Is God essentially Creator?

[Jesus is YHWH]

The doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea can be stated in this way: The being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God.
As far as I know "Creator" is not an attribute, it's a titel.

Or maybe I am just too blind to find it in the list?
View attachment 287788

On that list How can God be Merciful, Gracious, Wrath, Providence without creation ?

 

[public hermit]

On that list How can God be Merciful, Gracious, Wrath, Providence without creation ?

That is an excellent question!

 

[Friedrich Rubinstein]

On that list How can God be Merciful, Gracious, Wrath, Providence without creation ?

All I was saying is "Creator" is not an attribute. Of course the attributes of God would not be visible if God was the only existing being. But if you're a nice guy with a golden heart it doesn't mean you are cruel when nobody is around. There is just no way to show your kindness.

 

[Mark Quayle]

According to Duns Scotus God is not essentially Creator.

Frederick Copleston writes, "...the relation of the creature to God is a real relation, whereas the relation of God to the creature is a mental relation only (relation rationis), since God is not essentially Creator and cannot be called Creator in the same sense in which he is called wise or good. He is really Creator, but His relationship to the creature is not a real relation, since He is not Creator by essence, in which case he would create necessarily..." A History of Philosophy Volume 2: Mediaeval Philosophy Part II.48.11

The basic idea is clear enough. If God is essentially Creator, then God creates necessarily, and therefore creation is necessary. But, creation is not necessary, but contingent. So, God is not Creator essentially.

That strikes me as an odd conclusion. Thoughts?

Frank Copleston is talking above his pay grade. He is Anthropomorphising God, thinking God's mind is like ours, and that for him a mental relationship is not a real relationship.

I can grant that he is only talking above my pay grade, and using normal terminology beyond normal speech, in which case, I suppose he has a point. God decided to create --he did not HAVE TO. But then, it seems to me he is looking at the rest of it backwards. After all, he does not HAVE TO be wise or good, either. He does not do good and wise things because they are good to do and be, nor even, in my view, by necessity according to his nature, but rather, wisdom and goodness are what they are because he is wise and good. Our words, "wisdom" and "goodness" are silly notions, as is "existence", compared to what we want to say he is by nature bound to be. If we say he exists, it should not be the same as to say that we exist.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

According to Duns Scotus God is not essentially Creator.

Frederick Copleston writes, "...the relation of the creature to God is a real relation, whereas the relation of God to the creature is a mental relation only (relation rationis), since God is not essentially Creator and cannot be called Creator in the same sense in which he is called wise or good. He is really Creator, but His relationship to the creature is not a real relation, since He is not Creator by essence, in which case he would create necessarily..." A History of Philosophy Volume 2: Mediaeval Philosophy Part II.48.11

The basic idea is clear enough. If God is essentially Creator, then God creates necessarily, and therefore creation is necessary. But, creation is not necessary, but contingent. So, God is not Creator essentially.

That strikes me as an odd conclusion. Thoughts?

The rationalism kind of kills the joy of the contemplation, doesn't it?

 

[public hermit]

The rationalism kind of kills the joy of the contemplation, doesn't it?

Not really. If God did not create out of necessity, then it was an act of pure love and generosity. That truth, in itself, should be good soil for rich and fulfilling contemplation.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Not really. If God did not create out of necessity, then it was an act of pure love and generosity. That truth, in itself, should be good soil for rich and fulfilling contemplation.

English is funny, a few centuries in distance, everything said sounds complicated.

 

[Mark Quayle]

So, here's the thing that seems odd to me. When we talk about God's attributes they are never accidental, but always essential. God is not just good sometimes, but always.

There is nothing accidental to God. And yet, because of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, we can't say that God is essentially Creator. And yet, nothing is accidental to God, so what does it mean to say God is Creator? If God is not essentially Creator, nor accidentally Creator, then the phrase "God is Creator" becomes this unique "attribute" without a clear reference. Or something like that. I don't quite understand.

I think you are letting words push you around. The philosophers use words like accidental, contingent, necessary, to represent specific notions, almost mechanically, and to mean, NOT other things. Of necessity, (haha), they must be precise to be both logical and understood. You may understand that, yet your notions of those words then make entrance and fight with the attention of your brain as to the meaning or use of those words.

