In the beginning,
God might have created heaven and earth, but it is hard to explain
what God did in this supposed creation. First there was no world and
then there was one, but because we cannot do such things, these words
do not convey any clear meaning. It appears that in case of creation,
whether there was such thing or not, we are always incapable of truly
understanding what it is all about.
Christian Wolff
tries to shed some light on the topic. World is dependent on its
elements, so in creating the world, God must have used the elements.
Because elements, on the other hand, are dependent on the very world
they should constitute, God cannot have used elements as a
construction matter, but he must have begun his labourious efforts by
creating the elements out of nothing. At the same time as he created
elements, God ordered them to various structures constituting the
world itself. On top of all this, he also created finite souls to
think this world.
Now, Wolff believed
that space and time are relational, that is, that there would be no
space and time without any spatial and temporal things. Thus, space
and time did not exist before creation, but both began to exist in
the creation.
Since Wolffian God
is supposed to exist beyond time, it seems hard to decide whether the
world is supposed to be finite in its history or whether God created
it as having existed for an infinity. Here, on the other hand, Wolff
is willing to accept that there is a first state of the world.
Because this beginning is not explained by anything in the world, it
must be miraculous, Wolff concludes. This appears to be actually the
first time when Wolff explicitly admits time has a first moment –
it might be that he is trying to prove his non-Spinozism by this
move.
God is then capable
of doing the miracle of bringing truly new things into existence,
while no other thing can do this, but is only restricted to modifying
what is already given. Indeed, nothing else would even exist without
God, because he is also preserving world. Of course, Wolff notes,
since God is atemporal, his act of preservation is the same as his
act of creation.
Wolff's God is still
not just a creator and upholder of the world, but just like in
Christian tradition usually, he has designed the world down to its
last details. Indeed, God is a moral being who has wisely set up the
machinery of the universe in such a manner that it serves some higher
end, which obviously must be good – God is providential, which can
be seen in the fact that all things in the world are of use to one
another.
Especially in case
of rational beings, like humans, God has set up some goals, which
they should strive to obtain – God gives human an opportunity to
perfect some part of the world. Of course, God doesn't force anyone
to follows his councils, but merely creates an obligation that we
should follow them. It is then up to an individual whether she wants
to follow God, but in the end it would be in her best interests to
follow them, since God's rules should be of benefit to anyone.
All in all, Wolff
appears to know quite a lot of what God is like, what he has done,
and what he wants of us. On a closer look, Wolff admits that we know
not very much about this God. We know that God is the final ground of
everything, but this is about as much as we can say. Many of the
supposed divine attributes are mere negations – final ground of
world is not material, but he isn't also any human soul. Then again,
the supposed positive attributes of God are only eminent, that is,
they are somehow similar as some of our own attributes, but in
reality quite incomprehensible, because we do not know e.g. what an
infinite understanding would be like. When people of Kantian leanings
thus accuse Wolff of a philosophical arrogance and of an attempt to base
substantial knowledge of God on mere concepts, these accusations do
not hit the mark – our knowledge of what God is, is rather meager.
So much for the
first past of Wolff's theology, onward to second!
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