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October 27, 2016
Unfortunately, creationism is thought to be the opposite of evolution and perhaps also opposed to science itself. However, the basic contours of the Christian idea of creation—which is not only about origins but also about nature—predate the so-called creation-evolution controversy by centuries.
The early Christian apologists and church fathers drew heavily on Hebrew sources as they developed their own alternative belief about creation. They also sought out and used Hellenistic (Greek cultural) ideas about God and the world. Ultimately, however, the early Christians’ inspiration for a distinctively Christian doctrine of creation came from reflection on divine revelation in Jesus Christ, through the prophets and apostles and in Scripture.
Some church fathers and Reformers interpreted the Genesis account(s) of creation very literally; others interpreted them more allegorically. But they agreed on several important principles, to be explained in the next section, that have become the backbone, as it were, of the Christian worldview.
Most Christian theologians from the early church to the twentieth century have tried to maintain a balanced view of creation as both blessed and cursed, but such a balance is always kept only by conscious effort. Here our theme will be that Christian belief about creation has little to do with specific scientific theories about the age of the earth and the natural processes that led to the emergence of life. It has rather to do with embracing a certain metaphysical view of the status of the universe in relation to God and affirming a certain moral evaluation of the universe. Specifically,
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God is the source of all that there is; creatures are dependent yet real and good; and God creates in freedom and with purpose. While these statements well summarize most of basic Christian belief about creation, I think it necessary to add a fourth: Creation is fallen under a curse and needs supernatural healing (i.e., redemption).
the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo—creation out of nothing. Nowhere is this stated explicitly in divine revelation, but like the Trinity it is a necessary implication of the clear revelation of God as the maker of all things in heaven and earth. If God fashioned the world out of “God stuff,” then the universe would be worthy of worship.
According to second-century church father, bishop and teacher Irenaeus: It is proper, then, that I should begin with the first and most important head, that is, God the Creator, who made the heaven and the earth, and all the things that are therein . . . and to demonstrate
Church father and influential third-century theologian Tertullian also affirmed creatio ex nihilo: The fact of God being the One and only God asserts this rule, for He is the One-only God for the only reason that He is the sole God, and the sole God for the only reason that nothing existed with Him. Thus He must also be the First, since all things are posterior to Him; all things are posterior to Him for the reason that all things are by Him; all things are by Him for the reason that they are from nothing . . . for there was no power, no material, no nature of another substance which assisted
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The third basic Christian concept about creation is that God creates in freedom and with purpose. The confession that God creates freely is the only confession consistent with God’s transcendence (greatness),
The fourth and final summary statement of Christian belief about creation is creation is fallen under a curse and needs supernatural healing (redemption). Two passages of Scripture especially clearly confirm this: Genesis 3 and Romans 8. The
The main alternatives to the Christian concept of creation have been dualism, monism and naturalism. Some Christian critics of evolution argue that it is inescapably naturalistic. That is, they see evolutionary development of species from other species as inherently tied to a mechanistic if not materialistic view of the world.
Dualism is any belief in two eternally existing, opposed realities. But how can that be a heresy? Some may ask, doesn’t Christianity teach two opposed realities—God and Satan? The key operative word for distinguishing dualism from Christianity is eternal.
A second alternative to the Christian belief about creation is monism. Monism appears in many forms, and they all have the common feature of reducing all of reality to one substance—usually a spiritual substance identified with God or the divine. One form of monism is pantheism: the strict identification of creation with the divine being.
plagued Christianity throughout most of its history is emanationism: its alternative to creatio ex nihilo is the belief that the one divine substance (God, Spirit, Mind) has send forth rays or emanations into the emptiness.
Gnosticism is basically emanationist in its view of creation. Many Gnostic sects posed a serious threat and challenge to Christianity in the first through the third centuries, especially in the Roman Empire.
The third major alternative to Christian belief in creation is a modern one: naturalism. Dualism and monism have ancient roots; naturalism may have ancient precursors (e.g., certain Greek materialist philosophies) but it is by and large a product of the Enlightenment and scientific revolutions of modern, Western culture.
This creates the impression in the minds of many Christians that the Christian doctrine of creation is about how and when the earth and life were created. By and large, however, the Christian consensus of belief about creation has included very little reference to when or how God created. What is so ironic in this particular locus of Christian belief and reflection is that many dyed-in-the-wool creationists who insist dogmatically on a young earth and sudden creation of species excluding any evolutionary processes fall unthinkingly into heresies such as equating finitude with evil or with the
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Charles Darwin published his controversial views about biological evolution, a conflict between biblical literalists and geologists was brewing. Geologists such as Charles Lyell argued that the earth must be millions of years old. Defenders of Bishop Ussher’s young earth view appealed to the Noahic flood or to a supposed gap between a first creation and a second creation (or renovation of a creation ruined by a catastrophe) to explain the newly discovered fossil record and evidences of ancient upheavals in earth’s crust and canyons created by aeons of erosion.
Theistic evolution takes many forms, but all have in common a complete accommodation of Christian belief about the how and when of creation to the natural sciences and a tendency to view God as the intelligent designer behind and immanent power within the forces of nature that have given rise over millions of years to the universe and life on earth.
That little-known middle ground has come to be known by its proponents as progressive creationism.
Twentieth-century Reformed theologian Karl Barth amended the traditional Reformed view by saying that creation is the “outer basis of the covenant” and that Jesus Christ is creation’s “inner basis.” By that he meant that God’s entire and sole purpose in creating anything at all was redemption through Jesus Christ. Of course, for Barth, God is glorified in being in covenant relationship with humanity through Jesus Christ.
panentheism—a philosophy of the God-world relationship found in the twentieth-century liberal theological movement known as process theology which, like Hegel, regards creation as necessary and coeternal with God.
