The Unbounded Creator and the Bounded Creatures

Abstract

The Unbounded Creator and the Bounded Creatures Charles P. Arand Some years ago, Gustav Wingren raised the concern that the church had neglected its rich theology of creation that served as the ontological foundation of salvation. Counter to the prominence of epistemology in the twentieth century, Wingren noted that Genesis came before Exodus for a reason.1 Without a robust theology of creation, the teaching of redemption would become unmoored and float away into a spiritualistic realm of escape. To be sure, North American Protestants focused on the creation-evolution debate as part of the culture wars sparked in many ways by the Scopes “monkey trial” in 1925. But in the process, they often truncated or reduced the topic of creation to merely a question of origins or protology. For at least three reasons the outlook is improving. First, the last two decades have witnessed a surge of interest in the stewardship of creation. Second, faith and science issues continue to be at the forefront of questions raised by young people today, especially if they wish to pursue a career in science.2 Third, the renewed attention given to the bodily resurrection of Jesus and the narrative of the new creation has stimulated reflection on creation in general. Another way of putting this is to say that creation is what the entire story is all about. Everything that God does takes place within this creation for the sake of this creation. Everything begins here; everything ends here. The first thing that the Bible says about God is that God creates (“In the beginning, God created . . .” Gen. 1:1). And the last thing the Bible says about God is that he creates anew (“Behold, I make all things new” Rev. 21:5). Everything in between moves from the first creation story to the second creation story. In this way, creating encompasses the full scope of God’s activity. Thus, “a doctrine of redemption is meaningful only when it swings within the larger orbit of a doctrine of creation.”3 [End Page 267] For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on the meaning and implications of the Christian confession that God created everything out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) since this takes us to the core of our understanding of both the creator and the creatures. From Irenaeus down to Luther, theologians have marveled at this powerful act of God.4 For example, when commenting on the text in Ezekiel regarding the valley of dry bones, Irenaeus exclaims, Surely it is much more difficult and incredible, from non-existent bones, and nerves, and veins, and the rest of man’s organization, to bring it about that all this should be, and to make man an animated and rational creature, than to reintegrate again that which had been created and then afterward decomposed into earth.5 The confession that God created everything out of nothing provides a framework for speaking about God as the unbounded creator and about us as bounded creatures. Such a framework can help us think through issues that arise at the intersections of science and theology with regard to their respective realms and methods. More importantly, it provides a key way for seeing the narrative unity of creation and re-creation. God first creates out of the nothingness of non-being and then creates again out of the nothingness of death. God’s creating out of nothing not only finds its definitive expression in the cross but there we also see it as an act of creative love. God’s Creative Love A year after posting the Ninety-Five Theses, Martin Luther prepared another set of theses for a disputation in Heidelberg. They provide a window into his theological method as he contrasts scholastic theology, as a theology that glories in human achievement, with a theology of the cross, as a theology that relies on the promise of the crucified and risen one. Peter Berger expressed the scandal well in contemporary terms. That God came into the world in the improbable figure of a small-town carpenter turned into itinerant preacher, who was executed as a criminal, despised [End Page 268] and abandoned, who was dead and...