"Ex nihilo" redirects here. For creation from pre-existing matter, seeCreatio ex materia.
Tree of Life byEli Content at theJoods Historisch Museum. TheTree of Life, orEtz haChayim (עץ החיים) in Hebrew, is a mystical symbol used in the Kabbalah of esoteric Judaism to describe the path toHaShem and the manner in which he created the worldex nihilo (out of nothing).
Creatio ex nihilo (Latin for "creation out of nothing") is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act.[1] It is atheistic answer to the question of how the universe came to exist. It is in contrast tocreatio ex materia, sometimes framed in terms of thedictumEx nihilo nihil fit or "nothing comes from nothing", meaning all things were formedex materia (that is, from pre-existing things).
Creatio ex materia refers to the idea that matter has always existed and that the modern cosmos is a reformation of pre-existing, primordial matter; it sometimes articulated by the philosophical dictum that nothing can come from nothing.[2]
Inancient near eastern cosmology, the universe is formedex materia from eternal formless matter,[3] namely the dark and still primordial ocean ofchaos.[4] InSumerian myth this cosmic ocean is personified as the goddessNammu "who gave birth to heaven and earth" and had existed forever;[5] in the Babylonian creation epicEnuma Elish, pre-existent chaos is made up of fresh-waterApsu and salt-waterTiamat, and from Tiamat the godMarduk created Heaven and Earth;[6] in Egyptian creation myths a pre-existent watery chaos personified as the godNun and associated with darkness, gave birth to the primeval hill (or in some versions a primeval lotus flower, or in others a celestial cow);[7] and in Greek traditions the ultimate origin of the universe, depending on the source, is sometimesOceanus (a river that circles the Earth),Night, or water.[8]
Similarly, theGenesis creation narrative opens with theHebrew phrasebereshit bara elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz, which can be interpreted in at least three ways:
As a statement that thecosmos had an absolute beginning (In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth).
As a statement describing the condition of the world when God began creating (When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was untamed and shapeless).
As background information (When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth being untamed and shapeless, God said, Let there be light!).[9]
Though option 1 has been the historic and predominant view,[10] it has been suggested since the Middle Ages that it cannot be the preferred translation based on strictly linguistic and exegetical grounds.[11] Whereas our modern societies see the origin of matter as a question of crucial importance, this may not have been the case for ancient cultures. Some scholars assert that when the author(s) of Genesis wrote the creation account, they were more concerned with God bringing the cosmos into operation by assigning roles and functions.[12]
Creatio ex nihilo is the doctrine that all matter was created out of nothing by God in an initial or a beginning moment where the cosmos came into existence.[13][14] The third-century founder ofNeoplatonism,Plotinus, argued that the cosmos was instead anemanation from God. This view of creation was unacceptable to Early Church Fathers and was also later rejected by Arabic and Hebrew philosophers.[15]
One of the earliest statements articulating the concept ofcreatio ex nihilo comes from a ~ 100 B.C. Jewish text,2 Maccabees 7:28:[21][22] "I implore you, my child, observe heaven and earth, consider all that is in them, and acknowledge that God made them out of what did not exist, and that mankind comes into being the same way".[23] Some, however, have argued against interpreting Maccabees in this way.[24][25]
In the first century,Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenized Jew, lays out the basic idea ofex nihilo creation, though he is not always consistent, he rejects the Greek idea of the eternal universe and he maintains that God has created time itself.[26] In other places it has been argued that he postulates pre-existent matter alongside God.[27] But other major scholars such asHarry Austryn Wolfson see that interpretation of Philo's ideas differently and argue that the so-called pre-existent matter was created.[28]
Saadia Gaon introducedex nihilo creation into the readings of the Jewish bible in the 10th century CE in his workBook of Beliefs and Opinions where he imagines a God far more awesome and omnipotent than that of the rabbis, the traditional Jewish teachers who had so far dominated Judaism, whose God created the world from pre-existing matter.[29] Today Jews, like Christians, tend to believe in creationex nihilo, although some Jewish scholars maintain that Genesis 1:1 allows for the pre-existence of matter to which God gives form.[30]
Jewish philosophers of the 9th and 10th century adopted the concept of "yesh me-Ayin", contradictingGreek philosophers andAristotelian view that the world was created out of primordial matter and/or waseternal.[31]
Mainstream Christians believe in creationex nihilo — that in the beginning there was nothing except for a single, infinite and eternal God and that God alone brought all matter, energy, time, and space into existence out of nothing.[32]
