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<\/em> (and to express my gratitude to IVP for sending me a gratis copy). Proposition 14 makes a point with potentially wide ramifications, namely that it is inappropriate to distinguish God\u2019s roles as creator and sustainer too starkly. Walton recommends (p.119) avoiding two extremes<\/a>: deism (God creates and is done) and micromanagement (God\u2019s creation is eternally ongoing\/repeating). Perhaps what struck me most is that the difficulties of both extreme viewpoints are not only related to creation<\/em>, but to one\u2019s notion of divine action more generally. Positing grandiose miracles at any point<\/em> in the past, whether to start the cosmos on its path or to create a people by liberating them from Egypt, and then denying that God continues to act in similar ways, leaves one with a sense that the viewpoint is at best arbitrary, and at worst an attempt to assert the facticity of scriptural narratives without explaining why such spectacular interventions no longer occur. The other extreme of having God in control of every event and occurrence seems equally difficult, not only because it seems so counterintuitive with respect to our sense that we have a measure of freedom to act and choose, but also because science seems able to account in a comprehensive way for much that happens in our world, without a need to invoke supernatural agents as part of the process.<\/p>\nAs I\u2019ve said more than once, I find metaphors from panentheism <\/em>helpful in thinking about transcendence in relation to our current scientific understanding. But ultimately, while science, logic, reason and concern for consistency may suggest the inadequacy of certain traditional images and metaphors, it doesn\u2019t provide any direct indication of what new <\/em>images and metaphors might do better justice to our sense of transcendence and mystery. It is also worth asking whether there can be better <\/em>metaphors, or whether the point is not rather that all <\/em>metaphors and symbols of the divine are inadequate, and their inadequacy is simply felt more or less strongly in different historical periods, in different cultures, and in relation to developing scientific understandings.<\/p>\n Walton explores the Biblical metaphor of divine temple construction with the help of an analogy, the construction of a university campus, which may be complete (although my own experience is that it may be ready at some stage to open for business, but it is unlikely that a stage is ever reached at which the possibility of further construction can be altogether excluded), but the point is not to finish building but to build so that the ongoing activities of the university may then take place and continue.<\/p>\n Just as the cosmic temple is a metaphor, the metaphor of temple has been applied to the church, and Walton concludes this chapter with an intriguing suggestion, namely that it might be appropriate for the church to reinstate the annual celebration\/reenactment of creation that many scholars think was celebrated in ancient Israel, perhaps using Genesis 1 as a key text in the event.<\/p>\n
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