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Can God Create Men and Address them Too?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
The philosophical problem of whether God can create free men has a special form for Christian theologians. Among the many kinds of freedom that might be claimed for men, theologians are most interested in the kind that involves the human response to God. For Christians the important response is to God's revelation in Christ. The form of the problem of creation and freedom of chief interest to Christian theologians, therefore, is whether these two doctrines are compatible:
1. that God is the creator of everything finite and contingent, including men and their responses, and
2. that through the gospel of Jesus Christ God addresses men who may respond freely.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1968
References
1 See Hodgson's, Peter C.Formation of Historical Theology: A Study of Ferdinand Christian Baur (New York: Harper & Row, 1966)Google Scholar for a detailed analysis of one part of this shift in interest.
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12 That having these freedoms means one is genuinely free is a matter requiring much qualification and long defense. Since I am preparing a book to do just that, the thesis will be assumed here, recognizing that it lies at the core of the controversy.
13 This is defended with proper qualifications in Creation and the Trinity, Theological Studies (March, 1969)Google ScholarPubMed.
14 For a more extended explanation of the phrase “normative expression of the Creator” see ibid.