I can even say, "it is God's nature to create" or, "it is IN God's nature to create" and yet not mean that he is essentially creator. But then, to my mind, to say he is essentially good or wise, does not mean that he HAS TO BE good or wise. He and his nature are in perfect harmony. I would say that he and his nature are in fact one and the same, except that would conjure up all sorts of Christian indigestion, accusations that I am insane, etc. We humans seem to need to think of God in terms of human experience. So, ok.

 

[public hermit]

I think you are letting words push you around. The philosophers use words like accidental, contingent, necessary, to represent specific notions, almost mechanically, and to mean, NOT other things. Of necessity, (haha), they must be precise to be both logical and understood. You may understand that, yet your notions of those words then make entrance and fight with the attention of your brain as to the meaning or use of those words

I'm fairly confident I'm tracking their intended use, but I get what you're saying.

Our words, "wisdom" and "goodness" are silly notions, as is "existence", compared to what we want to say he is by nature bound to be. If we say he exists, it should not be the same as to say that we exist

This is a really good point. Surely, what God actually is transcends our conceptions and the words we use to try and communicate those conceptions. This comment reminds me of the apophatic tradition (e.g. Pseudo-Dionysius).

I can even say, "it is God's nature to create" or, "it is IN God's nature to create" and yet not mean that he is essentially creator. But then, to my mind, to say he is essentially good or wise, does not mean that he HAS TO BE good or wise

I hear what you're saying, but can God not be God? So, maybe it's true in one sense that God need not be wise. That is, there is no outside force that compels God to be wise. Nonetheless, since God is always God, then God is never not-wise.

Creator, according to the scholastics, is not like those attributes. God could have not been Creator, and yet would still have been God.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Alright, I think I get that. In this context "real relation" describes some kind of dependence then (which is one-way only). Even more noteworthy then that the Creator loves his creatures more than those love Him.

I think it is worth bearing in mind that "attributes" of God are HUMAN concepts, not God's concepts, and apply to God (in our minds) in a human fashion. So we come up with words like, "necessity", and "contingent" etc, and hope that even those are understood by others how we understand them.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I'm fairly confident I'm tracking their intended use, but I get what you're saying.



This is a really good point. Surely, what God actually is transcends our conceptions and the words we use to try and communicate those conceptions. This comment reminds me of the apophatic tradition (e.g. Pseudo-Dionysius).



I hear what you're saying, but can God not be God? So, maybe it's true in one sense that God need not be wise. That is, there is no outside force that compels God to be wise. Nonetheless, since God is always God, then God is never not-wise.

Creator, according to the scholastics, is not like those attributes. God could have not been Creator, and yet would still have been God.

Our minds make contradictions sometimes where there really are none, but for the sake of sanity, there are some things we can be certain of --for example, the logical laws. When one says that God, by definition, or of necessity, is self-existent, they are correct, but when they say that God is self-created, that is a logical contradiction. Though we have little knowledge of what it means for God to create anything, nor even (since we are necessarily temporal beings) how it is possible for anything to be self-existent, we can recognize that he is, and we can recognize that certain ways of trying to say that he is are self-contradictory, while to say that he is self-existent is not self-contradictory, nor does it contradict OUR defined Law of Causation.

This is one of the things that makes the Word of God unique --how he can tell absolute truth, yet condescend to speak to us in human language, using human terminology and concepts, even humanly accessible reasoning, yet without lying or losing any force, is to me amazing.

 

[Jesus is YHWH]

Our minds make contradictions sometimes where there really are none, but for the sake of sanity, there are some things we can be certain of --for example, the logical laws. When one says that God, by definition, or of necessity, is self-existent, they are correct, but when they say that God is self-created, that is a logical contradiction. Though we have little knowledge of what it means for God to create anything, nor even (since we are necessarily temporal beings) how it is possible for anything to be self-existent, we can recognize that he is, and we can recognize that certain ways of trying to say that he is are self-contradictory, while to say that he is self-existent is not self-contradictory, nor does it contradict OUR defined Law of Causation.

This is one of the things that makes the Word of God unique --how he can tell absolute truth, yet condescend to speak to us in human language, using human terminology and concepts, even humanly accessible reasoning, yet without lying or losing any force, is to me amazing.

And what is more amazing is the Incarnation and contemplating that act of God.

 

[GraceBro]

According to Duns Scotus God is not essentially Creator.

