WHAT WAS GOD DOING BEFORE CREATION?
By
EZEKOKA Peter, 2013
TABLE
OF CONTENT
CHAPTER
ONE
GENERAL
DISPOSITION AND INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER
1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
1.4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
1.5 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH
1.6 METHODOLOGY
1.7 CONCISE TERMINOLOGICAL ANALYSES
1.7.1
GOD
1.7.2
CREATION
CHAPTER
TWO
PROPOSITION
BY SEASONED THEOLOGIANS
2.1 “LIFE OF GOD
AS DIALOGICAL” BY MICHAEL SCHMAUS
2.2 EGBULEFU’S
ANSWER TO ‘WHAT GOD WAS DOING BEFORE CREATION.’
2.3
GARRIGOU-LANGRANGE ON THE LIFE OF THE TRINITY
2.4 THE HAPPINESS
OF THE DIVINE FAMILY BY GUERRY EMILY
CHAPTER
THREE
AUGUSTINE’S
POSITION: WHAT WAS GOD DOING BEFORE CREATION?
3.1 CREATION
3.2 GOD’S ACTIVITY
BEFORE CREATION
3.3 ANALYSES OF
TIME
CHAPTER
FOUR
ESSAYIST’S
EXPOSITION
3.1 CRITICAL
ASSESMENT
3.2 CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER
ONE
GENERAL
DISPOSITION AND INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Creation
and visible realities posit great wonder unto the human mind. The human mind is
such that it searches and researches tirelessly for solutions to the wonders
that nature presents. It is true that this natural disposition of the human
mind has gained man many advantages; it has also led humanity to ruin and
self-inflicted destructions. Man in his encounter and interactions with created
visible realities remains puzzled at their orderings and happenings. But
created visible realities are only one aspect out of other essential realities.
There are created invisible realities (e.g Angels) as well as uncreated
invisible reality (i.e God).
If
the human mind remains disturbed at the orderings and happenings of created
visible realiwww.facebook.comties, what more of the supposed orderings and activities of the
created invisible realities and the uncreated invisible reality? With this
background, it becomes clear why our finite human minds probe into what this
uncreated invisible reality does; and not just what he does after creation, but
before creation. Of course, our faith establishes the fact that there is an
uncreated invisible reality who created the visible and invisible realities;
for how can there be movements without a propeller of the motion.
It
is for these that our research investigates theologically on what this
uncreated invisible reality, God was doing before creation. It is good to
remark that this question was firstly asked by sceptics and heretics, whom St.
Augustine deemed fit to address. But, as we thank them for having come up with
such question, for out of it the deepening of our faith has been met, we will
not tow their line of scepticism and unbelief. Their asking of the question was
geared towards the refutation of the eternal existence of God. But unlike then,
we here investigate theologically and rationally, backed up by credulity.
This
investigation has the foundation that enables the researcher and the readers to
widen and deepen their knowledge of God. In the Augustinian address to the
question, he had series of backgrounds. He was boiling with the intent for the
defence of the Catholic faith out of the love and conviction that he has met
with the belief system of the faith. He intended to defend her from the attacks
of the sceptics and heretics who were making caricature of the Christian God
and the Christian creation belief. Augustine thus wanted to render the
arguments of these scholars of his time baseless and meaningless. In this
effort of defence, he then clarified these sceptics on the eternality in God
and the mistake man makes in imposing his human knowledge and calculations on
God.
1.2
OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER
It
is true that no inquiry is aimless or goalless. Even in our day to day journey
from one place to another, there is always a purpose. Hence, our term paper is
not without any end. The fundamental objective of this paper revolves around
two considerations. The first hand is a direct focus on the question of our
investigation. In this direct focus, we attempt to see whether (either through
the researcher’s ingenuity or through the theologian he reviews) this question
is at all worthy of an answer. If it is considered worthy of answer, a further
attempt looks into the answers that have been offered or are being offered. The
second consideration brings out the important theological themes that are
associable with our major topic. What was God doing before creation?as a
question linkable with the Catholic Church’s theology, cannot be holistically
answered if not in connection with certain terms. These terms, in our
understanding are God, Creation and Time. Therefore, the second hand of our
investigation sees to it that these terms are investigated into. This is the
two primary objectives underlying the background of our work.
In
this vein, we therefore have an important aim of investigating theologically as
the major topic suggests, into St. Augustine’s position in the answer he gave
to the question: what was God doing before creation? It is an insight
that attempts to x-ray the activities of God before creation. Thus, this is
born, on the one hand, out of the love for theology and the subject matter for
which theology is concerned –God; and on the other hand, out of the love for
humanity’s quest and intoxication about God and his activities. Our write-up
unravels the Augustinian position not simply as a theological toil, but as a
means for the solidification of the Christian belief and the deepening of our
knowledge of God.
In
our mundane understanding, we are engaged in various activities and these
activities aggregate to define us. Analogically, knowing the activities of God,
not just after creation, but before creation can go a long way in ascertaining
a proper definition of God. Our paper has the objective of exposing the
Augustinian position; yet, we shall not stop there. We aim at also a
theological evaluation and consequently assessment of what he has posited. More
so, just as the answer of Augustine to this question may have helped in calming
the storm of his time, we shall also see whether his answer remains valid or
obsolete in our age, and whether it can equally calm the theological storm of
our era.
1.3
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
A
wise man is that person, who sees importance in every experience of life; one
who sees sense even in nonsense. This is because nothing is absolutely
insignificant. Likewise, no intellectual or academic struggle is absurd and
meaningless. If it does not seem to make any meaning in a particular field or
discipline, it would certainly be meaningful in another. Hence, our write-up
cannot be said to be of no significance. The fundamental significance of our
paper is the increment of knowledge. It is a good tool that can assist the
theological student to increase his/her knowledge. It is also a viable tool
that can help the professional to confirm and solidify his/her knowledge. Thus,
our research work is a tool to help dispense ignorance for the easy penetration
of knowledge.
