Scripture never teaches a merely-mono theism, but from the first pages bears traces of divine diversity and internal interactivity. Already in the creation account (Gen 1:1-2:3), we see proto-Trinitarian traces fully unveiled in the revelation of God as Father, Son, and Spirit.
This is an ancient claim. At a superficial level, Augustine found more or less explicit references to the Triune Persons in Genesis 1. The first two verses in the Bible name God (the Father) and the Spirit, and Augustine argues that “beginning” refers to the Son (cf. Col 1:18). Whenever Genesis declares “God said,” it names both the Father and His Word, and, according to Augustine, “God saw” names the Father and the Spirit, since the Spirit is the divine Goodness and hypostatic Delight through whom the Father rejoices in the goodness of His creatures.
In addition to these surface references, Augustine uncovers a Trinitarian deep structure in the work of creation. Creation is a single act, performed simultaneously by the Three Persons. To put it in the classic language that Augustine inspired, since it is an opera ad extra, creation is indivisa. Yet this single act is Triunely differentiated as creatio, conversio or vocatio, and formatio. The Father founded the creation, both by forming the ideas of creation within the Logos and by creating formless stuff from nothing. As “beginning,” the Son is the arche and principio of creation. To say God created “in the beginning” is thus to say the first creation is the founding of creatures as eternal reasons within the Word. As the agent of formatio, the Spirit gives each thing a dynamic orientation to the Father, represented in Genesis 1 by the declaration “It was so.”[1]
Augustine’s Trinitarian reading of Genesis 1 depends, of course, on other, later Scriptures. I take it that Augustine regarded John, Paul, and others are authoritative interpreters of Genesis 1, and I make the same assumption in what follows. At the same time, I aim to trace out several lines of argument to show that a Trinitarian reading is not merely a reading-back, but is supported by details of the Hebrew text.
‘elohim
The God who creates the world in Genesis 1 is named by the Hebrew plural ‘elohim. In Canaanite usage, the singular ‘el is the name of the Creator and Father of the gods, sometimes of a warrior god (‘el gibbor), a judge, or a patriarch. In many places in the Hebrew Bible, the word retains its plural meaning. The same Hebrew word describes both Yahweh, the ‘elohim of Exodus (Exod 20:1), and the “gods” whom Israel is forbidden to place before His face (Exod 20:3; cf. Gen 31:30; Deut 13:2; Isa 42:17). In the vast majority of cases, when ‘elohim designates the God of Israel, it takes singular verbs and is modified by singular adjectives. The first clause of the Old Testament is representative: “God created” is bara’ ‘elohim, a plural subject with a singular verb.
The same unusual grammar appears in other Ancient Near Eastern languages. Plural forms of “god” take singular verbs and adjectives in Canaanite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, a few Aramaic texts, and first-millennium Akkadian.[2] Joel Burnett concludes ‘elohim and these cognates function as “concretized abstract plural[s],” denoting “deity,”[3] just as the plural “virgins” denotes the abstract quality of “virginity” (Lev 21:13; Deut 22:14, 15, 17).[4]
Yet the plural may also be a kind of superlative, implying that the referent sums up all the conditions, qualities, and attributes inherent in the idea denoted by the stem. That is, ‘elohim is the fullness of all one expects of an ‘el. Other abstract plurals function in the same way: Abraham is Eleazar’s ‘adomim because he embodies all the best qualities of “master” or “lord” (Gen 24:9), and our eyes look to the Lord our God just as servants look to the hand of their “masters” (Psa 123:2).[5] Yahweh is ‘adonai, an archaic plural of ‘adon, “lord” or “master” (Gen 15:2, 8; Exod 4:10, 13; Josh 3:11, 13; 2 Sam 7:18-22; etc.): “Lords Yahweh.”
Further, in some passages about ‘elohim’s rescue of Israel from Egypt, the word oscillates between singular and plural. “I am Yahweh your ‘elohim, who brought you up from the land of Egypt,” is Yahweh’s first-person singular declaration from Sinai (Exod 20:1). Yet Yahweh delivers through the destroyer (Exod 12:23), and leads by the “angel of God” mal’ak ha’elohim (Exod 14:19) and the pillar of cloud and fire (Exod 13:22; 14:19). Burnett suggests that Psalm 78:48-50 depicts a small army of “minor deities” helping Yahweh to deliver Israel, as it personifies Hail, Pestilence, Anger, Fury, Death, and Plague. In the song of the sea, Miriam leads Israel in praise of Yahweh, His “right hand,” His “burning,” and His “breath” (Exod 15:6-7, 10).[6] He is “God of gods” – superlatively God – because he harnesses all the powers attributed to other gods to accomplish His purposes. He is ‘elohim in that He possesses all these powers in himself, for the right hand is His, the fury and anger are His, the burning is the flashing of the God who is Himself a consuming fire. With all these indications of plurality, Yahweh remains an “I.” He remains Yahweh, Israel’s God, who is one (Deut 6:4-6).
Burnett’s work offers a roundabout way of taking ‘elohim as an indication of divine plurality. Since Peter the Lombard, Christians have often opted for the shorter route: as plural ‘elohim points directly, if obscurely, to the reality of the Trinity. In his de tribus Elohim, the Italian Reformer Giralamo Zanchi (Zanchius) claims that the term indicates there are “three Gods according to the thing,” since “there are three persons, each of whom is God.” His preferred formula is closer to traditional Trinitarian confessions, more or less equating the persons with ‘elohim and the unified substance with Yahweh: “there are indeed plural Elohim, but only one Jehovah: and that each of these Elohim is Jehovah.”[7]
The Shema is one of Zanchi’s key pieces of evidence, since it employs the plural ‘elohim in a passage emphasizing the oneness of Israel’s God. Israel confesses “that Jehovah is one, although we teach that there are plural and distinct Elohim.” The Shema provides the “sum of this doctrine, [that] there is only one true and eternal God – truly distinguished three Elohim or ‘persons,’ Father, Son and Holy Spirit: of which each is God, Jehovah, such that there are not many Jehovahs, but they are all simultaneously only one Jehovah.” Since, Zanchi thinks, “Jehovah” derives from the Hebrew verb “is,” it signifies the single being of God, while ‘elohim points to the plurality of hypostases.
