1.1 Past and Present Concerns

Examining the landscape of theology and religious studies, the idea of ‘creation’ as a category for religious reflection is one that is often fraught with controversy. So, one perception about the topic is that it involves effectively a rancorous dispute between evolutionists and creationists. In this sense, ‘creation’ can sound anti-scientific to contemporary ears. However, in the West, especially, although the doctrine of creation has been generally neglected during the modern period, there has been renewed interest in the last few decades. The reasons for this are manifold. From a scientific perspective, astrophysical theories about the universe’s origins have raised new questions about its ultimate causation and fine tuning. Thus, in the mid-twentieth century, astrophysicists were largely split between the Big Bang theory (first proposed in 1927 by Georges Lemaître) and proponents of the steady-state theory (championed initially by Fred Hoyle). Notwithstanding any new conundrums presented by the James Webb telescope, the Big Bang seems to constitute the majority consensus, but, if so, this immediately raises questions about what happened before the initial bang. Although on the face of it, this might seem to be a kind of confirmation for a creation ex nihilo (out-of-nothing) model, we have to be careful because creation ex nihilo is something more radical. It generates a monotheistic picture that advances the view that God, self-existent, without need or resistance, created a world without opposition, which added nothing to God, from absolutely nothing. No pre-existing matter, however unformed, exists co-eternally with God (which, according to critics, would lend matter a kind of God-like status). That this is not the same as the ‘nothing’ before the Big Bang is perhaps made clear by statements by some physicists about the qualities or the potential of the ‘nothing’ that could have brought about the initial explosion.Footnote ¹ But here, the physicists’ nothing sounds suspiciously like something, and creation ex nihilo is about God making something from absolutely nothing. This means that the fortunes of creation ex nihilo are not wedded to the fortunes of the Big Bang as a theory. So, we need to clarify the connection between creation as a theological category and scientific, observational theories of origins. In what follows, we shall be exploring creation as a theological category, looking mostly at Jewish and Christian traditions.

Setting aside the controversies about origins, one of the other reasons that talk about creation has come to the fore stems from contemporary anxieties about climate change and global warming. Such issues have given impetus to a whole range of theologies of nature and critical reflection on human stewardship. Going even further, provoked by such issues, many commentators have challenged dualistic theologies and sought to present new expressions of creation or holistic spiritualities, or feminist reconstructions that advance embodied theologies. Our topic, monotheism and creation, is not just an abstract consideration about cosmogony; instead, it is about the value of creation itself and our part in it. Even so, it does not really concern a manner of engaging with nature, like the nineteenth-century romantic spiritualities of nature. Rather, when the focus is on monotheism, the weight of the discussion about God and creation addresses the nature of a relationship. How we configure that relationship affects what we are able (or perhaps are compelled) to say about a whole range of other things, theological and practical. In particular, if we think about the distinction between God and creation then the question of proper human limitations as a created being and the consequent shape of anthropology is brought into focus. In this connection, Oliver Davies urges us to think of the idea of divine creation as a move towards a ‘generous and creative exploration of the meaning of the world’ (Davies Reference Davies2004, 4). Perhaps no longer captured solely by a vision for transcendence, we might once again be drawn to consider the value of immanent concerns.

However, perhaps too much immanence is problematic? So, a different kind of issue centres on whether creation should be prioritized by religion or is it, in fact, a distraction from more lofty spiritual goals? If we think of religion as being primarily concerned with categories like the transcendent, spirituality, mystical experience, or even prayer and worship, then creation can look more like an immanent concern or merely a passing moment towards a future hope. Another way of putting this is that religion is commonly associated with overcoming or transcending the world rather than indulging it. Our spiritual instincts look upwards to connect with what is extraordinary and deeply meaningful rather than a facile quotidian existence. Or else, there is a danger of blurring the distinction between the mundane and things which are meant to be ‘set apart.’ So, the dilemma faced when ‘locating the ecstatic in the quotidian’ is that this may render religion a ‘meaningless category’ (See Tweed Reference Tweed2015, 372–374). However, what all this potentially ignores is the existential category of createdness, which calls for caution about such dualisms. Or rather, the doctrine of creation is not just an assent to the idea that the world has been created in the past or even that it has a divine origin; it also provokes us to consider how religious experience connects with the material dimensions of our existence now.

Similarly, how we value creation is closely connected to our view of God’s relation to the world. If our concept of creation does not extend beyond the question of origins, then it will likely look like a doctrine that is not relevant to the present or future. However, we shall see that the notion of creation ex nihilo serves to allow for the finite or immanent aspects of created life as a place to inhabit wholeheartedly, notwithstanding the eschatological hope of things to come. In addition to this, Christianity acknowledges ‘createdness as the fundamental feature of all reality’ (Schwöbel Reference Schwöbel and Gunton2004, 172) and not an irrelevance or a passing moment. For the Roman Catholic thinker, Edward Schillebeeckx, the fact of human createdness represents a crucial context for theological reflection, and for Christians, even if creation is not front and centre in their minds, it underpins all their other beliefs (see Schillebeeckx Reference Schillebeeckx1990, 90). So, its chief purpose is to act as a backdrop for other doctrines, such as theological anthropology, the conditions of human freedom, the question of stewardship and ecology, or redemption and eschatology (Hardy Reference Hardy and Gunton2003, 109). In addition to this, a new orientation is formed between our ordinary everyday engagements and our religious experiences. That is, ordinary engagements become theologically significant simply by evoking a doctrine of creation that becomes a placeholder that holds together our spiritual and ordinary perceptions. If this creational perspective is omitted, Oliver Davies argues that our language displays a demarcation in thought between the alleged vagueness (e.g., mysticism) of our spiritual references and the concrete clarity (e.g., science) of our ordinary experience and accounts of the world. The reason for this is that we have no sense of the world or ourselves as created, a sense that, if retrieved, might provide a natural bridge between our knowledge of God, or our spiritual talk, and our ordinary engagements with the world (Davies Reference Davies2004, 5–6).

1.2 Creation and Foundational Thinking

Josef Pieper makes the striking claim that ‘the doctrine of creation is the concealed but basic foundation of classical Western metaphysics’ (Pieper Reference Pieper1957, 58). This emerges from his engagement with Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274) and his notion of Being as creatura. This is a basic ontological commitment that identifies Aquinas as a philosophical theologian as opposed to just a pure philosopher. That is, Aquinas starts with certain theological axioms that act to underscore how we see or frame everything, and, for him, creation is a fundamental starting point that should infuse all philosophical thinking. This has been described as Aquinas’ ‘hidden key’ to his thinking about the philosophy of Being. So, apart from God the Creator, ‘nothing exists which is not creatura’, and ‘this createdness determines entirely and all-pervasively the inner structure of the creature’ (Pieper Reference Pieper1957, 53). There is the Creator, who is wholly other, and everything else (creatura), and creatura includes even transcendental ‘concepts.’ This may be seen as solely a Christian gloss on how we should interpret the world, but the question is, how influential has this idea been on Western thinking? If we abstract the meaning of creation for a moment and translate it into terms like ‘the ground’, or ‘foundations’, then perhaps there are concomitants to be found in the philosophical and scientific search for fundamentals or priorities in thought. Or else, there is a deeper question about how the idea of creation, or foundations, is somehow wired into our intellectual subconscious. This is something that David Burrell picks out of Pieper’s Thomistic reflections and suggests that creation as a ‘foundation’ has never wholly disappeared from Western thinking; instead, Burrell sees its recurrence in the philosophical quest for certainties and solid grounds. Nevertheless, it is not at all clear if this can be applied to the present zeitgeist, and indeed, the alleged freedom of post-modernism and its rebellion against the tyranny of metanarratives indicate that a different mood now prevails. Foundationalism may have peaked. However, post-modernism has a rather narrow target in that it sets itself against a particular kind of hard rationalist or Enlightenment foundationalism, and Burrell speculates that the contrasting idea of a personal and ‘more flexible and subtle “foundation” in a free creator’ (Burrell Reference Burrell2013, 6) may be appealing to the postmodern sensibility. Whilst we might be sceptical about this, one of the more profound aspects of the notion of a ‘free creator’ is that it reframes the idea of a foundation not as something arrived at by a rationalist or moral deduction as such, but as a pure ‘gift.’

However, is creation something that must be, either explicitly or implicitly, a theological foundation? It seems to be Aquinas’ viewpoint that we cannot ground creation in a neutral naturalism; or rather, creation is not just about marveling at nature in all its variety and spectacle, instead its peculiar character and purpose is defined by its relatedness to God as a created being. In short, the creational viewpoint is fideistic and revealed to the eyes of faith. Creation is seeing-as (Wittgenstein). Robert Jenson follows this line of reasoning when he argues that ‘creation’ is not something that can be assumed to be a common experience with the ‘otherwise unbelieving’ (Jenson Reference Jenson and Gunton2004, 20). If we take this a step further, it means that when confessed as a doctrine, the topic of creation connects to further beliefs about the human condition, purpose, and redemption that a simple appeal to the natural order may not exhibit by itself. So, the doctrine of creation is ‘credal in form’ (Gunton Reference Gunton and Gunton1997, 141). It is not a liminal space or a neutral platform. Instead, it is part of a basic confession of faith like the common Christian creed: ‘I believe in God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth’, or the Muslim confession stated in the Qur’an: ‘He is God, the Creator, the Maker, the Shaper’ (59.24). In Christian teaching, there is a cosmic statement about Christ: ‘in him all things hold together’ (Col.1:17), which makes it explicit that creation cannot be understood by Christians without a Christological reference. In fact, this latter verse has been cited in support of a more panentheistic interpretation, but we shall return to this later.

1.3 Creation and Shared Experience

Nevertheless, it is also true to say that creation is universal and public – it refers to all things. Thus, even though he wishes to highlight the specifically theological location that creation inhabits, Jenson nonetheless seeks to find some kind of universal concern. He suggests that all of humanity shares the pressing question about our ultimate origins (why are we here?) and the fact of existence, not just about what something is, but that it is. This is the sheer mystery of existence and the fact of things, the beginning of philosophical enquiry and wonder (Jenson Reference Jenson and Gunton2004, 20). Similarly, Heidegger described an experience of ‘thrown-ness’ (Geworfenheit) – the feeling of being thrown into the world. Thus, there is a common human question about the fact of existence that one does not need the insight of faith to acquire. In this sense, the question of our origins is a public concern that is shared by believing and unbelieving alike.

