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Possible Worlds and God’s Creative Process: How a Classical Doctrine of Divine Creation Can Understand Divine Creativity Shawn Bawulski and James Watkins St Mary’s
College, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 8XN, Scotland sb687@st-andrews.ac.uk; jw588@st-andrews.ac.uk
Abstract In this article we will argue this thesis: even with classical theism and meticulous providence, one can properly say God exercises creativity . This is not
merely to say that God is creative – which is perhaps tautologous given that God is the Creator – but further, it is to say that God’s activity in relation to the
cosmos displays creativity .Wewillexamineopentheism,whichresidesattheotherendof thespectrum,inordertoprovidecontrastwiththepositiondefendedinthisarticle. There are
three aspects we intend to affirm in saying God exercises creativity. First, the product (the cosmos which God made) exhibits creativity. This should not be
particularly contentious and we will not pursue this aspect here. Second, the agent (God) exhibits creativity. Third, the process exhibits creativity. Both of these
latter aspects will be defended. In this article we argue that God’s freedom, creation’s contingency, creation’s reality and actuality, and considerations from the
incarnation all enable meaningful ways in which one can speak of divine creativity while still affirming classical theism and meticulous providence. First, in
supportofourthesiswewillusepossibleworldtalkasaheuristicdevice.Possible world talk involves modal claims, modal logic and counterfactuals. We use this
conceptualdevice,operatingwithinatheisticframework,toapproachwithclarity theological issues such as the divine decree, creation ex nihilo and providence. Second, we
will utilise a two-nature christology to speak meaningfully about divine creativity. Against those who describe God’s creativity in terms of divine attributes, we
suggest that it is possible to understand God’s creativity in terms of the incarnation. Drawing upon the work of Thomas Weinandy, we suggest that it is possible to
speak about God experiencing something genuinely new in the person of Christ. As such, one can hold to a classical doctrine of divine creation and use language
associated with human creativity, such as ‘risk’, ‘process’ and ‘discovery’, to speak about God. We hope to demonstrate that the affirmation of divine creativity need
not be exclusive to positions such as open theism.
Keywords: Classic theism, creation, divine freedom, incarnation, possible worlds, providence.
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Divine creativity In this article we will argue that, even with classical theism and meticulous
providence,onecanpropersayGodexercisescreativity.By‘languageofcreativity’ we are referring to those words commonly associated with human creative activity such as
‘process’, ‘risk’ and ‘discovery’. We will compare this view with open theism1 in order to contrast two positions which reside on opposite ends of the continuum; we
acknowledge that mediating views not mentioned in this article might well be possible. A working definition for human creativity could be: an activity which is novel,
valuable and surprising.2 Our argument acknowledges that there is an analogy between divine and human creativity, but that divine and human creativity are not
identical. The asymmetrical nature of this analogy followsfromtheassumptionthathumancreativitypresupposesorisderived from divine creativity. Divine creativity, on the
other hand, derives solely from God’s being and is determined by his love, goodness and freedom. Furthermore, this analogy does not attempt to discern how God is
creative, as if one could understand the processes or mechanisms by which he works,3 butthisanalogyis employedsimply topointoutthat God exercises creativity. Our
knowledge of divine creativity, as well as the analogy between divine andhumancreativity,isjustifiedonlybyGod’srevelationofhimselfasaGod who exhibits creativity. More
will be said about this later, but for now it is enough to say that divine creativity is revealed most fully in the incarnation and resurrection of Christ. In the
contemporary theological scene it is commonly argued4 that the languageofhumancreativitycannotbeusedtospeakaboutaclassicalmodel
1 Bytheterm‘opentheism’wemeantheologieswhichinsistthatGodhasleftthefuture open, that the future is not fixed and, even for God, elements of what will happen are
genuinelyunknownandyet-to-bedetermined.ClarkPinnockisrepresentative:seehis Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001). 2
This is Margaret Boden’s definition of creativity and, though she emphasises the surprisingelementofcreativity,itisverysimilartootherattemptswithinthediscipline of
psychology to define creativity. Her term ‘surprising’ must be understood against the background of what she calls a ‘generative system’: a set of rules, ideas and
constraints which make creativity possible. Creativity, therefore, is not defined as freedom from constraints, but as working within constraints. That creativity should
be surprising emphasises the relative freedom of the personal agent with respect to a specific generative system. Margaret Boden, ‘What is Creativity?’, in Boden (ed.),
Dimensions of Creativity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), pp. 75–117. 3 Eccl 11:4–6. 4 See e.g. Paul Fiddes, The Creative Suffering of God(Oxford: Clarendon, 1988),
p. 56; W. H. Vanstone, Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense: The Response of Being to the Love of God (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977), pp. 65–6; Daniel Day
Williams, TheSpiritandFormsof Love (Welwyn, Herts: James Nisbet & Co, 1968). 175
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of God, and that it is more appropriately used in reference to co-creative models of the interaction between God and creation which emphasise
opennessandprecariousnessindivineprovidence.Aco-creativemodelseems tosolveproblemswhicharisewhentryingtoattributethelanguageofhuman creativity to God. First, it
provides a conceptual framework wherein one can speak meaningfully about God discovering something new because there is an epistemic gap between Creator and creature.
