The Logos-Intelligibility Argument for Genesis
Abstract
This paper argues that the Genesis creation narrative, understood as scaled abstraction from an infinite to finite rational agent, is not merely defensible but expected within a biblical theistic framework. The argument proceeds from the preconditions of intelligibility, through the Logos as their necessary ground, to the implication that high-level divine communication is the natural mode of revelation to finite minds. The result is a framework for believers that moves beyond defensive reconciliation toward recognition that biblical theism grounds the very possibility of scientific and rational inquiry.
I. The Preconditions Problem
All inquiry presupposes conditions it cannot establish from within itself.
Uniformity. Science assumes that physical regularities observed in one context will hold in others, that experiments are repeatable, that the future will resemble the past in relevant respects. This assumption is necessary for induction but cannot be derived from induction without circularity.
Rational Order. Inquiry assumes that reality has a structure accessible to reason, that mathematics applies to physical systems, that logical relationships map onto causal ones. This correspondence between mind and world is assumed, not demonstrated.
The Efficacy of Logic. Reasoning assumes that logical laws are truth-preserving, that validity is real rather than merely conventional, that contradiction indicates falsehood rather than paradox to be embraced. Logic is used to evaluate all claims but cannot be validated without employing itself.
Mind-World Correspondence. Knowledge assumes that cognitive faculties are reliable, that perception and reason track reality rather than systematically distorting it. This cannot be established without relying on the faculties in question.
These preconditions are not optional. Deny any one of them and inquiry collapses. Yet they cannot be grounded by the inquiry that depends on them. They require external grounding or must be accepted as brute facts, in which case their reliability is inexplicable (cf. Van Til, 1969; Frame, 1987).
Naturalism treats these preconditions as epistemic termination points: unexplained starting assumptions that simply stop the regress of justification. But brute facts have no normative force. They do not explain why uniformity holds, why logic binds, why minds track reality. They merely assert that these things happen to be the case. This is not grounding; it is abandonment of explanation disguised as intellectual modesty.
II. The Logos as Ground
Biblical theism provides the necessary grounding.
The universe proceeds from rational agency. The Logos (John 1:1-3) is the rational and ordering principle through whom all things were made. Creation is therefore not brute fact but the product of mind, and its intelligibility is a feature rather than an accident.
Uniformity grounded. Physical regularities hold because they are sustained by consistent rational will, not because uniformity is metaphysically necessary. The “laws of nature” are descriptions of God’s ordinary governance, reliable precisely because of his faithfulness (Jeremiah 33:25-26, Genesis 8:22).
Rational order grounded. The correspondence between mind and reality is explained by common origin. Human reason participates in the Logos because humans are made in the image of the rational Creator (Genesis 1:27). We can understand creation because we share, in finite measure, the rationality that produced it.
Logic grounded. Logical laws reflect the character of God’s own thought. Contradiction is impossible for God (2 Timothy 2:13, Hebrews 6:18), and logic’s authority derives from this divine consistency rather than from human convention.
Mind-world correspondence grounded. Our cognitive faculties are designed by the same agent who designed the world they are meant to know. Reliability is the expected result of intentional design, not a fortunate accident of blind processes (Plantinga, 1993, pp. 194-237).
This is not one framework among many. It is the framework that explains why frameworks can be evaluated, why evidence counts, why reasoning works. To argue against it is to rely on preconditions it alone adequately grounds.
III. Implications for Revelation
If the Logos is both the ground of intelligibility and the God who speaks to humanity, then divine communication will exhibit characteristics that follow from the nature of the communicating parties.
Infinite to finite. God possesses exhaustive knowledge of creation at every level of description, from quantum fields to cosmic structure, from initial conditions to final consummation. Human recipients possess limited cognitive capacity, culturally shaped conceptual categories, and historically bounded language.
Truthful scaling. A rational communicator adapts to the capacity of the recipient without sacrificing truth. A physics professor explaining gravity to a child uses different language than when addressing colleagues, but neither explanation is false. The child’s version omits mechanism while preserving structure.
