I raise this question to get to the other one already mentioned, namely the spurious dichotomy, at the level of principle, between religion and science. The Kamitic god Tehuti gave us logismos, which I will take to mean formal logic. We know in formal logic that there is no rule of logic that would establish the truth of logical premises. These must be taken as being in some sense self-evident. They must be intuited. Ra Un Nefer Amen makes the intriguing point that the word "intuit" derives phonetically from "Tehuti," the god who, not incidentally, gave us "logismos," (along, notably, with geometry, among others). This makes sense: every time we intuit the premise of a logical argument, we pay homage to Tehuti, who, also not incidentally, is the Kamitic deity that represents the omniscience faculty of the Creator. That seems to me too much to be mere coincidence. Which brings me back to the point: theories, scientific or otherwise, may only ever be intuited, never deduced in any formal logical sense (although logic may be used to test theories, since a well-posed theory or hypothesis will allow predictions, which may then be compared with reality to see how well the theory corresponds). The point? In conventional science, theories are a matter of (intuitive) speculation, and Western Science ever trumpets the brilliance and genius of its best theoretical speculators. In Kamitic science, "theories" were viewed as the revealed word of God, accessible to those able to tap into the wisdom faculty represented by Tehuti, the oracle, or God's mouthpiece. (In the Yoruba pantheon, the same oracular faculty is ascribed to the god or orisha called Orunmila, the ruler of Ifa divination.) Moreover, is it not the case that a well-honed "intuitive" sense is but a way to tap into knowledge that lies beyond the grasp of the everyday five senses? There are indeed other ways of knowing. The Greeks understood some of what the Kamau taught them, but not all of it, which is why today we use the word theo-ry without usually remarking on its cognate relationship with theo-logy. Religion and science are fused in the core words deriving from Kamit, yet commonly seen as being at odds. How wrong. At a fundamental level, religion and science cannot be antagonists, and if they are, then either the science is bad, or the religion is bad, or both. In Kamit, and in the African tradition, the two were, and are, fused.

Let me turn now to cosmogony, the story of creation. Westerners have a bifurcated view of the creation story, one from religion, the other from science, both deriving from the same basic world-view. On the one hand, Western religion teaches what has been described as a form of creatio ex nihilo, or "creation out of nothing." On the other hand, Western science teaches both (1) biological evolution, under which Man is deemed to have "ascended" from lower creatures, and (2) "big-bang" physics, under which the creation of the universe may be traced back to an initial "big-bang" from which the universe still continues to expand. In either case, Western science, like Western religion, would seem to require "creation out of nothing" at the bottom of its story of creation.

The Kamau took a different view, searing in its logic, and moreover wholly in accord with what we know about the universe, both in its seen and unseen manifestations. Before describing the Kamitic view, which is fundamentally the traditional African view (see The Ancient Wisdom in Africa, and African Cosmology) I would first establish that "creation out of nothing" is a semantic impossibility. To see this it is sufficient to note that creation implies motion -- that which is involved in the thing created coming into being. Motion in turn requires force, as that which creates motion. Creation therefore requires force. But force cannot be exerted by "nothing." Therefore there can be no "creation out of nothing." The argument here is semantic, not material, and convinces me that, so far as we are able to imagine it, and put these matters into words, the universe simply is, and presumably always will be.

The universe may, however, change form. Amen (1990) has revealed ancient Kamitic teachings on this subject, which have been briefly summarized in African Cosmology. The Kamitic cosmology posits an equilibrium state for the universe in which there are "no things" (note: this is not quite the same as "nothing"). This state was called "hetep," by the Kamau, and corresponds to a state of bliss, or what the Hindus call "nirvana" (literally: "no motion"). The corresponing aspect of God is hidden, and unmanifest, and was called variously "Amen," "Atum," "Nu," and "Nut" by the Kamau, and the same aspect of God is called "Olodumare," by the Yoruba. In this state there is, however a sort of formless energy/matter which contains all the creative potential of the "thingly" universe before it came into being. There is also the principle of mind, already discussed, or the complementary dualities of consciousness and will. It is what the Zulu call the Itongo (see The Ancient Wisdom in Africa) which is seen as the source from which we come, and to which we are all on a journey of return. That pre-creation state is co-extensive with that which we call God, namely energy/matter in potential, and consciousness/will. God must in some sense be conscious of being conscious if there is to be an act of creation. And God must moreover have the attribute of "will" if It is to will the act of creation.

That first act of creation had to consist of a change of state: from formless energy/matter consisting of "no things" -- therefore complete stillness, and no motion, ie. the aforementioned state of equilibrium -- to a state of differentiation, in which motion occurs, and "things" therefore appear. According to this account, the reason God created our world by disturbing the primordial bliss state was so that It could have experience, specifically through the differentiated beings of Its creation. In the beginning there was the initial vibration -- motion -- which disturbed the equilibrium state that existed prior to creation. Call it the "big bang" if you will, but this scientific metaphor clearly begs the question: (1) what is the force which created the motion of the big bang, and (2) from where comes the evident Intelligence which governs the Order that is so apparent in the universe. Creationists call that force "God," and attribute that Intelligence to It. Science shies away from all talk of God, yet searches everywhere for Order. The realist in me tells me that this is a contradictory quest. A Science that focuses on energy/matter (ultimately, the laws of motion, vibration, in one form or another) will never reveal all the laws of the universe and of creation because the consciousness/will aspect of God is as essential an attribute of creation as is energy/matter, and the former is different, as a matter of existential category, from the latter.

As to the Biblical account of creation, it does an injustice to the Kamitic understanding of the question which was its source. It encourages a notion of God as a Being separate and apart from its creation, which it is not in the Kamitic. There follows the unresolvable circularity in Western thinking which attributes to God the power of creation, but does not account for God and how God Itself was created. Nonsense such as "creatio ex nihilo" then follows. The Kamau saw through the difficulty, and in effect have it both ways, and logically to boot: God is co-extensive with the universe, and always existed, but God willed a change of form from a pre-creation state of "no things" -- the primordial "mist" -- to a thingly world, put into motion by the initial vibration, or word of God, thus giving this phenomenal aspect of creation the minimal attributes of space and time. God, being omnipresent, is all things, and may be conceived as being the Order or Intelligence underlying all things -- the tacit Maintained Hypothesis of all scientific inquiry, namely of an existent Order in the Universe.

The biblical account is watered down Kamitic in the obvious sense that the Bible starts out with "In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth," and says nothing further about the state of affairs as it existed prior to creation. It leaves open the possibility of "creatio ex nihilo" which the Kamitic cosmology explicitly addresses and implicitly rejects. I am not a Biblical scholar by any means, but I believe that the Kamitic cosmology was known to the Hebrews. Moses, for instance, was reputedly trained in the "Egyptian mysteries," therefore the writers of Genesis could presumably have given a fuller, Kamitic, treatment. Interestingly, Genesis goes on to state "And the earth was without form, and void...," a notion which echoes the Kamitic one of formlessness, undifferentiation, etc., prior to the initial creative vibration that brought form to the (our) world. So, parts of the Kamitic cosmology were imported into the Bible, but not enough to nail down the concept, and just enough to create all kinds of confusion in the literalist generations that followed.