Note from CM: My friend Dan is not only a caring pastor, but also a profound thinker. I encourage us all to exercise our minds a bit today by considering what he has to say about this traditional Christian doctrine. This is part one on the subject. Check out Dan’s blog HERE.
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The Meaning and Value of Creation Ex Nihilo
by Daniel Jepsen
The heretic creates the theologian, they say. That is, it is the error of the heresy which forces the church to refine its doctrine more exactly, and this is why much doctrine uses the language of negation. But, far from simply the negative (but needed) role of guarding truth from error, a careful understanding of God’s revelation to us gives also a deeper understanding of the beauty of God and his plan.
Such is the case with the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. The phrase is based on the Latin and means creation out of nothing: that God used no pre-existing material of any kind when He created the heavens and the earth. Creation ex nihilo is in one sense the very definition of a negatively stated doctrine, yet its full meaning, when understood, gives life and wisdom.
To understand this, we must first trace the development of the doctrine. This doctrine arose as a response to two almost opposite errors: dualism and monism. Let us examine each in turn.
Dualism is the idea that the present universe consists of two primary forces. Professor Langdon Gilkey writes:
The most common conception of creation in the Hellenistic world in which the Christians found themselves can roughly be called the “dualistic” view. This view has had a long and distinguished history in religious and philosophical thought. In mythological form, it appears in almost all the creation myths of the Near East, India, and the Far East, where a God or order subdues some monster or principle of chaos. It reappeared in the dramatic Orphic cosmologies, then was purified into the familiar Platonic picture of creation in the “Timaeus”, and thence provided the groundwork for Aristotle’s cosmology. In Christian times it formed the philosophical basis for most of the “Gnostic” systems with which Christianity carried on a life and death struggle until orthodox thought had successfully formulated its own, antidualistic view of creation.
This viewpoint has one great consistency and one great ambiguity. The great consistency is the belief in the eternality of matter. The great ambiguity is how to describe the person or power that shapes matter into what we call the universe. For some ancient religions, the shaper was a deity of some kind, who “subdued” chaos (often personified as a monster, or the sea, or a sea-monster) and from this “matter” created the world. The more philosophically inclined ancients (especially the Greeks) viewed reality as matter being joined to form, much as a carpenter would create by taking the matter of wood and shaping it into the idea or form of a chair. For them, dualism is more of a philosophy of creation (matter and form coming together) than a religious view of creation (a god subdued the resistant matter by forming it). Plato rather ingeniously combined these two elements. He pictures a Demiurge (a primordial craftsman, not God) who shaped the world out of chaos while gazing at the eternal ideas (or forms) above him, much like a sculptor would gaze at his model (seated either before him or in his mind) as he shaped the recalcitrant marble.
However the details are conceived, reality is conceived of dualistically, because there are two eternal and primary principles in the universe. In other words, individual things (and the world itself) are made out of matter by someone or something imposing form on that matter.
When Christian thinkers began reflecting on what creation meant they almost unanimously (the one exception is Justin Martyr) rejected this idea of creation for two reasons, one theological, and one ethical.
Theologically, the great problem with dualism is that in its scheme, God is neither absolute nor sovereign. This god would not be absolute because if matter is eternal and uncreated, then God is one of two fundamental and primary powers or entities. And he would not be sovereign, for He is not the source of all things, but only their organizer. Just as the marble limits the sculptors freedom (he can create what he likes, yes, but only if he likes marble statues) so dualism limits the freedom of God. He “makes” the universe, yes, but He does so only as a “shaper” of what already “is”. Matter is as eternal and self-sufficient as He is, and thus stands over against God. God cannot be ultimate, nor can He be infinite in a dualist reality.
Ethically, the problem is that an ontological dualism of this kind always tends to become a moral dualism as well, in which the goodness comes from the divine, and evil from the recalcitrant “matter” which He had to subdue. As Gilkey puts it, “By understanding reality as a union of opposing principles, one of which is divine and the other of which is chaotic, dualism seems to make the presence of evil in life rational; but by the same token, it can hardly avoid the gloomy conclusion that existence is by its nature inevitably a mixture of evil with good.” This, of course, contradicted the Jewish and Christian belief that creation was a good thing (“And God saw that it was good”), and hence that evil was, not the natural result of creation, but a fall from the goodness of creation (and a fall which might possibly then be undone). This underlies Augustine’s dictate: “Evil is not a substance; it is the perversion of a nature that is essentially good”.
