CREATION EX NIHILO: HOW GOD CREATED ALL THINGS "OUT OF NOTHING"

CREATION EX NIHILO: HOW GOD CREATED ALL THINGS "OUT OF NOTHING"

By: Daniel McMillin

THE CHRISTIAN CONFESSION OF CREATION EX NIHILO

“Christian teaching about the creation of the world out of nothing is a cardinal doctrine: on this hinge turn all the elements of the second topic of Christian theology, which treats all things with reference to God, their beginning and end, the first topic being God’s immanent life.”[1] In light of Webster, Carter comments:

“The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo will affect every single doctrine about nature, humanity, sin, salvation, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the nature and mission of the church, and eschatology. This is because accepting or rejecting creatio ex nihlo affects the nature of God, and the nature of God affects every single doctrine about the ‘all things’ studied by theology ‘in relation to God.’ The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo marks off the kind of difference that perdures (1) between God and the world, (2) between uncreated and created being, and (3) between the relations among the three Persons of the Trinity (the processions) and the relation between the Persons and creation (the missions). Without a doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, we do not even have an actual doctrine of creation, at least not in the sense meant by historic Christian orthodoxy.”[2]

DEFINING CREATION EX NIHILO

Theologians regularly use the Latin term creatio ex nihilo to describe how God created the universe.[3] This doctrine articulates that God does not create with anything; rather, God creates out of (ex)[4] nothing (nihilo).[5] “To affirm that God created ‘out of nothing’ means that God did not begin with any previously existing materials when he created the universe, including space.”[6] Craig A. Carter offers an excellent “working definition of creatio ex nihilo” in his book, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism. He states that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo “is the belief that the eternal Triune God brought all that is no God into existence by his Word out of no preexisting material at the beginning of creaturely time.”[7] He contends, “This doctrine defines the relationship between God and the world in a way that preserves the genuine transcendence of God and ensures his sovereignty in providence and history as the unique creator of all things. The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo has come under constant attack in the past two centuries, but it remains centrally important to the Christian doctrine of God.”[8] 

Jack Cottrell says that creation ex nihilo is “a means of bringing something into existence, creation is opposed to both generation and formation.”[9] That is, “the universe—including both it’s spiritual and its material content—was not generated out of God’s own essence, nor was it formed out of a mass of eternally-existing matter. It was created out of nothing.”[10] He explains further, “Creation was an act of origination, an absolute beginning point when God brought into existence without the use of any preexisting materials the whole created universe.”[11]

Stephen Wellum made the remark, “Creation is the eternal work of the triune God by which he freely has produced heaven and earth (the universe) out of nothing (ex nihilo) and has imparted to all things their natures.”[12] Additionally, “Before God began to create the universe, nothing existed except himself in all of his triune glory. Further, to affirm that God created ex nihilo means that there was no precedent for creating the heavens and earth.”[13] In essence, creation ex nihilo maintains that before creation, there was God and nothing else. God does not and cannot create with anything because there was nothing. Thus, God created everything “out of nothing.” Wellum provides six points:

1.     “Creation ‘out of nothing’ reminds us that creation is not some kind of emanation or overflow of God’s being, contrary to the view of pantheism or even panentheism.”

2.     “Creation ‘out of nothing’ entails that matter is not eternal (Ps 90:2), contrary to ancient Near East and Greek thought.”

3.     “Creation ‘out of nothing’ also reminds us that it is,” as Webster writes, “not a causal relation or an act that brings about a change, for creation effects the coming-to-be of created reality rather than a passage from one state of being to another.”[14]

4.     “Creation ‘out of nothing’ further reminds us that creation has its being only from God, and it is totally dependent on him.”

5.     “Creation ‘out of nothing’ also means that we must distinguish the act of creation from providence, specifically preservation. In preservation, God sustains what he has made and brings it to its ordained end.”

6.     “Creation ‘out of nothing’ is the historic view of the church, except for a few outliers like Origen.”[15]

Three exegetical and theological warrants for creation ex nihilo:

1.     “Creation had a beginning and God is the Creator of all things. Before the beginning, there was no universe, only God, thus there was no material stuff out of which the world was made.”

2.     “Creation encompasses everything— ‘the heavens and the earth’ –which includes all matter; matter is not eternal.”

