Original Research - Special Collection: Theology and Nature

Can we locate our origin in the future? Archonic versus epigenetic creation accounts

Ted Peters
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 78, No 2 | a7656 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v78i2.7656 | © 2022 Ted Peters | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 19 April 2022 | Published: 28 July 2022

About the author(s)

Ted Peters, Faculty of Theology, Graduate Theological Union, Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley, United States of America; Department of Systematic and Historical Theology, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

Myths of origin in archaic culture – including the Hebrew Scriptures – locate reality at the point of origin. The Greek term, αρχη, means both origin and governance. How something originates governs its definition; it was assumed by our ancestors. Hence the term archonic. Until we get to Christian eschatology and the promise of the new creation. In the New Testament, we find that God’s eschatological consummation will retroactively define what has always been. God’s redemption will epigenetically redefine what occurred at our genesis. Who you and I really are as creatures will be determined by our completion in the Kingdom of God. The new creation, Omega, determines what was true at the point of origin, that is, at Alpha.

Contribution: This article develops a theology of nature that incorporates natural science and augments the journal series in this subject area. Furthermore, this article develops a retroactive ontology based on the New Testament promise of an eschatological new creation.


Keywords

origin; future; myth; archonic; epigenetic; retroactive ontology; prolepsis; laws of nature; Jan C. Smuts

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