When dwelling on Divine Providence, one might give more attention to those of God’s works which have a more saliently marvelous and supernatural quality—the kind experienced by witnesses of acts which circumvent the natural order of causality, such as Christ’s multiplication of bread and fish (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:31-44; Luke 9:12-17; John 6:1-15) or His raising of Lazarus from the dead, who had been in the tomb already four days (John 11:1-44)—as opposed to the work involved in the growth of a plant, for example.
“Because creation is, in its very constitution, communal and personal, and its spiritual structure one of infinite fractal interconnectedness according to the unity of the Word in all things and all things in the Word…”
There is a real sense in which creation is incarnation and is the very Body of Christ, the Church. Nothing is separate from the Living God. This also points to the necessity of the manifest creation as the natural, self-giving, communal, personal, free expression of love. Perhaps it could be said that there is no God apart from or without creation, since creation is the natural manifestation of who and what God is.
Very insightful. I agree with your assessment, with the caveat that I wouldn't say God's specific expression of love through creation is strictly speaking necessary. Because God is love and essentially a communion of Persons, I believe that God's expression of love is necessary, to be sure, but just not in the form of the particular, contingent mode of expression we see in the created order (which I think is an entirely free bestowal of gift).
If the creation is the natural expression and essential actualization of who God is, then how could creation not be necessary? Could God have not created the manifest cosmos? If so, wouldn’t that be a contradiction of who and what God is? It would tear asunder the Trinity itself.
Creation is the self-giving gift of God as the ever-living manifestation of Himself. This is precisely why creation can be said to be the very Body of Christ, the Church - God made manifest. In this sense, there can be no God apart from creation.
My thought is that God as Trinity is eternally perfect and complete in the eternal communion of the three Persons, apart from any particular act (of creation) He may or may not choose to engage in. In this way, I see creation as an "outspilling" of His perfect love; and since His act of creation is contingent upon His genuine freedom, it can truly be considered a gift. I agree that creation is Incarnation, and that the world will become deified and thus in some sense, by grace, become "necessary" and uncreated, but I do see this as a genuine becoming and not something that creation is essentially, since it did in fact come into being. I do think I see the point at which we disagree, and I will continue to think about these things. Appreciate your thoughts!
God’s freedom is none other than His unconditional outpouring of Himself. If creation is incarnation, then creation is God made manifest. Otherwise, creation cannot be called the Body of Christ - the Church, but must rather be something other than God. This is the Fall into dualism. Is it not?
Analogically, creation is contingent on God as my arm or my words are contingent upon me (which are obviously contingent upon God in Whom I live and move and have my being). However, while creation is contingent on God, God doesn’t “need” creation in the sense that creation doesn’t add anything to God, nor does the passing away of finite aspects of creation diminish God in any way - just as growing a beard or losing an arm neither adds nor takes away anything from who I am. Creation is simply the personal actualization of God’s nature. The living God is ever the same yet ever-changing as creation actualizes its inherent and essential potential.
The emergence from non-existence into being, which is always ever the case for creation does not necessitate a difference in essence between God and creation. Creation ex nihilo is creation ex Deus. This is fundamentally what it means for creation to be incarnation. To say otherwise, is to fall into the dualistic trap of ontological separation.
I suppose I’d like to add this: even though God will ultimately unite creation in the Logos eschatologically, bringing all things into Himself and giving them a divine mode of existence in Him, I see otherness as essential to creation—i.e., created humans and other creatures are other in relation to God, but they are at the same time united in Him and identified with Him in the sense that He will indwell them Spiritually and give them all of His gifts, including His love, wisdom, knowledge, etc. in an experiential and real way, but creatures will receive these things as themselves, being able to see and be seen as God, but without losing themselves in the process.
I agree that creation is Incarnation, and that creation is therefore the revelation of God. However, according to my elementary understanding of the Incarnation, The Son (a Person both divine and uncreated) assumed the created human nature into His Person in such a way that the two natures are distinct and unconfused, yet united. The created human nature (and thus all of creation in it) is thereby given a divine hypostatic mode of existence in its deification, but still retains its distinction in essence from God (and to your point, I am not implying an ontological separation here, since I believe that creation and God become one by grace via communion). The way I'm thinking of (dialogical) communion here is a oneness that maintains the particularity and uniqueness of each creature in its mutually reciprocal relations of being a gift (from God) to all other creatures, and all other creatures to it.
