Creatiion in th

he Letterr to the Romans

R
By Herold Weiss
W

C
reation is a fun
ndamental themee in the Bible. Faiith affirms God’s creative action.
Creeationism, on the other hand, is thee manipulation off biblical stories by
b those who prettend to
connvince others that they have scientiific validity. Theyy are involved in a battle that, as I said last
monnth, cannot be wo on with the boots on. For creationiism I have no usee. Given the impoortance of
Creation in the
t Bible, howeveer, I am starting a short series of coolumns about it. Wishing
W to contriibute, at the
same time, too the discussion ofo the SS lessons of this quarter, I will begin with thhe Letter to the Romans.
R

Paul wrote
w Romans to defend
d his gospell because other Christians,
C who likke him had come from
Judaism, werre rejecting it and
d, apparently, acccused Paul of having turned God’ss truth into a lie. Being
B a
Jew, he shouuld be ashamed prreaching a gospell which denied thhe history of salvaation and denied that t the law
reveals the juustice of God. Th
hese Christians beelieved that the knnowledge and truuth of God is conccretized in
the law, and thought that it was a shame for a Jew,
J circumcisedd and instructed inn the law, to havee the
temerity to deny
d this fundameental reality. Havving possession off the law, these Christians
C felt quaalified to
judge others and teach them how
h God thinks and a acts.

Defennding himself fromm the abuse and persecution

p of theese Christians whho pretended to maintain
m their privileged position beefore
God on the basis
b of their bein
ng Jews who possses the law, Paul declares,
d “I am noot ashamed of thee gospel because it is the power off God
to save everyyone who has faitth in God” (1:16)). With these wordds Paul establishees that the gospell does not consist of information but
b of
power to savve and that this po
ower is not in the hands of humanss but of God. Thaat is, the gospel has to do with Godd’s actions. God’s
activity, how
wever, is being quuestioned on accoount of what transspires around us. Looking
L around we
w see that the juust suffer and the wicked
prosper. Appparently, God is not
n sufficiently poowerful to do justtice in the world. Paul wrote Romaans to argue that the
t gospel revealls the
power of Good to do justice (1:17).

To plaace matters in their proper context,, Paul says that thhe justice of God reveals itself in the
t midst of the already manifest wrath
w
of God (1:188). To point this out
o he refers to Crreation, the cleareest demonstrationn of God’s power. Of course, basinng his argument on o
nature, he is putting aside the law. According to t Paul, since Creeation the things created
c show thatt which can be knnown of God. Pauul thus
tacitly admitts that God is, as such,
s unknowable. That was the philosophical
p posiition of many in the
t first century. What
W was arguedd was
whether this was due to the nature or will of God,
G or to the limiitations of humann knowledge. Aloong these lines thee author of theGoospel of
John says, deenying the story ini Ex. 24:9-11, “NNo one has ever seens God” (Jn. 1:18). But, while God
G is invisible, inncorruptible and
immortal, Good has invisible attributes
a which God
G has made maanifest to the extent that human beings who “refrainn the truth with innjustice
... are inexcuusable.” Creation,, Paul says, maniffests “the eternal power and diviniity“ of God.

These words of Paul haave, for centuries, been the proof text
t for natural theology. When huumanity, rather thhan glorifying andd
giving thankks to God, becomees vain and lets thheir hearts becomme dark to pontificcate nonsense it is manifesting thee wrath of God. Living
L
in the midst of a Creation thatt manifests the atttributes of God, human
h beings excchange the glory of the Creator Good for images of
creatures. In other words, it iss not necessary too have the Law, thhe Prophets and the
t Writings in orrder to have enouugh knowledge off God
that causes one
o to give glory and thanks to God. The witness off Creation is enouugh.

The huuman pride that tuurns wise ones innto fools who worrship idols insteadd of God and use their bodies unnaturally in humann
relations shoows that human beings do not takee God seriously. GodG responds to thheir independencce “giving them up u to” their own devises
d
and passionss. To be noticed iss that neither the law nor Satan plaay a role in this description.
d Here the
t relation of thee Creator with alll
created thinggs is immediate, without
w intermediiary agents (1:18--32).

In chaapter 5, Paul estab

blishes the significance of Christ, as
a the revelation of
o the justice of God,
G by contrast with
w Adam. The firstf
Adam openeed the door and siin and death enterred the world. Onnce in, they reign.. As in chapter 1, the entrance of sin
s and death intoo God’s
creation is noot related to the laaw or Satan. These two forces enttered the world byy the action of a man,
m Adam. The entrance of justicce and
life is also caaused by one man n, Jesus Christ (5: 12, 15, 19).

The crreatures who live in the world wheere sin and death reign greatly desire liberation from
m the slavery of corruption
c (8:21). All
Creation hass been groaning as a woman at the hour of giving biirth until now dessiring the redempption of the body. Even Christians who
“have receivved the down paymment of the Spiritt” also groan desiiring redemption (8:23). “In hope we are save” (8:224), affirms Paul.

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omans  
 This is the contradiction of the Creation that manifests “the eternal power and divinity” of God and at the same time groans
“subjected to vanity” (8:20) under the wrath of God who gives it up to pride, idolatry and unnatural passions. This same God has also
revealed justice, power and life in the second Adam, the Son of God in the Spirit of the resurrection (1:5). The parallelism between the
first and the second Adam includes a radical contrast. While with the first the disobedience of one had awful consequences in many, with
the second the awful condition of many was undone by the obedience of one (5:19).