Such talk about the sheer marvel or wonder of existence itself opens another topic that needs to be addressed, and this is what creation means apart from any past or future concerns. That is, can we look at creation itself apart from thinking about grand purposes or destinies? This concerns a contested idea of something categorically distinctive about creation that sets it apart from other redemptive or eschatological doctrines (for a critique, see Wilson Reference Wilson2013). Contested because, for many religious thinkers or theologians, creation should not be separated from these bigger themes. However, in an influential two-volume study called Eccentric Existence (Reference Kelsey2009), David Kelsey emphasizes precisely this point and does so by drawing attention to the creation account in the Wisdom literature in the Bible rather than that found solely in the Genesis narratives. The Genesis account connects creation with notions of fall and redemption, but the Wisdom texts seem to inhabit the immediate moments of everyday life. Thus, whereas the Genesis account has themes of fall and redemption that overlay the creation narrative, Kelsey argues that ‘Wisdom’s view of creation is conceptually separated from ideas of both reconciliation and eschaton’:

Likewise, some scholars have observed that there is a lack of explicit reference to the redemptive story of Israel in the Wisdom literature, and this makes it difficult to appropriate its purpose beyond simply its wise sayings (See Zimmerli Reference Zimmerli1964, 146–158).Footnote ² In addition, there are aspects of Biblical wisdom that can be found in other cultures, and this may suggest that such literature represents a more universal creational language. If so, there is an opportunity to say something important about the value of everyday wisdom as a dimension of createdness that takes us beyond overtly Biblical narratives. Because it cannot be simply reduced to the kinds of doctrines with which creation is often intimately connected (the beginning of things, fall, and redemption), it can be described as having a specific kind of reality. By ‘reality’ we are not making a simple identification with matter itself, or the material dimension, but speaking about the immediacy of everyday experience that occupies the present moment.

Nevertheless, even if we seek to isolate createdness as a unique domain, we cannot ignore the bigger context. The phenomenology of the finite world may be a useful place to consider the existential aspects of created life, but the theological task requires that the whole picture must be taken into account. Thus, if we widen the theological frame, there is a crucial question about the relationship between protology and eschatology. Are these things distinct, or do they form parts of a whole? This is hardly a new question, and it draws into it the related issue about how we see the role of time and history in the creation story. Is creation an instantaneously accomplished event, or does it involve progression and development? A prominent example of the latter is an important figure from the early Greek Christian tradition, St Irenaeus (c.130–202 CE), who is well-known for his two-stage account of the creation of humanity (imago dei and similitudo dei), where creation is perceived as something that envelops soul-making and redemption:

Likewise, Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 394) speaks of God’s purpose as ‘one, and one only; it is this: when the complete whole of our race shall have been perfected from the first man to the last.’ In this sense, the creation and the end of all things are, as the Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart puts it, a ‘single science’ (Hart Reference Hart2019, 68). Creation becomes the whole of history viewed as a totality where all things are brought into full completion.

This is where the doctrine of creation becomes intertwined with the problem of evil and suffering. Should we consider moments of suffering as self-contained events in time, or do we take an overarching perspective on history and sweep such moments up into a future where everything is made good in the end? A contrasting view would be to look back to a perfect creation in the past that has gone wrong. Augustine expresses things this way (in contrast to Irenaeus):

This is a classic difference in approach to creation and its relationship to evil– the Augustinian and the Irenaean (See Hick Reference Hick2007 [1966]). However, creation ex nihilo makes the problem of evil potentially more acute because it presents a picture of an all-powerful God who creates freely and without resistance. That is, there is nothing to be overcome as such (like a primordial chaos) that might go some way towards providing an explanatory framework for evil and its persistence. If this is the case, then where do we go intellectually with suffering and its explanation and final resolution? David Bentley Hart has picked this up and argues strongly that the moral meaning of creation ex nihilo must join up protology with eschatology to result in universal salvation for all. For Hart, ‘the end of all things is their beginning, and only from the perspective of the end can one know what they are, why they have been made, and who God is … ’ (Hart Reference Hart2019, 68). Creation ex nihilo makes the problem of evil insurmountable if the end result for some people is an eternal hell. In fact, not to advocate for ex nihilo is an easier option because ‘if [Christians] thought God a being limited by some external principle or internal imperfection, or if they were dualists, or dialectical idealists, or what have you – the question of evil would be an aetiological query only for them, not a terrible moral conundrum’ (89–90). Because God creates out of total freedom and without opposition, then it is simply morally unthinkable, claims Hart, for there to be an ‘irreconcilable remainder left behind’ in the eschaton (71). Such an entailment would have to have been freely permitted – by definition (according to the ex nihilo view) unopposed by any force or will, and this is Hart’s crucial point: ‘Anything willingly done is done toward an end; and anything done toward an end is defined by that end’ (68). So, God’s very identity – God’s goodness and moral character – is defined by the ends of creation. Hell’s existence would imply that God is a ‘failed creator’.

Notwithstanding the clamour of objections to Hart’s position (and both academic and popular journals are crammed with them), we should note that the power of his position is built upon the implications of the creation ex nihilo model, in particular. If creation is a pure gift and creation occurs without necessity by a God who, in simplicity, is ontologically distinct from creation and who requires no addition, then arguments that depend on the alleged recalcitrance of the created order if things go awry do not appear to be very cogent ultimately. Nevertheless, Hart’s instincts sound rather gnostic (there is very little from the Hebrew Bible in his All Shall be Saved), and despite the moral authority of his stance, another Orthodox theologian, Andrew Louth, ‘wonders if he is defending a position with weapons that have no business here’ (Louth Reference Louth2020, 235). Hart seems impatient with any final appeal to mystery, creaturely independence, or the inscrutableness of divine fiat because ‘in this divine outpouring there is no element of the “irrational”: nothing purely spontaneous, or organic, or even mechanical, beyond the power of God’s rational freedom’ (Hart Reference Hart2019, 71).

Doing justice to this particular discussion is beyond the scope of this book. However, the problem of evil is undoubtedly an important factor in how the relationship between God and creation is described. This issue is expressed variously by thinkers reflecting on creation and its meaning, ranging from liberationist or feminist theologians to those who reject creation ex nihilo and contest traditional accounts of God, such as process theologians. Process theology presents a model in which God indeed appears constrained by ‘external principles’ and operates as the chief power working to persuade creation to overcome evil. We shall say more about this in what follows.

To summarize, our discussion in this short book is concerned with creation as a theological or religious category rather than scientific theories about origins. Moreover, even though worries about climate change and the environment are rising up the cultural and political agenda, we will not be addressing these topics directly but rather focusing on the relationship between creation and monotheism through mostly Jewish and Christian sources. Even so, a consideration of creation is bound to turn our attention towards the nature of creaturehood and how this forces us to reconsider the relationship between transcendence and immanence as well as the goals of human life. Although creation relates to a primal universal concern about origins (why are we here?), there is an important sense that it is a kind of theological seeing-as. For example, when the Psalmist says ‘The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork’ (19.1) we could say that this is simply a species of a more universal sense of wonder at the fact that anything exists at all; or alternatively it is bound up with a credal assent (e.g. ‘God created the world’) such that its glory is a gift to those who believe. However, whatever we say about this, it is undeniable that there are many common experiences of the world that are shared by all, such as evil and suffering. Moreover, it is this experience that has been crucial for many thinkers trying to make sense of creation and its meaning. Thus, to what extent should the various models of creation account for this experience? Should those who propose them be conscious of the implications for theodicy, for example, or are there other, more axiomatic questions about existence itself that have priority? These are some of the questions that will occupy us in the next section.

2.1 Out-of-Nothing

Creation ex nihilo is one of the most important doctrinal formulations (though by no means universally accepted). I say ‘formulation’ to indicate that it is not stated explicitly or directly in the scriptural traditions and has instead emerged historically out of the crucible of philosophical and theological dispute. On the other hand, many Jewish and Christian theologians believe that the credentials of creation ex nihilo have a clear implication within the Bible (and it is also present in the Qur’an).Footnote ³ Again, Soskice claims that creation ex nihilo is a ‘scripturally driven piece of Christian metaphysics’ (Soskice Reference Soskice, Anderson and Bockmuehl2021, 40), though this is something that is not drawn necessarily from texts like Genesis 1 but rather from scripture as a whole. So, in the Hebrew Bible, the main sources are, alongside the Genesis account, the Psalms, Isaiah 40–55, and the wisdom literature (see Clifford Reference Clifford, Anderson and Bockmuehl2021).

In one of the most famous passages, Genesis begins with this:

Here, ostensibly, the passage does not appear to offer resounding support for creation ex nihilo because, taken by itself, verse 2 may be saying that there was a formless void already there that was then forged by God. However, the verse is not necessarily incompatible with an ex nihilo perspective, and one must recognize that such texts are not offered as statements that are meant to be parsed with philosophical rigour. Additionally, although a critic of creation ex nihilo, the Jewish biblical scholar Jon Levenson draws our attention to an important feature of the Genesis text. He notes the fact that there appears to be ‘no active opposition to God’s creative labor. He works on inert matter. In fact, rather than creation ex nihilo, “creation without opposition” is a more accurate nutshell statement of the theology underlying our passage’ (Levenson Reference Levenson1994, 122).Footnote ⁴ Although Levenson draws some parallels between the Genesis account and Near Eastern traditions, this ‘creation without opposition’ is something distinctive about the Genesis view that would seem to suggest that the ‘waters’ in verse 2 are hardly an obstruction to God’s action. Nevertheless, Levenson’s argument takes place in the context of his reflections on the persistence of evil, and his narrative oscillates (frustratingly) between the forces of chaos, which allegedly throw into doubt God’s plan, and God’s triumph over such forces. Thus, he argues that the story of the Flood and passages like Ps. 74:12–17; Ps 104: 6–9 and Job 38:8–11 speak of God holding back, or containing, the world and its forces. These passages appear to share in the ancient world’s ‘combat myth of creation’. Moreover, although the Flood story includes a covenantal promise, it also ushers in a ‘profound anxiety’ at the precariousness of creation (14–15).