Frederick Copleston writes, "...the relation of the creature to God is a real relation, whereas the relation of God to the creature is a mental relation only (relation rationis), since God is not essentially Creator and cannot be called Creator in the same sense in which he is called wise or good. He is really Creator, but His relationship to the creature is not a real relation, since He is not Creator by essence, in which case he would create necessarily..." A History of Philosophy Volume 2: Mediaeval Philosophy Part II.48.11

The basic idea is clear enough. If God is essentially Creator, then God creates necessarily, and therefore creation is necessary. But, creation is not necessary, but contingent. So, God is not Creator essentially.

That strikes me as an odd conclusion. Thoughts?

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1

 

[Bruce Leiter]

According to Duns Scotus God is not essentially Creator.

Frederick Copleston writes, "...the relation of the creature to God is a real relation, whereas the relation of God to the creature is a mental relation only (relation rationis), since God is not essentially Creator and cannot be called Creator in the same sense in which he is called wise or good. He is really Creator, but His relationship to the creature is not a real relation, since He is not Creator by essence, in which case he would create necessarily..." A History of Philosophy Volume 2: Mediaeval Philosophy Part II.48.11

The basic idea is clear enough. If God is essentially Creator, then God creates necessarily, and therefore creation is necessary. But, creation is not necessary, but contingent. So, God is not Creator essentially.

That strikes me as an odd conclusion. Thoughts?

Conclusion: Don't listen to Copleston; listen to Genesis 1.

 

[chevyontheriver]

So, was being Creator accidental to God? God was sometimes Creator, and not at other times? Doesn't that strike you as an odd conclusion (for an "attribute " so prevalent in theology)?

I don't have a conclusive answer. But having read a bunch of Copleston and being more or less Thomist myself I appreciate a thoughtful and non-political theological puzzle. I'm going to ponder this one.

One possible approach would be to consider how we humans are made in the image and likeness of God, AND that we are creative. Might our creativity illustrate something of the nature of God's creativity? I donno. Just a thought.

Copleston thinks as a Thomist, which is to say a sort of Aristotelian. I would expect that a Thomist would say that God's nature is absolute simplicity, and so there would be no 'sometimes' Creator and sometimes not. Does God have accidents even? Thomas says no. Does that answer the question? Or maybe not. Again, I donno. Summa Theologica 1: 3: 6

Article 6. Whether in God there are any accidents?
Objection 1. It seems that there are accidents in God. For substance cannot be an accident, as Aristotle says (Phys. i). Therefore that which is an accident in one, cannot, in another, be a substance. Thus it is proved that heat cannot be the substantial form of fire, because it is an accident in other things. But wisdom, virtue, and the like, which are accidents in us, are attributes of God. Therefore in God there are accidents.

Objection 2. Further, in every genus there is a first principle. But there are many "genera" of accidents. If, therefore, the primal members of these genera are not in God, there will be many primal beings other than God—which is absurd.

On the contrary, Every accident is in a subject. But God cannot be a subject, for "no simple form can be a subject", as Boethius says (De Trin.). Therefore in God there cannot be any accident.

I answer that, From all we have said, it is clear there can be no accident in God.

First, because a subject is compared to its accidents as potentiality to actuality; for a subject is in some sense made actual by its accidents. But there can be no potentiality in God, as was shown (I:2:3).

Secondly, because God is His own existence; and as Boethius says (Hebdom.), although every essence may have something superadded to it, this cannot apply to absolute being: thus a heated substance can have something extraneous to heat added to it, as whiteness, nevertheless absolute heat can have nothing else than heat.

Thirdly, because what is essential is prior to what is accidental. Whence as God is absolute primal being, there can be in Him nothing accidental. Neither can He have any essential accidents (as the capability of laughing is an essential accident of man), because such accidents are caused by the constituent principles of the subject. Now there can be nothing caused in God, since He is the first cause. Hence it follows that there is no accident in God.

Reply to Objection 1. Virtue and wisdom are not predicated of God and of us univocally. Hence it does not follow that there are accidents in God as there are in us.

Reply to Objection 2. Since substance is prior to its accidents, the principles of accidents are reducible to the principles of the substance as to that which is prior; although God is not first as if contained in the genus of substance; yet He is first in respect to all being, outside of every genus.

 

[Noxot]

What is necessary is whatever God Wills. God is not bounded by wisdom or love because he is wisdom and love itself. If I as a creature am not necessary then why do I exist? I exist because God is overflowing with love and wisdom and therefore I must exist and I must be. In the depths of God there is no final division of creator and created because all conceptions of reality exist for God's sake, not God for them. So the separation of Creator and creature exist because God wants it to. Trace yourself back far enough and the only place you could possibly Trace yourself to is God.

