The Nonbinary Creation

1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. 6 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. 9 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. 14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. 20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. 24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” 27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. 4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Genesis 1:1–2:4a (NRSV)

The beginning of Genesis focuses its attention on offering two separate answers to the question of the origin of life, each with its own story to tell and its own audience to address. Among its numerous and varied themes, the first creation story (Genesis 1:1–2:4a) takes pains to demonstrate that the God of Israel is systematic, deliberate, patient, and intentional in the work of creating the earth. In this story, God cares so deeply about the creation that the Divine is willing to focus significant energy on ensuring that every aspect of the creation is just as it should be.

Instead of a world with clear distinctions and definitive barriers, as the first creation story is often interpreted to portray, I’d argue that when we pay attention to the silences and gaps, what emerges is the opposite. When we expand our scope, we are able to see God’s abundant love infusing the Divine Nature throughout all of creation, making a world awash in dizzying variety. Not one part of creation is forgotten, and God desires all of it. Read in this light, Genesis 1:1–2:4a is actually a text of liberation for all of creation. It is also a joyous celebration of creation, its chaotic messiness bursting with the life that is rooted in God’s stable, dependable love.

The text begins with the famous phrase, “In the beginning”, which can appear to frame the creation of… well, creation as the first task on God’s to-do list, where “the beginning” is assumed to be “the beginning of time”. Interestingly, the Hebrew word בְּרֵאשִׁית (bereshit) allows for several different translations, including the one used by the Jewish Publication Society: “When God began to create”. I have always appreciated this framing, because I can easily imagine that God was doing other things in this time before created time, and only got around to creating when they eventually felt like it. 

God could be said to experience time on two levels: God’s own experience of time (which transcends all time and space), and the time that creation experiences, or “created time” (where time is linear and always progressing forwards). God might transcend both time and space, but God also makes a point of immersing within them. Humans, of course, are bound to created time alone, where we move in an inexorable line forward from birth, through the arc of life, until finally we depart this life and move towards the next. 

But ever so often, humanity is invited to share in moments when God’s time breaks into the rhythm of everyday time. A simple reflection on our human experiences shows this to be true, as we have all been blessed with opportunities to experience liminal spaces of overwhelming beauty, sublime perfection, and profound clarity – a baby’s smile, a sunset shared with one’s dearest loves, a moment in prayer when we feel the direct presence of God – fleeting moments of incredible power. These moments demonstrate, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that we are in the presence of something numinous and awe-inspiring, something which lays at the very foundation of reality.

Returning to the passage, Genesis 1:3–5 quickly establishes the pattern for the rest of the story. Days one through five involve God creating something, and then blessing that creation by saying that it is good. Day six follows this same pattern, with the one key difference that after the making of humanity, God calls the creation very good. Each day’s activities are laid out systematically, demonstrating God’s overwhelming power – God need only speak and massive changes are wrought immediately, and without any obvious effort on the part of the Divine.

This austere approach is notable when compared with the often violent and chaotic creation stories in other Mesopotamian religious traditions. It’s also notable when compared with the second creation story (Genesis 2:4b–3:24), with its “earthiness” (mud, ribs, breath, fruit, etc.), intriguing characters with complex emotional lives, and the high drama of betrayal, disappointment, and exile. The first story, by contrast, is highly disciplined in its dedication to presenting a vision of a Divine who is absolutely powerful, absolutely in control of the entirety of creation, and who is, finally, a stable foundation upon whom all of creation can depend.

The story is told in such a way as to give the impression that God understands barriers and binaries (light and day, land and sea, heavens and earth, male and female, etc.) to be essential to the development of creation. Yet, I’d argue that this framing continues to make the mistake of reading the story from the perspective of humanity, as opposed to the Divine. Where we might only perceive the binaries, God perceives the astonishing diversity present in the spaces between the binaries. In other words, focusing on the binaries alone is seeing in black and white, while expanding your scope allows you to see as God does: in 3D Technicolour, baby! This is a far more complex reality, replete with dawns and dusks, wetlands and clouds, black holes, amphibious creatures, and humans of all genders.