Second, it presents reality as fundamentally dialogic, so that God’s choice to create and to be continually creative contains elements of ‘process’, ‘risk’ and
‘discovery’. We think, however, that it is possible to use the language of human creativityinmeaningfulwayswhenspeakingaboutclassicaldivinecreativity. Our task is to
work within a commitment to a classical understanding of divine attributes (impassibility, immutability, etc.) and to a ‘meticulous providence’ model of divine
providence. By ‘meticulous providence’ we mean the idea that ‘God orders all things that come to pass, such that no event occurs without his concurrently bringing it
about in conjunction with mundane creaturely causes’.5 Viewing the issue through the lens of possible world talk is a helpful way to preserve the meticulous providence
model and to make room for the language of human creativity as applied to God.6 Seen in the light of our discussion of possible worlds, we argue that the incarnation,
as God’s creative activities entering his creation, is the proper location and centre for divine creativity within a meticulous providence model of divine providence
and creation. To put it as concisely as possible, we offer four reasons why meticulous providence and classical theism are compatible with a God who exercises
creativity. God’s activity in relation to creation exhibits creativity because:
1. God acts freely. 2. Creation could have been otherwise. 3. Creation exists in actuality, and not merely as a possibility. 4. God discovers something new in
creation.
Meticulous providence and creativity The idea that God is the cause of all events in creation is often referred to as ‘meticulous providence’. The last three chapters
of book I of John Calvin’s
5 Oliver Crisp, ‘Calvin on Creation and Providence’, in John Calvin and Evangelical Theology, (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009), p. 53. 6 We are not the first to use
possible world talk in this manner; e.g. see James F. Ross, ‘Creation’, Journal of Philosophy 77/10 (1980), pp. 614–29.
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Institutes are commonly cited7 as a prime example of this view of providence. Calvinwrites,‘theprovidencewemeanisnotonebywhichtheDeity,sitting idly in heaven, looks on
at what is taking place in the world, but one by whichhe,asitwere,holdsthehelmsandoverrulesallevents’.8 Hepursuesa
viewofprovidencewhichemphasisesGod’sspecialaction.Thosewhoargue that God oversees creation without acting in specific events, argues Calvin, have misunderstood the God
of scripture. For Calvin, ‘providence extends not less to the hand than to the eye’.9 More recently, Vernon White, in his book The Fall of a Sparrow, defends the
notion that ‘whatever happens is caught up to serve God’s intention’.10 He argues that, though God has an intended end for all of creation, each specific event in
creation is, itself, intended as an end by God. As Calvin and White seem to imply, there can be no chance or accident in creation. Furthermore, there is no sense in
which God can be frustrated by creation. For God, there is no ‘class of events in the world which forces the relation of the divine intention into a relation of
means’.11 In other words, God is never frustrated by creation because there are no events which he regards simply as a means to some other end. This is what we mean by
meticulous providence: all events in creation are the end of God’s intention and action. To understand both the difficulty of the problem which faces a model of
meticulous providence, as well as to anticipate potential solutions, it is valuable to place providence within the context of creation. Possible world talk is the tool
that we will use.12 Clarityisrequiredwithseveralkeyterms,fortheirusagehereissomewhat technical. By ‘actualise’ we mean ‘God exercising his will in such a way that X is
brought about’. By ‘create’ we mean ‘to bring about the existence of something other’. By ‘providence’ we mean ‘God’s activity in the world in time’. By ‘world’ we
mean an entire possible world, in other words, ‘a
7 E.g.seeCrisp,‘CalvinonCreationandProvidence’;PaulHelm,JohnCalvin’sIdeas(Oxford: OUP, 2004). 8 John Calvin, Institutes, I.xvi.4. 9 Ibid. 10 Vernon White, The Fall of
a Sparrow (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1985), p. 133. 11 Ibid., p. 130. 12 Possible world talk is a conceptual tool, a heuristic, and our usage in this article ought
not to be regarded as offering a literal description of how God creates or decides to do so. We deem the invoking of possible world talk for creation and providence to
be warranted by such theological concepts as God’s freedom and creaturely contingency. Further, to cast God’s creation in possible world terms is not to mechanise or
depersonalise it, in fact we would argue that envisaging it as we do can allow for God’s relationship to possible worlds to be highly personal and imaginative.
