Abstract
David Fergusson’s Creation is part of Eerdmans “Guides to Theology” series. The series focuses on major Christian theological loci and is especially designed for students. Fergusson, Professor of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh and author of an array of books and essays on the doctrine of creation, has written an excellent introduction that could easily anchor an undergraduate course or, with a knowledgeable leader, an adult education class.
Fergusson surveys mainstream modern discussion of creation with clarity, comprehensiveness, and a consistent depth of analysis. He attends carefully both to the historical development and to the contemporary context of major loci of discussion. The book is readable while remaining substantive—an essential but tough combination in an introductory text. Chapter 1, “Creation in Scripture,” surveys key biblical texts with an emphasis upon the connection of creation and grace, takes just a moment to note biblical concern for “animals,” and finishes with attention to three modern debates: creationism, the imago Dei, and the call to dominion. Chapter 2, “Creatio Ex Nihilo,” clarifies the contemporary meaningfulness of the ex nihilo by unfolding its conceptual origins and philosophical significance in its originating patristic context. Another excellent and readable survey of major patristic interpretations and their pastoral/theological significance gives depth to Fergusson’s discussion of “Creation and Fall” in chapter 3, where he gently explains how to take the doctrine of the fall seriously after abandoning a temporal/historical interpretation of the Garden narrative, and reviews recent revisionist proposals.
The next three chapters focus upon the implications of modern scientific understanding for Christian doctrine. Chapter 4, “The Providence of God,” begins by unfolding pre-Enlightenment affirmations of providence in Aquinas and Calvin and strives to explain how to retain key aspects of their affirmations after the scientific revolution. Chapter 5, “Deism and Natural Theology,” moves wholesale into the modern milieu. Fergusson perceptively notes that we may do well to distinguish “natural theology” from “a theology of nature.” Nonetheless, in accord with the parameters of mainstream modern theological reflection, Fergusson stays with the question of the natural knowledge of God and with major versions and criticisms of cosmological and design arguments. Here again Fergusson succeeds in making highly technical arguments accessible with minimal distortion. Chapter 6, “Evolution and Cosmic-Fine Tuning,” strives to unfold ways in which we may think about God and nature in the wake of Darwin. Fergusson does a great job of delineating discrete challenges evolution poses to premodern theological understanding, and sketches promising proposals for renewing theological understanding in the wake of evolutionary theory.
Modern reflection on the doctrine of creation has, unsurprisingly, been predominantly conducted within the conceptual parameters of a post-Cartesian split between mind and body, wherein nature emerges as a thing and, insofar as only humans are thought to have mind, wherein “animals” are part of nature. Thereby, a theanthropocentric framework, “God, humans, nature,” replaces the traditional Christian vision of “Creator, creatures, creation.” As a result, as Fergusson’s perspicuous volume illustrates (see his chapter titles, above), predominant modern discussions of creation deal almost exclusively with issues related to the doctrine of God, theological anthropology, and the God–human relationship.
Though constrained by fidelity to his appointed task, repeated asides (for instance, his note on biblical concern for “animals” and his suggestion we distinguish between natural theology and a theology of creation) suggest Fergusson is sensitive to this anthropocentric distortion. Fergusson’s seemingly modest suggestion would require a fundamental reorientation in modern theological reflection, for insofar as vis-à-vis a theology of creation one thinks of God as the Creator of creatures (including humans), reflection upon the divine–human relationship would emerge within the encompassing framework of the relation among Creator, creatures, and creation (some feminist and “animal rights” theologians have taken the lead here, which also involves reorientation in our consideration of biblical and premodern theological sources). All this in contrast to a theology of “nature” emerging as a secondary concern in a systematic framework that begins from the divine–human relation considered in isolation. Fergusson pushes hardest against these modern boundaries in his suggestive final chapter, “Animals, the Environment, and Extraterrestials.” Along these lines, however, consider how, freed from anthropocentrism, we might reflect in terms of an alternative title: “Creatures, Creation, and … More Creatures.”
In sum, this is a terrific text that accurately and clearly introduces predominant and enduringly significant loci in modern theological discussion of creation. Simultaneously, it quietly gestures beyond itself to ways in which a post-Cartesian rejuvenation of a vision of God as Creator of creation and all creatures may reinvigorate a theocentric theology of creation.