Zanchi’s reading of the Shema gains strength in the light of 1 Corinthians 8:1-6, which N.T. Wright calls Paul’s “redefinition” of the Shema. The echoes of the Shema are evident: In a world of many gods and many lords (v. 5), there is “for us” Christians only “one God” (vv. 4, 6), the Creator. For a Jew like Paul, creational monotheism is “what matters”; it is second nature. Shockingly, Paul revises this central Jewish confession. The Septuagint of the Shema confesses the oneness of both theos (God) and kurios (Lord, Yahweh), but Paul splits the terms: The Father is the “one God” and Jesus is the “one Lord.” Paul places Jesus “at the heart” of the Jewish confession of the one God, confessing a “Christological monotheism.”[8]
I think Wright is right, but, in view of Zanchi’s argument, “redefinition” is not quite the right word. Rather, Paul interprets the Shema, where the names of God already hint at unity-and-plurality. ‘elohim is already associated with the Father as Creator (in Genesis 1); the Angel-Messenger of Yahweh is already identified with Yahweh, and so easily identified with the kurios Jesus. Paul states openly what the Shema declared in a veiled manner. In a world of powers, for Israel as for “us,” there is one God, ‘elohim, and one Lord.
All this supports the conclusion that, from the first mention of God in Genesis 1, He is named as plural. The author of Genesis 1 is no merely-mono theist who worships a monadic God. He proclaims instead the works of ‘elohim.
Word and Spirit
Augustine was correct to discern Trinitarian hints in the combination of Spirit and speech. The Spirit (ruach) appears first, hovering over the waters (Gen 1:2). ruach can mean “breath,” “wind,” or “Spirit.” Though most English translations retain the traditional translation “Spirit of God,” recent commentators and translators have argued for “wind,” claiming that “Spirit,” especially when capitalized, overly Christianizes an ancient text. They take ‘elohim as an adjective (“mighty,” “divine”) or as a genitive of source (“of God”). Thus: “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and a mighty wind/wind from God hovered on the face of the waters.” On this reading, the mighty wind or “fearful storm” doesn’t form the formless waste, but, along with the darkness and formless-void, is a feature of original chaos.[9]
But the arguments for the traditional translation are compelling. The ruach is on ‘elohim’s side of the Creator-creation divide. As Augustine notes, the Spirit is in a position of superiority to the earth, hovering above it, moving as a bird hovers over an egg or protectively over its young (see Deut 32:11). The ruach is (at least) the operation of ‘elohim as He shapes and fills the formless void.
More broadly, “none of the other eighteen occurrences of this phrase [ruach of Elohim] in the OT means anything like ‘mighty wind’” (e.g., (Exod 31:3; 35:31; Num 24:2; 1 Sam 10:10; 16:14).[10] In Exodus 31:3, Bezalel is filled with the ruach ‘elohim to forge the vessels of the tabernacle. The passage is closely parallel to Genesis 1, insofar as “the creation of a world [is analogous] to the creation of a shrine.”[11] The ruach equips Bezalel with skill or wisdom to carry out a work of sub-creation. Further, ‘elohim is almost never used unambiguously as a superlative (cf. Gen 23:6; 30:8; Jon 3:3), and even if it’s a superlative elsewhere, it’s not in the creation account. After all, ‘elohim is used 35 times in Genesis 1:1-2:3, and everywhere else it clearly means “God.” How could a reader be expected to distinguish the adjectival ‘elohim in 1:2 from the other 34 uses of the noun ‘elohim as a name for God?
When ruach means “wind,” it usually implies destruction rather than creation (Exod 15:10; Isa 11:15; 40:7). When it means “breath” or “spirit” it implies energy, vitality, “creating and not uncreating.” If the ruach of Genesis 1:2 is a beneficent power, it should be translated as “Spirit” rather than “wind.”The verb “hover” (participle of rachaph) doesn’t describe the movement of wind. Deuteronomy 32:10-11 uses the same verb to describe “how a bird teaches its young to fly.”[12] That Deuteronomy passage also echoes Genesis 1:2 by using the word tohu (“waste” or “formless”) with reference to the wilderness. Thus, in Deuteronomy 32, Moses evokes the Spirit’s work in creation, comparing Him not to a rushing wind, but to a protective, nurturing eagle who guards, encircles, and cares for its young, “freeing” them to soar.
Later Scriptures that speak of creation by word and Spirit/breath draw from Genesis 1:2 (Job 33:4; Psa 33:6). Psalm 104:27-30 is among the most significant. The Psalm as a whole blesses Yahweh for His work of creation. He lays the foundation of the earth and covers it with a garment of water (104:5-6). When he rebukes the waves, they retreat and the mountains rise (104:7-9). God waters earth with springs, which quench the thirst of beasts, donkeys, and birds (104:10-13), and causes grass to grow for cattle and trees and vines for mankind (104:14-17). God tends and feeds the beasts in the remotest parts of the mountains and forests (104:18-23). In that context, verses 27-30 highlights creation’s dependence on God. He feeds all flesh, and when he hides His face, they are “dismayed.” Each creature’s breath (ruach) is a gift from God, and when He takes it away, they return to the dust (v. 29). But when He sends out his own ruach, creatures are newly created (bara’) and he renews the face of the ground (‘adamah). bara’ is a relatively rare verb, and is used in conjunction with ruach in only two passages, Genesis 1:2 and Psalm 104:30. The latter is clearly speaking of Yahweh’s Spirit – not a wind – as the Creator’s active creative power. The Psalmist provides an inner-biblical interpretation of Genesis 1:2. In sum, the “Creator” of Genesis 1 is, at least, ‘elohim (already plural) and the Spirit of ‘elohim.
No sooner does the Spirit make an appearance than God speaks his first fiat. That God creates by word is one of the most obvious and distinctive biblical claims about creation (Psa 33:6; 148:5; John 1:1-5; 2 Cor 4:6; Heb 11:3). There are vague parallels in Egyptian and Babylonian myth, but nothing truly comparable.[13] Augustine concludes that the “voice of God” refers to “the intelligible meaning of the audible utterance, Let light be made, and not the audible utterance itself.” If it’s “intelligible” rather than “audible,” the speech can be eternal and changeless, belonging “to the very nature of the Word,” who is co-eternal with God.[14] Augustine is content with that, because a purely intelligible, inaudible voice in the Son doesn’t implicate God in change or time. Though I disagree with Augustine’s conclusion that the Creator’s voice is inaudible, he is right to emphasize that the word of creation is the Word. That is the clear import of John’s interpretation of Genesis 1 (John 1:1-5).
