Search results for ex nihilo

I’m editing a ground-breaking book of essays on initial creation. Like most of the Christian theologians writing essays for this project, I think Christians need a doctrine of initial creation other than creation from nothing (creatio ex nihilo).

My friend Ryan Patrick McLaughlin sent a series of questions and criticisms. I’ve responded to several in previous blog essays. This is the final essay in my series of responses. Ryan wonders about my view of miracles. He gives voice to questions I’ve heard from others, so I suspect my response will interest many. What […]

For more than a decade, I’ve argued that theists should reject the idea God creates something from nothing (creatio ex nihilo). I often explain why and offer an alternative view of God’s creating: creatio ex creatione sempiternalis in amore. You can find my arguments in the recently published T&T Clark Handbook on Suffering and the […]

The T&T Clark Handbook of Suffering and the Problem of Evil has just been published. Editors Matthias Grebe and Johannes Grossl have an all-star lineup of writers contributing to this volume, a book with 80 chapters! Here’s a link. My contribution is called “Everlasting Creating and Essential Love.” To give you a taste of my […]

In his book The Future of Open Theism: From Antecedents to Opportunities (IVP Academic 2020), Richard Rice does a myriad of helpful things. He reports on the origins of open theology, describes contemporary debates among open theists, and looks at where open theism might move in the future. Rice rightly calls openness theology a “paradigm […]

Tripp Fuller’s book Divine Self-Investment: an Open and Relational Constructive Christology makes an important contribution to understanding Jesus of Nazareth. In this essay, I summarize Fuller’s book. I show how he affirms Jesus as a special expression of divine self-investment. As one who joins Fuller in embracing an open and relational theological vision, I am […]

Many people think a timeless God created the universe and is its eschatological hope. By contrast, I think we make better sense of creation and eschatology if we think God is timefull rather than timeless. In a previous essay, I identified four dimensions of an open and relational — “God-in-process” — view of providence. Here’s […]

Most Christian theologies assume God is essentially timeless. By ‘essentially timeless,’ I mean they assume God does not experience in relationship with others moment by moment. Many assume God ‘sees’ history – beginning to end – from an eternal now, without engaging in giving and receiving relations with creation. Scholars offer various theories for how […]

Few people wake up one morning and say, “Today, I will renounce the idea God created our universe from nothing.” I suspect that most people have not even heard of the idea, which is expressed by the Latin words creatio ex nihilo. And those who have heard of creation from nothing probably have no reason to question […]

In three previous blogs, I explored 9 reasons many Christians affirm the theory that God initially created our universe from absolutely nothing. Although some of the reasons have validity, I found none of them to be ultimately convincing. In this blog, I want to offer my alternative to creation from nothing. The Basic Idea: creatio ex […]