The reason this is important is that, ethically speaking, dualism must then result in one of two opposing errors. The first is asceticism, the belief that since bodily life is evil, we should shun bodily enjoyment and seek only spiritual enlightenment. The other error is libertinism, the belief that since the body means nothing, bodily sins don’t really matter (Obviously the more popular of the two options). Like a river that splits into two streams, dualism’s view of earthly existence flows ethically into one of these two errors.
Thus, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo argued against any sort of ontological dualism, and the moral confusion which that dualism brought forth.
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The second great error creation ex nihilo corrected was monism (and its religious formulation, pantheism). Monism is the belief that God and the universe are not distinct, but rather one in essence. In this view, creation was not out of nothing, nor was it out of pre-existing matter. Creation was out of God (creation ex deo). That is, creation flows from God like steam from boiling water. Creaturely existence is a manifestation of the divine.
When Christian thinkers encountered this belief, they used the same formula as they used to combat dualism: creation is not out of matter, nor out of God, but out of nothing. As Augustine put it, “non de deo, sed ex nihilo” – not out of God but out of nothing. Or, as he put it more fully, “this soul is not part of God, nor of the same nature of God, but is created by Him and is far different from its creator”. Irenaeus likewise: “But the things established are distinct from him who established them, and what is made from him who made them. For he himself is uncreated,…and lacking nothing…but the things which have been made by him have received a beginning…and must necessarily in all respects have a different term [applied to them].”
The reason that monism was so strongly opposed was because of its dehumanizing of persons, and degradation of creation. Because these two ideas may seem counterintuitive (after all, what could be more exalted than to be part of God?) we should analyze the logic here.
The essence of this belief is that all is God or part of God, even while all things in some way are still finite (or appear to be). The reality and value of finite things, then, depends on the degree to which it is identical or united to God. What is not God is not real or not valuable. Now finite things as finite, that is, as material, individual, partial, historical, or personal creatures, are clearly only a small degree identical with God. For God in Himself (or itself) is the negation of all these things; God transcends these things. The One who is above all cannot be material, individual, personal or temporal. But if finite things are God, yet God is not finite, then inevitably the finite characteristics become, in some sense, unreal and worthless.
This then results in four rather unfortunate ideas. First, physical pleasure is devalued; the goal becomes not to enjoy the physical world as God’s good gift, but to transcend the physical world.
Secondly, knowledge of the physical world is likewise devalued. The physical realm is, in some sense, not real as its own entity; It is an abstraction or an illusion (the word used in the east is Maya). To focus on this realm is meaningless. To study scientifically the interrelations of this realm is merely to systematize error and ignorance.
Thirdly, humans themselves are devalued in their actual physical state. Humans are to transcend their humanity, not be fulfilled in that physical human state. Individual creaturely existence is the obstacle, not the goal.
Lastly, the concept of sin is also devalued. For the monist, the problem with mankind is not sin, but ignorance (of the oneness of all things) and the solution is not forgiveness but enlightenment. The ultimate goal is not that we become a new creature (the very idea brings shudders to a proper pantheist) in part of a new creation, but that we escape creatureliness altogether.
Thus, pantheism or monism always leads in some way to an idea of escape from creaturely existence. By identifying God with the world it results only in the denial of the reality and value of the world. It degrades what it seeks to exalt (the physical world), even as it dehumanizes exactly those it seeks to divinize.
By understanding why the Church developed the doctrine of creation ex nihilo as the meaning of creation, we are now in a place to get a better handle on the positive value of this doctrine. A full understanding of this doctrine not only guards us against intellectual errors, it forms the basis for the right way to understand our place as created beings, and what we are expected to do as such.
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Practically speaking, then, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo gives us the following life-giving truths.
First, the physical world is good and real in its essence. Unlike dualism, creation is understood as fundamentally good. Matter is not something recalcitrant and limiting; it is part of God’s good creation. The Christian life is not about denying physical pleasures, but being thankful and responsible in our enjoyment of them. The fact that God gives us the physical creation in its entirety (form and matter) means that we can avoid the error of denying ourselves the enjoyment of the physical world (the error of asceticism). And unlike monism, creation is understood as fundamentally real, for God has given it an existence of its own, dependent upon Him but also separate from Him. To understand the physical world is not valueless (or systematizing error) but has the great value of seeing the wisdom and power of God, as well as partnering with Him in shaping creation for mankind’s good. And the promise of heaven is not a disembodied, spiritual existence in the clouds, but rather that we shall dwell with God (in some way) as creatures in a perfected creation.
