DOES GOD “ACT” IN CREATION?

A BONAVENTURIAN RESPONSE

Ilia Delio, O.S.F.

Introduction

The relationship between God and creation is, fundamentally, a theological one that

begs the question of how God acts in the world. The Scriptures are replete with examples of

the “mighty acts of God.” The Old Testament recounts how God parted the Red Sea, fed the

Israelites in the desert, and raised Lazarus to life, among other myriad examples of divine

action. While divine action presupposes a transcendent God who “acts,” the nature of such

action is subject to scrutiny today as evidence of the new science points to an evolving

universe marked by uncertainty, change, chaos and self-organization. The apparent ability of

nature to organize itself into new patterns of order challenges the Newtonian understanding of

divine action as efficient causality. Does God “act” to change things or move them around?

Does God intervene in creation to keep it moving in a particular direction? Or as Nicholas

Saunders asks, “has belief in special divine action been irrevocably lost to science?”1

While there are many attempts today to re-imagine divine action in creation, including

the novel theology of process thinkers, it is my belief that the Christian tradition still holds a

wealth of ideas to be explored. Those thinkers who place an emphasis on divine esse describe

God’s action as one of final cause in which the divine essence is the principal cause of

creation. Conversely, those writers who maintain that God’s ontos is love describe a
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trinitarian structure of God at work in creation in which unity and plurality are equally

primordial and intrinsically related. It is in this respect that the medieval theologian,

Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, offers a theology that holds relevance for the contemporary

scientific world. Following the tradition of fecund goodness, Bonaventure describes the

Trinity as self-diffusive goodness that gives rise to a communion of persons in love. It is out

of the overflowing goodness of the Trinity that creation emerges. There is a congruity or

fittingness, therefore, between the Trinity and creation which Bonaventure sees in a particular

way in the person of Jesus Christ. My thesis is that divine action is essentially trinitarian. It is

the one eternal-temporal act of the Father’s love for the Son united in the Spirit. In this

respect, God’s action on discrete levels is the same action on the overall process of creation.

That is, there is no distinction between God’s action “top down” or “bottom’s up” since the

action itself is an act which is ultimately centered on the love of the Father for the Son and the

fullness of Christ in the universe.

Divine Action and the Christian God

The notion of divine action in the Christian tradition has met little resistance at least

up until the twentieth century where the rise of the new science has significantly altered our

view of the universe. The change in our contemporary world view has impelled scholars to

reconsider the God-world relationship and, in particular, the way God “acts” in the world. As

scientists today point to an evolutionary universe marked by chance, chaos, and self-

organization, the question of divine action has become an increasingly complex and delicate

one. Since Christian theology has always taken its cue from the created world, it is not

surprising to find theologians today, attentive to the new science, struggling with the question
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of divine action. The models of divine action described in God, Humanity and the Cosmos,

for example, describe the relationship between God and world from at least five different

perspectives.2 “The problem of divine action,” as James Wiseman writes, “hinges on the issue

that “any change in the natural world necessarily involves an input of physical energy and this

raises the question of how a spiritual, unembodied reality could bring about such an effect in

our space-time continuum.”3 Saunders states, “Of all the challenges science has raised for

theology, perhaps the most fundamental is that it has brought into question the doctrine of

divine action.”4

Underlying the range of theories on divine action are two main concerns: 1) the

omnipotence, freedom and omniscience of God, and 2) the integrity and freedom of creation,

especially as science points to nature’s inherent ability to self-organize. Proponents of kenotic

theology suggest that God limits or withholds his power in order to relate to the world or

allow the world its own freedom to be.5 Those who oppose this type of theology claim that the

notion of divine kenosis is a form of reduction, or revision of the traditional attributes of God.

Michael Hoonhout, for example, claims that kenosis diminishes the power of God “so that his

mind is no longer omniscient, his will no longer perfectly extensive or efficacious, and his

power no longer infinite.”6 Following a Thomistic doctrine of God, Hoonhout warrants

against equivocating God and world: “Because God is Creator his active immanence in the

world is not at all on the same level as the natural order, so no competition or interference is

possible.”7

This type of radical distinction between God and world can be traced back to early

patristic fathers whose efforts to maintain the absolute transcendence of God led to the

doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, a doctrine formulated to indicate that God creates “out of
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nothing.”8 That is, God does not need any pre-existing materials to create. Rather, God “acts”

simply by the power of God’s own self. The term ex nihilo underscored the idea that God

creates a world truly distinct from Godself. While the notion of distinction between God and

world was meant to underscore a transcendent God who is independent of the world, common

belief distilled God and universe into two separate realities more or less over against each

other, with God reaching into the world to act at particular moments. As Denis Edwards

points out, this common way of imaging the God-world relationship resulted in an

interventionist view of divine action with God intervening to create and to move creation in

the right direction at certain times.9

Just as the patristic fathers sought to avoid any type of pantheism or conflation of God

and world, so too the God-world relationship of Thomas Aquinas affirmed the distinctiveness

of God’s being compared to created reality. Thomas’s doctrine of God placed a firm emphasis

on God’s esse over and above God as a Trinity of divine persons.10 For Thomas, God is

absolute being and as absolute being, the final cause of all that exists. While he sought to

maintain the divine transcendent essence of God vis-à-vis the created world, such distinction

obscured the Christian doctrine of God as Trinity in its relation to creation.

The emphasis that Thomas placed on God the Creator as final cause shifted in the

enlightenment period as science developed as an independent discipline. The rise of

Newtonian science emphasized God as efficient cause and helped promote the image of God

as clockmaker and architect. God established the laws of the universe and adjusted them when

necessary to ensure efficient operation of the world machine.11 Newton’s God reflected his

science of motion. Just as the universe was marked by things in motion, so too God was one

who “moved things around.” Newton’s opposition to the Christian doctrine of Trinity (anti-
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socinian) further enhanced the notion of divine action as that of a single, transcendent divine

being who intervened occasionally to adjust the laws of the universe but who otherwise

remained detached from the events of creation.

