Let's do theology!

 My letter to one Del Hackett:

I've much appreciated your "Is Genesis History" series. It has given me a lot of philological and diachronic information that ties quite nicely with empirical studies of the natural world, showing their general consistency with the Biblical data.

While it is good and proper to make the case for the historical nature of the Genesis account, there must be a theology, indeed, a philosophy, that flows from it, because Genesis 1-3 provides the frame of the reality we experience and are bound to. Thus, rather than a mere recital of events, these events tell us many things, but in the numerous sermons I've heard, live, and on-line, this area is not explored. Thus we have no theological insights to bring to those who deny the direct historical language of Genesis, or the sceptics who side-line it completely as fictional, or fantasy, when it provides the basis for deep understanding of life, the universe and everything.

The theology itself needs to be explored!

Christian theology is not just built on the biblical text, but on the history the text details. God's acts have all occurred meaningfully in space and time in the domain in which we exist and worship Yahweh. This is the very point of the creation account. Unlike the other religions, which locate themselves within the cosmos in some way: impersonal or not, spiritual or material, and generally monist in conception, the creation account shows the holiness (separateness, independence, and aseity) of the creator and that and how he 'relates' to us.

For instance, in the NT, we don't just discuss the historicity of the resurrection of our Lord, but we explore the theology that this opens up. What theology does the creation account open up?

This is important because from its basis we have the means of arguing the nature of the created world, us and God against what must be the only alternative: views that are derived in the world from pagan philosophy.  Indeed, even in the church the dominance of neoplatonic thought looms large, as the creation account itself is 'platonized' and placed in a different abstract domain, while the nostrums of materialism are taken as determinative of real history and therefore set the bounds for the reality of human kind and life.

The events of the creation week demonstrate God's nature, showing what it is that mankind is like. They show us the basic nature of reality in the revealed nature of God in his actions. The days of creation provide the frame of reference for our understanding of God, reality and ourselves.

In fact, what is believed about our origin, the origin of the cosmos, sets the basis for our understanding of reality as a whole, it is the final point of reference for everything we experience and know. Yet, in the materialist framing, we cannot be sure of any knowledge at all, as Plantinga points out in his naturalistic argument against evolution. Nor can we be sure of who we are, as perhaps Kant, if his views are to be accepted, would suggest, with transcendence severed from the phenomenal world.

In brief, I think the following topics are addressed in the creation account:

Firstly, it shows that in creating in normal days as they are calibrated and defined, that the creation occurs in history; it is not detached from time or place like a fairy tale. It is done in the flow of history that we stand in.

It follow from this, that God, while transcendent is also present and directly active in the creation; he is close, and creates in love 'with his hands' as the Psalmist (Ps. 8) writes; for communion with his creatures. This sets the context for all the theophanies including the incarnation, and the revelation through history and prophets. It also shows that nothing but his word stands between him and we his creatures!

God creates by word: he shows that the creation has propositional content, is orderly, and with rational causality; unlike the mad 'creation' by pagan gods with utterly irrational a-historical 'causality' that destroys any hope of an understandable world for mankind's stewardship.

That the creation is by word and orderly encourages us, as his image bearers (that is, we communicate propositionally and have personal agency) that the cosmos is amenable to study from which we gain understanding and knowledge (cf Proverbs 3:19, 20).

We learn for the creation, as being in Gods image, that our words and actions, our relationships and ambitions, have real significance, and our words can have substantive meaning. This grounds our theory of knowledge (epistemology), or understanding of being (ontology), our understanding of ethics (our meta-ethical structures) and our basic need for community to function within.

From this we acknowledge the dignity of every life, the difference between man and animals, man and plants, etc, and we know that God is not removed from or indifferent to the material world. He created it as a real place for us to know and enjoy him within.

We also know that the creation is rationally and reasonably done  by God who does not deceive, but reveals. It is a designed cosmos, so we can be confident that it is explicable, we have reasonable faith that it has constants of state and  uniformity of causality, but in an open system; thus modern science is possible and arose on the basis of such confidence. The 'gaps' invite study, not resignation to 'God just does it'.

But for those theologians who tell us that the creation account does not represent concrete reality and God has not his word as the intermediary between him and his creatures-in-his-image (cf John 1: 1-3, 10 and Colossians 1: 16, 17, Hebrews 1:2, 2:10,11:3) but his creation stands between us, none of this flows. They have typically put the creation in a Schaefferean 'upper storey', a Platonic mystical abstraction, or an Aristotelian impersonal, undisclosed 'mover'. Whichever way, they have disconnected the creation from God, denied his word is active in our material world, and lent towards Gnosticism's despising of the material cosmos and man's created physicality. They open wide the door for worship of the creation (evolution, theistic evolution, spiritism, Eastern mysticism) which is what we see today.

In the final analysis, without the foundation of a realist creation, as set out in the Genesis account, one cannot have a Christian theology of creation, but a pagan one. Nor can we have a philosophy of reality that will be fruitful in the real world. Either we end with a deist uninvolved god, or a monist 'god' who is merged indistinguishably into creation; neither representing the God who is not silent and who speaks in the Bible. The one who created us for true relationship with each other and with him.