Nevertheless, many passages in the Bible appear to speak radically about God’s transcendence. In fact, it is such statements that, in the period of Second Temple Judaism, cause key Jewish thinkers to advance proto ex nihilo ideas. So, many biblical statements do not present God as one who stands in oppositional relation to lower recalcitrant matter, or any contrarian force, but as one who is above all and to whom nothing can be compared (Ps. 113.5; Is.40.8). God is above all (2 Chron.2.6; Ps.97.9). God is not encumbered by the world and stands in relation to it as its Saviour and Judge (Is.33.22); God cannot be replaced by things or objects (Is.42.8; Hab.2:18). We find in the sixth century BCE a statement in Isaiah 40: 12–28 which sets out transcendent monotheism: ‘To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare him? (vs 18)’; likewise, Isaiah 45.5 ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no god.’Footnote ⁵ In 2 Maccabees, a deuterocanonical diasporic text from the second century BCE, a mother speaks to her son, saying: ‘So I urge you, my child, to look at the sky and the earth. Consider everything you see there, and realize that God made it all from nothing, just as he made the human race.’ (7.28). Again, this short passage is not a philosophical text, but it nevertheless exhibits what might be called the confident faith that is linked to creation ex nihilo. That is, the mother has assurance that God has the freedom and the power to act supremely, as we might think when we ‘look at the sky and the earth.’ When we move ahead in time a few centuries to the Christian New Testament, we find similar affirmations, such as ‘the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.’ (Rom. 4.17); and linked with exaltation: ‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being’ (Rev 4.11).

This brings into the foreground the confessional dimension of our inquiry. For some, like the mother in 2 Maccabees above, the fact that God is supreme over all is a source of great comfort and strength. In which case, we might say that creation ex nihilo represents a formal articulation of just such faith. However, for others, as we perhaps see in writers like Levenson and process or feminist writers (see later), creation ex nihilo gets in the way of trying to embrace a God who is embedded in the world or who shows solidarity with the struggle against chaos and evil.

However, returning to the scriptural texts, even if we cannot find explicit or philosophically watertight statements in scripture to support the ex nihilo position, this does not mean that it should not be inferred as a scriptural viewpoint. Or, even if certain scriptural passages ostensibly appear to express the idea of God forging creation from pre-existing matter, we must not necessarily take such statements in isolation from the totality of the scriptural testimony. In fact, such passages may simply exhibit the limitations of language when it comes to speaking about an act as profound and unfathomable as divine creation. So, if we go back to Genesis, we ought not to interpret certain verses (such as Gen 1.2) prima facie according to ancient comparisons but ask what kind of wider truth is being presupposed in scripture and tradition when we consider God’s agency in creation. When narrating creation, scriptural writers were restricted by the limitations of the language of ‘making’. Herein lies the difficulty in trying to describe the unique distinction between God and creation. How could a human writer accurately narrate the impossible? This is an argument made by David Burrell, who points out that when we describe the actions of a creator, we find it difficult to avoid ‘presupposing something to work with’. If we fail to take account of such limitations, Burrell thinks ‘we would never think creator except as demiurge’ (Burrell Reference Burrell1994, 25).Footnote ⁶ In the end, it is a question of whether a total reading of scriptures makes accounts of God subduing recalcitrant pre-existent matter a likely interpretation. The scriptural texts, taken as a whole, speak of a God who is far above all things. So, whatever the textual ambiguities that exist in certain places, we have to ask if a ‘demiurge’ really fits when we consider such New Testament passages as ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End’ (Rev 22.13)? Or ‘Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made’ (Jn 1.3). Though philosophy is clearly not the ‘genre’ of such texts, Burrell argues that later philosophical resolutions in the direction of ex nihilo were natural follow-ups that reflect the total commitment to monotheism in the faith of these traditions.

2.2 Ex nihilo, nihil fit?

Looking at the historical relationship between monotheism and creation, one of the most fundamental disputes centres around whether or not something can come from nothing. For much of the ancient world, and for the Greeks in particular, the predominant view was that the gods worked to subdue chaos and fashion pre-existent matter. The idea that something could come from nothing was not entertained. Famously, Parmenides in the sixth century BCE stated, ‘ex nihilo, nihil fit’ (nothing comes from nothing). However, the history of thought concerning monotheism (in the Abrahamic traditions) gradually came to the view that the sovereignty of God needed to be stated in much stronger terms.

Stepping back for a moment, we might take the account offered by Plato (c.427–348 BCE) in the Timaeus as a milestone text for the classical Greek view:

We can see how one rendering of Gen.1.2 – God forming the world from pre-existent matter – might be perceived to be coincident with Plato’s Timaeus. However, in light of our comments in the previous section, there is a question about whether the ‘God above all’ can really be said to align with the sense in the Timaeus that the Creator has brought order from chaos, ‘so far as this was attainable.’ Nevertheless, there is a certain question begging here – as process thinkers would undoubtedly point out.

So, where does creation ex nihilo come from? Not, as it seems, from the classical Greek context that influenced, for example, Second Temple Judaism and the early Christian Church. In fact, in the latter case, it emerges as an explicit philosophical movement in response to the challenge of Gnostic teaching in the second century CE. Gerhard May, in his account of the rise of creation ex nihilo in the Second Temple period, notes that ‘more books were written by Jews about the agreement between Judaism and Greek philosophy than vice versa’ (May Reference May, Mitchell and Young2006, 435). This was largely because of the desire to give Jewish ideas philosophical credibility. In doing so, Jewish thinkers adopted the language of the Greeks and perhaps absorbed much of their philosophy about monotheism as well. But as time progressed, the Platonic picture of the divine ordering of chaos and the making of the world from pre-existing materials did not sit well with the monotheism of Jewish and Christian thinkers, even if they found it difficult to fully separate themselves from it.

We see this most notably in the work of the Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (c.20 BCE – 50 CE). Philo is a significant figure in our discussion about monotheism and creation because he appears to come tantalizingly close to the idea of creation ex nihilo but is reluctant ultimately to resist the idea of the eternity of matter that is present, as we have seen, in the example of the Timaeus above. Philo attempted to connect the biblical notions of creation with Greek ideas. He is in no doubt about the transcendence and omnipotence of God and, in this sense, his ideas tend to favour the biblical notion rather than Plato’s creator. Key statements from Philo’s writings indicate this: ‘[God] is full of Himself and sufficient for Himself. It was so before the creation of the world and is equally so after the creation of all that is. He cannot change or alter and needs nothing else at all, so that all things are Him but He Himself in the proper sense belongs to no one’ (Philo 1989, 4.27). In other places, Philo speaks of God creating space and time. Nevertheless, May argues that Philo did not fully state that God creates from nothing in any developed ontological sense, nor did he directly contradict the prevailing Hellenistic ideas of the eternity of matter (see May Reference May, Mitchell and Young2006, 437–439).

If we turn to early developments in the Christian church, two voices stand out as supporters of creation ex nihilo, Irenaeus (c. 130 – c. 220 CE) and Theophilus of Antioch (d.185 CE).Footnote ⁷ Speaking against second century Gnostics like Valentinus and Marcion (though the latter was actually very critical of Gnostic sophistry), Irenaeus contrasts human creativity with divine creation:

Around the same time, though perhaps with not as much philosophical sophistication as other early voices,Footnote ⁸ Theophilus of Antioch exhibits his radical monotheism in a key statement about God’s sovereignty:

In both these statements, we see a keen advocacy for what might have seemed indefensible to religious philosophers of the day – something coming from ‘what did not exist’. However, perhaps what made things even less palatable (and which contrasted with the prevailing assumptions of the time) is the idea that creation is ‘very good’ (Gen 1:31). According to the Platonic view, the world of matter is imperfect and subject to constant change and decay. Perfection is more likely to be found in the spiritual realm. Thus, the assertion that creation is ‘very good’ is a discordant idea. Indeed, it would have jarred with prominent docetics like Marcion (85–160 CE), who rejected the Hebrew scriptures in favour of a transcendental good God, the high God, unsullied by the evil of matter, and who seeks through faith in Christ to save people from the world of the ‘creator’ god. Irenaeus lambasted Marcion for his ‘two gods’ scenario because ‘ … if there is anything outside of [God], then he is no longer the Fullness of all things, and he does not contain all things, because whatever they say is outside of him will be lacking to the Fullness or to the God who is above all things’ (Irenaeus Reference Irenaeus and Dhillon2012, 17). Nevertheless, even if we acknowledge fundamental problems with his dualistic system, Marcion’s basic intuition that the world is an evil place raises nagging questions that we should take seriously. Marcion’s aversion to it might seem entirely reasonable to many who experience acute suffering or disaster and find it hard to reconcile these things with the idea of a good Creator. In fact, it was the horrors of existence that caused the great pessimistic philosopher of the Nineteenth century, Arthur Schopenhauer, to pour scorn on what he saw as the delusion of the ‘good world’: ‘we have not to be pleased but rather be sorry about the existence of the world’ (Schopenhauer Reference Schopenhauer and Corus2008, 576) he writes, and ‘everywhere in nature we see contest, struggle, and the fluctuation of victory … Every grade of the will’s objectification fights for the matter, the space, and the time of another … ’ (146). Put simply, when we consider creation and monotheism together, it brings into sharp focus the problem of evil. In this sense, Marcion’s dualism might be seen as an attempt to set God apart from the horror of creation and effectively create an incorruptible sanctuary for truth and goodness. However, in the end, a commitment to monotheism means that we cannot find such a convenient escape. We are therefore tasked with not only giving an account of the power of God but also of God’s intentions towards the creation. This has resulted in a wide range of responses from theologians. For example, in terms of divine power, we shall see in a moment that one influential movement, known as process thought, rejects the notion of ex nihilo and instead opts for the (quasi-Timaean) view of God working to persuade the creation towards a good outcome.

