Program / Course 8: God, Trinity, and Creation / Lesson 6.3
What you will learn
- State the doctrine of creation from nothing and its three main claims.
- Trace the sources and development of the doctrine from Second Maccabees to the medieval schools.
- Describe the scholarly debate about when the doctrine arose and the church’s reasons for it.
- Explain how Aquinas distinguishes the doctrine of creation from the question of whether the world had a beginning.
The big idea
Creation from nothing (creatio ex nihilo) is the teaching that God brought the whole universe into being without using any pre-existing material and without making it from his own substance. Three claims lie within it: everything other than God depends on God for its existence, God was free to create or not to create, and God is not changed or limited by the act. The doctrine is clearly stated in the church by the late second century. Historians debate whether it is already present in the Bible or first emerged in the controversy with Gnostics and philosophers.
Key terms
- Creatio ex nihilo
- Latin for creation out of nothing. The teaching that God made everything that exists without prior material.
- Creatio continua
- Continuing creation. The teaching that God holds the world in being at every moment, not only at the start.
- Conservation
- God’s ongoing act of keeping creatures in existence.
- Absolute beginning
- A first moment of the universe, before which there was no time or world.
- Contingency
- The quality of depending for existence on something else. The world is contingent because it might not have been.
- Participation
- A term used by Plato and many Christian thinkers: creatures have being by sharing in God’s being, which they receive.
- Second Maccabees
- A Jewish book from the second century BC, found in the Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments and not in the Protestant canon. 2 Maccabees 7:28 is an early statement of the idea.
- Patristic
- Relating to the church fathers, the Christian writers of the first centuries.
Background
The three claims inside the doctrine are easier to see separately. The first is that creation is total: nothing that is, other than God, exists independently of God. The second is that creation is free: God was under no necessity, internal or external, to create. The third is that creation is from nothing: God did not use pre-existing matter and did not make the world from the divine substance. Together they say that the world is entirely a gift. The doctrine does not say that nothing is a kind of material, only that there was no prior material.
Biblical support is debated. Second Maccabees 7:28 has a mother urge her son to look at the heaven and the earth and know that God made them out of things that were not. Romans 4:17 speaks of God who calls the things that are not as though they were, and Hebrews 11:3 says that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. John 1:3 says that all things were made through the Word and that without him was not anything made. Taken together, they lead most Christians to see the doctrine as taught by Scripture, although some scholars see only hints.
The scholarly debate was sharpened by Gerhard May’s book of 1978, which argued that the doctrine emerged only in the later second century in the struggle against Gnostics and middle Platonists. Others, including Jonathan Goldstein and Paul Copan, argue that earlier Jewish and Christian texts already point to it. Most agree that by the time of Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus and Tertullian, the doctrine was clear. It is therefore at least implicit in the Bible and explicit in the late second century.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: The early statements
The Shepherd of Hermas, a second-century work, says in its first command that God made out of nothing the things that exist. Theophilus of Antioch, about 180, states in his letter To Autolycus that God made all things out of things that were not, and distinguishes God from a craftsman who needs material. Irenaeus argues in Against Heresies that God does not need anything and that the divine will is the substance of creation. Tertullian writes against Hermogenes that if matter were eternal, it would be equal to God.
The fathers gave several reasons beyond the exegetical ones. If anything other than God is uncreated, then there is a rival to God. If the world came from God’s substance, God is not fully distinct from it. And if creation is not free, it is not a gift. The church of the second and third centuries came to see the doctrine as a safeguard of the first article of the creed: I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth.
Step 2: Debates among the fathers
Not every question was settled at once. Origen, in the third century, held that creation is from nothing and that God has always been Creator, so that there has always been a world of some kind. He thought a God who was ever good and powerful must always have had something to act upon. Later writers, including Methodius, criticized the idea of an eternal creation as contrary to the Bible’s insistence on a beginning, and the church after Origen generally held that the world began. Origen’s position is still discussed, since he held that the world is wholly dependent on God while having no beginning in time.
