The Person of Jesus Christ as the Normative Basis for the Doctrine of Creation

T. F. Torrance established his understanding of the relationship of God and creation on the person of Jesus Christ. For Torrance, the relation between God and creation has its centre and derives its objective content from God’s self-revelation through Jesus Christ. This Christocentric approach begins with the revelation of God as the Eternal Father of the eternally begotten Son out from the being of the Father and holds this in contrast to creation made from nothing in accordance with the will of the Father. With some caveats, this essay welcomes Torrance’s Christocentric approach to the doctrine of creation. However, Torrance’s approach should be expanded so as to incorporate the relationship of divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, articulated in the conceptual structure of the hypostatic union. Such an extension of Torrance’s Christocentric approach to the doctrine of creation is a natural development of core methodological convictions which he derives from the union of God and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. In this way, a Christocentric doctrine of creation will be established within an objective framework with two fundamental parameters: (i) the Father-Son relation and (ii) the relation of divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.