Contra figures like Marcion, one of the main distinctions that were made during the early Christian period was the affirmation of the material order as good; indeed, contrary to Gnostic beliefs, the Nicene Creed (325 CE) states that God is not just the author of some higher transcendent realm, but the ‘maker of heaven and earth’. Moreover, Jewish, Christian (and later, Islamic) scholars came to the view that the position most consistent with their scriptural traditions was that God created out of nothing. Nevertheless, the Platonic distinction between a ‘lower’ world of matter and the ‘higher’ worlds of spirit, mind, and intellect underpins a powerful current in the Western religious mind that tends to speak of the inherent value of created material existence only sotto voce. This forces us to revisit the question of the meaning and value of creation in itself and our createdness. Is there a danger that creation is perceived to be a lower reality that will be ultimately discarded by the eschatological consummation to come? Indeed, it is this kind of thinking that may end up adding grist to complaints like Lynn White’s protest about the alleged ‘ecologic effects’ of believing that ‘the saint is not in natural objects; he may have special shrines, but his citizenship is in heaven’ (White Reference White1967, 1207). So, affirming both the unnecessary giftedness of creation and its inherent goodness (apart from redemptive and eschatological themes) goes some way towards shifting the focus on how we interpret creation and its purposes both in the present and the future.

2.3 Emanation

Another prominent theme that is found in the history of thinking about monotheism and creation is concerned with the overflow or superabundance of God. Here, we have to distinguish between the voluntary and involuntary forms of this. The former case we have already spoken about in terms of the idea of God’s unnecessary gift of creation from nothing. The latter can be found in the other versions of Platonism that continued well into the Third century CE, such as the Neoplatonic philosopher, Plotinus (204–70 CE). Plotinus is a classic representative of emanationism, in which the world is considered to be a ‘great chain of being’ that proceeds from the One, rather like the brightness of the sun diminishing incrementally as one moves further away. At first glance, this appears to be fully consistent with the superabundance of God that has gratuitously exceeded its boundaries. Indeed, such an affinity seems manifestly justified when we read from Plotinus’ second treatise of Book V of his Enneads: ‘The One, perfect because it seeks nothing, has nothing, and needs nothing, overflows, as it were, and its superabundance makes something other than itself’ (Plotinus Reference Plotinus1984, 59).

However, there are important aspects of Plotinus’ vision that are different in emphasis. Firstly, it seems that creation is an inevitable aspect of God (as if it follows God around!). That is, emanation is a necessary property of God. This is brought out in a few other statements made in the Enneads. So: ‘The One is all things and not a single one of them: it is the principle of all things, not all things, but all things have that other kind of transcendental existence; for in a way they do occur in the One; or rather they are not there yet, but they will be’ (59).Footnote ⁹ Again, in Plotinus’ chain of being, what follows the One is the One-Many (see 143) and this seems to proceed irresistibly from the One: ‘How then could the most perfect, the first Good, remain in itself as if it grudged to give itself or was impotent, when it is the productive power of all things’ (143). And, even further, ‘something must certainly come into being from it’, and ‘that it is from it that they come is absolutely necessary’ (145).

As we have said, what such statements imply is that Plotinus’ emanation system is a necessary aspect of God. A more formal term to describe the character of the relationship between God and creation might therefore be creatio ex deo and, as we can see, this potentially conflicts with the idea of the absolute sovereignty of God because creation becomes an involuntary act (‘necessary emanation’, Burrell Reference Burrell2004, 211) or an inherent aspect of the divine being rather than something that has taken place as a completely voluntary, unnecessary and free act. So, although theologians may rightly consider it important to speak of creation as an overflow of divine love or as a gratuitous gift, it remains a wholly free act, without compulsion or necessity. Simply the result of God’s sovereign choice.

Neoplatonic influences also played a significant role in the development of classical Islamic thought about creation, and these thinkers had an important influence on Christian scholasticism in the Middle Ages and on the work of Aquinas. Some of them supported a more emanationist Neoplatonic view, others the ex nihilo view. For example, the ideas of emanation gained prominence especially in the work of two influential early Islamic philosophers, al-Fārābī (d.950 CE) and Ibn Sīnā (d.1037 CE). Although significant and sophisticated, their ideas were controversial and were criticized by al-Ghazālī (d.1111 CE), who advocated for creation ex nihilo. al-Ghazālī’s most fundamental challenge was that these two philosophers had allowed the Neoplatonic structure to become a primary discourse over what philosophical doctrines they thought were justified by the Qur’an itself. In addition, he thought that their position seemed to imply the eternity of the world (as, like Plotinus, it was a necessary emanation of God) and that what appeared to be temporal things were uncreated. Aquinas appropriated many of al-Ghazālī’s insights into his own reasoning about the relationship between God and creation, as well as faith and reason.

2.4 Pantheism and Panentheism

Maybe it is a question of focus or changing the emphasis? So, where the concerns of monotheism are not in view, the notion of creation as a divine act is less prominent or distinct. Take, for example, a view that has affinities with an emanationist one, pantheism. This is the monistic notion that God and the world are the same thing – a view commonly associated with eastern traditions like Hinduism or Taoism. In this case, speaking about ‘God’ and ‘creation’ becomes tautologous. This creates problems with definitions. It was Schopenhauer who argued that pantheism presented a conceptual confusion that effectively adds nothing to our understanding of either God or creation, for ‘to call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word world’ (Schopenhauer Reference Schopenhauer1974, 99). Michael Levine replies that Schopenhauer’s protest misses its mark because it assumes what pantheism actually denies: theism (see Levine Reference Levine1994, 26–32). Of course, if one distinguishes God from the world as a theist does, then making them synonymous will seem like a dissipation of the theistic concept of divinity. However, Levine claims that another concept, ‘Unity’, is at play in pantheism: ‘For the pantheist, God and the world are generally not and should not be taken as intentionally equivalent. Something about the world, namely, the fact that it is taken to be an all-inclusive divine Unity – is the reason for calling the world “God”’ (28). This, for Levine, has implications for the idea of creation. So, if the storyline of theism (from the ‘beginning to the end’) makes creation a crucial element, ‘pantheism rejects the theistic storyline.’ A pantheist may, in fact, regard existence to be a brute fact, and therefore what is important is not origins but the existence of a divine Unity which pantheists ‘need not interpret … as itself necessary or ultimately explicable.’ In which case, pantheism does not require a doctrine of creation (179–80).

There may be many reasons to advocate for a more pantheistic view that stems from traditional scriptural or cultural sources, or from a philosophical vision about the unity of selves in an eternal monism. This will certainly be the emphasis within Indian traditions. However, as we have indicated, it is not only difficult but perhaps even a category error to attempt to compare the pantheistic conception of Unity with creation as a divinely initiated event, or in terms of a relationship between creation and transcendence. Nevertheless, there are other pantheistic types of thinking that are more consistent with the idea of divine creation. One is panentheism (‘all-in-God’). Although some have argued that the varieties of panentheism mean that it is unstable as a concept,Footnote ¹⁰ there are some basic principles that seem to be shared. So, fundamentally, ‘panentheism is the view that all is contained within the divine, although God is also more than the world’ (Clayton Reference Clayton2011, 365). As some conception of the divine indwelling of creation is present in both, panentheism offers the promise of a bridge between Indian and Western traditions.Footnote ¹¹ Nevertheless, perhaps one difference is that, unlike the impersonal ultimate of Vedāntic traditions, Christian panentheists want to retain the idea of a personal God who is beyond creation. At the same time, they reject the stronger description of creation as being other than God that one would associate with the creation ex nihilo model. This means that panentheism is criticized by both pantheists – who see an unnecessary separation of God from the world – and supporters of the classical ex nihilo stance, who criticize panentheists for over-complicating a clear distinction between God and creation. With panentheism, although God’s essence is unchanged, the world’s experience is also God’s experience, thus ‘real change occurs not in the divine nature but in the divine experience’ (Clayton Reference Clayton2011, 365). This is something that Mikael Stenmark describes as ‘ontological inclusion’ (Stenmark Reference Stenmark2019, 27). Although God stands above the world, the world is somehow included as a part of the divine story and its completion.

Some modern supporters of panentheism see it as the most satisfactory creational model for harmonizing with evolutionary science (see Brierley Reference Brierley, Clayton and Peacocke2004, 13). In this connection, one of the powerful philosophical influences historically for this way of conceiving the divine ontology is the German idealist philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). In Hegel’s system, God is not only Absolute Geist, but also that which is the culmination of the unfolding historical process instigated by its action to achieve a final, complete consciousness and self-awareness, which binds its own ultimate reality together with the process of becoming. Hegel thinks it is false to set the infinite in opposition to the finite (or God ‘above’ or ‘apart’ from the world). In fact, for something to be properly infinite, he thinks it must include everything within itself, including the finite. In which case, the world must somehow be contained in God. As we said, what makes Hegel’s philosophy so appealing is its apparent resonance with the evolutionary description of natural and human development. God is a dynamic reality that is ever evolving and growing. However, perhaps this is the very feature that makes it unappealing for many as well. That is, for many believers, God is perceived as a secure foundation in the midst of change rather than being change (‘I am the same yesterday, today, and forever’ Heb.13.8). Thus, Keith Ward suggests that at the root of the dispute there are different understandings of perfection. Whereas in Aquinas’ view, perfection is something that is changeless and unbounded, the Hegelian panentheist ideal includes change and relationships (Ward Reference Ward, Clayton and Peacocke2004, 65–66).

Nevertheless, there is perhaps a difference between describing panentheism in present or in eschatological terms. For example, in Colossians 1:17 it says, ‘and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together’. This appears to be an ontological statement about the nature of created reality now and would seem to support a panentheistic stance. However, does this mean that we are obliged to conclude that the evil and malice that are part of creation’s present reality are also held together by God? Such an interpretation would seem to be refuted by passages like 1 John 1.5, which says, ‘God is light; in him is no darkness at all.’ Thus, should panentheism be properly applied to an eschatological context, which refers to a future hope when evil and suffering are ended and there is a final consummation: ‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you’ (John 14.20)?

