CREATION EX NIHILO
INTRODUCTION
The
origin of the universe (cosmology) remains a perennial discourse in philosophy,
spanning through its various epochs, receiving modifications and distinct
replies yet remains insoluble. This metaphysical question evidently was
introduced into the realm of philosophy by the Ionian philosophers who sought
to point out the basic source of reality; however, this led them to posit
various entities and using several demonstrations. Moreover, amidst the
different postulations of the Ionian philosophers remains an underlying fact
i.e. the attempt to explain creation without a creator. Nevertheless, it was
Plato in his dialogue ‘Timaeus’
reckoned to include the creative and purposeful act of an agent whom he called
‘Demiurge’ meaning Craftman.[1]
Furthermore, Aristotle in his metaphysics developed the idea of the four causes
and posited of the efficient cause of the universe i.e. the first cause which
is necessarily uncaused.
At the dawn of Christianity and the medieval
period came another current of rational and theological explanation of the
universe. This new current was quite distinct from what the Ionians have
presented thus, it was a theistic explanation. This theistic origin of the
world found its climax in the scholastics, in the philosophies of St. Anselm,
St. Thomas Aquinas, and John Scotus and so on. Nevertheless, the contemporary
scientific enterprise has also ventured to explain the origin of the universe
through scientific theories.
At
this juncture, it is worthy to note that the objective of this work is to
survey and analyze the theory of ‘creatio
ex nihilo’. As a means of methodology in order to achieve this purpose, I
shall firstly attempt to provide a succinct explanation of the term ‘creatio ex nihilo’. After that, I will
further to present the idea of creatio ex
nihilo in the patristic fathers especially Irenaeus and Augustine of Hippo
then the idea in the medieval philosophers especially Anselm of Canterbury,
Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and John Scotus. In the light of all this
presentations, I shall endeavor to analyze and synthesize the various
conceptions of creatio ex nihilo from
the patristic fathers to the out listed medieval philosophers then the
conclusion.
THE THEORY OF CREATIO EX NIHILO
Creatio ex nihilo is
a Latin phrase which means ‘creation out of nothing’. This theory occurs
explicitly in the theological and philosophical enterprises. In the theological
enterprise, it is the Traditional Christian hermeneutics of the biblical
passage Genesis 1:1-2. Using the Aristotelian terms, they have further
explained the theory further; God is the efficient cause of the universe, God
had something definite in mind when he created the universe (formal cause) and
certainly there was a reason and purpose for creating the universe (final
cause) but no material cause i.e. no ‘stuff’ that God worked with in creation.[2]
This theory can be expressly represented in argument form which is:-
X is created ex nihilo by Y if and
only if
i.
Y
causes X to exist, and
ii.
Y
does not cause X to exist by transforming some material stuff.[3]
Moreover, certain
theologians debate whether the Scripture actually taught about ex nihilo creatio which the Traditional
interpreters argue on grammatical and syntactical grounds.[4]
Other interpreters understand it as a second century theological development
which the Patristic fathers used to oppose the Gnostic teachings and
pre-Christian mythologies[5].
In the philosophical
sphere, it became a theory accounting for the origin of the universe. It stood
in contention against the previous philosophical theories of the origin of the
universe, taking support from Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies.
CREATION
EX NIHILO IN THE PATRISTICS
In
the Patristic Age, Justin Martyr, Origen, and Theophilus posited the
pre-existence of matter with God. In accordance to their Platonic disposition,
they posited that God ordered the chaotic matter and gave it its shape and form
which resulted to the creation of the world.[6] Nevertheless,
Irenaeus rejects the eternal pre-existence of matter, he posited that only God
exists always, and all that is not God is thus by default, God’s creation; as
such, even the chaotic matter was his handiwork.[7]
Irenaeus develops his
theory of creatio ex nihilo by
rejecting the comparison between a human architect and a divine creator; as the
creator are different, so too are their creations, thus a human creator
necessarily creates out of something but God makes out of nothing.[8] Furthermore,
he provided a framework for his explicit theory where he states in the opening
chapters of the Epideixis:-
“It
is necessary that things that have come into being have received the origin of
their being from some great cause; and the origin of all is God, for he himself
was not made by anyone, but everything was made by him… who made that which was not to
be, who contains all and is alone uncontainable.”[9]
With
this framework, he asserted that God freely established all things into
existence (including matter) by his creative power and will.
