“In the beginning was the place…”: an east–west dialogue of Creatio ex Profundis

Abstract

This study will compare Neo-Confucian Zhang Zai (張載)’s taixu (太虛, the vast vacuity) and process ecotheologian Catherine Keller’s tehom (the chaotic depth in Hebrew) in light of the ultimate spatio-temporal place of creation, using the Korean term teum (in-betweenness) to connect these two resonant concepts. Both Keller and Zhang develop a nondualistic cosmology as opposed to the Augustinian doctrine of creation ex nihilo (the creation out of nothingness). Keller rejects the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo which was inherited by Augustine where God is the unilateral agent of creation while the multitudes (萬物, wanwu) are subalternized; and for Zhang, taixu is the ultimate place where cosmos and the multitude are born from the same fluid vital force (氣, qi) resonant with Keller’s creation ex profundis (creation out of the deep). The great vacuity is not nothingness but the fullness of vital force (氣, qi). Creation is the manifestation of the endless becoming(s) of taixu becoming myriad things by convergence of qi while myriad things become taixu by a diffusion of qi. Both Keller and Zhang Zai’s harmonious cosmology offers us today a new and healing paradigm of creation that this planet is one organic body of the myriad thing events in which we are all interconnected and which nothing is left out.