Another argument by advocates of panentheism concerns its alleged moral appeal, particularly for process thinkers. That is, a premium is placed on the attractiveness of ‘relationality’, or the sense of divine dialogue and mutual interaction with creation. For example, Phillip Clayton says that the ‘process insight— that a responsive God is greater, is more fully God, than a dispassionate God-above history – beautifully summarizes a deep underlying motivation of panentheism’ (Clayton Reference Clayton2001, 215). Here, the issue becomes one about how a particular creational picture makes God look more or less attractive, morally speaking, as a proposition. Is the panentheist’s God – who is above creation but also includes creation ontologically – more appealing? Or, returning to our earlier discussion, is the complete Unity of God and creation in pantheism a more satisfying account of existence and experience?

Some might be repelled by the metaphysics of pantheism or panentheism. For example, the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty abhorred the idea that creation has been absorbed by the transcendent or is made valuable only by connecting it to a higher authority than itself. He writes that Judeo-Christian thinking is ‘haunted by the threat of acosmism’ and he wants to retain the wonder of the world for itself, without reference to God. Thus, our wonder before the world is not to be obtained by moving ‘toward the unity of consciousness as the foundation of the world; rather it steps back in order to see transcendences spring forth … ’ (Merleau-Ponty Reference Merleau-Ponty2012 [1945], lxxvii). That is, Merleau-Ponty wants to set the world free from the transcendent in order for it to shine on its own terms. Ostensibly, this view might appear only attractive to an atheist, but perhaps it also underscores the importance of the freedom of creation that can only be afforded by creational models that separate God from the world and allow creation itself to be very good? We shall return to this shortly.

A variation on this theme is the problem of distinguishing finite and infinite categories. So, one important question is whether pantheism or panentheism allows us to say anything meaningful about finite existence? This may be less acute in the latter than the former, but there seems to be little room for doing justice to finite substances. So, Austin Farrer suggests that a pantheist in particular faces a dilemma about how to speak discretely about finite substances and the divine. For example, would speaking about the world as a kind of ‘god’ depend on us asserting the ‘illusion of finite substance’, and would not this be tantamount to a perceptual error on our part? If we grant that finite substances are not illusory and have their own independence, so to speak, then we are compelled to adopt a more standard metaphysical ordering that separates finite from infinite (see Farrer Reference Farrer1959, 20).

2.5 God and Creation: Expressing the Difference

Alongside the matter of the total freedom of God to create is the question of how we might describe God as being different from creation. If emanationist views tend to imply a spiritual and material hierarchy, they ultimately fail to grant creation itself any true independence from the divine. Claiming that God is totally free to create, or that creation is an unnecessary free act that adds nothing to God, gives us some indication of the proper nature of this relationship. Basically, it suggests that the link between God and creation is not necessary or required. Let us unpack this. So, with Plotinus’ emanationism, it is not apparent how this difference is to be expressed, except perhaps by increments or gradations; nor is it altogether clear from his writings that he was consistent in his statements about God and the world. This is something that Kathryn Tanner draws our attention to. So, as we have said, Plotinus presents a ‘serially proceeding chain of being’ that appears to place the divine within a spectrum that is involved in the world (see Tanner Reference Tanner1988, 42–44). However, in other passages, he would seem to be arguing for the simplicity of God. Especially when he describes the ‘One’ as ‘the unitary, simple and undifferentiated ground of all mind and being.’ This would make the One something that is transcategorial and cannot be understood in terms of the kinds of binary oppositions or causal necessities as instantiated within creation itself. Ironically, we see the claim ‘God is simple’ being made in the theologies of non-emanationist figures like Irenaeus, Augustine, Aquinas, or al-Ghazālī.

To say that God is simple is not a pejorative reference and is not intended to make God inferior in some respect, rather, it is linked to God’s categorical uniqueness. So, if we return to Irenaeus, he seeks to make clear that comparing God’s action (for example, the flow between mind and thought and word) with human experience leads to error:

Describing God as simple is a way of distinguishing God from all things. Augustine (354–430 CE) gives us the following definition: ‘There is then one sole Good, which is simple, and therefore unchangeable, and that is God. By this good all good things were created, but they are not simple, and for that reason they are changeable’ (Augustine 2003, 440). Then he proceeds to explain:

We can understand this if we make a contrast with creatures (See Oliver 2017, 44). Creatures are not simple but composites of many parts. Take a human person. We can point to their bodily features, their characteristics (e.g., moral), and their particular attributes or talents. But, these aspects can come and go – my body may be changed by an accident, my character may evolve for the better or worse, my talents may diminish, and if I have authority, I may lose it. Of course, I still exist, and so these other aspects are ‘additions’ to my existence; but the basic point is that a human being’s existence plus their accidental qualities make up the kind of thing that human creatures are. We are comprised structurally as a ‘what-it-is-and-what-it-has’ thing. So, in contrast, to say God is simple is to assert that God is not a composite like creatures, what God is (God’s existence) and what God has (God’s attributes, character, etc.) are the same. Perhaps a more familiar way of stating this is that ‘love’ is not something that is added to God, rather God is love. Saying God’s existence and God’s attributes are the same thing means that God does not change as we change – God does not become more or less wise; does not lose the capacity to love; does not grow or diminish in knowledge or power – God simply is these things.

Going further, we might also say that ‘God is simple’ is a formal way of properly referring to the divine. Burrell, following Thomas Aquinas, argues that ‘God’s simpleness and God’s eternity are part of what assures us we are talking about divinity’ (Burrell Reference Burrell2004, 6). So, Aquinas describes God as the ‘beginning and end of all things’ who ‘has whatever must belong to the first cause of all things which is beyond all that is caused’ (Burrell Reference Burrell1979, 14).Footnote ¹² He advances a method of understanding God that proceeds on the basis of negation. Thus, ‘the ways in which God does not exist will become apparent if we rule out from him everything inappropriate, such as compositeness, change and the like’ (14). Again, this is a ‘logic appropriate to the discourse about God’ (17). Thus, in order to be the source of creation God has to be formally distinct from it. Only a simple God can ‘produce being absolutely’, and for Aquinas ‘creation is the proper act of God alone’ (Levering Reference Levering2017, 107).

These are perhaps the products of a high scholasticism in philosophy, and modern philosophical accounts present other models, but this is not to say that such reasoning has no application. How does such formal logic of God’s simplicity and eternity function in religious life? Going back to the mother in 2 Macc.7.28, we see that it is part of a confession about God’s total supremacy in terms of power and the ability to provide. Ian McFarland (reflecting on Theophilus of Antioch) puts it this way: ‘If God is to be confessed as Lord without qualification, then everything that is not God must depend on God for its existence without qualification’ (McFarland Reference McFarland2014, 2). The logical categorization of God as the ‘beginning and end of all things’ is the basis for confessing that God utterly transcends our existence: ‘“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, ”declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”’ (Is 55.8–9). The Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, gave existential expression to this when he said that ‘there is an infinite, radical, qualitative difference between God and man’ (Kierkegaard Reference Kierkegaard, Hong and Hong2012, 687). This was not intended to be an obscurantist remark; on the contrary, he thought that it was the basis for a subjective ‘passion of the infinite’ (Kierkegaard Reference Kierkegaard, Hong and Hong1992, 181).

However, if we establish such an infinite abyss between God and creation, what does this make of the language we use about God and about the attributes we ascribe? If God is simple, not a composite, then we cannot apply ‘properties’ to God in a way that is univocal with our own. Although he did not develop this in a systematic way, Aquinas’ solution is to speak of analogical predication. We cannot speak of God univocally (using words with identical meanings – e.g., ‘father’), nor is our language wholly equivocal (radically different). However, the reason why we ought not to conclude that God is linguistically out of reach is that, if we recall, Aquinas thought of creation as something fundamental to understanding our being. Being as creatura. Thus, there is an affinity between creator and created, and this allows us to think of our language about God as analogous. Reality for Aquinas is not just a product of a neutral rationality; instead, reality – as divinely created – possesses a kind of luminosity. That is, ‘the reality of things is itself their light’ (Aquinas Reference Aquinas1996, 61).

Again, taking this thought, we could go further and ask about the expression of ‘analogy’ in religious life and the ways in which this connects the creator with the created. Perhaps one way of thinking about this is through the concept of glory. For instance, Kelsey finds God’s glory in the ‘peculiar way in which God creatively relates to reality other than himself’ (Kelsey Reference Kelsey2009, 316). What can he mean? That somehow the peculiarity of God’s engagement with the world is glorious? So, when Aquinas speaks of being as creatura, and reality as a ‘light’, perhaps there is relationship being described between creation and the creator that is doxological: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands’ (Ps 19.1) Though there is an eschatological dimension to glory as that which is yet to come it also speaks of a reality that is already present in creation now. For the Italian political philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, glory is a theological strategy that is used to cover over the complexities of theological distinctions. He writes: ‘Glory is the place where theology attempts to think the difficult conciliation between immanent trinity and economic trinity, theologia and oikonomia, being and praxis, God in himself and God for us’ (Agamben Reference Agamben2011, 208). Setting aside Agamben’s idiosyncratic use of glory in his political thinking, this might be another way of describing the mysterious relationship between creation and God and how it is expressed in creation. Aquinas, speaking philosophically, uses analogy to bridge the logical chasm, but perhaps ‘glory’ is something that vividly exhibits the incomprehensible experience of gratuity and shows by its light the mystery of God in relation to creation.

And yet, some might still be thinking of the difference between the divine and the world in terms of straightforward oppositions. However, what is being said by thinkers like Aquinas is that this relationship is not to be thought of as symmetrical. That is, God’s relation to the world is wholly other and not a contrasting expression of oppositions (light and dark, spirit and matter, up and down). Moreover, God does not simply function as the explanation for existence either, which would, in effect, draw God into a causal and hierarchical network of explanations. This latter point is subtle, but it is one of the reasons why Aquinas did not think of creation ex nihilo necessarily in terms of beginnings or explanations, indeed, it would logically be compatible with an eternal universe because Aquinas thinks that creation ex nihilo is primarily an account of the proper relation between God and the universe. So, although there is little controversy surrounding the idea of creation as something that has taken place in the past from the human perspective of history, the meaning of creatio ex nihilo concerns a far more profound relationship between the Creator and the creation. As Aquinas argued, creation cannot be described in terms of a movement or change in the divine; instead, it describes a relationship: ‘the very dependence of created being on the principle whereby it is produced’ (Aquinas Reference Aquinas1923a, 27).