I suppose I don't view uncreated/created as a hard/pernicious dualism per se because everything is made one through love/grace eschatologically, and yet nothing is swallowed up in its particularity (ceasing to be itself) in its relation to God. I view multiplicity (in some sense) to be a precondition for communion (the divine mode of unity). I could be off in my articulation of some of these points, but I appreciate you prompting me to think this through (which I need to continue to do, no doubt). God, in essence, never changes, but in His energies (His relation to creation), he does. I suppose that, ultimately, the distinction is, eschatologically: uncreated by nature (God) and uncreated by grace (creation).
In pointing out that creation is Incarnation, we are going far beyond the notion of Incarnation as a contingent, historical event meant to unite (or re-unite) human and divine natures in order to save mankind from death and eternal damnation. The Incarnation revealed to man who he and God is, which man had simply forgotten. Man, like Christ, is both divine and human, uncreated and created, infinite and finite. Creation ex Deus demands no less, and this is what the Incarnation reveals.
Man cannot become something other than what he is by nature (at least in potential). A tree cannot become a frog. But man does have the capacity and choice as a created, finite, human being to actualize his uncreated, infinite, divine potential. Yet this transformation from the image of God as potential to likeness with Christ requires our free cooperation with the divine energies of God. In doing so, man retains his “particularity and uniqueness,” and like Christ, his human nature is not swallowed up by his inherent potential for or actualization of divinity. Jesus Christ is the ultimate example, not the exception.
Creation is the unity of multiplicity - the multitudinous manifestation, expression, and life of the One God. The Christic Creation is the transcendent, unmanifest Father made immanently manifest by the power and energies of the Holy Spirit. The essence of God is actualized by the divine energies, and there is no real (ontological) distinction between the two. Union with God is essential. Actualization of that nature (i.e., theosis) is our choice.
I again find myself agreeing with most of this, if not all (understood a certain way). This is where I think the doctrine of the logoi as the uncreated thought-wills of God might help. The logos of each thing is of course uncreated, and the eschatological actualization of each thing occurs by conformity to its logos. And of course, the logoi are all ultimately one Logos. But particular entities are nonetheless brought into being, and in that sense are not identical to God.
It’s a metaphysical impossibility for creation to be substantially other than God, yet become united to God via the divine energies since there is no real, ontological distinction between God’s essence and energies. That is, to be united with God energetically is necessarily to be untied essentially. The only way around this is to assert a real, ontological distinction between God’s essence and energies, thereby contradictorily claiming division within the One God.
I suppose I’m not necessarily following the reasoning here (perhaps I am misunderstanding you), but I take it to be possible for God to create something that differs from Himself in essence, and this is my understanding of the Church’s (and many fathers’) teaching on this.
“Because creation is, in its very constitution, communal and personal, and its spiritual structure one of infinite fractal interconnectedness according to the unity of the Word in all things and all things in the Word…”
There is a real sense in which creation is incarnation and is the very Body of Christ, the Church. Nothing is separate from the Living God. This also points to the necessity of the manifest creation as the natural, self-giving, communal, personal, free expression of love. Perhaps it could be said that there is no God apart from or without creation, since creation is the natural manifestation of who and what God is.
Very insightful. I agree with your assessment, with the caveat that I wouldn't say God's specific expression of love through creation is strictly speaking necessary. Because God is love and essentially a communion of Persons, I believe that God's expression of love is necessary, to be sure, but just not in the form of the particular, contingent mode of expression we see in the created order (which I think is an entirely free bestowal of gift).
If the creation is the natural expression and essential actualization of who God is, then how could creation not be necessary? Could God have not created the manifest cosmos? If so, wouldn’t that be a contradiction of who and what God is? It would tear asunder the Trinity itself.
Creation is the self-giving gift of God as the ever-living manifestation of Himself. This is precisely why creation can be said to be the very Body of Christ, the Church - God made manifest. In this sense, there can be no God apart from creation.
My thought is that God as Trinity is eternally perfect and complete in the eternal communion of the three Persons, apart from any particular act (of creation) He may or may not choose to engage in. In this way, I see creation as an "outspilling" of His perfect love; and since His act of creation is contingent upon His genuine freedom, it can truly be considered a gift. I agree that creation is Incarnation, and that the world will become deified and thus in some sense, by grace, become "necessary" and uncreated, but I do see this as a genuine becoming and not something that creation is essentially, since it did in fact come into being. I do think I see the point at which we disagree, and I will continue to think about these things. Appreciate your thoughts!
God’s freedom is none other than His unconditional outpouring of Himself. If creation is incarnation, then creation is God made manifest. Otherwise, creation cannot be called the Body of Christ - the Church, but must rather be something other than God. This is the Fall into dualism. Is it not?
