3. As regards the stated definitions themselves, it is quite clear that our feeling of absolute dependence could not refer to the universal condition of all finite being if anything in it (i.e. that being) were independent of God or ever had been. It is just as certain that if there could be anything in the whole of finite existence as such which entered into it at its origin independently of God, then because it must exist in us too, the feeling of absolute dependence could have no truth even in relation to ourselves. But if, on the other hand, we think of God the Creator in any way as limited, and thus in His activity resembling that which should be absolutely dependent on Him, then the feeling expressing this dependence likewise could not be true (since equality and dependence neutralize each other), and thus the finite in that it resembled God could not be absolutely dependent upon Him. But except in one of these two forms, a contradiction between any theory of creation and the universal basis of our religious self-consciousness is not conceivable. With the Christian form of religious self-consciousness, which presupposes an experience, the doctrine of mere creation cannot be in contradiction, because it disregards continuity. Christian piety can, then, have no other interest in these researches than to avoid both these dangers. Whether this is easy, or if in avoiding one we only too easily fall into the other, must be seen from a closer consideration of the corollaries accepted by Dogmatics.

§ 41. If the conception of Creation is to be further developed, the origin of the world must, indeed, be traced entirely to the divine activity, but not in such a way that this activity is thought of as resembling human activity; and the origin of the world must be represented as the event in time which conditions all change, but not so as to make the divine activity itself a temporal activity.

Conf. Belg. xii.: Credimus Patrem per verbum hoc est filium suum coelum et terram ceterasque creaturas omnes quandoque ipsi visum fuit, ex nihilo creasse.—Joh. Dam., d. orth. f. ii. 5: … ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος εἰς τὸ εἶναι παραγαγὼν τὰ σύμπαντα.—Luther on Genesis, ii. 2, § 7: ‘And God is in short outside all means and circumstances of time.’—Ibid.: ‘Everything which God has willed to create He created at that moment when He spake, though certainly everything does not at once appear before our eyes… . I am indeed something new … but … for God I have been born and preserved even from the beginning of the world, and this word when He said, “Let us make man,” created me as well.’—Hilar., d. f. Tr. xii. 40: Nam etsi habeat dispensationem sui firmamenti solidatio—sed coeli terrae ceterorumque elementorum creatio ne levi saltem momento operationis discernitur.—Anselm, Monol. 9: Nullo namque pacto fieri potest aliquid rationabiliter ab aliquo, nisi in facientis ratione praecedat aliquod rei faciendae quasi exemplum, sive ut aptius dicitur forma … quare cum ea quae facta sunt, clarum sit nihil fuisse antequam fierent, quantum ad hoc quia non erant quod nunc sunt, nec erat ex quo fierent, non tamen nihil erant quantum ad rationem facientis.—Phot., Bibl., p. 302, Bekk.: ὅτι ὁ Ὠριγένης ἔλεγε συναΐδιον εἶναι τῷ … θεῷ τὸ πᾶν. Εἰ γὰρ, ἐφασκε, οὐκ ἔστι δημιουργὸς ἄνευ δημιουργημάτων … οὐδὲ παντοκρατωρ ἄνευ τῶν κρατουμένων … ἀνάγκη ἐξ ἀρχῆς αὐτὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ γεγενῆσθαι. καὶ μὴ εἶναι χρόνον, ὅτε οὐκ ἦν ταῦτα. εἰ γὰρ ἦν χρόνος, ὅτε οὐκ ἦν τὰ ποιήματα … καὶ ἀλλοιοῦσθαι καὶ μεταβάλλειν τὸν ἀτρεπτον καὶ ἀναλλοίωτον συμβήσεται θεόν· εἰ γὰρ ὕστερον πεποίηκε τὸ πᾶν, δῆλον ὅτι ἀπὸ τοῦ μὴ ποιεῖν εἰς τὸ ποιεῖν μετέβαλε.—Hilar., d. f. Tr. xii. 39: Cum enim praepararetur coelum aderat Deo. Numquid coeli praeparatio Deo est temporalis? ut repens cogitationis motus subito in mentem tamquam antea torpidam … subrepserit, humanoque modo fabricandi coeli impensam et instrumenta quaesierit? … Quae enim futura sunt, licet in eo quod creanda sunt adhuc fient, Deo tamen, cui in creandis rebus nihil novum ac repens est, iam facta sunt: dum et temporum dispensatio est ut creentur, et iam in divinae virtutis praesciente efficientia sint creata.—Augustin., d. civ. D. xi. 4. 2: Qui autem a Deo factum fatentur, non tamen eum volunt temporis habere sed suae creationis initium, ut modo quodam via intelligibili semper sit factus: dicunt quidem aliquid, etc.—Ibid. xii. 15: Sed cum cogito cuius rei dominus semper fuerit, si semper creatura non fuit, affirmare aliquid pertimesco.—Ibid. 17: Una eademque sempiterna et immutabili voluntate res, quas condidit, et ut prius non essent egit, et ut posterius essent, quando esse coeperunt.—Ibid. xi. 6: Procul dubio non est mundus factus in tempore sed cum tempore.—Idem, de Genes. c. Man. i. 2: Non ergo possumus dicere fuisse aliquod tempus quando Deus nondum aliquid fecerat.

