Systematic Theology - Creation and Providence - Part I

Continuing with our discussion of systematic theology and my attempt at the credo, I am going to post an article each day for the next 5 days or so to cover the Creation and Providence part of the credo (which has the subcategories of Creation, Providence, the Human Creature, Sin and its effects, and Evil). I invite you to comment on each subcategory or wait until all 5 are posted to see how they are inter-related before commenting...the choice is yours.

Here is the segment on Creation:

Creation and Providence

Creation:
God created the heavens and the earth and all that inhabit them; God is the sole source of all that is. This statement causes us to question why God created in the first place. Some theologians have posited that God created the world because “God finds it unjust to be alone” (Herzog, 83). While there is much that we can know about God, I can find no support in Scripture, tradition, experience or reason to affirm this statement. After all, if God exists as a community of persons, how is it that God is alone? Furthermore, does this statement not demand that God is then dependent upon what God has created? I do not pretend to know, nor do I pretend knowledge on behalf of the Church, why God created. Such reasoning is unnecessary for the affirmation that God created. God is not dependent upon creation and creation is not necessary. If either were true, God would not be God as previously described; something would be missing from God or God could be considered imperfect or incomplete. Rather than perplex our finite minds with the reasoning behind God’s activity of creation, it is far more important to recognize that God is our Creator, and we are God’s creation. This implies a relationship of dependence; namely, it describes our dependence upon God. As Paul reminds us, it is in him that “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

There are a few clarifying remarks to make about God’s creation. First, this creative act of God was done ex nihilo. This removes from God any dependence upon the created order. Additionally, this implies the fact that while creation is of God, it is not God (Abraham, 2007). Second, as is recorded in the Scriptures, all that God created was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Nothing was lacking and God’s acceptance of creation was complete. The ramifications of this understanding will become more apparent in my statements regarding the human condition and sin. Third, the act of creation, although attributed to the Father, is an act of the Trinity. All three persons of the Trinity are involved “according to the way that is distinctive to each” (Morse, 207). Fourth, we are able to know something of God because of God’s actions. This means that creation serves, not in a natural function, but rather in a general function, as an act of the self-revelation of God (Abraham, 2007). Finally, God relates to the created order the same way that God relates to God’s self in the Trinity. This is surmised in the statement that “the commonality that exists within the Trinity is the pattern and goal of creation” (Gonzalez, 113).