Creator/Creature Relationship
Perhaps the single most important thing to keep in mind as we shift from speaking of the relationship that God the Father has with God the Son to the relationship that God the Creator has with the creation is that we are now dealing with a relationship that is external to God. This means that, while Fatherhood is part of who God is, that is, God has never existed except as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the same cannot be said for God as Creator. God has not always been Creator. There once was a time (if we can use time to describe anything before creation) when God had not yet created anything. Of course, God was always able to create, but it was at a particular moment that God created the universe.
Connection Between Creation and Incarnation
One of the comments that was made above was that the idea of God’s free creation of the universe out of nothing was affirmed by the church long before it received similar universally accepted status among the Jews. The reason for this is because of the remarkable connection between the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of the Incarnation. As Christians, when we say that God created the universe out of nothing, we do not mean to speak of some kind of abstract concept of God. Instead, we are saying that the Triune God is the God who created the universe. This is important as we remember that at numerous places in the New Testament, it is declared that nothing came into being except through the Son.
There are two main consequences of this connection that will be taken up at this time. The first of these has already been alluded to in the Chapter on the second Person of the Trinity. Creation, like the Incarnation, shows us that there is, in a sense, “change” in God. At some point, the universe came into existence and, before that point, there was nothing but God. Though God had been able to create for all eternity (he did not become Creator as if he came to acquire an ability he did not have before), at that point, God freely chose to create, to bring something out of nothing, to fulfill the desire to not be God alone, but to have creatures with which to be in relationship. In such a reality, we see that God’s freedom is such that God is free to do things that are absolutely new, even for God and that God is fully capable of surprising us with the new things that are done.
The other major point to address here is that, by rooting all creation in the Son of God, that Son is excluded from that creation. If nothing came into being except through the Son, the Son is not created but is rather the uncreated God. This, in turn, makes two smaller points. First, that the Son of God who took on flesh as Jesus of Nazareth is indeed equally co-eternal, equally divine, as the Father and there is no subordination within God. Secondly, that this is not true of creation. Creation is not God but is rather a reality that is utterly distinct from God, even though God does indeed interact with creation. It is this second point that will be explored below.
The Contingence of Creation
Throughout Western culture, there has been a trend to separate ideas into extreme opposites, such as hot and cold, black and white, and any of a number of others. The problem is that, thinking along these lines forces our language, and thus, our thoughts, into extreme positions. This is, of course, problematic, if for no other reason than that we realize that there is indeed an option other than hot and cold (such as lukewarm); there is a third choice between black and white (various shades of gray). In spite of a tendency to force a choice between two extreme viewpoints, we must acknowledge that such a choice is indeed a false one, that there are more than two options.
The particular polarizing language that is a concern for us here is the opposite views that creation is either necessary (that is, it could not have been other than it is) or that it is the result of chance. The difficulty here is that, for one who is in the necessity camp, any deviation from strict necessity is seen as a leap to the other side to chance. The argument runs something like this: If anything is not utterly necessary (often approached in the form of predestination), then there must be something that is left to chance. Once some things are left to chance, the floodgates are open and nothing is certain anymore. The concerns of introducing divine involvement in the world to those who affirm the fundamentally coincidental nature of the universe are similar. Once the door has been opened to divine involvement and order, where do you draw the line? The reason why so many Christians have leaned more towards necessity than chance is because it is hard to reconcile the view that creation is left to pure chance with a sovereign God, a major theme in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Because of the unique implications of a contingent creation, a variety of different possible understandings of creation will be explored presently.
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