While there is a great desire today to move beyond Newton’s God, we still find

models of divine action that reflect an omnipotent, omniscient and transcendent God. The

proponents of intelligent design theory, for example, point to the intricate order of the world

as “proof” that the complex order of physical entities/systems in nature cannot arise simply

according to their own internal laws or mechanisms. The example of a living cell as a sign of

“irreducible complexity” provides an argument for design from nature.12 Since the

components of a cell cannot function independently outside the cell and thus cannot be

accounted for by evolution itself, there must be an ultimate designer.13 Others for whom

design may be too restrictive propose that God acts in all things at all times. Nancey Murphy,

for example, states that God is a participant not only “in every (macro-level) event” but also

in countless quantum-level events, for God’s participation in the form “is by means of his

governance of the quantum events that constitute each macro-level event.” Thus Murphy sees

God acting as a “causal-joint” in the unfolding events of the physical universe.14 Murphy’s

notion of divine action is not entirely different from Aquinas’s notion of primary and

secondary causality. While God is first or primary cause, God works in and through the

created order as final cause so that “the finality of any secondary causal action is always a

participation in the supreme goodness of God.”15

Those who follow the Thomistic understanding of divine action make every effort to

explain God’s omnipotence as Creator and to prevent confusion between the divine and

created orders of being. While the doctrine of ex nihilo forms the background of Thomistic
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theories of divine action, the God described as the One who acts seems to have more in

common Aristotle than with the God who is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The

question of divine action is really a question of the divine itself. To ask, “how does God act?”

is to first ask, “who is the God who acts?” The problem with the monotheistic language of

divine action is that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity becomes secondary to divine action.

Portraying God [the Father] as a singular agent [Creator] seems to suggest that there is no role

in creation for the Word and Spirit.16 Essentially, the Trinity drops out of the equation when

considering the God-world relationship. This is a consequence, I believe, of placing the

emphasis on divine esse over Trinity. When one turns to the Franciscan school of theology,

especially the Parisian school under Alexander of Hales, however, one finds a wholly

different emphasis.

Examining the nature of the Trinity and the possibility of Incarnation, Alexander

explored the question whether God is a Trinity in God’s own self, or because of a creation or

an incarnation. In his view, there is more to creation than simply an esse finitum brought

about ex nihilo by God into actual esse. As a Christian he maintains that God is triune and

thus the theological insight into the mystery of creation, as we know it, needs to be seen

within a trinitarian context. Kenan Obsorne writes: “The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine

which not only speaks of God within God’s own self, but also maintains that the triune nature

of God affects all ad extra activities of God, including both creation and incarnation.”17

Alexander concluded that there is no necessity in God for either creation or incarnation.

Rather, the power to create and the power to be incarnate focuses on the divine nature as such,

rather than on a person of the Trinity. Creation is due to the goodness and wisdom of God,

that is, to the Spirit and to the Word, and not merely to the unnecessitated power of God
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appropriated to the Father. It is not merely the ad extra activity of a unitarian God, but an ad

extra activity of a triune God.18 Fundamental to God’s action is God’s being as self-diffusive

goodness (bonum est sui diffusivum), a principle which Alexander derived from the Pseudo-

Dionysius. The authors of the Summa Fratris Alexandri suggested that we may we making a

“cosmocentric” or “cosmo-morphic” error in assuming that goodness is secondary to being in

the Godhead.19 Since nature refers to action, creation and Incarnation find their sources in the

divine nature understood as a principle of action rather than in the divine essence.20 The

Franciscan theologian Bonaventure (1217-1274) was a student of Alexander of Hales and

clearly advanced his conception of God as Trinity. Bonaventure maintained that self-diffusive

goodness or love is the basis of creation; thus, it is the Trinity who creates and to whom

creation returns. Since the Trinity is integrally related to Christ, Bonaventure’s theology

allows us to posit a central role for Christ in creation. The Incarnation is not an intrusion into

an otherwise evolutionary universe nor is it unrelated to the essential role of God as Creator.

Rather, the whole process of creation marked by contingency and freedom points to Christ in

whom the cosmos finds its God-intended fulfillment.

Trinity and Creation

Bonaventure sought to understand the nature of God at work in the life of Jesus Christ

and looked to Scripture. In the Old Testament, he writes, God reveals himself as Being: “I am

who Am” (Exod. 3:14). In the New Testament, however, God reveals himself as good: “No

one is good but God alone” (Luke 18:19).21 Bonaventure identified goodness as the name of

God and looked to other theologians such as the Pseudo-Dionysius and Richard of St. Victor

to understand God as ultimate goodness. According to the Dionysius, the highest good is self-
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diffusive and gives rise to being.22 Richard states that the highest good is love, and love is

personal and communicative.23 Bonaventure, therefore, uses the notion of self-diffusive

goodness and personal love to distinguish the persons of the Trinity as a communion of

persons in love. The Father, he writes, is without origin and thus the source or fountain

fullness of goodness; thus, the Father is primal and self-diffusive.24 The Son is that person

eternally generated by the Father’s self-diffusive goodness (per modum naturae) and, as such,

is the total personal expression of the Father as Word, and ultimate likeness to the Father as

Image.25 The Son/Word is both generated by the Father and together with Father generates the

Spirit who is that eternal bond of love between the Father and Son. While the Son/Word is the

divine exemplar, the Spirit expresses God’s freedom in love. The Spirit proceeds from Father

and Son in an act of full freedom (per modum voluntatis), his procession being the act of a

clear and determinate loving volition on the part of Father and Son.26

In analyzing the trintarian dynamic as one of love, Bonaventure follows Richard of St.