Second, the physical world is not ultimate. It has not always existed (even as bare matter) and does not exist at all apart from His will and ongoing providence. This obviously includes the very powerful and transformative thought that we has creatures are not ultimate. I am not ultimate, and neither is any other creature. Any value I have or another has is less than the value of the one who made all things; our value as creatures (and indeed the value of all things in creation) is real, but derived and secondary. As Kierkegaard put it, there is “an infinite, qualitative distinction” between God and everything not God. It follows that in all of creation there is nothing worthy of our ultimate worship apart from God. Idolatry, whether the crudely materialistic kind exhibited by the primitive with his carved god, or the more modern idolatry practiced by the modern man or woman obsessed with money or position, is a fundamental mistake. Idolatry simply does not understand what is worthy of our worship and devotion.
Thirdly, humans are good, but in need of redemption. That is, our existence as physical creatures is not the problem. Creation was not a fall to be transcended (as it would be in pantheism) nor a necessary evil (as in dualism). Rather, the fall occurred after creation and consisted in man choosing to attempt to live as God and not as creatures in dependence and trust in the creator. In other words, the fall was not into creatureliness, but an attempt to escape creatureliness. But the very fact that mankind once existed as sinless creatures tells us that mankind has hope for redemption. His evil is not inherent, but chosen, and that means it can be undone (though not by him).
Finally, as Christians, we affirm that God not only is more fundamental than the physical universe, but that He exists as a Trinity, and that this existence in Trinitarian form is more fundamental than creation. More specifically, it means that the fundamental aspect of the Trinitarian existence, love, is more foundational, more ultimate, and therefore more important than anything within the physical creation. Why does St. Paul take pains to say that love alone outlasts everything (I Corinthians 13:13)? Because love is the only thing we do that transcends creation itself. Love is not part of creation. Creation is simply love taking on physical form.
Thus, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, far from being an abstract or meaningless distinction, actually serves to give us great insight into God and mankind. It is the fundamental doctrine about God, the first thing we learn of him, and the foundation to all that He reveals about Himself and His plan or redemption and renewal.
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Notes:
1. The quotes from Langdon Gilkey are from his wonderful work, Maker of Heaven and Earth, now apparently out of print.
2. I have not delved deeply into the biblical verses supporting creation ex nihilo. A good article by Paul Copan is here. A lecture by William Lane Craig is here. To see early Christian quotes on creation ex nihilo, go here.
3. If you want a whole book analysis of the doctrine, check out Creation out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration
The Internet Monk Archives 
What i do not realize is in truth how you’re no longer really much more smartly-favored than you may be right now. You are so intelligent. You already know thus significantly on the subject of this subject, produced me individually believe it from so many varied angles. Its like men and women don’t seem to be fascinated except it?s something to do with Woman gaga! Your individual stuffs excellent. All the time maintain it up!
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The term ‘bushman’ in Australia would refer to anyone who lives in the wilderness or goes camping a lot and doesn’t apply to any particular race, ethnicity or level of cultural sophistication.
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Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally,
it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point.
You clearly know what youre talking about, why throw
away your intelligence on just posting videos to your site when you could be giving us something informative to read?
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Hmm it looks like your website ate my first comment (it was super long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I had written and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog. I too am an aspiring blog writer but I’m still new to everything. Do you have any helpful hints for novice blog writers? I’d really appreciate it.
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okay, it looks like it is not going to be posted today. Not sure when it will, but the whole post basically address the issue you raise: which interpretations of Genesis 1 are compatible with creation ex nihilo.
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agree
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And there it is… my original missing comment.
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I had an earlier comment that didn’t make it up. What I meant to say is that the creation of Genesis 1:3 and following involves a molding and shaping of what we see in Genesis 1:2. I see Genesis 1:3 and following as a re-creation that is not ex-nihilo, and that if we want to talk ex-nihilo, then the account in Genesis doesn’t really fit the picture.
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Ok. Thanks!
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Hi, for all time i used to check webpage posts here in the early hours in the morning, for the reason that i love to gain knowledge of more and more.
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Dumb ox, the question you raise is addressed in the second part, which I believe will post tomorrow
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My comment about eastern religions was unfair, obviously any in depth treatment of them would be outside the scope of a blog post. As for creation from nothing, I guess the only problem I have with it (it may very well be true) is that it doesn’t seem like it was the Jewish interpretation of the Torah, but instead a interpretation added hundreds of years later in Rome.
