The Godhead existed before there was a creation.  This must be so because it was God who created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).  The second reason this is true is that an entity called “The Word” existed with God in the beginning (John 1:1).  He, The Word, existed with God and He was God.  So, there was what we call the Godhead.  As we typically see it, the Godhead consists of the three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.  We usually refer to God the Father using the simple term God to refer to Him, but it is worth our while to know this distinction.

The Word is also referred to as God the Son for our purposes.  We may say “the Son of God” and that is fine.  Either way, we point to something quite specific concerning the nature of the Godhead.

We use terms like the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God, or simply the Spirit, to refer to God the Spirit.  Again, context dictates which term we will use in specific situations.

It is not offensive in any way, I believe, that we ordinarily speak with such lack of precision concerning the persons in the Godhead.  I shall endeavor to keep these things straight herein, however.  At the same time, there is no offense taken when we are less careful and no harm is done.  Please note also that I used the term “existed” to refer to a timeless phenomenon.  There is just no other way known to me to get that done.  With these disclaimers, let’s get this blog under way.

The Godhead exists in a context we will call “the Eternal” for our purposes.  That which the Godhead did in the two creation passages was to bring about a phenomenon we will call “the Creation” for our purposes.  The two stand in a particular contrast.  The Eternal is uncreated.  The substance of the Eternal is not a created substance.  Its substance and being are independent of virtually everything we can conceive of.  The Creation, on the other hand, is of a substance that was created.  It is not independent.  There was no Creation and then there was.  One moment, all that existed was the Eternal.  In the next moment, the work of the Creation began.  What had not been came into being.  It is an inescapable conclusion that the Creation was made out of what was previously uncreated.  So, let’s set that aside.

It is likely that “the Eternal” and “the Godhead” are the same thing, but I want to avoid that entangling discussion for now.  Let’s set that aside as well.

The Godhead could have chosen to be configured in whatever manner its aspects chose.  It seems the choice was a relational one.  They would exist in something we must consider to be a relationship.  We cannot be sure of all the dimensions of the relationship, but we can be certain that the names given to its constituents would have meaning.  They might have decided to be Cornelius and Jinpeng, but that is not what They decided.  They “decided” to exist as Father and Son, along with the Spirit.  Their reasons are Theirs, but that is how They decided to present themselves into the Creation, at least in the two aspects of interest to us in this blog.

When They produced the Creation, They caused its focal point – humanity – to exist in relationship as well and to center those relationships on something very like Their own.  There seems, then, to have been some quality in that relationship that mattered to Them.  In the Creation They apparently sought to replicate the quality of Their own relationship.  Whatever else was involved in Their collective motivation, this must be one of the central intentions.

Let’s get it straight.  God the Father and God the Son are connected in Their simultaneous being by a relationship that is so important to Them that They decided to bring something else into being that could replicate Their relationship.  So They did.  And They did that together.

The connective in the relationship was of such quality that the Godhead decided to extend it to some other entity.  Alas, no other entity was available in the Eternal to which the relationship could be extended.  It then became necessary to look elsewhere to find said entity.  But there was no other such entity.  Such an entity, then, would have to be caused to come into being.

The connective of the relationship involving God the Father and God the Son was obviously of such quality that it could cause such considerations within the Godhead.  I have used the word “quality” as a substantive applied to the Godhead connective.  In some sense, it was the power of that connection that motivated the two of them.  Something about being the Father and the Son was so wonderful that They collectively became motivated to bring about a context in which such a phenomenon could be replicated.

I propose the power that resided in the relationship between God the Father and God the Son was found in the fundamental connective we call “love.”  God the Father loved God the Son.  God the Son responded by loving God the Father.  Elsewhere I have referred to the directionality and relative saliences of these two love phenomena.  In short form, the love of God the Father is pre-potent to the love of God the Son because the second is responsive to the existence of the first.

So They did it.  Out of the power inherent in the relationship between God the Father and God the Son, They created the Creation so that there would be other sons for the Father.  There is a lot involved in how that all works out, but that is not our focus at this time.

The Godhead does not seem to have crept up on the Creation.  They simply created the Creation (heavens and earth) from nothing in an instant.  The motivational power was found in the love that connected the two of Them.  They did not exhaust that energy before the Creation was completed.  Hence, all the Creation was created before the motivation to create it was expended.  It was not left incomplete.  The energy of the motivation to create the Creation was of greater quantity than the energy it took to create it.  The love between the Father and the Son in the Godhead was more than adequate in its energy content to bring about the Creation which, in  turn, could produce even more love and more energy.

The confluence of the Father’s love and the Son’s love for one another produced more power than it took to create the universe (the Creation).  The universe was created in an instant.  So . . . There was a “big bang” after all.

See the new book Nature and Character of God for more.  Available at Amazon for Kindle and Print on Demand.