Because God is the truth automatically he created lies and we as creatures are those lies. We as lies are a necessary part of God in relation to him since he is the truth. The truth emptied himself so that he could reveal himself. All of creation exists in God. How do you think that God could empty himself? He would have to lie because how could God be empty? for God there is no difference between truth and lies because what he says is. similarly on the fundamental reality of spirit when we "say" something is then it is Because spirit is the fundamental reality and saying and willing are the same thing. for instance when we fall then it is. or when God declares what the laws of physics of this material universe will be then it is. but God is Sovereign over the material universe, not over our spirit because our Spirits are freedom. We are images of God and so we have a likeness to him. the flesh is a secondary effect of our spirit. Spirit is the image of God and spirit is freedom. Freedom gives the possibility of it becoming the opposite of what it is because freedom is potential for becoming. So creatures can be an accident but what makes the creature possible is something divine. as unbegotten spirits we exist in God.

truth is what being is. We are as real as the voice of God speaking commands is. There is no less real and more real in God. what appears to be a division between light and darkness is in reality nothing more than a bright blinding light.

How can God add to or take away from himself? He might be able to express himself in various ways but in order to do that he would have to already have been those things.

a division of Creator and creature has eternally existed in God as two sides of the same coin. That's why the Son of God is fully human and fully God. Simultaneously God has always existed and creatures have not always existed, but they existed as potential in the word and so in some way they existed not as creatures but as Divine creatures. The fall separates creatures from God, which is sin which means missing the mark. It means that the fall is a lie against the truth. You shall know the truth and the truth makes free.

 

[zippy2006]

So, was being Creator accidental to God? God was sometimes Creator, and not at other times? Doesn't that strike you as an odd conclusion (for an "attribute " so prevalent in theology)?

Bleh, can't find my notes on this topic. An example of a relation of reason would be a Cambridge Property.

According to common sense I do not find it strange that God was sometimes Creator, and not at other times. Assuming we hold that the universe is not eternal I think we basically do say that, no?

The key premise is that when God acts something in creation changes, but nothing in God changes. Thus the term of God's act has a real relation to God, but there is no real relation that arises within God. ...I'm bummed I can't find those notes.

Here are some relevant quotes from SEP (Medieval Theories of Relations (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)):

Spoiler: Quote 1

Although medieval philosophers did not have direct access to Aristotle’s Metaphysics until the mid-twelfth century, they did feel pressure from other, largely theological sources to admit something like his non-paradigmatic relational situations. The standard medieval conception of deity, for example, requires that God is an absolutely perfect being, possessing no accidents whatsoever. But this conception makes it difficult to explain how God can enter into relational situations. Indeed, as Augustine points out in book V of his De Trinitate, there is a special difficulty for those want to combine this conception with the Christian doctrine of creation. For this doctrine would seem to require that God first lacks, and then acquires a contingent or accidental relation—namely, that of being creator. But then does it not also require that in creating the universe God underwent a real change? And what about the claim that there are no accidents in God?

Augustine’s solution, which is adopted by medieval philosophers generally, is to say that when God acquires a new relation, this is to be explained in terms of properties or accidents of something other than God. Thus, in the case of creation Augustine says:

Even though [God’s substance] begins to be [truly] spoken of [as related to a creature] at some time, still nothing is to be understood as having happened to the divine substance itself, but only to the creature in relation to whom it is spoken of.[31]
On the basis of theological considerations, therefore, Augustine is led to something like Aristotle’s non-paradigmatic relational situations. What makes it true that God is related to his creatures is nothing but God, the creatures, and a monadic property or accident of the latter.​

Interestingly, Augustine does not think that the case of God is unique, but also suggests that there are non-theological cases in which things are related solely in virtue of the properties or accidents of other things. Thus, a coin, he says can increase or decrease in value solely in virtue of the intentional states of human beings.[32] Boethius, in a treatise also known as De Trinitate, discusses the same sorts of issues, and in the course of doing so adds yet another non-theological example—a variation of which comes to be the standard medieval example of non-paradigmatic relational situations. Consider a man who walks up beside another man (or beside stationary column, as the standard medieval variation has it). In this sort of case, says Boethius, the latter comes to be to the right of the man, but solely in virtue of a property of the man.