Victor in arguing that the three persons represent three modalities of love. The first is a love

that is totally communicative and gratuitious (amor gratuitus). At the other extreme is a form

of love that is totally receptive and responsive (amor debitus). And between these is a

modality of love that is both communicative and receptive (amor ab utroque permixtus).27

Viewing the Trinity in terms of love allows the idea of a center to emerge. There is one person

who lives at the center of the Trinity in whom lives the fundamental structural law of all that

is other than the Father. This person is the Son or Word who is the perfect expression of the

Father in one other than the Father. Bonaventure favors the title Word to express the second

divine person’s relation not only to the Father but to creation, history and Incarnation.28
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Bonaventure posits an integral relation between the Trinity and Incarnation. It is God’s

nature as the primal, fecund mystery of self-communicative, loving goodness that makes

possible all of God’s works ad extra. The Son for Bonaventure is the one who is conceived

from the depths of the divine goodness; as Image he is the perfect likeness of the Father and

as Word he is the cause of all expression and manifestation.29 The Son is the one who, from

all eternity, receives the Father’s love and is totally responsive to it. Because the relationship

between the Father and Son is the ontological basis of all other relations, it appears that

created reality will bear the stamp of Sonship in its deepest core of its being. As the Son is

pure receptivity with respect to the Father, so created existence is, at root, the reception of

being. And just as the Son responds to the Father and in his response together with the Father

breathes forth the Spirit, so all created reality is destined to return to the Father.30 As the Word

is the internal self-expression of God’s fecund goodness, so the world is the external

objectification of that self-utterance in that which is not God. And the humanity of Jesus is the

fullest embodiment of that self-utterance within the created world. The one who became

incarnate is the perfect, personal likeness of the Father, the fecund source of all. Thus he holds

a middle place between the Father and the world, and it is through the Son that the Father

communicates to the world at all levels.

It is precisely as Word and center that the Son is the exemplar of all creation. While at

one level, the whole of the Trinity is exemplary with respect to the world, at another level the

mystery of exemplarity is concentrated in a unique way in the Son, for the triune structure of

God himself is expressed in him.31 Thus as the Word is the inner self-expression of God, the

created order is the external expression of the inner Word. The created universe, therefore,

possesses in its inner constitution a relation to the uncreated Word. Since the Word, in turn, is
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the expression of the inner trinitarian structure of God, that which is created as an expression

of the Word bears the imprint of the Trinity as well.32

For Bonaventure, the Trinity is marked by the order of love which is dynamic and

inexhaustible. Love within the Trinity is always going out to an other for the sake of the other.

If we ask the question, “why does God create,” we would have to say that God creates

because God is love. When we say that God is love, we are saying that God is personal and

relational because by the very nature of being love, God is other-centered. Thus, any “action”

of God must correspond to the Trinity of persons who “act” as a unity of persons-in-love.33

According to Bonaventure, the relationship between the Father and Son is the basis of all

other relationships.34 The Father, the fountain fullness of love, is always moving towards the

Son in the sharing of love, and the Son is always loving the Father in the Spirit. If the Father

is first in the most primal sense, the Son, reflecting the productivity of the Father and the

receptiveness of the Spirit, is that person who anticipates all that is other than the Father. This

includes the mystery of the inner-trinitarian Spirit and the reality of the created cosmos.35

Creation is caught up in the mystery of the generation of the Word from the Father and is

generated out of the fecundity of God’s love. Creation’s fecundity, therefore, is a limited

expression of the infinite and dynamic love between the Father and Son united in the Spirit.

In this respect, creation is not a mere external act of God, an object on the fringe of divine

power; rather, it is rooted in the self-diffusive goodness of God’s inner life and emerges out of

the innermost depths of trinitarian life.36 Since creation emanates out of and is a limited

expression of divine goodness, we may think of creation as unfolding “within” the trinitarian

relations of divine love rather than being radically separate from God.37 To say that the

universe shares in the mystery of the Trinity means that the universe is caught up in the
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dynamic process of self-transcendence and self-communication of inter-penetrating

relationships and creative love.

The Humility of God

If creation ultimately arises out of the eternal fecundity of the Trinity and is an

overflow of that fecundity, it is possible to speak of a divine kenosis whereby God

communicates his love to creation. The idea of kenosis (kenoo) or self-emptying is used here

to describe God’s overflowing goodness or self-communicative love.38 Bonaventure writes:

“Because the whole is communicated and not merely part, whatever is possessed is given, and

given completely.”39 Thus just as goodness is completely diffused within the Trinity, that

same goodness is freely given to creation.40 The nature of the good to give itself away to

another characterizes God’s humility.

The idea of a divine kenosis in creation is consistent with the idea of God who is self-

communicative love. Contemporary theologians such as John Haught argue for a metaphysics

of humility as the basis of divine action in an evolutionary world. A theology of divine

humility, according to Haught, makes room for true novelty to spring spontaneously into

being--a feature logically suppressed by deterministic materialist interpretations.41 The image

of divine humility has been resisted theologically up until now because it implies that God has

too little power or perhaps no power at all to act in nature.42 Such a vulnerable and defenseless

God, Haught indicates, does not seem capable of provoking an adequate foundation for our

hope in redemption, resurrection and new creation. Yet, it is precisely a God who is kenotic,

self-giving love who can impart freedom to creation and guide it towards its purpose.
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The German theologian Jürgen Moltmann states that the logic of creation is the logic

of love. Creation is not a demonstration of God’s boundless power, it is the communication of

God’s love which knows neither premises nor preconditions. God’s almighty power is

demonstrated only inasmuch as all the operations of that power are determined by his eternal

nature itself.43 Similarly, Walter Kasper describes divine omnipotence in the cross of Jesus

Christ as the divine capacity for love beyond all human comprehension. He writes: “It

requires omnipotence to be able to surrender oneself and give oneself away; and it requires

omnipotence to be able to take oneself back in the giving and to preserve the independence

and freedom of the recipient. Only an almighty love can give itself wholly to the other and be

a helpless love.”44 Kasper’s insight offers a radically Christian view of divine action by

indicating that God brings about the new creation through helpless love.

