Scripture does not say matter came from nothing

[St_Worm2]

Creation ex materia is a perfectly respectable theological position entirely consistent with scripture.

Hi again Speedwell, I have to disagree, creatio ex materia is hardly consistent with what we read in the Bible/what we know of the creation from our Creator, beginning with the first verse in the Bible (where we learn that we have a "Creator" who "created" the universe, rather than simply rearranging what already existed in it like our Mormon friends would have us believe .. they refer to God as an "Organizer", not the "Creator").

Yours and His,
David

Revelation 4
11 Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.
​

 

[hedrick]

.. we have a "Creator" who "created" the universe, rather than simply rearranging what already existed in it like our Mormon friends would have us believe .. they refer to God as an "Organizer", not the "Creator")
...

You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.​

I'm mostly acting as Devil's Advocate here, because there's no question that Christians have generally held creation from nothing. But the alternative probably isn't rearranging existing matter, but bringing something new out of something very different. (The usual alternative is bringing an ordered universe out of chaos.)

A look at the big bang might give one suggestion. During the early stages of the universe things were very different. It's unclear that there was even much distinction between matter and energy. And if there was something "before" the big bang, it would be even more different, and probably more chaotic.

I don't think Rev 4:11 was intended to teach how creation happened, just that God was responsible.

 

[Speedwell]

Hi again Speedwell, I have to disagree, creatio ex materia is hardly consistent with what we read in the Bible/what we know of the creation from our Creator, beginning with the first verse in the Bible (where we learn that we have a "Creator" who "created" the universe, rather than simply rearranging what already existed in it like our Mormon friends would have us believe .. they refer to God as an "Organizer", not the "Creator").

Yours and His,
David

Revelation 4
11 Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.
​

I am not arguing in favor of it, or denying it is presently Christian doctrine. But my understanding of the OP was that creation ex nihilo had always and universally been believed, which I don't think is the case. It is possible, for example, to read Gen 1:2 as "...the Earth had been without form..." which argues that creation ex nihilo was not necessarily in the mind of the author.

 

[St_Worm2]

I'm mostly acting as Devil's Advocate here, because there's no question that Christians have generally held creation from nothing. But the alternative probably isn't rearranging existing matter, but bringing something new out of something very different. (The usual alternative is bringing an ordered universe out of chaos.)

A look at the big bang might give one suggestion. During the early stages of the universe things were very different. It's unclear that there was even much distinction between matter and energy. And if there was something "before" the big bang, it would be even more different, and probably more chaotic.

I don't think Rev 4:11 was intended to teach how creation happened, just that God was responsible.

Hi Hedrick, you may be correct, or I may be As one of our members said earlier, this thread is all about "reasonable conjecture". Personally, I prefer to believe that God chose terminology concerning the creation that is more or less precise in nature (for instance, that His "creation" is exactly that, not simply a rearranging of that which already existed within a universe that was itself, already in existence when He arrived and decided to make changes to it).

Again, the good news is, He made sure the we know all that is necessary (or perhaps possible?) to know and understand at this point .. e.g. Deuteronomy 29:29.

Yours and His,
David

 

[Job3315]

Hi Job, I see you are pretty new here, so first off, WELCOME TO CF

I'd also like to make a few comments about what you said above. The opening of the Gospel of John tells us that: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God. He was in the beginning with God. ~John 1:1-2

I don't believe that the words God speaks are anymore "Him", than the words that you speak are "you".

Also, if what you believe is true, that would mean that the Logos (who is God the Son) was not in the beginning with God (not, from everlasting, like God is .. cf Psalms 90:2). After all, the words God speaks are created by Him, just like the words we speak are created by us.

Finally, that would mean that the Word was 'not' God, because God is not a created being. We also know there will only ever be one of Him.

"Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me" ~Isaiah 43:10
"I am the Lord and there is no other; apart from Me there is no God" ~Isaiah 45:5
​

Yours and His,
David

Colossians 1
16 By Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created by Him and for Him.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.​

Thank you for welcome!

It all depends on what we believe God is (He is 3 in one, although the Bible speaks of 7 Spirits, but that’s another topic). A way to explqin it is God is a group that creates, well, God.

The Father is God.
Jesus is God.
The Holy Spirit is God
They all create God as a union of God.

The Father (the chief) commanded the Word (Jesus) to bring forth into to the physical what they had in the spiritual. The Word itself became flesh, He came forth into the physical realm and became flesh.

The word is energy. It has the ability to create things in the physical. Its know to man that if you take wooden chair and break it into pieces, keep breaking it until you have dust, but take that dust and keep breaking it eventually it desolves to the tiniest particle it could exist, and if we break even that particle it becomes energy/sound. That energy/sound mixed into a bunch of other particles are what made the wood that eventually became the chair.

