Did God create darkness or did it always exist?

Question:

Genesis 1 speaks of darkness existing over the waters before creation. Was darkness something made or has it always existed? Did God create the initial darkness before He separated the initial light from darkness? I'm asking because a friend asked me this question. Also was God not light? So why was there a need for the initial light before the sun was created on the fourth day?

Answer:

The difficulty is that Hebrew, compared to modern English, had a relatively limited vocabulary. There weren't detailed scientific terms to describe what God did. But take a look at: Did God create the earth without a shape and then later give its current shape?

Darkness is describing matter without energy. Light is describing adding energy to that dark matter. Your friend is right that God is light. What is interesting that when God brought light into the universe, it does not say that God created (made from nothing) light. Light already existed, it just wasn't present in the initial universe.

I believe you'll find the lesson Light and Dark to be an interesting study.

Response:

Thank you. This has been very helpful.