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maximal description of reality or a way reality might be’. Every possible world is actualised by God’s will but God only creates in some possible worlds. Given the
possible world schema, it seems that the decision to actualise this world aligns with what is fundamentally intended by talk of the divine decree: the exhaustive
details of everything that ever happened/existed, happens/exists or will happen/will exist are chosen by God, fully known to God and are fixed by the divine will. God
not only knows the details, he chooses what will be actual and he chooses and actualises this possible world on the whole and as a whole. God’s creation ex nihilo and
his providence are enveloped under the divine act of ‘actualising this possible world’. Further, for God, choosing and actualising the totality of this possible world
is one complete and unified act. In this model God does not have any ‘fuzzy gaps’ or ‘loose ends’ in some of the details. An open theist model of providence appears to
provide for a greater amount of contingency because the future is literally not yet fixed or determined. God’s decision is made in stages in this model – not merely the
outworking of that decision, but even the decision itself is in process; indeed it becomes difficult to speak of a unified decision at all. The creative decisions and
the actions comprising God’s creating and sustaining are all quite distinct on this model – for the open theist, creation and providence are categorically different
and distinct. As time progresses and the world unfolds, God is making decisions and acting; in so doing he is gradually narrowing the pool of possible worlds which
might become actual. Perhaps the finalisation of God’s choice lies in the eschaton, but currently for God it is genuinely up in the air how many of the aspects of
reality will turn out. These two models differ starkly on the issue of human free will. Given the open theist commitment to libertarian free will, it is easy to see
how God ‘risks’ or ‘discovers’ in relation to a (libertarianly) free action because that action contributes to the determining of the actual world. With perhaps
Aquinas as a notable exception,13 the meticulous providence model appears only possible on a compatibilist account of freedom; no coherent conjoining of libertarian
free will and the meticulous providence modelseemspossible.Wewillarguethat,withinacompatibilistframework,
13 For contemporary defences of this view, see Alfred J. Freddoso (ed.), The Existence and NatureofGod, University of Notre Dame Studies in the Philosophy of Religion,
3 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,1983), pp. 115–40; W. Matthews Grant, ‘Aquinas among Libertarians and Compatibilists: Breaking the Logic of
Theological Determinism’, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 75 (2001), pp. 221–35; and Hugh J. McCann, ‘Divine Sovereignty and the Freedom
of the Will’, Faith and Philosophy 12/4 (1995), pp. 582–98.
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God’s providential action exhibits creativity. Using possible world talk as a conceptual framework, we will develop our first three reasons supporting meticulous
providence as compatible with a God who exercises creativity. Beforemovingontopossibleworlds,abriefwordonthefirsttwochapters in Genesis seems in order. We have been
intentional in describing creation and providence as a process – biblically, there seems to be warrant for viewing creation in some sense as such. Whatever one makes
of the Genesis account ofcreationandalltheinterpretiveissuesinvolved,itcannotbedeniedthaton some level God’s act of creating is portrayed as a purposeful process,
unfolding overthecourseofseveral‘days’.ThecreationaccountinGenesisseescreation ‘emerging out of a prior plan or purpose’.14 Whether one sees the purpose in the
creation account to be the formation of the nation of Israel as rabbinic commentatorssuggest,15 ortheestablishmentofhumanitywhichultimately
anticipatesChrist,thebasicpointisthesame:GenesisseesGod’srelationship to the cosmos in terms of a process with a goal or purpose in mind. This hints at the idea that
creation ex nihilo and providence are united in a variety of ways, particularly in purpose.
Possible world talk and divine creativity As stated earlier, creation ex nihilo and providence are to be viewed as
complementaryaspectsoftheoneandunifiedeternalactofGodinchoosing to actualise this possible world. Viewing creation and providence in terms of possible world talk helps
us to see the benefit of the position defended in this article: regarding creation, it retains divine freedom and transcendence;
regardingprovidence,itaffirmsastrongsenseofdivinesovereignty.Itdoesall this while still maintaining a way in which both God as agent and providence
asprocesscanexhibitdivinecreativity.Withinapossibleworldframework,we offer three reasons why it makes sense to attribute the language of human creativity to God and
providence. First, God’s agency in creation and providence exhibits creativity because God acts freely. God’s creative freedom in choosing between good possible worlds
is free, but not unlimited. By this we mean (1) that God’s choice is limitedtooneofthepossibleworlds,and(2)thatGod’scharactermeansthat he will choose a world that is
fundamentally good. Regarding the first point, God does not actualise a contradictory state of affairs: God can only actualise a possible world. Fundamentally we are
denying that God is ‘beyond’ or ‘above’ logic (whatever that might mean) and are affirming that the laws of
