COVENANTAL CRISES II:

“Otherness”

The One-and-Only God existed from eternity past and will exist for eternity future in the tri-unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He thus has constituted and always will constitute relationality defined as covenant.¹ However, before Creation the Covenantal God must have existed alone. The only relationship and communication were within — internal. There was no external “otherness” with which and with whom God could relate. It was in this context that God pondered, planned and prepared to initiate Creation (Ephesians 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:9). Ultimately, the coexistence of Creation would grant God the privilege of engaging with “others” in the joy and fulfillment of external “human” relationships (John 15:15).

God’s Initial and Continuing Creation

Since there was no “otherness” before the “beginning” (Genesis 1:1), God had to create the universe out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo). Today, scientists are convinced that the universe originated in a “black hole” or “worm hole” smaller than the size of the period at the end of this sentence. From this beginning the miniscule universe exploded in what is termed the “big bang” and, over nearly 14 billion Earth-years, emerged into the huge universe of galaxies, stars, planets, and all other natural entities that exist today. However, this did not occur independently but required God’s continuing creation (creatio continua).

Interestingly, all created entities relate to one another through fundamental forces such as gravity, electromagnetism and the Coulomb force. For example, material bodies such as stars, planets and beings are held together by gravitational force and are held apart by centrifugal force. If these “forces” did not exist, the entire universe would collapse into a “black hole.” Yet even to this day, no scientist knows what gravity or the other “forces” really are!²

God’s Profound Risk in Creation

Initially, God necessarily created “otherness” by command, possession and power.³ Because of this, Creation either had to be docile, submissive to and dominated by God, or God had to grant Creation the privilege of freely relating with, to and for him and “others.” God therefore took an enormous risk and proceeded to grant Creation the freedom to ignore, resist and reject his “Otherness.” The nature of this profound risk, together with its origin and destiny, will therefore be addressed.

Endnotes