Finally, we come to the last words of the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
With these words comes an inversion that tips over ye olde pagan worldview and also the modern secular worldview. The order here is important. Ordering often has great importance in the Bible, especially once we get to the days of creation and the Commandments. Creation is an act of ordering, and we have a bad habit of disordering that creation. But I won’t get ahead of my inversions - let’s first look to the heavens.
Notice that heavens is first. Earth is mentioned second.
Consider how strange it sounds to reverse the order. Read this aloud:
“In the beginning God created the earth and the heavens.”
Just saying it that way feels strange. I have a bad taste in my mouth now. Yuck. The other creation stories are like drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth. Genesis asserts the reverse. The bible drinks the orange juice at breakfast before brushing with toothpaste. This is the proper order. This may appear inconsequential, but like all the inversions, it matters far beyond mere words in a book, because the right posture of humility before God requires it.1
In many creation stories, earth comes first. Genesis shoots that idea down like a clay pigeon in this opening line. In the Greek myths, Chaos and the Abyss are the first things, but then the Greeks go even farther in their wager. Earth (Gaia) pops into existence before the Sky God (Uranus). In other words, earth creates itself. Only after earth is born do the heavens arrive.
This is incorrect. Heaven is God's first and essential act of creation, as opposed to the second creation of the visible world.
Heaven is mentioned first. Another way of saying this is: heaven is over and above and before earth.
In some translations the word heaven is singular, but in most it is plural. (We’ll get to this plural/singular question in the next inversion.) But plural or singular, one thing is always true: heaven comes before earth. Heaven was created before earth, by God, who existed before both. This is intentional. Just as there are no accidents in Hollywood, there are no accidents in Genesis.
Genesis, in one single opening sentence, has set the entire Bible in opposition to every religious system that surrounds the people of Moses.2
A great deal of order can be derived from this first sentence of the Bible. This single line may pick a fight across the entire world, but that is not the intention. To argue with the ancient world is not the point. To refute our modern ideas is also not the aim. The aim of these words is to speak the truth aloud, despite the consequences. Once again, the purpose of scripture is not to set the world right-side-up, but to set our eyes right-side-up so that we can see reality properly. Everything is as God made it, only we are upside down or sideways most of the time. The ancient myths and the secular world today are trying to sell you a bad pair of glasses while holding you upside-down. They are offering orange juice after you have already brushed.
Before Genesis was written, all the differing ideas about our origin story had already been told. Widely different origin stories existed then and today because we can arrive at different conclusions. Nothing is new under the sun. The sacred writer of Genesis was not the first person to think of “God created the heavens and the earth,” but the writer was the first one inspired by God to record it for the purpose of setting the truth in a form that could be passed on by scribbling, not solely by voice.
All ideas that we think are new are old. No idea is original at this point. Ideas are just reintroduced, shined up like a dusty apple for the current generation to eat. Usually, in the reintroduction, the ideas are only made more confusing. Truly, before humans began writing, every idea of modern philosophy had already been told and tried. Every upside-down worldview has had its day, and the reason they never stick and stay is because it’s hard to pretend the upside-down is the right way to be. The upside-down doesn’t work in practice because it refutes reality. You may pretend that rocks are not real, only projections of the mind, but stub your toe on the rock and you will know that the only thing that wasn’t real was your imagination.
What’s different about Genesis is that it is a book that lasts because it is the written word of God, which is to say, it is the truth. This is why people who have followed the wrong path return to the path of sacred scripture. This is the same reason why mathematical formulas stick around. The reason why Pythagoras’ theorem lasts is because it is correct. The theorem cannot be modified to suit imagination. It is simple, beautiful, and true, and it can be applied to the real world. Basic math is a terrific illustration of spiritual truths because it cannot lie. Let’s consider the Pythagorean theorem, which describes a triangle’s sides. This upsets no one, because it is so easily shown as true, even with a simple diagram using squares on the sides of the triangle.
a2 + b2 = c2
You cannot write the theorem in another order, or it breaks. The order is critical, where c is the longest side of the triangle. In the image, side c must be at the end of the equation. The following re-arrangement would not produce a correct result. Anyone building a house or measuring distances would make a mess using this incorrect theorem, given the three sides shown in the image:
a2 + c2 = b2
You cannot disorder the sides and get the correct triangle. For instance, if the shorter sides of the triangle are 3 and 4 inches long, the longest side of the triangle is 5 inches long.
Correct: 32 + 42 = 52
Incorrect: 32 + 52 = 42
The incorrect equation is an absurdity. It fails in the mind and in the real world.