1. The expression ‘out of nothing’ excludes the idea that before the origin of the world anything existed outside God, which as ‘matter’ could enter into the formation of the world. And undoubtedly the admission of ‘matter’ as existing independently of the divine activity would destroy the feeling of absolute dependence, and the actual world would be represented as a mixture of that which existed through God and that which existed independently of God. But since this phrase undeniably recalls Aristotle’s category ἐξ οὗ and is formed on it, it reminds us on the one hand of human methods in construction which give form to an already existing matter, and on the other hand of the processes of nature in the composition of bodies out of many elements. The expression is harmless if everything that is a part of the processes of nature is strictly separated from the first beginning of things, and creation is thus raised above mere formation.

Yet from Hilary and Anselm we can see how easily, behind the denial of matter, may lie the idea of the pre-existence of form before things, though of course in God and not outside God. This position, too, appears to be quite harmless in itself, but as the two terms of the antithesis, matter and form, are not in the same relation to God, He is drawn away from an attitude of neutrality to the antithesis and placed in some degree under it. Hence the existence of forms in God prior to the existence of things but already related to it may naturally be called a ‘preparation.’ But in this way the other rule is violated, and we must regard as valid Luther’s contention that if there are two divine activities which, like preparation and creation, can be conceived of only in a definite time-sequence, then God is no longer outside all contact with time. Anselm in his own way has expressed this time-relationship most bluntly and frankly. Hilary would have done away with it, but he only succeeded in eliminating it with regard to things now happening separately in time and not in respect of the original creation. For it cannot be said of the original creation that it was created by the activity of foreknowledge prior to its actual existence.

Here it can only be remarked.in passing that the phrase ‘out of nothing’ is also used frequently to differentiate the creation of the world from the generation of the Son.⁵ If it were generally understood that the latter is eternal and the former temporal, or if we could come to a general agreement as to the difference between generation and creation, there would be no necessity to draw any further distinction. But even so the expression is not essential for this purpose, for even if we do not at all identify the ‘Word’ and the ‘Son,’ the phrase ‘to be created through the “Word”’⁶ sufficiently obviates any confusion of this kind; even if the difference between creation and generation is not emphasized.

2. If, as suggested above, we strictly isolate the first creation, so that all things not absolutely primitive are regarded as part of the developing processes of nature and thus brought under the conception of preservation, then the question whether the creation occupied time, is answered in the negative. The distinction between a first and second creation, or an indirect and direct creation, always comes back in general to the evolving of the complex from the simple⁷ and of the organic from the elementary.⁸ But to acknowledge another creation here is either again entirely to abolish the difference between creation and preservation or to assume different kinds of matter devoid of inherent forces, which is surely meaningless. But even if in the case of creation we think first of matter (though we might equally well think of forces), then, from that point, living mobile being must have existed and undergone a continuous development. Otherwise the creation of bare matter would only have been a preparation, that is an external material corresponding to the previously mentioned inner formal one. We must refer these definitions back to a time when men delighted in such abstractions because there was then no question of a dynamic aspect of nature.

Another point with respect to the relation of the creation to time which does not lie in our purview is the question whether there was time before the world existed or whether time began with the world. If we take the world in its widest sense, we cannot admit the first, since a time before the world could only have referred to God, and He would then be placed in time. The Confessio Belgica with its ‘quando ipsi visum fuit’ clearly falls into this error, and in opposition to it we must return to Augustine’s formula.

