Creation as Ongoing and Participatory

In the view of Aristotle and the authors of Genesis, creation was an event that happened only once at a specific time in the past and is now over forever. It was accomplished by a single being – Elohim, Yahweh, God, the “Unmoved Mover” – who by virtue of this act is the sole being in the universe who possesses any cosmogonic powers worth mentioning.

In the heathen Norse perspective, however, creation is ongoing and participatory. The Norse creation myth tells only of the initial shaping of the world. As I describe in detail in the article on Yggdrasil and the Well of Urd, however, the character of the cosmos is always being reshaped. All of the inhabitants of the Nine Worlds have some role, some agency, in this process, however great or small. Even in the above tale, we see that the “initial” shaping of the cosmos was an act that occurred gradually and in numerous stages, and was accomplished by a very wide variety of beings building from the accomplishments of those who came before them. As the famous Scottish-American naturalist and preservationist John Muir wrote, “I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in creation’s dawn.

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