6.
It is clear that classical, absolutistic theism has
produced
uneasiness even in its more refined attempts
to reconcile the transcendent,
unchanging God with
the God immanent in a changing world and presuma-
bly affected by the moral growth and
sin of persons.
When struggling with this problem classical theism has
veered toward monism and emanationism: God's na-
ture can be expressed in, but not affected by, change
and suffering
in all its finite centers.
Indeed, the classical God who creates ex nihilo
sug-
gests an omnipotent, sovereign King, the
benefactor
of his obedient creatures. But this image does not
cohere
with the image of God as cosmic Lover sensitive
to all sentient creatures,
and to overcoming sin and
suffering in man. For some thinkers, such as S.
Alex-
ander, H. Bergson, C. Hartshorne, A.
N. Whitehead
and H. N. Wieman, this seems to mean the bankruptcy
of
the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. They
therefore
supplant creatio with an ultimate
creativity, congenial
with the emergence of novelty in biological
evolution
and moral worth in man. The dominant model now
is creative
emergence within a temporalistic, teleo-
logical reality guided and directed in different degrees
by a God whose very being is involved with that of
the world.
But all such views, despite their protestations to the
contrary, are faced
with the problem of protecting the
nature of the individuality of both God
and man. Their
stress on human autonomy and independence of the
world
tends to be lost in a polarity between God and
his creation. Such is the
critique that underlies tempo-
ralistic
personalism. E. S. Brightman, in particular,
resists any blurring of creatio, individuality, and free-
dom, even as he takes both time and the problem of
nondisciplinary suffering seriously (1958). The sugges-
tion is that the working out of the purpose of the
Creator-God is affected by changes in the world and
by the free choices of
persons. This suggestion may
be expressed in four theses that at once
summarize and
develop the basic themes in this essay.
First, God in his metaphysical structure is a Person,
aware of his own being
and purposes. In creating, God
brings into being what could not be apart
from his
willing it into being. Created beings are
“posited”
with their own quality and degree of
activity-passivity
(or, at the subhuman level, they may be identical
with
God).
Second, in creating free persons especially, God is
both limiting his own
power and the particular way
in which he will affect them. Persons, with
limited
freedom, operating within the collocated structures
that make
the world a cosmos, cannot change these
structures; but they can select
among possible alterna-
tives allowed by
these structures. In so doing they
influence the quality of their own
experience and
God's. The contrast with this classical theism is ex-
pressed in the next three contentions.
Third, God is not the stern cosmic Potentate, impas-
sive to the suffering and enjoyments of men; nor is he
the
beneficent Overseer. He is indeed the Creator who
in creating expresses his
own being. The created world
is indeed one in which co-creators arrive,
survive, and
are basically responsible for the quality of the respon-
sive-responsible community
involving God and man.
God indeed continues to create without infringing
the
dependable order of being and in cooperation with
human choice.
And God can never become less than
real, being a self-caused Person. But
his creative acts
in the evolution of world history, including man,
make
him a participant in, but not victim of, all that occurs.
He
responds creatively and mercifully to what is
effected in the realm of
delegated agency at all levels.
This cosmic Creator is the redeeming Lover
who is
concerned that nothing valuable be lost as shared crea-
tion continues.
Fourth, God does not create the world and time
together, for the Creator
himself is temporal insofar
as he creates and responds to his co-creators. The
historic process is integral to the very being of the
Creator,
who, in creating any specific beings, expresses
the nature of His own being
in that specific way. Thus,
the model of an unchanging Creator is
supplanted by
the model of a unified Creator who is self-continuous
in
creating and knows the agony and ectasy of all
creativity and destruction.
Fifth, in this perspective, the notion that there is
no model for creatio ex nihilo in the finite world is
challenged. Man is indeed usually an artificer in a
material given to him
and in him. But the counter-
suggestion is that man does create ex
nihilo when, given
his created nature, he does bring into being
what was
not. This is so when he creates in the realms of knowl-
edge, ethics, art, and religion.
Obviously this creation
is within limits, but what comes to be would not
be
to the extent, and in the way that, a person wills it.
There is an
experiential person-model for creatio ex
nihilo.
Accordingly, temporalistic personalists reject deism,
emanation, monism, and
a dialectical polarity. They
seek to harmonize transcendence and immanence
in
a cosmological model of a Unified Person, who creates
without being
transformed, who maintains his unity
and continuity as he creates and
undergoes the conse-
quences, good and bad,
of his creations. This creationist
model must be seen teleologically. A
loving Person
purposes a cosmic community of mutually responsible
co-creators—the present and continuing goal of all
creative
activity. This view of God underlies the ethics
and social philosophy not
of authoritarian fascism or
communism, but of communitarian personalism.