14 Russell R. Reno, Genesis, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2010), p. 34. 15 Ibid., p. 30.
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logic stem from his being – he does not choose or create them (while there is much more that could be said here, the end result is to affirm this: God does not do
contradictions). Regarding the second point, God’s goodness, wisdom, etc. mean that he will only choose a world which is fundamentally good,isawisechoice,etc.16
Godisfreetochoosefromamongstaseemingly infinite number of good possible worlds. Theologians of the classical tradition have often (rightly, in our judgement) wanted to
emphasise God’s choice to create. This avoids any talk of God’s creativity as emanation (creation is not automatic), and it also guards against a process view of God
(God does not need to create or to have acreationtobewhoheis).Theobjectionsometimesraisedisthatitishardto see how this account avoids accusations of making God’s
decision to create an arbitrary one. In response, we question what is meant by ‘arbitrary’. If by ‘arbitrary’ one means ‘for no (good) reason’, then certainly God’s
choice to create is not arbitrary. God’s essential nature limits the scope of his optionswhenitcomestothedecisionregardingcreation.Hisnatureexcludes his will from
actualising a world with contradictions, a fundamentally bad world, a world that would be unwise to bring about, etc. Within those limitations, it seems God has an
unfathomable number of options of worlds he might actualise. Here is where the accusation of arbitrariness still might arise: amongst those options, just exactly why
did God choose this world to actualise and not some other? We are not sure how anyone, save for God, could answer that question; in theology there are points where we
simply reach our boundaries of understanding and run into mystery. However, it seemstousthatwecanandshouldsaythatGod’sfreechoiceisnotarbitrary: he is pleased to
actualise this world, he chooses to give being to this cosmos and he loves his creation. God’s choice is not without reasons: he has values, he has preferences and he
has passions (in the sense understood within classic theism). Nothing except God’s essential being accounts for the exercising of his will, and the exercising of his
freedom in no way offends against any of the divine attributes. God enjoys a radical self-determination which is completely unique and which vividly displays his
creativity. Possible world talk, by emphasising the difference between possible and actual worlds, preserves the transcendence of the divine creative act. And, by
16 There are worlds which are on the whole fundamentally good, and worlds which are fundamentally bad; there is no ‘best’ possible world (contra Leibniz). There are
many good worlds which involve evil but are nonetheless on the whole fundamentally good because of some other good thingswhich require the involvement of evil, that
‘brings the baggage of evil along with it’ in such a way that there is no possible world in which these good things obtain but evil does not.
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emphasising that God creates according to his essential being, it affirms that the divine creative act is self-limiting. Second, God’s activity in the process of
meticulous providence exhibits creativity because things could have been otherwise. In this point we will treat the sense of contingency which brings us to speak of
divine creativity. The meticulous providence model would consider divine providence to be one and the same with God’s choice to actualise this particular world: the
two are merely different aspects of a singular divine act. In as much as God is free in his choice of which world to actualise, any specific detail of that world
couldhavebeenotherwise(shouldGodsowill).Thecreativityoftheprocess is conceptually linked to the creativity of the choice of possible worlds. In contrast,aco-
creativeinteractionbetweenGodandcreationwouldholdthat divine providence is engaged in an open process, the course of which is greatly affected by the action of
creation and not by God.17 The distinction between possible and actual worlds is suggestive of a way in which divine creativity may incorporate creaturely response. If
creation could have been otherwise, then the actualised world is more than simply a means to an end. M. B. Foster argues that, if such is the case, the meaning of
creation ‘is not capable of being conceived in distinction from the sensible material in which it is expressed’.18 Like the artist who must look and see what he has
made to know what it means, God has made a world which can only be fully understood in its very contingency, creatureliness and materiality. Thus, the full meaning of
creation can only be ascertained in its actuality. Third, God’s activity in the process of meticulous providence exhibits creativity because the actual world in fact
actually exists. God’s creative activity requires the real actualisation of the creative product and of the creative process. It is not enough for God to know the
world as a possibility or an ideal; creation must have real, objective, independent existence outside the
17 E.g. ‘I believe we may say that God knows at any moment all that there is to be known about the future. That is, God knows it as the future … So God knows all the
possibilities that exist for the world and its inhabitants … But God knows these as possibilities, not as actualities, because they have not yet happened.’ Paul
Fiddes, Participating in God (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000), p. 142. John Polkinghorne presents what appears to be an even stronger position: ‘The Creator’s
kenotic love includes allowing divine special providence to act as a cause among causes. Of course, nothing could reduce talk about the Creator to terms that bear a
valid analogy to creaturely discourse, other than that the divine condescension had allowed this to be so.’ John Polkinghorne, ‘Kenotic Creation and Divine Action’, in
Polkinghorne (ed.), The Work of Love (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 104. 18 M. B. Foster, ‘The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural
Science’, Mind 43 (1934), p. 462.
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mind of God for it to be meaningful, for it to give God glory, and for us to speak of God’s creativity. If part of the meaning of creation is God’s glory then we can
say that creation does not mean anything until God makes it actual. By emphasising the difference between possible and actual worlds, possible world talk establishes a
ground for the relationship between Creator and creation. Perhaps an illustration about God’s love might help clarify this difference. In the possible world that God
has actualised, there is never a person called Thor Watkins-Bawulski from Nantucket. God does not love Thor Watkins-Bawulski from Nantucket, because there is no such
person. There are possible worlds in which the person Thor Watkins-Bawulski from Nantucket does exist, and if one of those possible worlds were the actual world, then
God would love Thor. But since in this world – the actual one – there is no Thor, God does not love him. Only that which is in the actual world exists, existence is
more than merely a property of an idea in the mind of God, and God only interacts with things which actually exist. Creativity is, like love, an active relationship
that God has with the actual world. A robust Christian doctrine of creation not only affirms that God
bringssomethingoutofnothing,butalsothatdivinecreativityiscontinuous and that it moves creation towards its end. Like the above example in which
wearguethatGoddoesnotloveapossibleworld,divinecontinuouscreativity only makes sense in relation to an actual creation. Further, like love which seeks the response of
the beloved, creativity seeks a free response from that which it creates. Only in the context of a relationship between Creator and creature who both have real,
independent existence, is it possible to speak of creation’s free response to the Creator and to use language such as ‘process’, ‘discovery’ and ‘risk’ to describe
divine creativity.
