body cut into several pieces, which are then thrown over the island. From each part of her body a coconut tree grows. It is only after the death of Hainuwele that mankind becomes sexual; that is, the murder of Hainuwele enables mankind to have some determination in the process of bringing new life into the world.

Theological (theology) and philosophical doctrines

      Myths and poetic renderings in legends, sagas, and poetry express the basic cultural insights into some of the elements involved in the human consciousness about creation. Theological, philosophical, and scientific theory are types of rationalizations of these basic insights in terms of the particular culture and historical periods of the cultures in question.

      The attempt to integrate the meanings of primordiality, dualisms and antagonisms, sacrifices, and ruptures and to meet demands of some kind of logical order and, at the same time, keep alive the meaning of these structures as religious realities, objects of worship, and a charter for the moral life, has led to the development of doctrines.

      In “primitive” and archaic societies, the correct ritual enactment of mythical symbols ensures the order of the world. These rituals usually take place at propitious moments (e.g., at the birth of a child, marriage, the founding of a new habitation, the erection of a house or temple, the beginning of a new year). In each case, the seemingly practical activities imitate the mythic structure of the first beginning.

      Theological and philosophical speculations and controversies centre within and between religious communities over the issues of the primordial nature of reality, dualisms, the process of creation, and the nature of time and space. A doctrine of creation must contain or suggest the manner in which all cultural meanings, both empirical and abstract, constitute an integral totality. Speculations that are based on the initial insights of a mythical theme explicate some principle in the myth as a basis for generalization and logical form on which all elements and themes may be ordered.

Transcendence and otherness

      Doctrinal positions may be modelled around any or all of the themes of the cosmogonic myth. If the emphasis falls upon creation by a high god through his thought, word, or other mode, the problem of the otherness and difference between creator and creature becomes a source of theological discussion and philosophical speculations. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islām, the classical locus of this issue is found. All of these religions have theological traditions that raise this problem. Related to this issue is the transcendence and arbitrary action of the creator deity. Because he is prior to the world and its creatures, the question arises whether there are modes of creaturely knowledge or apprehension that are capable of knowing him; of whether he is subjected to the same categories of being as his creatures; of whether his time and space are the same time and space of his creation.

      To some extent, the a priori nature of this type of deity creates an apparent dualism between the creator and the world and creatures. This dualism is mediated in various forms in the traditions. In Judaism it is mediated through nature and the covenant Yahweh has with his people; in Christianity through the mediatorship of his son, Jesus Christ; and in Islām through the sacred word of the Qurʾān by the prophet Muḥammad. Even within these traditions, however, the transcendent nature of the deity and his mediatorship through some other being or principle does not settle the doctrinal issue, for different cultural-historical periods of these traditions offer a variety of theological speculation concerning the nature and meaning of the deity, the world, and the mediator. The traditions offer a structure through which such speculation is ordered and clarified.

Creation through emanations

      The theme of emergence is related to theological and philosophical notions of emanations from a single principle and the idea of the transmutation of being. Ideas of this kind are found in “primitive” religion (Dogon, Polynesian), in Daoism, and in the Pre-Socratic philosophers Thales and Anaximander.

      In one version of the Dogon myth, creation proceeds from a small seed. Within the seed spontaneous movements begin. These movements, which burst from the shell of the seed and make contributions in space, create all forms of beings and the universe. Similarly, in the Polynesian (Polynesian culture) myth Ta-aroa develops the world out of himself and the shell in which he lived.

      A pervasive theme in Chinese thought is that of a universe in a perpetual flux. This flux follows a fixed and predictable pattern either of eternal oscillation between two apparently opposed poles or of a cyclical movement in a close orbit. The oscillation pattern is expressed by the yinyang doctrine of Daoism. In the theory of the Five Phases (wuxing), a cyclical movement is correlated with the five phases, each of which bears the name of a mineral: earth, wood, metal, fire, and water. These in turn form an equivalence with the third month of summer and with spring, autumn, summer, and winter, respectively. These parallelisms then form equivalences with the five directions, and they in turn with the five primary colours. Ancient Chinese thinkers never discuss an initial conscious act of creation. The cyclical movement itself produced the empirical and abstract form of the cosmos. The oscillation between yin and yang forms a correlation in all phenomena extending to the realms of time, space, number, and ethics.

      Thales (Thales of Miletus) thought that the fundamental principle of cosmos was water. The earth floated on water; water was the natural cause of all things. Anaximander taught that there was an eternal undestructible something out of which everything arises and everything returns. In other words, the fundamental substratum of the world could not be an element of the world. The importance of Anaximander was in his use of the term archē (“beginning” or “rule”) to refer to a principle unlike any other principle or element in the world to explain the cause of all other things in the universe.

Dualisms

      Dualistic conceptions of creation come to the fore in the theme of earth-diver myths, in which there is an antagonism between the co-creators of the universe. This conception is present again in myths of divine twins and in Zoroastrianism where the Ormazd (Ahura Mazdā) and Ahriman represent the creative and destructive principles in creation. In some sense this is not an ontological dualism for the first creative act of Ormazd was the limitation of time and thus the limitation of the power of Ahriman to carry out his destruction. Doctrines of this kind are related to the origin of evil in the world.

Skepticism regarding creation

The unknowability of creation

      Alongside the various myths and doctrines regarding creation, there are equally skeptic positions concerning the unknowability of creation. This critique is present in several religious and philosophical traditions. It may be correlated with the mythical meaning of deus otiosus, the deity who retires from the world after his creation, or with the mythic theme from some earth-diver myths that emphasize the physical and intellectual fatigue of the deity after creation. In the first case, the removal of the deity from creation leaves no access to his plan or will; in the other case, because of the fatigue of the deity who has exhausted all of his knowledge in creation, there is thus nothing for man to learn from him.

