Jürgen Moltmann on Evolution as God's Continuous Creation

Faith & Science Conversation
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Evolution helps us understand how God's creative action extends into the past, present, and future.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://biologos.org/blogs/guest/jurgen-moltmann-on-evolution-as-gods-continuous-creation
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Thanks for this post.

I read Moltmann in seminary, and struggled with much of what he said then. Your post back to the blog reminded me. I will be reading to reacquaint myself with his works, as well as Bonhoeffer (a huge fan) and others.

Thanks again!

Ray

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Thanks Raymond! He’s written so many books, it’s easy to get lost. Moltmann has helped me a lot, especially to understand how evolution is part of god’s ongoing creative activity and has helped me with the problem of suffering and the cross. Glad to hear you liked it and it resparked interest. -Wyatt

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I think greater weight is given to “original creation” because it is associated with God’s drawing the ontological distinction between Himself and us. Is this justified? Perhaps if one sees this ontological/fundamental difference as coming about in a moment in time. That’s not the best way to view it though. The “beginning”–the place we may not comprehend–is the point of this distinction. The unrepeatable, free act of God in lengthy Creation is its tangible expression. I am parroting, and perhaps butchering, Bonhoeffer.

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I have no problems with parroting Bonhoeffer, because I often do that myself! Moltmann doesn’t believe that Continuous Creation is incompatible with the Original Creation. He says Continuous Creation doesnt contradict the idea of creatio ex nihilo either. The key is that god has created, creative spaces, and through God’s preservation of the world, innovation happens in these creative spaces, to bring about new life, as a sign of the New Creation that is yet to come. Many of these ideas are already present in Bonhoeffer. -Wyatt

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Darwin’s researches are realistic and have been a hundred times confirmed by other research. What is in dispute is his interpretation of the results, that is to say his hermeneutics of nature.[11]

Thank you, Herr Moltmann, for saying that the evidence for evolution is there, but the understanding of evolution is not. Science has been able to say that species change, but not why and how. Evolution is a pretty poor excuse for science.