Why is ‘good’ missing?
When the Creator God observed “all that He had done” on the sixth “day” (e.g., age or epoch) of creation, He beheld it as “very good”. It was the seventh invocation of the word “good”; seven is a number that symbolizes wholeness and completion. Obviously, the entire evolutionary narrative, as presented in Genesis 1, is optimistic and forward-looking. But when these 31 verses are read afresh, it becomes apparent that they have nothing to do with a detailed “What” or “How”; these questions are left for science to explain. Rather, the scriptural text addresses only the “Why”, namely, creation happened due solely to the will of God. It is then that we come to realize that in only two different stages of creation, God’s observation of “good” is glaringly absent.
It is first missing from the story of the second day, when the firmament of the sky was separated from the primordial ocean that covered the entire planet; the latter still covers 70% of Earth. And again, no “good” observation was made after the creation of the human species, which, according to Rabbinic folklore, occurred on the first Rosh Hashanah in the annals of this planet. The creation of the living beings that came forth that very day, before the making of humanity, was deemed by contrast, as “good.”
How should we try to make sense of these two omissions from the text? Seemingly, there is a common thread that connects these two creations – their ultimate mission was not completed. When it comes to the parting “between water and water” on the second day, it is evident that it was only a means, albeit an imperative midway station to a loftier destination, the emergence of land, and the growth of grass and trees, without which land creatures cannot be sustained. As to the creation of humankind on the sixth day, their creation was also incomplete.
We already see evidence for this before God began the formation of the human species, when inviting others: “Let us make Adam.” Whom did God address? Or who were the “us”? According to rabbinic tradition, there was a contention between God and angels who anticipated that adding the human species to the whole of creation would not be a good idea after all; humans would harm everything else. God was willing to take the risk, hoping that humanity would become a positive element in the scheme of creation. Hence, God was calling upon future generations of humanity to cooperate with Him in ensuring that its creation would be positive and beneficial for all others who had come before.
When a mission is incomplete, then viewing it as good would be premature and unwarranted. In the case of the second day, the intended final creation was accomplished on the third day of creation, thus receiving uniquely two divine observations of “good”. And in the case of humanity, God is still awaiting such a day when Torah “shall go forth out of Zion” and “Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:3-4). Only then will God view the creation of humanity — currently still inclined toward perpetrating “evil from youth” — as “good.”
To be sure, even after God had viewed His entire creation as “exceedingly good”, He went on to redo a “home inspection” only to discover that something was “not good” after all. The second narrative of creation as told in Gen 2 informs us that when God was forming the male Adam, He did not foresee that the latter was bound to be ”alone” without a fitting helper. That oversight had to be fixed by the formation of the woman. Nonetheless, even after making the woman, God did not observe the human project as “good” because the ultimate goal of humanity — “They will not hurt or destroy … for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Adonai” (Isaiah 11:9) encountered the grim reality of plows being beaten “into swords and … pruning forks into spears” (Joel 4:10). Hence, God’s call to humanity “Let us make Adam [humankind] is as relevant today as it ever was, for the final verdict that would determine whether the making of humans was a “good” thing is yet to be seen.