In
such an advantage, the inquirer (essayist, investigator, researcher) benefits
in the prime analysis. At this juncture, we ask: what knowledge can possibly be
increased in us? Simply put our knowledge of God, of creation, and of time. We
live in an age of confusion and diverse opinion on the activities of God; this
study surely assists the Christian to know the particular Christian notion and
attribute for which God is known. There are many postulations concerning the
beginning and origin of the world; this paper offers the Christian knowledge of
how things began to exist as believed through our faith. It is because in an
effort to answer the question of our work, Augustine espoused on time; this
write-up then clearly presents a systematic and schematic analyses of time that
will benefit every scholar regardless of one’s specialization. With all these,
our paper has much to offer to the discipline of theology; particularly,
systematic theology. Actually, it has the potency of strengthening the faith of
the Christian; and the conversion of the sceptic and the non-Christian.
1.4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The
scripture makes it clear that God created the universe. It is from this that
the question arises as to what God was doing before he brought the universe
into existence. But if God created the universe, there was a time he commenced
to create. Prior to such commencement, there must have been an eternity.
Eternity suggests, of course, timelessness; a condition and state of being without
beginning or end. During this eternity, what was this God doing? In this
eternity also, was there any form of reality equiperable with the qualities of
time? These are the foundational problematique which our paper strives to bring
to clarity. Since, as many scholars have held, that God created time, and that
there was no time before creation, does it mean that time was a necessary
component of creation or was this time an aftermath of creation?
Our
finite minds find it uneasy to understand the activities of God prior to ‘the
many centuries’ of eternity (that is, put in our understanding of time) during
which God has been, since God cannot be said to have started existing from
somewhere or sometime. Understandably, if the question is framed in a way of
inquiring into the activities of God after creation, there are many traditional
documentations and individual experiences that can serve as guidelines to the
answer. But our inquiry becomes more tasking since none of us exists eternally
as God as to say what the activities are like. Nevertheless, the power of the
human mind attempts and continues to attempt to understand things that are not
directly experienceable. That is why we
are engaging our minds in this research work to delve deeply into God and his
lifestyle ever before the creation of things.
1.5
SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH
The
scope of this theological investigation is majorly rooted in the discipline of
systematic theology; inside which our write-up cuts across Trinitology and
Creationist Theology. Although it touches these aspects, this paper has no aim
of exposing broadly these aforementioned areas of theology. Yet, it offers
indispensable ingredients to these theologies and makes matters simpler and
clearer about them. Various scholars are also examined so as to provide a rich
research work that can satisfy the taste of the time in theological discipline.
These are meant with the effort to sieve out the points in our objectives. Our
major focus, notwithstanding, is the position of Augustine.
So
as not to beat around the bush, our work is structured in four chapters.
Chapter one introduces the term paper and exposes the terminologies that are of
major relevance. In chapter two, relevant theses by seasoned theologians are
reviewed. Chapter three dwells on the position of St. Augustine, while the
fourth chapter evaluates and concludes the work.
1.6
METHODOLOGY
This
term paper assumes the methodology of a critical theological insight, whereby efforts
are made to expose the position of St. Augustine. As a theoretical discourse
and an academic venture, the library method of consulting literature relevant
to our topic is chiefly employed, as the internet consultation will not be
neglected. Here also, we employ the footnoting system of referencing.
1.7
CONCISE TERMINOLOGICAL ANALYSES
1.7.1
GOD
Concerning
the etymology of the word –God- there is much dispute. Yet, the word which is
English seems to come by way of Old Teutonic from an Aryan root gheu,
which means either to invoke or to pour out in sacrifice. Thus, God means the object of worship.
It is rendered in Latin as Deus and in Greek as theos. In all
these renditions, the common denominator which the words suggest is powerorstrength.
For the Christians, God is the one Supreme Being, the Creator and ruler of
the universe.[1]Continually,
the Christian believes that there are three persons in one God. This is
referred to as the Trinitarian theology. This theology while it alludes to the
fact of one God establishes that this God is constituted of three persons.
These three persons –the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit- are distinct as
persons but remain inseparable. Above all, the theology of the trinity is a
divine mystery which cannot be fully graspable by man. For the Catholic Church,
this mystery is a dogma.[2]
1.7.3
CREATION
In
a normal usage, creation is synonymous with such terms as formation, making, conception, construction, manufacture,
design, establishment, the antonym of which is destruction.[3]But,the word ‘to create’ in
its Greek way, krinein means to found or to make habitable. In its
Hebrew usage is the word bara. Bara suggests a wondrous work of God
which is independent of any pre-existent material and realized without effort
on the part of him who wills it.[4]
The Bible contains two accounts of creation. The first in the book is found in
Genesis 1:1-2:4a. The second account is found in Genesis 2:4-25. The first
account is built up according to a scheme of enumeration, whereby there are
works of division in the first three days and works of ornamentation in the
last three.[5]
Nevertheless, the theology of creation fans the idea of creation out of nothing
(ex nihilo), because creation is accomplished by spoken words and not by any
kind of work. God is a King who only needs to speak to have his will
accomplished.
CHAPTER TWO
PROPOSITIONS BY SEASONED THEOLOGIANS
2.1
LIFE OF GOD AS DIALOGICAL BY SCHMAUS MICHAEL
Schmaus in his discussion on the idea of a creator God
posits that prior to Creation, God lives his own divine life in a tri-personal
inter-communication and needs no complement, supplement or fulfillment from a
reality distinct from Himself.[6]
According to him, “the life of God is dialogical. It takes place in an exchange
of love between the three persons of the Trinity.”[7]
He makes allusion to the first Letter of St. John 4:8, where the apostle calls
God love. God penetrates his own reality in an act of loving self-perception;
and in an act of loving self-understanding, fashions an eternal Son as the
adequate image of Himself.
The Father and the Son affirm each other in mutual
love, and each in affirming the other affirms himself. The reciprocal
self-affirmation of the Father and the Son which we call the Holy Spirit is
like the Yes of God to Himself and to his own life as dialogue. This divine
interchange of life is neither capable of nor in need of enrichment or
completion. When God conceives of life other than his own and establishes
through creation something other than Himself, he conceives of and desires it
only as a reflection of his own dialogical life.
