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Link to original content: https://www.academia.edu/118477165/The_Political_Theology_of_Creation_2024_
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The Political Theology of Creation (2024)

2024

Presentation at Tampere IAS Society Cluster research workshop, May 2, 2024.

The Political Theology of Creation JUSSI BACKMAN Tampere IAS Society Cluster Research Workshop May 2, 2024 CARL SCHMITT (Political Theology, 1922): All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development—in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver—but also because of their systematic structure. ➢ specifically, the modern concept of political sovereignty is modeled on the theological conception of the Creator’s absolute power (potentia absoluta) that creates the world out of nothing (ex nihilo) on the basis of a pure decision of the will ➢ theologian ERIK PETERSON (Theological Tractates, 1951): political theologies of sovereign rule are always propagandistic appropriations of Christianity that are fundamentally incompatible with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity 02/05/2024 | 2 the Judeo-Christian doctrine and theology of creation (Biblical Greek ktisis, Latin creatio) rooted in the Book of Genesis ➢ the theology of creation and the Genesis creation narratives become prominent together with monotheism in the strict sense in Second Temple Judaism (sixth and fifth centuries BCE) ➢ the creation narratives underline divine sovereignty: the absolute autonomy of the creator as the sole active agent in the beginning of things ➢ during the Hellenistic era and late antiquity, the Jewish theology of creation is translated into Greek terminology and interpreted with the help of the concepts and categories of Greek thought ➢ creation illustrated with the help of Hellenistic political notions and metaphors 02/05/2024 | 3 the first part of the Hebrew Bible, the written Torah or Pentateuch (the five Books of Moses), is thought to have been redacted into its current form during the period after the Babylonian exile period (sixth and fifth centuries BCE) ➢ beginning of Second Temple Judaism: adoption of monotheism in the strict sense, advocating that YHWH is the only true deity ➢ the key function of the creation narratives appended to the beginning of the Torah is to emphasize divine sovereignty and the universalistic aspects of monotheism ➢ attempt at universal history instead of focusing simply on the national history of the Israelite people and their national pact with YHWH 02/05/2024 | 4 the key theological creation verb in Genesis is the Hebrew bārā’ (‫)בָּ ָּרא‬, “to shape, form, fashion; to found,” used here exclusively of divine creation activity ➢ JOHN H. WALTON (Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2006): in Genesis, bārā’ primarily connotes “designing” in the sense of assigning roles, functions, and destinies to things, arranging in a purposive manner ➢ creation is preceded by a meaningless, formless chaos without purpose (tōhū wā-bōhū, “without form and void”) ➢ in the Hebrew Bible, the creator is not seen as a mere maker of things but as a designer and commander 02/05/2024 | 5 Septuagint Greek translation of the Torah (third/second century BCE): intended for Hellenized, Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria ➢ bārā’ and other creation verbs are sometimes rendered with poieō, “to make, produce,” as in Gen. 1:1: “In the beginning, God made [epoiēsen] the heaven and the earth.” ➢ in certain contexts, the verb ktizō, originally meaning “to settle, inhabit” and later “to found, to establish (a city/country/polity/institution)” is used ➢ implies a more radical activity of instituting something entirely new, without pre-existing model 02/05/2024 | 6 ➢ ktizō is a theological neologism in Greek: not used for divine creation outside Biblical texts ➢ becomes the standard creation verb in the New Testament ➢ WERNER FOERSTER (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament): ktisis, founding, as opposed to poiēsis, is an essentially political metaphor, designating the instituting and commanding activity of the sovereign ruler ➢ cf. HANNAH ARENDT (The Human Condition): the founding of new cities and polities as the paradigmatic example of a new beginning in classical antiquity 02/05/2024 | 7 in archaic Greek mythology, creation myths are largely absent ➢ mainly abstract cosmogonies and theogonies (HESIOD, eighth/seventh cent. BCE) closely resembling older Near Eastern mythologies, but very little active and intentional creative activity ➢ Greek divinities generally not