A Creator of Co-Creators

1/23/2022

All Christians agree that God is the Creator. But what kind of Creator is the Christian God?

A Creator of creatures and things or a Creator of (potential and actual) co-creators?

Much depends on how one understands Creation.

Is Creation a one-time event in the distant, nebulous past over which God presides as an omnipotent judge and clocksmith?

Or is Creation an ongoing process in which all beings have the potential to freely strive to achieve and add qualities and values to Creation -- a Creation in which God is the ultimate locus of creative action and purpose?

12 Comments

bruce charlton

1/23/2022 20:50:47

"Much depends on how one understands Creation."

It does indeed. Creation in a world of pre-existent Beings (each in some way alive and conscious - which is what I believe is true) is very different from creation of everything from nothing (which is what most Christian theologians have asserted).

By my understanding, creation is something like a continual shaping and directing - when the Beings that are in the process of being shaped and directed also have some say in the matter.

Francis Berger

1/23/2022 21:39:44

@ Bruce - "By my understanding, creation is something like a continual shaping and directing - when the Beings that are in the process of being shaped and directed also have some say in the matter."

Yes, that is what I tried to communicate here -- it's something I grow more convinced of with each passing day.

bruce charlton

1/23/2022 23:13:50

In some ways this different view of creation is difficult to phrase and explain - but on consideration it is almost childishly simple and obvious! It somewhat resembles the way that folktales and myths talk of creation, with legendary personified Beings as the first 'gods', following their innate motivations - but places a prime creator above them.

William James Tychonievich link

1/24/2022 05:02:58

I agree that Bruce's point about "Creation in a world of pre-existent Beings" is essential. If God created everything from nothing, then there can be no true co-creation, only "sub-creation" (God creating indirectly through us).

Tom

1/26/2022 03:26:12

" If God created everything from nothing, then there can be no true co-creation, only "sub-creation" (God creating indirectly through us)."

That is fine.

In fact it is more glorious than co-creation, first it gives all glory to God (whom it is due) and second it allows me to share in thar glory. Glory is not divided, but multiplied.

Kristor link

1/29/2022 04:43:57

Tom is correct. If cocreation is not subcreation, then God is not God; for, in that case, God is not the God of any such “cocreation;” so that any such creation is not subsidiary to God, and is not then righteous and correct in his eternal omniscient lights, but rather nowise subject to him at all. Then it cannot but be wayward, chaotic, and so evil.

Any true creaturely creation – which would of course (by definition of God as omnipotent, and by definition of creatures as such) be cocreation – must then be subcreation. I don’t see the problem with that. There is a radical and categoreal difference between Creator and creature, no? And in that case, subcreation does not rule out cocreation, no? Indeed, in that case, subcreation *just is* cocreation. What’s the problem?

If cocreation is not subcreation, then why the hell worry about God in the first place? If he is just another guy like us wanting what he wants, like we do in all respects that make any difference in the end, well then, why the hell should we worry about what he wants from us? What in that case is to prevent us from the moral standard of Aleister Crowley? It is in that case just him versus us, and may the stronger eternally pre-existent spirit win. A war of all against all. Indeed, exactly what Lucifer proposed to us in Eden. Ugh.

What is more; if God be God, properly (i.e., on any credible definition of ultimacy) so called, then *any other being whatever* must be to him supervenient. He must then be the basis of all other being whatever. Otherwise, we are just not talking about God, but rather about some angel, or a mistake, or some pagan idol, or some demon. Or some little limited man who then because he was so very good at last became a god of some subdomain of a subdomain of a subdomain (and so on, ad infinitum). Take your pick. These are all equally sordid and unsatisfactory alternatives.

Commit your ultimate destiny to something like him, who is less than absolute ultimacy, if you will; and, good luck to you.

NB: to recall that cocreation is subcreation is nowise to derogate the former. Is there a way to cocreate with the eternal Lógos who creates all things that is *not* subcreation, or that is *not* cocreation? To think so is to misunderstand eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, creation, and … common sense.

Cocreation is *obviously* subcreation. What’s the problem?
After all, even the notion of intracosmic causation presupposes that each occasion of a given cosmos adheres to the general formal regularities thereof. Intracosmic events conform themselves to their cosmic milieu. Is there a problem?

After all, even the notion of intracosmic causation presupposes that each occasion of a given cosmos adheres to the general formal regularities thereof. Intracosmic events conform themselves to their cosmic milieu. Is there a problem?

Francis Berger

1/29/2022 07:45:22

@ Kristor - Judging by your use of the phrases such as "what the hell", "what's the problem", and "ugh", it is readily apparent that my post has touched a nerve with you.
In my post, I ask, "What kind of God is the Christian God?"

You believe the Christian God is omnipotent, omniscient, omni-everything, which implies that Creation is a finished product/system in which man, as a creature of God, is limited to simply re-arranging Creation via subcreation.

I don't believe the Christian God is an omni-God, and I don't believe Creation is a finished/system product, but rather that it is an ongoing process -- an ongoing process that beings can expand and add to rather than simply re-arrange via subcreation. Moreover, co-creation entails adding something to Creation that God alone could not have added.