The idea of love which is the life of God is seen by
Schmaus as the motive for the divine act of creation.[8]
Love as a word, Schmaus identifies with the words Eros and Agape. Eros is the
love which reaches out to the beloved thou in order to take him into the life
of the lover for his (the lover’s) own enrichment. Agape is the love which
reaches out to the beloved thou in order to fill him with its own life. The
first form of love is a child of poverty, while the second is a child of our
wealth. With regard to God, we only speak of Agape.
Be that as it may, the dialogical life of God is lived
in a Trinitarian form with infinite intensity. For Schmaus, the action of God
in creating the world means his uttering himself, pouring himself into the
non-divine. With this creative action, he brings into being a new dialogical
situation, because it is achieved by the power of the love expressed in the
dialogue of his inner-divine life. He backs his theology up with some biblical
indications of God as love and how this love manifested in the creative
activity.
2.2EGBULEFU’S
THESIS TO ‘WHAT GOD WAS DOING BEFORE CREATION.’
Egbulefu develops his answer from exploring the inner
attribute of God. He avers that God is a perfect and absolute Living Being. God
is perfect implies that in Him there is no imperfection; he is absolute means
that He depends on no other being for his being, thinking speaking and acting.
He is a living being means that he is characterized by the capacity to perceive
realities, to move, to respire, to reproduce Himself, to grow, etc. With this
background of seeing God as a living Being, the professor extensively presents
that God reproduces Himself absolutely,
that is, without depending on any other being than Himself. This
self-reproduction of God is rooted in God’s love for Himself and its fruits are
the divine decisions to establish the kingdom of God and to give salvation to
man. He continues that:
For,
since, on the other hand, God is eternal, has neither beginning nor end,
has ever existed and will ever exist, was, is, and shall be, and therefore was
existing even before He created the world, but on the other hand, God is
ever acting, Deus Semper agens, and was acting even before He created the
world, the inquiring mind would want to know and to ask: what was God actually
doing before He created the world?[9]
He
emphasizes that since no other reality, neither person nor thing, than God
himself was existing before He created the world, it follows that the thing he
was doing must be something that God is. “But God is love. Therefore, what God
was doing before he created the world is that He was loving.”[10]
He clarifies much confusion through the questions he asked concerning this life
of love before creation. Firstly, he asked: but whom was he loving? He answers
this by saying that the reality that was being loved by God is God Himself,
since no other reality existed then. The second question that the professor
tackles is: since loving as an act presupposes some energy, power, strength to
do it; with which energy, power, then was God loving Himself before He created the
world? Since before He created the world, there was no other reality, also no
other energy existing except God, it follows that the only energy that existed must
be that which God is. “Such energy is light as immaterial energy: “God is
light. God in His mystery as paradox…is that spiritual (immaterial) power
(energy) which is a powerful spirit: God is spirit.”[11]
The
third question concerns the way God loves Himself. Egbulefu posits that since
God is the SummumBonum, and therefore does not lack any reality, that is good
in Him nor need such reality, it follows
that God’s way of loving Himself cannot consist in His giving to Himself what
might be lacking and might be needing. Rather, since God is the fullness of
goodness in person; the SummumBonum, and it is just to admire goodness and
unjust not to admire it, then God is the Ultimate Being in whom there is no
vice rather the fullness of virtue; there is no injustice, rather the fullness
of justice, thus; “it follows that He loves Himself, and He does so by admiring
Himself as the fullness of virtue, fullness of goodness, fullness of truth,
fullness of unity, fullness of beauty.”[12]
Furthermore,
since God is perfect and no imperfection is in Him, it then means that in God;
in His being and action, there is the presence of fullness and completeness of
all that ought to be present. Since God is perfect, never imperfect and thus
never sterile, but ever fecund and fruitful, the professor proceeds to posit
the question which is of final interest to our research work: what then is the
fruit of God’s loving of Himself with light? Since God is self-reproducing, the
product of this self-reproducing act of God is a reality that is an image of
Him, a substantial image, hence Light from Light; he is the Son of God. He is
equal in nature and substance and thus possesses the fullness of perfection as
the Father.
Since
in God, there is no beginning, nor end, and no time interval between God’s act
and the fruit of the divine act, Egbulefu maintains that there was never a time
that the Son did not exist and thus never a time that God was never a Father.
The fruit of this love of the father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. He
strongly holds that since there remains “no time interval between their
collective love of themselves and the fruit of such love, there is no time when
the Holy Spirit were not existing.”[13]Therefore,
this is how the professor explained what and what that consists the life of God before creation.
2.3 GARRIGOU-LANGRANGE ON THE LIFE
OF THE TRINITY
Having
done a detailed work on Aquinas discourse on the Trinity, Garrigou-Langrange
deepened the knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity. But he says that “this
mystery shows that the intimate life of God is the perfect life of intellection
and of love.”[14]
Hence, he has a two-fold explanation of this intimate life. The first in his
series is the perfect life of intellection in which not only a multiple and
accidental Word is conceived but in which the unique and substantial Word is
conceived and in whom one instant all possible and future things are known. He
presents the reason of this to be that in God, intellection is not an accident
but the same as substantial being and the terminus of this intellection; the
word is also substantial. In this life, the three divine persons live by the
one intellection out of the same infinite truth in the perfect comprehension of
their intimate life.
The
second is that perfect life of love, so that the three persons, by one and the
same essential love, love the supreme good, with which they are identified. In
this love, there is a perfect union of the three persons without any
inordination of love, no egoism; “indeed the entire personality of the Father
is the relation to the Son, the entire personality of the Son is the relation
to the Father, and the entire personality of the Holy Spirit is the relation to
the Father and the Son.”[15]
He summarized these points by saying that this mystery which shows that the
intimate life of God is the perfect life of intellection and of love is such
that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father
is not the Son, because no one generates himself, and the Father and the Son
are not the Holy Spirit. He admits that it remains a mystery and hidden to man
how this comes about. With this, he designates this intimate life of God as the
supreme exemplar of the life of grace, especially since our adoptive filiation
is an analogical likeness participating in the eternal natural filiation.[16]
2.4 THE HAPPINESS OF THE DIVINE
FAMILY BY GUERRY EMILY
Guerry
Emily, a former titular bishop of Achrida, exposes the content of the life of
the Trinity and attempts to answer the question by his concise discourse on the
initial plan of creation. For him, “before the world, was the Father and the
Son” and they loved each other with an eternal and infinite love in the unity
of the Holy Spirit.”[17].
