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3 - The act of creation with its theological consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

By
David B. Burrell
Edited by
David B. Burrell ,
Carlo Cogliati ,
Janet M. Soskice  and
William R. Stoeger
David B. Burrell
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Carlo Cogliati
Affiliation:
Peterhouse, Cambridge
Janet M. Soskice
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
William R. Stoeger
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
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Summary

INTRODUCTION

It is certainly remarkable that it took the fledgling Christian movement four centuries to respond to its central faith question concerning Jesus: who and what is he? Moreover, the long-standing quest for clarity regarding Jesus doubtless overshadowed more explicit reflection on the first article of the creed as well: ‘I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.’ As Robert Sokolowski observes: ‘The issue the church had to settle first, once it acquired public and official recognition under Constantine and could turn to controversies regarding its teaching, was the issue of the being and actions of Christ.’ Yet he goes on to insist:

[While] the Council of Chalcedon, and the councils and controversies that led up to it, were concerned with the mystery of Christ, … they also tell us about the God who became incarnate in Christ. They tell us first that God does not destroy the natural necessities of things he becomes involved with, even in the intimate union of the incarnation. What is according to nature, and what reason can disclose in nature, retains its integrity before the Christian God [who] is not a part of the world and is not a ‘kind’ of being at all. Therefore, the incarnation is not meaningless or impossible or destructive.

Moreover, what Sokolowski calls:

the Christian distinction between God and the world, the denial that God in his divinity is part of or dependent on the world, was brought forward with greater clarity through the discussion of the way the Word became flesh.[…]

Type
Chapter
Information
Creation and the God of Abraham , pp. 40 - 52
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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References

Weinandy, Thomas, Keating, Daniel and Yocum, John (eds.), Aquinas on Doctrine (London: T&T Clark, 2004), pp. 27–44. The editors wish to thank the publishers for allowing its publication.
Robert, Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), pp. 34–36Google Scholar
Thomas, Weinandy, Does God Change? (Still River, MA: St. Bede's, 1985).Google Scholar
Burrell, David B. and McGinn, Bernard (eds.), God and Creation (University of Notre Dame Press, 1990)
Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas (University of Notre Dame Press, 1986)
Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions (University of Notre Dame Press, 1993).
Towards an Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Non-dualist Christian, with introduction by Malkovsky, Bradley J. (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002)
James, Ross, ‘Creation II’ in Freddoso, Alfred (ed.), The Existence and Nature of God (University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 115–141, at p. 128.Google Scholar
Vincent, Gualiardo, Charles, Hess and Richard, Taylor, Commentary of the Book of Causes (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996)Google Scholar
‘Aquinas’ Appropriation of Liber de Causis to Articulate the Creator as Cause-of-Being' in Kerr, Fergus (ed.), Contemplating Aquinas (London: SCM Press, 2003), pp. 55–74.
‘The Negative Element in the Philosophy of St. Thomas’ in The Silence of Saint Thomas (New York: Pantheon, 1957), pp. 47–67.
‘Theology and Philosophy’ in Jones, Gareth (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 34–46.
Rudi te, Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1995).Google Scholar
God and Creation in Christian Theology: Tyranny or Empowerment (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988).
William, Hasker's treatment of the issues in his God, Time, and Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Harm, Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God (Leuven: Peeters, 1996).Google Scholar

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