Once we recognize John’s intention to interpret Genesis 1, we might find other hints of Triune life in his Prologue. The Word was God and “with [pros] God” (John 1:1-2). How pros? It seems a throwaway preposition, but Sergius Bulgakov suggests it indicates “the Holy Spirit as the hypostatic love of the Father and the Son.” The Word creates in conjunction with the Spirit, through whom the creation “received reality and life.” “In Him was life,” John continues (John 1:4). What life? Bulgakov again finds a veiled reference to the Spirit: John “refers to the Life-giving Spirit, who reposes upon the Son and, with Him, constitutes the Dyad of the self-revelation of the Father, while abiding ‘in him.’” The light (1:9) is Christ, but “in the ecclesiastical literature it also frequently refers to the Holy Spirit.” The incarnate Son reveals the glory of the Father and comes with the fullness of grace and truth, and these too are manifestations of the Spirit, who is the Glory, the Agent of glorification, and the Grace that rests on the Son. John’s Prologue isn’t simply a “logology” but “a complete trinitarian theology, including a pneumatology, though the latter is expressed almost tacitly, in a mere breath.”[15] And John teases out this Trinitarian account of creation from a meditation on Genesis in the light of the incarnation of the Word.
The first verses of Genesis reveal a God who takes a plural name. In a shadowy form, the first verses also reveal the ones who are this God – ‘elohim who creates and speaks, his Spirit who shapes and fills, and the Word of ‘elohim that summons light, shapes the cosmos, and calls living souls from earth and sea.
Let Us Make
Trinitarian interpretations of Genesis 1:26 have been common since the early centuries. Justin, Irenaeus, Basil, Augustine, Calvin, Zanchi, and Barth all interpret the “us” as divine self-consultation. There are, of course, alternative interpretations.[16] Of late, the most popular is that ‘elohim addresses the divine council, the angelic hosts who assist him in the creation of man. That interpretation suffers from crippling flaws. To this point in Genesis, there is not the slightest hint that any divine council exists.[17] It would be odd for them to be consulted without any mention of their creation.
Further, Scripture nowhere indicates that man is made in the image of angels, nor that angels are made in the image of God. Man, male and female, is alone in the image of God. Within Genesis 1, the grammar works against this interpretation. After using the plural “Let us make,” the narrator describes the execution of the plan with singular verbs: “God (‘elohim) created man in his own image (betzalmo), in the image of God he created (bara’) him; male and female he created (bara’) them” (1:27).
If “us” plan to create man, why do “they” not do the creating? Whoever is included in the “us” of 1:26 is included in the ‘elohim and the His/He of 1:27. We have the same interplay of singular and plural in Genesis 1:26-27 that we have throughout the chapter. Genesis 1:26 reveals more explicitly what we suspect from 1:1: That the Creator is somehow plural, somehow capable of being speaker to himself as other, somehow capable of being an “us” or a “we,” while remaining a “he.”
The plural of Genesis 1:26 is better described as a plural of “fullness” or “duality” than a plural of majesty.[18] It’s possible that ‘elohim addresses the Spirit, who is introduced in Genesis 1:2, and is the only other explicitly named divine being in the creation account. On this reading, the man is made in the image of ‘elohim and his Spirit. Given the association of Spirit and glory elsewhere in the Old Testament, the text would be pointing to the man as a manifestation of the glory of Yahweh.[19]
God and God
The entire account is structured by interactions between ‘elohim and ‘elohim. Most days of the creation week begin with God speaking and end with God seeing and evaluating the day’s work as “good.”[20] Day 1 begins with ‘elohim saying “Let there be light” (1:3) and ends with ‘elohim seeing the light is good (1:3). On Day 3, God speaks to divide the waters below so dry land can appear and judges that to be good (1:9-10), then speaks to the now-exposed earth to spring up with “good” grasses and trees (1:11-13). On some days, God’s evaluation is followed by further actions – calling (1:5), blessing (1:22). Like the week as a whole, each day begins with God’s creating and speaking and ends with God seeing that all is very good (1:31).
In the Bible, “seeing” is associated with judgment and evaluation. Eyes are organs of evaluation (cf. Psa 11). When ‘elohim sees the work of each day, He’s judging the quality of the work done and the quality of the products of the day’s work. Since ‘elohim is also the speaker and actor who labors during each day, ‘elohim’s evaluation is a self-evaluation. Throughout the creation week, God judges God. Each day is a microcosm of cosmic history, beginning with the utterance of God and culminating in a final word of judgment.
It’s possible, of course, to conceive this self-judgment narrowly: The one person of ‘elohim initiates each day’s work and, at the end of each day, commends his own performance. That is conceivable, but it more plausible that the ‘elohim who makes and the ‘elohim who evaluates are somehow distinct. We might say, for instance, that at the end of each day ‘elohim evaluates and commends the work of His own Spirit, who hovers over the waters.
When we read Genesis 1 in the light of John 1, this suspicion becomes not only plausible but nearly inevitable. If the Word by which the Father creates is God-with-God, God-toward-God, then the judgments at the end of each day are the Father’s judgments of the Son’s work. Since the Son does all he does in the power of the Spirit, the Father commends both equally. Having established His throne in heaven, the Father issues decrees to be executed by the Son and Spirit, and passes judgment on the goodness of their work. Or, more tightly, the Son is the decree that the enthroned Creator utters by the breath of His Spirit.
On certain days of the creation week, ‘elohim speaks and then makes (1:6-7, 20-21). Here the created product is not a direct or immediate result of God’s speech. Instead, God’s speech functions like a pattern or plan that ‘elohim follows in producing what was spoken.[21] Echoes of this plan-execution pattern are evident later in creation-like passages of Torah. Yahweh’s instructions for the tabernacle are laid out in seven speeches, each marked by the introductory clause, “Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying” (Exod 25:1; 30:11, 17, 22, 34; 31:1, 12). The last speech (31:12-17) reiterates the Sabbath command, and the section concludes with “when he had finished speaking” (kekalloto ledaber), an echo of Genesis 2:1 (wayekullu). Each speech provides instructions for Moses to build according to the tabnit, the pattern he sees and hears on the mountain (Exod 25:9). Moses receives a spoken image of the laver (Exod 30:17-21), for instance, and later makes it (Exod 38:8). In this new creation, the tasks are distributed between God and man: Yahweh serves as architect, Moses as builder. That’s a hint of a distribution of tasks in the original creation, between God and God: God the Speaker and Architect, whose word is followed by God the Maker.
Day 4 provides a further variation on this pattern. God speaks (“Let there be lights”), makes, and then places or gives (natan) the lights in the firmament (Gen 1:14-17). Again, there is an analogy with the construction of the tabernacle. God speaks the pattern to Moses, Moses assigns the task to skilled workmen, and finally Moses places (natan) the items of tabernacle furniture within the tent (Exod 40:6, 7, 8, 18, 20, 22, 30, 33). Here the tasks are distributed in three directions: Yahweh is architect, Spirit-filled men and women make (Exod 31:1-5; 36:1-2), and Moses places the made-work in Yahweh’s dwelling. In Genesis 1, ‘elohim himself performs all the distributed tasks. ‘elohim commands ‘elohim, and, having made the lights ‘elohim commands, ‘elohim places them in the sky.