He says that they were happy with all the fullness of happiness. This divine
life, a life of light and of love, is a perfect beatitude without limits and
admitting of no addition. Citing the scriptural passage of the Letter to the
Hebrews, 1:3, he says that the Father eternally contemplates in His Son who is
the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance. The happiness of the
Father is to know Himself as the Father of such a Son, and to love His Son in
whom He wholly finds Himself again. The Son, on the second hand, “eternally
contemplates the infinite perfections of the Father. His happiness is to belong
wholly to such a Father.”[18]
Sealing up this divine society,
which fully suffices to itself, the Third person, the Holy Spirit, the mutual
love who springs from the Father and the Son, consummates their embrace in an
eternal ecstasy of infinite joy.[19]
Hence,
the emphasis Emily makes is that prior to the creation, the Trinity lives in an
eternal love and joy with one another. Linking this eternal life of the Trinity
to creation, the Bishop elucidates that the Blessed Trinity, who cannot act
either to acquire or increase their beatitude but only to communicate their
perfections decided, out of infinite goodness and love, to call certain finite
and contingent creatures to share their happiness.[20]
But their spirit would be fashioned to the image and likeness of God, and by a
new and purely gratuitous favour, this Spirit would be destined to share in the
divine life. This participation is possible due to the faculties gratuitously
raised to the supernatural order. By this, they would be called to know God and
to love Him as God knows and loves Himself, i.e. in the unity of His nature and
the Trinity of His persons. From this, we realize that the creation of man was
made possible because of the life of love the Trinity lives and it is to this
life that man is called to live, here on earth, so as to be able to live in
love eternally with God.
CHAPTER
THREE
ST.
AUGUSTINES’S POSITION
WHAT WAS
GOD DOING BEFORE CREATION?
3.1
CREATION
Augustine’s problem concerning the creation of the
universe was not, for sure, whether it was actually God who created it. His
inquiry was geared towards understanding how God created the heavens and the
earth: “I will try to understand how in the beginning you created heaven and
earth”.[21]The
‘you’ here to whom Augustine addresses is God.There is no one that we can more
safely trust than God Himself with regard to the creation of the world.[22]
To prove the fact of creation, Augustine says that the Holy Scriptures where it
is said that in the beginning God created the heaven and earth makes us aware
of such. But this wisdom was one that was revealed to the Apostle, John by God.
To solidify this proof of creation, Augustine again approachesthe question of
creation from the proposition of mutability and variability. For him, it is
very evident that the heaven and the earth are created by the very fact that
they change and vary. Anything that exists and remain uncreated could not
posses anything inside it that was not there before. Since, for Augustine, this
is what change and vary means, he thus argues that by the principle of change
and variability heaven and earth were created.[23]
In a further wonder of how God’s creation came about,
Augustine compares the creation of God and man’s way of making things. He dared
to know what type of machine God mayhave used for such an immense task of
creation. In this comparison, he avers:
It was
unlike the artisan’s way of making things. He makes a thing out of another by
willingly imposing on it the form he has first seen in his own mind (and how
could he, unless you made both will and mind?). He imposes that form on
something already existing, like earth, stone, wood, gold or whatever. And
where all these come, had you not made them?[24]
In this comparison, Augustine in recognizing that
God’s creation is different and supreme to man’s fabrication understands that
God himself is the creator of man, and of his will and mind with which man
makes other things. In establishing the means by which God created, we must be
aware, as Augustine advocates that nothing existed before then except God
himself. So, there was no place, no tool that was instrumental to creation.
Thus, he alludes to creatio ex nihilo;
that God made them by his word. With this background, he strongly affirms: “You
spoke them and things were made. You made them all by your word.”[25]
Continually, if God made all things by his words, there must have been a
physical medium for the sounds to travel in. For clarity sake, Augustine says
that there was no material body before creation. But if there was one, it must
be God who made the material body without the transient voice he has used in creation. In this sphere then,
one can imagine that it is only the physical properties of such a body that
allowed the voice of creation to accomplish its goal.
Another complication here is the knowledge of that
Word which need no material reality for the transmission of its voice; that
Word that created the reality in which the words of creation were uttered. It
is this Word which was spoken first that all things may follow but once
eternally and for all things, that remains the principle through which God
speaks to us. “Lord, the Beginning in which you made the heavens and the earth
is none other than your Word.”[26]
For Augustine, this Word is His Son, power, wisdom and truth. This Word is
wisdom and since this word has existed in the beginning, wisdom thus becomes
the beginning, for Augustine. In that beginning, heaven and earth was made.
Augustine continues to probe: "Why did it please the eternal God to create
heaven and earth at that special time, seeing that He had not done so
earlier?"[27] But,
before these heaven and earth came about, what was God doing?
3.2 GOD’S ACTIVITY BEFORE CREATION
Augustine makes effort to calm the quest of those who,
in his time, continued to ask what God was doing before creation. He presents
this argument thus:
"What
was God doing before he made the heavens and the earth?" if he was at
leisure, they say, without making anything, why did he not stay that way,
resting from all work forever/ if there comes a new impulse in God, to want to
make creatures that he had never made before, what kind of eternity is this,
with a new will arising from nowhere?[28]
Augustine tackles the questions beginning from the
last. He affirms that God’s will belongs strictly speaking to God’s very
substance. God’s substance is eternal, and everything that is there has always
been there and nothing that is there just began to be. With this, he retorts:
If God’s will to create was from eternity, why aren’t creatures also eternal?
From here, he proceeds to present his answer on what
God was doing before creation. He attempts to answer this on three basic
levels. The first is in a frivolous way. He tries to quote someone who dodging
from the question has answered that “He was preparing hell for those who search
into matters above their head.”[29]
But since, for our author, joke is not the same as understanding, he ignored
this hypothesis, advocating that he would rather admit not knowing the answer
than to scorn the one who asks such a deep question, or praise the one who
gives a false answer. With this conviction, he proceeded to the second level.
