God as Creator
God as Creator
The doctrine of God as creator is central to the Old Testament (e.g., Genesis 1, 2). In the history of theology, the doctrine of God the creator has often been linked with the authority of the Old Testament. The continuing importance of the Old Testament for Christianity is often held to be grounded in the fact that the God of which it speaks is the same God to be revealed in the New Testament. The creator God and the redeemer God are one and the same. In the case of Gnosticism, a vigorous attack was mounted on both the authority of the Old Testament and the idea that God was the creator of the world.
Development of the Doctrine of Creation
The theme of “God as creator” is of major importance within the Old Testament. Attention has often been focused on the creation narratives found in the first two chapters of the book of Genesis, with which the Old Testament canon opens. However, it must be appreciated that the theme is deeply embedded in the wisdom and prophetic literature of the Old Testament. For example, Job 38: 1 to 42: 6 sets out what is unquestionably the most comprehensive understanding of God as creator to be found in the Old Testament, stressing the role of God as creator and sustainer of the world.
It is possible to discern two distinct, though related, contexts in which the notion of “God as creator” is encountered: first, in contexts which reflect the praise of God within Israel's worship, both individual and corporate; and, second, in contexts which stress that the God who created the world is also the God who liberated Israel from bondage and who continues to sustain Israel in the present.
The doctrine of creation plays different roles within the three main bodies of writings in the Old Testament – the historical, prophetic, and wisdom writings. In the historical books, the doctrine of creation is often used to combat the nature religion of Canaan, which held that various nature divinities (such as the Canaanite “El”) needed to be propitiated in order to secure a good harvest. Within the prophetic writings, particularly those of the exilic age (the period of the Exile, when much of the population of Jerusalem was deported to Babylon), the doctrine is used to affirm the universal sovereignty of the God of Israel. The God who made the whole world is ruler of that world – including nations such as Babylonia, who were presently oppressing Israel. The gods of Babylon were merely local creations, lacking the power and authority of the God of Israel. The doctrine of creation thus became the foundation of the hope of liberation. Within the wisdom writings, particularly Job and Proverbs, the doctrine of creation is linked to the acquisition of wisdom. The wise are able to find and discern wisdom within the created world, and order their lives in accord with its precepts.
Figure 9.3 Michelangelo's fresco Creation of Adam (c.1511).
Source: Vatican Museums and Galleries, Vatican City, Italy / Bridgeman Images.
Of particular interest for our purposes is the Old Testament theme of “creation as ordering,” and the manner in which the critically important theme of “order” is established on, and justified with reference to, cosmological foundations. It has often
been pointed out how the Old Testament portrays creation in terms of an engagement with, and victory over, forces of chaos. This “establishment of order” is generally represented in two different ways:
It is clear that there are parallels between the Old Testament account of God engaging with the forces of chaos, and Ugaritic and Canaanitemythology. Nevertheless, there are significant differences at points of importance, not least in the Old Testament's insistence that the forces of chaos are not to be seen as divine. Creation is not to be understood in terms of different gods warring against each other for mastery of a (future) universe but in terms of God's mastery of chaos and ordering of the world.
This theme became of particular importance during the exilic period. Before this period, there are reasons for thinking that the theme of the covenant between God and Israel was seen as more important than the doctrine of creation. This seems to have changed during the exilic age. The extensive appeal to the doctrine of creation in the prophetic writings of this period (such as Isaiah 40–55) affirmed that the God of Israel was not a mere local divinity but had authority throughout the world, and reassured believers that physical absence from their homeland did not deny them access to their God.
Perhaps one of the most significant affirmations which the Old Testament makes is that nature is not divine. The Genesis creation account stresses that God created the moon, sun, and stars. The significance of this point is too easily overlooked. Each of these celestial entities was worshiped as divine in the ancient world. By asserting that they were created by God, the Old Testament insists that they are subordinate to God and have no intrinsic divine nature.
Having briefly introduced some aspects of the concept of creation, particularly within a Jewish or Christian context, we may now pass on to consider some of its aspects in a more theological manner.
Creation and the Rejection of Dualism
The central issue relating to the doctrine of creation which had to be debated in the first period of Christian theology was that of “dualism.” The classic example of this is found in some of the forms of Gnosticism, so forcefully opposed by Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130–c.202), which argued for the existence of two gods: a supreme god, who was the source of the invisible spiritual world, and a lesser deity who created the world of visible, material things. A similar outlook is associated with Manicheism, a Gnostic worldview which Augustine of Hippo (354–430) found attractive as a young man. This approach is strongly dualist, in that it sets up a fundamental tension between the spiritual realm (which is seen as being good) and the material realm (which is seen as being evil). Some Gnostics argued that God exploited the created world. In response, Irenaeus argued that creation was an act of pure love. God created humanity “in order to have someone to whom benefits might be given.”