In Genesis 1, then, we have the skeleton of the later Cappadocian insight that God’s works are patterned by the Trinitarian Persons, following the prepositional Trinitarianism of Romans 11:36: “from him and through him and to him are all things.” God the Father initiates, the Son executes, and the Spirit completes. Or, God the Father speaks the Word that is realized by the Spirit. Or, the Father pours out the Spirit, which rests on the Son to carry out the Father’s purposes in the power of the Spirit. Or, the Father speaks his plan; the Word is the plan the Father speaks; and the Spirit executes the plan of the Father that is the Word.
Only the Trinity Can Create
The Bible never teaches a merely-mono theism, not even for a single verse. As soon as God is named, we have a hint of plurality within the life of the Creator. As we read the account of creation, that whisper becomes more audible. And those hints of divine plurality provide the only coherent ground for the biblical teaching concerning creation. In fact, the Father, Son, and Spirit created all things. But it’s also the case that only the Triune God can create.
Creation is an act of sovereign independence. A Demiurge can shape pre-existing material, as much as the material permits. Shaping is not creating. A Creator must not be dependent on pre-existing material, hemmed in by its limits and resistances. And a Creator must be capable of making and doing as He wills. No monadic, unitarian God can be sovereign and independent in the way a Creator must be.
Think, first, of the life of a unitarian God without creation, then with creation. Absent creation, this God is utterly alone. Since there is no other, there is no communion or love. It doesn’t matter if the unitarian God possesses infinite potential for mercy, kindness, and love, for un-enacted love is not love. Further, absent creation, a unitarian God is unproductive, barren. He does not, by nature, beget or breathe out. He is unfruitful and uncreative in himself.[22] Once this unitarian God forms a world outside, everything changes. Now he encounters an other. Now his infinite potential for communion begins to be realized in action. Now he is fruitful, and his light has radiance. Notice what has happened: The unitarian god can only realize the fullness of his divine life if he makes the world, and so he is dependent on the world for his full realization. He hasn’t created, because he has not acted with sovereign independence.
It’s not even clear that such a God can make anything outside himself. If there is no active productivity within the life of God, then by what mechanism does he become productive? This is not merely a question of mutability – the change from an unfruitful to a fruitful being. It is a matter of possibility: If the God is not productive in himself, he requires something other than himself to become productive. He cannot be Creator God, because his Creator-Godness, his capacity for producing a world, is dependent on an external catalyst.
Now, consider the life of the Triune God without, then with creation. The Triune God is an eternal communion of Persons, living eternally with other and other, relation and relationship among the Persons. This God’s love isn’t merely potential love; His love is eternally actualized in the Father’s love for the Son that is the Spirit. None of His attributes are merely potential, because He eternally enacts and realizes His justice, truth, faithfulness, jealous love, holiness in the communion of three Persons. He needs nothing other than himself to realize himself. Besides, the Triune God is fruitful within Himself. The Father, Athanasius says, has a “generative nature,” eternally producing the Other who is the Son through the other Other who is the Spirit. He is root and fruit, source, radiance, and diffusion. Since He is naturally and eternally productive, He can be a source for creation. Productivity is not alien to His life, not a potentiality realized in the production of the creation. Love for an Other is inherent in the life of God, and so it is natural for God to love a creation that is not God.
The choice is between a God who remains sovereign and independent only by remaining alone and barren, only by having no realm to rule; or, the living Triune God. And that choice is posed to us at the outset of the Bible, in the proto-Trinitarian creation account of Genesis 1.
Peter Leithart is President of Theopolis.
[1] The summary offered here is drawn from Augustine’s Literal Interpretation of Genesis and Confessions, with the help of Scott Dunham, The Trinity and Creation in Augustine: An Ecological Analysis (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2008); Jared Ortiz, “You Made Us For Yourself”: Creation in St. Augustine’s Confessions (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016); Gavin Ortland, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2020)
[2] Joel S. Burnett, A Reassessment of Biblical Elohim (SBL Dissertation Series #183; Atlanta: SBL, 2001) 7-53.
[3] Burnett, Reassessment, 53.
[4] Burnett, Reassessment, 22.
[5] Burnett, Reassessment, 21. Burnett observes that not every plural implies this kind of perfected fullness (22), which is why he prefers to call the plural form an abstract plural.
[6] Burnett, Reassessment, 87-89.
[7] See the English translation of Books 1-3 of Zanchi’s treatise at https://nsa.edu/assets/documents/On%20The%20Triune%20Elohim%20Books%201-3.pdf. For an extensive discussion, see Benjamin R. Merkle, Defending the Trinity in the Reformed Palatinate: the Elohistae (Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs; Oxford: OUP, 2016) ch. 4.
[8] “One God, One Lord, One People: Incarnational Christology for a Church in a Pagan Environment,” https://chamberscreek.net/library/N.%20T.%20Wright/wright1998one.html.
[9] “Fearful storm” comes from Gerhard von Rad, Genesis (rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972) 49-50.
[10] Victor Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990) 111. Hamilton leaves open the question of whether ruach should be translated as “wind” or “spirit,” but he insists that in either case the ruach comes from God and accomplishes God’s purposes.
[11] Hamilton, Genesis, Chapters 1-17, 112.
[12] Hamilton, Genesis, Chapters 1-17, 115.
[13] Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 111-112.
[14] Augustine, Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1.2.6.
[15] Bulgakov, The Comforter (trans. Boris Jakim; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 161-2.
[16] See D. J. A. Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” Tyndale Bulletin 19 (1968) 53-103; Gerhard Hasel, “The Meaning of ‘Let Us’ in Gn 1:26,” AUSS 13.1 (1975).
[17] Angels play an outsized role in Augustine’s “literal interpretation,” but, as we have seen, he inserts them for his own philosophical reasons. They are not in the text.
[18] See Clines, “The Image of God in Man”; Hasel, “The Meaning of ‘Let Us’ in Gn 1:26.”
[19] See Meredith Kline, Images of the Spirit.
[20] “God saw” appears seven times in the chapter (1:4, 10, 12, 18,21, 25, 31). The verb ra’ah is used again in 2:19, where Yahweh God brings animals to see what Adam calls them. Each creature receives the name Adam assigns, which means that God saw and approved. For the first time, God sees the action of a human being and judges it good.
[21] There is an intriguing parallel here with the Timaeus, where the Demiurge looks to the pattern of the Forms in shaping the world.
[22] This is Athanasius’s charge against the Arians: By denying the eternal Son, they insult the Father, because, without an eternal Son, the Father is fruitless, barren, silent, a light without radiance (cf. Heb 1:3).