The crucial point is that, because of what Kierkegaard called the infinite qualitative distinction between God and the created order, the language of symmetrical difference or calculable distance breaks down. In this sense, God’s simplicity and absolute relational difference from creation allows paradoxically for a profound intimacy. It should be clear, then, that this is a difference of an entirely different order from that of basic oppositions, in the words of Kathryn Tanner, ‘divine transcendence exceeds all oppositional contrasts characteristic of relations among finite beings’ (Tanner Reference Tanner1988, 56). The term that Tanner (and Burrell) uses for this difference is non-contrastive. Put simply, as we have said, we cannot use the language of contrasts to describe the difference between God and creation. One of the most oft-cited accounts of this is supplied by Robert Sokolowski in The God of Faith and Reason (Reference Sokolowski1982), who uses the phrase ‘Christian distinction’ to refer to it. Burrell seeks to extend this beyond the Christian reference and also finds similar distinctions expressed in both Judaism and Islam, particularly the thought of Maimonides and al-Ghazālī. For Sokolowski, this ‘distinction’ reinforces a sense of divine mystery that, because it resists rational formulation, allows us to hold together seeming contradictions as mysteries apprehended by faith. Critics might see this as an intellectual white flag – the appeal to mystery. However, the point of the last few pages has been to outline the philosophical logic that seeks to speak of that which is ‘the beginning and end of all things’ or the exceedingly transcendent nature of the creator God. There is, therefore, a paradoxical consistency here. The non-contrastive distinction creates a space for mystery, or perhaps it opens into a realm where only the mention of glory would appear to suffice.

2.6 Intimacy and Distance

Nevertheless, does this accentuate the distance between God and creation? As we said earlier, one of the attractive aspects of the emanationist view is that it makes the link between the world and God appear, at first sight, closer and more intimate than with the creatio ex nihilo view. This is also the case with the broader pantheist position, which identifies God with the cosmos. For the purposes of building a close connection between God and World, both the emanationist (though in an incremental sense) and pantheist view seems admirably well-suited. Contrary to the seeming dualism of creation by a God outside of the world, these more monist viewpoints appear to suggest a deep unity simply by asserting a basic ontology of God present within and through all that exists. Figures like Sallie McFague, who prefers the more organic portrayal of the world as God’s body, are seeking to rebel against the seeming hierarchical picture of a dominating, supreme God outside the action who subdues creation to the divine will. Their objections to the classical models of the likes of Augustine and Aquinas are more of the moral than logical kind. In fact, it is the kind of logical approach that such writers accuse of alienating God from creation or allegedly installing a power structure that seems opposed to solidarity and intimacy. Thus, ostensibly, God’s close intimacy with creation is affirmed by a more pantheistic embodied model.

However, can it be described as close or intimate at all if a sense of otherness is actually removed? That is, unlike theism pantheistic models do not place the emphasis on a relationship between God and the world. For example, Levine suggests that pantheistic goals tend to be described in terms of a state rather than a personal relation. An individual ‘state’ results, through meditation and contemplation, from ‘an understanding of, and right relation to, the Unity.’ Levine is not altogether clear about what the ontology of this Unity might be because the state of our relationship to it is ‘partly dependent upon other people and things, the state the pantheist seeks is not something achievable in isolation.’ Although pantheists do not create the Unity, claims Levine, they can ‘contribute to it’ (Levine Reference Levine1994, 346, 348). Whereas this appears to conjure a collaborative metaphysical picture, we should be sceptical about considering it as a genuine model of a possible relationship between creator and creation, which would be essentially a theistic imposition onto the pantheist’s ontology.

However, it would be untrue to say that there can be no resonances at all with theistic ideas here, and certainly more panentheist or process theologies will be able to find common interests. But if this might be conceived as the more harmonious model of the relationship of the divine to the creation, or for human-to-human relations, it seems to come with the price tag of a loss of otherness. That is, pantheistic models are not really about closeness in terms of a relation, rather, they appear to advocate for full immersion and absorption of identity. We might say that all creatures are equally contained or absorbed in divinity, but it is not clear if the term ‘equality’ is apposite in this conception because there is no relational dynamic or otherness in view—all is divine.

So, perhaps we need to be more specific and speak about what Janice McRandal has called the ‘closeness of transcendence’ (see McRandal Reference McRandal2015,40–44). Although it might seem counterintuitive to talk about creation ex nihilo as asserting anything other than radical difference, when understood as a non-contrastive difference, as we discussed earlier, it implies something surprising. For Irenaeus, the effect of the non-contrastive distinction is that it confounds the language of opposites: light and dark, presence and absence, God and humanity, eternal perfection and worldly instability. Or rather, such opposites are not part of the same order of reality, and so God does not stand at a calculable distance, like at the end of a great chain of existence, from creation. This would appear to greatly magnify the distance of God from the creation, however, the reverse is the case. So, if closeness with God is sought then asserting God’s utter freedom through a non-contrastive relationship means that rather than relating to the world as, say, an upper storey relates to a lower storey, or through a sequential emanationist procession, or through some kind of divine infusion into the world with its limitations of space and time, God ‘may be related in the same direct fashion to every link in the chain, as the productive agent for the whole’ (Tanner Reference Tanner1988, 44). That is to say, the non-contrastive view suggests that there is a radical sovereign freedom in terms of God’s relation to the creation. Here is another, perhaps more radical, notion of intimacy that arises out of a non-contrastive model of the divine/creation relationship. B Richard Norris explains Irenaeus’ view:

Additionally, if we set aside the idea of origins from the root meaning, then it becomes possible to talk of creatio ex nihilo ‘in the present tense’ (Jenson Reference Jenson and Gunton2004, 19). Alan Torrance argues that it is vitally important to underscore this point because if the idea of creation is consigned to the past, so to speak, then it cannot play a role in our understanding of the present and our lived existence in this world now. So, we ought to see creation as somehow related immediately to the whole of existence. This perspective says something about the sheer giftedness of every moment and action: ‘we are now obliged to interpret every aspect of spatio-temporal existence and every kind of particular existent, be it an object, or a process, or a law, or any form of connectedness between events, in all their spatio-temporal particularity, as requiring to be understood as created ex nihilo’ (Torrance Reference Torrance and Gunton2004, 102).

This also suggests that all created beings and things are equally near (or far) from the divine. This emerges both from a consideration of the non-contrastive distinction that we have discussed and from creation’s freedom. Colin Gunton expresses a fine (but important) distinction between a Neoplatonic emanationist sense and a biblical sense: ‘It is noticeable that in the Genesis account God does not say “Be”, but “let there be”. In a similar vein, Burrell makes a point about ‘created freedom being proper to creatures’ (Burrell Reference Burrell2004, 6). Thus, what characterizes the nature of being creatures in relation to monotheism? There is a greater stress on what we might call the giving of space to be to a reality that is other than God’ (Gunton Reference Gunton2002, 5). Matter does not exist along a hierarchical spectrum —stretching back to an eternal, recalcitrant chaos that was (and is) being subdued by God. Ian McFarland explains:

So, to be creatures is to acknowledge that they are ‘not God’ and therefore no one is closer or more removed from God. Once again, there are important inter-personal dynamics that arise out of such circumstances. It is not only the ontological fact of createdness that is equally shared by all, it is also that a wholehearted participation in creation means that we are compelled to affirm our own finitude and particularity. Another way of expressing this would be to say that our creational experience does not invite us to imagine that our own particularity should be universalized. In so doing, a genuine creation spirituality does not presume to acquire a vision of creation’s totality but becomes one that affirms our own particularity and exhorts us to recognize that others inhabit their own particularity as a condition of their creaturehood (See Wilson Reference Wilson2013, 23–26).

Again, this takes us back to our opening questions, where we asked about creation as a religious concern. Is the limitation of creaturely reality something to be shunned in favour of more transcendent goals? Does an affection for the finitude of created existence bring us too close to corruptibility and the distractions of the senses? Perhaps these are rather Greek prejudices – keen to prefer the mode of archetypes. However, the point is that when we enter creation’s horizon, we find creaturehood.

2.7 Challenges to ex nihilo

Although creatio ex nihilo represents the most widely accepted explanation in theistic thinking, it has been subjected to major challenges. Common critiques centre on questions of power, hierarchy, and the problem of evil and suffering. For example, the feminist theologian, Sallie McFague, thinks that creatio ex nihilo is a ‘dangerous notion’ with its seeming monarchical picture that ‘God created hierarchically, with the physical subordinated to the spiritual …’ (McFague 1997, 109). Alluding to the influence of Gordon Kaufman, she complains that the relationship between God and World according to the ex nihilo model is an assymetrical one and ‘God and world are only distantly related … ’ She recoils at the idea of a supreme God who rules the universe and where all the power ‘is on God’s side;’ something which she takes to imply that ‘God can only be God if we are nothing’ (64). The reasons why McFague thinks that the connection between God’s power and egotistical monarchical intentions is self-evident are not made wholly clear, but it perhaps reflects her preference for a different picture of God that she articulates as ‘open, caring, inclusive, interdependent, changing, mutual and creative’ (14). McFague’s eco-feminist creation-spirituality rightly concentrates on other important creational themes that are borne out of nurturing models of God as mother, lover, and friend, and the overall spiritual vision is one that seeks to overcome the disconnect between humanity and the natural world. She makes important criticisms that lean towards a more evolutionary, developmental portrayal of creation that seeks to avoid a top-down relation.

However, the critique of the dualism between God and world thrives on (and overplays) the contrastive oppositions between divine and human, power and weakness, spirit and matter, that the non-contrastive view makes redundant. Moreover, the alleged distance of the God-World relation in the classical model is something that McFague critiques using metaphorical rhetoric that plays heavily on parental imagery. This is consistent with an overall theological method that she advocates – a metaphorical theology which has as its primary task a demythologization of life using ‘poetic, imagistic’ tools and which recommends ‘identifying and elucidating primary metaphors and models from contemporary experience’ (32). However, if this is the principal method, then there should presumably be few embargoes on which metaphors we choose to characterize the meaning of distance. On the question of distance between God and creation, McFague conjures an image of regal indifference, but might distance be dressed in other guises? For example, take David Bentley Hart’s description of the distance required for the beauty of creation to be admired:

This is not necessarily to dismiss McFague’s reading of the alleged distance from God and creation in the classical tradition, but it might indicate that if we are licensed to think in terms of metaphor, then this is another account – not the distance of domination or subjugation but of a lover’s delight.

