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Divine and creaturely agency in Genesis 1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2019

Nathan Chambers
Nathan Chambers*
Affiliation:
Clinton WA 98236nathanjchambers@gmail.com
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Abstract

The interaction between God and creatures is central to biblical narratives. There are several possible models for understanding the relationship between divine and creaturely agency. This article argues that a ‘non-competitive’ model for the interaction of divine and creaturely agency allows for a coherent interpretation of various features of Genesis 1 where alternative models lead to confusion. Since this ‘non-competitive’ model is historically related to creatio ex nihilo, it raises once again the question of the suitability of creatio ex nihilo for biblical interpretation.

Keywords

agencycreatio ex nihiloGenesis 1theological interpretation
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 1 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

1 Gary Anderson offers a parallel argument for creatio ex nihilo, but with reference to the Abraham narratives rather than Genesis 1. See his Christian Doctrine and the Old Testament: Theology in the Service of Biblical Exegesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), pp. 48–58.

2 ‘Introduction’, in Barclay, John M. G. (ed.), Divine and Human Agency in Paul and his Cultural Environment (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2006), pp. 6–7Google Scholar.

3 The second and third models are both, by definition, ‘non-competitive’ (i.e. they are not the competitive model). The third model is often labelled, following Austin Farrer, as ‘double agency’. However, strictly speaking, God and the creature bring about the same effect, but are not subjects of identical actions in bringing about that effect; cf. McFarland, Ian A., From Nothing: A Theology of Creation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2014), p. 145Google Scholar. Lacking a better title for this category, I simply label it ‘non-competitive’.

4 Barclay, ‘Introduction’, p. 6.

5 Cf. Tanner, Kathryn, God and Creation in Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1988), p. 86Google Scholar.

6 Barclay, ‘Introduction’, p. 6.

7 Schneewind, J. B., The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), p. 512Google Scholar, quoting Kant, Immanuel, ‘Concerning the Old Saying: That May Be True in Theory, But It Won't Work in Practice’ (1793). Christopher J. Insole offers a nuanced account of Kant's rejection of the traditional Christian doctrine of concurrence in Kant and the Creation of Freedom: A Theological Problem (Oxford: OUP, 2013), pp. 192–223Google Scholar. Insole concludes that ‘although there is much in Kant that the theologian might find surprisingly illuminating and consoling, this specific issue of the relationship between divine and human action is, and should be, a real stumbling block’ (p. 223).

8 Barclay, ‘Introduction’, pp. 6–7.

9 Ibid.

10 Phaedrus 246B–E, 249C; trans. Harold North Fowler. LCL 36 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1904), pp. 471–3, 481–3.

11 While the early church developed this claim with recourse to trinitarian doctrine, (some) Jewish and Muslim theologies have developed analogous accounts of creatio ex nihilo with the resources of their own traditions. Cf. the essays in David Burrell et al. (eds), Creation and the God of Abraham (Cambridge: CUP, 2010).

12 Augustine, The City of God, trans. William Babcock (Hyde Park, NY: New City, 2013), 11.24; cf. 12.18.

13 Cf. Bavinck, Herman, Reformed Dogmatics, trans. Vriend, John, ed. Bolt, John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003–8 (1906–11)), vol. 2, p. 529Google Scholar.

14 Summa Theologica, trans. Dominican Fathers, rev. Daniel J. Sullivan (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), 1.105.5.

15 Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1.16.1.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., 1.16.2.

18 While these implications are typically treated under the topic of ‘providence’ rather than creation, this distinction is heuristic: ‘providence . . . is a continuous or continued creation. The two are one single act and differ only in structure’ (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 606). Three aspects of providence are typically distinguished: preservation, concurrence and governance (in addition to Bavinck, cf. Frame, John, The Doctrine of God [Philipsburg: P&R, 2002], pp. 274–88; McFarland, From Nothing, pp. 135–58Google Scholar). On this scheme, the relationship between divine and creaturely agency falls under the heading of ‘concurrence’ although it cannot be divorced from preservation or governance: they ‘are always integrally connected; they intermesh at all times’ (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 605).

19 Tanner, God and Creation, pp. 79–80; Jenson, Robert W., ‘Creator and Creature’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 4/2 (2002), pp. 216–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 McFarland, From Nothing, p. 145.