Augustine, in the Confessions, took up the question of what God was doing before creation and held that time was created with the world. He discussed the formless matter of Genesis 1:2 and concluded that even this was made by God from nothing. In the East, John of Damascus repeated the same view in a systematic form. By the end of the patristic age, the doctrine was a settled part of Christian teaching, in the East and West.
Step 3: The medieval refinements
In the Middle Ages the doctrine was discussed against the background of Aristotle, who thought the world eternal, and of Jewish and Muslim thinkers who debated the same question. Aquinas made a careful distinction. Creation, he said, is not a change, since a change needs something to change. It is the dependence of the whole being of a creature on God. This is true even if the world had no beginning in time. He thought that reason cannot settle by itself whether the world had a beginning, and that the beginning is known by faith, citing Genesis 1:1. Bonaventure, a contemporary, argued that reason could show a beginning, and the two schools disagreed.
The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated that God, by his omnipotent power, created from the beginning of time both orders of creatures, spiritual and corporeal, from nothing. The First Vatican Council in 1870 repeated this, adding a condemnation of pantheism. These are the main official Catholic statements. The Orthodox churches affirm the same teaching on the basis of the fathers and the liturgy, though they have no single council definition.
Step 4: Continuing creation, and objections
From Augustine onward, the tradition has held that creation is not only a past event. Because creatures depend on God for their being, the act of giving being does not stop. Psalm 104:29 to 30 says that when God takes away the creature’s breath, it dies, and that when he sends forth his Spirit, it is created. Aquinas said that if God stopped sustaining the world, it would fall into nothing. This is why the doctrine is a statement about every moment and not merely about the first.
Objections come from several directions. Some philosophers say that something from nothing is incoherent. Defenders reply that the doctrine does not claim that nothing produces something, but that God does. Some theologians, including process thinkers, say the doctrine makes God remote and the world arbitrary, and prefer a God who works with the world. Others, including some Jewish scholars, such as Jon Levenson, argue that the Hebrew Bible speaks mainly of God ordering chaos. Defenders of the doctrine answer that the later development was a faithful reading of the Bible’s claims about God’s sole power.
- What does the world’s dependence on God at every moment mean for how I think about ordinary things?
- Why might freedom in creation matter for how I think of the world as a gift?
- How do I assess the claim that the doctrine is implied in the Bible but stated only later?
- Why might a church need to state a doctrine that Scripture only implies?
- What is the difference between the claim that the world is dependent and that it had a first moment?
- How does the doctrine bear on the problem of evil?
Examples
The mother and her sons
In 2 Maccabees 7, a mother encourages her sons as they are martyred. She tells the youngest to look at the sky and earth and understand that God made them out of what did not exist, and that he can raise the dead. For her, creation from nothing and the hope of the resurrection stand together.
An author and a book
An author does not have a book before writing, and the book exists only as the author writes it. If the author stops, the book does not remain. Defenders of continuing creation use such a picture to suggest that creatures exist only as God gives them existence.
Origen and the eternal world
Origen argued that God’s goodness is eternal, and thus that God has always been Creator. His critics replied that this made the world eternal. The example shows that even good thinkers differed on the details, and that the church had to decide how to read the claim.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching defines creation from nothing and treats it as a truth of faith. The Catechism teaches that God creates freely, out of nothing, and holds all in being. Catholic theologians follow Aquinas in the view that the beginning of the world cannot be proved by reason alone.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology holds that the world was created from nothing and is sustained by God’s energies. It stresses that creation is a free act of love. Orthodox writers such as Maximus the Confessor develop the view that each creature has a purpose or logos in God’s mind.
Protestant
Protestant confessions state the doctrine plainly. The Westminster Confession says God made the world out of nothing. Most evangelical, Reformed and Lutheran theologians hold it firmly. Some modern Protestant theologians, particularly of process and liberal schools, qualify or reject it.
