What is Creation?

Theology is a tricky genre. Books tend to fall into three camps.

First there are the books written by and for academic theologians. Like all academic books in any discipline, most are dense, unreadable and not really worth reading. The exceptions become the Great Books. These are the books you read because you want to know what the author has argued. Think: books by people who will become the next Augustine or Aquinas or Calvin. Authors like that are worth reading. It is not a criticism that most people trying to write deep works of theology are not writing Great Books. That is the nature of the game. But, if you are outside the guild, most books in this genre are not worth reading.

The second type of books are the commentaries. The audience here is a combination of other academics and pastors. For the most part, commentaries are very tedious to read. They seem designed to allow a pastor faced with having to give a sermon on verses 10-19 of some chapter in the Bible to have a one-stop source of enough anecdotes and cross references to fill up a 30 minute sermon. There are some genuine insights in a Great Commentary, but even the best commentaries makes lousy reading on a Tuesday night.

The third type of book is aimed at a mass audience. Most of these are Theology Lite combined with some exhortation to Go Forth and Do Good. There is some genuinely good work done in this genre, and many people read and profit from these books. Finding the good books like this is like looking for gems in a desert; you know they are out there, but you really need a map to find them.

So, into which category does McDonough’s book fall? None of them. And that is the thing that makes this book stand apart.

As the subtitle notes, McDonough sets out to examine “God’s Creation Project.” Someone lent me a copy of the book, saying I would like it. I flipped through it to see what it was and instantly realized I needed to buy a copy because this was a book I was going to seriously mark up.

The book is structured around questions about the Creation Project. Chapter by chapter, McDonough raises a series of deep theological questions about Creation and then launches into an exploration of the assorted answers people have given to the questions. McDonough is a crisp writer, sketching out complicated theological puzzles with seeming ease.

But, then, McDonough does something extraordinary. He never gives into the temptation to pretend there are good answers to the difficult questions. He fairly examines the strong and weak parts of assorted answers and then if there is no obvious answer, just leaves the question on the table.

When I teach courses or give lectures on Western Civilization, I always start by noting that the History of Western Civilization is a history of questions, not a history of answers. That is what makes Western Civilization unique; it is constantly in search of answers. Theology is like that too. We still have not discovered all the depths of God or Scripture; there are always new things to learn. And the way to learn these things is to start by acknowledging we don’t have all the answers.

What makes McDonough’s book so extraordinary is that I finished reading it with more questions than I had when I started. I learned questions in his book I did not know existed. I discovered answers I had when I started evaporated under McDonough’s deft exploration of alternatives.

In other words: I know less about God’s Creation Project now than when I started this book. I am vastly more fascinated by the subject than I have ever been before. That is extremely high praise.

What does the book cover? Here are some of the questions.

Why did God create the world?

Was the purpose of Creation to enable Christ to redeem it?

Did God choose to create the world or was creating the world a necessary part of His being? In other words, is being a Creator an inherent characteristic of God or a choice God made?

Is this the best of all possible worlds?

How does an infinite, eternal God create a finite, temporal world?

When was the world created? That is not just how old is the world, but also what does it mean to discuss the time before the world was created?

Where is the world (or more properly, the Universe) located?

Is God in the Universe or outside the Universe? Or, is the Universe inside God?

Was the world created from nothing?

Was Eden inside or outside of time and space? Was the first human created inside or outside of Eden or the world?

How important is Plato in understanding Christian theology?

Would a theology without Platonic influence be a superior or inferior theology?

Is creation an event that has happened or is creation continually happening?

What exactly is beauty?

Let me be very clear. The above list of questions is not exhaustive. There are many more in this book. I have answers to some of those questions which I am reasonably confident are correct. I don’t even have a guess about how to answer others.

I am perfectly confident, however, that if you are at all interested in this topic, you read that list of questions and are intrigued by some of them. That is why you want to read this book. It may not give you an answer; it may make you even more confused and doubtful of the answers you thought you had. You may not find every question equally interesting. But, if you like thinking about Big Questions that don’t have obvious answers, then there is no way you will read this book and not be very glad you did so.

Related Posts
Benedict XVI In the Beginning… “Why Creation Matters”
Sayers, Dorothy The Mind of the Maker “You are a Creator”