Power and helplessness are opposites and it is precisely the coincidence of opposites

that marks the Christian God of love. For Bonaventure, the humility of God’s love in creation

is related to the fact that God is an infinite source of love. God is eternally fecund and self-

communicative. As a coincidence of opposites, God’s transcendent fecundity is God’s

immanence as self-giving love.45 This means that God can fully communicate love to creation

(even if we describe this as self-emptying or kenotic love) without risk or vulnerability

because God is an infinite mystery of love. The divine fecundity in creation is a limited

expression of the infinite mystery of God who is love. As a coincidence of fecundity and

kenosis, God can be completely present to creation as humble love without diminishing God’s

transcendent fecundity or omnipotence, or interfering in nature’s own ability to self-organize.

Rather, the divine coincidentia oppositorum means that God’s omnipotence is God’s humble

love.
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The notion of an infinitely loving and humble God at work in the universe certainly

overturns the image of God as a tyrannical force who dictates the events of the universe.

Creation is not the amusement of a lonely deity.46 Rather, creation is the expression of an

infinitely loving God in whom the nature and will to create is already realized within the

divine nature itself, in the eternal generation of the Son and Spirit. Thus God neither has to

create nor is creation purely divine desire; rather it expresses in a finite way the infinite love

of God. Just as freedom is integral to God’s nature, so too God’s fidelity in love allows

creation to follow its own internal laws and designs. The notion that the humble love of God

comprises the inner force of the created universe underscores the notion of a self-organizing

universe, one that can entertain chance, randomness, complexity and chaos, and give rise to

beauty and order that can be intelligibly perceived. This divine self-restraining character is

fully compatible with God's love which, rather than being rigidly deterministic, is total self-

giving in freedom and creativity for the sake of the good which both gives rise to created

being and, essentially, is being.

Extending Bonaventure’s theology to the contemporary scientific world allows us to

posit a theological ground of divine goodness that sustains a world of chance and

complexity.47 The intertwining levels of chaos and complexity throughout nature can follow

the internal rhythms of chance and law without compromising God as the ground of creation,

since all creation is related to God and participates in divine goodness by the very nature of its

existence. God’s gift of freedom to creation is God’s fidelity in love.48 The triune God

commits himself to create simply because the Father, the fountain source of goodness, is by

nature turned toward the Son/Word and with the Son loves in the single breath of the Spirit

who permeates the universe as freedom in love. Whatever we say about God as Creator, in
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Bonaventure’s view, must correspond to the humility of God and to the nature of the Trinity

as self-communicative love.

Creation as Attraction

If the humility of divine love is that which undergirds a self-organizing universe then

our understanding of God as Creator must shift from a transcendent God who works by divine

omniscience and power to a God whose power is integrally related to the humility of love.

The science of chaos and complexity today indicates that organisms or systems are not

entirely “pre-packaged,” indicating that God allows new order and new life to unfold with

spontaneity, freedom and creativity. God does not impose order by control but imparts such

freedom to creation that, at first glance, it seems as though creation does not need God at all.49

The inherent ability of natural systems to spontaneously form new patterns of order means

that the future of any system is marked by novelty and surprise, not by programmed

blueprints.50 While the freedom in creation to explore possibilities is undergirded by the

power of God’s kenotic love, such freedom [being created] can never exceed God’s love,

which is infinite. This idea does not diminish the genuine freedom of creation for insofar as

things exist, they exist freely. Things can go awry in creation; however, the degree to which

creation can become skewed due to a betrayal of freedom can never exceed God’s will or

love, simply because created freedom is always contingent on the infinite freedom of God. If

God is the source and goal of creation, then freedom in creation cannot exist independently of

that freedom which is its source of loving goodness.

In light of the contingency of creation’s freedom, God’s love is always the more that

lures creation towards itself. What does this mean in terms of Bonaventure’s trinitarian
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theology? Here I believe we need to keep in mind the integral relation he posits between

Trinity and creation together with his view that the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity.

This maxim, made famous by Karl Rahner, indicates that whatever is said of divine action ad

intra must correspond to that ad extra. 51 According to Bonaventure, all creation flows out of

the relationship between the Father and Son.52 This means that while the Father’s self-

diffusive goodness is the basis of goodness in creation, the Father’s goodness is really

communicated to only one other, namely, the Son or Word who, as Word, expresses the

Father’s divine ideas. The Word, therefore, is the exemplary ground of creation. The Father

by loving the Word loves all things in and through the Word. It is in the Word that the

fecundity of the Father finds its perfect image; and it is from the Word that all creation flows,

and it is to the Word, as exemplar, that it reflects back and returns.53

Whereas contemporary models of divine action struggle to find a complimentary

relationship between God and creation without violating the orders of infinite and finite being,

Bonaventure offers a completely integral relationship between God and creation precisely

because God is Trinity and the Word is center. The fecundity of God’s inner life, the nature

of which involves free self-communication, is the same fecundity that provides the diversity

of creation. Here we might say that the input of energy into the space-time continuum that

brings about change (creation) is none other than the goodness or love between the Father and

Son. Because the Word is both center of the Trinity and exemplar of creation, the Word is the

“ontological” link between God’s being (Trinity) and God’s action (creation). The

fundamental relationship of the Father – Son/Word means that there is really only one

primordial relationship (namely, the Father-Son-Spirit) both within the Trinity and in creation.

