3 February 2019

Light before Sun?

There are some who pose a challenge of light existing before the sun was created.

I think the problem is overstated and easily rebutted.

When God created light, I believe ‘light’ is used as a synecdoche for the entire electro-magnetic spectrum or perhaps the entire energy field of which visible light is but a part.

In the order of creation, I suspect that the energy ‘infrastructure’ must have been created first or nothing would ‘work’, and it is separated from darkness (unenergetic substance?) as a distinct thing in creation.

Thus light, as a thing with real existence does not rely on it particular production at any time, but must exist to be able to be produced by particular atomic activity.

It’s like saying music could not exist before there were instruments on which to play it; however, its the other way: music had to be invented to be able to be produced by an oboe. Oboe without music is just an elaborate tube.

Then, does the repetition of ‘evening and morning’ indicate that there were diurnal lighting variations?

Not necessarily. The terms exist primarily as markers of time, not the names of lighting conditions. Just think of evening in the Arctic Circle in July: ‘as bright as day’.

Stellar objects as markers of time don’t appear until later, in Gen 1:14, so there are no ‘markers of time’ operating. There is no need for a temporary or supernatural light source as there is no need for light with no one on earth during the first 5 days. Nevertheless, to indicate the duration of events Moses tells us that the evening and morning markers of time are chronologically relevant to the passing of time in those first few days, and are calibrated by the v. 14 markers for human use.

Simply, light and time passing are two separate things, connected only with the creation of stellar objects.
 
Matt Strassler might help shine some light on what 'light' is really about.