Scripture never teaches a merely-mono theism, but from the first pages bears traces of divine diversity and internal interactivity. Already in the creation account (Gen 1:1-2:3), we see proto-Trinitarian traces fully unveiled in the revelation of God as Father, Son, and Spirit.
This is an ancient claim. At a superficial level, Augustine found more or less explicit references to the Triune Persons in Genesis 1. The first two verses in the Bible name God (the Father) and the Spirit, and Augustine argues that “beginning” refers to the Son (cf. Col 1:18). Whenever Genesis declares “God said,” it names both the Father and His Word, and, according to Augustine, “God saw” names the Father and the Spirit, since the Spirit is the divine Goodness and hypostatic Delight through whom the Father rejoices in the goodness of His creatures.
In addition to these surface references, Augustine uncovers a Trinitarian deep structure in the work of creation. Creation is a single act, performed simultaneously by the Three Persons. To put it in the classic language that Augustine inspired, since it is an opera ad extra, creation is indivisa. Yet this single act is Triunely differentiated as creatio, conversio or vocatio, and formatio. The Father founded the creation, both by forming the ideas of creation within the Logos and by creating formless stuff from nothing. As “beginning,” the Son is the arche and principio of creation. To say God created “in the beginning” is thus to say the first creation is the founding of creatures as eternal reasons within the Word. As the agent of formatio, the Spirit gives each thing a dynamic orientation to the Father, represented in Genesis 1 by the declaration “It was so.”[1]
Augustine’s Trinitarian reading of Genesis 1 depends, of course, on other, later Scriptures. I take it that Augustine regarded John, Paul, and others are authoritative interpreters of Genesis 1, and I make the same assumption in what follows. At the same time, I aim to trace out several lines of argument to show that a Trinitarian reading is not merely a reading-back, but is supported by details of the Hebrew text.
‘elohim
The God who creates the world in Genesis 1 is named by the Hebrew plural ‘elohim. In Canaanite usage, the singular ‘el is the name of the Creator and Father of the gods, sometimes of a warrior god (‘el gibbor), a judge, or a patriarch. In many places in the Hebrew Bible, the word retains its plural meaning. The same Hebrew word describes both Yahweh, the ‘elohim of Exodus (Exod 20:1), and the “gods” whom Israel is forbidden to place before His face (Exod 20:3; cf. Gen 31:30; Deut 13:2; Isa 42:17). In the vast majority of cases, when ‘elohim designates the God of Israel, it takes singular verbs and is modified by singular adjectives. The first clause of the Old Testament is representative: “God created” is bara’ ‘elohim, a plural subject with a singular verb.
The same unusual grammar appears in other Ancient Near Eastern languages. Plural forms of “god” take singular verbs and adjectives in Canaanite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, a few Aramaic texts, and first-millennium Akkadian.[2] Joel Burnett concludes ‘elohim and these cognates function as “concretized abstract plural[s],” denoting “deity,”[3] just as the plural “virgins” denotes the abstract quality of “virginity” (Lev 21:13; Deut 22:14, 15, 17).[4]
Yet the plural may also be a kind of superlative, implying that the referent sums up all the conditions, qualities, and attributes inherent in the idea denoted by the stem. That is, ‘elohim is the fullness of all one expects of an ‘el. Other abstract plurals function in the same way: Abraham is Eleazar’s ‘adomim because he embodies all the best qualities of “master” or “lord” (Gen 24:9), and our eyes look to the Lord our God just as servants look to the hand of their “masters” (Psa 123:2).[5] Yahweh is ‘adonai, an archaic plural of ‘adon, “lord” or “master” (Gen 15:2, 8; Exod 4:10, 13; Josh 3:11, 13; 2 Sam 7:18-22; etc.): “Lords Yahweh.”
Further, in some passages about ‘elohim’s rescue of Israel from Egypt, the word oscillates between singular and plural. “I am Yahweh your ‘elohim, who brought you up from the land of Egypt,” is Yahweh’s first-person singular declaration from Sinai (Exod 20:1). Yet Yahweh delivers through the destroyer (Exod 12:23), and leads by the “angel of God” mal’ak ha’elohim (Exod 14:19) and the pillar of cloud and fire (Exod 13:22; 14:19). Burnett suggests that Psalm 78:48-50 depicts a small army of “minor deities” helping Yahweh to deliver Israel, as it personifies Hail, Pestilence, Anger, Fury, Death, and Plague. In the song of the sea, Miriam leads Israel in praise of Yahweh, His “right hand,” His “burning,” and His “breath” (Exod 15:6-7, 10).[6] He is “God of gods” – superlatively God – because he harnesses all the powers attributed to other gods to accomplish His purposes. He is ‘elohim in that He possesses all these powers in himself, for the right hand is His, the fury and anger are His, the burning is the flashing of the God who is Himself a consuming fire. With all these indications of plurality, Yahweh remains an “I.” He remains Yahweh, Israel’s God, who is one (Deut 6:4-6).
Burnett’s work offers a roundabout way of taking ‘elohim as an indication of divine plurality. Since Peter the Lombard, Christians have often opted for the shorter route: as plural ‘elohim points directly, if obscurely, to the reality of the Trinity. In his de tribus Elohim, the Italian Reformer Giralamo Zanchi (Zanchius) claims that the term indicates there are “three Gods according to the thing,” since “there are three persons, each of whom is God.” His preferred formula is closer to traditional Trinitarian confessions, more or less equating the persons with ‘elohim and the unified substance with Yahweh: “there are indeed plural Elohim, but only one Jehovah: and that each of these Elohim is Jehovah.”[7]
The Shema is one of Zanchi’s key pieces of evidence, since it employs the plural ‘elohim in a passage emphasizing the oneness of Israel’s God. Israel confesses “that Jehovah is one, although we teach that there are plural and distinct Elohim.” The Shema provides the “sum of this doctrine, [that] there is only one true and eternal God – truly distinguished three Elohim or ‘persons,’ Father, Son and Holy Spirit: of which each is God, Jehovah, such that there are not many Jehovahs, but they are all simultaneously only one Jehovah.” Since, Zanchi thinks, “Jehovah” derives from the Hebrew verb “is,” it signifies the single being of God, while ‘elohim points to the plurality of hypostases.
