Creation as disjunctive synthesis

Abstract

According to the hypothesis of the present study, a significant number of creation myths from a wide variety of cultures show a common motive: creation is a separation of parts and the stabilization or holding together of the separated parts. I use the notion of disjunctive synthesis to define the operation of separating and holding the separated together. Therefore, according to the hypothesis, cosmogonies in many cases conceive the creation of the world as disjunctive synthesis of parts. To prove this, I examine fourty creation myths of different ages and continents. Based on the comparative analysis of cosmogonies, I distinguish between four main forms of creative disjunction. Separation can be the separation of heaven and earth, the division of the body of a primordial being into parts, the breaking of a shell, and separation with word.

I conclude the study with two philosophical descriptions of the creation of the world, the decisive moment of which is separation: Plato’s Timaeus and Schelling’s Weltalter. The analysis will show that a clear distinction can be made between a personifying-pictorial approach of the previously examined myths, and a conceptual approach of the two philosophical theories. Nevertheless, what connects the former approach with the latter is the narrative of creation as disjunctive synthesis.