Que la lumière soit! Et la lumière fut.
¡Que la luz sea! Y la luz fue. (Que haya luz. Y hubo luz.)
Let light BE! And light WAS.

I realize God’s literal words were, “Let there be light.” Thinking about religion grammatically grounds me in my belief system. I’m tempted to call the 3rd-person imperative — “Let this or that happen” — the “God command,” because it’s an act of instantiation — the willing of something to materialize.

In human dimension the command is hard to contextualize. I can say to the chickens, “Let there be eggs!” It doesn’t work, and I don’t have chickens, but consider this example:

He sits alone in a chamber of Holyroodhouse and says, “Let there appear Camilla!”

Clearly Charles is not willing Camilla into existence; he’s demanding in king-talk that she come into the room. Camilla will appear only if there’s a butler within hearing distance (there always is) who will go fetch her. The command, while expressed as sovereign will, is actually an act of delegation proffered to brocaded livery.

Not so with God. When God created light, only God was in the room. But there is the trinitarian aspect of the Godhead to consider. Technically Their command was proffered to the void, but for the comfort of us grammarians God may be considered to have addressed one of Their other Selves in the issuing of it. A crucial difference between God and King Charles is that Camilla was fetched, whereas light was poofed into existence.

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