西方的创世纪理念 The Western idea of World Creation

把西方思想定型的古希腊哲学，一开始就注重理性与探索的任务。他们对宇宙的本质提出了很多问题。它是如何来的？它是被创造的吗？还是一直就已经存在？他们相信我们所看到的之所以会成为这样，一定是经过一些流程。如果我们能够知道这些流程，那我们就可以了解世界本质。

古代的人对事物的来源与本质有很多的学说。其中的一个学说就在《圣经》的第一章《创世纪》中。这个说法是说上帝以六天的时间把这个世界从无到有创造了出来。

事实上是大哲学家柏拉图引进创造代理人的这个概念的。对柏拉图而言，我们以感官所看到、接触到与经验到的世界并不是真实的，而是世界的复制。在我们能找到真正与真实的东西的世界，他称作‘理念’或‘形式’世界。这些‘理念’或‘形式’并不是被创造出来的，它们在开始时就完美地在哪里，它们会以这种状态一直存在着。

这个复制的感性世界是如何被创造的？柏拉图说原本有一个‘建筑师’，也就是那个‘造物主’把理念世界与物质放在一起，就好像雕刻家把他的理念与大理石放在一起来雕出一个塑像一样。这个‘造物主’拥有所有东西的完美理念，它也有大量的物质。可是，柏拉图并没有告诉我们这个‘造物主’与物质是如何产生的。它们原本就在哪里。

此后，很多宗教思想家尝试把宗教信仰与希腊哲学融合起来。那些把基督教义与希腊哲学融合的人就被称为‘护教论者’。对他们而言，柏拉图的‘理念’就成为上帝。上帝本身就是永恒与应遵法则，永不变的永恒的模型。他是所有理念的统一。他从无中创造了物质并用来铸造这个世界。这个世界的模型在他的理念中。

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The ancient Greek philosophy that shaped the entire Western thought since its inception focused on the role of reason and inquiry. They asked many question on the nature of the universe. How did it come about? Was it created, or has it existed forever? They believed that all that we see around us must have become what it is by some process. If we know of this process, we would understand the nature of the universe.

The ancient people have had many theories of the beginning and nature of things. In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, is one of these theories. Here we are told that God created the world out of nothing in six days.

In fact, it was Plato, the great philosopher who planted the idea of agent of creation of the world. For Plato, the world which we see, touch, and experience through our senses is not real, but a copy of the world. The real world in which we find true and real things is known by him as the world of ‘ideas’ or ‘forms’. These ‘ideas’ of ‘forms’ were never created, but have existed from the very beginning in just the perfect state in which they will always exist.

How was the world of our senses created? Plato said that there was an ‘architect’, the ‘Demiurge’, who brought the ideal world and matter together just as a sculptor might bring his idea and marble together to produce a statute. This ‘Demiurge’ had perfect ideas of everything, and had a great mass of matter. However, Plato did not tell us where either ‘Demiurge’ or matter came from originally. They were just there when things began.

Since then, there were many religious-minded thinkers attempted to reconcile the religious beliefs with Greek philosophy. Those men who sought to reconcile Christianity with Greek philosophy were known as Apologists. For them the ‘ideas’ of Plato became God. God is the eternal and abiding principle in all change, the eternal pattern that never changes. He is the unity of all ideas and forms. He fashioned the world from matter which He created out of nothing. The pattern of the world is in His mind.