However, continuing with critiques based on power, in her influential text, Face of the Deep (2003), Catherine Keller wishes to distance creation theology from what she labels the ‘triumphant logos’ of the early Church Fathers (Keller Reference Keller2003, 64). Keller is captivated by the ‘deeps’ over which the Spirit hovers in Gen. 1.2. In her own words, she advocates for a ‘tehomophilic’ account of God and creation as opposed to a ‘tehomophobic’ interpretation where the creator seeks to ‘erase the chaos of creation’ (xix). Similar to McFague, chief amongst her criticisms is the perceived rhetoric of sheer power with a God that ‘needs nothing but his own logos to create’ (53). Drawing on the statement in Gen 1.2, she believes that the potential of tehom (primordial deep) has been repressed or dispossessed of its involvement in creation by what she interprets as a domineering masculine model. Rather than set up an opposition of creation versus chaos, the novelty of Keller’s approach is to be found in the way in which she seeks to embrace ‘chaos’ or the tehom in positive terms and how she interprets the tehomic depths as possessive of creational vitality.Footnote ¹³ Moreover, in contrast with the logos of ex nihilo, which she claims drives creation in a linear movement forward towards its triumphant conclusion, she thinks that her tehomic vision gives rise to ‘a helical, recapitulatory sense of history’ (Keller Reference Keller2003, 56). Overriding the ‘monotone of transcendence’, God ‘lures self-organizing systems out of fluctuating possibilities’ (195).

Keller outlines vividly her objection to the organizing effect of the Logos when viewed through a Hellenistic lens, which she claims calcifies paradoxes into the ‘unquestionabilities’ of Nicene Christology. She laments this historical development in early Church thinking, which she argues hardens theological fluidity and makes ‘interdimensional oscillations of a more mobile incarnation freeze’. These criticisms emerge from a sense that the free, intrinsic value of creation in all its chaotic diversity has been stultified by the ‘timeless logos’ (58). If not the ‘triumphant logos’ that underpins creation theology, then what does Keller propose instead? She wants us to overcome the ‘tehomophobia’ of creatio ex nihilo and put chaos to work. The tehom is the place of becoming, the world is formed ‘out of a chaotic something’, it is a creatio cooperationis: ‘non-linear interactions between Elohim and Tehom’ (117).

Some critics of Keller’s version of creation tend to find a weakness in what Keller herself takes to be a virtue, namely that chaos is allowed to merge with the divine (Elohim and Tehom) as part of the creation’s formation. Although her overall picture may be interpreted as just another version of pantheism, her use of chaos is particularly idiosyncratic. In spite of her romantic positive vision, chaos itself is more commonly associated (in the ancient world, generally not just the ‘logocentric’ early Church) with the dismantling of order and harmony rather than a positive movement or growth in creation. This is a point made by Eric Vail who suggests that Keller could have simply chosen another term, like profundus, rather than chaos (Vail Reference Vail2012, 180). However, in the end, is it just a matter of nomenclature, or is Keller proposing something that should be considered a creation model at all? That is, rather than supplying an alternative version of creation, her fixation on the constant motion of the deep and the ‘rhythmic life of all creatures’ (Keller Reference Keller2003, 238) seems to have little room for the discrete actions of a creator God.

In seeking to reinstate creation ex nihilo, Rowan Williams has this idea of the monarchical God in his sights when he argues that the picture of the subjugation of creation is founded upon some basic misconceptions. Much of this relates to what we discussed earlier about the non-contrastive relationship of God to creation. So, God does not dominate or subdue a primordial chaos and creation is not an imposition of the divine will onto something pre-existing: ‘With God alone, I am dealing with what does not need to construct or negotiate an identity, what is free to be itself without the process of struggle’ (Williams Reference Williams1999, 72–73). If God is wholly free to create unnecessarily, then there is no ‘triumphant logos’ as such because there is nothing that has been triumphed over in terms of a contest. This makes the opening statement in Genesis that heralds the creation, ‘let there be’, sound less like an act of power and authority and more like a stepping aside that allows the other to exist and flourish. So, there is an important clarification concerning the relationship between God’s will and our own natures. God creates in freedom and affirms createdness in itself. Again:

We shall consider creaturehood further in our next section, but even if we accept that the relationship between God and creation does not have to be interpreted in terms of dominance and power, there still remains the insistent question about the kind of creation we experience and the seeming ubiquity of evil and suffering. It is all very well speaking about the beauties of a creation that is ‘let-be’, but does the idea of God creating in absolute freedom face an insuperable moral difficulty when confronted with the horrors of the world? In which case, is a more incarnational or embodied model of creation more appropriate after all; or one that conceives a God who evinces solidarity in the midst of things? The problem of evil is one of the chief reasons why some theologians have questioned the classical model and sought to consider a different conception of the divine using process thought.

A prominent representative, David Griffin, says: ‘the problem of evil is a problem for those theistic positions that hold the doctrine of omnipotence implied by the doctrine of creation out of nothing’ (Griffin Reference Griffin and Stephen1981, 104). We saw earlier that David Bentley Hart’s view was not to abandon creation ex nihilo – which he saw as being essential for the very definition of divinity – but instead to resolve the question of evil with a final consummation that includes salvation for all. That is, he sought not to exacerbate the problem with the ‘infernalist’ addendum of hell. No loose ends – all shall be well. But the process view of Griffin and others seeks to deal with the issue of suffering by rethinking the meaning of God. In fact, Griffin is unabashed in affirming the model of God working to subdue a primordial chaos that we associated with the Greek ideas earlier as well as with Catherine Keller’s work a moment ago.

Underlying the process view is the work of Alfred North Whitehead, who argued in his seminal work Process and Reality that God is not exceptional but rather the ‘chief exemplification’ of ‘metaphysical principles’ (Whitehead Reference Whitehead, Griffin and Sherburne1978, 343). There is also an aversion expressed by writers such as Norman Pittenger and David Griffin about the idea of God intervening in an occasionalist show of omnipotence that seems scarce most of the time. The objections will resonate very much with the contemporary postmodern zeitgeist that speaks against the notion of ‘power’ imposing itself and overruling the identity of the other. Thus, in the process view, God does not act in sovereign power, but instead persuades and coerces, urging the world through the ‘lure of love’ (Pittenger) to use its agency towards overcoming evil.

Jon Levenson makes the same kind of appeal as do process theologians (and Keller). We are not entitled to be optimistic about the outcome of the ‘malign process’, and he offers no decisive vision of God’s victory. In fact, he thinks that the biblical accounts tell a story of the survival of ‘chaos’ after the initial victory of God at the beginning, the days of Noah being one such example, where the state of the world was a cause of divine regret. God may have covenanted not to destroy the world again by water, but God’s ordering of the world is ‘irresistable, but not constant or inevitable’ (Levenson Reference Levenson1994, 14). Thus, on the one hand, his theology of creation concerns the way in which God is being ‘triumphant over all rivals’ (47), but any confidence in this outcome is undermined by Levenson’s attraction to the drama of history that exhibits the ‘enormity of the risk’ in bringing about an eventual ‘life sustaining order’ (156). Here we see writ large a difference in priority. For example, whereas Janet Soskice speaks of creation as something about God rather than the cosmos, for Levenson it is about the ‘grandeur of faith’ shown by a cultic people in the face of the persistence of evil (147).

However, is there too great a preponderance of the power of the story? A noble conception of solidarity: a divine creator working in the mix with creatures towards a good outcome sounds supremely empathetic, but is it ontologically adequate? So, the question remains whether we can genuinely see process theology as advancing anything like the traditional monotheistic all-powerful picture that we find in the Abrahamic traditions and, therefore, whether there is any support for it beyond a small revisionist constituency? Despite its seeming solidarity with human experience and suffering, in the end, its comforting platitudes scarcely conceal the powerless god that is struggling to succeed. John Hick described it as ‘metaphysically unsatisfying’, and Joanna Leidenhag provides a neat summary of its problems:

3.1 Gift and Action

Reflecting on creation as a gift, Kenneth Schmitz said: ‘The gift, then, is the medium in and through which giver and recipient affirm their being-in-the-world-together. It is the place of celebration of their co-presence’ (Schmitz Reference Schmitz1982, 81). We should note that here the suggestion is not simply that it is a matter of us opting, as if inspired by the divine gift, to engage in an imitation of divine generosity or openness. Instead, there is already an ontology of gift underpinning creation and human relationships (see Oliver Reference Oliver2017, 154). It is this giftedness that should be the ground of reparative discourse and action in solidarity with others and the world. Creation as gift acts as a relational equalizer; it implies that we cannot perceive other created beings as mere pawns in our schemes as if we had some other justifying status that placed us meritoriously above them: we too are the result of ‘gift.’

Nevertheless, what do we do with this gift? Are there any meaningful purposes and activities that we can be engaged with in a world that is an unnecessary creation by a God who is already fully satisfied? So, one of the most significant questions concerns the purpose of human work and its possible role in co-creation. This is an area of some considerable controversy that highlights many of the themes that we have discussed earlier about the dynamics between creation and Creator. Does our work contribute to creation in some way? This is the view taken by John Paul II in Laborem Exercens where he writes: ‘The Church is convinced that work is a fundamental dimension of man’s existence on earth’ (John Paul II Reference Paul2003, 6) and that humanity has the task of transforming the world and by doing so becoming ‘more human’. In contrast, Stanley Hauerwas (taking a shot at Laborem Exercens) opposes the idea of human beings as co-creators with God: ‘Our work does not have to contribute to some grand plan … ’ he writes, and ‘ … perhaps most of all, work gives us a way to stay busy’ (Hauerwas Reference Hauerwas, Houck and Williams1983, 48). For Hauerwas, creation is an act of God alone, and our involvement in it can only be interpreted in terms of grace and surplus. Nevertheless, his position, whilst being strictly consistent with the idea of creation and our own existence as a sheer gift, seems oddly unsatisfying. So, we might challenge this by asking what is being modelled by the act of divine creation and if there is a virtue to be found in imitating the divine act of making and engaged activity?