When I was learning to program C++ in college, my favorite error message was the dramatic-sounding segmentation fault (core dumped). This would happen when a program I had written (poorly) attempted to access a memory address that didn’t exist. The code I had written in the text editor was a representation of what I thought would work in practice. In other words, it was an idea in a text editor, not a physical reality in live memory. But once executed, the code came to life and quickly died, because what I had concocted on the screen was incorrect. A flaw in the design caused a devastating error that dumped the process.
There were other errors that came from impossible attempts made in my code, like dividing by zero, but a segmentation fault broke the program in an abrupt fashion, like when mechanics say that an engine has “thrown a rod.” To “throw a rod” or hit a “segmentation fault” is to have violated certain truths of math and physics.
The incorrect equation for a triangle is a violation of the truth of mathematics, and if used in the real world, it would “throw a rod” or hit a “segmentation fault (core dumped)” error.
In essence, the opening line of Genesis, like the Pythagorean theorem, declares spiritual truth in the same way. Pythagoras is declaring a mathematical objective truth with his formula, and Genesis declares a spiritual truth.
If you change the order of “God created the heavens and the earth” you end up with a segmentation fault or a thrown rod as well. At the very least, you move toward a misshapen worldview, just as an error in the theorem creates a misshaped triangle. It does not match reality. Likewise, you cannot square a circle, nor circle a square. This is even impossible for God. You may protest, “But all things are possible with God!” Yes, except for untruth. God is the Sheer Act of Being Itself and God is Truth. Like the Pythagorean theorem, God is also simple, good, and beautiful.
A circle cannot be squared. Invalid memory addresses cannot be accessed. A brittle piston rod cannot withstand engine pressures. A triangle cannot have a shape that misfits the proper formula. And earth cannot come before heaven.
Pythagoras found one of God’s great tricks of geometry, and surely he was not the first, but he was the first to be famous for it, despite it actually being a truth from God, not Pythagoras. He was the first to be widely read, like the sacred author of Genesis, but the truth of “heavens over earth” was known before the age of writing arrived.
Numbers (not the book of Numbers, but the numbers used in arithmetic) provide a wonderful method of thinking about God and immaterial things, like heaven. Numbers are not things I can pick up and move from my kitchen to my bedroom. I can pick up two cats, but I can’t pick up the number two. We can contemplate the idea of “heavens” by using numbers because they are invisible, unseen things, but we know they are very real. These odd things called numbers have no bodies but have real applications and effects in our material world, where we do have bodies.
We cannot use the wrong equation in immaterial numbers and then apply it to the real world because a material triangle will not comply with an incorrect representation of the triangle. In other words, objectively wrong ideas are not a thing - they are nothing. Let me try to explain.
If an architect of the Flatiron building in New York City had drawn a blueprint but put the wrong dimensions on each side of his triangle building, the construction company could not have poured the footings to match the dimensions on the drawing. The physical world cannot fit with imagined falsehoods. This is why objective truth matters both in math and in spiritual physics.
As long as people have lived, however, we have resisted ideas of objective truth. This is why Socrates and Jesus were both put to death - for not playing along with the imaginary truths of the Sophists, for not playing along with the subjective truth of Pilate and Caiaphas. To speak of objective truths in a world that resists them is to invite anger. If you fully adhere to objective truth, you will be hated. One thing is for sure: it is not the British who first had a stiff upper lip, it was surely Abraham and his descendants, particularly Moses and his court for writing these truths down, because to record and speak these things invited anger, just as it does today.
This inversion may not seem relevant today, but like Pythagoras theorem, the order of “the heavens and the earth” is as relevant now as it was in Canaan or Greece. Moreover, if you scratch the fresh paint of modern sacred things with your fingernail, you can find that the old paint job of Gaia’s primacy is just beneath the surface.
But it is the wrong formula and does not work.
“Earth First” has returned for many people. During the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, the chattering classes got high on an old philosophy that tossed out God, and many held that the heavens do not exist at all. Classical antiquity became all the rage for some, and Gaia, or Earth, made a comeback. This was most obvious in what we built in our cities, because when the West believed in “Heaven First,” the biggest building projects were cathedrals glorifying God. When we switched to the “Earth First” disorder, we began building skyscrapers, government buildings (that looked like cathedrals), and stadiums for sports. St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York was the last big project for God, which now sits under the shadow of so many towers, like the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center, the UN building, Madison Square Garden, and Yankee Stadium.
However, it wasn’t just the builders who shifted to “Earth First.” Truly, the intellectual class has relentlessly tried to invert Genesis and either cancel the idea of heaven altogether or tell us that we need not worry about this unseen realm. We are five hundred years into this process now. We have mostly forgotten about heaven, because we live as if it does not exist, yet at funerals we declare that every deceased person’s soul is there. We are godless in how we live, acting as if heaven is not a concern, then suddenly universalists at funerals, where God is just a version of Oprah Winfrey (everyone gets a new car just for showing up).
