John Webster on Divine Freedom and Creation

"The act of creation is an act of God's freedom . . . for God . . . does not create in response to inner need or outer constraint, and . . . could without loss of perfection refrain from creating . . . [T]alk of indeterminacy may prove hazardous, for pressed in certain directions it can engender a notion of the divine will as merely arbitrary, merely devoid of restriction — a pattern of thought which, paradoxically, threatens to make God finite by detaching his freedom from his nature . . . [R]ather . . . God's freedom, including his freedom exercised in the making of all things, is his freedom to enact his counsel or loving purpose. In creating, God acts according to his nature and will."

John B. Webster, "'Out of His Will and Goodness New Things Have Stood Forth': Creatio ex Nihilo." (Tyndale Lecture, 2009)