“The Play’s the Thing…” – Re-reading the Doctrine of Creation under the Second Article
Dr. Kimlyn J. Bender,
The doctrine of creation is most often addressed dogmatically in light of the First Article of the Creed (with legitimacy), and in contemporary discussions with a special emphasis placed upon its relation to issues in the natural sciences. My paper seeks to re-read the doctrine of creation in light of the Second Article (and thus discuss creation in light of Christology), thereby providing a truly dogmatic doctrine of creation that addresses scientific concerns in a secondary manner.
Such a reading is not self-evident. While the dominant lens for understanding creation in the New Testament is Christological, and while this emphasis continues in the early patristic period, such a Christological reading of creation eventually came to be subjugated to other concerns. My paper will attempt to examine modern theologies that retrieve a close relationship between the doctrine of creation and Christology. Specifically, it will address the differing proposals of Schleiermacher and Barth. Whereas Schleiermacher subjugates Christology to a preconception of creation, Barth attempts to read creation through the logic of Christology. It is this logic that preserves and outlines the interplay between God’s transcendence and activity in the world. Such a view of creation requires a re-thinking of Christ’s relationship to human history and the relation between redemption and creation, of the Incarnation of the Word and the speaking of that Word in creation, such that Christ is seen not only as the One by whom all things were created, nor only as the one by whom all are redeemed, but as the one for whom all things are created (Col. 1:16). The recognition of Christ as both Lord and goal of creation requires that we also re-visit those aspects of creation that seem to be super-abundant to any conceivable role in the history of salvation.
In light of these findings, I argue that the problems of the objectification of nature and environmental exploitation are not answered by a deification of nature that gives it an ultimate value, but that both rationalistic and pantheistic versions of nature must give way in Christian faith to a view that both relativizes and exalts nature as the “theater of God’s glory” (Calvin) and as the “context of the covenant” (Barth). Such a view also re-orients us to see humanity neither as the lord of nature and distinct from it (rationalism), nor as of no more significance than other forms of life within nature (pantheism), but as paradoxically standing between heaven and earth (Pascal). Thus, while it may be a denigration of nature to view it as ultimately serving humanity, it is not a denigration but an exaltation of nature to see it as the stage on which the history of Christ is displayed, for the value of the stage is not lost but found in the preeminence of the play and its Actor. In other words, while an anthropocentric view of nature may lessen creation’s dignity, a Christocentric view of nature grounds such dignity. I attempt to justify this controversial claim, a variation and extrapolation in relation to creation of the “scandal of the Gospel” in relation to salvation history. Such a soteriological re-ordering of Christ and creation may help us in understanding the relation between God’s revelation in Christ and the manner in which “the heavens declare the glory of God….” (Ps. 19:1) and thus tie together soteriological and epistemological concerns.