Zanchi’s reading of the Shema gains strength in the light of 1 Corinthians 8:1-6, which N.T. Wright calls Paul’s “redefinition” of the Shema. The echoes of the Shema are evident: In a world of many gods and many lords (v. 5), there is “for us” Christians only “one God” (vv. 4, 6), the Creator. For a Jew like Paul, creational monotheism is “what matters”; it is second nature. Shockingly, Paul revises this central Jewish confession. The Septuagint of the Shema confesses the oneness of both theos (God) and kurios (Lord, Yahweh), but Paul splits the terms: The Father is the “one God” and Jesus is the “one Lord.” Paul places Jesus “at the heart” of the Jewish confession of the one God, confessing a “Christological monotheism.”[8]
I think Wright is right, but, in view of Zanchi’s argument, “redefinition” is not quite the right word. Rather, Paul interprets the Shema, where the names of God already hint at unity-and-plurality. ‘elohim is already associated with the Father as Creator (in Genesis 1); the Angel-Messenger of Yahweh is already identified with Yahweh, and so easily identified with the kurios Jesus. Paul states openly what the Shema declared in a veiled manner. In a world of powers, for Israel as for “us,” there is one God, ‘elohim, and one Lord.
All this supports the conclusion that, from the first mention of God in Genesis 1, He is named as plural. The author of Genesis 1 is no merely-mono theist who worships a monadic God. He proclaims instead the works of ‘elohim.
Word and Spirit
Augustine was correct to discern Trinitarian hints in the combination of Spirit and speech. The Spirit (ruach) appears first, hovering over the waters (Gen 1:2). ruach can mean “breath,” “wind,” or “Spirit.” Though most English translations retain the traditional translation “Spirit of God,” recent commentators and translators have argued for “wind,” claiming that “Spirit,” especially when capitalized, overly Christianizes an ancient text. They take ‘elohim as an adjective (“mighty,” “divine”) or as a genitive of source (“of God”). Thus: “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and a mighty wind/wind from God hovered on the face of the waters.” On this reading, the mighty wind or “fearful storm” doesn’t form the formless waste, but, along with the darkness and formless-void, is a feature of original chaos.[9]
But the arguments for the traditional translation are compelling. The ruach is on ‘elohim’s side of the Creator-creation divide. As Augustine notes, the Spirit is in a position of superiority to the earth, hovering above it, moving as a bird hovers over an egg or protectively over its young (see Deut 32:11). The ruach is (at least) the operation of ‘elohim as He shapes and fills the formless void.
More broadly, “none of the other eighteen occurrences of this phrase [ruach of Elohim] in the OT means anything like ‘mighty wind’” (e.g., (Exod 31:3; 35:31; Num 24:2; 1 Sam 10:10; 16:14).[10] In Exodus 31:3, Bezalel is filled with the ruach ‘elohim to forge the vessels of the tabernacle. The passage is closely parallel to Genesis 1, insofar as “the creation of a world [is analogous] to the creation of a shrine.”[11] The ruach equips Bezalel with skill or wisdom to carry out a work of sub-creation. Further, ‘elohim is almost never used unambiguously as a superlative (cf. Gen 23:6; 30:8; Jon 3:3), and even if it’s a superlative elsewhere, it’s not in the creation account. After all, ‘elohim is used 35 times in Genesis 1:1-2:3, and everywhere else it clearly means “God.” How could a reader be expected to distinguish the adjectival ‘elohim in 1:2 from the other 34 uses of the noun ‘elohim as a name for God?
When ruach means “wind,” it usually implies destruction rather than creation (Exod 15:10; Isa 11:15; 40:7). When it means “breath” or “spirit” it implies energy, vitality, “creating and not uncreating.” If the ruach of Genesis 1:2 is a beneficent power, it should be translated as “Spirit” rather than “wind.”The verb “hover” (participle of rachaph) doesn’t describe the movement of wind. Deuteronomy 32:10-11 uses the same verb to describe “how a bird teaches its young to fly.”[12] That Deuteronomy passage also echoes Genesis 1:2 by using the word tohu (“waste” or “formless”) with reference to the wilderness. Thus, in Deuteronomy 32, Moses evokes the Spirit’s work in creation, comparing Him not to a rushing wind, but to a protective, nurturing eagle who guards, encircles, and cares for its young, “freeing” them to soar.
Later Scriptures that speak of creation by word and Spirit/breath draw from Genesis 1:2 (Job 33:4; Psa 33:6). Psalm 104:27-30 is among the most significant. The Psalm as a whole blesses Yahweh for His work of creation. He lays the foundation of the earth and covers it with a garment of water (104:5-6). When he rebukes the waves, they retreat and the mountains rise (104:7-9). God waters earth with springs, which quench the thirst of beasts, donkeys, and birds (104:10-13), and causes grass to grow for cattle and trees and vines for mankind (104:14-17). God tends and feeds the beasts in the remotest parts of the mountains and forests (104:18-23). In that context, verses 27-30 highlights creation’s dependence on God. He feeds all flesh, and when he hides His face, they are “dismayed.” Each creature’s breath (ruach) is a gift from God, and when He takes it away, they return to the dust (v. 29). But when He sends out his own ruach, creatures are newly created (bara’) and he renews the face of the ground (‘adamah). bara’ is a relatively rare verb, and is used in conjunction with ruach in only two passages, Genesis 1:2 and Psalm 104:30. The latter is clearly speaking of Yahweh’s Spirit – not a wind – as the Creator’s active creative power. The Psalmist provides an inner-biblical interpretation of Genesis 1:2. In sum, the “Creator” of Genesis 1 is, at least, ‘elohim (already plural) and the Spirit of ‘elohim.
No sooner does the Spirit make an appearance than God speaks his first fiat. That God creates by word is one of the most obvious and distinctive biblical claims about creation (Psa 33:6; 148:5; John 1:1-5; 2 Cor 4:6; Heb 11:3). There are vague parallels in Egyptian and Babylonian myth, but nothing truly comparable.[13] Augustine concludes that the “voice of God” refers to “the intelligible meaning of the audible utterance, Let light be made, and not the audible utterance itself.” If it’s “intelligible” rather than “audible,” the speech can be eternal and changeless, belonging “to the very nature of the Word,” who is co-eternal with God.[14] Augustine is content with that, because a purely intelligible, inaudible voice in the Son doesn’t implicate God in change or time. Though I disagree with Augustine’s conclusion that the Creator’s voice is inaudible, he is right to emphasize that the word of creation is the Word. That is the clear import of John’s interpretation of Genesis 1 (John 1:1-5).