The “eternal power” of God to save those who “see fit to acknowledge God” (1:28) makes possible for the Creation that groans
desiring the liberation of the sons of God, the termination of their birth pains, to be subject under God “with hope” (8:20). In Romans,
even though Adam opened the door for sin and death to enter the world created by God, God is in control of the world. The Creation that
groans with labor pains is subject to the God who subjects it with hope. Creation is not fallen into Satan’s hands.

The Letter to the Romans both at the beginning and the end exhorts Christians not to judge their fellows. As an incentive it
reminds them that they themselves will have to stand before the righteous judgment of God (2:5; 14:9-11) The Christian Jews who
exempt themselves from judgment and judge gentiles as sinners, as well as all Christians who judge or despise their fellow Christians
because they adopt a different posture about the identity of the Sabbath or the purity of meats, are exhorted by Paul not to judge or to
injure each other (14:3, 15). It must be noticed that Paul, who is defending himself from those who accuse him of making a lie of the
gospel and denying his Jewish heritage, makes a digression and uses emphatic language to affirm something that could provide gasoline
to the fire of his opponents. He writes, “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for
any one who thinks it unclean” (14:14)

With these words he declares that in the realm of being, that is in creation, nothing is unclean. This, Paul says, “I know”. As
important as this radical declaration that negates one of the boundary markers between Jews and the rest of humanity is the basis on
which Paul knows this truth. He knows this by his faith in Jesus Christ. The New Creation in the resurrection of Christ gives him a new
vision of reality, and on that basis Paul affirms that the distinction between clean and unclean does not exist in the realm of being, even if
for some it exists in the realm of ideas.

In the same way in which in chapter 1 Paul distinguishes between what is known and what is not known of God, that is that while
revealing some attributes God remains unknown, in chapter 14 Paul establishes that some meats may be unclean in the realm of ideas,
but that is not the case in the realm of being, in Creation. The way Paul makes these fine distinctions lets us know that Paul assumes his
readers are capable of appreciating that the realm of knowledge and the realm of being are not the same.

In chapter 8 Paul finishes his argument about the effectiveness of God’s justice to save sinners extolling the love of God. The
“eternal power and divinity” of God not only create; they also love. The triumph of love, Paul says, is secure because no other power in
the universe is capable of overpowering the love of God. Considering the possible candidates for this battle, Paul distinguishes two
groups. In the first he considers circumstances of daily life: tribulation, anguish, persecution, famine, nakedness, dangers, swords. These
challenges of earthy life are not really believable rivals of love. In the second group Paul considers challengers that come from outside
the earthly realm and are beyond human control or will. Now he declares, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
potentates, not the present, nor the future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature has the power to separate us from the love of
God” (8:35-39).

When challenged by anguish, famine or nakedness we can do something. Before death, angels and the future we feel helpless. In
the cosmology of the first century the heavenly spheres between earth and God’s throne were under the control of “powers of the air”,
here called principalities and potentates. It is difficult to decide to what is Paul referring when he includes “height” and “depth” in the list
of creatures of the universe with power to attempt to break the bonds of love that unite human beings to God. A cosmology of
principalities, potentates, height, depth, etc. is difficult to be visualized by those who live in the XXI century. We can safely dismiss the
cosmology, however, and understand perfectly the apostle who assures us that no power in the universe is superior to the love of God
that saves every one who has faith in God, and which at the same time reveals God’s justice

Therefore, when Paul tells us that Abraham, the father of those who have faith, believed “the one who gives life to the dead and
names both the things that are not and the things that are” (4:17), we can do no other than be silent before the vacuum that separates the
creation of the world of things created from that of those not created. The One who controls this frontier is the One in Whom we, like
Abraham, must have faith.

Christian theology of the II and III centuries, trying to defend what Christians believe as different from pagan myths, appealed to 2
Maccabees 7:28, where the mother of the seven martyrs reminds the seventh son of God’s power to create that which is not (ouk on). Out
of this came the doctrine of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) in contradiction to the biblical accounts. In Gen. 1 God creates using the
primordial ocean, and in Gen. 2 God comes to a pre-existent desert and forms man out of its dust. Paul, on the other hand, has no need to
fight against pagan myths. He emphasizes God’s power to give life to the dead saying that God is not only the Creator of the things

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created but also has power over the things that are not (me onta), those things that we can not even imagine or name. The undetermined
abyss between the things created and those not created is the realm of liberty. The realm of potentiality, where any thing is possible and
actuality is absent, is where liberty has its habitation. This is the realm of the Holy Spirit who moved over the face of the waters before
Creation, raised Christ from the dead and gives life to those dead in their sins. In the things that are not is where God’s power to create
and to save are still one and the same and all miracles are possible. In the totality of being and not being is where the realm of knowledge
faces the mystery of God and keeps silence.

To acknowledge God as the One who names both the things that are and the things that are not is to recognize the One Being with
complete freedom. It is precisely because we were created out of the freedom of not being that as creatures we received the image of
God, and we have, as part of our being, freedom for not being. The Letter to the Romans calls us to gather our senses and be grateful
creatures for the gift of being and being saved in the hope of becoming Children of God who no longer live in the flesh, no longer groan
in the creation subject to God’s wrath (8:19).

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