Program / Course 25: Theological Synthesis / Lesson 3.1
What you will learn
- Define creation out of nothing, contingency and providence.
- Explain why the Christian doctrine of creation makes God and the world distinct yet related.
- Describe how the doctrine supports the goodness and intelligibility of the world.
- State how traditions differ on how God acts in the world.
The big idea
The Christian doctrine of creation says that everything other than God exists because God gives it existence, and that God does not depend on anything. The world is therefore contingent: it exists but need not have. It is also good, ordered and not divine. This view sets God and the world apart while holding that God is present to everything. It forms the base of Christian metaphysics, which is the study of what is ultimately real.
Key terms
- Metaphysics
- The branch of philosophy that asks what exists and what it is like at the deepest level.
- Creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo)
- The teaching that God made the world without using any pre-existing material, so that nothing other than God is eternal.
- Contingent
- Existing but not necessarily; something that could have failed to exist or depends on something else.
- Necessary being
- A being that exists by its own nature and does not depend on anything else. Christians identify God as the only such being.
- Providence
- God’s care for and guidance of creation, including what happens within it.
- Transcendence
- God’s being distinct from and beyond the created world.
- Immanence
- God’s presence and activity within the created world.
Background
The first verse of the Bible says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). The idea of creation out of nothing is stated most plainly in later writings: 2 Maccabees 7:28 (accepted as Scripture by Catholic and Orthodox Christians) and Hebrews 11:3, which says that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Early Christian writers made it explicit in the second century in answer to philosophies that held matter to be eternal, and it became the standard teaching in all major traditions.
The doctrine answers a basic question: why is there something rather than nothing? Christians answer that the world depends on a source that does not itself depend on anything. This lesson sets out the idea, its main consequences and the points on which traditions differ.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Understand contingency
Most things in ordinary experience could have been otherwise. A tree might not have grown. A person might not have been born. Philosophers call such things contingent. The Christian claim goes further: the whole world is contingent. It exists, but not by necessity.
God, by contrast, is said to exist by his own nature. This does not mean that God is merely very old. It means that God’s existence has no cause. Aquinas used the contrast in one of his arguments for God’s existence, and some philosophers find it persuasive and others do not. Here the point is not the argument but the doctrine itself.
Step 2: Distinguish God from the world
If the world exists because God gives it existence, then the world is not a part of God and not equal to God. This is a great difference between Christianity and pantheism, which says that God is the world, and also from views in which matter is eternal and uncreated. It also differs from deism, which holds that God made the world and then left it alone.
The distinction has practical weight. If nothing in the world is divine, then nothing in the world deserves worship. It also means that nature is neither a god to be feared nor a mere object to be used. It is a gift.
Step 3: Hold the distinction together with presence
Christians also hold that God is intimately present to all things. Paul quotes the saying that in God people live, and move, and have their being (Acts 17:28), and Colossians 1:17 says that in Christ all things hold together. The creation does not continue without God’s sustaining act. Many classical theologians said that creation is not just a beginning but a continuing dependence.
Transcendence and immanence therefore go together. God is not a part of the world, and the world is not outside God’s care.
Step 4: See what follows for the world
Several things follow. The world is good (Genesis 1 repeats this), so matter and the body are not evil by nature. The world is ordered, which supports the expectation that it can be studied, a point made by many historians of science who note the role of Christian belief in early modern science, though how large that role was is debated. And the world has a purpose, which is relationship with its maker.
Notice that the doctrine does not say how God made the world. It says that God did. Christians differ on how to read the details of Genesis and how to relate them to science, as the previous module showed.
Step 5: Ask how God acts in the world
If God sustains everything, how does God act in particular events? Traditions differ. Many classical writers speak of God as the primary cause who works through secondary causes such as natural processes and human choices. Others describe special acts, such as miracles, as God doing what nature would not. Open theists hold that God acts in response to free creatures in a way that leaves the future partly open.
These views have consequences for prayer, for the problem of evil and for the relation of faith to science. The next lessons come back to them.
- What would it mean for the whole world to be contingent?
- How does believing that the world is created change how I look at nature?
- Do I picture God as inside the world, outside it or both?
- What difference would it make if matter were eternal?
- How do I think God acts in the world?
- What practical effect does the idea that the world is a gift have on my life?