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But it was already there, just in a chaotic, formless state. Perhaps that chaotic state can be considered “nothing”. I am in total agreement with the concept of ex-nihilo, but if we are going to be hawkish against other cosmologists adding or reading into the Genesis text that which is not there (theology ex-nihilo?), then I think we need to abide by our own standards.
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Thanks for your kind words, Lee.
I have read the book, and it opened my eyes. I need to re-read it and assimilate it more.
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If I were writing your report card, Daniel, I would say that you score very well in reading comprehension, and that you do an excellent job of taking abstract ideas and applying them in a practical sense.
Great piece!
Have you read NT Wright’s “Surprised by Hope”?
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Hey, at least he didn’t show Adam clean-shaven with a crewcut!
(And if the Creation Museum had been built in the Godly Golden Age of the Fifites, that’s exactly how he’d have done them! “Godly/Scriptural Hairstyle” and all that…)
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The Hebrew word used for create “Barak” in the Genesis accounts would suggest “He fashions, molds, or manipulates the “stuff” he created out of nothing.”
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You mean the ones that look like Dick and Jane?
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My favorite line in the post: “In other words, the fall was not into creatureliness, but an attempt to escape creatureliness.”
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But the very fact that mankind once existed as sinless creatures tells us that mankind has hope for redemption. His evil is not inherent, but chosen, and that means it can be undone (though not by him).
humans are sentsient. having self-awareness. having the ability to choose. but choice with moral/ethical values…
is this the one ‘qualifier’ for the ‘do-over’ divine gifts of forgiveness & redemption? why humans & not angels?
we do know at least these 2 orders of creation; 1) angels; & 2) humans have the ability to choose & choose morally consequential choices. since ‘evil’ in its primeval form was neither pre-existing, but the unfortunate result of ‘choice’ (free will?), what does that say about the nature of evil & the differences between humans & angels?
and if mankind was good & still ‘good’ in the basic sense even when sinful/fallen, we must have never been consigned to hell since God is the source of all intrinsic value, no? He never devalued fallen man; just look at His reaction to Adam & Eve after they sinned. both Adam & Eve were there in the presence of God in their sinful state. they were not obliterated. they were not undone. they were banished from the Garden. but then God continues to interact with both them & their children in very dramatic fashion…
anyway…just something to mull over & consider its deeper theological implications…
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I’m not sure if the first chapter of Genesis even pictures or directly addresses God’s original act of creating the “stuff” of the universe from nothing. I suspect that took place billions of years before the Genesis narrative begins.
In my opinion, what the Genesis story depicts is God’s specific creative work of taking a big lump of magma and volcanic gasses circling a specific star on one of the outer spirals of the Milky Way galaxy, transforming it into the ideal place to support life, bringing forth life, and then bringing forth a life form specifically designed to bear His image and capable of having relationship with Him.
This, however, suggests that God engages in two kinds of creation: one in which something is produced from nothing and another in which He fashions, molds, or manipulates the “stuff” he created out of nothing.
And, maybe, there is a third kind of creation presently underway in which He is transforming some of this temporary, moldable stuff into something eternal and even more like Himself.
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Couple of thoughts about ex nihilo.
The Hebrew word for create is “barak”, which has connotations of to mold or to shape, like a potter would “barak” a jar (out of existing material). To show that this is its primary meaning, if you intensify the verb (in Hebrew you add a dagesh to the middle character), it means to cut down, as in “to cut down a tree.
This would fit with the Creation in Genesis 1:2 and following to be a recreation using existing materials, which would not discount an original creation that was ex nihilo.
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I do have to admit that this gives me some challenges, particularly reading in the Genesis narrative an earth pre-existing at least prior to the opening scene, and God moving over the formless and void chaos (tohu wa-bohu) of the earth and from it bring forth His creation. It sounds very similar to the other creation narratives that you mentioned.
However, I understand the dangers of monism and dualism. These problems are drivers in the “radical” Christianity discussed in the previous article.
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Just like the Steady State Theory of Fred “Prove Fred Wrong” Hoyle, proposed as a counter to The Big Bang because the Big Bang was “introducing religious dogma into Science”.
Ask JMJ/Christian Monist about his stint in the Navigators sometime. Where the only way to meet one of those Hawt Nav Chicks was to go Uber-Spiritual to the point of total denial that you were male and she was female.