3.     “God creates as the triune self-sufficient Lord. In Scripture, the Creator-creature distinction is absolute, which means that the world is not the lower end of a continuum with God at the top. Creation is not an emanation of God’s being. Thus to affirm that God is the Creator and Lord entails that he created ex nihilo.”[16]

The God of the Bible’s ability to create everything out of nothing is a unique view of creation in antiquity. Hebrews 11:3 may be the best place for seeing the unseen as we look by faith to see the beginning of the universe. As it is written, “By faith we understand that he universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible,” that is, with material or physical things. Rather, it is by the dynamic, creative, and powerful word of God. Additionally, the divine names Elohim (Gen. 1:1) and Yahweh (Ex. 3:14) contribute to our understanding of God as Creator. Carter notes:

“The biblical doctrine of creatio ex nihilo arises from contemplating the meaning of Exodus 3:14 in light of Genesis 1:1 and then deducing the truth about God’s relationship to the world from what these verses say. If God causes all things to exist, then God must be eternal; that is, his existence must not be given him from without or attained by effort. In either of those cases, God could not be what Genesis 1:1 says he is—namely, the creator of all that exists. Instead, he would be one more thing in the cosmos with a cause, and the search for the Creator would continue.”[17]

In light of the Genesis account, the Israelite creation narrative is vastly different from those in the Ancient Near East. (1) The God of the Bible stands out since there is only one true God who is involved in creation. Israel’s Monotheism was radically different since paganism was pantheistic. Thus, all of the other creation accounts involved a wide array of gods, whereas Israel contends for one God behind the universe. (2) Additionally, the Bible avoids applying terms that would normally apply to pagan deities when describing the Creator. Instead, it is quite the opposite. The portrayal of the God of the Bible and all pagan deities is illustrated through a stark contrast in the origins of the universe and the nature of the divine. (3) Finally, it is not a creation that takes place out of divine warfare or cosmic struggle with the waters that determine the divine victor. God does not fight among Himself; He acts inseparably to create and sovereignly hovers over the waters, unlike the Babylonian in the Enuma Elish or Canaanite gods in the Baal Myth.[18] 

There is no need for a collection of deities who come together to morph time, space, and matter to make the universe. There is no need for any cosmic collisions among opposing gods for the universe to come into being. Instead, God the Father, Son, and Spirit make all things by the power of speech. The divine persons do not have to go to war against one another to make everything because the Father, Son, and Spirit work inseparably to speak the created order into existence. Tertullian confessed “there is one only God” on the basis of creatio ex nihilo. “He is none other than the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing through His own Word.”[19] 

Creation ex nihilo entails that “God brought the world into existence ‘out of nothing’ through a purposeful act; the Christian doctrine confesses God as the almighty Lord of all existence.”[20] God freely wills to create all things by the power of His word.[21] God’s act of creation is different from ours since He brings existence to all things from nothing. As Theophilus articulated, “Out of things that are not, he makes whatever he pleases.”[22] Creation out of nothing is very different from how we create things since God, in the words of Irenaeus, “called into being the substance of his creation, when previously it had no existence.”[23] While inventors may design and build a very advanced part for an airplane that allows it to soar in the sky more smoothly, or a camera that captures an image that is virtually almost the same as being there and seeing with your own eyes, or an iPhone that not only functioned like home phones or flip phones where we can talk to people from one distance to another but it also allows us to have the internet at the palm of our hands. The difference between these human innovations and God’s creation of the cosmos is that we, as creatures, must take material things to create, but God does not.[24] He does not create with something but brings everything out of nothing, which is extremely different from the ancient gods of the Near East that were themselves created. God stands out among the deities of antiquity because He created out of nothing. God’s ability to create out of nothing further illustrates the grand barrier between God and man through the Creator-creature distinction,[25] as well as the barrier between God and the world through the Creator-creation distinction.[26]  

What is nothing? Well, it’s certainly not something (that should be pretty basic). Nothing is the absence of something or really anything at all. The thing in reference, of course, is determined by the context, which, in this case, is existence itself. Thus, nothing is nonbeing or nonexistence.[27] What does it mean to create “out of nothing”? “The doctrine refers to God’s origination of the material world as a divinely creative act, not as a divine renovation or reordering of a prior physical state. God alone is the reason why there is something rather than nothing. The implications of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo are: (1) God precedes the universe, (2) God and matter do not coexist, (3) God did not use preexistent matter to make the world, (4) God was not constrained by the materials he had to work with, and (5) the universe had an absolute beginning.”[28]

