Is There a Dome above Our Heads?
An Apology
During an ecumenical discussion with a separated brother, I was asked a question, which I would like to address here:
Q: Do you believe that the Earth is stationary and that there is a dome/firmament above us?
A: The Church gives no definitive interpretation of the creation story, and we are not bound to hold a literal interpretation. In fact, the Catechism refers to it as a symbolic account (CCC 337). The only thing the Church has infallibly defined about the creation of the world is stated in canon 1 §5 of the First Vatican Council:¹
5. If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced, according to their whole substance, out of nothing by God;
or holds that God did not create by his will free from all necessity, but as necessarily as he necessarily loves himself;
or denies that the world was created for the glory of God:
let him be anathema.
Having cleared this out, my view is that the Holy Spirit, who spoke by the inspired author, did not intend to teach men the essential nature of the things of the universe, which is not profitable to salvation;² and that the author employed a figurative language, in terms which were commonly used at the time,³ rich in theological meaning.
I think the days might not have been 24-hour periods. It could be the case that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8); or in an Augustinian literal view, that it all happened at once, simultaneously.⁴ As Augustine puts it, what kind of days these are is difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, to say nothing of describing them.⁵
I think the number of days is also symbolic, 6 being the first perfect number, that is, the first positive integer that is equal to the sum of its proper divisors; and 7, a number of completion.
God begins by foreshadowing baptism, with God, the Spirit of God over the water, and the Word of God creating light (cognition or goodness) piercing the darkness of primeval chaos, and creating time⁶ (day and night). This is done the first day, — which could represent the oneness of God, with 1 being ʼāleph (א) in the mispar hekhreḥi, the normative value system of gematria — .
Then God creates an expanse (רָקִ֖יעַ),⁷ which splits the waters. The idea of a solid firmament is of course a cultural reference for the inspired author’s audience, but in its allegorical meaning, like Augustine, I think that water is matter, and God divided matter, so that the lower matter is that of bodies and the higher matter is that of spirit — the visible and the invisible.
Then God calls the expanse Heaven (שָׁמָ֑יִם or οὐρανός). This happens the second day — which could represent the house of God⁸ or the splitting in two of the waters, with 2 being bēth (ב) — .
Regarding the Earth being stationary, I do not believe Genesis 1 talks about the Earth being in motion. We do have other instances in Scripture where motion is discussed, like David’s Song of Thanksgiving (1 Ch 16:30), which the RSV2CE translates as the world stands firm, never to be moved. We find a similar wording in Psalms 93:1–2 and 96:10, where it translates Yes, the world is established, it shall never be moved. Nevertheless, when we read Holy Scripture, we should have in mind the Sitz im Leben —the socio-historical context— and the literary mode, and by doing so, we can see that the authors of these songs are using poetic language to try to convey the stability of creation, and are not pretending to teach us about the movement of the planet and astrophysics through technical language. As it would be wrong to conclude that the Sun orbits the Earth because we say that the sun raises, it would be wrong to conclude that the Earth doesn’t move because David’s song says the world stands firm. We should recognize this as phenomenological language, and we should have the same attitude when reading Genesis 1, presumably composed around the 15th century B.C.⁹ Because they are not making scientific assertions, if we draw erroneous scientific conclusions from a misreading of Scripture, the error belongs not to Scripture nor the Holy Spirit, but to us who misread it.
I answer, I do believe in Heaven, that it was created by God ex níhilo, and that the description of how it was created in Genesis 1 is symbolic. I believe that, as far as we have been able to observe, there is an atmosphere surrounding the Earth, which we call sky, which separates the Earth from outer space in an indefinite point we try to define as the Kármán line; and if we place the privileged frame of reference in the galactic centre, the Earth is rotating in latitude on a tilted axis, at 1,670 km/h at the equator, while orbiting the barycentre of the Solar System, at around 149,597,870 km from the Sun —just the right distance for life to flourish—, which is itself orbiting the barycentre of the Milky Way, which probably contains a supermassive black hole. I also believe that there is an invisible nature (τὰ ἀόρατα), which is not observable by human instruments unless revealed to us, and I believe Heaven is part of this nature. I think there are many mysteries left to be observed, and that our understanding will keep developing as we grow in knowledge, crescéntes in sciéntia Dei.
I also do believe that for a Christian to argue against the inerrancy of Scripture is like trying to saw off the branch we are both sitting on.
How do you interpret Genesis 1:6? Do you believe there is a dome/firmament above us?
¹ Decrees of the First Vatican Council (1868), Can. 1 §5.
² De Gen. ad litt. 2, 9, 20; PL 34, col. 270 s.; CSEL 28 (Sectio III, pars. 2), p. 46.
³ Summa theológiæ I, Q. 70, a. 1 ad 3.
⁴ De Gen. ad litt. 5, 5, 12, in idem, 282.
⁵ De Civitáte Dei contra pagános, 436.
⁶ Cf. St. Basil’s commentaries.
⁷ The word רָקִ֖יעַ suggests a thin sheet of beaten metal and it is etymologically related to hammering out.
⁸ The letter בֵּית) ב) seems to derive from the hieroglyph for בַּיִת — a house.
⁹ Based on the 480 years timeframe from the exodus to Solomon’s temple in 1 Kgs 6:1. A later possible dating is the 13th century B.C., based on the mention of the cities Pithom and Rameses in Exodus 1:11 (Roland de Vaux OP, The Early History of Israel (1978), p. 389).
