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"Support for ex Nihilo Creation. One of the oldest extrabiblical recorded statements on creation known to archaeologists, over 4,000 years old, makes a clear statement on ex nihilo creation: Lord of heaven and earth: the earth was not, you created it, the light of day was not, you created it, the morning light you had not [yet] made exist (Ebla Archives, 259). Creation from nothing is clearly expressed outside the Bible in 2 Maccabees 7:28. It says, Look at the heavens and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed.
While the Hebrew word for creation, bara, does not necessarily mean to create from nothing (cf. Ps. 104:30), nevertheless, in certain contexts it can mean only that. Genesis 1:1 declares: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Given the context that this is speaking about the original creation, ex nihilo seems to be implied here. Likewise, when God commanded: Let there be light, there was light (Gen. 1:3), ex nihilo creation is involved. For light literally, and apparently instantaneously, came to be where previously it was not.
Psalm 148:5 declares: Let them [angels] praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created.
Jesus affirmed: And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world began (John 17:5). This phrase is repeated in 1 Corinthians 2:7 and 2 Timothy 1:9. Obviously, if the world had a beginning, then it did not always exist. It literally came into existence out of nonexistence. In this sense, every New Testament passage that speaks of the beginning of the universe assumes ex nihilo creation (cf. Matt. 19:4; Mark 13:19). Romans 4:17 asserts ex nihilo creation in very clear and simple terms: God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. In Colossians 1:16 the apostle Paul added, For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. This eliminates the view that the visible universe is simply made out of invisible matter, since even the invisible created realm was brought into existence.
In the Apocalypse John expressed the same thought, declaring, for You created all things, and by Your will they were created and have their being (Rev. 4:11).
From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible declares the doctrine of Gods creation of everything else that exists, other than himself, out of nothing.
Criticism of Ex Nihilo Creation. There are several important implications of creation ex nihilo. Most of them arise out of misunderstandings of the view.
It Does Not Imply Time before Time. It is objected that the view implies that there was time before time began, since it holds that time had a beginning and yet God existed before (a temporal term) time began. This objection is answered by the theist by pointing out that before is not used here as a temporal term, but to indicate ontological priority. Time did not exist before time, but God did. There was no time before time, but there was eternity. For the universe, nonbeing came before being in a logical sense, not a chronological one. The Creator is before all time only by a priority of nature, not of time. God did not create in time; he executed the creation of time.
It Does Not Imply Nothing Made Something. Sometimes ex nihilo creation is criticized as though it affirmed that nothing made something. It is clearly absurd to assert that nonbeing produced being (see CAUSALITY, PRINCIPLE OF). For in order to create there must be an existing cause, but nonexistence does not exist. Hence, nothing cannot create something. Only something (or someone) can cause something. Nothing causes nothing.
In contrast to nothing producing something, ex nihilo creation affirms that Someone (God) made something from nothing. This is in accord with the fundamental law of causality which demands that everything that comes to be is caused. Nothing cannot bring something into existence, but Someone (God) can bring something other than himself into existence, where prior to that it did not exist. So, for theism, creation from nothing does not mean creation by nothing.
It Does Not Imply Nothing Is Something. When the theist declares that God created out of nothing, he does not mean that nothing was some invisible, immaterial something that God used to make the material universe. Nothing means absolutely nothing. That is, God, and utterly nothing else, existed. God created the universe, and then alone did something else exist.
Conclusion. Ex nihilo creation is both biblically grounded and philosophically coherent. It is an essential truth of Christian theism which clearly distinguishes it from other worldviews, such as pantheism (ex deo) and atheism (ex materia). Objections to ex nihilo creation do not stand in the face of careful scrutiny."
Geisler, N. L. (1999). Baker encyclopedia of Christian apologetics. Baker Reference Library (176177). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.