Augustine opines that as much as heaven and earth means every creature, then; “before
God made the heavens and the earth, he was not making anything.[30]
For Him, God could not have made anything except
creatures. The development of the third level was an attempt to clarify the
second level. Augustine demonstrates that people’s imagination may wonder how
God could have abstained from making anything for countless centuries. He
clears this wonder by saying that such imagination wonders at falsehood. For
Him, countless centuries could have passed without God having made them. God is
the maker of all events. There was no time before creation. This explains why
God was said to have rested from his work after having made the heavens and the
earth. He elucidates:
If therefore there was no time before you made the heavens and the earth,
how can one ask what you were doing then? If there was no time, there was no
"then".Neither do you come before all time by being in time,
otherwise you would not be before all time. From the heights of your lofty
eternity you come before all past events and beyond anything future, for as
soon as the future comes it turns into the past. But you are the same, you years have no end. Your years neither
come nor go; our years do come and go, until they are up…Eternity is your
today, hence in eternity you begat him to whom you said. "Today I am your father." You made
time. You come before all time. Nor was there a time within a time.[31]
Hence, there was no time during which nothing was
made. There was no such thing as time before the universe was made.[32]It
is God that made time itself. Therefore, since there was no time before
creation, the question becomes meaningless. With this, he entered into the
analyses of time.
3.3
ANALYSES OF TIME
Augustine
analysis of time revolves around the background of juxtaposing eternity with
time. He endeavoured to clarify how God cannot be said to be limited and
conditioned by time. He says that time is never coeternal as God. God is
permanent but time is not. With such a basic introduction, he now inquired into
what time actually is. "But what actually is time? Who can explain it
briefly and to the point?"[33]
In his effort to explain time, he examines the three moment of lived time: the
past, the present and the future. For Augustine, the past expresses that which
had happened, and the future expresses that which is to happen, and the present
can be explained in the sense that if nothing happened, there would be no
present. The past is gone and the future is not yet. In relation to the past
and the future, Augustine elucidates that if the present continues to be
present without becoming a past, it would not be present but eternity.“if then
the present, to be time, must turn into the past, how can we say that time is,
when the cause of its being is that it shall cease to be?"[34]
Having
established this, the scholar of Hippo went on to assert that we are then wrong
when we say time is unless we mean tends towards non-being. In a bid to
prove this, he talks of a short and a
long time. Even if we take a long
time to mean more than 100 years and a short time to mean less than ten days
ago, it would be inappropriate to say that the long time is long and the short is
short. Since the past is no longer and the future is not yet, we ought to say
that the past was long and that the
future will be long.[35]
Having established that the past and the future can either be long or short,
our author went further to inquire whether the present can be long. He starts
with some questions:
Are 100 years of present a long
time? See first whether there can be 100years of presnt. When year one is
present, the 99 remaining are future, and therefore they are not. During year
two, one is past, one present and the rest future. Wherever in the middle of
that century we choose our present, anything before it is past, and anything
after, future. 100 years cannot therefore be present…not even the present year
is present as a whole, and not being present as a whole, the year as such is
not present. Twelve months make up one year, and whichever of them we choose as
present, the rest are either past or future. But even the present month is not
really present. One day is; but if the first, the rest are future; if the last,
the rest are past, and any in the middle is between past and future days.[36]
Augustine
did not stop at ‘the day, he went on to examine the temporality of the day so
as to determine whether there is actually a present. He then, in the final
analysis discovered that "the only time then that deserves to be present
is a division so small as not to be divisible any further."[37]Hence,
the future can be said to be without duration since time flies so fast from
future to past as not to linger even for a moment, for the moment it lingered,
its duration could be sorted out into future and past. Even, when future is
noticed to be seen, Augustine clears that it is not the events that are seen,
for they do not exist. What is seen are their present causes, or signs that
portend the likely consequence in the mind of the seer. The present is simply
ambiguous to determine, that is what our author tries to establish. After his
inquiry on time, Augustine therefore submitted that:
What is now as clear as can be is
that neither future nor past events are, and that it is wrong to call present,
past and future "times." It would be more correct to say that there
are three times: a present of past events, a present properly so called, and a
present of future ones. They are psychological states of the soul…the presence
of the past is memory, that of the present awareness, and that of the future
expectation.[38]
This
analysis, Augustine made to render the question of what God was doing before
creation as an inappropriate question that is linked with time, and time as we
know and as we have seen came with creation; "the world was not made in
time but together with time."[39]
Therefore, God is not conditioned by time. That is what led him to pierce into
the intricacies associable with time. With this inquiry, he has now found out
that and has made it clear that the question gives allusion to time.
Hereiterates and makes a strong distinction between time and eternity in that "the
former does not exist without some change and movements, while in the latter;
there is no change at all."[40]
Hence, God remains an atemporal Being.
CHAPTER FOUR
ESSAYIST’S EXPOSITION
4.1CRITICAL ASSESMENT
The
question of what God was doing before creation, as we have said earlier links
us to at least four diverse but connected fields of theological studies. It
connects us to the question of the person of God. It connects us to what
creation actually is. It also links us, which is the major thrust of our paper,
to the activities of this God before creation. The final is that it opens an
aperture for a theological discourse on time, which although not fully
unravelled in the course of our academic toil, but derives its meaning in the
ambience of Eschatology.
Through
the study on Augustine, we notice that “in Augustine’s mind, the existence of
God is one of those truths on which providence has thrown such light that it is
inescapable. No one can be completely ignorant of God.”[41]
We realize also through our acquaintance with Aquinas that God has many divine
attributes: God is eternal, Incorporeal, Universal perfection, Goodness, One,
Infinite, Truth, Love,[42]
etc.