In
line with Irenaeus, Augustine vehemently asserted that God created the world
out of nothing. For him, this meant that God created the universe without
recourse to anything but His infinite wisdom and power, thus, created things
are sustained by God. It further implied that there was no pre-existent
primeval matter that was co-eternal with God. However, Augustine taught that
despite the fact that God formed all things from this so-called primeval
matter, this matter itself was also created by God from absolutely nothing thus
he says:-
“… The Almighty
God did not have to be helped by anything he had not made so that he could make
what he wanted. For if something that he had not made helped him to make those
things he wanted to make, he is not Almighty and that is sacrilegious to
believe.”[10]
Thus
he makes it explicit that whatever has any form of existence, including the
formless matter was being brought into being by God out of nothing.
As
seen above in the Patristics, their views on the theory of ex nihilo creation differ in some sense. Those influenced by
Platonic idea posited of the pre-existence of matter which God formed the
universe while others like Irenaeus and Augustine rejected the pre-existence of
matter, asserting it was also created by God from nothing. This current of idea
found in Irenaeus and Augustine evidently passed down to the medieval
philosophers, finding its climax in the scholastics.
CREATIO EX NIHILO IN THE
MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHERS
John Duns Scotus Eriugena
(800-877)
Influenced
by the Neo-Platonic thought, Scotus posited of an infinite and transcendent God
who created the universe through a process of self-articulation or
self-creation. In his view on creation from nothing, he taught that the term
‘nothingness’ means two things; nothing through privation and nothing on
account of excellence.[11]
The lowest in the hierarchy of being which is the unformed matter is almost
equivalent to nothing through privation while on the contrary, God is non-being
through the excellence of his nature which transcends all being. In as much as
there is nothing outside the existence of God, creation from nothing implies
the creation out of God’s superabundant nothingness, thus God creates out of
himself and all creation remains within him.[12]
Anselm of Canterbury
(1033-1109)
Anselm
in response to creation out of nothing in his monologion firstly demonstrates that there is no matter out of
which the universe is made, thus neither God nor the universe itself nor any
other thing is the matter which the universe is made of. He further asserted
that only divine essence pre-existed and everything exists only through the
divine essence.[13]
Also, the divine essence did not have to make anything through something else
i.e. using it as a tool or assistant, thus it acted through itself.
However,
being certified that God did not create from something, to say he created from
nothing needs to be clarified. Since nothing is that which is said to have no
existence, it cannot be the cause of something which exists, thus nothing connotes
either something or not. But holding to this view disrupts the idea of the
divine essence creating from nothing. Therefore, Anselm posited that there are
three ways of saying that something is being made out of nothing. In the first
way, whatever is said to be made from nothing is never made at all, like
answering ‘nothing’ when being asked what a silent is saying thus, he is not
talking. In the second sense, when something is said to be made from nothing,
it is explicitly meant that it is made from nothing i.e. from something which
does not exist, thus this sense can never be the case. In the last sense, it is
used to illustrate that while something is being made, there was not something
from which was being made from like it could be said to make a rich man from a
pauper i.e. it has become something in which he was not before.[14]
The
first way cannot be said of God and the created universe because it would imply
he never created at all. The second way is a contrary to reason and
inappropriate to say while the third way befits the perfect semblance of what
Anselm conceived to be created out of nothing thus, God in his creative power
created the universe from nothing to what it was not previously. Furthermore,
he posited the universe was not entirely nothing thus its manner, features and
fact must have pre-existed in the divine intellect.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
From
his Christian background and philosophical prowess, Aquinas states his view on
creation out of nothing. He firstly established that every being which exists
in any way, is from God[15]
(1: 44: 1). In the second article of the same question, he further demonstrated
how even the so-called prime matter should be a creation of God where he says:-
“…
Whatever is the cause of things considered as being must be the cause of
things, not only according as they are ‘such’ by accidental forms, nor
according as they are ‘these’ by substantial forms, but also according to all
that belongs to their being at all in any way. And thus it is necessary to say
that also prime matter is created by the universal cause of things.”[16]
Having done that, he posited of the emanation of all
being from the universal cause. He makes his explanation by means of analogy of
particular emanations. In particular emanation, whatever that is emanated is
not presupposed before its emanation like when man is generated, he was not
before until after he was generated thus he was made from ‘not-man’. Therefore
in the universal emanation, all being were generated from ‘not-being’ and that
he upholds to be ‘creation’ in the proper sense[17]
(1: 45: 1). Furthermore, Aquinas went on to illustrate that this creation
belongs to God alone. Thus, when someone makes one thing from another thing,
the thing in which he made from is presupposed to his action and not produced
by his action like when a carpenter makes a table from a wood, the wood is
already presupposed to his action and that is not actually creation in Aquinas
view. However, God does not move things from potentiality to actuality (change
or alteration) when he creates rather, his creation is the total bestowal of esse.[18]
Furthermore, since nothing can be unless it is from God who is the universal
cause, therefore it is certain to say God brings things into existence from
nothing (1: 45: 2)[19].