conceived as sovereign creators or cosmic rulers ➢ earliest Presocratic philosophers (sixth century BCE) attempt rationally reconstructed cosmogonies without mythical elements ➢ HERACLITUS (DIELS-KRANZ 22 B 30): the kosmos was not made (epoiēsen) by any god or human 02/05/2024 | 8 in Greek philosophy, SOCRATES (according to XENOPHON, Memorabilia 1.4, 4.3) appears to have first presented an account of teleological and intelligent design of the cosmos by a divine Demiurge (dēmiourgos, public craftsperson, fabricator) ➢ living things have come to be by the design (apo gnōmēs) of divine fabricators (dēmiourgous) ➢ the divinity is also an administrator: coordinates (syntattei) and holds together (synechei) the cosmos as a whole 02/05/2024 | 9 PLATO’s Timaeus: becoming and change explained teleologically in terms of the intentional activity of a divine craftsperson or fabricator, the Demiurge (dēmiourgos) ➢ Demiurge produces (poiein) material things by implementing pre- existing ideal forms in pre-existing matter ➢ the Demiurge is ideally good, and thus wishes to bring reality to a maximal and perfect order (taxis) ➢ not an omnipotent and sovereign creator or ruler but a cosmic maker/producer (poiētēs), the supreme organizer ➢ the ideal and unchanging forms as well as primal materiality both precede the demiurgic ordering 02/05/2024 | 10 Jewish Platonist PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA (20 BCE – 50 CE): Platonic interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative ➢ ´understands the Platonic ideal forms no longer as transcendent ideals but as divine thoughts immanent to the mind of the creator ➢ elevates the Demiurge from a mediator of the ideal forms to the primal source of ideal being ➢ matter still understood as an independent and uncreated principle 02/05/2024 | 11 PHILO: the ideal forms are a part of the divine logos, word, discourse, or plan through which God orders the cosmos ➢ God first thinks up (ennoeō) the ideal forms and the purely ideal and intelligible reality to serve as a model and pattern for the making of the material world ➢ the New Testament and the earliest Christian theology (especially the Gospel of John) takes over this conception of the divine logos as the medium of creation, identifying it with Christ the Son as the second person of the Trinity When the substance [ousian] of all things was unarranged [aschēmatiston], God arranged it, when it was shapeless [atypōton], he shaped it, when it was without quality [apoion], he moulded it, and having perfected the totality, he stamped the cosmos with an image [eikoni] and an ideal form [idea], with his own Word [logō]. PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA: De somniis 2.45 02/05/2024 | 12 PHILO emphasizes that the creator is more than just a maker or a producer ➢ the Biblical ktisis, creation in the sense of founding or instituting, is a more sovereign and radical beginning than just poiēsis, production [A]s the sun when it rises makes visible objects which had been hidden, so God when He generated [gennēsas] all things, not only brought them into sight, but also made [epoiēsen] things which before were not, not just as a fabricator [dēmiourgos], but as a very creator [ktistēs]. PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA: De somniis 1.76 02/05/2024 | 13 in order to convey the notion of creation as a process of founding, instituting, designing, and implementing, PHILO (De opificio mundi) uses an explicitly political metaphor ➢ as the founder of the great city (megalopolis) of the world, God is like a ruler (basileus) or commander (hēgemōn) with sovereign or absolute authority (autokratēs exousia) who founds a city (polis) through a voluntary decision and command and also like an architect appointed to design and implement the city ➢ this model is based on Hellenistic despotic rule: founding of Alexandria in 331 BCE by ALEXANDER THE GREAT and its design by the architect DINOCRATES OF RHODES 02/05/2024 | 14 When a city [polis] is being founded [ktizētai] in accordance with the great love of honor [philotimian] of a king [basileōs] or a governor [hēgemonos] who lays claim to sovereign authority [autokratous exousias] . . . there comes forward now and again some trained architect who . . . first sketches within himself wellnigh all the parts of the city that is to be wrought out. . . . Thus after having received in his own soul, as it were in wax, the figures [typous] of each of these parts, he carries about the intelligible [noētēn] city . . . Like a good fabricator [dēmiourgos], keeping his eye upon the pattern [paradeigma], he begins to build the