Since
goodness diffuses itself, the good which God is diffuses and brought forth
creation. This diffusion is not one that is unconscious, since one may be
inclined to liken this to diffusion experienced in irrational realities (e.g.
gas diffuses from a more concentrated area to a lesser concentrated area). This
diffusion is a conscious one through which God in Himself and out of love made
man and other created realities. From this inner-divine life of eternal love
flow out God’s action of love; and this resulted to God’s creation of man,
which further explains God’s relationship with man and the history of salvation
made by God in such a relationship.[43]
In this act of creation,God
made everything out of nothing. This ‘ex nihilo’ creation is understood here in
the sense that God made all from the spoken words of his mouth, which needed no
material reality for its transmission. God made all things at the same time
within six days. Portalie, while reviewing Augustine holds that the creative
action was instantaneous and the six days of Genesis correspond to the
invisible instant when everything was created; God created all things at the
same time. He continues to expose that on the notion of New Creation, Augustine
rejects the idea and admits that there was new intervention on God’s part;
after creation, God rested from His work, not creating further.[44]It
is in the creation of man that the love in God was experienced in its fullness
and plenitude. He made, out of his own image and likeness and gave man the
elevated place above all creatures. Creation, thus, is a manifestation of Love
which is God, and a manifestation of God who is Love. Aquinas emphatically
stated that “there must be love in God” according to the act of his will. Now,
God wills His own good and that of others; meaning that God loves Himself and
other things.[45]
There is just a true love in God, a most perfect and a most enduring lovesince
the principle of every affection is love. Aquinas writes further that joy and
desire are only of a good that is loved. But in God, there is joy and delight;
therefore in God, there is love.[46]
As
already made clear in our paper, we clearly see that Augustine did not provide
a definite answer to the question posed in the Confessions; yet acquaintance with some other works of Augustine
makes us believe that Augustine saw this life of love as the distinct character
and life of the Blessed Trinity. In His book on the Trinity, he, in the first
place agrees that there is no way of coming to the knowledge of the Trinity if
not by love. Augustine alludes to the fact that the trinity is actually love.
He says that he that loves his brother loves God, because he loves ‘love’
itself, which is of God, and is God.[47]
He continues;
For since “God is love,” he who
loves love certainly loves God; but he must needs love love, who loves his
brother... for he who does not love his brother, abides not in love; and he who
abides not in God, because God is love.[48]
From
this, we notice that even though Augustine did not explicitly answer the
question of what God was doing before creation, he in another book which we
have seen, agrees that the nature of God is intrinsically love because God has
commanded us to love one another. Thus, he couldn’t have told us to love if he
hadn’t known love and if he wasn’t love.
Furthermore,
Augustine alludes to the question of double procession. The second procession
takes place after the manner of love; but the third persons love. The
difficulty here in the mind of Garrigou-Langrange, is that the three persons
ought to spirate another person, and so on to infinity. The solution of this
difficulty depends on the distinction between essential love, which is common
to the three persons, and notional love which is active spiration. It is called
notional because it denotes the third person. Thus, the three persons all love
but only the first two spirate. We have three kinds of love in God: essential,
notional and personal. Personal love is the Holy Spirit Himself, who is the
terminus of active spiration just as the Word is the terminus of generation and
enumeration.[49]
Nevertheless,
in the third chapter, we made it explicit concerning how Augustine brought in
the notion of time and its analysis to the discourse. God is eternal in whom
there is no temporality. Asking the question of what God was doing before He
created the world opens an avenue of thinking that there was time before
creation. But creation came with time; therefore, there was no time before
creation. There, the notion of time is perceived in the triple dimensions of
the past, present and the future; to this we refer to as the lived time.
According to Egbuogu, in this lived time, only the present exists since the
past is gone and the future is yet to come. This tries to agree with the
position of Augustine. But beyond Augustine who has laid this foundation of the
examination of the lived time in eschatology, Egbuogu toeing the line of Don
Luiz De La Pena, explicates further that “while talking of the present, we deal
with a purely punctual magnitude, a punctummathematicum.”[50]
The sense he tries to make here is that the present appears ungraspable that
before you are fully aware of it, it is already gone. Concerning the annulment
and conservation of the present which is the link between the past and the
future, he espouses:
The past is not annulled by the
present because it ceases to exist, rather it is assumed and conserved in the
now. The future is not just that which is not yet existent, a pre-sentiment of
it is had in the actual moment, and it touches and belongs to the actual moment
as a project.[51]
Continually,
it is made clear that more than conserving and leaving the past to act as its
realization, the present helps man to confront the future as their very
possibility. Thus, it becomes clear that the post-efficacy of the past is, in
the present, opened to the pre-efficacy of the future. But all this is for man
since the human person in relation to time is in the process of becoming.[52]
What we develop here is that since the human person lives in and is conditioned
by time, he remains in the process of becoming. Man is a being that is futuristic.
But God is not man. He does not live and is not conditioned by time, neither is
he in the process of becoming. God is eternal; not temporal. He does not
change; hence, not mutable but immutable; not contingent but necessary.
Therefore, the question of time is linkable to God solely as He that made time
and not He that exists in time. Hence, what God was doing before creation must
be that which has the character of eternity, not temporal; therefore he does
that which cannot be constrained by time.
4.2 CONCLUSION
We
must at this juncture remind ourselves that God is an incomprehensible Being.
No one can fully unravel the mysteries in God. This incomprehensibility of God
as Rahner sees it is “defined more precisely by the observation that the being
of God and the mystery of the Trinity are not ‘transparent’ to man.”[53] In this incomprehensibility of God, “it is
not clear in classical theology” as Rahner has submitted, “that the problem
arising from the direct vision of an incomprehensible God can only be solved in
the context of love.”[54]In
line with Rahner, Nicholas Fogliacco opines that the Trinity being a mystery implies that
it lies beyond the horizon of human reason. “God’s inner life is something we
cannot comprehend and will never fully comprehend. And yet we desire to know
him. The very fact that he is our origin and final goal implies that to know
him is of immense value for us.”[55]
But, we are social beings because God is communion, and we desire to know more
about this communion.[56]
Through
this, it becomes clear to us that this incomprehensibility is always scratched
by theologians in the context of love. We ask here, why is it in the context of
love? In another writing, Rahner answers this question that we have posited:
“the one God imparts himself as absolute self-utterance and absolute gift of
love.”[57]
That is why it remains most appropriate to comprehend the incomprehensibility
of God in God’s act of love. No one gives what he has not (Nemodat quod non
habet). God has love and indeed is love; that is why he is able to give and
teach us love.