For Gnosticism, in most of its significant forms, a sharp distinction was to be drawn between the God who redeemed humanity from the world and a somewhat inferior deity (often termed “the demiurge”) who created that world in the first place. The Old Testament was regarded by the Gnostics as dealing with this lesser deity, whereas the New Testament was concerned with the redeemer God. As such, belief in God as creator and in the authority of the Old Testament came to be interlinked at an early stage. The doctrine of creation affirmed that the material world was created good by God, despite its subsequent contamination by sin.
The dualist notion of a good realm of the invisible and spiritual and an evil realm of the visible and material is excluded by the Council of Nicea (325), whose creed opened with an affirmation of faith in “God, the Father, the almighty, the maker of all things seen and unseen.” This was reinforced by the Synod of Toledo (400), which was explicit in its rejection of dualism:
If anyone says and believes that this world and all its instruments have not been created by the almighty God, let him be anathema. [...] If anyone says or believes that the world has been made by a god other than the one of whom it is written, “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth” (Genesis 1: 1), let him be anathema.
This view was further reinforced by Pope Leo I (c.400–61) in a letter of 447 in which he defined “true faith” as consisting of the belief that “the substance of all spiritual and physical creatures is good, and that there is no nature of evil. For God,the creator of all things, has not made anything that is not good.”
It was, however, Augustine of Hippo who provided the definitive statement of a nondualist theology that had such a major impact on western thought. The fundamental principles underlying this unitary vision of reality can be summarized as follows:
The Apostles' Creed opens with a declaration of faith in God as “maker of heaven and earth,” thus affirming the divine creation of both the spiritual and material realms. During the Middle Ages, forms of dualism once more made their appearance, particularly in the views of the Cathari and Albigenses, who taught that matter is evil and was created ex nihilo (“from nothing”) by the devil. Against such views, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the Council of Florence (1442) taught explicitly that God created a good creation out of nothing.
Earlier in this section, we commented on one aspect of Augustine's views on creation. Yet Augustine is of such importance to the development of the doctrine of creation that his contribution requires further discussion and comment.
The Doctrine of Creation of Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
In his work On the Literal Meaning of Genesis (401–15), Augustine of Hippo set out to provide a doctrine of creation based on what he regarded as a reliable interpretation of the Genesis creation accounts. Augustine argues that God brought everything into existence in a single moment of creation. Yet the created order is not static, in that God has endowed it with the capacity to develop. Augustine uses the image of a dormant seed as an analogy for this process. God embeds seeds (more technically, rationes seminales, “seed-bearing reasons”) within the original created order, and these will grow and develop at the right time. There is a clear analogy here with the idea of the logos spermatikos, the “seed-bearing reason,” widely used by Greek-speaking Christian writers to illuminate the doctrine of creation (p. 10).
Earlier Christian writers had noted how the first Genesis creation narrative spoke of the earth and the waters “bringing forth” living creatures, and had drawn the conclusion that this pointed to God endowing the natural order with a capacity to generate living things. Augustine took this idea further. God had created the world complete with a series of dormant powers, which would be actualized at appropriate moments through divine providence.
Augustine argues that Genesis 1: 12 implies that the earth has received the power or capacity to produce things by itself: “Scripture has stated that the earth brought forth the crops and the trees causally, in the sense that it received the power of bringing them forth.” Where some might think of creation in terms of God's insertion of new kinds of plants and animals ready-made into an already existing world, Augustine rejects this as inconsistent with the overall witness of Scripture. Rather, God must be thought of as creating in that very first moment the potencies for all the kinds of living things that would come later, including humanity.
Augustine's interpretation of Genesis does not limit God's creative action to the primordial act of origination. God is, Augustine insists, still working within the world, directing its continuing development and unfolding its potential. He argues that God's work of creation includes both the initial origination of the world and its subsequent development. There are two “moments” in creation: a primary act of origination and acontinuing process of providential guidance. Creation is thus not a completed past event. God must be recognized to be working even now, in the present, sustaining and directing the unfolding of the “generations that he laid up in creation when it was first established.”
This means that the first Genesis creation account describes the instantaneous bringing into existence of primal matter, including causal resources for further development. The second Genesis account explores how these causal possibilities emerged and developed from the earth. Taken together, the two Genesis creation accounts declare that God made all things simultaneously but they also envisage that the various kinds of living things will make their appearance gradually over time – as they were meant to by their creator.
