The Trinity and the Kingdom
Jurgen
Moltmann - Excerpts from Chapter iv of 'the World of the
Trinity'
And
if (because of creation out of chaos, and creatio ex nihilo) we have to
say that there is a 'within' and a 'without' for God - and that he
therefore goes creatively 'out of himself', communicating himself to
the one who is other than himself - then we must assume a
self-limitation of the infinite, omnipresent God, preceding his
creation. In order to create something outside himself, the infinite
God must have made room for this finitude beforehand, 'in himself'......
Must
we not say that this 'creation outside God' exists simultaneously in
God in the space which God has made for it in his omnipresence ? Has
God not therefore created the world 'in himself', giving it time in his
eternity, finitude in his infinity, space in his omnipresence and
freedom in his selfless love?
The
Trinitarian relationship of the Father , the Son, and the Holy Spirit
is so wide that the whole creation can find space, time and freedom in
it. Creation as God's act in Nothingness and as God's order in chaos is
a male, an engendering notion. Creation as God's act in God and out of
God must rather be called a feminine concept, a bringing forth: God
creates the world by letting his world become and be in himself: Let it
be!
Isaac
Luria developed this idea in his doctrine of zimsum. Zimsum really
means concentration or contraction, a withdrawal into the self. Luria
transformed the ancient doctrine about God's concentration at the
single point of his Shekinah in the Temple, into the doctrine of God's
concentrated inversion for the purpose of creating the world.......
and
Self limitation,
self-emptying and the patience of love already begin with the creation
of the world...if we understand the creation of the world in
Trinitarian terms as a self restricting activity of the Father, through
the Son, in the power of the Spirit, then creation is the first stage
on the road to freedom.
Jurgen Moltmann
See alsoBerkeley
and Origins and Origins
and the Word of
Creation
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