Going further, we could argue that there is something inevitable about the productivity of creation. Take, for example, Augustine’s doctrine of rationes seminales – the inherent principles that determine the development of living things. The earth ‘received the power of bringing them forth’, and ‘in the roots of time, God created what was to be in times to come’ (Augustine 1982, 153). Similarly, Aquinas seeks to show the full integrity of created being, the main principle being ‘the perfection of the effect demonstrates the perfection of the cause’ (Aquinas Reference Aquinas1923b, 15). Creation is not just a passive recipient, on the contrary ‘the creature is a moved mover’ (Webster Reference Webster2013, 171). To be created out of nothing is no degradation, as if left bereft of any independent validity. On the contrary, for Aquinas, we are given a nature which allows us to achieve great things and contribute some ‘great work’ to the creation, such a work that befits the imago dei.Footnote ¹⁶

In this connection, Francis Watson offers a helpful clarification when he discusses two kinds of creation (whilst opting for a third): the speech-act and the fabrication models. The speech-act model reflects an imperative sense of divine command that is exemplified by such biblical passages as Ps. 33.6, which says, ‘By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host by the breath of his mouth.’ The fabrication model is concerned with the craftsmanship of the divine creative act, for example, Ps. 139:13: ‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb …’ However, Watson presents a third model of creation that brings together elements of the speech-act and the fabrication models. Thus, what he calls the ‘mediation’ model draws attention to the recurring phrase ‘Let the earth bring forth …’ (Gen 1:11–24) (See Watson Reference Watson1994). Here we have a dynamic and active notion of sub-creation, as if the world contains its own agencies to ‘bring forth’, as permitted or enabled by God. We can perhaps see here the resonance with Augustine’s notion of rationes seminales above.

One of the big questions that we have already hinted at in connection with David Bentley Hart’s portrayal of human rationality as being fixated on the ‘anticipated finality’, is whether there is room for any local affections – can the only permissible love be love for God? For example, in his Summa, Thomas Aquinas asks, ‘does the love which is charity focus solely on God or does it also include our neighbour?’ (IIa IIae, 25.1). Aquinas’ question is concerned with priority. Since God is the perfect object of love, can true charity only be directed towards the God who is represented in our neighbour? Indeed, one might recall Matthew 25:35–40, especially vs 40b: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ However, for Aquinas, God creates beings that are different from God, and the divine love is therefore directed out of God and towards them. God does not desire to simply stare into a mirror. That is, the movement of divine love towards the creature seeks to preserve the full integrity of that difference. The implication of this is that we too are called to love our neighbour as they are in themselves rather than solely the God who we see in them. God is the reason why we love, not the sole object of love. In IIa IIae, 25.4 of the Summa, he draws an inference from Leviticus 19:18b that you should ‘love your neighbour as yourselfFootnote ¹⁷ or for the love of charity itself. Thus, Aquinas’ order of charity acknowledges the multiple objects of love in creation, in which he places love for God at the top, but there is also the love of ourselves.

3.2 Gift and Rest

Levenson draws certain parallels between God’s rest from his works in Gen 2.2 (or God’s otiosity, as Levenson calls it) and other similar notions in Near Eastern accounts, but he argues that it has a specific connotation for the Genesis text. Where the Near Eastern gods withdraw, or finish, from their involvement with the world (or become inactive and ‘otiose’) the Genesis account refers to the ‘special form of repose’ that we associate with the biblical Sabbath (Levenson Reference Levenson1994, 110). He links Sabbath with ‘creation without opposition’, such that God’s seeming inactivity is not to be seen as a feckless kind of neglect, but rather a positive indication that ‘creation is so secure that that it can survive a day without his maintenance.’ Thus, we are invited into ‘the inner rhythm of creation itself’ (111). However, as it is about creation itself, this inner rhythm must apply beyond a solely Jewish liturgical context. Judith Shulevitz observes that the Sabbath ‘was the only ritual law among the Ten Commandments, which Christians have held to be universal or natural laws – that is, a kind of innate morality implanted by God in the human soul’ (Shulevitz Reference Shulevitz2010, xxvi). Again, David Burrell argues that the distinctive idea of the Sabbath became obscured over time because of its ‘liturgical replacement’ by the day of the Lord, which effectively ‘invited the community of believers to let redemption eclipse creation’ (Burrell Reference Burrell2004, 208). The rabbinical teaching concerning Genesis that the world had been created in good order but that the purpose of humanity was to bring it to completion had obscured the idea of creation as sheer Gift and the Sabbath as a bare invitation into God’s rest. Thus, he argues that the very point of the Sabbath is to disabuse humanity from the belief that they are involved in the making of creation.Footnote ¹⁸ That is, Sabbath returns human beings to their created nature as the mere recipient, rather than architect, of their existence. Similarly, Karl Barth’s oft-quoted statement that ‘on the Sabbath he [humanity] belongs to himself’ refers to the person who, after the six days of work have finished, becomes ‘just the man’ (Barth Reference Barth, Bromiley and Torrance1958, 214). In this vein, might we suppose that the Sabbath time returns humanity to its bare nature, a time without any obligation to fulfil outstanding tasks or commands, a time to just be? This places rest at the centre of an ethic of createdness and human relationships. The Sabbath-rest is woven into creation itself, and its particular ethic may not serve to end human work necessarily, but to act as a critique of the enslavement to work. (This is the meaning behind Hauerwas’ quip we saw earlier about the purpose of work being no more than to ‘keep us busy’). Additionally, rather than reading the creation narrative as prioritizing the six ‘creative’ days – followed by the seventh ‘inactive’ day (Sabbath), Sabbath-rest is in fact the underlying condition of making. It characterizes the tone of creation and the creaturely view: ‘The goal of creation … is the event of God’s Sabbath freedom […] It is the starting-point for all that follows’ (Barth Reference Barth, Bromiley and Torrance1958, 98).Footnote ¹⁹

Therefore, to speak of the universality of the Sabbath means that we have to move beyond the cultic aspects and think more metaphysically. The Jewish philosopher, Aristobulus, makes a connection between the seventh day (Sabbath) of creation and the first day (the creation of light). He associates it with philosophical illumination. That is, the seventh day of creation is something given to all of humanity in order for there to be a space to contemplate the light: ‘God, who has established the whole cosmos, has also given us as a rest – because life is troublesome for all – the seventh day, which indeed may be called the first also, the creation of light, by which all things can be seen together at the same time’ (Mras Reference Mras, Brooke and van Hecke2016, 152).

Aristobulus was an Alexandrian (second century CE) and one of the first Jewish thinkers to embrace the allegorical method in Biblical commentary. His purpose in doing this was to show that the Jewish Torah – with all its visceral historicity – could (by the use of allegory) be made compatible with the high philosophy of the Greeks (Mras Reference Mras, Brooke and van Hecke2016, 138–154). He suggested this by giving less attention to the everyday practices of the Sabbath and more to stressing the metaphysics of light and knowledge that might lie at the heart of its meaning. But what does this mean? It is about the conditions that the Sabbath permits – a time of repose and rest, taking time out. Thus, seeing truth and light is made possible by residing inside the gift of divine rest. The meaning here is that the light is not really to be contemplated as the result of arduous human intellectual effort or achievement, but occurs in a moment of amnesty; it is a gift to the sabbatical mind. Creation allows just such a Sabbath.Footnote ²⁰ That is, there is a connection being made between Sabbath rest and getting the right perspective and, perhaps, here we might begin to discern a distinctive characteristic about how the Abrahamic notion of a six-day creation by God influences the ways we should regard our human identity as creatures, our relationship to the world, and our sense of the particular rhythms of life. The Protestant theologian, Jürgen Moltmann, champions this when he writes: ‘The goal and completion of every Jewish and every Christian doctrine of creation must be the doctrine of the sabbath.’ Unlike secular interpretations of the world as nature the sabbatical view imbues creation with a particular character: ‘it is the sabbath which manifests the world’s identity as creation, sanctifies it and blesses it’ (Moltmann Reference Moltmann1985, 276).

There are also broader lessons to draw according to Shulevitz who remarks that the reason that God rested from his work was to teach us that ‘what we create becomes meaningful only once we stop creating it and start remembering why it was worth creating it in the first place [or why it wasn’t]’ (Shulevitz Reference Shulevitz2010, 217). She offers the view that the practice of the Sabbath by societies is efficacious. It ‘does something’ quite remarkable and promotes ‘social solidarity’ (37). Sabbath rest is quotidian, it occurs in the home, away from human work. It takes place in an activity that is neither urgent nor productive (xxiii). But, if so, such efficacy is not well-described as foundational, as if we might install it as an abstract moral principle, rather, it is commonplace. If Sabbath rest can become the basis for embracing the other, it is not because it establishes a common ethic—it is not the Golden Rule—rather it is an invitation to put time on hold, an amnesty where we can be, as Barth said, ‘just the man … whose being and existence are more than all these things and his work’ (Barth Reference Barth, Bromiley and Torrance1958, 214).

In summary, in this section, we have discussed creation for itself. I would argue that if one rejects the more emanationist or pantheist versions of creation and chooses the ex nihilo model, we not only make room for creation we also permit a far more complex and rich account of the nature of the created life and its goals. This is much more the case if humanity is not simply absorbed by the divine and is not understood to have a being and purpose that can only be wholly synonymous with that identity. Moreover, the autonomy of the human may have some broader or more independent purposes than redemptive or salvific ones. In this sense, the created life is sui generis, not just driven by soteriological or transcendent goals, but something unique that includes the complexity of the quotidian and human work. Moreover, the acknowledgement of createdness has political implications – a reminder perhaps of the acceptability of human limitation and the folly of utopianism. Reduced to its barest elements, createdness affirms the vividness of our ordinary experience and the goodness of other loves. It is a sabbatical from the grand totalising projects that are impatient with finite joys and the sheer gift of existence.