Once we recognize John’s intention to interpret Genesis 1, we might find other hints of Triune life in his Prologue. The Word was God and “with [pros] God” (John 1:1-2). How pros? It seems a throwaway preposition, but Sergius Bulgakov suggests it indicates “the Holy Spirit as the hypostatic love of the Father and the Son.” The Word creates in conjunction with the Spirit, through whom the creation “received reality and life.” “In Him was life,” John continues (John 1:4). What life? Bulgakov again finds a veiled reference to the Spirit: John “refers to the Life-giving Spirit, who reposes upon the Son and, with Him, constitutes the Dyad of the self-revelation of the Father, while abiding ‘in him.’” The light (1:9) is Christ, but “in the ecclesiastical literature it also frequently refers to the Holy Spirit.” The incarnate Son reveals the glory of the Father and comes with the fullness of grace and truth, and these too are manifestations of the Spirit, who is the Glory, the Agent of glorification, and the Grace that rests on the Son. John’s Prologue isn’t simply a “logology” but “a complete trinitarian theology, including a pneumatology, though the latter is expressed almost tacitly, in a mere breath.”[15] And John teases out this Trinitarian account of creation from a meditation on Genesis in the light of the incarnation of the Word.
The first verses of Genesis reveal a God who takes a plural name. In a shadowy form, the first verses also reveal the ones who are this God – ‘elohim who creates and speaks, his Spirit who shapes and fills, and the Word of ‘elohim that summons light, shapes the cosmos, and calls living souls from earth and sea.
Let Us Make
Trinitarian interpretations of Genesis 1:26 have been common since the early centuries. Justin, Irenaeus, Basil, Augustine, Calvin, Zanchi, and Barth all interpret the “us” as divine self-consultation. There are, of course, alternative interpretations.[16] Of late, the most popular is that ‘elohim addresses the divine council, the angelic hosts who assist him in the creation of man. That interpretation suffers from crippling flaws. To this point in Genesis, there is not the slightest hint that any divine council exists.[17] It would be odd for them to be consulted without any mention of their creation.
Further, Scripture nowhere indicates that man is made in the image of angels, nor that angels are made in the image of God. Man, male and female, is alone in the image of God. Within Genesis 1, the grammar works against this interpretation. After using the plural “Let us make,” the narrator describes the execution of the plan with singular verbs: “God (‘elohim) created man in his own image (betzalmo), in the image of God he created (bara’) him; male and female he created (bara’) them” (1:27).
If “us” plan to create man, why do “they” not do the creating? Whoever is included in the “us” of 1:26 is included in the ‘elohim and the His/He of 1:27. We have the same interplay of singular and plural in Genesis 1:26-27 that we have throughout the chapter. Genesis 1:26 reveals more explicitly what we suspect from 1:1: That the Creator is somehow plural, somehow capable of being speaker to himself as other, somehow capable of being an “us” or a “we,” while remaining a “he.”
The plural of Genesis 1:26 is better described as a plural of “fullness” or “duality” than a plural of majesty.[18] It’s possible that ‘elohim addresses the Spirit, who is introduced in Genesis 1:2, and is the only other explicitly named divine being in the creation account. On this reading, the man is made in the image of ‘elohim and his Spirit. Given the association of Spirit and glory elsewhere in the Old Testament, the text would be pointing to the man as a manifestation of the glory of Yahweh.[19]
God and God
The entire account is structured by interactions between ‘elohim and ‘elohim. Most days of the creation week begin with God speaking and end with God seeing and evaluating the day’s work as “good.”[20] Day 1 begins with ‘elohim saying “Let there be light” (1:3) and ends with ‘elohim seeing the light is good (1:3). On Day 3, God speaks to divide the waters below so dry land can appear and judges that to be good (1:9-10), then speaks to the now-exposed earth to spring up with “good” grasses and trees (1:11-13). On some days, God’s evaluation is followed by further actions – calling (1:5), blessing (1:22). Like the week as a whole, each day begins with God’s creating and speaking and ends with God seeing that all is very good (1:31).
In the Bible, “seeing” is associated with judgment and evaluation. Eyes are organs of evaluation (cf. Psa 11). When ‘elohim sees the work of each day, He’s judging the quality of the work done and the quality of the products of the day’s work. Since ‘elohim is also the speaker and actor who labors during each day, ‘elohim’s evaluation is a self-evaluation. Throughout the creation week, God judges God. Each day is a microcosm of cosmic history, beginning with the utterance of God and culminating in a final word of judgment.
It’s possible, of course, to conceive this self-judgment narrowly: The one person of ‘elohim initiates each day’s work and, at the end of each day, commends his own performance. That is conceivable, but it more plausible that the ‘elohim who makes and the ‘elohim who evaluates are somehow distinct. We might say, for instance, that at the end of each day ‘elohim evaluates and commends the work of His own Spirit, who hovers over the waters.
When we read Genesis 1 in the light of John 1, this suspicion becomes not only plausible but nearly inevitable. If the Word by which the Father creates is God-with-God, God-toward-God, then the judgments at the end of each day are the Father’s judgments of the Son’s work. Since the Son does all he does in the power of the Spirit, the Father commends both equally. Having established His throne in heaven, the Father issues decrees to be executed by the Son and Spirit, and passes judgment on the goodness of their work. Or, more tightly, the Son is the decree that the enthroned Creator utters by the breath of His Spirit.
On certain days of the creation week, ‘elohim speaks and then makes (1:6-7, 20-21). Here the created product is not a direct or immediate result of God’s speech. Instead, God’s speech functions like a pattern or plan that ‘elohim follows in producing what was spoken.[21] Echoes of this plan-execution pattern are evident later in creation-like passages of Torah. Yahweh’s instructions for the tabernacle are laid out in seven speeches, each marked by the introductory clause, “Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying” (Exod 25:1; 30:11, 17, 22, 34; 31:1, 12). The last speech (31:12-17) reiterates the Sabbath command, and the section concludes with “when he had finished speaking” (kekalloto ledaber), an echo of Genesis 2:1 (wayekullu). Each speech provides instructions for Moses to build according to the tabnit, the pattern he sees and hears on the mountain (Exod 25:9). Moses receives a spoken image of the laver (Exod 30:17-21), for instance, and later makes it (Exod 38:8). In this new creation, the tasks are distributed between God and man: Yahweh serves as architect, Moses as builder. That’s a hint of a distribution of tasks in the original creation, between God and God: God the Speaker and Architect, whose word is followed by God the Maker.
Day 4 provides a further variation on this pattern. God speaks (“Let there be lights”), makes, and then places or gives (natan) the lights in the firmament (Gen 1:14-17). Again, there is an analogy with the construction of the tabernacle. God speaks the pattern to Moses, Moses assigns the task to skilled workmen, and finally Moses places (natan) the items of tabernacle furniture within the tent (Exod 40:6, 7, 8, 18, 20, 22, 30, 33). Here the tasks are distributed in three directions: Yahweh is architect, Spirit-filled men and women make (Exod 31:1-5; 36:1-2), and Moses places the made-work in Yahweh’s dwelling. In Genesis 1, ‘elohim himself performs all the distributed tasks. ‘elohim commands ‘elohim, and, having made the lights ‘elohim commands, ‘elohim places them in the sky.
