far along the scale; a happy mean between nature and free will is the ideal view. Emanation is not a very biblical, traditionalist view of creation, and as such is often seen as opposedto the view of making. However, Macquarrie would not wish this, andsays 'It should not be regarded as a rival idea to the biblical one...It should indeed be regarded as secondary to the biblical idea, but as such it provides certain correctives and gives expression to insights which are not clearly presented in the image of making.' A suggested 'middle position between these two opposing images is sometimes put forward, that of the 'work of art' analogy. At first glance this seems to be a good balance between transcendence and immanence; in creating a work, an artist does put something of himself into it, while at the same time remaining external to the actual thing itself.But does this do justice to the extent of the immanence of God in the creation of the cosmos? The artist analogy now looks to be too external; again there is the wrong balance. A way of creating the right balance would be to hold 'side by side in their tension with one another the models of making and emanation’.All of these images do have something valuable in the search for the correct view of God and creation, however they all need to be given equal weight in the mind as they all have bad points and all have good. How you see the balance of transcendence and immanence in the creation mystery is a matter largely for the individual, however most Christian disciplines view God as both transcendent and immanent at thesame time in the creation of the cosmos.Karl Barth claims that as we can not know empirically about creation, the whole doctrine of creation is in fact a doctrine of faith; the factual account of a world coming into being could be regarded as a creed of sorts, an expression of belief in God. Christian doctrine of creation is split into three sections; creatio original...