Since
God is goodness, and to love is a good and goodness in turn is experienced
fully in love, we here believe that God’s goodness and his love led Him to make
man and to create the entire world. It is in this foundational motive of
creation that it becomes more comprehensible to us what God was doing before
creation. He was doing that which he manifested in His creation. It is out of
that which he was doing that he made the world. It is still this activity of
love that is demonstrated in God’s sending character of His only Begotten Son
to wrought salvation after man must have fallen and have been enslaved by sin
(John 3:16).Little wonder, the propositions of the seasoned theologians we have
seen in our investigation revolves around this character and motif. None failed
to mention love as that which God was doing. Love is that which God was doing
before creation.
Though
our exposition, we have seen how this love is practiced in the Trinity without
any form of inordination. God continues to love Himself. But in God are three
persons; thus the trinity. Hence, the Father, the Son, the Spirit were in mutual and
inordinate love of themselves before, during and after creation. God’s
inner-divine life is the eternal love of one another which diversifies into
their peace with one another, joy at one
another and glorification of one another. Christ prays that those God has
given him may be allowed to see the glory he has and has been given him; for
“you loved me before the creation of the world.” (Jn. 17:24)The Scripture
provides more clues on this life of God.
We
notice great Trinitarian insights and their relationship in the Gospel of
John.The Father and the Son were in glorification of one another, which is an
indication that this has been part of their lifestyle (Jn. 12:28). The Son also
asked the Father to glorify him that he may also glorify the Father (Jn. 17:1).
But more fundamentally, we notice this eternal connotation in the passage in
which Christ said “Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had
with you before the world began”(Jn. 17:5). This passage reveals that even
before the creation of the world, the Father and the Son have been in mutual
glorification of one another.
Out
of the love which exists
among the Trinity came also the joy they have at one another. Christ admonished
his followers to remain in his love that His joy may be in them and that this
joy may be complete (Jn. 15:11). Joy is a consequence of love, and if He,
Christ had not known such an experience of joy, he cannot have claimed to be a
dispenser of joy. And this joy is experienced not in disconnection with the
other two Divine persons. In this line
also, Christ offers us His peace (Jn. 14:27). There is an intimate union which
exists between the Father and the Son, even while the Son was on earth. Christ
is in the Father and the Father is in Christ (Jn. 14:10-11).
More
so, even in the incarnation, this mutual life of love was not broken; it
continued. For Christ says “the one who sent me is with me, he has not left me
alone.” (Jn. 8:9) His witness remains the Father who sent Him. (Jn. 8:18) And
since the Holy Spirit is inseparably united with the two persons, it all means
that the three divine persons remain in mutual love of one another. The Holy
Spirit works in collaboration with the Son while on earth (Jn. 16:15) and
through a collaborative relationship, Christ promises that the Father will send a counsellor who
will continually be with his apostles for ever; it is the Spirit of Truth (Jn.
14:16, 15:26). These biblical testimonies are indications that assist us in
substantiating our position and the positions of these scholars before us concerning the
inner-Trinitarian life of love.
In
all, the question of what God was doing before creation assumes God dwells in
and is conditioned by time. This is not true. God is eternal, and is the
Creator of the universe which came alongside space and time. Even if one dares restlessly
to discover what God was doing before creation, we here point out that the
Triune God was not inactive before creating the world. He is Love and he lived
in love. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit existed in perfect harmony and love,
having all they needed in one another. God has always been in complete joy,
peace and fulfilment as he beholds and communes with Himself. The three persons
are together inlove and fellowship with one another from all eternity. God is
Love (I Jn 4:8.16) and as our goal, we are called to participate in the eternal
life of the three divine persons, and nothing is as important as familiarizing
ourselves with the three divine persons.[58]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE HOLY SCRIPTURE
New International
Version, Copyright by International Bible Society, 1973.
New Revised Standard
Version: Catholic Edition; U.S.A.: Catholic Biblical Press, 1993
Wansbrough, H., The New
Jerusalem Bible, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985.
OTHER THEOLOGICAL WORKS
Pegis, A. C., [ed] Aquinas,
T., Summa Contra Gentiles, Book One: God, Ch. 91, no. 2, translated with an
Introduction and Notes, U.S.A; Notre Dame press, 1975.
Rickaby,
J.,[ed] Of God and His
Creatures, An Annotated Translation of the Summa Contra Gentiles of Saint
Thomas Aquinas; Maryland: Carrol Press, 1950.
Augustine, City of God, edited and
abridged by Vernon J. Bourke, New York, Image Books, 1950.
O’mearaJ. ,[ed], An
Augustine Reader; selections from the writings of Augustine, New York: Image
Books, 1973.
Augustine, The Confessions, translated
and annotated by Slivano Borruso, Kenya: Pauline Publications, 2003.
Egbuogu,
M.O., Eschatological Hope as
Christian Theodicy: An Appraisal of some Attempts at Explaining the Existence
of Evil and human Suffering, Enugu: Snaap Press, 2006.
Garrigou-Langrange,
R., The Trinity and God the Creator,
Binghamton and New York: Vail-Ballou Press, 1952.
Guerry,
E., God the Father,
translated by A. H. C. Downes, New York, Sheed and Ward, Inc., 1947.
Portalie,
E., A Guide to the Thought
of Saint Augustine, translated by Raph. J. Bastian; London: William Clowes and
Sons LTD, 1960.
Rahner,
K., Theological
Investigation, vol. 4: More Recent Writings, translated by Kevin Smyth, London:
Darton Longman & Todd LTD, 1966.
Rahner, K., Theological
Investigations, vol.16: Experience of the Spirit: Source of Theology,
translated by David Morland; London: Darton, Longman & Todd LTD, 1979,
p.229
Schmaus, M., Dogma
2 –God and Creation, USA: Sheed and Ward, 1969.
DICTIONARY
Komanchak,
J.A., et al.[Ed], The New Dictionary of Theology, India: Theological
Publications, 2011.