In Genesis 1, then, we have the skeleton of the later Cappadocian insight that God’s works are patterned by the Trinitarian Persons, following the prepositional Trinitarianism of Romans 11:36: “from him and through him and to him are all things.” God the Father initiates, the Son executes, and the Spirit completes. Or, God the Father speaks the Word that is realized by the Spirit. Or, the Father pours out the Spirit, which rests on the Son to carry out the Father’s purposes in the power of the Spirit. Or, the Father speaks his plan; the Word is the plan the Father speaks; and the Spirit executes the plan of the Father that is the Word.
Only the Trinity Can Create
The Bible never teaches a merely-mono theism, not even for a single verse. As soon as God is named, we have a hint of plurality within the life of the Creator. As we read the account of creation, that whisper becomes more audible. And those hints of divine plurality provide the only coherent ground for the biblical teaching concerning creation. In fact, the Father, Son, and Spirit created all things. But it’s also the case that only the Triune God can create.
Creation is an act of sovereign independence. A Demiurge can shape pre-existing material, as much as the material permits. Shaping is not creating. A Creator must not be dependent on pre-existing material, hemmed in by its limits and resistances. And a Creator must be capable of making and doing as He wills. No monadic, unitarian God can be sovereign and independent in the way a Creator must be.
Think, first, of the life of a unitarian God without creation, then with creation. Absent creation, this God is utterly alone. Since there is no other, there is no communion or love. It doesn’t matter if the unitarian God possesses infinite potential for mercy, kindness, and love, for un-enacted love is not love. Further, absent creation, a unitarian God is unproductive, barren. He does not, by nature, beget or breathe out. He is unfruitful and uncreative in himself.[22] Once this unitarian God forms a world outside, everything changes. Now he encounters an other. Now his infinite potential for communion begins to be realized in action. Now he is fruitful, and his light has radiance. Notice what has happened: The unitarian god can only realize the fullness of his divine life if he makes the world, and so he is dependent on the world for his full realization. He hasn’t created, because he has not acted with sovereign independence.
It’s not even clear that such a God can make anything outside himself. If there is no active productivity within the life of God, then by what mechanism does he become productive? This is not merely a question of mutability – the change from an unfruitful to a fruitful being. It is a matter of possibility: If the God is not productive in himself, he requires something other than himself to become productive. He cannot be Creator God, because his Creator-Godness, his capacity for producing a world, is dependent on an external catalyst.
Now, consider the life of the Triune God without, then with creation. The Triune God is an eternal communion of Persons, living eternally with other and other, relation and relationship among the Persons. This God’s love isn’t merely potential love; His love is eternally actualized in the Father’s love for the Son that is the Spirit. None of His attributes are merely potential, because He eternally enacts and realizes His justice, truth, faithfulness, jealous love, holiness in the communion of three Persons. He needs nothing other than himself to realize himself. Besides, the Triune God is fruitful within Himself. The Father, Athanasius says, has a “generative nature,” eternally producing the Other who is the Son through the other Other who is the Spirit. He is root and fruit, source, radiance, and diffusion. Since He is naturally and eternally productive, He can be a source for creation. Productivity is not alien to His life, not a potentiality realized in the production of the creation. Love for an Other is inherent in the life of God, and so it is natural for God to love a creation that is not God.
The choice is between a God who remains sovereign and independent only by remaining alone and barren, only by having no realm to rule; or, the living Triune God. And that choice is posed to us at the outset of the Bible, in the proto-Trinitarian creation account of Genesis 1.
Peter Leithart is President of Theopolis.
[1] The summary offered here is drawn from Augustine’s Literal Interpretation of Genesis and Confessions, with the help of Scott Dunham, The Trinity and Creation in Augustine: An Ecological Analysis (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2008); Jared Ortiz, “You Made Us For Yourself”: Creation in St. Augustine’s Confessions (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016); Gavin Ortland, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2020)
[2] Joel S. Burnett, A Reassessment of Biblical Elohim (SBL Dissertation Series #183; Atlanta: SBL, 2001) 7-53.
[3] Burnett, Reassessment, 53.
[4] Burnett, Reassessment, 22.
[5] Burnett, Reassessment, 21. Burnett observes that not every plural implies this kind of perfected fullness (22), which is why he prefers to call the plural form an abstract plural.
[6] Burnett, Reassessment, 87-89.
[7] See the English translation of Books 1-3 of Zanchi’s treatise at https://nsa.edu/assets/documents/On%20The%20Triune%20Elohim%20Books%201-3.pdf. For an extensive discussion, see Benjamin R. Merkle, Defending the Trinity in the Reformed Palatinate: the Elohistae (Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs; Oxford: OUP, 2016) ch. 4.
[8] “One God, One Lord, One People: Incarnational Christology for a Church in a Pagan Environment,” https://chamberscreek.net/library/N.%20T.%20Wright/wright1998one.html.
[9] “Fearful storm” comes from Gerhard von Rad, Genesis (rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972) 49-50.
[10] Victor Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990) 111. Hamilton leaves open the question of whether ruach should be translated as “wind” or “spirit,” but he insists that in either case the ruach comes from God and accomplishes God’s purposes.
[11] Hamilton, Genesis, Chapters 1-17, 112.
[12] Hamilton, Genesis, Chapters 1-17, 115.
[13] Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 111-112.
[14] Augustine, Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1.2.6.
[15] Bulgakov, The Comforter (trans. Boris Jakim; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 161-2.
[16] See D. J. A. Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” Tyndale Bulletin 19 (1968) 53-103; Gerhard Hasel, “The Meaning of ‘Let Us’ in Gn 1:26,” AUSS 13.1 (1975).
[17] Angels play an outsized role in Augustine’s “literal interpretation,” but, as we have seen, he inserts them for his own philosophical reasons. They are not in the text.
[18] See Clines, “The Image of God in Man”; Hasel, “The Meaning of ‘Let Us’ in Gn 1:26.”
[19] See Meredith Kline, Images of the Spirit.
[20] “God saw” appears seven times in the chapter (1:4, 10, 12, 18,21, 25, 31). The verb ra’ah is used again in 2:19, where Yahweh God brings animals to see what Adam calls them. Each creature receives the name Adam assigns, which means that God saw and approved. For the first time, God sees the action of a human being and judges it good.
[21] There is an intriguing parallel here with the Timaeus, where the Demiurge looks to the pattern of the Forms in shaping the world.
[22] This is Athanasius’s charge against the Arians: By denying the eternal Son, they insult the Father, because, without an eternal Son, the Father is fruitless, barren, silent, a light without radiance (cf. Heb 1:3).
-->