For Augustine, God created a universe that was deliberately designed to develop and evolve. The blueprint for that evolution is not arbitrary but is programmed into the very fabric of creation. God's providence superintends the continuing unfolding of the created order. Augustine's image of the “seed” implies that the original creation contained within it the potentialities for all the living kinds that would subsequently emerge. This does not mean that God created the world incomplete or imperfect, because “what God originally established in causes, he subsequently fulfilled in effects.” This process of development, Augustine declares, is governed by fundamental laws, which reflect the will of their creator: “God has established fixed laws governing the production of kinds and qualities of beings, and bringing them out of concealment into full view.”
The Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo
Christianity initially took root and then expanded in the eastern Mediterranean world of the first and second centuries, which was dominated by various Greek philosophies. The general Greek understanding of the origins of the world could be summarized as follows. God was not to be thought of as having created the world. Rather, God was to be thought of as an architect, who ordered pre-existent matter. Matter was already present within the universe and did not require to be created; it needed to be given a definite shape and structure. God was therefore thought of as the one who fashioned the world from this already existing matter. Thus, in one of his dialogues (Timaeus), Plato developed the idea that the world was made out of pre-existent matter which was fashioned into the present form of the world.
This idea was taken up by most Gnostic writers, who were here followed by a few early Christian theologians such as Clement of Alexandria (c.150–c.215) and Justin Martyr (c.100–c.165). They professed a belief that pre-existent matter had been shaped into the world in the act of creation. In other words, creation was not “from nothing” (ex nihilo); rather, it was to be seen as an act of construction, on the basis of material which was already available – just as someone might construct an igloo out of snow, or a house from stone. The existence of evil in the world was thus to be explained on the basis of the intractability of this pre-existent matter. God's options in creating the world were limited by the poor quality of the material available. The presence of evil or defects within the world is thus not to be ascribed to God but to deficiencies in the material from which the world was constructed.
However, the conflict with Gnosticism forced reconsideration of this issue. In part, the idea of creation from pre-existent matter was discredited by its Gnostic associations; in part, it was called into question by an increasingly sophisticated reading of the Old Testament creation narratives. Reacting against this Platonist worldview, several major Christian writers of the second and third centuries argued that everything had to be created by God. There was no pre-existent matter; it was necessary that everything had been created out of nothing. Writing in the late second century, Irenaeus argued that the Christian doctrine of creation affirmed the inherent goodness of creation, which contrasted sharply with the Gnostic idea that the material world was evil. Theophilus of Antioch (died c.183–5) took a similar line around the same time: “If God had drawn the world frompre-existent matter, what would be so extraordinary about that? A human artisan makes whatever he wants from a material that is already there, while God shows his power by starting to make all he wants from nothing.”
Tertullian, writing in the third century, emphasized the divine decision to create the world. The existence of the world is itself due to God's freedom and goodness, not to any inherent necessity arising from the nature of matter. The world depends on God for its existence. This contrasted sharply with the Aristotelian view that the world depended on nothing for its existence, and that the particular structure of the world was intrinsically necessary. Augustine of Hippo defended and explored the implications of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo at several points in his writings, as noted earlier.
Yet not all Christian theologians adopted this position at this early stage in the emergence of the Christian tradition. Origen (c.185–c.254), perhaps one of the most Platonist of the early Christian writers, clearly regarded the doctrine of creation from pre-existent matter to have some merit. By the end of the fourth century, however, most Christian theologians had rejected the Platonist approach, even in the form associated with Origen, and argued for God being the creator of both the spiritual and the material worlds.
Implications of the Doctrine of Creation
The doctrine of God as creator has several major implications, of which some may be noted here.
First, a distinction must be drawn between God and the creation. Creation is not itself divine; it is a divine creation which is ontologically distinct from its creator. God exists necessarily; the created order exists contingently. A major theme of Christian theology from the earliest of times has been to resist the temptation to merge the creator and the creation. The theme is clearly stated in Paul's letter to the Romans, the opening chapter of which criticizes the tendency to reduce God to the level of the world. According to Paul, there is a natural human tendency, as a result of sin, to serve “created things rather than the creator” (Romans 1: 25). A central task of a Christian theology of creation is to distinguish God from the creation while at the same time to affirm that it is God's creation.
