OK, let’s bring together what we’ve said so far: we’ve noted that the Bible describes God’s acts of creation primarily in terms of speaking; and that Speech-act theory allows us to clarify that speaking frequently does more than convey information.
What I want to do is push Vanhoozer’s idea beyond God’s interactions with humans to creation as a whole. To suggest that a key metaphor for God’s acting in creation is the call/summons to the created order; especially in the initial act of creation.
Now, obviously, we have to keep in mind that this is a metaphor. Speech-act typically describes the interactions between people. And the relationship between God and creation does not match inter-personal communication, but it gives us a fresh way of approaching things, a fresh picture. Rather than a mechanised/reductionistic view of creation, I want to suggest that we view creation as called. A called-creation is, in some sense, responding to God’s summons in Genesis 1.
I think this can fruitfully lead to a number of interesting pictures/ideas, which I’ll try and kick around in future posts. But for now, let us think about the causation.
In a mechanistic picture, our view is based around a simple cause-and-effect idea. This even takes us to the so-called ‘ontological argument’ for the existence of God — that there must be an uncaused-cause that kicks off the cause-and-effect process. But our cause-and-effect picture is based around physical processes. This leads to the question as to what it means for God to be the initial cause. Do we picture Him going in and lighting the touch-paper for the big bang? And once the physical process gets going, do we decide that God’s causal effect is over?
I think picturing creation as a summons to creation to fulfil God’s call gives a more flexible view. God’s call is the reason for the way Creation looks, but because it is a communicative act that does not mean we can necessarily put our figure on the point in the cause-and-effect cycle when God acted. From one perspective, every step is caused by God. From another, creation’s ‘independence’ is wholy maintained — there is no ‘God of the gaps’ step in the process.
(Obviously this meshes pretty well with the comment in Science and Grace that God ‘has many more avenues available to Him for governance than building things in beforehand.’)
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