      In the Indian (Indian philosophy) tradition the Rigveda, an ancient sacred text, expresses skepticism in this manner:

He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it

all or did not form it,

Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily

knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

      The Buddha (Buddhism) declared certain cosmological and metaphysical questions unanswerable. His refusal to answer questions of this kind gave rise to the “silence of the Buddha” as a philosophical style in Buddhism. They included such questions as: whether the world is eternal or not or both; whether the world is finite (in space) or infinite or both or neither.

      In the Chinese tradition Guo Xiang (Kuo Hsiang) (died AD 312) questioned the origin of the basic oscillation of the Daoist movement. For Guo there is no such thing as Non-Being for Being is the only reality. Being could not have evolved from Non-Being nor can it revert to Non-Being. As Guo Xiang put it,

I venture to ask whether the Creator is or is not? If He is not, how can He create things? If He is, then (being one of these things), He is incapable of creating the mass of bodily forms. . . . The creating of things has no Lord; everything creates itself. Everything produces itself and does not depend on anything else. This is the normal way of the universe.

       Skepticism of this same kind is expressed by Parmenides, a Pre-Socratic, and in the modern tradition of Western philosophy from Immanuel Kant's (Kant, Immanuel) Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1st ed. 1781; Eng. trans., Critique of Pure Reason, 1929) to Ludwig Wittgenstein's (Wittgenstein, Ludwig) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922). Skepticism of this kind about the nature of the cosmic order and especially about the ultimate origin of the universe places limitations on the possibility of the rational consciousness to authentically ask these questions. In some instances theologians have agreed and held to a notion of revelation as a response to these unanswerable questions. In other cases, the questions themselves have been labelled nonsensical.

Hartshorne and Reese

      Charles Hartshorne (Hartshorne, Charles) and William Reese, 20th-century U.S. philosophers, have attempted to clarify and criticize all possible rational reflections concerning the relationship of deity to the universe. They state two opposed positions. The first is that of classical theism in which there is the admission of plurality, potentiality, becoming, as a secondary form of existence outside of God. The other position, that of classical pantheism, says that though God includes all within himself, he cannot be complex or mutable, for such categories only express human ignorance and illusion. They attempt to overcome this dilemma by combining these contrary poles into a dipolar conception of the meaning of deity. Because classical theism is primarily a Western approach to the problem and classical pantheism an Eastern approach, the dipolar conception is at the same time a synthesis of Western and Eastern thought. In addition to this, these philosophers set forth a method of analyzing all conceptions of deity and world according to basic religious and rational categories. As metaphysicians they go far in refuting the skepticism regarding rational knowledge of the relationship between the deity and the universe.

Charles H. Long

Additional Reading

Cosmogonic myths

Charles H. Long, Alpha: The Myths of Creation (1963), gives examples of various types of cosmogonic myths from different cultures. For ancient Near Eastern myths, see Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed. by James B. Pritchard, 3rd ed. with suppl. (1969). Johannes Pedersen, Israel, 4 vol. (Eng. trans. 1926–40), is a cultural-religious study that shows the relationship between creation myth, land, and kinship system. For the nature and structure of myths and symbols, see Ernst Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, 4 vol. (1953–56; Eng. trans., The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, 3 vol., 1953–55); and Joan O'Brien and Wilfred Major, In the Beginning: Creation Myths from Ancient Mesopotamia, Israel, and Greece (1982).

The development and structure of Greek myths

John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 4th ed. (1930, reprinted 1963), is a well-written interpretation of the pre-Socratic myths of creation. Arnold Ehrhardt, The Beginning (1968), shows the common structure of the cosmologies of the Gospel According to John and pre-Socratic thinkers.

Christian doctrine

For a theological history of the Christian doctrine of creation in its variety and continuity, see Jaroslav Pelikan, Development of Christian Doctrine (1969), The Christian Tradition (1971), and Historical Theology: Continuity and Change in Christian Doctrine (1971). John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology (1966), presents a structural and systematic analysis of the elements of Christian theology, showing how the doctrine of creation fits into theological systems.

Islām

De Lacy O'Leary, Arabic Thought and Its Place in History, rev. ed. (1939, reprinted 1963), deals with the internal and external sources of Arabic philosophy and cosmology. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (1964), explicates a tradition in Arabic thought that expresses creation in symbolic and cosmological images.

Zoroastrianism

Several Zoroastrian myths and doctrines of creation are found in R.C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (1961).

Chinese philosophy

Arthur F. Wright (ed.), Studies in Chinese Thought (1953), brings together 10 essays on various aspects of Chinese thought; most valuable is Derk Bodde, “Harmony and Conflict in Chinese Philosophy,” pp. 19–80. For a history of Chinese philosophical speculation as it relates to cosmogony and cosmology, see Fung Yu-Lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1952–53).

Indian philosophy

Speculations about creation in the various schools of Indian philosophy can be found in Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, 5 vol. (1922–55). Alain Danielou, Le Polythéisme hindou (1960; Eng. trans., Hindu Polytheism, 1964), is a description and interpretation of the gods of Hinduism in relationship to their philosophical meaning. T.R.V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (1955), is an explication of the Mādhyamika system of Buddhist philosophy that denies creation.

Comparative works

Hajime Nakamura, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples (1964), is a comparative work showing the similarities and contrasts between Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, and Japanese modes of thought especially as they concern creation. C.F. von Weizsacker, The Relevance of Science: Creation and Cosmogony (1964), deals with the evolution of thought about creation from myth to scientific theory. Charles Hartshorne and William Reese (eds.), Philosophers Speak of God (1953), explores the rational bases for several conceptions of God and creation in Eastern and Western thought.

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