Second, creation implies God's authority over the world. A characteristic biblical emphasis is that the creator has authority over the creation. Humans are thus regarded as part of that creation, with special functions within it. The doctrine of creation leads to the idea of human stewardship of the creation, which is to be contrasted with a secular notion of human ownership of the world. The creation is not ours; we hold it in trust for God. Human beings are meant to be the stewards of God's creation, and are responsible for the manner in which they exercise that stewardship. This insight is of major importance in relation to ecological and environmental concerns because it provides a theoretical foundation for the exercise of human responsibility toward the planet.
Third, the doctrine of God as creator implies the original goodness of creation. Throughout the first biblical account of creation, we encounter the affirmation: “And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1: 10, 18, 21, 25, 31). (The only thing that is “not good” is that Adam is alone. Humanity is created as a social being and is meant to exist alongside others.) There is no place in Christian theology for the Gnostic or dualist idea of the world as an inherently evil place. As we noted earlier in this chapter, even though the world is fallen through sin, it remains God's good creation and is capable of being redeemed.
This is not to say that the creation is presently perfect. An essential component of the Christian doctrine of sin is the recognition that the world has departed from the trajectory upon which God placed it in the work of creation. It has become deflected from its intended course. It has fallen from the glory in which it was created. The world as we see it is not the world as it was intended to be. Human sin, evil, and death are themselves tokens of the extent of the departure of the created order from its intended pattern. For this reason, most Christian reflections on redemption include the idea of some kind of restoration of creation to its original integrity, in order that God's intentionsfor his creation might find fulfillment. Affirming the goodness of creation also avoids the suggestion, unacceptable to most theologians, that God is responsible for evil. The constant biblical emphasis upon the goodness of creation is a reminder that the destructive force of sin is not present in the world by God's design. Sin is not something that God intends for the creation.
Fourth, a major theme of the creation narrative in the book of Genesis is that human beings, both male and female, are created in the image of God. This insight, central to any Christian doctrine of human nature, will be discussed at greater length later (pp. 327–9); it is, however, of major importance as an aspect of the doctrine of creation itself. “You made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you” (Augustine of Hippo). With these words, the importance of the doctrine of creation for a proper understanding of human experience (pp. 327–34), nature, and destiny is established.
Models of God as Creator
The manner in which God acts as creator has been the subject of intense discussion within the Christian tradition. A number of models of, or ways of picturing, the manner in which God is to be thought of as creating the world have been developed, each of which casts some light on the complex and rich Christian understanding of the notion of “creation.”
Emanation
This term was widely used by early Christian writers to clarify the relationship between God and the world. Although the term is not used by either Plato or the third-century Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus (204/5–270), many patristic writers sympathetic to the various forms of Platonism saw it as a convenient and appropriate way of articulating Platonic insights. The image that dominates this approach is that of light or heat radiating from the sun, or a human source such as a fire. This image of creation (hinted at in the Nicene Creed's phrase “light from light”) suggests that the creation of the world can be regarded as an overflowing of the creative energy of God. Just as light derives from the sun and reflects its nature, so the created order derives from God and expresses the divine nature. There is, on the basis of this model, a natural or organic connection between God and the creation.
However, the model has weaknesses, of which two may be noted. First, the image of a sun radiating light, or a fire radiating heat, implies an involuntary emanation rather than a conscious decision to create. The Christian tradition has consistently emphasized that the act of creation rests upon a prior decision on the part of God to create, which this model cannot adequately express.
This naturally leads on to the second weakness, which relates to the impersonal nature of the model in question. The idea of a personal God, expressing a personality both in the very act of creation and in the subsequent creation itself, is difficult to convey by this image. Nevertheless, the model clearly articulates a close connection between creator and creation, leading us to expect that something of the identity and nature of the creator is to be found in the creation. Thus, the beauty of God – a theme which was of particular importance in early medieval theology and which has emerged as significant again in the later writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–88) – would be expected to be reflected in the nature of the creation.
Construction
Many biblical passages portray God as a master builder, deliberately constructing the world (e.g., Psalm 127: 1). The imagery is powerful, conveying the ideas of purpose, planning, and a deliberate intention to create. The image is important because it draws attention to both the creator and the creation. In addition to bringing out the skill of the creator, it allows the beauty and ordering of the resulting creation to be appreciated, both for what it is in itself and for its testimony to the creativity and care of its creator.
However, the image has a deficiency which relates to a point made in connection with Plato's dialogue Timaeus. This portrays creation as involvingpre-existent matter. Here, creation is understood as giving shape and form to something which is already there – an idea which, we have seen, causes at least a degree of tension with the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. The image of God as a builder would seem to imply the assembly of the world from material which is already to hand, which is clearly at odds with the notion of creation out of nothing.