Spoiler: Quote 2

The pervasiveness of [relations of reason] is explained at least partly by the fact that medieval philosophers think it can be used to clarify and explain a number of troublesome non-paradigmatic relational situations. For example, by the end of thirteenth century, most philosophers use it to explain the doctrine of creation, saying that creatures are related to God by a real relation, whereas God is related to them by a mere relation of reason (cf. Henninger 1989). Again, many use the notion to clarify certain cases of relational change. Thus, when a substance acquires a new relation without undergoing any real change this is often explained by saying that the substance acquired a mere relation of reason.[37] Finally, some medieval philosophers use relations of reason to identify a sense in which God can have accidents after all. Since relations of reason are mere projections (or properties a thing has by virtue of the activity of some mind), we can conceive of them as accidents in a broad sense—that is, as properties or features that a thing can both acquire and lose. But since the acquisition or loss of these properties does not require a subject to undergo any real change, some medievals claim that there is no reason in principle why even God should not have accidents of this sort.

Spoiler: Quote 3

...In this passage [above], Aquinas contrasts the relations involved in paradigmatic relational situations—namely, relations of the second type—with the relations involved in two sorts of non-paradigmatic relational situation. We are already familiar with relations of the third or ‘mixed’ type from our discussion of creation and intentional relations. Moreover, we can see that Aquinas follows the common medieval practice of connecting relations of this type with both Aristotle’s discussion in the Metaphysics and the Boethius-inspired example of the column. We have yet, however, to encounter relations of the first type. These are relations comprised by pairs of properties or accidents both of whose members are beings of reason. As an example of this type of relation, Aquinas gives self-identity. When we conceive of a situation involving this sort of relation, he says, we conceive of it as if it involved two things (“a relation requires two relata” and hence “reason apprehends the one thing twice”), and also as if the two things were ordered to each other by a pair of properties (or “[relative] dispositions”). Obviously, however, there are not distinct things in extramental reality serving as the relata of the relation of self-identity, much less two properties by which such relata are related. Like many other medievals, therefore, Aquinas concludes that in this case the relations (or relative dispositions) are not real, but mere beings of reason.[39]

The claim that self-identity is a relation of reason might seem worrisome. For insofar as relations of reason depend for their existence on the activity of the mind, it would seem to follow that something’s being self-identical is mind dependent. But that is absurd.

Aquinas is aware of this sort of worry. In fact, in one of his disputed questions, he imagines a similar worry leading someone to doubt the view that even God’s relation to his creatures can be considered a relation of reason:

After all, if there were no created intellect in existence, God would still be Lord and Creator. But if there were no created intellect in existence, there would not be any beings of reason. Hence ‘Creator’, ‘Lord’, and terms of this sort, do not express relations of reason. (De potentia, q. 7, a. 11, obj. 4.)​

This sort of worry about relations of reason helps to explain what is perhaps their most significant effect on the medieval discussion of relations—namely, a gradual shift away from the traditional Aristotelian characterization of relations. On this characterization, as we saw earlier, relations are identified at least partly in terms of their metaphysical function—that is to say, they are identified as items that actually serve to relate things. But in order to maintain that things can be self-identical apart from the activity of any mind, while at the same time maintaining that self-identity is a relation of reason, medieval philosophers have little choice but to move away from the traditional characterization. And of course the same thing is true in the case of God’s relation to his creatures. Thus, as Aquinas says in reply to the abovementioned doubt:

A man is really (and not merely conceptually) identical to himself, even though his relation [of self-identity] is a being of reason. And the explanation for this is that the cause of his relation is real—namely, the unity of his substance, which our intellect considers under the aspect of a relation. In the same way, the power to compel subjects is really in God, and our intellect considers this power as ordered to the subjects because of the subjects’ order to God. It is for this reason that he is really said to be Lord, even though his relation is a mere being of reason. And for the same reason it is evident that he would be Lord [Creator, etc.] even if there were no created intellect in existence. (De potentia q. 7, a. 11, ad 3–5.)
​

In this passage, Aquinas makes it clear that in cases involving relations of reason—such as self-identity or God’s relation to the world—the relata are related, not by their relations (since these are mere beings of reason and hence dependent on the activity of the mind), but by what he refers to here as the cause of their relations.[40] Now, in the case of a man’s being self-identical, Aquinas says the cause is just “the unity of his substance,” where by this he seems to mean that what makes a man identical to himself is just the man himself. Again, in the case of God’s being Lord he says that the cause is “the power to compel subjects”. In the case of God, however, Aquinas does not think the power to compel subjects is distinct from its subject, namely, the divine nature. Hence, he maintains that what makes it true that God is Lord is nothing but God, his creatures, and some property or attribute of the creatures.

