<span class='italic'>Creatio ex nihilo</span> and dual causality

James R Pambrun

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511778063.014

12 - Creatio ex nihilo and dual causality

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010

Edited by

Janet M. Soskice and

David B. Burrell: Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Carlo Cogliati: Affiliation:
Peterhouse, Cambridge
Janet M. Soskice: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
William R. Stoeger: Affiliation:
University of Arizona

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INTRODUCTION

The notion of causality plays no small role in conversations between scientists and theologians. For scientists, the notion of causality reflects, at least implicitly, an anticipation of a sense of order in the universe and how such an order lends itself to scientific investigation. Accompanying such an anticipation is an assumption about the intrinsic integrity to this order, namely, that whatever can be known about such order falls within the horizon of scientific learning. With respect to the natural order of the world, scientific knowledge enjoys a high degree of autonomy. For theologians, the notion of causality has been drawn upon in order to refer to God's universal and efficient cause. The notion of creatio ex nihilo elaborates the meaning of this by affirming the primacy of divine agency. On one level, this implies that there is no other reason for, no other cause involved in, the creation of the universe other than God's own desire that this universe be; that it exists. At a further level, it affirms that this world as created persists in its act of existence by virtue of God's abiding and intimate relation with this world. We have, then, two distinct disciplines which appropriate, at least at first sight, the same notion, causality, in order to affirm two interpretations about the order of the cosmic universe.

Type: Chapter
Information: Creation and the God of Abraham , pp. 192 - 220

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511778063.014 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2010

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