“Dear God, Nice job on the
creation of the universe!” “Ah, it was nothing.” Yes, mainstream Christianity
teaches that God created everything from nothing.
The ancient
Greeks thought chaos came first. In the 5th century BC, Parmenides
argued that was illogical to think nothing could
have existence. Chaos was thought to be a more sensible initial state and the
Jews at the time of Christ accepted chaos as the void in which Earth was formed.
Early Christians agreed. And in the first century
AD, Philo of Alexandria wrote opinions in the context of creation from
preexisting materials. Early church father Justin Martyr (110-165AD) said,
“We have been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man's
sake, create all things out of unformed
matter.” (“First Apology of Justin”, Ch.10 Ante-Nicene Fathers,
editor Philip Schaff 1:165) And Clement of Alexandria (150-215AD) said, “Out of a confused
heap [God] didst create this ordered sphere, and from the shapeless
mass of matter didst the universe adorn.” (“Hymn to the Paedagogus”, Ante-Nicene Fathers,
Editor Philip Schaff 2:296)
Then some Hellenistic ideas crept into
Christianity. 2nd century Gnostic and heretic Basilides promoted the idea of
initial nothingness and by the end of the second century AD, “Christian
philosophers had discarded the idea of creation from chaos in favor of creatio ex nihilo.”
(Restoring the
Ancient Church, by Barry Bickmore, 1999 FAIR, p.100)
So, around
400AD, St. Augustine wrote, “Although the world has been made of some material,
that very same material must have been made out of nothing.” (Warfare of Science
with Theology) The Catholic Church recently reaffirmed this, “To create
means to call into existence from nothing.” (Fifth Encyclical
Letter of Pope John Paul II, 30 May 1986, p.60)
Catholicism began teaching creatio ex nihilo
(creation from nothing) at a time when uneducated churchgoers tended to dose
off during mass because it was all in Latin. While admitting that the Bible
doesn’t teach creatio
ex nihilo explicitly, almost all Christian denominations hold firmly to it,
even though doctrine of creation from nothing was itself created from nothing
at a time when there was no quorum of twelve apostles to object!
Most modern theologians still embrace creatio ex
nihilo and, to support their position, they cite the scripture; “Through faith
we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things
which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Heb 11:3) Hold
on! 99.9999% or so of the stuff in the universe is invisible but its all
still things –
not nothing!
Humans may be able to imagine the absence of anything but not
the absence of everything.
Let’s look at
God’s usual modus
operandi of creation. To create babies, He starts with mothers. To create
plants, He starts with seeds. To create Adam, he began with the dust of the
earth. To create Eve, He started with Adam's side. (Gen 2:7-22) To create wine
at a wedding, He started with water. To create food for the hungry crowds, He
began with fishes and loaves. To create grass and land creatures, he commanded
the earth to bring them forth. To create marine creatures, he commanded the
waters to bring them forth. “Let the earth bring forth grass… Let the waters
bring forth abundantly… Let the earth bring forth the living creature.” (Gen
1:11, 20, 24) So, biblically speaking, everything came from something!
Ignoring these Genesis texts, teachers like
Pastor Piper preach, “God addresses his command to nothingness, and even
nothingness obeys.” (desiringgod.org/messages/he-commanded-and-they-were-created,
Downloaded 13 Sep 2018) If that were God’s method, why did He not say, “Let
there be everything!” Done! Why drag the process out?
For the positions taken by science, see Why is there anything?