on Creation�
Kenotic Theology
Polkinghorne first discusses understandings of God�s creative activity, and looks at creatio ex nihilo and creatio continua. As a scientist, specifically a mathematical physicist, scientific insights play an important role in his analysis. Polkinghorne takes into account modern cosmological understandings of the development of our universe from the big bang. He points out that these understandings are far from complete, but at the same time, �there seems to me to be every reason to take seriously the broad sweep of what we are told.� With this idea in mind, Polkinghorne moves to looking at origins, and distinguishes between �ontological origin and temporal beginning.� In so doing, he points out that theological understandings of God as Creator of the world are not dependent on setting a date for the beginning of the world, either at 6,000 BC or at just after t=0 billions of years ago. Instead, theology is concerned with God who is the originator and ordainer of the world. Thus, it is the world�s contingency that points to God the creator, not its age. Those who believe modern cosmology has displaced the notion of creatio ex nihilo have �missed the point,� for no matter what is attributed to the lawful beginning of the universe, God is still ordainer of the laws. Thus, regardless of current understandings in science, God is still the Creator of the world out of nothing, and the ordainer of the laws that have made life possible.
Polkinghorne complements his discussion of creatio ex nihilo with the idea of creatio continua. This is the understanding that �affirms a continuing creative interaction of God with the world he holds in being.� God�s creative activity was not purely a once for all activity that occurred at the beginning, but creation should be understood to be ongoing. This is seen both in the work of God as sustainer, upholding the laws and the world in a relatively settled and ordered fashion, but also can be seen in specific interactions. Our understanding of God�s ongoing activity must be �tinged with deism� in recognition of the order of the universe, but at the same time, God�s activity is also seen exercised in specific ways.
An important part of Polkinghorne�s understanding of the world is that God has chosen to kenotically limit Himself in creating. The universe is genuinely �other� than God. Part of this understanding includes the idea that God has endowed creation with true freedom. �Part of a notion of creatio continua must surely be that an evolving universe is one which is theologically understood as being allowed, within divine providence, �to make itself�.� The world freely participates in this ongoing creative activity.
Polkinghorne then turns to the implications of the understandings he has put forth. One criticism he takes on is the assertion that he is positing a God of the gaps. He has asserted that science gives room for top-down organization, as opposed to simply bottom-up determinism. Simply looking at the most basic constituents of a system and how they interact will not necessarily give a conclusive idea of the resultant state of the system. Chaos theory and quantum indeterminacy point to this understanding. For Polkinghorne, this is not due to human ignorance, where God�s action is simply filling the gaps. Instead, Polkinghorne asserts that there is an �intrinsically open character� of the universe, not a gap in knowledge.
The second implication Polkinghorne investigates concerns the relationship of God to the world that he has proposed. God has truly chosen to create in a manner that can be characterized by kenosis. God�s omnipotence has been self-limited, in that God has chosen freely to give some power over to creation. This does not mean that God is not still capable of doing whatever he wills, but instead, �it is not in accordance with his will and nature to insist on total control.� God limits Himself, giving genuine freedom, and thus genuine power, to that which has been created.
With this kenotic understanding of God, Polkinghorne turns to questions of theodicy. He proposes that God�s kenotic relationship to the world points to two answers to questions of evil and suffering, and that these answers �will have to be adequate both to the fact of evil and to the fact of hope.� These answers are the �free-will defense� and the �free-process defense.� In answer to questions of moral evil, the free-will defense asserts that God has chosen to give freedom to humans that allows genuine choice, and thus genuine consequences for those choices. In answer to questions of natural evil, the free-process defense similarly asserts that God has created a world that is able to �be itself.� A fruitful world is a changing world, and the same forces that brought the continents together or that brought about mutations that result in evolving forms of life are the same forces that bring about the evils of earthquakes and cancer. For Polkinghorne, we must resist the temptation to assert that if we had been in charge, we could have created a world without these evils. Instead, Polkinghorne believes that only a world created as ours is allows the existence of freedom, and further that only in a world characterized by free-process could free-will truly be existent. Yet, it is essential to Polkinghorne to assert that it is not sufficient to assert that God has given freedom, and this justifies all evil. Hope is a reality, and thus God is still active in the world.
Polkinghorne brings out a picture of creation that is gifted with the possibility of life by a loving Creator. God is the ground of creation, and all that is exists contingent to God�s creative acts. At the same time, God continues to create, by upholding laws and by specific interactions with creation. In so doing, God has chosen to limit Himself in a kenotic manner, allowing the world to exist freely and to play a role in its own development. Out of this understanding, questions of theodicy are answered by an appeal to the free-will and free-process that God has given to the world, while at the same time clinging to God�s power in hope. Polkinghorne paints a picture of a world of �true becoming,� with God as its loving Creator from beginning to end.
