The Sixth Day
In Genesis 1, something is “good” when it is fit for its purpose and able to function properly, or when it is complete. Therefore, the seas are not declared good on Day Two because God isn’t finished with them until Day Three, when, after they are gathered together and the dry land has been uncovered, he declares them good.
On Day Six, after God has created everything, we read:
“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” [Genesis 1:31]
All of creation is “very good” because every part works together—it is complete. I like how Umberto Cassuto puts it:
“An analogy might be found in an artist who, having completed his masterpiece, steps back a little and surveys his handiwork with delight, for both in detail and in its entirety it had emerged perfect from his hand.”
—Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part 1: Adam to Noah, 59
However, as I pointed out on Sunday, man himself is NOT specifically declared good after his creation on Day Six. Why? Because he is not yet complete or fit for his purpose.
I would like you to reflect on what Leon Kass has to say about this. It is dense, but worth it.
“A moment’s reflection shows that man as he comes into the world is not yet good. Precisely because he is the free being, he is also the incomplete or indeterminate being; what he becomes depends always (in part) on what he freely will choose to be. Let me put it more pointedly: precisely in the sense that man is in the image of God, man is not good—not determinate, finished, complete, or perfect. It remains to be seen whether man will become good, whether he will be able to complete himself (or to be completed).
“Man’s lack of obvious goodness or completeness, metaphysically identical with his freedom, is, of course, the basis also of man’s moral ambiguity. As the being with the greatest freedom of motion, able to change not only his path but also his way, man is capable of deviating widely from the way for which he is most suited or through which he—and the world around him—will most flourish.
“The rest of the biblical narrative elaborates man’s moral ambiguity and God’s efforts to address it, all in the service of making man ‘good’—complete, whole, holy.”
—Leon Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, 39
Now, go back and read that long quotation again. It’s important.
It is precisely our freedom that makes us incomplete. Unlike all the other creatures, we are free to choose good or choose evil, and, left to ourselves, we will inevitably make the wrong choice. We are not yet fit for our purpose, i.e., to rule over the earth and to reflect God’s image.
The rest of the story of the Bible is about how God plans to fix us.