Since this relationship is the basis for all that exists, we must conclude that creation is an act
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of the Father’s love for the Son and the mutuality of love united in the Spirit. In this respect, it

is not feasible to talk about God’s action in creation, as if this action were distinct from God’s

inner triune life. Since God’s being is God’s action and God’s being is love, God’s action is

an eternal-temporal act of love.54 This act in time is expressed in the diversity of creation,

since the Son is the Word who expresses the Father both finitely and infinitely.

The idea that divine action is really one eternal-temporal act of love between the

Father and Son is supported by the fact that Bonaventure does not treat God as essential unity

(De Deo Uno) nor does he consider the divine essence in terms of esse.55 Because he does not

emphasize divine esse, he does not consider God as actor vis-à-vis the act of creation, as we

find with contemporary models of divine action in which God acts either “top-down”56 or

“bottoms-up.”57 Rather, for Bonaventure, divine essence is self-diffusive goodness; thus,

fecundity is transcendence. In his Itinerarium Mentis in Deum he writes, “creation is no more

than a center or point in relation to the immensity of the divine goodness.”58 Thus God does

not need to create since infinite fecundity lies within the Godhead itself. That God creates,

however, reflects who God is, namely, self-communicative love. Because the nature of God

lies precisely in fecundity, the question “how” God creates cannot be separated from the

question “why” God creates, since the very nature of the Trinity as self-communicative love is

itself the basis of action. Bonaventure’s theology allows us to say that the triune God does not

act on discrete levels of creation, as if connecting things together nor does God act in every

single discrete event as an individual “actor.” God does not “act” to cause things to change.

He might concede, however, that God acts as a “whole to the parts” of creation (as Peacocke

maintains) but specifically within the context of relationship. God is a relationship of love

whose “action” in creation is an eternal/temporal “act” of love. In light of this idea, I would
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suggest, following Moltmann, that instead of talking about creation as divine action, it may be

more reasonable to talk about creation as divine relationship.59 Just as the Father is related to

the Son, so too God is related to creation, for it is in and through the Son as exemplar

(according to Bonaventure) that the Father embraces creation.60 Divine action as divine

relationship preempts the search for any type of mechanistic divine action; thus,

epistemological gaps are to be expected in this God-world relationship, especially if we

concede that creation is grounded in the primordial mystery of trinitarian love.61

If divine action is none other than the relationship between the Trinity and creation,

we might say that the Trinity of love is always attracting creation as the beloved, as the Father

attracts the Son in the eternal breath of the Spirit’s love. It is the attractive loving power of the

Father-Son-Spirit relationship which “creates” temporally (by the power of attraction) with a

view toward love. Using the language of chaos theory the Trinity is, metaphorically speaking,

a strange attractor.62 In and through the divine Word, the triune God is present to creation, yet

transcendent in divine fecundity. As the strange attractor, God is always luring creation

toward the more or, we might say, the optimal good. Creation is an expression of God’s desire

that others share in the glory of loving and being loved which is the glory of the Trinitarian

life. God’s desire for that which God creates means that creation cannot be in a state of

equilibrium or at rest but rather is dynamically oriented toward the triune God. As the

attraction of love, creation does not mean bringing new things into existence per se but rather

it means maximizing goodness (or love) in creation.63 In this respect, we might think of

creation as the attraction towards a complexity of goodness or love since the process of

creation, as an evolutionary process, underscores an increase in complexity and union.

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Toward a Christic Universe

Bonaventure’s theology, with its centrality of the divine Word, allows us further to

suggest that, in light of the trinitarian relationships, all actions/processes/events in creation

point to the Word of God. The centrality of the Word in the Trinity means that the

possibilities of creation and Incarnation are rooted in the self-communicative love or

“otherness” of the Father. Because the Father’s love is diffusive and personal, it is reasonable

to suggest that the “other” of the Father’s love is a personal other. Both within the Trinity and

creation, this “other” is the Son/Word. There is a note of primacy in Bonaventure’s theology

in which we can say that Christ is first in God’s intention to love and thus to create.64 In his

later writings, Bonaventure clearly holds that Christ is the meaning [and center] of the

universe.65 That is, all of creation is ordained to Christ. This idea compliments the unfolding

of creation in relation to the Trinity in and through the Word of God. God’s love at work in

creation is the Spirit of goodness that lovingly guides creation towards the maximization of

beauty and order--in short—towards the maximization of love. Since the Spirit is not separate

from the expression of love between the Father and Son, we may say that the Spirit’s work in

creation lures creation towards the fullness of love shown in the Incarnate Word. The

maximization of love culminates in the person of Jesus Christ who realizes the potential

imbedded in nature for union with God by freely accepting the demands of love. Christ is the

truly human one who is fully open to God as love and in whom God’s loving plan for creation

is revealed, namely, the unity of all things in love. Bonaventure’s Christogenic thought

compliments that of Teilhard de Chardin both of whom saw the Christ mystery not only as the

reason for the universe but as the very expression or form of the universe itself.66 As

Bonaventure wrote, “Christ is not ordained to us but we are ordained to Christ.”67

 19

The notion of Christogenesis is compatible with the Trinity as strange attractor, since

the whole process of creation, emerging out of the Trinity, points to Christ who, as Son, is

always turned toward the Father. In this respect we can say that the cosmos is not just a

random fact, but that it exists for something. Using the language of Whitehead, the cosmos

has a divine aim. As Zachary Hayes writes, “a cosmos without Christ is a cosmos without a

head….it simply does not hold together. But with Christ, all the lines of energy are

coordinated and unified…all is finally brought to its destiny in God.68 The whole universe,

therefore, is designed and created with a view towards Christ who, as Bonaventure claimed, is

the noble perfection of the universe, its goal and center.69 Stated in more contemporary terms,

Christ is the “more” of an evolutionary universe. Christ is both the revelation of God as love

and the future of the universe in view of this love.

