The Doctrine of Creation

(comments on Bloesch text)

p25 CREATIO EX NIHILO – otherwise [1] something antedates God (What is its origin?);

                                                            [2] this “something” is a limitation on God.

God wasn’t compelled to create:

            [1] no external necessity;

            [2] no internal necessity

                        (e.g., “He couldn’t help creating.”

                                  “He needed to create to be God.”

                                  “Since God is love, he needed something to love.”)

Then why did God create?

Note the difference between anthropomorphism (God, or some aspect of him, is a human projection) and theomorphism (what we affirm and do as parents, for instance, is modeled on God’s parenting us.)

P25 GOD AS CREATOR AND LORD

[1] “essential goodness of creation”:

            [a] creation’s goodness perdures despite the Fall;

            [b] were it not essentially good it couldn’t be restored;

            [c]        “          “          “   then God’s action upon it in Christ couldn’t recover its true nature

                                                                                                but  rather would  change its nature;

            [d]        “          “          “   then the concept of sin would have no meaning.

[2] “meaningfulness of history”:

            NB: the meaning of history can’t read off the face of history.

            Still, [a] history is the sphere of God’s activity;

                    [b] history is the sphere of our activity (obedience)

                           The inner significance of history and its outer outcome are the Kingdom of God .

                    [c] history doesn’t to be fled into the realm of the supra-material (gnosticism) for us to be

                         truly ourselves.

The goodness of the creation opposes all notions of Gnostic disavowal of the material/bodily/fleshly with gnosticism’s twofold consequences: [a] extreme asceticism

                                                      [b] extreme indulgence.