Is God simply ‘going through the motions’? While our consideration of possible world talk provides us with important reasons why meticulous providence may be
compatible with a God who exercises creativity, one may still wish to question whether these reasons are sufficient to attribute creativity to God’s actions in relation
to the world. This is an important objection and we will consider it in detail. Although his agency is free, creation contains an element of contingency and actuality
is significantly different from possibility, it may be that divine providence is God simply ‘going through the motions’. For example, W. H. Vanstone writes:
It is assumed that for that to which He gives purpose He already has purpose, and that of that which he uses he has predetermined the use. To
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make this assumption is to destroy the basis for any real analogy between divine and human creativity, and to exclude from the activity of God all the precariousness
and all the poignancy of love. It is to reduce the divine activity to a kind of production – a mere drawing out, or display, of that which already is. If the purpose
of God in creation is foreknown and foreordained to fulfilment, then the creation itself is vanity.19
Vanstone is suggesting that if God is the ultimate cause of everything that happensincreation,thentherecanbeno‘basisforanyrealanalogybetween
divineandhumancreativity’.Meticulousprovidence,arguesVanstone,posits a picture of God’s action which is absent of risk. According to Vanstone’s
view,divinecreativityofferstocreationwhathecallsthe‘powerofresponse’. Thus, God grants creation the power to determine divine creativity ‘as either
triumphantortragic’.20 Ifdivineactioncannotbedescribedasrisky,itwould seem that God does not adequately respect the response of creation to the activity or love of God
as something that is genuinely ‘other’ than God. In other words, Vanstone’s criticism is based upon an assumption that creative activity reaches beyond itself and
seeks a response from something other. Vanstone’s critique of meticulous providence assumes that vulnerability is
aninherentandinescapableaspectofcreativity.AttributingcreativitytoGod, therefore, appears to simultaneously import passibility as a divine attribute as well. Paul
Fiddes suggests that there is a connection between a divine ontology which includes potentiality and divine attributes which include creativity. He writes that ‘a
suffering God is one who has potentialities within him which he has not yet actualised; only in this way can we speak of aGodwhosufferschangeinsuffering’.21
Fiddesthencarriesthelanguageof potentiality/actuality from the context of God’s passibility into a discussion of providence and creativity. He writes:
There must be some gap between what God already knows and what the world does at any point in time …One way of conceiving this would be
todistinguishbetweenwhatGodknowsperfectlyinpotentiality,andwhat he knows perfectly in actuality as it happens …We might also appeal to the analogy of an artist
painting a picture; he will have the potential of it in his mind as he begins, but in his interaction with the materials of his creation he will discover new aspects
to his purpose, and the actuality
19 W. H. Vanstone, Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense: The Response of Being to the Love of God (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977), pp. 65–6. 20 Ibid., p. 67. 21
Fiddes, Creative Suffering of God, p. 52.
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will have novel features to it. There is some co-creativity between artist and medium, some playful development of artistic purpose.22
An epistemic gap between God and the world allows Fiddes to speak of Godgenuinelydiscoveringsomethingnewabouttheworldasherelatestoit. Fiddes suggests that co-
creativity is the only God–world relationship which allows us to speak meaningfully of creation’s free response to the Creator, and so of divine creativity.23 Both
Vanstone and Fiddes raise a fundamental question: ‘what is at stake when ascribing creativity to God?’ There are, of course, a great many scriptural references which
make sense if understood in terms of divine creativity. Some descriptions of God as a craftsman would not appear to be coherent if God did not exercise creativity.24
The playful role that Wisdom has in creation narratives of Proverbs is very suggestive of a divine creativity which is less like a technician and more like a playful
child.25 Furthermore, descriptions of the beauty, order and diversity of creation are suggestive of a God who exercises creativity.26 So, ascribing creativity to God
seems to add greater coherence to this kind of biblical language, but it would also seem important to ascribe creativity to God if one intends to understand
divinecreationintermsofpersonalagency.Oneneednotassumearomantic notion of creativity which emphasises feeling over reason, and expression
overcraftsmanship,butitseemsobviousthatsomenotionofdivinecreativity is helpful for separating a Christian doctrine of creation from mechanistic, random or automatic
processes. Indeed, Foster argues that an important feature which separates (logically and philosophically) the Christian creator
fromthePlatonicdemiurgeisthatthecreatorproducessomethinglikeawork of art, whereas the demiurge produces a technology.27 If we are to maintain this hallmark of the
Christian doctrine of creation – that God creates like an artist or craftsman – then we need a way of articulating divine creativity in an intelligent and coherent
way. Vanstone and Fiddes assume that classical theism and meticulous providence cannot do justice to divine creativity because of its account of
22 Ibid., p. 56. 23 Fiddes, Participating in God, p. 143. He writes: ‘If God is going to allow the world to be creative with some reflection of God’s creativity, there
must be some things which are possible but which have not yet become actual for God. Further, when they actually happen there will be something new about them,
something contributed by the world.’ 24 Gen 2:7–9; Jer 18:1–10. 25 Prov 3:13–20, 8:22–31. 26 Job 38–41; Ps 8, 19, 74:12–17, 104, 136:4–9. 27 Foster, ‘Christian
Doctrine of Creation’, p. 462.
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the epistemic relation between God and the world. To use Fiddes’ words, if there is no ‘gap between what God already knows and what the world does at any point in
time’, then God is not exercising creativity. Without this gap, it would seem that God works in a more impersonal way: like a technician rather than an artist.
Similarly, we would hesitate to ascribe human creativity to an activity which is exposed as ‘completely accidental’ or ‘mechanical’.28 Berys Gaut, for example,
suggests that the creative process must involve an element which he calls ‘flair’.29 To put it succinctly, flair is the use of one’s
skillswithoutfollowingasetroutine.Creativity,therefore,involvesthefreedom to stand back from a routine and make evaluative judgements. Flair suggests the possibility
of doing something in a new way, changing one’s mode of operation or improvising in an unanticipated situation. Does God have the freedom to do something ‘new’ in
creation, or is creation the unfolding of a plan conceived in eternity? TheforceofVanstone’sandFiddes’criticismisthatmeticulousprovidence cannot accommodate, in a
meaningful and analogous way, the idea that God discovers something new in creation. This is why Vanstone argues that ‘if the purpose of God in creation is foreknown
and foreordained to fulfilment, then the creation itself is vanity’. Fiddes’ criticism extends even further than Vanstone’s. For Fiddes, a God who exercises creativity
cannot be the classical God who is actus purus. He must be a God who includes potentiality within himself. The God who exercises creativity, argues Fiddes, is also the
God whoispassibleandvulnerablebecausecreativityisanactivitywhichextends beyond the self and reaches out towards the other. But how can the God of meticulous providence
and classical theism discover something new in creation? If the whole of creation is actualised according to God’s eternal choice, how can there be any possibilities
for God to uncover? Is it possible to defend meticulous providence from this critique? One might look, initially, to Calvin’s development of divine providence for an
answer. As Paul Helm points out, Calvin does include a ‘diversity of purpose’30 within his understanding of providence. This allows Calvin ‘to
28 Berys Gaut, ‘Creativity and Skill’, in Michael Krausz, Denis Dutton and Karen Bardsley (eds), The Idea of Creativity (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2009), p. 86. 29
Ibid. Similarly, Dustin Stokes argues for the following as a minimal condition for the creative process: ‘[features of a process] is creative only if [those features]
could not, relative to the cognitive profile of the agent in question, have been done or performed before the time it actually was’. Stokes, ‘The Metaphysics of
Creativity’, in Kathleen Stock and Katherine Thomson-Jones (eds), New Waves in Aesthetics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 120. 30 Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas,
p. 100. See Calvin, Insitutes, II.iv.2.
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attribute intrinsic powers to the various levels of agency’,31 and to preserve therelativeindependenceofGod’screatures.Thediversityofpurposewithin God’s providential
action comes to the fore in Calvin’s theology when he deals with the question of evil. When pressed on the issue of evil, Calvin softens his meticulous providence
position and suggests that God does not command,butpermitsevil.Althoughhedoesnotseemwhollysatisfiedwith the language of permission, it allows him to speak of evil as
something that God discovers in creation and then redeems by directing it towards his own ends.32 This might be a starting point for attributing creativity to
meticulous providence but,ultimately,it is unsatisfying because it only allowsone to say that God exercises creativity in relation to evil but not good. Furthermore,
even if Calvin could speak of God discovering something new in creation, he would not suggest that this discovery leads to a change in God. Is it possible to speak of
divine creativity in a meaningful way if the God–world relationship is not understood in terms of co-creativity? Is it possible to hold a meticulous model of divine
providence, and affirm that God exercises creativity? We suggest that the argument ‘God can exercise creativity if and only if the world is co-creative’ relies upon the
assumption that divine passibility and creativity are located within the first order divine attributes. If passibility and creativity are located elsewhere, such as in
the incarnation, it is still possible to hold meticulous providence. We will now discusshowonemightspeakofGod’screativityinrelationtotheincarnation.
The incarnation and creativity We now arrive at the fourth and final point in defending our thesis: God’s activity in relation to the world exhibits creativity because
God discovers something new in creation.33 The problems associated with meticulous providence may be ameliorated by considering the incarnation to be a focus for God’s
providential activities. It is notable that Calvin does not articulate providence in trinitarian terms, and so the divine may appear impersonal and overbearing. As
numerous New Testament writers suggest, Christ is not only sovereign over all creation, but he also has a role in its creation and providence. Christ is described as
the beginning, sustainer and goal of all
31 Ibid., p. 125. 32 Helm uses ‘finding’ language when he interprets Calvin’s position on evil. He writes, ‘Calvin’s emphasis is not on God causing evil, nor on
planting evil, but on him “finding” it, and on using what he finds for his own holy ends.’ John Calvin’s Ideas, p. 125. 33
Useoftheword‘discovery’ismetaphorical:Godinthedivinenaturedoesnotchange, but discovers new things about creation as a human rather than discovering new things directly
as God.