In effect, therefore, reflection on relations of reason brings about a shift away from the conception of relations as items that relate, and thus forces medieval philosophers to fall back on what they might otherwise have thought of as an equivalent characterization, namely, the view that relations are items corresponding to or signified by our genuinely relational concepts. Thus, even if self-identity or God’s relation to the world is a mere being of reason, and hence does not actually relate its subject to anything, nonetheless it can still be regarded as a relation on the grounds that it is signified by a relational concept. Now obviously this shift away from the traditional Aristotelian conception has the awkward consequence that things can be related even if their relations do not exist. Thus, Socrates can be identical to himself even if there is no self-identity, God can be Lord of creation even if his relation of Lordship does not exist, and more generally, a predication of the form ‘aRb’ can be true, even when no predication of form ‘R-ness exists’ is true. Of course, there is nothing ultimately incoherent about this consequence, provided we keep in mind that the relations in such cases are mere beings of reason. Nonetheless, accepting this consequence does force medieval philosophers to deny what at least initially appears to be a truth of reason, and at any rate is part of common sense—namely, that things are related by their relations.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

According to Duns Scotus God is not essentially Creator.

Frederick Copleston writes, "...the relation of the creature to God is a real relation, whereas the relation of God to the creature is a mental relation only (relation rationis), since God is not essentially Creator and cannot be called Creator in the same sense in which he is called wise or good. He is really Creator, but His relationship to the creature is not a real relation, since He is not Creator by essence, in which case he would create necessarily..." A History of Philosophy Volume 2: Mediaeval Philosophy Part II.48.11

The basic idea is clear enough. If God is essentially Creator, then God creates necessarily, and therefore creation is necessary. But, creation is not necessary, but contingent. So, God is not Creator essentially.

That strikes me as an odd conclusion. Thoughts?

I don't know that much about western medieval philosophy and theology other than some basic text book stuff I read decades ago. But from Hebrew and Classical Greek thought God by nature is self existent, and doesn't need anything. He is outside of time because that is a part of the created order (He is not subject to it, but can act inside and outside of it). So yes God is not a Creator as some necessity. But God is love by definition. And part of that love is the fact he did create, (while the other part is the nature of Trinity itself, where God the Father as the first cause of the Trinity continually generates the Son and Holy Ghost out of the love, which is expressed in a Communion of three beings in one essence).

 

[chad kincham]

According to Duns Scotus God is not essentially Creator.

Frederick Copleston writes, "...the relation of the creature to God is a real relation, whereas the relation of God to the creature is a mental relation only (relation rationis), since God is not essentially Creator and cannot be called Creator in the same sense in which he is called wise or good. He is really Creator, but His relationship to the creature is not a real relation, since He is not Creator by essence, in which case he would create necessarily..." A History of Philosophy Volume 2: Mediaeval Philosophy Part II.48.11

The basic idea is clear enough. If God is essentially Creator, then God creates necessarily, and therefore creation is necessary. But, creation is not necessary, but contingent. So, God is not Creator essentially.

That strikes me as an odd conclusion. Thoughts?

What a bunch of blithering nonsense and gobbledygook.

 

[chad kincham]

That's a great question. It's a specific distinction common among medieval scholars, pace Aquinas:

"Reply to Objection 3: As the creature proceeds from God in diversity of nature, God is outside the order of the whole creation, nor does any relation to the creature arise from His nature; for He does not produce the creature by necessity of His nature, but by His intellect and will, as is above explained ([238]Q[14], AA[3],4; [239]Q[19], A[8]). Therefore there is no real relation in God to the creature; whereas in creatures there is a real relation to God; because creatures are contained under the divine order, and their very nature entails dependence on God. On the other hand, the divine processions are in one and the same nature. Hence no parallel exists."

Whether There are Real Relations in God?

Creatures have a "real relation" to the Creator because it is a relation upon which their nature depends. The Creator does not have such a relation because the divine nature in no way depends on the creature.

Christians become adopted children of God by receiving Jesus John 1:12. Galatians 4:5

And believers are married to Jesus spiritually. Romans 7:4

I’m pretty sure that being adopted by God, and being the bride of Christ, would be considered a close and personal relationship.

And it doesn’t take a PhD, or a course in philosophy, to figure that out.