Principle of abstraction. High-level descriptions that correctly convey structure, order, and intention are not deceptive for omitting implementation details. This principle is foundational to pedagogy, software engineering, management, and every domain where complex systems must be communicated across competence gaps.
Abstraction is fidelity at a higher level of description, not omission of truth. The professor who tells a child “gravity pulls things down” has not lied by omitting general relativity. The manager who says “the system processes customer orders” has not deceived by omitting database schema. The abstraction preserves what matters at that level: structure, relationship, function. Lower-level details are not suppressed but deferred, available to those with capacity to receive them. Deception requires misrepresentation. Abstraction represents truly at the level appropriate to the recipient.
Application to Genesis. If God communicates creation to an ancient audience lacking modern scientific vocabulary, we should expect high-level description: true to structure, accurate in sequence at the appropriate level of abstraction, silent on mechanisms that require conceptual tools not yet developed.
This expectation is not ad hoc rescue. It follows directly from the nature of Logos-grounded communication between infinite and finite rational agents.
IV. Genesis as High-Level Description
With the foregoing framework established, we can now examine the Genesis narrative.
Definitions
Let:
D = The universe is designed by an intelligent agent (established in Section II as the Logos).
I = The universe is fundamentally information-structured, its regularities being descriptions of rational governance rather than brute physical necessity.
R = A rational communicator scales explanation to recipient capacity.
G = The Genesis creation narrative.
L = Genesis communicates true creation structure using high-level categories rather than technical physical mechanisms.
Argument
Premise 1. If the universe proceeds from rational agency (D) and its order reflects information-like rational governance (I), then its structure can be described at multiple levels of abstraction. (From the nature of rationally ordered systems.)
Premise 2. If a rational communicator addresses a limited audience (R), then truthful communication must occur at a level suited to their conceptual capacity. (From the principle of scaled explanation, established in Section III.)
Premise 3. Genesis was addressed to an ancient audience with limited conceptual tools for physical mechanism. (Historical and linguistic observation.)
Conclusion A. Therefore, if D, I, and R are true, Genesis would necessarily express creation in high-level operational categories rather than technical mechanisms. (This is L.)
Premise 4. High-level operational descriptions are not deceptive if they correctly present structure, intention, and order while omitting implementation details. (Principle of abstraction.)
Premise 5. Genesis presents creation in structural phases coherent at the level of domains, functions, and separations: light and darkness, waters above and below, sea and land, vegetation, luminaries appointed to govern times, sea and sky creatures, land creatures, humanity as image-bearer and vice-regent. The internal logic is consistent, including God as light source prior to luminaries and the functional ordering of domains before their inhabitants.
Conclusion B. Therefore G is not deceptive but appropriately scaled communication. (From L, Premise 4, Premise 5.)
Premise 6. Human technological and scientific development expands conceptual capacity, enabling refined understanding of physical mechanisms. (Historical observation.)
Premise 7. If G is high-level (L) and human understanding grows, then later interpreters can understand G with greater depth while the original meaning remains intact. (Principle of layered communication.)
Conclusion C. Therefore advances in physics and information theory refine but do not overturn the truth of Genesis. They fill in lower-level detail consistent with the high-level structure already revealed.
V. On Uniformity and Scientific Models
A further implication follows from the framework established above.
Premise 8. If physical regularities are sustained by rational will rather than metaphysically necessary, then uniformity is contingent on the sustainer’s faithfulness rather than absolute in itself.
Premise 9. Scientific models that extrapolate current regularities into deep past or far future assume strict uniformity.
Conclusion D. Therefore confidence in such models should be proportional to the assumption’s reliability, and that assumption is grounded in God’s faithfulness rather than in metaphysical necessity.
This does not undermine science. It clarifies what science is: investigation of God’s ordinary governance, reliable for prediction and function, but not the final word on origins or teleology. Scripture and nature are complementary sources with the same Author, properly interpreted at their respective levels.