This doctrine was widely defended in Christian circles from an early period and received its first explicit articulation byTheophilus of Antioch in a work of his known asTo Autolycus in a chapter titledAbsurd Opinions of the Philosophers Concerning God, "As, therefore, in all these respects God is more powerful than man, so also in this; that out of things that are not He creates and has created things that are"(2.4).[33][34] Theophilus' statement is almost a verbatim quote of St. Paul,"God...who quickeneth the dead; and calleth those things that are not [Gr: μὴ ὄντα; L: non sunt], as those that are" (Romans 4:17). For this reason creationex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology by the 3rd century.[35][36] In late antiquity,John Philoponus was its most prominent defender.[37]
In modern times, some Christian theologians argue that although the Bible does not explicitly mention creationex nihilo, it gains validity from the tradition of having been held by so many for so long. Others have sought alternatives tocreatio ex nihilo, such as the idea that God created from his own self (ex ipse), but this implies that the world is more or less identical with God; or that God created from pre-existent matter (ex materia), but this implies that the world does not depend on God for its existence.[38] The notion ofcreatio ex nihilo underlies modern arguments for the existence of God among Christian and other theistic philosophers, especially as articulated in thecosmological argument[39] and its more particular manifestation in theKalam cosmological argument.[40]
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do not believe, as do traditional Christians, that God created the universeex nihilo (from nothing).[41] Rather, to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the act of creation is to organize or reorganize pre-existing matter or intelligence. (seeCreatio ex materia above)[42]
Most scholars of Islam share with Christianity and Judaism the concept that God is aFirst Cause and absolute Creator; He did not create the world from pre-existing matter.[43][44]However, some scholars, adhering to a strict literal interpretation of the Quran such asIbn Taimiyya whose sources became the fundament ofWahhabism and contemporary teachings, hold that God fashioned the world out of primordial matter, based on Quranic verses.[45][verification needed]
TheChandogya Upanishad 6.2.1 says before the world was manifested, there was only existence, one unparalleled (sat eva ekam eva advitīyam).Swami Lokeshwarananda commented on this passage by saying "something out of nothing is an absurd idea".[46]
Stoicism, founded byZeno of Citium around 300 BC, includes the belief that creation out of nothing is impossible and thatZeus created the world out of his own being.[47]
TheBig Bang theory, in contrast to theology, is a scientific theory; it offers no explanation of cosmic existence but only a description of the first few moments of the existence of the current universe.[48][49]
^Bunnin & Yu 2008, p. 149,"The doctrine of creationex nihlo maintains that matter is not eternal and that no matter existed prior to the divine creative act at the initial moment of the cosmic process."
^David B. Burrell; Carlo Cogliati; Janet M. Soskice; William R. Stoeger (2 September 2010).Creation and the God of Abraham. Cambridge University Press. pp. 33–.ISBN978-1-139-49078-8.Archived from the original on 15 August 2023. Retrieved27 October 2020.
^Husam Muhi Eldin al- AlousiThe Problem of Creation in Islamic Thought, Qur'an, Hadith, Commentaries, and KalamNational Printing and Publishing, Bagdad, 1968 p. 29 and 96
^Husam Muhi Eldin al- AlousiThe Problem of Creation in Islamic Thought, Qur'an, Hadith, Commentaries, and KalamNational Printing and Publishing, Bagdad, 1968 p. 53
^"Brief Answers to Cosmic Questions".Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for NASA's Education Support Network.Archived from the original on 2016-04-13. Retrieved2021-09-10.It is a common misconception that the Big Bang was the origin of the universe. In reality, the Big Bang scenario is completely silent about how the universe came into existence in the first place. In fact, the closer we look to time "zero," the less certain we are about what actually happened, because our current description of physical laws do not yet apply to such extremes of nature. The Big Bang scenario simply assumes that space, time, and energy already existed. But it tells us nothing about where they came from - or why the universe was born hot and dense to begin with.
Griffin, David Ray (2001). "Creation Out of Nothing, Creation Out of Chaos, and the Problem of Evil". In Davis, Stephen T. (ed.).Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy. Westminster John Knox Press.ISBN9780664222512.Archived from the original on 2023-08-15. Retrieved2020-05-17.
Rubio, Gonzalez (2013)."Time Before Time: Primeval Narratives in Early Mesopotamian Literature". In Feliu, L.; Llop, J. (eds.).Time and History in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 56th Recontre Assyriologique Internationale at Barcelona, 26–30 July 2010. Eisenbrauns.Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved11 November 2019.
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