What Makes a Good Creator?

Hello friends! We’ve been having a great time with our Summer Book Club series (many of you have tuned in and read along). Our next webinar will feature a discussion about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on Aug 5 (follow this link to register: https://candlerfoundry.emory.edu/webinars). My friend and fellow CandlerFoundry team member Sergio Chois will join me as we explore the biblical and theological themes and allusions in this classic work.

…Which has got me thinking about one of the biggest themes in Frankenstein:creation. The entire plot considers the question: what makes a good and responsible creator? And while creation is a theme that runs throughout theBible, the most recognizable creation stories occur in Genesis.

Yes, stories. Gen 1-2:4a tells one creation story, and Gen 2:4b-3:24tells another. What I think is interesting about the different stories—and helps me think about creation in Frankenstein—is that both stories are ways of answering the question: what makes God a good creator? The two stories are probably being told during different times and in different places; hence, they each offer a different perspective on God’s creative identity. Let’s briefly look at them.

Gen 1—The First Creation Story

In the first story, God creates the world by speaking things into existence. God says, “let there be light” and light appears. God as a character in this story is somewhat remote—everything God creates happens solely through speech.  

In this story, God creates human beings—both men and women—in the divine image and gives them the role of governors. They are to rule over the rest of the created order as God theCreator has so ruled. 

This depiction describes a creator who is powerful, decisive, and orderly. Theologians would say this creator is“transcendent,” because God God isn’t close to or in conversation with what is being created. Oddly, while God is not in conversation with the humans, God isa verbal creator.

Gen 2-3—The Second Creation Story

In the second creation story, God does not speak creation into existence. God digs in the soil and sculpts a human out of the dirt with his own hands. And God does not order it to breathe; rather,God exhales his own breath into the image he had made. After bringing this person to life, God plants a garden and puts the person, the Adam, there to tend and care for it.  

After watching the human work, God decides that he needs a partner. God then makes animals and brings them to the man to have him name them and to see if any provide appropriate company. This story has such a comedic element to it: God scratching his head as he parades all the animals in front of the man, and the man disappointedly shaking his head (the rhinoceros apparently not being a hit!). Even after surveying all the animals for a potential partner for the man, none seem to be quite right. So,God decides to make a new and different kind of human.

In this second story, God is intimate with creation, not creating from far away in the cosmos but on his hands andknees in the dirt. He shares his own breath with the Adam.

This Creator God is experimental and collaborative rather than decisive and powerful. He asks the human for hisopinions, and God tries out several ideas before landing on the one that will be the final solution.

TheBeauty of “Both”

One story gives a Creator that speaks; one gives us a Creator that listens. One gives statements and the other questions. One decides and one collaborates. One commands and one makes us laugh. In spite of these differences, each picture of the Creator is what the creation needs at that time in its own story. Reading each account by itself and hearing its unique perspective helps us better discern how to bear the divine image and govern creation.

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