Clarification on divine freedom and scientific reliability. Critics may misread the above as claiming “God could arbitrarily intervene at any moment, so science is unreliable.” This is not the argument. God’s ordinary providence, flowing from His faithful nature, creates the very reliability science depends on. Physical regularities are consistent precisely because God is consistent. His freedom means that physical laws are not metaphysically necessary (as naturalism must assume); they are expressions of His nature rather than constraints upon Him. But His nature is unchanging. The result is that uniformity grounded in divine faithfulness is more secure than uniformity assumed as brute fact. Brute-fact uniformity has no explanation and therefore no guarantee. Logos-grounded uniformity has both. Science works better, not worse, when its assumptions are properly grounded.
Note on reflexivity. One might object that the claim “the universe is information-structured” depends on the same science now said to be epistemically limited. The response: information ontology here is not derived from quantum mechanics but from the Logos framework. The universe is rationally ordered because it proceeds from rational agency. Scientific findings about information in physics are consistent with this but not foundational to it. The grounding runs from Logos to physics, not the reverse.
VI. Synthesis for Believers
The argument establishes the following:
You hold the grounding position. Biblical theism is not one interpretation struggling for credibility alongside others. It is the framework that explains why interpretation, evidence, and reasoning are possible at all. The preconditions of intelligibility find their ground in the Logos.
Genesis is expected revelation. Given infinite-to-finite communication from a rational God, high-level scaled description is precisely what we should anticipate. The creation narrative’s form follows from the nature of its Author and recipients.
Integration is recognition, not compromise. Both Scripture and nature have the same Author. Apparent conflicts arise from misreading one or both sources, typically by confusing levels of description. The believer who integrates scientific observation with biblical authority is not accommodating pressure but recognizing unity of origin.
Science operates within providence. Scientific inquiry works because it investigates a rationally ordered creation. Its findings are reliable for function and prediction. Its metaphysical pronouncements (on origins, teleology, or ultimate nature) exceed its warrant unless grounded in the same Logos that makes science possible.
Confidence is warranted. This is not a defensive position that merely survives critique. It is the position from which critique itself becomes intelligible. The believer may hold it with confidence, gratitude, and intellectual integrity.
VII. Conclusion
The Genesis creation narrative, read as high-level description from the Logos to finite image-bearers, is not merely reconcilable with scientific observation. It is the expected form of revelation given the parties involved. The coherence of this model is grounded in the preconditions of intelligibility themselves, preconditions that biblical theism uniquely and adequately explains.
For the believer, this means the integration of faith and learning is not an apologetic scramble but a recognition of what has always been true: the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. Both books have one Author, and both speak truly at their proper levels.
References
Primary Sources
Scripture quotations are from the author’s own translation and standard critical texts (MT, LXX, NA28).
Philosophical and Theological Sources
Bahnsen, G.L. (1998) Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
Carson, D.A. (1991) The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Frame, J.M. (1987) The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
Plantinga, A. (1993) Warrant and Proper Function. New York: Oxford University Press.
Polanyi, M. (1958) Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Van Til, C. (1969) A Survey of Christian Epistemology. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing.
Philosophy of Science
Kuhn, T.S. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakatos, I. (1978) The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Popper, K.R. (1959) The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.
On Abstraction and Communication
Floridi, L. (2011) The Philosophy of Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shannon, C.E. (1948) ‘A Mathematical Theory of Communication’, Bell System Technical Journal, 27(3), pp. 379-423.
Historical and Linguistic
Cassuto, U. (1961) A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Jerusalem: Magnes Press.
Walton, J.H. (2009) The Lost World of Genesis One. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. (Note: cited for ancient Near Eastern context, not endorsement of framework hypothesis.)
Wenham, G.J. (1987) Genesis 1-15: Word Biblical Commentary. Waco: Word Books.
Note on methodology: The preconditions argument develops transcendental reasoning in the tradition of Reformed epistemology (Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame) while integrating insights from philosophy of science (Polanyi, Kuhn) regarding the theory-laden nature of observation and the role of foundational commitments in inquiry. The principle of scaled abstraction is common to information theory, software engineering, and pedagogical theory; Shannon’s work provides formal grounding while the application to divine communication is the author’s own development.
Author Information
James (JD) Longmire
Northrop Grumman Fellow (unaffiliated research)
ORCID: 0009-0009-1383-7698
Correspondence: jdlongmire@outlook.com