{"id":4260,"date":"2017-07-16T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-07-16T00:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=4260"},"modified":"2021-10-20T10:53:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T02:53:13","slug":"180-creation-in-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=4260","title":{"rendered":"180. Creation: In the Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><sup>1<\/sup> In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,\u00a0<sup>2 <\/sup>the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters.<\/span><\/strong> <strong>[<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Genesis 1:1-2<\/span>, <em>NRSV<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008080;\"> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Kuilin-Lijiang.1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4262\" title=\"Kuilin Lijiang.1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Kuilin-Lijiang.1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"877\" height=\"526\" \/><\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">Guilin-Lijiang River National Park\u00a0\u6842\u6797\u6f13\u6c5f<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In a small volume titled <em>In the Beginning<\/em>: <em>A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall<\/em>, Pope Benedict XVI packs some very interesting insights for reflection and dissemination.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The <em>human<\/em> threat to all living things, Pope Benedict says, has generated a new urgency to the theme of creation. This finds a strong resonance in Pope Francis\u2019 encyclical on ecology \u2013 <em>Laudato Si\u2019.<\/em> And yet, Pope Benedict notes, creation account was noticeably lacking as late as the 1970s and 1980s in catechesis, preaching, and even theology. Worse yet, compounding the problem has been a practical abandonment of the doctrine of creation in influential modern books on theology. To make his point, he specifically names as significant examples a \u201cnew\u201d German book on the Christian faith, and a French book on fundamental catechesis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">What in these books have prompted Pope Benedict XVI to take up this project of speaking and writing on creation?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He harshly criticizes what he considers to be a <strong><em>semantic betrayal<\/em><\/strong> in the occasional use of the term \u201ccreation\u201d. For example, the authors of the German faith-book claim that:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cconcepts like selection and mutation are intellectually much more honest than that of creation\u201d;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201c\u2018Creation\u2019 as a cosmic plan is an idea that has seen its day\u201d;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe concept of creation is withal an unreal concept\u201d;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Creation means a call addressed to the human being. Whatever else may be said about it, even in the Bible, is not the message of creation itself but rather its partly mythological and apocalyptic formulation\u201d.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He takes to task a <strong><em>reductionist approach<\/em><\/strong> that causes the term \u201ccreation\u201d to completely lose its original meaning. For example, in the 736-page French book on catechesis, creation is defined in these terms, completely emptying \u201ccreation\u201d of its original meaning:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThus, in speaking of God as Creator, it is affirmed that the first and final meaning of life is to be found in God himself, most intimately present to our being.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In a way which is really disappointing in a major catechetical textbook, the French author listed four points of \u201ccurrent objections to creation\u201d, without offering his average readers any point of Christian response.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">So there is an <strong><em>existential reduction<\/em> <\/strong>where creation gets interpreted only in an existential sense. Pope Benedict judges that such a poor use of the creation theme causes a calamitous loss of the reality of faith. Thus diminished, the God of such a poor version of faith \u201cno longer has anything to do with matter\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Against this background, Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) in 1981 set himself the task of giving catechesis to Catholic adults. He gave four Lenten homilies in the cathedral of Munich, which later formed the main body of the text in the book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In it, the Pope points out a task to be accomplished: <strong><em>to reclaim our faith in creation, we must first bring it out of obscurity on account of its suppression in various quarters<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He exposes \u201cthe spirit of modernity\u201d. The 15th and 16th centuries saw the transition from <em>medieval<\/em> to <em>new<\/em> thinking, in which three ways deviated from creation faith. First, the earth\u2019s dependence on God became unacceptable; second, the \u201cexact\u201d sciences considered everything else as arbitrary, so that the <em>humanum <\/em>was no longer seen as comprising an\u00a0<em>essence<\/em> (a given identity) and a <em>task<\/em> (what is given to do); third, the dichotomy of grace and nature started by Martin Luther set grace up to be in radical opposition to creation.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He refers to the <em>theological concealment of \u00a0the concept of creation<\/em> as a deviation in the idea of Martin Luther, who sought to establish a pure Christianity free from Greek influence. Luther saw creation as having been stained through and through by sin. To be saved, we must be liberated from the chains of the past, from the curse of the existing creation. Luther insisted on <em>either<\/em> grace <em>or <\/em>nature and ended in the slogan \u201csola gratia\u201d. Benedict calls it an attempt <em>to get behind<\/em> creation which ultimately ended up in radical opposition to creation. To break the dualistic dichotomy, we insist on grace-and-nature. So Benedict calls for a good effort to develop a Christian pedagogy that accepts creation, and gives concrete expression to the two poles, but in the right order &#8211; <em>first<\/em> the physical, <em>then<\/em> the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Of the forms of concealment of the concept of creation today, Benedict shows\u00a0 keen interests in unearthing the inadequacies of the scientific concept of nature when compared to the creation faith, particularly in three respects: first, physics and chemistry do not explain the \u201cnature of humans\u201d or \u201cnatural rights\u201d, and thus cannot provide foundations for moral theology or ethical propositions; second, science does not decide decision-making; and third, humans cannot be in a formless freedom.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Pope Benedict\u2019s aim and hope are that others may use the materials to pursue the message of God who is the Creator, and that the message may find appropriate place <em>again<\/em> in contemporary proclamation of the Good News. The task is urgent, for the loss of faith in creation is no less than a loss of faith in God as Creator of the universe, with dire consequences both to humanity and the environment in which they live.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This book provides a good entry point for dialogue. We shall reflect on a few selected themes relative to creation over the next few posts. In doing so, we shall join the psalmist who sang: \u201cFor it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother\u2019s womb.<strong><sup>\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well\u201d (Psalm 139:13-14).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Copyright \u00a9 Dr. Jeffrey &amp; Angie Goh, July 2017. All rights reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">You are most welcome to respond to this post. Email your comments to <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #000000; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"mailto:jeffangiegoh@gmail.com\">jeffangiegoh@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/strong> You can also be dialogue partners in this <em>Ephphatha Coffee-Corner Ministry<\/em> by sending us questions for discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,\u00a02 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters. [Genesis 1:1-2, NRSV] Guilin-Lijiang River National Park\u00a0\u6842\u6797\u6f13\u6c5f In a small volume titled In the Beginning: A Catholic <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=4260\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Dr. Jeffrey &amp; Angie Goh","author_link":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?author=1"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?cat=1\" rel=\"category\">From Our Perspective<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,\u00a02 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters. [Genesis 1:1-2, NRSV] Guilin-Lijiang River National Park\u00a0\u6842\u6797\u6f13\u6c5f In a small volume titled In the Beginning: A Catholic&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4260"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6765,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260\/revisions\/6765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}