Furthermore, I believe God formed Creation in a way that not only makes co-creation possible and desirable, but necessary.

This boils down to matter of metaphysical assumptions. The metaphysical assumptions espoused by traditional/mainstream Christian theology with its heavy dogmatic dependence on classical (pagan) philosophy provides an unsatisfactory understanding of God and Creation that reveals many problems and inconsistencies.

I do not accept these inconsistencies and problems. You do. And your ultimate solution to these inconsistencies and problems is to describe any Christian who challenges them as being on some sort of mystical, Aleister Crowley-like Luciferian quest.

Though I appreciate exchanges of ideas, I don't wish to engage in any sort of prolonged debate over metaphysical assumption, which is why I don't directly challenge your posts on omni-God over at the Orthosphere.

Instead, I read them, consider the arguments, take with me that which has value, and measure the rest against my discernment, directly-intuited understanding, and personal experience -- all without the need to resort to publicly expressed "ughs" and "what the hells."

I humbly suggest you follow a similar approach going forward.

Kristor link

1/29/2022 19:03:32

Sorry for the intemperate tone of my comment, which when I read it again this morning for the first time rather embarrassed me. The nerve that was touched was my longstanding frustration with the notion that the ultimacy of God – his supreme reign over all things whatsoever, his status as Creator and origin of all things other than himself, and so forth (the metaphysical absolutes don’t quite pertain here; we are talking about Lordship simpliciter, and thus relations of agents and persons, rather than the abstract notions of omnipotence, omniscience, etc.) somehow prevents creatures from doing anything, rather than enabling their doing.

Doing is what I mean by “creating.”

It seems to me obviously false that our subcreation is not genuine action. I can’t figure out how that notion seems credible to anyone.

To be sure, if God is superior to us, then by definition our acts are subsidiary to his. But that does not mean they are not acts at all. From the fact that there is a king it does not follow that there are no subjects who can themselves act, whether in accord or discord with his Law. Indeed, if there are no subjects, then there is no kingdom, nor then any king. The subjects are an indispensable element of the royal state.

It simply does not follow from the ultimacy of God that the created order is a finished product, or that in it nothing can truly be done by creatures. On the contrary. If creatures cannot act, then they don’t actually exist, and they are not created, but are rather no more than rearrangements of pre-existent stuff. If furthermore the created order is no more than a rearrangement of pre-existent stuff – whether of some chaos of prime unformed matter (a contradiction in terms) or of co-eternal beings, then in his creation God is himself only subcreating – is only rearranging stuff that he had nothing to do with – so that he is not supreme, and so is not God, and so is not our Lord.

If on the other hand the cosmos really is an ongoing process in which creatures can originate things – which they can expand and add to, as of course orthodox Christianity dogmatically teaches is true (sc., Colossians 1:24) – then creatures *do* act, therefore *do* actually exist, and so *are* created. And in that case, they *can* do things that God alone could not do: namely, the things that they do that are not acts of God, but their own. God can’t act as Paul or Francis or Kristor do, because *he is not Paul or Francis or Kristor.*

Nor are Paul or Francis or Kristor God, nor are they coequal with God in dignity or authority or might, or in any way whatever; if they were, then the “morality” of Aleister Crowley would indeed be accurate. And that would be a horrible state of affairs. It would be Hell; or, just chaos: nonbeing.

I'll leave it at that.

Francis Berger

1/30/2022 07:45:37

@ Kristor - As I mentioned in my reply, I would rather not to enter into any sort of long debate over this, but I will briefly address some of your points in an effort to clarify my views .

If God is the originator of all things, then He is also the originator of freedom. If God is the originator of freedom, then the freedom we as creatures enjoy in subcreation essentially reflects a mere play of God with himself, which is the basis found within the prevailing systems of rational theology based upon Greek rationalism and Medieval scholasticism. Beings can certainly act within such a conceptualization of God and Cosmos, but the quality of action is limited to subcreation, which is a very different thing from co-creation.

My current understanding of co-creation leads me to believe that that God cannot be the originator of freedom. Instead, freedom is the primal foundation of being. That is, it is from freedom that God creates, which entails that everything that God creates is imbued with this freedom, over which God has limited control/power. As far as I am able to determine, this applies regardless of whether we view Creation as consisting of primordial beings or creatures.

This does not imply that creatures and beings are on equal footing with God in status or power, but it does allow for potentiality and dynamism within Creation that goes beyond subcreation.

We are not coequal with God in dignity or might or authority. At the same time, we are coequal with God in freedom to a certain extent -- meaning that God cannot predict or predetermine many of the choices we will make in freedom. These free choices not only add depth and meaning to subcreation but also make co-creation possible. I posit that God -- as a being who must also continually make choices in freedom -- yearns for co-creation.

The question of subcreation/co-creation extends beyond establishing God's lordship and touches upon what God is using this lordship for.