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things.34 Eduard Lohse draws attention to the way in which New Testament language regarding Christ’s relationship to creation draws upon and subverts a Stoic
philosophy of nature.35 He writes that in contrast to
Stoicpraiseofnaturetheself-containedharmonyofallthingsisdescribed with the words ‘All things … go back to you’, the phrase eis auton (toward/to him) [in Colossians
1:16] which refers to Christ receives a different meaning; all things are created ‘toward’ him. In this way not only the statements about the origin of creation are
summarised, but also the goal of creation is indicated: creation finds its goal in no one save Christ alone.36
Furthermore, as Colin Gunton pointed out, ‘If Jesus Christ is a model of God’s determination of the creature, then clearly it is a determination that realises rather
than stunts freedom.’37 God mediates himself in relation to creation,arguedGunton,butnotinsuchawaythatGodmustholdbacksome
ofhisactivityorleaveopenanautonomoussphereofactivityforthecreature. The incarnation establishes the possibility of a free creaturely response to the Creator that is,
at the same time, perfected by the Son. Locating divine creativity within the incarnation, rather than the divine attributes, preserves the idea that divine providence
cannot be frustrated. In the incarnation, God takes on the actuality of creaturely existence and discovers, in a way he could not have otherwise, what it means to be a
creature. According to this view, God’s capacity to be affected by creation, to receive a creaturely response, is mediated through the person of Jesus Christ. Such a
christological formulation is strongly Chalcedonian as it affirms that the two natures do not mix. The Council of Chalcedon (451) stated: ‘one and the same Christ, Son,
Lord, Only-begotten, recognised in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way
annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to
formonepersonandsubsistence,notaspartedorseparatedintotwopersons …’ But the two natures do come together to form the one person of Jesus, in whom the divine and
human attributes are communicated.
34 See e.g. 1:1–3; 1 Cor 8:6; Eph 1:3–14; Col 1:15–16; Heb 1:2–3. 35 Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, tr. William R. Poehlmann and Robert J. Karris, in
HelmutKoester(ed.),Hermeneia:ACriticalandHistoricalCommentaryontheBible(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), pp. 49–52. 36 Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, p. 52. 37
Colin Gunton, The Triune Creator (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 183.
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In a very qualified sense, one could hold a Chalcedonian christology and argue that God is passible in regards to his creation. Thomas Weinandy, for example, is a
contemporary theologian who argues that all language of divine suffering should be restricted to the person of Jesus Christ. He criticises contemporary theologians who
champion a God who suffers in himself and so diminish Christ’s sufferings to ‘a mythological expression or
symbolofwhatishappeningtranscendentallyandahistoricallytoandwithin GodasGod’.38 Instead,WeinandyarguesforachristologywhichallowsGod to suffer as a human being. He
writes:
Godfromalleternitymayhaveknown,withinhisdivineknowledge,what it is like for human beings to suffer and die, and he may have known this perfectly and comprehensively.
But until the Son of God actually became man and existed as a man, God, who is impassible in himself, never experienced and knew suffering and death as man in a human
manner.39
Thus, the suffering that God experiences in Christ is genuinely new, and one could say that the actuality of creaturely existence affects him. To place Weinandy’s
statement in terms of possible world talk, the knowledge of suffering in possibility is not enough for God, and so he enters creation to know suffering in its
actuality. Although it seems common sense that a God who responds in his essence tothesufferingofhumanityismorecompassionate,restrictingthesuffering of God to the
person of Jesus may establish a much deeper response. Weinandy points out that the God who suffers in the person of Jesus is the more appropriate answer to a modern
world that wants to know if God is compassionate and understands human suffering.40 He argues, quite logically, that a God who suffers in a human manner knows what
human suffering is like to a greater extent than a God who suffers in a divine manner. Similarly, human creativity demands that the artist understand and know his
material on a deep level. This could be most profoundly achieved if the human artist could somehow incarnate herself in the material so as to understand it from the
inside. We may understand God’s creativity as discovering something new in creation because, through the person of Jesus Christ, God comes to a full knowledge and
understanding of creaturely existence. Just as we may locate divine creativity in the incarnation, we may also locate other language associated with human creativity,
such as ‘process’,
38 Thomas Weinandy, Does God Suffer? (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), p. 173. 39 Ibid., p. 206. 40 Ibid.
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‘risk’ and ‘discovery’, there as well. ‘Process’ is a difficult term to articulate because divine creativity, according to our possible worlds model, remains
atemporal.Insteadofexpressingtheprocessintermsoftime,itmaybemore fruitful to understand the divine creative process in terms of the structure of
callandresponse.Accordingtothechristologicalunderstandingthatwehave been developing, God is both the call and the response, but the response, in the person of Jesus,
incorporates the experience of his creatures. ‘Risk’ and ‘discovery’ suggest that God somehow encounters the unknown. Weinandy puts it well when he writes, ‘In an
unqualified manner one can say that, as man, the Son of God had experiences he never had before because he never existedasmanbefore’.41
ThoughGodmayhavefullpropositionalknowledge of his creation, gaining experiential knowledge of creation (knowing what it is like to be a creature) is a matter of
existing within that creation. The Son of God in the person of Jesus is exposed to new experiences, and so we may legitimately speak of God risking and discovering. We
must point out that within the view we are defending, however, there is one aspect in which God’s experience of risk, discovery etc. is disanalogous from human
experience of the same. Jesus’ experience in the world was subjectively risky, involved subjective vulnerability, was an experience of subjective human creativity etc.
