In my previous essay, I argued that the Bible supports the notion that God initially creates from something. It doesn’t support creatio ex nihilo. Now I want to address two poor reasons some Christians have affirmed creatio ex nihilo.
If the Bible – the collection of writings many Christians deem decisive for matters of doctrine – says God creates from something, why would Christians adopt another view? A number of answers could be given. I want to examine two rather poor ones.
The World is Inherently Evil
Some people say God creates from absolutely nothing, because they believe God cannot be associated with an inherently evil world. In fact, this belief originally spawned the creatio ex nihilo hypothesis.
Historian Gerhard May offers an influential account of how creatio ex nihilo theory emerged. This account centers upon Gnostics eager to disassociate God entirely from a material world. Gnostics considered the physical world essentially evil. Most believed heavenly beings of lesser rank and capabilities — not God — created the universe. For most Gnostics, says May, “the origin of the cosmos is conceived as a disturbance of the original plan, caused by the self-exaltation of the demiurgical powers.”
May credits two renegade Gnostics, Basilides and Valentinus, as originators of creatio ex nihilo theory. Instead of saying lesser beings created the universe, they said God created the universe from absolutely nothing. This idea allowed them to continue affirming that a holy God would not associate with unholy materials. Basilides was especially influential in proposing this new view. “His supreme God,” reports May, “is much more like ‘heimarmene’ of the Stoics than the God of the Bible.”
Many early Christians believed God initially created out of something rather than nothing. For example, Justin, Athenagoras, Hermogenes, and Clement of Alexandria, says May, “could hold that acceptance of an unformed matter was entirely reconcilable with biblical monotheism and the omnipotence of God.” Throughout the second century and the early part of the third, many educated Christians believed God creates out of something that pre-exists our universe.
Most Christians today and in the past reject the view that creation is inherently evil. Reporting that those who think creation is inherently evil – Gnostics — originally concocted creatio ex nihilo should give contemporary Christians some reason to reconsider the ancient creation doctrine.
God Controls Everything
Other Christians adopted creatio ex nihilo to reconcile Christian theology with a God they deem omnipotent. An omnipotent God either controls all things or could do so but usually chooses not to wield controlling power.
Irenaeus, for instance, believed God is timelessly eternal, self-sufficient, simple, impassible, omnipotent, unaffected, and commands the world through the divine will. The omni-sovereignty of God was especially important in Irenaeus’s insistence upon creatio ex nihilo. “The will of God must rule and dominate in everything,” he argued, “everything else must give way to it, be subordinated to it, and be a servant to it.”
This particular view of God’s power – “the will of God must rule and dominate in everything” – is one reason some Christians accept creatio ex nihilo. “When it comes to creation,” says Genesis scholar, Jon Levenson, “there remains a strange but potent tendency to resort to static affirmations of God’s total power.” A God who can do absolutely anything can create ex nihilo.
Immense problems emerge from the idea God must rule and dominate everything. It directly or indirectly denies creaturely freedom and agency, for instance. It goes against our commonsense experience, which is that we possess freedom and agency at least partly our own.
Perhaps the chief problem with creatio ex nihilo and the omnipotence it requires is its implications for the problem of evil. To put it bluntly: The God capable of totally controlling others is culpable for all genuine evil.
Creatio ex nihilo implicity affirms that God can exert coercive power. By “coercive power,” I mean the capacity to control others entirely or determine any occurrence completely. Creating something from nothing requires the ability to determine an occurrence completely.
A God with the ability to coerce is morally responsible for permitting evil. The kind of omnipotence required for creating from nothing, therefore, creates problems for believing God expresses steadfast love.
Let me be quick to acknowledge that many present-day Christians deny that God controls everything. They believe creatures have some degree of freedom and/or agency. But many continue to affirm creatio ex nihilo. In doing so, however, they cannot offer a satisfying account for why a loving God capable of total control does not prevent genuine evils when they arise.
Instantaneous Creatio Ex Nihilo Today
The God who can create ex nihilo is also essentially capable of creating something from nothing now, in any moment. Nothing could prevent instantaneous creation of something from nothing. For if God could bring something from nothing at one time – e.g., initial creation – God would be capable of doing so instantaneously at other times.