Finally, the controversy over the temporal or eternal creation of the world (which can be resolved into the question whether it is possible or necessary to conceive of God as existing apart from created things) has no bearing on the content of the feeling of absolute dependence, and it is therefore a matter of indifference how it is decided. But in so far as the idea of a creation in time must be related to that of a beginning of divine activity ad extra or a beginning of divine sovereignty as Origen suggested, God would be brought within the region of change and subjected to time. Thus the antithesis between Him and finite beings would be lessened, and the purity of the feeling of absolute dependence endangered.

Augustine is hardly more satisfactory when, in order to avoid this position, he declares that a single act of the Divine Will is sufficient to account for the earlier non-existence and the later existence of the world. For if a similar action of the Divine Will is required to explain the prior non-existence of the world, then we must suppose that, apart from this Divine Will, the world would have come into existence earlier, and consequently that there was a possibility of its coming into existence independently of the Divine Will. But if we regard the one Divine Will as ineffectual prior to the existence of the world, neither preventing nor producing anything, then the transition from non-activity to activity remains, even though it be differently expressed as a transition from willing to doing;⁹ while, on the other hand, it is impossible to see how the idea that God does not exist without something absolutely dependent on Him could weaken or confuse the religious self-consciousness. Just so the tracing of the Word through which God created the world (a subject not to be considered here) back to the Word which was with God from eternity, can never be made clearly intelligible¹⁰ if there is not an eternal creation through the eternal Word.

Postscript.—We can also attach to this the definition that God created the world through a free decree. Now it is self-evident that He on Whom everything is absolutely dependent is absolutely free. But if we suppose that the free decision implies a prior deliberation followed by choice, or interpret freedom as meaning that God might equally well have not created the world (because we think that there must have been this possibility, otherwise God was compelled to create), we have then assumed an antithesis between freedom and necessity, and, by attributing this kind of freedom to God, have placed Him within the realm of contradictions.

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Footnotes

1. ‘What is the whole creation else than a word of God, said and spoken by God? … thus it is for God no harder to create than for us to speak.’—Luther in Genesis, i. § 51. ↩

2. Luther in Genesis, i. 3, § 43: ‘Moses is writing a history and narrates things that happened.’—Calvin, Instit. i. 14. 3: Moses vulgi ruditati se accom- modans non alia Dei opera commemorat in historia creationis, nisi quae oculis nostris occurrunt. ↩

3. Isa. 45¹⁸, Jer. 10¹², ↩

4. Ps. 33⁶⁻⁹, Ps. 104, Job 33⁴f. ↩

5. Fecisti enim coelum et terram non de te, nam esset aequale unigenito tuo—et aliud praeter te non erat unde faceres ea, et ideo de nihilo fecisti coelum et terram.—Augustin., Conf. xii. 7. ↩

6. ‘All things are so made through God’s word that they may more rightly be said to be born than made or renewed, for no instrument or means comes in.’—Luth., Th. v. p. 1102. ↩

7. Τῇ μὲν πρώτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς ὅσα ἐποίησεν ἐκ μὴ ὄντων. ταῖς δὲ ἄλλαις οὐκ ἐκ μὴ ὄντων, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ὧν ἐποίησε τῇ πρώτῃ ἡμέρᾳ μετέβαλεν ὡς ἠθέλησε.—Hippolyt. in Genesis. ↩

8. Τὰ μὲν οὐκ ἐκ προϋποκειμένης ὕλης, οἷον οὐρανὸν (where οὐρανός is the Aristotelian fifth substance) γῆν ἀέρα πῦρ ὕδωρ· τὰ δὲ ἐκ τούτων, οἷον ζῷα φυτά, etc.—Joh. Damasc. ii. 25. ↩

9. Addamus eum ab aeterno id voluisse. Quicquid enim vult, id voluit ab aeterno. Jam quod voluerat ab aeterno id aliquando tandem factum est. ‘Thus He now worked and was active that the world should come into being.’—Morus, Comment., t. i. § 292. ↩

10. Cf. Luther, W. A., i. pp. 23–28, and iii. pp. 36–40. ↩