Yet, in strict terms, as the incarnate God of classic theism, operating under meticulous providence, there is not a sense in which Christ experienced objective risk in
his interaction with the cosmos, even in the incarnation. Of course, in his human nature Christ only had epistemic access to this truth byhumanfaith, which ensures the
genuineness of his subjective experience. For example, in our view, when Christ is betrayed by Judas, and brought before the High Priest and Pilate, it is not that God
is out of control, but that he experiences the risk of being handed over to the power and control of another is incorporated into Christ’s redemption of creation.42
God chose to actualise a world in which Jesus would risk his life and ultimately die. This, however, does nothing to diminish the subjective experience of risk of
Christ as real, genuine and just like ours, even if, objectively speaking, there are points of disanalogy between the objective aspects of his experience of risk and
the objective aspects of ours. We locate divine creativity in the person of Jesus Christ because it is there that the Creator discovers what it is to be a creature. It
might be questioned
41 Ibid. 42 Mark 14, Matt 26, Luke 22, John 18. Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, John sheds doubt upon the extent to which Jesus subjectively experienced risk in his
arrest and subsequent passion. John writes that, before Jesus was arrested, he knew ‘all that was going to happen to him’ (18:4).
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whether the particularity of the incarnation is sufficient in view of our thesis that God’s activity in relation to creation exercises creativity. In response, one
could say that this mystery is at the very heart of the Gospel: that through one human being God redeems the entirety of the cosmos. Gunton’s view of Christ’s role in
creation is helpful. He writes ‘the teleology of the whole creation, past, present and to come is shaped through Christ: begun through him, reordered to its end
through his self-emptying, and directed to him as its end’.43 The incarnation, as God’s discovery of what it is to be a creature in the fullest sense possible, carries
universal consequences for the whole of creation. Furthermore, the new humanity of Christ is an anticipation of the new creation, and so it might be argued that this
act of discovery could have eschatological consequences for the new heavens and new earth.
Conclusion Wehaveendeavouredtoshowthatitis,infact,possibletospeakmeaningfully aboutGodwiththelanguageofhumancreativityfromwithinacommitment to meticulous providence
and to classical divine attributes. Possible world talk provides a description of the divine act of creation which preserves its transcendence and shows how it is
self-limiting. Within a possible world understandingofthedivinedecree,acompatibilistmodelofhumanfreedom is enough to safeguard the genuine creativity of creation.
Unlike those who locate divine creativity among God’s attributes, we chose to locate it in the person of Jesus where the Creator experiences and performs the response
of his creatures by becoming one of those creatures. The result of the view defended in this article is that creativity is a second order attribute for God. Under
classic theism at least, one criterion (among others) for an attribute of God to be of the first order is that God has it in all possible worlds. In the possible world
in which God does not create anything, it is difficult to see how he could have wrath, for example, or, more pertinently, how he could have creativity. Since creativity
is a second order attribute, it must be derived from some combination of first order attributesasviewedinaparticularway,inregardtoaparticularsituation.We suggest that
divine creativity should be seen as a cross-section of God’s love, his goodness, his glory and his freedom (and probably others) in regard to a complex creation. Much
as in painting, where secondary colours are derived fromprimaryones(yellowandbluemakegreen),anattributelikecreativityis unique and distinct from other divine
attributes but is ultimately dependent on others.
43 Colin Gunton, Christ and Creation (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1992), p. 98.
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The important question that Vanstone and Fiddes raise is: ‘What is at stake when we attribute creativity to God?’ We have argued that the Creator’s personal
relationship to creation, exemplified in metaphors such as God as artist, includes the notion that God is free to discover something new in creation. Although we have
suggested that God discovers something new in the person of Jesus Christ, it is not at all clear that our christological solution succeeds. It could be argued, for
example, that more needs to be said about the role of the Holy Spirit mediating creation to God, and in the perfecting of the created order. It could also be argued
that the particular Chalcedonian christology we have employed separates the person of Christ from the two natures of Christ to such an extent that the person may seem
too capable of functioning, at times, without the divine nature. Such a stark differentiation between the human and divine natures, and between nature and person,
could render the notion of Christ as a single subject difficult to uphold. Furthermore, it may also be necessary to speak of God’s creative activities in time for
providence to be ‘creative’, but our emphasis upon God’s choice to actualise this particular world as encompassing both creation ex nihilo and providence may seem to
undermine the reality of created time. Or it may be thatagreateremphasisupondivineaction,asopposedtotheforeknowledge
suggestedbypossibleworldtalk,isrequiredtomakeananalogywithhuman creative activity. There is certainly much more that needs to, and can, be said about how and why God
exercises creativity in his providential action. But, against criticisms to the contrary, we suggest that such a meticulous providence view, as well as classical
theism, is compatible with an analogy between divine and human creativity. By locating creativity in the incarnation, it may
bepossibletospeakofGodwhoexercisescreativityandwhobringscreation to its good end without frustration or risk.
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