In his recent book, Where the Conflict Really Lies, esteemed philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, affirms creatio ex nihilo in an instant. “There is nothing to prevent God from … creating ex nihilo a full-grown horse in the middle of Times Square,” says Plantinga. He adds, “It is entirely possible for God to create a full-grown horse in the middle of Times Square without violating the principle of conservation of energy.”
But if God is capable of bringing something from nothing in any instant, a loving God should use such powers to prevent genuine evils. In other words, Plantinga’s view of God’s power makes the problem of evil unsolvable for him and those who affirm creatio ex nihilo. (Thankfully, Plantinga admits this in his book, appealing to mystery on the subject.)
Because this is an important point, let me illustrate it. Suppose a raging maniac enters a restaurant with a semi-automatic pistol and begins firing. The God who can create something out of nothing would be able to create miniature walls to deflect bullets directed at people. In doing this ex nihilo creating, God would not violate the gunman’s free will. The gunman fired freely.
If instantaneously building bullet-deflecting walls requires God’s violation of the so-called laws of nature – laws that a God who created ex nihilo would be able to violate – such violation would be justified for the sake of love. Alvin Plantinga would apparently agree, given the quote above. And if your loved one were killed in the example I offer, wouldn’t you think God’s temporary violation of a so-called natural law would be justified?
Once one begins to imagine all the ways the God capable of creating ex nihilo should prevent evil, the problem of evil becomes overwhelming!
Of course, we may think of reasons in particular situations why God would not prevent pain and suffering that is not evil – presumably because God hopes for greater good to occur. But it is impossible for me – and I think for most people – to believe a loving God capable of creating obstacles out of nothing nevertheless always fails to do so because it somehow makes the world a better place. To believe this is to believe God allowed every actual rape, holocaust, genocide, murder, torture, or other evil for some greater good.
The way we live our lives suggests we don’t really believe this kind of greater good argument!
All or Nothing Intervention?
Some say, “If God were to intervene to stop some particular evil, God would need to intervene to stop every evil.” This “all or nothing” argument wrongly says we have to choose between an all-controlling God or a God who could control but never does so.
Besides, most Christians attracted to this second all or nothing argument still say God intervenes sometimes: e.g., to resurrect Jesus, to do miracles, to culminate history. This means they really think God sometimes intervenes. It’s not “all or nothing” after all!
Even worse, when they affirm occassional intervention, they apparently think God only intervenes in really important matters. But the implication of this thinking is that every actual rape, genocide, torture, or other evil was not important enough for God to prevent! I don’t find this logic convincing, because it does not support the claim that God’s love is steadfast.
We need a different view of God’s power that does not include the idea God can control others entirely. And this means we need a new view of creation instead of creatio ex nihilo.
Sum
These are unconvincing reasons for affirming creatio ex nihilo. Christians should not think (1) the world is inherently evil or (2) God’s sovereignty means God is capable of or actually controlling others entirely.
I will argue in a future blog that we can avoid both problems by affirming the biblical notion that God always creates out of creation in love.
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[1] Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Thought Trans. A. S. Worrall (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 6-8. May notes two other studies that “finally demonstrate” that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is not present in Scripture. These are H. F. Weiss, Untersuchungen zur Kosmologie des hellenistischen und palastinischen Judentums (1966), and G. Schmuttermayr, “Schöpfung aus dem Nichts” in 2 Macc. 7:28?” BZ N. F. 17 (1973): 203-228.
[1] For a close examination of creatio ex nihilo in the early church, see James N. Hubler, “Creatio ex Nihilo: Matter, Creation, and the Body in Classical and Christian Philosophy through Aquinas” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1995). Hubler generally agrees with May’s description of the emergence of creation ex nihilo, although they differ on some details.
[1] For extensive arguments about the influence of Greek metaphysics upon early Christian embrace of creatio ex nihilo, see Hubler, “Creatio ex Nihilo, 1995.
[1] Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, II, ed. W. W. Harvey (n/a), 34:4; May, Creatio Ex Nihilo, 174.
[1] Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil, xxi.
[1] For my more theological arguments against creatio ex nihilo, see Thomas Jay Oord, The Nature of Love: A Theology (St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice, 2010), chs. 4-5. For my more philosophical and scientific arguments against creatio ex nihilo, see Thomas Jay Oord, Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2010), ch. 5.
[1] Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 78-79.