Schönborn, Christoph, 2007- Chance or Purpose?

If it is true that the question of origins (“Where do we come from?”) is inseparable from the question of the end (“Where are we going?”), then likewise the question of creation is always concerned with the question of the goal of things. It is thereby a matter of the question about a plan, about a “design” or “purpose”.

God is not merely a Creator who once upon a time set everything going, like a clockmaker who has made a clock that will then run for ever more; rather, he is sustaining it and guiding it toward a goal. Creation, says Christian belief, is not just finished, but is in statu viae, on the way.

A blind faith that simply demanded of us a leap into what was completely uncertain and unknown would not be a human faith. [...] Believing without knowledge, without the possibility of coming to know anything about the Creator, of our reason being able to comprehend anything about him, would not be Christian belief.

Only the belief that the world is created, that it is not divine, that it is finite, that it is “contingent”, as we say in philosophical terminology, not “necessary” - that it might equally well not have existed - has made it possible for the world and everything that is in it to be studied for its own sake.

Behind the things in the world there is the Creator’s reason, which transcends all else. [...] They have been set free, so to speak, into their own existence. [...] In that sense, they have their own autonomy, their own laws, their independence, their own being.

Creation out of nothing, the absolute and sovereign act of creation, as recounted in the Bible, is unique. We shall see how this is of fundamental importance for an understanding of creation as having an independence intended by God.

God wrote this book, and he gave man understanding so that he could make out what it says. God wrote the book in a legible script, which is certainly not easy to make out, but it can be read. All the work of science lies in discovering order, laws, and connections.

Belief in God as Creator is not an obstacle but rather the opposite. Why should the belief that the universe has a Creator stand in the way of science? Why should it in any way cause problems for science, if scientists understand their research [...] as “studying the book of creation”?

Those are not actually scientific statements but philosophical ones. They might also be regarded, to some extent, as confessions of belief. [...] Regarding this kind of straying beyond the boundaries of competence [...] this is not science but ideology, a way of looking at the world.

I see no difficulty in combining faith in a Creator with the theory of evolution, subject to one condition: that the [...] boundaries of scientific theory are adhered to. [...] If science sticks to its own methods it cannot come into conflict with faith.

The doctrine of creation implies that there is an absolute beginning [...] the free and sovereign constitution of being out of nothing. [...] We believe, not just in an absolute beginning, but also that creation is being sustained. [...] Part of what creation also means is that it is guided. [...] Divine providence is a part of the doctrine of creation.

This methodical exclusion of divine involvement is sometimes referred to as “methodological atheism”. I see it differently: this has nothing to do with atheism but is a straightforward method of natural science. It cannot assume the existence of a “clockmaker” who intervenes. This method is looking for mechanisms and sets of conditions that can explain the way things happen.

We believe in a Creator who is not just one cause among others, intervening from time to time, when things get too difficult or when you reach some limit. [...] Here [...] we are concerned with the act of creation as such. It is the sovereign act of the constitution of being as such.

God creates in utter freedom - nothing compels him to do it. [...] Because God created us in sovereign freedom, he therefore has given his creatures genuine independence. The creatures are themselves; they really do have their own existence and activity, the autonomy that has been vouchsafed them.

But are these the only alternatives: either a Creator or natural causes? [...] The Creator endows the creatures not only with existence, but also with effective activity. [...] What Darwin called “secondary causes” can thus perfectly well be reconciled with belief in creation.

Man is able to investigate his own genome and the chimpanzee’s genome as well. He can take an interest in his relationship to the chimpanzee and study it. He even has the freedom to deny being any different from the chimpanzee. [...] Even for that, you need mind, reason, and will.

Logos and agape, reason and love, are the material from which the world was made, of which it consists, and with which it is being perfected.