CHAPTER II

God as Creator

WE pass from our purely defensive ground to show that, so far from the Trinity making a belief in a living God more difficult, it goes to make easier for us some difficulties besetting all monotheistic systems, and not least Islam; and especially the difficulty, Why should a self-sufficient God have created the world? And, after creating it, was not His self-sufficiency thereby imperiled? How real this difficulty is all students of Islam know. The Philosophers with their theories of emanation (sudur) and the eternity of the world (qidam al alam); the Sufis with their Tradition 1 are enough to prove that this difficulty is a real one; and, as a matter of fact, most agnosticism is owed to the seriousness of this very difficulty to many minds. We say that the doctrine of a Trinity makes the position easier, not more difficult.

Let us recapitulate the difficulties experienced by Islamic Deism in ascribing to God creation.

1 Kunta kanzan makhfiyan lam u'raf, fa ahbabtu an u'raf, fa khalagtu khalgan wa to 'arraftu ilaihim, fa bi 'arafuni. 'I was a hidden treasure, being unknown. Then I desired to be known. So I created creatures and made Myself known to them; and by Me they knew Me.'
CREATOR, INCARNATE, ATONER 29

1. How could such a God pass over into actual creation and become a Creator? Have we not here an involving of the Absolute God in contingency?

2. Before creation His activities were entirely inactive, only finding activity in creation. They were latent, not potent; potential, not actual. Now potentiality is no substitute for action. It is, relatively to action, deficiency. And if we say that creation was required to release the Creator from His latency and set free the quality of Power, with other qualities denoting action, then we have ascribed to Him deficiency and dependence of the first order.

3. Creation in this case would mean for God the beginning of relations, for in creating He comes into relations with His world. But the beginning of relations would mean the beginning of a new kind of life for the Divine Being. This is against pure transcendence (tanzih).

4. Relation involves something in the way of reaction for both parties. What is this reaction but passivity? He who hears, for example, has an action done upon him. This is against tanzih. How could an absolute Being like such a God limit his absoluteness, and condescend from it?

Now the idea of a Triune God, as revealed through Christ, greatly lessens, if it does not entirely annul, these great difficulties. Let us note the following important considerations:

(a) The doctrine of the Triune God reveals to us a God with eternal activities, not latent, but potent in eternal action. Love is the essence of His being,