Creation is not a laboratory experiment of a god who can walk away from the lab if it fails. Creation is the pouring out of God's self into an experiment that embodies the divine presence in a manifold expression of being. S econdly, the Christian confession is that creation has further costs. It costs God in real terms of alienation and estrangement. It costs God in the suffering that occurs because creation does not reflect the self-giving of the Creator.
Creation reflects the grabbing and hoarding of life under the dominion of human beings.
F urther, it costs God in the effort to overcome estrangement between Creator and creature. We confess that one has been sent into this world and is the revealer of this divine mystery of God's way of giving and thus God's suffering in creation. Jesus should not be confessed as God until first one confesses that in Jesus' self-giving the mystery of God in the world is revealed. T hirdly, the manifestation of the mystery of God in the world results in a shower of gifts that God rains on creation. These gifts are known in the Church as the gifts of the Holy Spirit.