God and the Realization of Potential	Michael Pruess
												Bible as Literature 3˚
"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."
-Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
	The character of God in the Hebrew Bible changes drastically throughout the narrative. While later on, in Exodus, he seems to fluctuate between extremes that might suggest a chemical imbalance, his changes throughout Genesis are a logical progression. It is fitting that Sandburg chose babies as God's sign of approval. The birth of a child and its development as it grows and matures could be seen as an allusion to God's development within Genesis. He begins with nothing but an enormous amount of potential in the form of omnipotence much in the same way a baby is born into the world with theoretically unlimited possibilities as to how to live his life. Every time a baby is born, it is the Creation all over again—a new being has come to exist, a being who knows nothing but can quickly learn to do anything. The character of God develops throughout Genesis similarly to how a baby grows into an adult.
	"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). That is all the Bible says regarding whatever might have come before Creation—nothing. There is no mention of God's origins, no description of God's state at "t=0," nothing but those words—in the beginning, God created. One can easily deduce that at the very beginning of the biblical timeline (the beginning of the world), God spontaneously came into being and, at the same time, worked his first bit of godliness, creating "stuff" that would later become the world. Creation was not premeditated because there was no pre-Creation God. It was not planned. It happened. God did not intend to create; he simply did. This is further supported by the world of day one being "formless and empty" (Genesis 1:2). Given his powers, had God had an image or purpose in mind for that first instance of creation, he would not have spent six days embellishing and refining the world. And though his first bout of creation clearly had no cohesive goal, he was created with what we later discover is true omnipotence, control even over peoples' emotions (Exodus 4:21). This limitless power that at first has no direction is much like a young child's life—a baby is born not knowing anything about how it will shape its future, but it can in theory do anything it wants with the limitless possibilities ahead.
	After Creation is complete, God attains the rank of a young child—one with a strong sense of justice yet who sees a world of black and white. In Genesis 2, God forbids Adam to eat from the tree of knowledge of "good and evil." When the serpent tricks Eve into eating from it, and Eve gives the fruit to Adam, God is very angry and he curses all involved (Genesis 3:13-19), even expelling them from Paradise (Genesis 3:23). This is arguably the most grave punishment doled out in the entirety of Genesis—wiping out almost all life is nothing next to withholding Paradise forever—and for nothing more than minor disobedience. The knowledge of "good and evil" that God loves so has blinded him to the fact that Adam has not truly done anything wrong. Because of his strong sense of justice and his black and white world view, God is incapable of determining degrees of severity and thusly incapable of dishing out appropriate punishment. The extreme, "what is this you have done [...] cursed are you!" and subsequent flinging of curses bring to mind images of children yelling incoherently about how unfair something is, demanding justice, unwilling to examine the grays between black and white (Genesis 3:3-22).
	His judgment still tarnished by an overly strong sense of right and wrong, God throws a tantrum and destroys the world with a flood. That is, he decides that the world has become rotten, and "all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened" (Genesis 7:11). God had become upset with his creations, and regretted making them (Genesis 6:6), and, much like a child who, suddenly displeased with the result, breaks his carefully-constructed LEGO castle, God swings out with one hand and brings everything tumbling down. Once his tantrum has receded, so too recede the waters, and God quickly makes a promise not to destroy all life ever again (Genesis 8:21). This promise comes across sounding about as sincere as the forced apology of a child who has spent the last hour kicking and screaming.
	Indeed, the promise was about that sincere—not too long after, God, promise forgotten, is about to take it upon himself to destroy a the Pentapolis (Genesis 18:20). While Sodom and Gomorrah are only two cities and not the whole world, the theme of divine intervention in order to purge the unrighteous is still there. God is doing exactly what he promised he wouldn't. Thankfully Abraham is there to chide God, something he does in a very paternal manner, saying such things as "now that I have been so bold as to..." (Genesis 18:27) and "may the Lord not be angry..." (Genesis 18:32), as though he were a mother trying to calm her child with feigned deference. Abraham with this technique manages to acquire God's promise not to destroy the righteous along with the unrighteous, no matter how few they are. Ultimately, Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed (Genesis 19:24-25) but the only righteous people of Sodom (Abraham's nephew's family) are saved (Genesis 19:29). With this, God has chosen specific targets for his wrath and he has spared the righteous as promised. He has matured and come a long way from his indiscriminate all-engulfing obliteration of the world, in large part thanks to Abraham.
	God matures considerably after the destruction of Sodom, learning enough to eventually be able to teach humans important lessons other than "be righteous." Genesis 32 finds Jacob, grandson of Abraham, fearing the imminent reunion with his brother Esau whose birthright and blessing he had previously stolen. Jacob is right to be scared; Esau had, twenty years prior, sworn to kill him (Genesis 27:41). The night before the reunion, God appears before Jacob and wrestles with him (Genesis 32:24,28). This struggle, and the blessing that Jacob "wrestles" out of God, work to increase Jacob's confidence (Genesis 32:26). God essentially comes upon Jacob while Jacob is moping and fights with him in order to raise his spirits. This is not something that the God of Genesis 1 could have done, floating in a limbo of his own formless Creation. It is not something that the God of Genesis 8 could have done, destroying the entire world in a fit of anger and sorrow. It is not something that the God of Genesis 18 could have done, failing to keep promises to his people. In Genesis 32, we see God using his powers toward a specific goal: he manifests himself before Jacob and physically wrestles with the man in order to boost his confidence. He no longer lacks motivation—he is giving a small blessing to his chosen people. He no longer lacks direction—he knows exactly what he wants Jacob to do, and eggs him on to meet Esau without conflict (Genesis 33). At this point, God is in the second half of high school. He has goals and is capable of seeing the world in grayscale; he can interact with his creations on a much more subtle level than "reward" or "curse/destroy."
	Whether or not God came into existence literally a baby or not, his development throughout Genesis is undeniably similar to the growth of a baby into adulthood. God goes on to be absent for much of the rest of Genesis, appearing only in Joseph's words after Genesis 37. It is exactly as though he has grown into an adult and moved out of his parents' home. He no longer depends on sustained interaction with his creations who so often before acted as guiding forces to him. After spontaneously coming into existence and creating without purpose, he went on to learn important lessons from his mistakes and creations—not to be too loyal to "justice," not to let "good and evil" blind him to the truth of a situation, not to destroy all life on the spur of the moment, not to renege on promises, and, most importantly, to do things with a clear purpose in mind. By the end of Genesis, he has grown into a splendid adult. As for his character beyond Genesis, perhaps the aforementioned unreliable fluctuations throughout Exodus are the results of senility, thus closing the cycle.