Creatio Ex Nihilo – Latin: ‘Creation out of nothing.’

In classical thought, Christianity alone, or more precisely, the Judeo-Christian tradition, knows the notion of absolute creation. Creatio ex nihilo (‘creation out of nothing’) is a dogma of the faith. God has not created starting from something, but starting with what is not, from ‘nothingness’. It is the work of the will of God, and therefore is not co-eternal with God (it has a beginning and will have an end).

I. Introduction

The noted philosopher of science Ian Barbour has boldly declared, “Creation ‘out of nothing’ is not a biblical concept.” Rather, so he claims, the doctrine was merely a post-biblical development to defend God’s goodness and absolute sovereignty over the world against “Gnostic ideas regarding matter as evil or as the product of an inferior deity.” Furthermore, in Barbour’s view, the Bible is not simply ambiguous about the nature of God’s relationship to creation but actually asserts that God created from pre-existent materials:

Genesis portrays the creation of order from chaos, and … the ex nihilo doctrine was formulated later by the church fathers to defend theism against an ultimate dualism or a monistic pantheism. We still need to defend theism against alternative philosophies, but we can do so without reference to an absolute beginning.

Now if it can continue to be shown that the Big Bang is the most convincing scientific theory, Barbour states, “the theist can indeed see it as an instant of divine origination.” However, the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is not theologically necessary: “this is not the main concern expressed in the religious notion of creation.”

Along similar lines, Arthur Peacocke in his 1978 Bampton Lectures asserted that “the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation” only implies that the world owes its existence to God, which would not contradict science were it to discover that the cosmos is eternal. So the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is of marginal theological significance for Peacocke as well. Instead, both he and Barbour emphasize preservation in God’s creation of the universe rather than its temporal beginning.

Langdon Gilkey, whose Maker of Heaven and Earth has significantly influenced Barbour and Peacocke, loosely outlines what he believes the Christian doctrine of creation of out nothing is: God is the source of all that there is; creatures are dependent, yet real and good; God creates in freedom and with purpose. But although the doctrine’s essential element of the universe’s dependence on God is clear, what Gilkey omits is any clear reference to the material world’s absolute beginning.

Is the traditional Christian belief in creatio ex nihilo, God’s creation of the universe out of nothing, one that is inherent to biblical doctrine or one that is simply compatible with it? Is creatio ex nihilo nothing more than a defensive theological reaction to Gnosticism? Moreover, does the well-accepted Big Bang theory confirm the allegedly biblical doctrine of creation out of nothing? Is it solely up to science rather than Scripture to point us toward the nature of God’s creation – whether it is finite or eternal?

These questions are explored afresh by Gerhard May, Professor of Theology at the Johannes Gutenberg Universität in Mainz, in his book Creatio ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of “Creation out of Nothing” in Early Christian Thought.[6] May answers that Christian thinkers in the second century tried to reconcile their belief in a God who creates freely and unconditionally with Greek metaphysics, resulting in their formulation of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (p. 2). Up to this point, there had been no explicit formulation of precisely how God created the world. May also claims that the doctrine of creation out of nothing is “not demanded by the text of the Bible” (p. 24). All that the NT asserts is that creation is dependent upon Christ and is subordinate to him (p. 29). The idea of the universe’s ontological origination from God is not evident in Scripture, according to May.

May’s book serves as a convenient entré into a new examination of creation ex nihilo. This is particularly important because May’s book is both incorrect and potentially misleading. The book is incorrect in that it does not portray the biblical and relevant extra-biblical Jewish and Christian writings accurately or fairly. Also, May’s book could mislead people into thinking, as Barbour does, that the doctrine of creation out of nothing is only a Christian theological innovation (as opposed to its being a biblical formulation).

Full Article: Early Church