Before “Let there be light” there is only “without form, and void”. What precedes God’s
Creation ex-nihilo implies that it is impossible to talk about the creative process. You can stand outside it and talk about appearances, but you can’t stand inside it and talk about it. The “meta” mode of discourse instantly loses touch with the object it would like to describe. The old-fashioned word for spiritual experience is exactly right: ineffable. One cannot talk about certain things. You can only talk about their effects.
You can talk about the creative process apophatically, that is, you can say what it is not. So if you give close attention to when artists are interviewed about they do, they typically will say they don’t know where their work comes from. If the interviewer suggests an explicit source, the artist will usually say something to the effect: “no, that’s not quite it”.
Before “Let there be light”, there is only “without form, and void.”