21 Westminster Confession of Faith, 5.3.

22 Ibid., 5.2.

23 Thus, Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, III/3, trans. Bromiley, G. W. and Ehrlich, R. J. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1960), p. 146Google Scholar: ‘The unconditional and irresistible lordship of God means not only that the freedom of creaturely activity is neither jeopardised nor suppressed, but rather that it is confirmed in all its particularity and variety.’

24 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 613. That divine and creaturely agency are ‘non-competitive’ at the level of concurrence does not mean that God cannot be personally opposed to various creatures in the course of history.

25 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 611. Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/3, pp. 136–7: ‘Even in the union of the divine activity and creaturely occurrence there remains a genuine antithesis which is not obscured or resolved . . . There is still a genuine encounter . . . of two beings which are quite different in type and order.’

26 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 613.

27 The jussive is a volitive, related to the imperative, which specifies the will or desire of the speaker.

28 Middleton, J. Richard, ‘Creation Founded in Love: Breaking Rhetorical Expectations in Genesis 1:1–2:3’, in Greenspoon, Leonard Jay and LeBeau, Bryan F. (eds), Sacred Text, Secular Times: The Hebrew Bible in the Modern World (Omaha, NE: Creighton University Press, 2000), pp. 57–62Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., p. 57. Intriguingly, these descriptions contain the only uses of the verb bārā’ in the narrative apart from Genesis 1:1 and 2:3.

30 Ibid.

31 ‘Divine Act and the Art of Persuasion’, in Graham, M. Patrick, Brown, William P. and Kuan, Jeffrey K. (eds), History and Interpretation: Festschrift for John H. Hayes (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), p. 20Google Scholar.

32 Timaeus, 48a, quoted ibid., p. 21. The full passage reads reads: nou de anankēs archontos tō peithein autēn tōn gignomenōn ta pleista epi to beltiston agein, tautē kata tauta te di anankēs hēttōmenēs hypo peithous emphronos houtō kat'archas xynistato tode to pan. LCL 234 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929), p. 108.

33 Brown, ‘Divine Act’, p. 22.

34 Ibid., p. 23. Brown sees the main differences between the two accounts in that in Genesis God uses but is not limited by the pre-existing material nor does God create following an external pattern comparable to the Platonic forms.

35 Ibid., p. 24.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid., pp. 24–5.

38 Ibid., p. 27.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid., p. 28.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Given the role of Plato in Brown's argument, it may be that he is assuming some form of the second (‘kinship’) model. At no point, however, does Brown explicitly suggest that the ‘inherent’ power within creation is an aspect of the divine or comes from God.

44 Ibid., p. 26.

45 Ibid., p. 28.

46 ‘Geophany: The Earth Story in Genesis 1’, in Norman Habel and Shirley Wurst (eds), The Earth Story in Genesis (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000), p. 35.

47 Ibid., p. 36.

48 Ibid., p. 41.

49 Ibid., p. 42.

50 Ibid., p. 43.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Schmidt, Werner, Die Schöpfungsgeschichte der Priesterschrift (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukichener, 1964), p. 106Google Scholar, quoted in Westermann, Claus, Genesis 1–11, trans. Scullion, John (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), p. 124Google Scholar, emphasis added. The original reads: ‘Gottes Wort, das zunächst (V 3. 6, vgl. 14) allein wirksam und schöpferisch tätig war, sich dann (V 9) in einen Befehl wandelte, gibt jetzt die Schöpfermacht ab, d.h. Wort wird zur Anordnung an das zuvor Geschaffene, selbst das weitere Neue entstahen zu lassen. Die Erde (V 11, vgl. 24) und später auch das Meer (V 20) werden vom Objekt zum Subjekt der Schöpfung und erfüllen sogleich, wie die unmittelbare Fortsetzung “und es geschah so” betont, den an sie ergangenen Schöpfungsauftrag.’

54 Brueggemann, Walter, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Advocacy, Dispute (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), p. 165Google Scholar, emphasis added.

55 Arnold, Bill, Genesis (Cambridge: CUP, 2008), p. 42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Knafl, Anne, Forming God: Divine Anthropomorphism in the Pentateuch (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2014), p. 51Google Scholar.

