Creation and Redemption |
top page 1. Creation 2. Human Freedom 3. The Fall 4. Redemption 5. The One Story of Creation and Redemption 6. Multiplicity and Extension: Space Time Will 7. Genesis |
Multiplicity and Extension 1: SpaceWhen God created, he created a teeming multiplicity that extends through time and space, and his redemption is directed, by way of those who accept this redemption, to this creation. Any philosophy or metaphysics that rejects multiplicity or extension in favor of some sort of single absolute principle must in some way reject the creation-redemption story.There have been a number of such monisms, beginning with Gnosticism, which rejects spatial extension, that is, materiality. Dislike for materiality has not been restricted to any particular era in Christian history because its source is at least partly people not wanting to think of their imperfect and clumsy bodies as being what they really are. What exists must be either like God or wholly evil, and blame for sin is shifted from the human decision not to love God to something prior, the creation of materiality by a malevolent deity.1 | 1. Origen regarded
creation as a mistake (Gunton, Triune Creator, 59-64). |