 

[Speedwell]

Hi Hedrick, you may be correct, or I may be As one of our members said earlier, this thread is all about "reasonable conjecture". Personally, I prefer to believe that God chose terminology concerning the creation that is more or less precise in nature (for instance, that His "creation" is exactly that, not simply a rearranging of that which already existed within a universe that was itself, already in existence when He arrived and decided to make changes to it).

Again, the good news is, He made sure the we know all that is necessary (or perhaps possible?) to know and understand at this point .. e.g. Deuteronomy 29:29.

Yours and His,
David

I am not sure that "a universe already in existence" is required by ex materia creation or that God would have "arrived." (From where?) There is also creation ex deo to speculate about, which would be fun. But something tells me that you take correctness on this point more seriously than I do and will perhaps be defending Plenary Verbal Inspiration, so I will bow out.

 

[hedrick]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches creation from nothing. So does Westminster. But I don't see anything unambiguous in Scripture (though as often, there are several passages that people see as teaching it). A number of people claim that it originated in the 2nd Cent, but that's also controversial.

One reason I'm reluctant to take a position is that I don't think we know what God is or what kind of situation he lives in (speaking somewhat metaphorically, no doubt). It's hard to imagine that anything, even God, could exist without some kind of environment. But I don't have a clue what it is. Without that kind of knowledge, I don't see how it's possible to make claims on this topic.

 

[St_Worm2]

...my understanding of the OP was that creation ex nihilo had always and universally been believed, which I don't think is the case.

Well, we know for a fact that the LDS believe creatio ex materia, which means we also know that creatio ex nihilo is not a universal belief. As for the history of creatio ex materia within the historic Christian church, that I don't know either. I don't remember reading anything about it in the library of the fathers, but that doesn't mean that there isn't someone who considered it, or even believed it, to one degree or another anyway. I'll go take a look.

It is possible, for example, to read Gen 1:2 as "...the Earth had been without form..." which argues that creation ex nihilo was not necessarily in the mind of the author.

Actually, there is nothing in the verb tense (perfect) to indicate that God didn't create the Earth, simply that it had been already been created by Him in the state or form described by Genesis 1:2 (formless and void). IOW, that's how He made it (not how He found it) before He continued with the rest of His Creation.

And while this appears to clearly indicate that God did not call all of creation into existence in its final, mature state (which is made even clearer by the following verses that describe what He did on each of the following days of the Creation week), neither is it an indication of an old universe.

Yours and His,
David

 

[St_Worm2]

One reason I'm reluctant to take a position is that I don't think we know what God is or what kind of situation he lives in (speaking somewhat metaphorically, no doubt). It's hard to imagine that anything, even God, could exist without some kind of environment. But I don't have a clue what it is. Without that kind of knowledge, I don't see how it's possible to make claims on this topic.

Hi again Hedrick, I agree, which is why I believe it preferable to not make any claims about what we cannot know, and to simply take God at His word instead. I was steeped in/held tightly to the beliefs taught by atheistic evolution, though I certainly knew what the Bible taught as I regularly attended church for the first 20 years of my life (and then sporadically in my 20's). When I finally became a Christian (at age 30), I began to read the Bible with a new pair of eyes I guess you might say, and understood what it was saying in a very new light (and by doing so was forced to question some of the "truths" which I'd held so dearly all along, because some "my" truth and some of "His" truth was clearly in conflict with each other ).

But could I be wrong? Sure. The evidence for what I used to believe, particularly the cosmological, is hard to simply dismiss out of hand (and I've actually never done that). But when the Bible tells us,

Revelation 4
11 Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.​

I take what it says to be true as I read it (as I know of nothing that would reasonably/logically persuade me to believe otherwise). The above is quite a statement actually, because it not only tells us that God created all things, it also tells us that it is only because of Him that anything (IOW, our universe and anything that is in it) "exists" in the first place

Yours and His,
David

 

[St_Worm2]

Thank you for welcome!

It all depends on what we believe God is (He is 3 in one, although the Bible speaks of 7 Spirits, but that’s another topic). A way to explqin it is God is a group that creates, well, God.

The Father is God.
Jesus is God.
The Holy Spirit is God
They all create God as a union of God.

The Father (the chief) commanded the Word (Jesus) to bring forth into to the physical what they had in the spiritual. The Word itself became flesh, He came forth into the physical realm and became flesh.

The word is energy. It has the ability to create things in the physical. Its know to man that if you take wooden chair and break it into pieces, keep breaking it until you have dust, but take that dust and keep breaking it eventually it desolves to the tiniest particle it could exist, and if we break even that particle it becomes energy/sound. That energy/sound mixed into a bunch of other particles are what made the wood that eventually became the chair.