It is important that Christians look past the unnecessary and irrelevant debates that so often divide them from each other and focus on the core beliefs that have stood the test of time and are rooted firmly in original divine revelation in Jesus Christ and Scripture.
These passages of Scripture, together with the beliefs already expounded in this book about God’s greatness and creativity point undeniably toward what became and remains a powerful consensus of Christian belief about nature and history: God is in charge and purposefully, powerfully guides nature and history such that his will always ultimately triumphs in and through (and sometimes in spite of) them.
of divine sovereignty and providence to the level of status confessionis, required doctrinal belief. Rarely does such a denomination or church believe other Christians who disagree are necessarily apostate.
Throughout Scripture the one God who is maker of heaven and earth and who is both perfectly great and perfectly good is also revealed as the one apart from whose power and permission absolutely nothing happens. Entire books of the canon of Scripture seem to have this truth as their primary theological witness. The book of Job, for example, narrates the mystery of God’s involvement in the horrors of that righteous man’s loss of health, property and family and ends with an affirmation of the importance of trust in God’s goodness and mysterious ways. The New Testament book of Revelation points
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“theodrama” of God’s sovereign guidance of nature and history to a preordained end—the complete and perfect kingdom of God. And yet, that dramatic narrative plays out in a mysterious and complex manner through divine interaction with free agents.
Human beings influence God but never thwart God.
Tertullian followed the general trend of Eastern church fathers such as Irenaeus; he emphasized that absolutely nothing has ever happened or could happen without God’s foresight and permission and that in many cases God directly intervenes to cause certain events to happen. At the same time, Tertullian taught that God’s sovereignty never takes away the moral freedom and responsibility of human persons:
“absolute will” and “permissive will” and insisted that Christians believe that God perfectly and absolutely wills and renders certain some events and only passively permits other things such as sin and evil.
Many Protestant Christian theologians after the early stages of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation sought to soften the Augustinian-Reformed interpretation of God’s sovereignty by affirming a Tertullian-like distinction between God’s foreordination and God’s permission.
The Christian consensus may be summarized in three broad affirmations: (1) God is the good and just governor of nature and history in that he not only created but also sustains, guides, provides for and judges everything; (2) Nothing at all can happen in either nature or history that God does not at least allow; (3) God’s sovereign governance of nature and history is both “general” (i.e., through natural laws built into the processes) and “special” (i.e., extending to details of people’s lives). Within that broad consensus there is plenty of room for real diversity and even disagreement about
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These three alternatives are fatalism, Deism and process panentheism. They are not denominations or organizations; they are views of God’s involvement with the natural and social worlds that have become popular in pews and pulpits.
Fatalism is not identical with divine determinism. Augustine developed and affirmed a kind of divine determinism of all things in The City of God.
That is, true fatalism denies intelligent design (planning, purpose, involvement) within and behind history. To fatalists, nature and history (conceived as separate or as united) are ruled by blind forces that exclude not only contingency but also meaning and purpose.
Deism views “divine providence” (often a term Deists use in place of God) as the divinely-established network of natural laws that govern both nature and history. For most Deists, both nature and history are full of meaning and purpose, but God is neither immanent (personally present and directly involved) nor intervening.
process panentheism. Many forms of panentheism exist and all have in common belief that God and the creation are coeternal, reciprocally related, interdependent realities. Process theology is a twentieth-century form of philosophical theology that has infiltrated and corrupted much of so-called mainstream Protestantism.
Meticulous providence is that view of divine sovereignty in relation to nature and history already described as Augustine’s, Zwingli’s and Calvin’s belief.
The second Christian interpretation is the main alternative to the first: limited providence. Here limited means really self-limiting in the sense that this view believes that God could control nature and history meticulously but chooses not to.
It is variously known as open theism and openness of God theology. It was introduced to the Christian church for consideration by five authors in a volume titled The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994).
John Sanders expresses the open theist or risk-taking view of divine providence best: The survey of the biblical materials showed that God enters into genuine give-and-take relations with humans; what God wants does not always come about. The description of the divine nature as loving, wise, faithful and almighty promotes thinking of divine sovereignty in terms of general sovereignty, in which God chooses to macromanage most things while leaving open the option of micromanaging some things. This was God’s sovereign choice. In grace God grants humans a role in collaborating with him on the
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Christian view of God’s sovereignty over nature and history in spite of deep differences about the details. Whether one prefers the strong Augustinian-Reformed model of meticulous providence or the Eastern Orthodox-Arminian model of limited providence or the contemporary open theism model, one can affirm with the Great Tradition and all true Christians everywhere that “though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.”
Before the cultural revolution known as the Enlightenment, most people thought they knew what humanity was.
The Enlightenment and its aftermath raised serious questions about this consensus on the nature of humanity.
The rise of naturalism throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century
seemed to pit modern science against belief in humanity’s transcenden...
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All in all, the question of humanity’s nature came to the forefront of philosophy, science and theology in new ways and with special urgency in the twentieth century.
The Gnostics posed the most serious challenge to apostolic Christianity by promoting belief in humanity’s (or some humans’) inner divinity.
Few creeds or formal confessional statements of Christian churches include detailed expressions of what must be believed about this subject. And yet, a careful reading of the church fathers, medieval Christian thinkers, Protestant Reformers and modern Christians reveals an amazing common ground of belief
that distinguishes Christianity from all secular and pagan philosophies.
