436 - Reflections on the Void: negativity and difference in the Bible and contemporary thinking
The Symbolic World
Jonathan Pageau
4.8 • 933 Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the opening verses of Genesis, where the earth is described as “empty and void,” we are confronted with a mystery that runs through Scripture, philosophy, and our own experience. What is the “not that” which underlies being? Why has the modern world become so fascinated with negativity, difference, and alterity? And how do we understand the necessary — yet possibly dangerous — role of emptiness in the structure of reality?
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Mentioned:
-Symbolism Explained: The Fundamental WWII Duality That Still Haunts Us Today: https://youtu.be/vLpEDlgEleg?si=w45xD3-uGdx2WOo4
-The World War II Consensus is Breaking Down: https://youtu.be/MfXxQW77cQA?si=7TnLlu7uq--Fej3D
-GodsDog: https://store.thesymbolicworld.com/collections/godsdog
-My recent video on the Parable of the Wedding Feast: https://youtu.be/YRMlQiNkSpE?si=JF3fy7RdFR8FtxO2
Timestamps:
00:00 - Coming up
01:03 - Intro music
01:28 - Introduction
05:22 - The role of the void
06:36 - The separation of heaven and earth
09:13 - Not that
11:18 - Let the earth produce
14:32 - Asking questions
16:07 - The ancient perspective
20:38 - Earth being earth
22:15 - The tree of good and bad
29:44 - What is sin?
32:37 - Examples of sin
33:53 - Judging difference
35:01 - Postmodern thinking
36:07 - Sadism and masochism
40:11 - The Mother of God
43:51 - Since WW2
48:08 - Outro
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I want to go to the biblical text and I want to show in some ways the role of this aspect of |
| 0:04.5 | creation, where we could call the role of the earth in the creation narrative. |
| 0:09.8 | It's difficult to talk about this and the reason why it's difficult to talk about is because |
| 0:15.8 | negativity or absence or void is that which should not be talked about. When we talk about the void, |
| 0:26.0 | when we talk about the emptiness, we run into danger of, you know, moving into performative |
| 0:35.9 | contradiction. |
| 0:43.6 | And so please take everything I say with a kind of quiet silence, |
| 0:50.0 | with a kind of waiting to know that we never really talk about the void, and it's very dangerous to do so. |
| 0:51.8 | But sometimes we have to turn around it. Sometimes we have to, |
| 0:56.2 | let's say, hint at it in ways. And so this is probably the time where I'm going to talk about it the most |
| 1:02.0 | clearly. |
| 1:18.2 | This is Jonathan Pejot. Welcome to the symbolic world. So when God created the earth and the heavens, it is described, of course, that the earth was |
| 1:35.6 | empty and void, and that the spirit of God, which is equivalent to heaven, was above the surface of the deep. |
| 1:46.7 | So we have these three images, emptiness and void of deep. |
| 1:51.9 | This is, of course, related to chaos, ultimately. |
| 1:56.8 | And usually, you know, I like to talk about symbolism, |
| 1:59.8 | and I like to talk about how things come together and how things, you know, I like to talk about symbolism, and I like to talk about how things come together |
| 2:02.2 | and how things, you know, join together towards unity. But it is always important to remember |
| 2:07.7 | this other aspect, this aspect of the earth. And recently, interestingly enough, my, my daughter, |
| 2:16.7 | who I love very much, has been, let's say, |
| 2:21.3 | preoccupied by this question and therefore has been reading a lot of modern authors that |
| 2:28.2 | emphasize the negativity of being, the absence, alterity, difference. |
... |
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