Theology rarely goes “viral” online, in any form, so it was notable when a Twitter thread exploring the non-binary implications of this first Genesis creation story (by Mick Atencio, a non-binary theologian) went viral back in 2021. Atencio takes great care in their thread to demonstrate how much silence the text leaves, where much of our real experience of both the Divine, and the creation, are simply left out in the binary constructions of the text.

Atencio provides several examples of this, beginning with the assumed binary of the separation between Night and Day. They list several examples of times when “night” and “day” actually overlap, creating times of daynight, such as sunrises and sunsets; if this argument is extended, then dawn and dusk also enter as moments when the binary of day and night is obviously false. 

What about moonlight, as mentioned in verse 1:16? As modern telescopes eventually allowed us to learn, moonlight is reflected light from the Sun. In this way, “day” is brought right into the centre of “night”. The binary of day and night is actually more of a spectrum, therefore, where each bleeds into the other. Day and night only make sense in relationship with each other; in this way, the binary actually collapses upon itself.

How can we accept a simple binary between water and land when this assumed separation is categorically false? Do we invalidate the existence of wetlands, swamps, bogs, and marshes because they are inherently both water and land, with both states existing simultaneously?

Speaking of existing in two states simultaneously, what are clouds, exactly? How can they be from the swarming waters, but somehow also float in the dome of the sky? Should a penguin be categorised as a “winged bird” or a “sea creature”? Are mangrove trees only vegetation from the earth, or are they also somehow a water plant? What are black holes? How can they exist when they somehow also consume existence?

The clear lines rapidly disintegrate in the face of such overwhelming complexity.

Finally, the passage arrives at humanity, which God creates in God’s own image, male and female (1:26). Now, it’s entirely possible that the existence of intersex people escaped the notice of those who composed and edited this passage. Yet, are we to believe that the same God, who can speak everything into existence, would somehow miss the existence of people who happen to be neither entirely “biologically male” nor entirely “biologically female, but who God themself created?

If all of humanity is created in the divine image, and if God is the foundation upon which all existence depends, then the implication is that every. single. human. carries. the. divine. image. All humans experience the world through their own limited perception, whereas God is aware of everything, everywhere, all at once. The Divine doesn’t really care if some humans can’t understand the experience of other humans! God loves them all completely, and makes each and every one in the divine image. Trans and nonbinary people are as representative of the Divine nature as any other human in existence. It’s not just science, it’s among the first lessons of the Jewish and Christian Bible.

June is widely viewed as a sacred time in the LGBTQIA+ community, a time when we gather together and celebrate our collective joy at being alive and created exactly as we are, by a God whose love is the foundation for all life, in all of its astonishing diversity. Ever since the first bottle was tossed at Stonewall, queer people have needed this sacred month to gather, to march, and to begin to process the ongoing onslaught against us worldwide.

The past year has been especially overwhelming for trans and nonbinary folks, as we have been forced to endure the criminalisation of our existence. It seems that so many people want to ensure that we cease to exist. We continue to be targeted on every possible aspect of our lives: our bodies, our health, our culture, our self-expression, and even the existence of gender non-conformity itself. Hate groups are planning to target our joy this month, to try to destroy the divine beauty of queer life through fear, violence, and intimidation. To be queer these days is to have a target painted across one’s entire body.

The fact that people use Genesis 1 as justification for all of this hate is not only horrifying and appalling, but it’s also, simply put, WRONG. The creation thrums with life purely because God’s love makes it so. All life, all that was, all that is, and all that ever will be, exists because God wills it. Trans and nonbinary people exist because God desires that we exist. Since all humans are made in the image of God, then the only possible conclusion we can make here is that God’s image is both cisgendered and transgendered.

God sees everything that they make, and indeed, it is all very good.