Jewish
Jewish thinkers have taken various positions. Saadia Gaon and Maimonides held that the world was created from nothing, though Maimonides said that the Bible could be read otherwise if the eternity of the world were proved. Gersonides held that the world was formed from pre-existing matter. Modern Jewish scholars such as Levenson emphasize the theme of order out of chaos.
Scholarly and philosophical views
Scholars such as May argue the doctrine grew in the second century. Others reply that it grew from earlier Jewish thought. Contemporary philosophers such as William Lane Craig defend a beginning of the universe from arguments in cosmology and philosophy, while others reject those arguments.
Why it matters
The doctrine of creation from nothing expresses the complete difference between God and the world: God is the unlimited source, and the world is the gift. It guards against ideas that either shrink God or deify the world. Knowing how the doctrine was reached helps a student understand that it is a careful reading of Scripture reached in debate, and not an arbitrary addition.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Ex nihilo means that nothing was the raw material.
Correction: It means there was no raw material. Nothing is not a thing. The doctrine denies pre-existing matter and does not claim that something was made out of a thing called nothing.
Misunderstanding: The doctrine was invented by the church fathers under Greek influence.
Correction: The fathers used philosophical terms, but the doctrine grew from Jewish and Christian claims about God as sole Creator, and they argued against Greek ideas of eternal matter. Scholars discuss how much was new.
Misunderstanding: Creation from nothing means the world had a beginning in time that science can test.
Correction: Aquinas held that the doctrine is about the world’s dependence on God, which would hold even if the world had no beginning. A beginning is held by faith, and the relation to scientific cosmology is a separate question.
Misunderstanding: God made the world long ago and then left it.
Correction: The tradition says that creation is also continuing, in that God holds all things in being at each moment. This is the opposite of deism.
Knowledge check
State the three claims within the doctrine.
First, creation is total: everything other than God depends on God for its existence. Second, creation is free: God was under no necessity to create. Third, creation is from nothing: no pre-existing matter was used and the world was not made from the divine substance. Together they describe the world as a gift.
Name two biblical texts used for the doctrine and one scholarly caution.
Examples are 2 Maccabees 7:28, Romans 4:17 and Hebrews 11:3. A caution is that none of them states the full doctrine in philosophical terms, and scholars such as Gerhard May argue that the clear doctrine emerged only in the later second century. Others find it implicit in earlier Jewish and Christian texts.
How did Aquinas relate the doctrine to the question of a beginning?
He said that creation is the dependence of the whole being of a thing on God and is not a change, so it would be true even if the world had no beginning. He held that reason cannot settle whether the world had a beginning and that faith teaches it from Scripture.
What is meant by continuing creation?
That God not only started the world but holds it in being at every moment. Creatures exist only as God gives them existence. If God stopped sustaining them, they would fall into nothing. The teaching is opposed to deism, which says God made the world and then left it.
Think it through
- Does it matter whether the doctrine is stated clearly in the Bible or only implied? Why?
- How might this doctrine change the way you think about the ordinary things around you?
- What would you say to a friend who finds the idea of something from nothing impossible?
Independent assignment
A short history
In your own notebook, write about 450 words. Make a timeline of the doctrine from 2 Maccabees to the Fourth Lateran Council, including at least six sources or events from this lesson. Beside each, note what it adds. Then write a paragraph on whether the doctrine looks to you more like a discovery of what was in Scripture or a development. Do not send this to anyone.
Further study
- Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies Read Book 2, chapters 1 to 10.
- Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word Read chapters 1 to 3, where creation from nothing is the base of his argument.
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions Read Books 11 and 12 for time and the matter of creation.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read Part I, Questions 44 to 46.
- First Vatican Council, Decrees of the First Vatican Council (including Pastor Aeternus on papal primacy and infallibility) Read the chapter on God the Creator of all things.
- Hebrews 11:3 The worlds were framed by the word of God.
- Romans 4:17 God calls those things which be not as though they were.
- Psalm 104:29 Thou takest away their breath, they die.