Hayes reminds us that what happened between God and the world in Christ points to

the future of the cosmos, that is, the radical transformation of created reality through the

unitive power of God’s love.70 In Christ, therefore, the future of a universe marked by levels

of self-organization is disclosed. Interpreting such a universe in light of Bonaventure’s

theology, I would say that all of creation is moving towards its transformation in Christ who

is the Word of the Father. Thus we may be astounded that nature has the ability to form its

own patterns of order and that God humbly allows these patterns to unfold in surprising ways;

however, even at most simple levels of life there is meaning and purpose in God’s loving

freedom. The God who is perfect love is an utterly simple God, and the simplicity of God’s

love is revealed in the relationships between the Father-Son/Word-Spirit. The triune God of

love with its divine exemplary center in Christ is the source and goal of all created reality.
 20

NOTES

1
Nicholas T. Saunders, “Does God Cheat At Dice? Divine Action and Quantum Possibilities,” Zygon
35 (2000): 518.
2
God, Humanity and the Cosmos, ed. Christopher Southgate et al. (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press
International, 1999), 210 – 25.
3
James A. Wiseman, Theology and Modern Science: quest for coherence (New York: Continuum,
2002), 114.
4
Saunders, “Does God Cheat At Dice?,” 518.
5
John F. Haught, Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation (New York: Paulist, 1995),
160; Ibid, “Chaos, Complexity and Theology,” Teilhard Studies 30 (Summer, 1994): 16-17; Jürgen Moltmann,
God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 87; John
Polkinghorne, “Kenotic Creation and Divine Action,” in The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001), 90 – 106.
6
Michael A. Hoonhout, “Grounding Providence in the Theology of the Creator: The Exemplarity of
Thomas Aquinas,” Heythrop Journal 43 (2002): 3.
7
Ibid.
8
Sjoerd L. Bonting, “Chaos Theology: A New Approach to the Science-Theology Dialogue,” Zygon
34.2 (June 1999): 324 - 26. According to Bonting, “the concept of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo)
arose in the battle of the early church against Marcionism and Gnostic dualism, both of which proposed the
formation of the material universe by a demiurge. The new concept was first expounded by Theophilus of
Antioch (c. 185) and later by Augustine, and it was thereafter almost universally accepted in the church,
although it was not included in the ancient creeds. It was formulated dogmatically at the Fourth Lateran Council
(1215) and reaffirmed by the Vatican Council of 1870. It was also accepted by Luther and Calvin”; Colin E.
Gunton, The Triune God: A Historical and Systematic Study (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), 65 –
96; cf. Jürgen Moltmann (God in Creation, 74) who writes: “The formula creatio ex nihilo is an exclusive
formula. The word nihil is a limit concept: out of nothing—that is to say out of pure nothingness. The
preposition ‘out of’ does not point to any pre-given thing; it excludes matter of any kind whatsoever.”
9
Denis Edwards, The God of Evolution (New York: Paulist, 1999), 30.
10
For Thomas, the divine essence is conceived, metaphysically, as prior to the Father’s person. It is
because the divine essence is rational and volitional that Father, Son and Spirit exist for Thomas. Since the act
of creation is attributed to the divine persons commonly in their unity, no signs of trinity appear in the created
effect whereby the trinity can be inferred, a position opposite that of Bonaventure. See Kevin P. Keane,”Ordo
Bonitatis: The Summa Fratris Alexandri and Lovejoy’s Dilemma,” in Jacob’s Ladder and the Tree of Life:
Concepts of Hierarchy and the Great Chain of Being, ed. Marion Leather Kuntz and Paul Grimley Kuntz (New
York: Peter Lang, 1987), 66; Christopher B. Gray, “Bonaventure’s Proof of Trinity,” American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly 67.2 (1993): 203.
11
Ian G. Barbour, Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues (New York:
HarperCollins, 1997), 21 –3.
12
Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: Free Press,
1996); William B. Dembski, “Science and Design,” First Things (October 1998): 21-7; ibid., No Free Lunch:
 21

Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2002).
13
Kenneth Miller has argued against this notion of intelligent design by pointing to a number of studies
showing that complex biochemical systems could indeed be produced in a step-by-step Darwinian way. See
Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
(New York: HarperCollins, Cliff Street Books, 1999), 293 – 303.
14
Nancey Murphy, “Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridan’s Ass and Schrödinger’s Cat,” in
Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert Russell et al., 2nd ed. (Vatican City
State: Vatican Observatory Publ.; Berkeley, CA: The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 2000),
343.
15
Hoonhout, “Grounding Providence in the Theology of the Creator,” 11.
16
Edwards, God of Evolution, 78.
17
Kenan Osborne, “Alexander of Hales: Precursor and Promoter of Franciscan Theology,” in The
History of Franciscan Theology, ed. Kenan B. Osborne (New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1994), 25.
18
Osborne, “Alexander of Hales,” 27.
19
Kevin P. Keane, “Why Creation? Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas on God as Creative Good,”
Downside Review 93 (April 1975): 116- 17.
20
Alexander of Hales, Quaestiones Disputatae “Antequam esset frater,” (Quarrachi [Florence]:
Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1960), 197.
21
The comparison between John Damascene and the Pseudo-Dionysius on the names of God as being
and good are discussed by Bonaventure in his classic Itinerarium Mentis in Deum. See Bonaventure Itinerarium
Mentis in Deum (Itin.) 5.2 (V, 307). The critical edition of Bonaventure’s works is the Opera Omnia ed. PP.
Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 10 vols. (Quaracchi, 1882 – 1902). Latin texts are indicated by volume and page
number in parentheses.
22
Pseudo-Dionysius De divinis nominibus 4.1 (PG 3, 694). For an excellent discussion of the tradition
see Ewert H. Cousins, “The Notion of the Person in the De Trinitate of Richard of St. Victor,” (unpublished Ph.
D. dissertation, Fordham University, 1966).
23
Richard of St. Victor De trinitate 3.14-19 (PL 196, 924-27).
24
Bonaventure I Sentence (Sent.). d. 27, p.1, a. un., q. 2, ad 3 (I, 470). The idea that the Father is
innascible and fecund underlies the dialectical style of Bonaventure’s thought. It also provides the basis of
Bonaventure’s metaphysics as a coincidentia oppositorum. The Father’s innascibility and fecundity are mutually
complimentary opposites which cannot be formally reduced to one or the other; the Father is generative precisely
because he is unbegotten. See Zachary Hayes, introduction to Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity,
vol. 3, Works of Saint Bonaventure, ed. George Marcil (New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1979), 42, n. 51.
25
Bonaventure I Sent, d. 5, a. 1, q. 2, resp. (I, 115); I Sent. d. 2, a. u., q. 4, fund 2 (I, 56); Hayes,
introduction, 34, n. 10. Bonaventure uses the terms per modum naturae and per modum voluntatis to designate
the two trinitarian emanations. The terms are inspired by Aristotle’s principle that there exist only two perfect
modes of production; namely, natural and free.
26
Bonaventure I Sent. d. 6, a. ul., q. 2, resp. (I, 128). “Processus per modum voluntatis concomitante
natura”; Keane, “Why Creation?, 115. Keane writes: “It is noteworthy that Bonaventure’s reason for attributing
creation to the divine will is quite different from Thomas’s. Where Thomas is in the main concerned to protect
the divine perfection and radically free will, Bonaventure is at pains to elucidate how only through will can an
 22