Francis Berger

1/30/2022 07:53:44

@ Kristor - Of course, I can see how Bruce and Wm's view that "Creation in a world of pre-existent Beings" is essential for true co-creation, so perhaps creatures are confined to subcreation rather than co-creation.

Kristor link

1/30/2022 20:28:44

Thanks, Francis, for this reply, and for your engagement with the topic. We agree more closely than perhaps you think. What is more, you are much closer to the Apostles, to the Fathers, to the Councils, and to the Scholastics than perhaps you think.

First, God is not the originator of freedom, but is rather the primordial first being – first not in the order of time but in the order of logic and of ontologic – who as ultimate and thus prior to all other things is not conditioned by any prior whatsoever (unlike all other beings, each of whom is at least conditioned by God), and so is radically, totally and completely free. Freedom then is not something other than God, which he created. God is himself aboriginally and essentially and perfectly free.

There is no other way to be. I.e., it is not possible to be except as free, just as it is not possible to be a triangle except as trigonal.

To act, an entity must be free to act. So yes, freedom is basic and essential to being as such. Thus it is logically impossible for God to create a being that is not free. So, creatures too are free, albeit that as not being themselves ultimate and prior to all other things, their freedom is conditioned by prior things.

Creatures are conditioned by God, but not controlled by him. Indeed, while he can of course strongly influence them and inform them, he *cannot* control them. If he could control them, so that they had no power in and of themselves, then they would not actually exist; for, what is controlled by God is not itself active, and so is not actual.

My spiritual director strongly emphasizes that there is a crucial difference between command and control, and urges me to abjure the latter in favor of the former. Actual beings, who are free, cannot be controlled. Only inanimate things, that have no being in themselves, nor therefore any power to act, can be controlled. E.g., tools, stones, and the like. The cosmos being constituted of uncountable actual, free beings, the scope of our control is in practice almost nil – as anyone who has worked with tools will agree!

Actual beings can however be commanded. So we see in Scripture that God is likened, not to a puppeteer, but to a king. His creatures are not robots, but free beings. In no other way might the angels and men ever rebelled.

On orthodox Christian metaphysics, it is true that God cannot predict or predetermine what free creatures do, for if he could, they would not be free, and so would not actually exist. This, even though orthodoxy insists also that God knows everything that creatures do from before all worlds. The apparent contradiction is resolved by the recollection that as the creator of a world, God is the creator of its entire temporal extent, which by his creative act he maintains all at once in each of its moments, so that it is for its inhabitants a continuum: like spatial extent, temporal extent is a feature internal to worlds. So God does not predetermine what the creatures of our cosmos do, because he is not before them in the order of their temporal relations. He is rather simultaneous with all creaturely events; or rather, vice versa.

Thus when Christians say that God predicts creaturely events from before all worlds, we mean, not that his knowledge of them is earlier than they in time, but rather that it is prior to time as such and in toto. And this is so of the time, not only of our world, but of all worlds – including the heavens that are supersidiary to our own, that encompass and environ it.

I posit that God … yearns for co-creation.

Sure; albeit that the divine yearn for good and beautiful acts of free creatures is due, not to any aboriginal deficit in God, but rather to the infinite surfeit of his beauty, joy, and love.

Having said all that, my basic point, which in my first comment I expressed so intemperately, is just that there is no contradiction between cocreation and subcreation: if God is our supreme Lord, then by definition everything we do is subject to – is conditioned by – and subsidiary to him; so that our free cocreative acts are subcreative, in rather the way that the free acts of a soldier in battle are subsidiary to the free acts of his superior officers. That subsidiation is essential to the hierarchy of agents that Bruce noticed the other day, in virtue of which the worlds are governed and indeed constituted as such; for superiority and inferiority are implicit in hierarchy. But note also that if the angels and other creatures were not free to act – to cocreate – they could not be agents in the first place, and there could then be no hierarchy of agents. No subcreation → no hierarchy; no cocreation → no hierarchy.

No free soldiers → no host in array of battle → no captain.

Thus the concern that God’s ultimacy somehow vitiates our creative dignity, freedom or power is unfounded. We don’t need to worry about it.

Francis Berger

1/30/2022 21:28:01

@ Kristor - Thanks for the extended reply, but I think we should wind up the discussion after this. I really would prefer not to wade any further into this kind of prolonged theological debate. I much prefer we invest the energy in blog posts we could then read and ruminate over.

"Thus the concern that God’s ultimacy somehow vitiates our creative dignity, freedom or power is unfounded. We don’t need to worry about it."

Yes, but your original objection focused more on how our creative -- more specifically -- co-creative dignity, freedom, or power vitiates the ultimacy of God, not the other way around.

You seem to feel that co-creation diminishes God in some way. I think the opposite is true. Rather than diminish God, co-creation ennobles Him. I just finished a brief post about that today.

Your solution to co-creation is to categorize it under the umbrella of subcreation, as if these forms of creativity were of the same quality. But they're not. Both are spiritual actions, but co-creation is a higher spiritual action.

If co-creation is just subcreation, then God has no innate desire to expand Creation or divinity -- and I don't believe that to be true.

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A Creator of Co-Creators

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