Yet, the upheaval of modernity’s blessing of all sins is revealing to people which side of the chasm they want to be on when the collapse comes. As the chasm widens between right and wrong, truth and untruth, Jesus and Pilate, people are reacting and changing sides while they still can. To be on the side of the Pythagorean theorem is to be on the side of “Heaven First.” Some feel that a “Heaven First” view is finally coming back. If that’s true, it’s happening slowly, but then there are wonderful, wild conversion events like with “Our Lady of Guadalupe” where the efforts of missionaries and evangelists hardly move the needle, while God re-enters our lives with a lovely picture presented by a peasant like St. Juan Diego, and suddenly millions once again recognize that the “Heaven First” viewpoint is the truth.
We are seeing the result today of a world that has rejected the spiritual mathematical formula of “God created the heavens and the earth.” Like the example of the architect drawing the Flatiron building triangle with invalid dimensions, a world built on bad math and untruth becomes visible. To use biblical terms, it bears “bad fruit.” We all know what bad fruit looks and tastes like. The error of “Earth First” is becoming more plain by the day. Look no further than the transgender craze to see modern Sophistry at work, yet even this craze is not new but has a history in the ancient cult of Cybele. If someone cries out, “The cult of Cybele was absurd,” that will not bring a mob to his house today. But for those who speak out against the mutilation fad of middle-schoolers invites active, living hatred. But as an advocate of both “Heavens First” and the Pythagorean theorem, it’s impossible for me not to speak or write about both, because I think Cybele’s followers were wrong just as I disagree with the living, modern version of Cybele’s cult that mutilates children.
Like Jeremiah, the prophet, I would like to stay silent to avoid the burning hatred of the world, but I cannot do that because to speak untruth feels dirty. It’s like drinking orange juice after toothpaste every day, instead of the other way around. It’s gross. Most of all, to speak untruth means I have abandoned God. I would rather abandon the Pythagorean theorem than God, but I can’t abandon the theorem either, because it came from God. This causes a problem for believers in both the integers and God.
Jeremiah, under persecution, wanted to stop talking about the truth of God to save himself some pain, but the burden of objective truth was too much and he had to speak or he would explode. He declares that he would like to stop talking about the truth of God to avoid the ridicule of others and save himself the headaches, but the fire burns within him to speak:
“I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name,”
then within me there is something like a burning fire
shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.” (Jer 20:9)
I can relate, although I am more cowardly than Jeremiah. Today, to argue against the media and professors, both of whom insist on a materialistic worldview, is to be a modern prophet. To be a prophet is not to predict the future, it is just to declare truth, like the Pythagorean theorem and God creating heaven before earth. Oddly enough, many atheists now sound like Jeremiah because they understand the implications of mathematics and objective truth. This has been a fascinating turn of events. I marvel as it unfolds, as atheists like James Lindsay and Jordan Peterson sound like devout Catholics. This is why I do appreciate atheists. God bless them. They cut away all the fluff that stands between the two options of 1.) God Most High or 2.) nothing. I feel that if most atheists properly understood the formula called “creation ex nihilo,” they would be suddenly re-attached to the tree of life and chugging God’s grace like a bong at a college party. I pray they are all at the next Easter Vigil service where they can join their terrific sense of reason to a newfound faith that makes them whole.
The prophets are not that strange after all, because they speak truth. The prophets arise at times of disorder because, like Jeremiah, it’s impossible not to speak of the order of God’s creation. These prophets are not the crazy ones, but the last remaining sane ones. Jonah, the reluctant prophet, must speak, despite wanting to hide like Jeremiah. He doesn’t want to, but he does. Why is that? Because he can’t avoid the truth. The prophets are like Socrates and Jesus, who are the most sane people in all of history, and both Socrates and Jesus were very much “Heavens First” in their theology. Plato’s Timaeus has a Socrates that sounds an awful lot like Genesis 1:1. This is sanity. Reading the tales of mythology is wonderful entertainment, but nothing to take seriously - they are like Marvel movies: fun to watch, but unbelievable, and not aligned with reality.
The reason Jeremiah may seem crazy is that he is speaking objective spiritual truth to a world of Sophists, to a world that worships the wrong “order,” like in the book of Judges that repeats the ominous line throughout: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
In an age of unbelief, however, it seems natural that people would be more concerned about the material world than the immaterial heaven. But this is only due to people not thinking deeply about their first principles, of which way is up (Hint: Heaven is up). They are flipped over because the advertisements spin them around. They are merely thinking about what they desire and calling it good. In other words, they have rejected God to do “what is right in their own eyes,” as the book of Judges repeats over and over. The naturalistic worldview, where God is not alive nor involved seeks all its answers in the chemical and biological, not in the spiritual. Yet not only the materialists do this - so do lukewarm spiritual people, where the desires of the flesh are projected onto God. Merely declaring “Heaven First” does not cure the error, but it is the first step on the path to wellness and sanity.