57 Schüle, Andreas, Theology from the Beginning: Essays on the Primeval History and its Canonical Context (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Elsewhere, he simply comments that the creation of flora and fauna is ‘indirect’: Die Urgeschichte: Genesis 1–11 (Zurich: TVZ, 2009), p. 38.

58 Williams, Rowan, On Augustine (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), p. 72Google Scholar.

59 Williams, Rowan, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 68Google Scholar.

60 Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1.105.5.

61 Calvin, John, Genesis, trans. King, John (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1948 (1847))Google Scholar, 1.82.

62 Ibid., 1.82–3. Calvin attributes this immanent divine work within creation to the Spirit, suggesting a way that Genesis 1:2 might be incorporated into this discussion.

63 John M. G. Barclay, ‘“By the Grace of God I am What I am”: Grace and Agency in Philo and Paul’, in Divine and Human Agency, p. 151. Westermann does not directly affirm creatio ex nihilo in his reading of Genesis 1, but moves in this direction by describing 1:1 as ‘a principal sentence’ that ascribes the creation of everything to God (Genesis 1–11, p. 97). In this light, when he turns to Genesis 1:11, Westermann argues that ‘it is just because God's creative action allows for “origin from” that there can be no basic opposition’ between God's agency and that of the earth (ibid., p. 124).

64 The verb šrṣ in 1:20-21 is debated: is it intransitive, meaning ‘to teem’ or is it transitive/causative, meaning ‘to produce’? The LXX takes the verb in the latter, transitive sense which seems plausible given the parallel address to the earth in 1:11, 24 (cf. Exod 7:28, Ps 105:30; Brown, ‘Divine Act’, p. 24). Calvin (Genesis, 1.90) maintains that Genesis 1:20–1 displays ‘the efficacy of the word, which the waters hear so promptly, that, though lifeless in themselves, they suddenly teem with a living offspring . . . fishes innumerable are daily produced from the waters, because that word of God by which he once commanded it, is continually in force’.

65 Further issues also arise when addressing the relationship between divine and human agency that are important in their own right but simply fall outside the scope of the current essay.

66 ‘“Determination” and the Definite Article in Biblical Hebrew’, Journal of Semitic Studies 39/2 (1989), pp. 307–35.

67 Cf. Day, John, From Creation to Babel (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 6–7Google Scholar.

68 In a forthcoming article in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (‘Genesis 1.1 as the First Act of Creation’), I deal further with the syntactic issues and propose a way of reading Genesis 1:1 as an independent clause.

69 McFarland, From Nothing, pp. 88–107, offers an excellent reading of John 1, in the context of the Gospel as a whole, in support of creatio ex nihilo. Given the intertextual relationship between the two texts, John 1 raises further considerations for those who read Genesis 1 in the context of a two-testament Christian canon.

70 Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, 10.1, in Fathers of the Second Century, vol. 2 of Ante-Nicene Fathers, trans. Marcus Dods (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999 [1885]), p. 98.

71 Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, 2.10.2, in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, vol. 1 of Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999 [1885]), p. 370; cf. Osborn, Eric, Irenaeus of Lyons (Cambridge: CUP, 2001), p. 69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Against Heresies, 1.18. This is based on the index to vol. 1 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.

73 Summa Theologica, 1.55.pr.

74 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, pp. 606–7.

75 Hodge, Charles, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1940 (1871)), vol. 1, p. 556Google Scholar.

76 Williams, On Augustine, p. 70.

77 I develop this further in the forthcoming article, ‘Reading Joshua with Augustine and Sommer: Two Frameworks for Interpreting Theophany Narratives’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament.

78 Ball, Philip, The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature (Oxford: OUP, 1999), p. 4Google Scholar.

79 Ibid.

80 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 614. Westermann notes that Genesis 1:24 need not be read ‘mythically’ to indicate that the earth ‘gives birth’ to the animals but rather simply as indicating that ‘the earth with its variety of formations, surfaces and structures provides the living conditions for the different species . . . certain formations bring forth certain fauna’ (Genesis 1–11, p. 142).

81 The research for this article was generously funded by the Templeton Religious Trust through a fellowship with the Henry Center for Theological Understanding.