Lecture Outline
1] What the doctrine is not: it is not emanationism
-the notion that the universe emanates or issues from God’s nature, therein possessing the same
nature as God;
-the notion that the universe issues involuntarily or inevitably, God never having willed the
creation;
-the distinction between creation and emanationism is reflected in the dist’n b. monotheism and
monism; (Monism is obviously akin to pantheism and the New Age mentality.)
What the doctrine is not: it is not dualism
-the notion that the universe is made by something (someone) independent of God
-dualism arises because of the presence, power and scope of evil
-with dualism, the world is made out of something outside of God that existed eternally or
spontaneously came into being
-the universe is something that God has to contend with himself.
What the doctrine is not: it is not gnosticism
-matter is loathesome and the body is the seat of sin
-creation is tainted
-not God but an inferior deity, the demiurge, created (the demiurge is ignorant of God and
hostile to God)
-gnosticism issues in two outlooks foreign to the Hebrew mind: rigid asceticism and profligate
libertinism.
2] The doctrine itself:
-in his freedom God will that there be something other than himself (God is under no constraint
to create)
-in his love ……: creation is an expression of God’s goodness
-the world God made is GOOD; this goodness, while contradicted in the Fall, perdures.
-God creates ex nihilo: God is therefore sovereign, LORD of the creation
-as sovereign LORD, what he has created he can also destroy.
3] How does God create?
-by the Word
-through Christ (since the Word is rendered incarnate in Christ)
-a crucial point: How do we know that the creation isn’t God? (Many people think it is.)
-only by revelation of the Word do we know this
-then knowledge of God the Creator always follows knowledge of God the Redeemer
-where this point is not grasped the creation is either shunned as bad or idolized as divine
4] Creation and covenant are related:
-covenant is God’s promise ever to be our God, never to fail us or forsake us; i.e., despite our
sin, God is faithful to us.
-God wills a people for himself; for there to be a people who live for the praise of God’s glory,
God has to create (i) people (ii) all that sustains people.
-in other words, creation is the external basis of the covenant, while covenant is the internal
meaning of the creation.
5] Creation and the kingdom of God:
-the kingdom is the creation healed
-note Jesus’ preoccupation with the kingdom
-what does it mean that we are to pray every day for the coming of a kingdom that is already
here? (wherever Christ the king is present, the kingdom is present)
6] The Creation of humankind:
-hk. is the crown of creation: “very good”
-hk. is made on the same “day” as the animals
-hk. alone is made in the image of God (what this is never stated in scripture; we must infer it
from scripture as a whole)
-hk. is made steward of the creation
-hk. is sexually differentiated
-hk., fallen as it is, can never fall into sub-humanness: the image of God is defaced, but never
effaced.
-faith renders hk. authentically human, but not superhuman
-since hk. is made by God for God, the quintessential human activity is PRAYER.
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Note how a doctrine of creation differs from idol-environmentalism.
On the one hand, it’s good to be environmentally concerned: we need vegetable/animal life to
survive, while it doesn’t need us. Still, when a concern for “nature” is elevated idolatrously,
i) nature-worship has supplanted the worship of God
ii) human existence is now thought to subserve nature instead of vice versa
iii) there is no awareness of where nature-worship leads: immorality and cruelty
iv) there is no awareness that creation can be fulfilled only in Christ
v) there is no awareness that humankind, while irreducibly bodily, is also spiritual; in fact spirit (the capacity for relationship with God) is what distinguishes hk.