Examples
A poem and its author
A poem depends on its author in a way that goes beyond the moment of writing. A rough comparison for creation is that the world depends on God as a song depends on a singer who keeps singing. Like all comparisons, it has limits: the poem is finished and the world is continuously sustained.
Pantheism
A pantheist says that everything is God. A Christian replies that if so, then evil, error and suffering are also God, and that worship loses its object. The Christian view keeps God and the world distinct.
Creation and science
A physicist describes the early universe in terms of physical laws. A Christian philosopher says that these descriptions do not answer the question why there are laws and a universe at all. The two answers concern different levels, though not all agree that the second question makes sense.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching, expressed by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and the First Vatican Council, holds that God created all things from nothing and that creatures depend on God for existence at every moment. Aquinas’s account of God as the one whose essence is existence is the classical form of the doctrine.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology holds creation from nothing and stresses the difference between the uncreated God and the created world. It also stresses that God is present in creation through his energies, so that the world can share in divine life. Maximus the Confessor taught that all creatures have a divine purpose or logos.
Protestant
Protestant confessions state that God made all things from nothing by the word of his power. Reformed theology stresses providence and God’s governance of every event, while Arminian and Wesleyan traditions give more place to creaturely freedom. Process theology, a minority view, holds that God and the world are more mutually dependent than classical theology allows.
Jewish and philosophical views
Jewish tradition affirms God as creator and, in much of its history, creation from nothing, though some medieval thinkers debated whether Aristotle’s eternal world could be reconciled with it. Plato’s creator shapes pre-existing matter, and many philosophers have held the world to be eternal. Modern cosmology does not settle the question.
Why it matters
Every part of a worldview rests on an answer to the question of what ultimately exists. If the answer is a creating God, then nature, the body, work, time and history take on meaning, and ethics gains a ground. If the answer is different, much of what follows will differ too. Stating the doctrine plainly lets the student see what follows from it and what would change if it were doubted.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Creation means that God made the world once and then left it.
Correction: That view is deism. Christian teaching holds that God sustains and cares for creation at every moment.
Misunderstanding: Creation from nothing means that nothing was a kind of stuff.
Correction: Nothing is not a material. The doctrine means that there was no prior material and that God was the sole source.
Misunderstanding: The doctrine of creation is a scientific theory about the Big Bang.
Correction: It is a claim about dependence, not about the timing of events. A world with no beginning in time would still be created if it depended on God. Some Christians do see a link to the Big Bang, but this is a separate argument.
Misunderstanding: If God is in everything, then everything is God.
Correction: Presence is not identity. Christians hold that God is present to all things while remaining distinct from them.
Knowledge check
What does it mean to say the world is contingent?
It means that the world exists but need not have existed, and depends on something beyond itself. Christians say it depends on God, who alone exists by his own nature. The claim does not describe how or when the world began, but who or what it depends on for its existence.
How does creation from nothing differ from other views?
It differs from pantheism, which identifies God and the world, from views in which matter is eternal and uncreated, and from views in which the world is a lesser god or an accident. It holds that all that exists besides God owes its existence to God.
What do transcendence and immanence mean?
Transcendence means that God is distinct from and beyond the world. Immanence means that God is present and active within it. Christian teaching holds both together: God is not a part of the world, and the world is never outside God’s sustaining care.
Why do traditions differ about how God acts in the world?
Because the Bible describes both steady governance and special acts, and because philosophers have different views of freedom and causation. Some stress God working through natural causes, some stress special action, and some, like open theists, stress God’s responsiveness to free creatures.
Think it through
- Which feature of the doctrine of creation do you find most important for your daily life?
- Does the idea of continuous dependence change how you think about prayer?
- How would you answer a friend who asks why there is something rather than nothing?
Independent assignment
State the doctrine
In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words stating the Christian doctrine of creation in your own words. Include contingency, the distinction between God and the world, and God’s presence in the world. Name one rival view and say why you think the Christian view is better or worse. Include at least two Scripture references.
Further study
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae The questions on creation and on God’s existence.
- David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss A modern account of being and contingency for general readers.
- Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word The opening chapters speak of creation from nothing.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Cosmological Argument Philosophical arguments from contingency.
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions Read Book 11 on creation and time.
- Genesis 1:1 In the beginning.
- Hebrews 11:3 The worlds were framed by the word of God.
- Acts 17:28 In him we live and move.