Just about every theist, let alone every Christian, thinks of God as Creator. The differences are in the details of how and why God creates.
A strong majority of Christians, Muslims, and Jews think God once existed all alone and then, for some reason, decided to create something from nothing. The theory for Christians often goes by the Latin phrase creatio ex nihilo. Many also say that after that initial, solitary effort, God continued to create right down to the present, which in Latin is creatio continua.
In my new book, A Systematic Theology of Love, I offer a different theory of creation. Like just about everybody else, I affirm God as Creator. I also think God created at the Big Bang and creates moment-by-moment in the present. But I think God was creating before the Big Bang too. In fact, I think deity everlastingly creates.
Ever creator
The easy way to describe my theory is to say God is the "Ever Creator." By "ever," I mean everlastingly, in the sense of no beginning or end. The always living, loving, and everlasting God has always created creaturely others, with no absolute beginning to the process.
Each moment of the Ever Creator's creating includes creaturely contributions to what is created. At the Big Bang, those contributions were pretty insignificant. They at least involved fundamental causal and metaphysical principles. Even at the start of our universe, God didn't have an absolute "blank slate."
As evolution developed the universe in the ways that led to the emergence of complex creatures, they provide God with enhanced co-creating contributions. Look at what humans do today as they co-create with deity! But even the smallest entities have agency that God can't override, control, or suspend.
Another way to think of my theory is to build from what Philip Hefner called "creaturely co-creating." But I extend this co-creating everlastingly. God never creates from nothing or in isolation but always out of or alongside creatures and creation.
Love is central to God's creating
This theory has the advantage of saying love is the center of the Ever Creator's work. Love motivates the Creator. And because both love and creating are always collaborative, the new theory says God's creating is always collaborative. In fact, I think love is the motive, means, mode, measure, and method of God's everlasting creating. I explain this and related issues in A Systematic Theology of Love.
When asked why I'd propose a whole new theory of initial creation, I offer a dozen or so reasons. The one that most people seize on as particularly advantageous pertains to evil.
The problem of evil wonders why a loving and powerful God doesn't stop or prevent evil. If God created from nothing, the problem of evil is exacerbated. An ex nihilo creating deity not only has the power to prevent evil singlehandedly now, but this God alone set up the universe in a way that led to the possibility of evil.
The Ever Creator theory, by contrast, says God can't prevent evil singlehandedly. This God isn't omnipotent, at least not in the usual meanings of that word. I call the Ever Creator's power "amipotent," which is the power of uncontrolling love. Through uncontrolling love God always creates out of or alongside creatures and creation.
The bottom line: A God who can't control in the present and couldn't control at the Big Bang isn't culpable for failing to prevent evil now nor responsible for the possibility of evil at the start of our universe.
The Bible?
The Ever Creator theory has better biblical support than creatio ex nihilo. Although I think a number of creation theories might be crafted in response to the many biblical passages pertaining to God's creating, no biblical passage supports creation from nothing. None. Creatio ex nihilo isn't in Genesis or anywhere else in sacred writ.
It surprises Christians to discover that the first major systematic theologian in Christian history – Origen – appealed to scripture as indicating the idea that our universe was one in a series. There were universes before ours. And even Thomas Aquinas admitted something like the Ever Creator view was logically possible, although he (wrongly) thought Genesis required believing in creation from nothing. Even the most conservative biblical scholars today admit creatio ex nihilo isn't in Genesis.
My favorite biblical support for the Ever Creator theory is the oft-repeated phrase in the Hebrew scriptures: "the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever." God's hesed (Hebrew word meaning steadfast love)is olam, to use the Hebrew meaning eternal. God can only love forever if, forever, there are creaturely others to love. (There is no good reason to think the Old Testament writers imagined God loving forever in Trinity.)
Where did the stuff come from?
I suspect the main reason many have not pondered the possibility of God everlastingly creating arises from a simple question: "From where did the ‘stuff' come when God created our universe?"
That good question has a simple, albeit mind-boggling, answer: God creates in each moment out of that which God created previously, and this creative process is everlasting! So the "stuff" from which God created our universe was stuff deity created in a previous universe, which likely had become diffuse in chaotic disorder. And God's creating had no beginning.
The everlasting God creates from temporal creation. No single universe is co-eternal with God. But there will always be creaturely others whom God creates in relation to what God created previously. And it's just as mind-bogglingly logical to say God exists everlastingly as to it's mind-boggling logical to say God always creates in relation to what God created previously.
A Systematic Theology of Love
Of course, there's so much more to be said about this Ever Creator theory. I devote a couple chapters in A Systematic Theology of Love to exploring this theory and arguing why it's preferable to creatio ex nihilo and other creation theories.
I even give this new theory a Latin name: creatio ex creatione sempiternalis en amore. That means God always creates out of or alongside creation in love. The Ever Creator theory champions love and follows its logic meticulously.
Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. Oord is a best-selling and award-winning author, having written or edited more than twenty-five books. He is the director of the Center for Open and Relational Theology and directs a doctoral program on open and relational theology at Northwind Theological Seminary. A twelve-time Faculty Award-winning professor, he teaches at institutions around the globe. Oord is known for his contributions to research on love, open and relational theology, science and religion, and the implications of freedom and relationships for transformation.
