It is a doctrine about the nature of created existence as such. We are from him and for him he and he alone is our source and end.Ĭreation ex nihilo is not, however, a doctrine about origins. “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36), including ourselves. This means, first, that God did not fashion the world out of preexisting materials second, that matter is not itself eternal or coeval with God third, that no other agent or principle served alongside God in the creative act fourth, that God alone is sovereign over the created order and fifth, that God is that to which all created being is ordered. Thomas Aquinas puts it, “To create can be the action of God alone.” God is, in Aristotelian terms, the single efficient, exemplary, and final cause of creation. God and only God, in Ian McFarland’s formulation, is “the sole antecedent condition” of the existence of anything that is not God: angels, humans, bacteria, dark matter, other universes (if they exist), this universe in its totality. God does not, that is, create from anything at all. In simple form, it teaches that God creates all that is-all there ever was or will be-from nothing. What then specifically does it teach, and why is it so important? But the doctrine itself is often misunderstood, and has come under fire in the last century. Its meaning might therefore be assumed to be self-evident or common knowledge, at least for believers today. The doctrine of creation from nothing ( ex nihilo) is, in the words of John Webster, “a cardinal doctrine.” It has long served as a point of unanimous agreement among Christian theologians of every stripe. Each of these works sheds light on what it means for Christians to speak of gratitude to God, and in turn opens out onto new angles from which to see the same reality afresh. We see its heart in Christian teaching about the Triune God’s works of creation and redemption, culminating in the Lord’s incarnation, terminating in his death, and sustaining us in and through the sacraments of his life. Family fights are rarely trivial, after all. To affirm this is not to deny that it is also contested, for the church’s history is rife with division and disputation over the meaning of grace, the question of merit, the significance of Eucharist. Such a grammar is catholic, in the sense that its content is rooted in a tradition common to the one church stretching from the apostles to the present. Each in the series of topics-or perhaps concentric circles-highlights interrelated, ever-expanding insights that cumulatively amount to a Christian grammar of gratitude. ![]() But, to switch metaphors, the theological sequence unfolds less as a linear movement and more as a kind of nesting doll. Tracing this thread, one sees the ways in which the fabric of Christian confession is interwoven with thanksgiving. ![]() Gratitude becomes a sort of red thread common to these topics, descending from the heights into the nooks and crannies of our daily lives. What it means to speak of God truthfully thus bears directly on our understanding of creation, redemption, humanity, virtue, and the church. For the doctrine of God is not only of God but extends to all things in relation to God. One comes to see the specific character of Christian gratitude-or rather, of Christian talk about gratitude-through an examination of the role it plays within, and the shape it receives from, the doctrine of God. ![]() By discoverable I mean a patron can utilize our online catalog (such as by searching by author, or title, or subject) to find these materials.Gratitude to God is at the heart of Christian faith and theology. Thanks to the close and careful work of our colleagues upstairs, who describe our holdings, these materials are now discoverable. Collecting and preserving is only part of our task those objects must be described and made available. But beyond assembly and preservation, a collection should be discoverable by those who need the information. Our goal is to build a comprehensive research-level collection of print materials by, for, and about the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. Stevens, holding a rare copy of Biblia Sacra, led a procession of students and faculty carrying volumes into the new facility. John Stevens (President) at the beginning of the transfer of books from the ‘old’ library in Chambers Hall to the ‘new’ Brown Library. Callie Faye Milliken (Special Collections Librarian) and Dr.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |