A Critical Assessment
Metaphors
One of the dangers of asserting kenosis as a way to understand creation is that the fact of God's self-limitation can be overemphasized, and God can be misunderstood as being practically impotent in relation to the world. Self-limitation means that God has truly taken on a relationship with the world in which God has chosen to limit Himself, allowing creation to exist apart from God, with freedom over against God. Yet, in allowing the other freedom, God's power and freedom, while truly limited, are not eliminated. Yes, God is always faithful to His promises, and true to His commitments, and as such, God will not choose to eliminate the otherness of that which He has created, for that would be to go back on God's limitation. But God has not made Himself powerless. In creating, God chose to create creatures to have freedom, and to participate with Him in that creation. God created "co-creators" with him. But, it is important that Genesis 1:1 always remains in view, that in the beginning, it is God who created. Even as God chooses to limit Himself, God remains God, free and powerful, and able to work in and with creation. Kenosis in creation, just as kenosis in Christ, is a paradox of divinity and its limitation. With regard to Genesis 1-2, this means that it is essential to follow Welker in tearing down false abstractions of the text's meaning, and with Fretheim, we must uplift the role of the creature in creation. But, we must also acknowledge that the earlier, false abstractions of causation and production are based on the text, even as they overextend and distort it. God must be understood as causer and producer, for that is present within the text, just as creature as co-causer and co-producer is in the text.
The previous paragraph gives insight into the tension that is present within the text of Genesis 1-2, and this is precisely the tension that we seek to retain in a kenotic understanding of creation, and of God's relationship to the world. This means that there is a level of indeterminacy with which our theological formations will take shape, in seeking to preserve the elements of tension that should be present in our theology based on the Bible. This does not give license to lazy theological formulations, but instead it means we acknowledge that in attempting to formulate a coherent doctrine of kenosis, we are seeking to do the impossible. Thus, we are not trying to get it right in any absolute sense, but instead the goal is accuracy and adequacy to the highest possible degree.
There is room, beyond the work done in this paper, to investigate further the relationship between God's divinity and its self-limitation in the creation narratives of Genesis 1-2. Although this paper has sought to uplift important elements in the text, there are a number of areas where deeper inquiry promises to bear fruit. One specific example of this is the mandate of dominion given to Adam and Eve. This episode at the end of Genesis 1 has strong implications for how humanity's role in creation is understood, and how this role relates to God's creative activity. A related element of the text that certainly warrants mentioning as well is the creation of humans in the imago dei. This concept makes clear the special role that humans play in creation, and also makes a connection between the humans and God. Understanding humans as being in God's image promises to contribute to an even more complete understanding of God's creative and self-limiting activity. I believe the concept of imago dei is especially important for further investigation of kenosis, due to the way kenosis is understood in Philippians 2, where kenosis is placed in the context of instruction to believers on how to live, in essence in the imago Christi. The creation of a "helper" for Adam and the institution of marriage in Genesis 2, (along with the creation of man and woman in God's image in Genesis 1), may also provide fertile ground for further inquiry into the nature of kenosis, as it informs the understanding of humanity. This inquiry may also bear fruit in a fuller comprehension of what marriage is in the Bible. Understanding God to be in a kenotic relationship with the world may be an avenue for reformulating a Biblical understanding of what it means for the relationship of husband and wife to mirror the relationship of Christ and the Church, and may call for a radical re-understanding of the power structure of this relationship.
Further theological development is also called for, as the kenotic paradigm for understanding God's relationship to the world, and specifically in creation, could be expanded to better encompass the varying traditions within the Bible. In this paper, I have sought to focus on the concept of kenosis as it relates to creation in Genesis 1-2. Other texts which deal with creation would broaden the understanding of creation, and thus would be a fruitful area for further study in this aspect of kenosis. I have also sought to place this kenosis in creation in a broader context of kenosis in Christ, and in the context of an overarching scheme of kenosis as limitation in creation and consummation in the eschaton. Detailed study into each of these areas, as well as studies in broader fields such as pneumatology, anthropology and soteriology, promise to deepen understandings of what kenosis means and how it fits into God's relationship to the world.
Themes
Assessment
