Creation Ex Nihilo as Mixed Metaphor

Abstract This article makes the following three programmatic points. First, an understanding of divine transcendence, prominent in C hristian theology's apophatic strain, developed in tandem, both historically and logically, with ideas about creation that eventuated in a creation ex nihilo viewpoint. Such an account of divine transcendence, second, fosters an account of creation (and a general understanding of the G od/world relationship) that typically mixes both natural and personalistic images and categories. The loss of such an account of transcendence since the early modern period, I suggest thirdly and in conclusion, is therefore responsible in great part for the dualistic, mutually exclusive alternation between a deistic, interventionist G od and pan(en)theism so common in modern C hristian thought.