What's at Stake in the Doctrine of Creation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A week from now, I'll be canoeing through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with ten Fuller DMin students, Brian McLaren, Courtney, and a couple\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2012\/06\/06\/whats-at-stake-in-the-doctrine-of-creation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What's at Stake in the Doctrine of Creation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A week from now, I'll be canoeing through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with ten Fuller DMin students, Brian McLaren, Courtney, and a couple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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{"id":6254,"date":"2012-06-06T11:49:38","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T16:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/?p=6254"},"modified":"2015-03-13T16:50:34","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:50:34","slug":"whats-at-stake-in-the-doctrine-of-creation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2012\/06\/06\/whats-at-stake-in-the-doctrine-of-creation\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s at Stake in the Doctrine of Creation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

(photo by Courtney Perry)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A week from now, I\u2019ll be canoeing through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness<\/a> with ten Fuller DMin<\/a> students, Brian McLaren<\/a>, Courtney, and a couple guides from Boundary Waters Experience<\/a>. Our conversations will center on Christian Spirituality and the Doctrine of Creation.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been doing a lot of reading<\/a> and thinking about the doctrine of creation in preparation, and I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that the doctrine of creation is like an onion: you peel away one layer, and you find an equally significant layer underneath. Another metaphor is dominoes: knock the first one down, and lots more begin to fall.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so intrigued by this that I think my next book after Why Pray? <\/em>will be on creation. And I see my thoughts falling under these major categories:<\/p>\n

God:<\/strong> What is the nature of God as \u201ccreator\u201d? Does God sustain the cosmos, or did God set it up to be self-sustaining? What do the processes of evolution tell us about the nature of God?<\/p>\n

Matter:<\/strong> Is matter co-eternal with God, or did God create matter ex nihilo<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Time:<\/strong> Was time created with matter, or has time existed eternally with God? What is God\u2019s relationship to time \u2014 is God bound by time (whether voluntarily or by nature)?<\/p>\n

Human Beings:<\/strong> What, exactly, does it mean to be in imago dei<\/em>? Are human beings cooperating in creatio continua<\/em>?<\/p>\n

The Cosmos:<\/strong> What role do human beings play in all the cosmos? Are we, as we long thought, the crown of God\u2019s creation, or are merely one carbon-based life form among many?<\/p>\n

Of course, I\u2019d love your thoughts on any of these topics.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"