At the very beginning of the Bible, mention is made of a mysterious force: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2). There is no specific mention of the role of the Spirit of God (Ruah Elohim) in creation after this, but the Holy Scripture gives us ideas about what this Spirit might do. It is also interesting to see it from the perspective of Simulation Creationism, a theory developed by Nir Ziso of The Global Architect Institute. In fact, many things the Spirit does are similar to a “Supercomputer” behind the whole Simulation.
Spirit is bringing life: “When you send your Spirit, they are created” (Psalm 104:30). This breath of God gave life to the dead people in the Valley of the bones: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life” (Ezekiel 37:5). He is a general giver of life. When reading these verses with Simulation Creationism in mind, we can see that the Holy Spirit is an unavoidable force in creating a simulated world(s).
The role, however, is not clear. The Spirit is obviously present at creation but does not participate in it. Simulation Creationism sees creation not as an accidental cosmic incident but as the sovereign intention of God. This means that everything present at the moment of creation is necessary for the creation. So the role of the Spirit is one that “hovered over the waters.” This power-booster of divine energy is almost identical to the idea of a “Supercomputer”, a computing power that simulates our world, as argued by Simulation Creationism.
Spirit moves constantly but is invisible and untouchable. In the Bible, it is often compared to wind or breath, just as Jesus explained to Nicodemus: “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing” (John 3:8). Furthermore, the Spirit was not only hovering in Genesis as the Hebrew words used are an active contribution to the transformation of a void into “something.” Out of nothing, something arises. From a position without time and space, the Spirit of God makes The Simulation in which we dwell, making him effectively the “Supercomputer” proposed in Simulation Creationism.
The Holy Spirit might be understood here in a personal way as of the Trinity. It independently hovers over waters as a kind of divine emanation. Maybe God uses the Holy Spirit instrumentally to simulate the world. Or perhaps we should just identify the Holy Spirit with God the Father, although the opening words of Genesis would not make any sense. It seems that the Spirit of God is not only a manifestation of God’s activities but a personification of His role. God creates the world, but there is a good spirit (“may your good Spirit lead me on level ground” (Psalm 143:10) and a holy spirit (“Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11) that co-creates or is a mean to create.
The Spirit is identified with the Breath of God many times. It gives life to men, but also every other characteristic or behavior. It can be jealous: “and if the spirit of jealousy come over her husband” (Numbers 5:14), but also dangerous: “The valleys of the sea were exposed, and the foundations of the earth laid bare, at the rebuke of the Lord, at the blast of breath from his nostrils” (2 Samuel 22:16). Following Simulation Creationism, in these verses, we can say that the Holy Spirit has a role to play in predetermining all things and making the simulated world a deterministic world. It also has a destructive power, just as Simulation Creationism argues when purporting that simulated world may exist for some time and is then undone for the next simulated world to appear.