Nevertheless, despite this difficulty, it can be seen that the model expresses the insight that the character of the creator is, in some manner, expressed in the natural world, just as that of an artist is communicated or embodied in his or her work. In particular, the notion of “ordering” – that is, the imparting or imposing of a coherence or structure to the material in question – is clearly affirmed by this model. Whatever else the complex notion of “creation” may mean within a Christian context, it certainly includes the fundamental theme of ordering – a notion which is especially significant in the creation narratives of the Old Testament.
Artistic Expression
Many Christian writers, from various periods in the history of the church, speak of creation as the “handiwork of God,” comparing it to a work of art which is beautiful in itself, as well as expressing the personality of its creator. This model of creation as the “artistic expression” of God as creator is particularly well expressed in the writings of the eighteenth-century North American theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), as we saw earlier (p. 148).
The image is profoundly helpful as it supplements a deficiency of both the two models noted above – namely, their impersonal character. The image of God as artist conveys the idea of personal expression in the creation of something beautiful. Once more, the potential weaknesses need to be noted; for example, the model could easily lead to the idea of creation from pre-existent matter, as in the case of a sculptor with a statue carved from an already existing block of stone. However, the model offers us at least the possibility of thinking about creation from nothing, as in the case of the author who writes a novel or the composer who creates a melody and harmony. These lines of thought were creatively developed by Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) in her Mind of the Maker (1941), which proposed parallels between the divine act of creation and the human writing of a book. Sayers' book also encourages us to seek the self-expression of God in the creation, and gives added theological credibility to a natural theology (see pp. 141–7). There is also a natural link between the concept of creation as “artistic expression” and the highly significant concept of “beauty.”
Creation and Christian Approaches to Ecology
The closing decades of the twentieth century saw growing interest in the way in which the world is valued by human beings. Some writers argued that an exploitative attitude to nature, typical of the twentieth century, is a direct result of the Christian doctrine of creation. In an influential 1967 essay, the historian Lynn White Jr. (1907–87) argued that the Judeo-Christian idea of humanity having dominion or authority over creation has led to the view that nature exists to serve human needs, thus legitimating a highly exploitative attitude. Christianity, he argued, thus bears a substantial burden of guilt for the modern ecological crisis.
In particular, White argued that Christianity was to blame for the emerging ecological crisis on account of its use of the concept of the “image of God,” found in the Genesis creation account (Genesis 1: 26–7), as a pretext for justifying human exploitation of the world's resources. The book of Genesis, he argued, legitimates the notion of human domination over the creation, leading to its exploitation. Despite its historical and theological superficiality, White's essay had a profound impact on the shaping of popular scientific attitudes toward Christianity in particular and religion in general.
With the passage of time, a more informed evaluation of White's essay has gained the ascendancy. The argument is now recognized to be seriously flawed. A closer reading of the Genesis text indicates that such themes as “humanity as the stewardof creation” and “humanity as the partner of God” are indicated by the text, rather than a theme of “humanity as the lord of creation.” Far from being the enemy of ecology, the doctrine of creation affirms the importance of human responsibility toward the environment.
In a widely read study, Imaging God: Dominion as Stewardship (1986), the Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall (born 1928) stressed that the biblical concept of “domination” was to be understood specifically in terms of “stewardship,” no matter what kind of interpretation might be placed on the word in a secular context. To put it simply: the Old Testament sees creation as the possession of humanity; it is something that is to be seen as entrusted to humanity, which is responsible for its safekeeping and tending. Similar lines of thought can be found in other religions, with discernible differences of emphasis and grounding; the Assisi Declaration (1986) on the ecological importance of religion may be seen as marking the recognition of this significant point.
A doctrine of creation can thus act as the basis for an ecologically sensitive ethic. For example, the environmentalist Calvin B. DeWitt (born 1935) has argued that four fundamental ecological principles can readily be discerned within the biblical narratives, reflecting the Christian doctrine of creation.
A further contribution has been made by Jürgen Moltmann, noted for his concern to ensure the theologically rigorous application of Christian theology to social, political, and environmental issues. In his 1985 work God in Creation, Moltmann argues that the exploitation of the world reflects the rise of technology, and seems to have little to do with specifically Christian teachings. Furthermore, he stresses the manner in which God can be said to indwell the creation through the Holy Spirit, so that the pillage of creation becomes an assault on God. On the basis of this analysis, Moltmann is able to offer a rigorously trinitarian defense of a distinctively Christian ecological ethic.