act be truly personal—both free and expressive of the outward dynamism of goodness, an act spontaneous yet
substantial.”
27
Zachary Hayes, “Bonaventure: Mystery of the Triune God,” in The History of Franciscan Theology,
ed. Kenan B. Osborne (New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1994), 58.
28
Bonaventure Commentarius in Joannis c. I, p. 1, q. 1 (VI, 247).
29
Bonaventure I Sent. d. 27, p. 2, a. u., q. 3, resp. (I, 487 – 488).
30
Bonaventure I Sent. d. 2, q. 2, ad 4 (I, 54).
31
Bonaventure Collationes in Hexaëmeron (Hex.) 9, 2 (V, 373); 3, 7 (V, 344).
32
Zachary Hayes, The Hidden Center: Spirituality and Speculative Christology in St. Bonaventure
(New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1992), 60.
33
In the first book of his Sentence commentary (I Sent. d. 2, a. u., q. 2, ad. 4 [I, 54]) Bonaventure
indicates that the Father is the source and goal of all created reality; in him is found the status in which the entire
created process finds its fulfillment. He writes: “In personis divinis est una persona, a qua sunt aliae et ad quam,
et in illa est status originis, quia illa a nullo; et haec est persona patris.” However, while the Father’s fecundity
corresponds to the primacy of the Father, it is precisely because the Father is fecund that the generation of the
Son is necessary. Hence, there is in God one in whom resides the fullness of divine fecundity with respect to the
persons. But since whatever God is in himself he is in act, it follows that the divine fecundity with respect to
God himself must be in act, and hence there must be a plurality of persons in God [in act]. See Hayes,
introduction, 36. According to Keane (“Ordo Bonitatis,” 58) this position is quite different from that of Thomas
for whom the goodness of God is seen as purely passive ad extra, becoming active only insofar as it is freely
taken as goal for imitation by the divine will, which alone is efficient cause of creation.
34
Hayes, introduction, 47.
35
Hayes, “Bonaventure,” 58.
36
Ilia Delio, Simply Bonaventure: an introduction to his life, thought, and writings (New York: New
City Press, 2001), 54.
37
Edwards, God of Evolution, 30.
38
For background on the word kenosis see Sarah Coakley, “Kenosis: Theological Meanings and Gender
Connotations,” in Work of Love, 193–97. Hayes (introduction, 65) notes that for Bonaventure God
communicates himself in history as he is in himself.
39
Itin. 6.3 (V, 311). Engl. trans. Ewert Cousins, Bonaventure: The Soul’s Journey into God, The Tree
of Life, The Major Life of St. Francis (New York: Paulist, 1978), 105. Hereafter referred to as Bonaventure.
40
Keane, “Why Creation?,” 116 - 17. Keane states that, for Bonaventure, “goodness is not only the
source of created reality, the reason for and impulse toward creation, but also the substance, participated, of that
creation—the order, beauty, substantiality of created being—and the goal or end of creation, the theophany that
will mark creation’s full achievement.”
41
Haught, Science and Religion, 54.
42
John Haught, God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000), 47
– 56.
 23

