In the Beginning.Creativity

Gordon Kaufman's bold and highly regarded works over the last thirty years have pushed theologians to examine honestly, if painfully, their most cherished assumptions about God. Now, in this major contribution to the theology-and-science debate, he argues that our traditional thinking about and worship of God have prepared us badly for perhaps the most important problem we face today - the ecological crisis.

Kaufman begins with a survey of the pluriform development and effects of the notion of God. He then demonstrates how these concepts of God have become out of sync with contemporary understandings of the world and humanity. He offers an alternative concept by distinguishing the different modalities of creativity as they figure in the creation of the universe, the cosmic evolutionary process (especially the emergence of life), and human symbolic creativity. Finally, he sketches their interconnections and demonstrates in what way they stand for the divine.

This volume not only develops further than ever before Kaufman's idea of God as creativity but also shows what it would mean to think of God in this way, to live with faith in this God, and to cooperate with the divine in meeting our most pressing challenges.

Gordon D. Kaufman was Professor of Theology Emeritus at Harvard Divinity School. His many important theological works include his Essay on Theological Method (1975), In Face of Mystery (1993), and God - Mystery - Diversity (Fortress Press, 1996).