Many people today complain about the politics of “America First” while in the next breath, they preach sermons of “Earth First.” But I am a keeper of the old code, of “Heaven First.” This is probably why my social life is limited. I reject both “America First” and “Earth First.” I definitely reject “Self First,” which is the most sacred belief of our age. The “Heaven First” view isn’t a popular worldview today, but I grew up in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Listening to hundreds of hours of Nirvana’s Nevermind album ingrained in me an ironclad belief that popularity is for sell-outs.
The ancient religions are never far away. They don’t actually die. In fact, ancient people didn’t even know what the word “religion” meant, because the word was invented only a few hundred years ago. Religion is not where you go on Sunday for one hour, it’s how you live every day. It’s not just an add-on product or opinion or something done in private. We don’t really know what religion is today because we’ve tried to cordon it off like a coat room, and while we point at religion in the coat room, we are actually living our true religion and calling it something else.
Thus, with the myriad lifestyles and behaviors today, rest assured that everything from the Bronze Age is still here, but those ways and views have just taken on new names. While we may chuckle at stories about “Gaia” from the ancients, we do not chuckle about the chilling tales and dogmatic belief systems of climate change as handed down from those in lab coats and preached by the scribes of the laptop class. To challenge any assumptions about carbon credits (which are a parallel of what Protestants think Indulgences are in the Catholic faith) or sustainable planning is to invite a mob upon you. Attack the sacred things and you will be attacked. Why? Because the sacred things go back to the order of creation: who created what, when, and why. Thus if you subscribe to “Earth First” then you have a shield against spiritual things. Worse, you have an elevated sense of importance, also known as pride (as opposed to humility), and we will get to that nefarious inversion later.
“Earth First” is alive and well. Books about Gaia have been all over the place in the past decade. Mother Earth is worshipped by millions, and while our earth is very good, it was not first. Genesis in its boldness says, “Heaven First.” However, this does not mean, “Earth is not important.” All of creation is important, as the whole is greater than the parts. This is true in geometry, bodies, families, marriages, communities, and God’s whole creation. But there is an order of precedence, of how God created everything. If you error in this inversion, more errors will follow. This is why I’m writing this series on inversions, because the errors accumulate, where one wrong turn leads to another. The Catholic cosmology is not arbitrary or strange, it is just not understood or discussed because of the many layers of distractions that clutter our minds, due to centuries of misinformation about what the Church actually teaches, and what the truth really is.
Moving on, let’s look at the second inversion that comes with the words “the heavens and the earth.” Why is “heavens” plural?
Further reading:
Heaven - Catholic Encyclopedia
If there is one thing that makes a scandal or mockery of religious people it is disordering this inversion, where the things of this earth are placed higher than that of God and the heavens. This is where the holier-than-thou accusations come in, because we are masters at spotting hypocrites, except when it comes to ourselves. (Here is where I will plainly admit that I am one of them, but I’m trying to keep my inversions in proper shape here.) But the important thing for this inversion is to remember that even if you are a hypocrite and tend to get caught up in earth over heaven, going to Sunday Mass is the right answer to reset the order. That is the purpose of the obligation for Confession and to attend Mass - to keep you on track for heaven, and so that you remember this order while on earth. Lastly, a second scandal happens when we are only concerned with heaven and think earth doesn’t matter. This is like giving a Miraculous Medal to a homeless person instead of a meal. Heaven and earth both matter, and are good, and we must strive for heaven while giving of ourselves here on earth. This is what Jesus’ Two Commandments are about: Love God; love your neighbor. Heaven, and earth - in that order. Never forget the order, nor the importance of both commandments.
Persian Zoroastrianism is one of the few belief systems still standing at the end of Genesis 1:1, since it holds similar concepts of time, creation, and a single creator God (Ahura Mazda). This is the belief system of the Magi, the Three Wise Men. But while running parallel, the Magi’s system of belief gets tipped over in a later inversion regarding an error that pulls God Most High down to the equivalent level of Satan. This is known as dualism, which is a nasty little heresy that humans just love to keep trying. Gnostics fall into this pit repeatedly throughout the history of Christianity. Dualism reduces God from Most High to Sorta Kinda High but equal to the devil. And that’s just wrong. The devil and God are not equals. The devil is the corrupt leader of a lying advertising agency. God created the universe from nothing. No comparison can be made. Dualism is absurd, and will be discussed in another inversion.
