I’ve just finished reading Colin E. Gunton’s ‘The Triune Creator‘. His main argument seems to be that Creation is a Project which the Father works through His two hands: the Son and the Spirit. Basically, it’s a Trinitarian rooting to the doctrine of creation. He does a historical survey of the theology and philosophy which has led to the Platonising of the doctrine of creation, and this seems to be due to a non-Trinitarian basis within those particular doctrines of creation. It’s an interesting read, from a thoughtful scholar.
His main bad-guys are Origen and Augustine, who have smuggled in the arch-bad-guy Plato to their thinking. The main good-guys that Gunton holds up are Irenaeus and Basil who he posits are more Trinitarian, and less Platonic. For instance:
“Augstine’s treatment of creation out of nothing is therefore ambivalent. Where Irenaeus and Basil had employed it to defend the goodness of the material world, albeit a goodness sometimes qualified by remnants of platonism, Augustine has taken a step back.” p79.
Of all the chapters, I particularly found the final chapter really helpful. It’s on Eschatology and Ethics and tries to navigate throught the ‘Futurist’ and ‘Eschatological’ theologies of Moltmann and Pannenberg so that the whole project of creation impacts the present. He goes more with Pannenberg, than Moltmann:
“What has been attempted is a theological basis for a right use of the inescapable human dominion, one implying a measure of human responsibility for the way things are, but also falling far short of the ecologically oriented theology of creation of Moltmann” p228.
My only criticisms were a) that the first half of the book was just painful to get through. It wasn’t a very tightly wound argument and felt like he was just rambling – which I suspect he was, b) that I felt that Gunton treated Augustine very unfairly – something like Gunton’s own punching-bag.* But, c) my main area of disagreement with Gunton was in his Christcentric interpretation of the imago dei on pages 198-200: that the image of God in mankind ought to be seen primarily in light of the incarnate Christ as per the Colossian hymn.
Firstly, this doesn’t seem biblical to me. It doesn’t account for the abundance of texts which refers to Christ being made in human likeness. Eg, Rom. 8:3, Phil 2:7-8, Heb 2:14. No matter how Christocentrically you want to twist the texts, I think these texts of Scripture militate against that reading – Christ was made in our likeness!
Secondly, it seems nonsensical. If the Colossian hymn pushes us to see that all things were made in him (the image of the invisible God), then we are talking about the pre-incarnate Christ! After all, it makes no sense to think about an incarnate Christ prior to Eden! Surely reading the Colossian hymn with the pre-incarnate Christ in view is a more sensible and Christocentric way to go!
I think I’d prefer to go with the standard interpretation of the Image of God. Bavinck summarises nicely:
“Scripture repeatedly tells us that humankind was made in the image of God, not that we have been modeled on Christ, but that he was made [human] in our likeness (Rom. 8:3, Phil. 2:7-8, Heb. 2:14), and that we, having been conformed to the image of Christ, are now again becoming like God (Rom. 8:29, 1 Cor 15:49, 2 Cor. 3:18, Phil 3:21, Eph. 4:24, Col 3:10, 1 John 3:2). Reformed Dogmatics, Vol2, p554.
So, all in all, this was a stimulating book to read. Helpful, and good for sharpening. Let me finish with what I thought was a beautiful section of his book:
“Art is thus one of the human ways of participating in God’s project of creation. It is redemptive in the sense that it is an activity which enables the creation to reach towards the perfection that is its destiny. And it enables us to articulate the criterion for an ethic of creation: action for the glory of God.” p234.
* Mark Thompson is blogging on Augustine, so head over here and see how it squares up with Gunton’s punching bag! Further, Gunton has been critiqued for misreading Augustine (see, Neil Ormerod and Michel René Barnes from Seamus’ blog here)