ARTICLES
AND JOURNALS
Egbulefu, J. O., “The
Church in Africa in Service to both Spiritual and Material Salvation through
Word-and-Sacrament and Science-and-Technology” in Edeh, E.M.P[ed], The Church
of Jesus the Saviour in Africa, Vol.1(Lineamenta), Enugu:Madonna University
Press, 2008.
Egbulefu, J., The Church in the service of
spreading and amplifying the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory of God, a
Paper delivered at the Pilgrimage Centre of Eucharistic Adoration and Special
Marian Devotion, Elele -Nigeria, on 8th April, 2010, on the occasion of the
Silver Jubilee Celebration of the Centre.
Mcgarry C., and Ryan P.,[ed] Inculturating the
Church in Africa: Theological and Practical Perspectives, Kenya: Paulines
Publications Africa, 2001.
SOFTWARE
PROGRAM
[1] Wright,
J. H., SJ, God in Komanchak J. A. et al[ed],‘The New Dictionary of
Theology’, theological publications in India, 2011, p. 423.
[2] Dogma
refers to the Church’s belief that in scripture and tradition God’s intention
for humanity has been revealed to the ecclesial community’s leadership can
authoritatively interpret and promulgate this truth. To be adequately
understood, therefore, dogma should be situated within the context of
revelation.
[3]Microsoft® Encarta® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft
Corporation.
[4] Carroll
D., Creation in Komanchak J. A. et al[ed],Op. Cit., p. 246
[5]Ibid, p.159
[6]Schmaus, M., Dogma 2 –God and
Creation, USA:Sheed and Ward, 1969, p. 85.
[7]Ibid., p.86
[8]Ibid., p.88
[9]Egbulefu, J., The Church in the
service of spreading and amplifying the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory of
God, a Paper delivered at the Pilgrimage Centre of Eucharistic Adoration
and Special Marian Devotion, Elele -Nigeria, on 8th April, 2010, on the
occasion of the Silver Jubilee Celebration of the Centre, p.8.
[11]Ibid.
[12]Ibid., p.9
[13]Ibid., p.10
[14]Garrigou-Langrange, R.,
The Trinity and God the Creator, Binghamton and New York: Vail-Ballou Press,
1952, p. 332
[15]Ibid
[16]Ibid., p.333
[17]Guerry, E., God the
Father, translated by A. H. C. Downes, New York, Sheed and Ward, Inc., 1947,
p.43
[18]Ibid.
[19]Ibid.
[20]Ibid, p.44
[21]Augustine, The Confessions,
translated and annotated by Slivano Borruso, Kenya: Pauline Publications, 2003,
Book 11, ch. 2, no. 3.
[22]Augustine, City of God, edited and abridged by Vernon J. Bourke, New York,
Image Books, 1950, Part Three, Book XI, Ch.4, p.184.
[24]Ibid.,ch. 5, no.5
[25]Ibid.
[26]Ibid., ch.7, no. 9
[29]Ibid., ch. 10, no.12
[30]Ibid.
[34]Ibid.
[40]Ibid.
[41]Portalie, E., A Guide to the thought of Saint
Augustine, translated by Raph. J. Bastian, London: William Clowes and Sons LTD,
1960,p.125
[42] God is unchangeable and therefore eternal,
without beginning nor end. Those things alone are measured by time which is in
motion, inasmuch as time is an enumeration of motion. God is not compound; thus
He is not anything corporeal. Everything that actually is in any othser thing must
be found in God much more eminently than in the thing itself; God then is most
perfect. God is His goodness, and thus is the good of all good. God is good
by essence: all other beings, by participation. There cannot be possibly two
sovereign gods. But, God is the sovereign good. Therefore, there is butone
God. In God, infinity can be understood negatively only, inasmuch as there is
no term or limit to His perfection. Thus, God is infinite. Truth is
perfection of the understanding and of its act. But the understanding of God is
His substance and the act of understanding, as it is the beings of God, is
perfect by itself. Thus, the divine substance is truth. It is of the
essential idea of love, that whoever loves wishes the good of the object loved.
But God wishes His own good and the good of all others and in this respect He loves Himself and other beings
(Aquinas, T., Summa Contra Gentiles, annotated and translated by Joseph
Rickaby –Of God and His Creatures, chapters 15, 20, 28, 40, 42, 43, 60, 61, 91
respectively).
[43]Egbulefu, J. O., “The
Church in Africa in Service to both Spiritual and Material Salvation through
Word-and-Sacrament and Science-and-Technology” in Edeh, E.M.P[ed], “The
Church of Jesus the Saviour in Africa, Vol.1(Lineamenta)”,Enugu:Madonna University Press, 2008, pp317-318
[44]Portalie,
E., Op. Cit. p.137
[45] Aquinas, T., Summa Contra Gentiles, Book One: God,
Ch. 91, no. 2, translated with an Introduction and notes by Anton C. Pegis,
U.S.A; Notre Dame press, 1975.
[46]Ibid, no. 7
[47]Augustine, De Trinitate, Book 8, chapters 7 & 8,
in O’meara J. ,[ed], An Augustine Reader; selections from the writings of
Augustine, New York: Image Books, 1973
[48]Ibid.
[50]Egbuogu,
M.O., Eschatological Hope as Christian Theodicy: An Appraisal of some Attempts
at Explaining the Existence of Evil and human Suffering, Enugu: Snaap Press,
2006, p.228
[52]Ibid., pp.229-230
[53]Rahner, K., Theological Investigations, vol.16:
Experience of the Spirit: Source of Theology, translated by David Morland;
London: Darton, Longman & Todd LTD, 1979, p.229
[54]Ibid., p.233
[55]Foglacco, N., The Family: An African Metaphor for
Trinity and Church in Mcgarry C., and Ryan P.,[ed] Inculturating the
Church in Africa: Theological and Practical Perspectives, Kenya: Paulines
Publications Africa, 2001, p. 124.
[56]Ibid.
[57]Rahner, K., Theological Investigation, vol 4: More
Recent Writings, translated by Kevin Smyth, London: Darton Longman & Todd
LTD, 1966, p.94.
[58]Fogliacco, N., Op. Cit.
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