The Doctrine of Creation

Tim Stephenson

- 6 minutes read - 1202 words

Theology concerns itself with God and all things in relation to God.

  • Questions

    • What is creation?

    • How is creation?

    • Why is creation?

    • Who creates?

  • An article of faith, not an empirical observation

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth…

‘…the doctrine of creation no less than the remaining content of Christian confession is an article of faith, i.e., the rendering of a knowledge which no man has procured for himself or ever will; which is neither native to him nor accessible by way of observation and logical thinking; for which he has no organ and no ability; which he can in fact achieve only in faith; but which is actually consummated in faith, i.e., in the reception of and response to the divine witness…’ --(Karl Barth, CD III/1, 3-4)

  • More than Genesis: three elements -dentity of the creator

    • the divine act of creation

    • the natures and ends of created things

  • Verses about creation

    • Psalm 138

    • Colossions 1

    • John 28?

    • Psalm 33:6-9

    • Psalm 90

    • Psalm 102

    • Jer 10:10-12—​The gods who did not make the heavens vs God of Israel

    • Job 38:4-7,39

    • Rom: groans of creation as in child birth

    • Rev:

  • Questions to think about:

    • Is God soverign?

    • Did we have any say?

    • Did God have to create the world?

    • Is God ongoingly involved in creation

Creation as an article of faith

  • Walker: not universally held but argues that cannot reason about creation on basis of creation

  • If the world is a creation, the act which gave rise to it is not itself part of creation

    • So we cannot reason back to the act of creation on basis of creation

As St. Augustine comments: ‘You created all times and you exist before all times. Nor was there any time when time did not exist. There was therefore no time when you had not made something, because you made time itself.’ (Confessions, XI.16-17)

  • God is not an explanatory hypothesis [for our benefit] i.e. not a 'god of the gaps'

  • Rather we worship God because He is worthy

  • Jungel explains well

Hebrews 11:3: ‘By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.’

  • It’s not illogical to say the world [universe] is eternal

    • i.e. The Christian belief that the world has a beginning is not demanded by either observation or reason.

Thomas Aquinas writes: ‘By faith alone do we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proved, that the world did not always exist, as was said above of the mystery of the Trinity. The reason of this is that the newness of the world cannot be demonstrated on the part of the world itself….For the will of God cannot be investigated by reason, except as regards those things which God must will of necessity; and what He wills about creatures is not among these, as was said above. But the divine will can be manifested by revelation, on which faith rests.’

Can we discover things about God by observing nature? (Natural theology)

Commonly said, esp. in 20th C but not necesarily so: Counter arguments

Psalm 19:1: ‘The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.’`o

  • is creation a second revelation: at first sight but there is tension

Romans 1:20: ‘Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So [the wicked] are without excuse.’

  • Condemnation of paganism, which puts humanity above creation rather than supporting creation theology

Romans 8: groaning

  • Andrew Moore

    • Can’t trust our reason as corrupted by sin

‘we can come to know God by means of our own powers, unaided by revelation. … Natural theology seeks to arrive at a knowledge of God by the accumulation of evidence from the natural world and/or rational argument.’

‘we still await the consummation of that process. Even then, as now, Christian knowledge of God and his creation never ceases to be dependent on what he has revealed in Christ and endowed by the Holy Spirit.’

Ref back to problem of language, concluded that speech is analogical following Aquinas

  • Suggestion is that what God and creation share is 'being'

    • latin concept of analogia entis

  • Creation is not an emanation of god but he creates out of nothing ex nihilo

    • jeopordised by analogia entis hence analogia fidei

Creation ex nihilo

  • Target of this argument was Greek philosophy, which often spoke in terms of emanations [God exuding something of himself]

Augustine: ‘God the almighty Father made and established the whole of creation through his only-begotten Son, that is, through his wisdom and power consubstantial and co-eternal with himself, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, who is also consubstantial and co-eternal. So Catholic teaching bids us believe that this Trinity is called one God, and that he made and created all things that are, insofar as they are, to the effect that all creatures, whether intellectual or corporeal, or what more briefly according to the words of the divine scriptures can be called invisible or visible, are not born of God, but made by God out of nothing, and that there is nothing among them which belongs to the Trinity, except what the Trinity created— this nature was created. For this reason it is not lawful to say or believe that the whole creation is consubstantial or co-eternal with God.’ (On Genesis, p.114-5)

‘It is a gracious turn of phrase: let us walk together; let there be music at our feast; let the ground rise up to meet you.’

— Katherine Sonderegger
Systematic Theology: Volume 1, The Doctrine of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2015) p. 304

  • God did not need to create, was complete without us.

Romans 1:20: ‘Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So [the wicked] are without excuse.’

Alternatives

  • Pantheism: God is in everything (e.g. nature / creation is sacred)

    • God is the world not present in the world (air in room is not what the room made of)

  • Panentheism: The world is in God. How God achieves self-actualisation

    • problematic to christian view as when remove one bean the whole house of doctrine can be collapsed

  • Walker: believes in continuous creation, God needs to sustain world ongoingly. Raises challenges with evil

The ends of creation

‘Christianity’s history is a history of not listening to the earth because we have not listened to enough co-inhabitors of the earth.’ p.406 --Willie James Jennings, ‘Reframing the World: Toward an Actual Christian Doctrine of Creation’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 21, no. 4 (2019): 388–407

‘Nothing in creation can reign over another as king, but everything can be kin.’ --Willie James Jennings, ‘Creating Home: Forming Christians Who Believe in Creation and Creatures’, 2021 Payton Lectures, Fuller Theological Seminary