Bonaventure of
Bagnoregio (1217-1274)
In response to creation, Bonaventure develops his
thought after being sourced by the Biblical account of creation, mediated by
the Patristics and Aristotelian view on nature, in addition was commentaries of
Avicenna, and Timaeus of Plato.[20]
He states that the physical world illustrates a sign of divine art. Therefore,
on the idea of creation, he understands it as a philosophical theory of origins
and only two positions are reasonably justified i.e. the theory of the pagan
philosophers in which the universe is eternal and its matter without ultimate
cause. The second position is the Christian doctrine of creation in which the
universe is produced from nothing and depends entirely on God for its being.
However, to posit that matter eternal and the universe
eternally produce is reasonable and understandable but matter is considered as
constitutive principles of things (pure potency) i.e. has the capacity of
receiving various forms. This entails that matter was created in way that it is
disposed to various forms which implies a creator. Therefore to thinks that
matter is eternal is not all that acceptable to reason. At the elimination of
the eternity of matter leaves only one option i.e. the creation of the universe
from nothing. Furthermore, everything that is dependent on another for its
existence is being creation out of nothing thus God, in which all being is
dependent on for their being must have created them out of nothing.
However, to say that the world is created out of
nothing implies that it either arise as out of nothing as out of matter or out
of nothing as out of a point of origin. Since the world cannot arise out of
nothing as out of matter therefore it must arise out of nothing as out of a
point of origin. If it arises as out of a point of origin then the universe has
being after non-being and nothing having being after non-being can be eternal.[21]
SYNTHESIS OF THE
VARIOUS CONCEPTOPNS OF CREATIO EX NIHILO
[1] Donald J. Zeyl, Timaeus, Plato complete works, ed. John M. Cooper (Hacket Publishing Company, 1997) P. 1234-1241
[2] Wes Morriston, Creation ex
Nihilo and the Big Bang Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 2002) p. 24
[3] Ibid.
[4] John C. Collins, Genesis 1-4:
A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ:
P&R Publishing, 2006) p. 50
[5] Gerhard May, creation from
nothingness: the origin of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, (Continuum International, 2002) p. 151
[6] McGrath Alister, Theology:
the basics (Blackwell publishing, 2004) p. 38
[8] M. C. Steenberg, Irenaeus on Creation: The Cosmic Christ and the Saga of Redemption (Hotei
Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. 2008) p. 39
[9] Cf. ibid. p. 44-45.
[10] Augustine, Two Books On
Genesis Against the Manichees’ in The Fathers of the church: A New translation,
Vol. 84(Washington Catholic University of America press. 1991) p. 57-58
[11] Moran Dermot, "John
Scottus Eriugena", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/ entries/scottus-eriugena/>
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ed. Brian Davies & G. R. Evans, Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works (Oxford University Press Inc.
New York 1998) p. 19-20
[14] Ed. Brian Davies & G. R. Evans, Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works (Oxford University Press Inc.
New York 1998) p. 22
[15] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologiae, Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1,
q 44, a 1
[16] Ibid. 1, q 44, a 2
[17] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologiae, Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1,
q 45, a 1
[18] https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/st-thomas-aquinas-does-creatio-ex-nihilo-exclude-an-everlasting-universe/
[19] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologiae, Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1,
q 45, a 2
[20] Noone, Tim and Houser, R. E., "Saint
Bonaventure", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/win2014/entries/Bonaventure/>
[21] Noone, Tim and Houser, R.
E., "Saint Bonaventure", The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta
(ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/win2014/entries/Bonaventure/>
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