In four words: IT’S ALL GONNA BURN.
In three words: FLUFFY CLOUD HEAVEN.
“When The Rapture comes, I hope I’m up in a skyscraper so I don’t have as far to go!” — related by Eagle after 9/11
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“I wouldn’t dismiss asceticism wholesale though, as Daniel does here. One has only to compare Buddhist monks with Christian monks (or read the Desert Fathers) to see there’s more than one kind of asceticism. There’s a massive difference between denying yourself something bad in order to get something good, and denying yourself something good in order to be open to something better.”
Somehow, I missed that part of the article. That is what I get for reading when I’m tired! 😛
I especially like your final sentence. That, in essence, sums up what Christian asceticism is all about, and why we need not fear it in and of itself.
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Kyle’s Mom (TM) will always find something to be Offended about. A New Righteous Cause.
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And as far as DNA drift analysis can determine, Khoi-San are the original humans. “Genetic Adam” and “Genetic Eve”, some 70,000 years ago (the time of the Toba Supervolcano near-extinction event) were both Khoi-San.
Ken Ham needs to update the Adam & Eve dioramas in the Kentucky Creation Museum…
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It wasn’t originally, but it has become to be one, but not to the same extent that the n- or k- words are. Nowadays, the term Bushman is replaced by the term San, just as the term Hottentot (incidentally, more often used as a slur than Bushman) is replaced by the word Khoi. Because of the close ethnic relationship between these groups, the word Khoisan is sometimes also used.
And yes, these were the first Inhabitants (First Nations) of Southern Africa.
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Just like rancher, farmer, sailor, nomad and townfolk – the “racial connotations” are just endless aren’t they?
Under every rock we find what we are looking for.
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Shucks. Always hated being the first kid in class to raise his hand, then getting the wrong answer…
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Lawrence Krauss
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Rom 11:36 “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things.”
Heb 2:10 “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and BY WHOM ARE ALL THINGS…”
Is 45:7 “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”
Gen 1:2 (Youngs Literal translation) “The earth HAS existed waste and void and darkness is on the face of the deep and the spirit of God fluttering on the face of the deep.”
I think these verses contrast with what Daniel is saying. The reason I bring up Youngs Literal for Gen. 1:2 is that the tense is in the now, ie. eternal mode. We often attempt to grasp eternity moving ahead but completely miss it ‘going back’. It is in fact neither. Nonetheless, 1Pet. 1:20 says that the slaying of the lamb was already decided and in the works before the creation act, hence our misdeeds in the garden, ever got started. What does that say about the nature of God and the creation? Remember, that left ‘time’ to change course before Adam messed everything up. I have to go to work now so I’m making this a hit and run.
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I don’t think the term “bushman”, used in the abstract, is a racial term. I understand it to be a description of a person in a very primitive society, whether in Australia or Brazil. If I am wrong, I apologize and would ask Chaplain Mike to change it.
The post does not attempt to summarize eastern religions and indeed does not even use the word “eastern”. Monism has a rich and varied history in western thought as well, and eastern religions may or may not be consistently monistic. The post simply tries to analyze one aspect of monism, in particular why it was rejected by the early church when it formulated the doctrine of creation ex nihilo.
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Ah yes, he was one. But I think there was another fellow who wrote a whole book about it, wasn’t there?
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Bushman is basically a racial slur. And your summaries of Eastern religions are somewhere between wrong, and completely wrong, so that basically took me out of the conversation.
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Stephen Hawking
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This is good stuff.
And still relevant, I think. When I hear modern scientists (I forget the name of the one who was in the news recently on account of this) saying there’s no need to posit God as a First Cause because the laws of physics are such that they will spontaneously create the material universe, it sounds to me like a variation on the dualistic idea- except in this scenario, non-material form creates the matter upon which it is then imposed. Modern science doesn’t look terribly kindly on Plato and Aristotle anymore, but they haven’t escaped their orbit as much as they think they have.
I wouldn’t dismiss asceticism wholesale though, as Daniel does here. One has only to compare Buddhist monks with Christian monks (or read the Desert Fathers) to see there’s more than one kind of asceticism. There’s a massive difference between denying yourself something bad in order to get something good, and denying yourself something good in order to be open to something better.
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Excellent article. It is definitely something we, who are so often embroiled in Creationism vs. Evolution, need to keep in mind. There is more to it than simply whether the universe was created in seven days against a billions-of-years process.
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