Abstract
This chapter discusses the order of creation in relation to new creation. The first part is about science, eschatology, and the natural world. It argues that theoretical reflection should choose its starting point in our integral experience, not in scientific knowledge. I propose to relate the continuity between creation and new creation to what is called in Dooyeweerdian philosophy modal aspects and typical structures. Discontinuity can be connected with the specific laws and concrete properties that characterize these aspects and structures. The second part is about resurrection and personal identity. I reject substance dualism and its derivatives in which continuity between this life and the next is connected with mental and discontinuity with material properties. As an alternative, I propose the distinction between personal and structural identity. Personal identity can only be expressed in such personal terms as I and you. Structural identity covers both material and mental properties. I argue that there will be continuity and discontinuity in both respects. This may even apply to the intermediate state between death and resurrection, when we are “with Christ.” I suggest the possibility that we will have both material and mental properties in that state. As a general point it is argued that creation order should primarily be understood as the order that we live and experience, not as the abstract order described in scientific laws.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
It is not just the end of the world that poses this problem. Rather, the ambiguity is already part of the development of life. From the very beginning it appears that life and death are intricately interwoven. The clearest example may be the togetherness of predator and prey. But the issue goes far deeper. Complex order as expressed in living organisms can only exist at the expense of the growth of disorder in the surrounding world. How can death figure in the good creation from the beginning? How is it possible that the temporal nature of the creation involves decay from the outset?
- 3.
I will shortly come back to the issue of death and decay in relation to life in my discussion of the understanding of time.
- 4.
In this respect it is interesting that Wilkinson compares his own view of multidimensionality, discussed later in the main text, with “the ‘eternalist’ position which traces its history back to Plotinus ” (Wilkinson 2010, 128).
- 5.
Wilkinson seems to follow the argument that God needs to be in time because only in this way could he be a personal agent (Wilkinson 2010, 125−126). I do not believe in this kind of argument. It draws conclusions about the nature of God based on what we can think, forgetting that our thinking is both made possible and constrained by the fact that we are creatures. In fact, I suspect that this kind of argument is an illustration of the tendency towards a God’s eye point of view, which I mentioned in the first section, in this case even including the being of God. Typical for this way of thinking is the view about the relationship between thinking and being: whatever can be thought is supposed also to be possible; what cannot be thought is supposed to be impossible. This line of thought goes back to Parmenides . Evidently, the thinking in terms of what can(not) be thought applies to theoretical or strictly logical thought.
- 6.
It is only later in his book that Wilkinson mentions the multidimensionality of time as a possible solution to certain questions. For the experience of the believer, resurrection could take place immediately after death without an intermediate period of waiting (2010, 142), with reference to Luke 32:43 (145).
- 7.
It is important to realize that it is a theory about order . It does not describe the concrete order of reality but abstracts different aspects from this concrete order in theoretical analysis.
- 8.
Neither Murphy nor Polkinghorne reflects upon our historical and cultural situatedness which shapes both our memory and our moral convictions, not to mention our sense of self . Think of people from different historical periods and cultural contexts that will meet in the new creation . Memory is certainly important (as are the other characteristics Murphy mentions) in relation to our identity in the resurrection , but the history that has shaped us goes beyond our memory . Our being as an answer to the promise-command to be through time goes beyond all the stories that could be told or remembered, even if they relate what is most important and most characteristic.
- 9.
The word life here is the translation of the Greek word for soul .
- 10.
Interestingly, Murphy asks to which extent “personal identity can be maintained through the elimination of negative characteristics” and refers in this context to “narratives of sinners transformed in this life” (2002, 214). Yet her emphasis is on the “preservation of human moral character” (218), including “virtues (or vices)” (212).
- 11.
This issue will be taken up in our discussion of Badiou in part 2 on political philosophy (cf. Geertsema forthcoming).
- 12.
Within this theoretical context of modal aspects and different structures , it makes sense to call one aspect or structure the substrate for another; for example, in the case of animals the physical-chemical and the biotic for the aspects of the senses.
- 13.
The distinction is similar to Dooyeweerd’s distinction between the central-religious and the temporal sphere. Both have a law- and a subject-side ; what holds for all and what is unique for each person . I differ from Dooyeweerd in that I do not take personal identity to be supra-temporal.
- 14.
In part 2 on political philosophy I will elaborate on this point in relation to the social-political world (cf. Geertsema forthcoming).
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Geertsema, H.G. (2017). Creation Order in the Light of Redemption (1): Natural Science and Theology. In: Glas, G., de Ridder, J. (eds) The Future of Creation Order. New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion , vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70881-2_4
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