city of stones and timber. . . . Just such must be our views of God when he was minded to found [ktizein] the one great city [megalopolin]. PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA: De opificio mundi 17–19 02/05/2024 | 15 the earliest Christian theologians retain PHILO’s Platonic model of creation as an arrangement of a pre-existing shapeless matter ➢ JUSTIN THE MARTYR (ca. 100–165): “And we are taught that in the beginning God, being good, fabricated [dēmiourgēsai] all things from shapeless matter [ex amorphou hylēs] for the sake of human beings.” (First Apology 10.2) ➢ JUSTIN adds that PLATO’s awareness of creation originally comes from the Books of Moses 02/05/2024 | 16 this dualism between the creator and matter leaves the possibility for the approach of the Gnostics and related heretical movements of the first and second centuries CE ➢ evil is explained by separating the material world from the perfectly good supreme divinity ➢ MARCION OF SINOPE (ca. 85–150) and the Valentinian heresy (second century) identify the Demiurge, the creator of the material universe, with the God of the Hebrew Bible, an inferior deity altogether separate from the supreme divinity represented by Christ ➢ the need to combat these dualistic heresies forces the Catholic theologians to do away with the Platonic notion of pre-existent matter and adopt the radical doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing 02/05/2024 | 17 TATIAN OF ADIABENE (ca. 120–180) appears to have been the first to teach creatio ex nihilo ➢ there can be no uncreated principle outside God, such as matter, that could be of equal power (isodynamos) with God For matter is not, like God, without beginning [anarchos], nor, as having no beginning, is of equal power [isodynamos] with God; it is begotten [genētē], not generated by any other being, but rather put forth by the fabricator [dēmiourgou] of all things alone. TATIAN OF ADIABENE: Oratio ad Graecos 5.3 02/05/2024 | 18 THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH (died ca. 185): first explicit rejection of the Platonic demiurgic model of creation from pre-existent matter ➢ creatio ex nihilo is necessary in order that God’s sovereign power remains undivided and the sole rule or “monarchy” (monarchia) of God is safeguarded [I]f God is without coming-to-be and matter is without coming-to-be, God is no longer . . . the maker of all things, nor . . . is the sole rule [monarchia] of God established. . . . And what great thing if God makes the world out of underlying [hypokeimenēs] matter? For even a human artist [technitēs], when he gets material from someone, makes of it what he wills [bouletai]. But the power [dynamis] of God is manifested in this, that out of things that are not [ex ouk ontōn] he makes whatever he wills. THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH: Ad Autolycum 2.4 02/05/2024 | 19 TERTULLIAN (ca. 155–220): the concept of divinity excludes the eternity of matter ➢ the notion of an uncreated material principle would undermine the freedom of the divine will and make the creator a slave to matter ➢ the sovereignty and autonomy of the creator as the first priority in the theology of creation More glory accrued to him [God] from having made [fecisse] [the world] of his own will [voluntate] rather than of necessity [necessitate]; in other words, out of nothing [ex nihilo] rather than out of matter [ex materia]. It is more worthy to believe that God is free, even as the author of evil things [malorum], than that he is a slave [servum]. TERTULLIAN: Adversus Hermogenen 14 02/05/2024 | 20 CONCLUSION the creation accounts of the monotheistic religions strive to articulate creation as an absolutely sovereign and autonomous act that is in no way dependent on anything beyond itself ➢ act of creation as the sole and absolute source of being, decided by the unconditioned will of the creator alone ➢ the Judeo-Christian theology of creation can thus be seen as a “political” theology that makes use of political metaphors 02/05/2024 | 21 ➢ in contrast to the Platonic Demiurge as an administrator and organizer, the Judeo-Christian creator is a sovereign ruler: an undivided and unconditioned simple source of all creative power and activity ➢ Platonic non-despotic Demiurge vs. Judeo-Christian despotic creator ➢ the theology of creation with its theological absolutism (HANS BLUMENBERG) thus provides the main conceptual model of for the early modern concept of political sovereignty, as SCHMITT maintains ➢ however, this theological model is itself borrowed from the political model of Hellenistic and Roman despotic rule 02/05/2024 | 22