Analogically, creation is contingent on God as my arm or my words are contingent upon me (which are obviously contingent upon God in Whom I live and move and have my being). However, while creation is contingent on God, God doesn’t “need” creation in the sense that creation doesn’t add anything to God, nor does the passing away of finite aspects of creation diminish God in any way - just as growing a beard or losing an arm neither adds nor takes away anything from who I am. Creation is simply the personal actualization of God’s nature. The living God is ever the same yet ever-changing as creation actualizes its inherent and essential potential.
The emergence from non-existence into being, which is always ever the case for creation does not necessitate a difference in essence between God and creation. Creation ex nihilo is creation ex Deus. This is fundamentally what it means for creation to be incarnation. To say otherwise, is to fall into the dualistic trap of ontological separation.
I suppose I’d like to add this: even though God will ultimately unite creation in the Logos eschatologically, bringing all things into Himself and giving them a divine mode of existence in Him, I see otherness as essential to creation—i.e., created humans and other creatures are other in relation to God, but they are at the same time united in Him and identified with Him in the sense that He will indwell them Spiritually and give them all of His gifts, including His love, wisdom, knowledge, etc. in an experiential and real way, but creatures will receive these things as themselves, being able to see and be seen as God, but without losing themselves in the process.
I agree that creation is Incarnation, and that creation is therefore the revelation of God. However, according to my elementary understanding of the Incarnation, The Son (a Person both divine and uncreated) assumed the created human nature into His Person in such a way that the two natures are distinct and unconfused, yet united. The created human nature (and thus all of creation in it) is thereby given a divine hypostatic mode of existence in its deification, but still retains its distinction in essence from God (and to your point, I am not implying an ontological separation here, since I believe that creation and God become one by grace via communion). The way I'm thinking of (dialogical) communion here is a oneness that maintains the particularity and uniqueness of each creature in its mutually reciprocal relations of being a gift (from God) to all other creatures, and all other creatures to it.
I suppose I don't view uncreated/created as a hard/pernicious dualism per se because everything is made one through love/grace eschatologically, and yet nothing is swallowed up in its particularity (ceasing to be itself) in its relation to God. I view multiplicity (in some sense) to be a precondition for communion (the divine mode of unity). I could be off in my articulation of some of these points, but I appreciate you prompting me to think this through (which I need to continue to do, no doubt). God, in essence, never changes, but in His energies (His relation to creation), he does. I suppose that, ultimately, the distinction is, eschatologically: uncreated by nature (God) and uncreated by grace (creation).
In pointing out that creation is Incarnation, we are going far beyond the notion of Incarnation as a contingent, historical event meant to unite (or re-unite) human and divine natures in order to save mankind from death and eternal damnation. The Incarnation revealed to man who he and God is, which man had simply forgotten. Man, like Christ, is both divine and human, uncreated and created, infinite and finite. Creation ex Deus demands no less, and this is what the Incarnation reveals.
Man cannot become something other than what he is by nature (at least in potential). A tree cannot become a frog. But man does have the capacity and choice as a created, finite, human being to actualize his uncreated, infinite, divine potential. Yet this transformation from the image of God as potential to likeness with Christ requires our free cooperation with the divine energies of God. In doing so, man retains his “particularity and uniqueness,” and like Christ, his human nature is not swallowed up by his inherent potential for or actualization of divinity. Jesus Christ is the ultimate example, not the exception.
Creation is the unity of multiplicity - the multitudinous manifestation, expression, and life of the One God. The Christic Creation is the transcendent, unmanifest Father made immanently manifest by the power and energies of the Holy Spirit. The essence of God is actualized by the divine energies, and there is no real (ontological) distinction between the two. Union with God is essential. Actualization of that nature (i.e., theosis) is our choice.
I again find myself agreeing with most of this, if not all (understood a certain way). This is where I think the doctrine of the logoi as the uncreated thought-wills of God might help. The logos of each thing is of course uncreated, and the eschatological actualization of each thing occurs by conformity to its logos. And of course, the logoi are all ultimately one Logos. But particular entities are nonetheless brought into being, and in that sense are not identical to God.
It’s a metaphysical impossibility for creation to be substantially other than God, yet become united to God via the divine energies since there is no real, ontological distinction between God’s essence and energies. That is, to be united with God energetically is necessarily to be untied essentially. The only way around this is to assert a real, ontological distinction between God’s essence and energies, thereby contradictorily claiming division within the One God.
I suppose I’m not necessarily following the reasoning here (perhaps I am misunderstanding you), but I take it to be possible for God to create something that differs from Himself in essence, and this is my understanding of the Church’s (and many fathers’) teaching on this.