43
Moltmann, God in Creation, 75 – 6.
44
Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, trans. Matthew O’Connell (New York: Crossroad, 1999),
194 – 95.
45
In the sixth chapter of his Itinerarium Mentis in Deum (Itin. 6.5) Bonaventure describes the mystery of
the Trinity in terms of opposites: first/last; eternal/present; simple/boundless; one/all inclusive, and then
proceeds to show how the mystery of God as opposites in contained in Christ. See also Ewert Cousins, “The
Coincidence of Opposites in the Christology of Saint Bonaventure,” Franciscan Studies 28 (1968): 27 – 45.
46
Thomas O’Meara, Thomas Aquinas: Theologian (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press,1997), 97.
47
Bonaventure’s metaphysics of the good allows us to suggest that the dynamism of creation,
emphasized today by theories of evolution and chaos, is not due to the inherent properties of nature but to the
nature of God as fecund goodness and the source of reality. See Ewert H. Cousins, “God as Dynamic in
Bonaventure and Contemporary Thought,” American Catholic Philosophical Association 48 (1974): 136 – 48.
48
Keane, “Why Creation?,” 119.
49
Haught, Science and Religion, 160.
50
Ibid., 160 – 61.
51
This idea is Karl Rahner’s famous maxim but it is already present within Bonaventure’s thought. See
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970), 22; Catherine Mowry
LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 211 – 13.
52
Zachary Hayes, “Incarnation and Creation in the Theology of St. Bonaventure,” in Studies Honoring
Ignatius Brady, Friar Minor, ed. Romano Stephen Almagno and Conrad Harkins (New York: The Franciscan
Institute, 1976), 314.
53
Ewert Cousins, “The Two Poles of St. Bonaventure’s Theology,” vol. 4, Sancta Bonaventura: 1274 –
1974, ed. Jacques G. Bougerol (Rome: Grottaferatta, 1974), 161.
54
Keane, “Why Creation?,” 117 - 19. Keane offers some interesting insights with regard to creation
and divine goodness. He writes: “Bonaventure attempted to provide a more adequate answer to the ‘why’ of
finite being . . . more in keeping with the affirmation of creation’s fittingness expressed in the Christian
experience of the perfect Word/Reason (Logos) as incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.” He goes on to say that “the
fate of the world, for good or for ill, is of consequence to God, for his goodness is radically involved: he would
not be the good itself, the best, were he to abandon the project once under way or complacently witness its
disaster.”
55
Bonaventure, Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity, trans. Zachary Hayes, vol. III, Works
of Saint Bonaventure, ed. George Marcil (New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1979), 32 n. 4.
56
See for example models described by Arthur Peacocke’s Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and
Becoming—Natural, Divine, and Human (Minneapolis: Fortress Pres, 1993), 53 – 4 and Philip Clayton, God
and Contemporary Science (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997), 227. We might note here that Bonaventure
used the four Aristotelian causes to describe creation in his Breviloquium but later on, in his Hexaëmeron, he
considered creation within the integral relationship of the Trinity and Christ.
57
For a bottoms-up view see Murphey, “Divine Action in the Natural Order,” 349 – 50.
58
Itin. 6.2 (V, 310). Engl. trans. Cousins, Bonaventure, 103. Bonaventure writes: “Nam diffusio ex
tempore in creatura non est nisi centralis vel punctalis respectu immersitatis bonitatis aeternae.”
 24

59
Moltmann, God in Creation, 83. Moltmann writes: “It is more appropriate if we view the eternal
divine life as a life of eternal, infinite love, which in the creative process issues in its overflowing rapture from
its trinitarian perfection and completeness, and comes to itself in the eternal rest of sabbath” (p. 84). Moltmann
goes on to say that the one divine love operates in different ways in the divine life and in the divine creativity,
making possible the distinction between God and the world.
60
We might note here the emphasis Bonaventure places on the humility of God in view of intimate
relationship between the Father and Son. In his “Sermon on the Nativity” he begins by saying that [in the
Incarnation] “the eternal God has humbly bent down and lifted the dust of our nature into unity with his own
person.” This notion of divine humility allows us to say that the Father, who is hidden in the Son, embraces the
world in love. See Bonaventure, “Sermon II on the Nativity of the Lord,” in What Manner of Man? Sermons
on Christ by St. Bonaventure, trans. Zachary Hayes (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1989), 57; Ilia Delio,
“Bonaventure’s Metaphysics of the Good,” Theological Studies 60.2 (1999): 235 – 39.
61
Howard Van Till, “The Creation: Intelligently Designed or Optimally Equipped?” Theology Today
55 (1998): 344 – 64. As Van Till notes, there are epistemological gaps in creation, since we do not know in full
detail and with certainty just how each form of life came to be actualized in the course of time. Such gaps,
however, do not belie the “robust formational economy” of creation, which we identify here as goodness. See
especially p. 351.
62
The term “strange attractor,” arising from chaos theory, describes the shape of chaos or spontaneous
movements of a system that deviate from the normal pattern of order. The use of computer imagery has helped
to detect spontaneous non-linear deviations in systems that signify new patterns of order. A strange attractor is a
basin of attraction that pulls the system into a visible shape. It is, in some way, the spontaneous non-linear
variation in a system that ultimately causes a new pattern of order to emerge. Some scientists have claimed that
the appearance of the “strange attractor” means that order is inherent in chaos since the “attractor” itself is a
novel pattern of order that arises spontaneously within a system. When systems are dislodged from a stable
state, there is first a period of oscillation prior to a state of full chaos or a period of total unpredictability; it is
during this time that the strange attractor seems to “spontaneously” appear. Very slight variations, so small as to
be indiscernible, can amplify into unpredictable results when they are fed back on themselves. See Margaret
Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: learning about organization from an orderly universe (San
Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1994), 105; David Toolan, At Home in the Cosmos (Markyknoll, New York:
Orbis, 2000), 200. Toolan offers the metaphor of God as strange in attractor but I must admit that I came to the
same metaphor independently.
63
Van Till, “Creation: Intelligently Designed or Optimally Equipped?” 344 - 64. Van Till’s notion of a
robust creation fully endowed “to make possible the actualization of all inanimate structures and all life forms
that have ever appeared in the course of time” corresponds to the argument of this paper, namely, that goodness
is the source and basis of creation.
64
See Ilia Delio, “Revisiting the Franciscan Doctrine of Christ,” Theological Studies 63.1 (2003).
65
See, for example, Hex. 1, 10, 17 (V, 330 - 331).
66
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, trans. Bernard Wall (New York: Harper & Row,
1959), 268 – 99.
67
In his Sentence commentary Bonaventure writes: “Non enim Christus ad nos finaliter ordinatur, sed
nos finaliter ordinamur ad ipsum.” III Sent. d. 32, q. 5, ad 3 (III, 706).
68
Zachary Hayes, “Christ, Word of God and Exemplar of Humanity,” Cord 46.1 (1996): 13.
69
Bonaventure De reductione artium ad theologiam 20 (V, 324b).
 25

70
Hayes, “Word of God and Exemplar of Humanity,” 12.