God does things for a reason! Creation is not a vain act of God, it is according to the will of God. “Because God created the universe out of nothing, it has meaning and a purpose. God, in his wisdom, created it for something. We should try to understand that purpose and use creation in ways that fit that purpose, namely, to bring glory to God himself.”[29]

The doctrine of creation, where God creates all things out of nothing, entails more about God than creation. While it speaks to the origins of the world, it certainly speaks to the power and primacy of God as the sole Creator. He alone can will the universe into being. “The doctrine of creation ex nihilo secures the freedom, self-sufficiency, and absolute sovereignty of God over the created order… creation ex nihilo is the quintessential example of the freedom of God’s love and the limitless nature of his soberingly by bringing forth being form nonbeing.”[30] The act of creation reveals a God who is free, living, independent, loving, infinite, and sovereign. His sovereignty is the chief divulgence of creation; that is, since God created the universe, He rules over it as Lord. As Bavinck noted, “The doctrine of creation out of nothing teaches the absolute sovereignty of God and man’s absolute dependence; if only a single particle were not created out of nothing, God would not be God.”[31] 

According to Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” The invisible God manifests Himself in creation as the Creator. In light of divine and natural revelation, what does Scripture and creation reveal about God as the Creator? Wellum offers four points that we may gleam from creation that allow us to know God’s nature as the “Triune Creator-Covenant Lord”:

1.     “From creation, we know that our triune God is utterly incomparable and glorious.”

2.     “Creation underscores God’s sovereign authority over all that he has created.”

3.     “Creation reminds us that our triune God is our covenant God.”

4.     “Creation underscores God’s holiness, goodness, and moral perfection.”[32]

This is why we may conclude, as Anselm did, that it is “utterly evident, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the supreme essence alone and through itself produced so much and so many things of such beauty—things so varied, yet ordered, so different, yet concordant—and produced them out of nothing.”[33]

WORKS CITED:

[1] Webster, God Without Measure, 99.

[2] Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, 238.

[3] The term “create” has historically been interpreted as to bring forth out of nothing. (See Bavinck, 416-420; Berkhof, 120, 123-125). Carter notes, “There is great controversy in modern biblical studies over the question whether Genesis 1 teaches the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. This, however, is a modern controversy; the mainstream of the Christian tradition has unanimously taught that Genesis 1:1 speaks of God’s creation out of nothing all that exists apart from God’s own being. From the second century to the twentieth century, the predominant view has been that Genesis 1:1 speaks of the initial creation of the world in an unfinished form, described in verse 2 as being without form (tōhû) and void (bōhû) with darkness over the face of the deep (tehôm).” (Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, 256)

[4] “When anything is said to be made from nothing, this preposition from (ex) does not signify the material cause, but only order.” (Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I:45.1.3)

[5] “Nothing can be, unless it is from God, Who is the universal cause of all being. Hence it is necessary to say that God brings things into being from nothing.” (Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I:45.2)

[6] Wellum, Systematic Theology, 800.

[7] Craig A. Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), 243.

[8] Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, 268.

[9] Cottrell, What the Bible Says About God the Creator, 97. He clarifies that the term “generation” means “the process of bringing something into existence out of one’s own being,” and the word “formation” is “the act of a craftsman who makes an object out of raw material available from some other source.”

[10] Cottrell, What the Bible Says About God the Creator, 97.

[11] Cottrell, What the Bible Says About God the Creator, 112.

[12] Wellum, Systematic Theology, I: 794. Wayne Grudem states, “God created the entire universe out of nothing, it was originally very good, and he created it to glorify himself.” (Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 338.

[13] Wellum, Systematic Theology, I:800.

[14] Webster, “Creation out of Nothing,” 145.

[15] Wellum, Systematic Theology, I:800-802.

[16] Wellum, Systematic Theology, I:804-805.

[17] Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, 49.

[18] J. Daniel Hays, The Pentateuch: Life in the Presence of God (Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 33-35.

[19] Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics.

[20] McKim, “Creation,” 217.

[21] “The Christian Church from the very beginning taught the doctrine of creation ex nihilo and as a free act of God.” (Berkhof)

[22] Theophilus, Theophilus to Autolycus, 2.4. Cited by Allision, Historical Theology, 257.

[23] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 2.10.4.

