I do like that he is thinking outside of the box.  That's cool.  Don't know if I totally agree with what he says with regard to creation ex nihilo being coercive and not loving.  In the second link he develops somewhat his thesis that God has always created something from something.  But this seems a little strange to me.  It seems as if matter in some form or fashion would have to always have existed.

 

According to Jürgen Moltmann, God "withdraws himself from himself to himself."  This negation then forms a void or space in which creation can take place--"The space which comes into being and is set free by God's self-limitation is literally--God forsaken space."  Of course the most profound "God forsaken space" is on the Cross.  This negation, according to Moltmann is partial in as much as God is not yet Creator.

 

So we have two fundamentally different views going on here.  How does this jive with God's essence and energies idea as well as omnipresence?

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So besides ex nihilo not threatening the freedom of world's purposed for loving relations, his suggested solution doesn't really avoid the problems Tom says it does...that I can see.

T

 

 

 

 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

If God didn't "conceal" the boundless uncreated light of Divine Presence in some way, the universe as we know it--complete with its Big Bang origin--would never be possible. It's not like Divine Presence actually VACATED anything; it was CONCEALED.  It's the formation and ground of EPISTEMIC DISTANCE of the created from the Uncreated. To me, the "Eighth Day" is when the concealed immanence of Divine Presence in the universe is REVEALED.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

Essentially, God the Son never ceased from being omnipresent in Creation as it's Logos...though his omnipresence AS Logos was CONCEALED during the Incarnation (ie Immaculate Conception)...and REVEALED following his Resurrection! (ie the Risen Jesus vanishing from human sight on the Road to Emmaus)

 

The Incarnation as the "contraction" of the Uncreated Son/Logos into human particularity...such that the Son/Logos' omni-ness is "concealed" from Creation, not ontologically or volitionally given up in any way.

THAT...JUST...MIGHT...WORK!!

Whatcha think, yo??

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

"I previously identified some problems inherent in creatio ex nihilo. I believe a new doctrine of creation, God’s creating out of creation with a nature of love (creatio ex creation a natura amoris), is more adequate for Christians.

The alternative doctrine I propose says that God’s eternal nature includes love for creatures. Love for creation is God’s motive and motion when creating. And God has always been creating in love.

The revelation of God in Jesus Christ grounds the doctrine that God’s loving nature is the ground of both initial and ongoing creation. John’s gospel says of Jesus “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (1:3). The love of Jesus is the clearest lens through which we see God’s nature as creative love.

The revelation of God in Jesus Christ suggests that God’s love is noncoercive—even at the initial creation of our universe. Admittedly, if there were nothing that existed prior to God’s acting, nothing would exist for God to control totally.  But part of what it means to coerce – in the metaphysical sense – is to be the sufficient cause of something else. Creatio ex nihilo suggests that God acted as a sufficient cause at the initial moment of creation.  And this is coercion."

So it seems like what I'm reading here is that creation ex nihilo would be coercive control of whatever non-preexistent material into existent matter.  By virtue of creation being created ex nihilo (being coercive) this is unloving.  But if what Moltmann is saying is correct, even creation ex nihilo can be loving.  Moltmann says: 

"God's creative activity outward is preceded by his humble divine self-restriction.  In this sense, God's self-humiliation does not begin merely with creation, in as much as God commits himself to this world:  it begins before hand, and is the presupposition that makes creation possible.  God's creative love is grounded in his humble, self-humiliating love.  This self restricting love is the beginning of that self-emptying of God which Philippians 2 sees as the divine mystery of the Messiah.  Even in order to create heaven and earth God emptied himself of all his all-plenishing omnipotence and as Creator took upon himself the form of a servant.

This points to a necessary correction in the interpretation of creation:  God does not create by merely calling something into existence, or by setting something afoot.  In a more profound sense he creates by letting it be, by making room and by with drawing himself.  The creative making is expressed in masculine metaphors.  But the creative letting-be is better brought out through motherly categories."

Dude, PAGE 87! 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.