Creating to Forgive
On Tuesday I posed a question on twitter: “Did God create the world to forgive it?”
I received emphatic yes’s and no’s. Some provided nuance, others didn’t. The original thought came from something I read from Miroslav Volf in Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. He writes:
A story claiming to be rabbinic appeared in a newspaper some time ago: Before setting out to create the world, the Almighty took a moment to look into the future of creation. God saw beauty, truth, goodness, and the joy of creatures, but the All-Knowing One also saw a never-ending stream of human misdeeds, small, large, and horrendous, a trail of sighs, tears, and blood. “If I give sinners their due,” thought the Just One, “I’ll have to destroy the world that I am about to create. Should I create just to destroy?” And so God decided to forgive the world in advance so that the world could be brought into being. Creation owes its very existence to God’s forgiveness.
I don’t know whether this story is authentically rabbinic or not. A similar idea can be found in the New Testament. The apostle Peter wrote that Christ was destined as God’s Lamb “before the foundation of the world” (I Peter 1:20). Building on statements like these, some theologians have suggested that the world was created so that it would be redeemed and finally glorified. Redemption, they maintained, was not a solution God thought up after human beings botched up God’s first attempt. Instead it was the purpose of creation. This view may or may not be right. But it does seem that God decided to redeem the world of sin before the Creator could lay down its foundations. Each of us exists because the gift of life rests on the gift of forgiveness.
I think Volf arrives at this viable option from his perspective of viewing God as a God of self-giving love. Wrapped up in this idea of self-giving love is the very notion of forgiveness. In God’s giving of Godself in love God forgives the world God created. I think it is quite compelling. What do you think?
