Session 6: Creation

• Christian creation doctrine was formed through debate, distinguishing itself from other creation accounts by opposing alternate views of God and the world.
• Old Testament texts on creation differ from common mythological stories, notably the absence of conflict in Genesis compared to the strife-filled Babylonian myth.

Enuma Elish

• The most important Akkadian creation text, titled "Enuma Elish" (meaning "when on high"), aims to exalt the god Marduk.
• The text culminates in a battle between Marduk and Tiamat, vividly describing Marduk's victory and subsequent creation of heaven and earth from Tiamat's body.

Genesis

• The Genesis account contrasts with other creation myths by depicting creation as effortless, achieved through God's word without struggle.
• The Genesis account portrays creation as serene, attesting to God's goodness and majesty, unlike other ancient Near Eastern myths that depict world-making as a struggle between rival forces

Divine Word

• Creation is achieved through divine command, requiring no battle with chaos
• The effortless command illustrates the unrestricted power of the Creator.
• Creation is valued, not made from a corpse
• Genesis 1 proclaims creation as good.
• Scripture does not denigrate the material world or depict dualism

God

• The biblical account presents God as above the world, unlike the Babylonian account where gods are part of the cosmic order.
• God is the external cause of existence, functions, and purposes, standing outside of creation.
• Israelite religion views God as supreme, unbound by laws or powers, distinct from the world, and non-mythological.
• The biblical God is trustworthy and true to His word, contrasting with classical mythology's untrustworthy mythical beings.

Philosophy

• Christianity distanced itself from mythology and engaged with philosophy, especially Greek philosophy.
• Greek philosophy critiqued mythology, seeking a unifying truth of the cosmos and dispelling belief in capricious life influenced by mythological gods.
• Early philosophers aimed to overcome mythology.
• Philosophy is described as the intellectual critique of myth.
• Philosophy became critical of paganism, aligning with Christianity's monotheism.
• Philosophical views governing the cosmos became less personal, concluding that the cosmos was founded on an impersonal principle rather than God's will.
• Philosophy sought to purify religion by imposing abstract, impersonal constraints on ultimate reality.

Mythology vs Philosophy

• Early church scholars expressed concerns about Christian messages, as pagans claimed Christians taught absurd myths.
• Early Christians faced challenges reconciling biblical narratives with philosophical critiques of mythology.
• The biblical picture of God and the world is seen as precariously positioned between mythology and philosophy, posing challenges for interpretation.
• The church rejects polytheistic mythology and the divine as an impersonal principle behind the cosmos
• Rejecting mythological interpretations of the Old Testament and viewing references to God's body metaphorically.
• The early church brought together mythology and philosophy.
• Christian theology identified the God of Israel and Greek philosophers as the same.

Dualism, Monism, and Platonism

• Christian notions of God find a place between mythology and philosophy, avoiding dualism and monism.
• Dualism posits more than one power at work, with a second power apart from God, equally potent and uncreated.
• Monism (or pantheism) makes God and the world synonymous, with no divide between them.
• Christianity navigated a philosophical divide between dualism and monism
• Plato saw dualism and Platonism saw the danger of monism.

Timaeus

• Initial danger was not clearly perceived at first in Plato's Timaeus
• Timaeus is the only original document by Plato that survived in the West into the Middle Ages and the tales of creation.
• The creator in the text is known as the demiurge or Craftsman who models the world on high principles, using pre-existing elements.
• Creation falls short of the ideal because of resistance

Justin Martyr

• Early followers of Christ accepted Plato's view of creation, drawing parallels between Christian faith and philosophy.
• Justin Martyr suggested Plato copied Moses.

Dualism

• Plato's account was eventually seen as too close to dualism
• There is another reality not created by God, limiting and constraining God.
• Plato's suggestion that there is an everlasting substance that resists God's creation can sound just too much like dualism.
• Creature does not depend on God alone but on other powers so it cannot rationally put full trust in God alone for the overcoming of evil in the world.
• Biblical concept of God's creative action rules out any dualistic world origin view.

Ex Nihilo

• Christian theology affirms that God creates out of nothing.
• God does not use pre-existing material, even the material he uses to form the world is not everlasting but is something he has created.
• The phrase "Creation out of nothing" rejects any correlation of God's creative action with a principle distinct from God.
• Theophilus of Antioch argued that God's sovereignty forbids the supposition that matter existed eternally alongside God.
• Theophilus argues that God creates the world not from an unformed matter but from nothing
• Irenaeus of Lyon stated the most influential voice that proclaimed this in the early church.
• Everything is created by the word of God and that God does not require raw material on which to work
• Substance of creation is not supplied in advance.
• Creation out of nothing is stressed over and against Plato.
• Irenaeus infuses Ex Nihilo with its decisive and unambiguous clarity
• God brought forth all things including matter
• Doctrines of creation have implications for salvation.
• If, to keep order God has to wrestle with another power how can God promise full salvation?
• Teaching leads to the result that the creature does not depend on God alone but other powers so that it cannot rationally put full trust in God alone for the overcoming of evil in the world.
• Biblical concept of God's creative action rules out any dualistic world origin view.

Salvation

• Teachings suggest a dualism that conflicts with God's sovereignty.
• Platonism may have suggested monism.
• By the end of the 2nd century Neoplatonism emerged and from it, and the model of creation has significantly changed.
• In opposition to mythology the philosophy of the time had seen the divine less and less in personal terms and more as an everlasting principle that the world is modeled on

Emanation

• The answer was the idea of emanation.
• Emanation is a process that flows automatically
• One serves as an eternal source of all that is.
• One does not create the cosmos, for creation implies activity, which in turn entails change.
• All that flows from The One is that of the same substance.

Cosmic Piety

• Christian creation affects ones approach to salvation
• Emanation suggests divine connection.
• Idea of creation, rather than emanation, suggests lack of connection with God

Feminist Theology

• Feminist theologian Catherine Keller in a brilliant book 'The Face of the Deep'.
• Creation opposes female thinking and eliminates the chaotic feminine.
• Creation out of nothing is an expression of masculine and sheer power rooted the "dominology" of classical theism
• The text talks about a watery chaos as the original creation, and not creation out of nothing.
• Genesis account of the original watery chaos supposing a masculine idea of God as a hierarchical monarch.
• The narrative of omnipotent origins erases any residual female thinking.