Search results for ex nihilo

The T&T Clark Handbook of Suffering and the Problem of Evil has just been published. Editors Matthias Grebe and Johannes Grossl have an all-star lineup of writers contributing to this volume, a book with 80 chapters! Here’s a link. My contribution is called “Everlasting Creating and Essential Love.” To give you a taste of my […]

In his book The Future of Open Theism: From Antecedents to Opportunities (IVP Academic 2020), Richard Rice does a myriad of helpful things. He reports on the origins of open theology, describes contemporary debates among open theists, and looks at where open theism might move in the future. Rice rightly calls openness theology a “paradigm […]

Tripp Fuller’s book Divine Self-Investment: an Open and Relational Constructive Christology makes an important contribution to understanding Jesus of Nazareth. In this essay, I summarize Fuller’s book. I show how he affirms Jesus as a special expression of divine self-investment. As one who joins Fuller in embracing an open and relational theological vision, I am […]

Many people think a timeless God created the universe and is its eschatological hope. By contrast, I think we make better sense of creation and eschatology if we think God is timefull rather than timeless. In a previous essay, I identified four dimensions of an open and relational — “God-in-process” — view of providence. Here’s […]

Most Christian theologies assume God is essentially timeless. By ‘essentially timeless,’ I mean they assume God does not experience in relationship with others moment by moment. Many assume God ‘sees’ history – beginning to end – from an eternal now, without engaging in giving and receiving relations with creation. Scholars offer various theories for how […]

Few people wake up one morning and say, “Today, I will renounce the idea God created our universe from nothing.” I suspect that most people have not even heard of the idea, which is expressed by the Latin words creatio ex nihilo. And those who have heard of creation from nothing probably have no reason to question […]

In three previous blogs, I explored 9 reasons many Christians affirm the theory that God initially created our universe from absolutely nothing. Although some of the reasons have validity, I found none of them to be ultimately convincing. In this blog, I want to offer my alternative to creation from nothing. The Basic Idea: creatio ex […]

I’m writing a book that offers a new theory of initial creation. It’s a project I’ve wanted to do for some time. To help my thinking, I’m asking friends and readers to comment on the issues. So far, the comments I’ve been sent have been very helpful, and I’m incorporating them in my writing. I […]

This the fourth and final installment in my blog review of Keith Ward’s book, Christ and Cosmos. In the first installment, I noted that Ward thinks the social Trinity is a “bad idea.” I agreed, and I noted the helpfulness of Ward’s general doctrine of God, which comes from an open and relational perspective. In […]

I thank Derek Rishmawy for his Christianity Today review of my new book, The Uncontrolling Love of God.  I offer this response as a way to clarify and note differences between Derek’s views and my own.