Michael Schmaus - Dogma: God and Creation

Scripturedoes not provide us with a systematic doctrine of God. What it does instead isbear witness to the experience which certain people had of God in certainsituations. In what follows Scripture will be taken as the point of departureand the doctrine of the Church will be considered subsequently as a developmentof what is to be found in Scripture. The reason for treating the matter in thisway is the question of order. Out of the mass of material which Scriptureprovides, the determinative elements have to be selected and the rest arrangedin relationship to them; and then, as far as possible, we must follow theirdevelopment through various stages, so that we see how the doctrinal formulasof the Church arose.

THEMONOTHEISM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

The foundation of the faith of the Old Testament isthe conviction of the uniqueness of that universal, living, personal power,transcending the world and in no way subject to human manipulation, yet activein human history, which is called by the name "God." This belief thatthere is only one God who transcends the world, a belief which grew up in themidst of a general polytheism, is the basic achievement of the Old Testament.Genesis traces the conviction of the uniqueness of the God Yahweh back to thebeginnings of mankind. The research done in the history of religion confirmsthis scriptural account in that there is no evidence that this belief in theone true God was the product of evolution from primitive conceptions of divineforces (Mircea Eliade). Nevertheless, according to Exodus 6:3 the name Yahwehwas not yet known to Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. They spoke of God as the"highest Lord," El Shaddai. According to Exodus 3:13 the name Yahwehwas not revealed until the time of Moses. We have to assume, then, that in allprobability the period of the patriarchs was characterized rather by anelevated form of monolatry (henotheism). The God known to the patriarchs as thehigh and most powerful Lord gradually came to be identified with Yahweh (Gen.14:18-22). In this way the monolatry of the early period developed intomonotheism in the strict sense. For Moses and the period which followed himYahweh alone is God, not only the God of Israel but God as such.

Yahweh is not a national God. Inhis nature he is superior to the world; his power is not limited, it reachesout beyond the boundaries of his own people. He has dominion over nature also.As the one and only true God Yahweh does not tolerate strange gods. "I amthe Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the houseof bondage. You shall have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:2f.; Deut.5:6f., RSV ). There are noother gods. Yahweh unites in himself everything that is divine, all thequalities which those who believed in myths attributed to their gods. It is offundamental significance that monotheism seems to have arisen not as the resultof speculative reflection but through experience, the experience of the one,all-powerful God. The liberation from slavery in Egypt and the event on Sinaiinvolved the experience of Someone, a Powerunique, superior to the world, andirresistible: it is he who is God. This development of monotheism out ofhistorical experience gave it a practical or ethical character. Again and againthe people are calledby the Yahwist, Samuel, David, Elias and Elijahtodeclare for the one and only God (see especially 1 Kgs. 18:21-40).

As the story of Elias shows, wefind the idea still widespread among the people that a certain power has to be attributed to the divinities of othernations. Hence there is a constant danger of their falling away, and we findelements of uncertainty in these passages where the superiority of the God ofIsrael over other gods is praised. Perhaps this is simply poetical language.However, it is really only in the time of the prophets that the existence ofother divinities besides Yahweh is totally rejected and that of the one trueGod fully affirmed. Examples of this strong and emphatic monotheism of theprophets are Is. 2:8-18; 6:1-3; 10:12; 19:1-3; Jer. 2:11; 5:7; 14:22; 10:9f.;Deut. 4:39; 6:4; 12:39; Is. 40:21-28; 41:29; 43:10f.; 44:8; 45:5,14,21f.; 46:9.

The strict monotheism whichcharacterizes the time of the prophets was a natural development of beliefsalready present at the time of Moses. If it took centuries before the Jewishpeople clearly grasped the fact that there is only one true God, we neverthelessfind from the beginning that the one God is praised: for his power, greaterthan that of the world, irresistible; for his ontic and ethical holiness, hisjustice and his faithfulness to the cove nant. This sense of God's uniquedynamism is of greater weight than any speculative theses about his nature. Theprophets establish the fact that there is only one God in terms of a judicialprocess involving him and the divinities worshipped by the tribes surroundingIsrael. The issue is that these divinities are simply nothing. The disciples ofIsaiah, for example, attribute the following words to God: "Thus says theLord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts: 'I am the firstand I am the last; besides me there is no God. Who is like me? Let him proclaimit, let him declare and set it forth before me. Who has announced from of oldthe things to come? Let them tell us what is yet to be. Fear not, nor beafraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are mywitnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.'"(Is. 44:6-8; similarly Is. 45:5f.; 45:18- 24; Jer. 10:10-16). The question willbe discussed further in the treatment of the names of God.