What strikes me as most important about the Creation story in Genesis 1 is that it occupies only a fraction of the Biblical record. It seems to indicate that there is a break, in humanity, with the processes that ruled evolution for billions of years.
Indeed, this is the impact of the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex does two things: figures out what things happen together (aggregation of sensation) and construction of motor responses that turn events to our benefit. With humans, imagination – the ability of higher cognitive processes to stimulate perceptual networks – eventually fostered self-awareness, language, and cultures that allocated specialized roles.
The greatest part of the Bible is concerned with development of moral reason to regulate the primitive urges driven by the lower mental processes. The detailed record in the Pentateuch – elided in the Christian Old Testament – reveals the magnificent transformations that occurred in the character of the individuals taken under Divine tutelage.
For this reason, I have chosen to focus the final decades of my life on understanding the adaptive capacities of the human mind. The patriarchs, prophets, and apostles lacked the terminology to communicate the changes wrought within their minds (much as the record of Creation and Revelation only dimly reveal the factors that drove genetic selection). The psychological knowledge that I have gained serves, with every reading of scripture, to amplify my awe regarding the patience, determination, and tenderness of the Creator that guides the maturation of human nature.
The most important of the Creator’s works is the human mind.
On this day, then, let us recognize that Jesus came to teach us that death is an illusion. The individual determination to stay alive – to keep soul joined to body – is the driver of so much destruction in human history. Let us resolve, then, when confronting difficulties, to do as Jesus did: surrender gracefully so that our love may sustain those that remain to bear witness to our virtues.
Love Returns 