[24] “Creation ex nihilo is an absolute beginning; it is not a ‘formation’ from anything as if God works on primeval stuff and alters its shape. It is God acting and bringing about the reality and being of the created order; a created order that is totally dependent on him for its existence and continuation.” (Wellum, Systematic Theology, I:786)

[25] “The notion of creation out of nothing served to spell out the ontological entailments of the distinction between the eternal creator and the temporal, contingent creatures who are the objects of his saving regard, resisting ideas of the creator as one who merely gave form to coeval matter, and so accentuating the limitless capacity and freedom of God.” (Webster, “Creation out of Nothing,” 130) Furthermore, “the difference between God and the world is not a difference within the world; the creation of the world out of nothing is not something that happens to the world but the effortless act of the one who alone can bestow being.” (Webster, “Creation out of Nothing,” 147)

[26] The Creator is not a part of the created order, taking things that already exist to bring something into being. As Bavinck notes, “The teaching of creation out of nothing maintains that there is a distinction in essence between God and the world. The creation does not exist as a result of a passage of the world from being in God to being outside of God, nor from being without God to being by God, but from nonexistence into existence. The world is certainly no anti-God; it has no independent existence, and remains in God as its ongoing immanent cause…but according to the teaching of Scripture the world is not a part of, or emanation from, the being of God. It has a being and existence of its own, one that is different and distinct from the essence of God. And that is what is expressed by the term ex nihilo.” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:419) Berkhof similarly wrote, “The world has a distinct existence. This means that the world is not God or any part of God, but something absolutely distinct from God; and that it differs from God, not merely in degree, but in its essential properties. The doctrine of creation implies that, while God is self-existent and self-sufficient, infinite, and eternal, the world is dependent, finite, and temporal. The one can never change into the other. This doctrine is an absolute barrier against the ancient idea of emanation, as well as against all pantheistic theories. The universe is not the existence-form of God nor the phenomenal appearance of the Absolute; and God is not simply the life, or soul, or inner law of the world, but enjoys His won eternally complete life above the world, in absolute independence of it. He is the transcendent God, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders.” (Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 125)

[27] Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I:45.1.

[28] Brid, Evangelical Theology, 214.

[29] Grudem, Systematic Theology, 340-341.

[30] Bird, Evangelical Theology, 217.

[31] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:420-421.

[32] Wellum, Systematic Theology, I:828-829.

[33] Anselm, Monologion, 20.

EXCURSUS:

Craig Carter lists ten major alternative interpretations of the relationship between the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo and Scripture (esp. Genesis 1):

1.     It is possible to believe that creatio ex nihilo is a true doctrine about the relationship of God to the world.

2.     It is possible to believe that this doctrine is taught in Genesis 1, either

a.      as the plain sense of the text or

b.     as deducible from the plain sense.

3.     It is possible to believe that this doctrine

a.      is taught in Genesis 1 and also in other passages of Scripture, such as Psalm 33:6, 9; 90:2; John 1:3; Acts 14:15; Romans 4:17; Hebrews 11:3; and Revelation 4:11 or that

b.     it is not taught in Genesis 1 but is taught in certain other passages in the Bible.

4.     It is possible to believe that Genesis 1 says nothing one way or the other about creatio ex nihilo.

5.     It is possible to believe that Genesis 1 assumes the eternality of matter as other ancient Near Eastern myths do.

6.     It is possible to believe that Genesis 1 does not explicitly teach creatio ex nihilo but does imply it to one degree or another.

7.     It is possible to believe creatio ex nihilo while also holding that it is not taught in Genesis 1.

8.     It is possible to believe that the early church developed the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo in the second century as a result of the encounter with Gnosticism and/or Greek philosophy.

9.     It is possible to believe that in developing the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo the early church was drawing a latent meaning out of the text that had been there all along, that is, a sensus plenior.

10.  It is possible to believe that in developing the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo the early church was inventing a doctrine without biblical support, so \we should regard creatio ex nihilo as a matter of adiaphora. This position says that we can believe in all that the Bible teaches about creation without believing in creatio ex nihilo.[1]

Carter concludes, “If you deny that Genesis 1 creatio ex nihilo, you are saying that the text is indifferent about whether matter is eternal or was brought into existence by the Word of God. The only alternative that does justice to the text as a whole is to say that even though it does not say that God created out of nothing, it strongly implies it, since the only logical alternative is incompatible with the text.”[2]

[1] Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, 243-244.

[2] Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, 256.