Brian D. Robinette’s second book, The Difference Nothing Makes: Creation, Christ, and Contemplation, explores the formation, as well as the ethical and spiritual implications, of the Christian doctrine that God created the world “from nothing,” The Christian belief that God created the world from nothing differed from the belief of Greco-Roman religions, which argued that divine powers shaped the world from pre-existent matter. Robinette argues that believing that God created the world out of nothing has spiritual effects. He writes that “This sense of creation’s essential gratuity, if deeply into rather than morally thought about, can being to transform the felt sense of our contingency from one of anxiety-tinged precarity to the welcoming of finitude and our mental dependence in loving communion” (xiv). The book also argues that if Christians are to be transformed by theology, they must engage in contemplative practices that allow doctrine to change their lives and worldview. Most importantly, the book argues, contemplating creation from nothing allows us to accept the world as a gift imbued with God, freely given, and not something that we need to compete to defend.
The first chapter explores the scriptural foundation of the doctrine of creation from nothing and its formulation by patristic authors. While no ecumenical council declared the doctrine of creation from nothing an official part of “orthodoxy,” it was accepted by Christians in both the Western and Eastern rites. The book also explores contemporary theological objections to the doctrine, especially those by theologian John Caputo, but Robinette provides detailed commentary on why he believes such objections are not convincing. In addition to Genesis, the book grounds the doctrine in the Prologue to John’s Gospel, which states that everything was created “through Christ” and thus has a beginning outside of created matter. Robinson also explores the doctrine’s ethical and spiritual implications.
Chapter 2 argues that if individuals want to be transformed by Christian doctrine, they must appropriate the doctrine deeply. For Robinete such deep appropriation comes through the practice of contemplation. He argues that the doctrine of creation from nothing is, “among other things, an invitation to contemplation. It invites us to look deeply into our creaturely contingency—to peer ‘all the way down’ so to speak— and to notice without flinching that our existence does not depend upon us” (43). To argue this, the book relies on an account of contemplation given by the philosopher William Desmond.
The third chapter explores philosopher Rene Giard’s theory of identity formation. Robinette uses Girard as a foil, showing how the doctrine of creation from nothing allows a nonviolent conception of identity to emerge. For Girard, imitation is crucial to the formation of human desire: we desire what we do because we see others desiring something. Given the limited quantity of desired goods, a violent competition for these goods arises, which Girard calls “mimetic rivalry.” Girard argues that human communities find “scapgoats” upon which to cast their violent desires, and that communities expel violent tensions by driving the scapegoat out of the community or sacrificing it. Several theologians, most considerably James Alison, whom Robinette draws on extensively, make theological use of Girard’s theories. Robinette’s use of Girard is one of the most sophisticated and valuable contributions of the book. Robinette sees creation from nothing as offering an alternative account of human development, since it affirms that our identities are not secured by competition. Instead, they are gifts given and secured by divine grace.
Robinette convincingly connects Christian theology and Christian life. This book, then, is attentive to how the doctrine of creation from nothing can transform the lives of those who appropriate it on a deep level through contemplation. If one accepts that one’s life and identity are given by a God who created and sustains the world out of free and gracious love, then one need not be focused on maintaining one’s goods or identity through violent competition. Robinette is rooted in Roman Catholic tradition but engages ecumenically with theorists like Rene Girard and Eastern Ohodox theologians like Sergius Bulgakov. The ideas in this book are rigorous and carefully argued, and its vision of transformation based on a deep acceptance of the world’s givenness by God is also quite beautiful. The book’s title is itself part of the argument: “creation from nothing” can and should make a huge difference in the ways that Christians see themselves and the world, and how they act in the world. We are in the author’s debt for this carefully argued, ecumenically engaged work of theology that is deeply attentive to connections between Christian theology and Christian life.
Aaron Klink is chaplain at Pruitt Hospice in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
Aaron Klink
Date Of Review:
January 25, 2024