Abelard on creation

Abelard dismisses as illogical any idea that it was a spontaneous decision, even a whim, on the part of the creator. The idea of the created universe must have been part of God for eternity, he argues. This is not the end of the story, however. The material world was actually brought into being, he argues, not as a result of God's innate nature but by an act of love. To deny this element of the creation, he claims, is to deny God's rationality. Love is a factor that crops up repeatedly in medieval thought in a way that is lacking in its modern counterparts.