Hi again Job, I think I agree, but only if you mean that God is one Being who has 'always' existed as the three Persons who make up the Godhead. Specifically, that God did not call/speak His Son into existence at some point in time.

Also, that the three Persons of the Godhead did not exist as separate "gods" who then "came together" (as a union of sorts) to "create" God, as there has never been, nor will there ever be, two or more of the Divine. There is only one of Him.

Finally, we know that the preincarnate Son was following the dictates of the Father's will when He came here and lived among us as a man. I'm not sure what you meant by God commanding Jesus to "bring forth into the physical what they had in the spiritual"(?), but we do know He wasn't called or spoken into existence by God, rather, He was "overshadowed" by the Holy Spirit (whatever that means) and was then carried by and "born" the child of a human mother, the virgin Mary.

Yours and His,
David

"Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me .. apart from Me there is no God" ~Isaiah 43:10; Isaiah 45:5​

 

[straykat]

It isn't exactly new. The Church has been struggling with this subject (as well as Judaism under people like Maimonides) for a long time. Especially as both Catholics and Jews started embracing Aristotelian arguments that matter was eternal.. and therefore the universe wasn't created out of nothing. It's why you'll see some Jews or the NRSV even rewording Genesis to "When God began to create.." in Genesis 1.

I wouldn't jump in either category because of what science or philosophy says though. Science still has much to learn about the nature of matter anyhow. Enjoy the show, I suppose. We can't even tell where matter is anymore, let alone what it is (quantum superposition and entanglement).

 

[St_Worm2]

It isn't exactly new. The Church has been struggling with this subject ... for a long time.

Hi Straykat, I was going to search through the ECF's writings again to try to find examples of the "struggle" you speak of above, but if you already know what they've said, even in part, please post their comments here for us to read (or point us to them on the Internet) so I don't have to waste my time doing that. While I don't remember any of the ECF holding to even a quasi-belief in creatio ex materia, I was never looking for specific evidence of such either (and I'd still prefer to not have to "look" now, so please let me/us know what you know .. thanks ).

... the NRSV even rewording Genesis to "When God began to create.." in Genesis 1.

I'm not sure why that changes the meaning of the verse(?), because there was certainly a point in time that He did, "begin to create" the heavens and the earth.

Thanks!

Yours and His,
David

 

[straykat]

Hi Straykat, I was going to search through the ECF's writings again to try to find examples of the "struggle" you speak of above, but if you already know what they've said, even in part, please post their comments here for us to read (or point us to them on the Internet) so I don't have to waste my time doing that. While I don't remember any of the ECF holding to even a quasi-belief in creatio ex materia, I was never looking for specific evidence of such either (and I'd still prefer to not have to "look" now, so please let me/us know what you know .. thanks ).



I'm not sure why that changes the meaning of the verse(?), because there was certainly a point in time that He did, "begin to create" the heavens and the earth.

Thanks!

Yours and His,
David

It wasn't the ECF. They kind of hated mingling too much philosophy with scripture (in fact, that was usually what they argued against.. like with Arians and others). It was only until the late medieval/middle ages that Aristotle was rediscovered, and Western theologians like Aquinas and Rabbis like Maimonides relied on him. This also coincided with the later Renaissance and the rise of "Scholasticism" in general.

 

[St_Worm2]

Ahh, thanks for stopping me from making a search of the ECF for that which cannot be found there I kinda thought it would be odd of me to have not taken note if there was any promotion of (or even any consideration of) a creatio ex materia by those guys!

--David

 

[Aman777]

Agreed, everything comes from God, who called it all into existence. EVERYTHING within the universe, including the universe itself (space/time), was created by the One who is both before it and now sustains it.

Yours and His,
David

Amen. God the invisible Trinity spoke and told His Son Jesus, to shape things into physical form. Jhn 1:3 All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.

 

[Aman777]

I am not arguing in favor of it, or denying it is presently Christian doctrine. But my understanding of the OP was that creation ex nihilo had always and universally been believed, which I don't think is the case. It is possible, for example, to read Gen 1:2 as "...the Earth had been without form..." which argues that creation ex nihilo was not necessarily in the mind of the author.

Here are the verses with my thoughts in brackets:

Gen 1:1 ¶ In the beginning God (The Trinity) created the heaven (Air) and the earth. (ground)

Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, (Dust) and void; and darkness (Death) was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Dust, air and water were brought into the physical world or created from energy. Everything which exists, will consist of these 3 creation elements. Jesus (The Light) will take these elements and form everything which exists and He will give Life (fire) to all living creatures.

Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

 

[Aman777]

Hi again Job, I think I agree, but only if you mean that God is one Being who has 'always' existed as the three Persons who make up the Godhead. Specifically, that God did not call/speak His Son into existence at some point in time.

Sure He did since YHWH/Jesus IS the only God ever formed or that ever will be formed physically.

Isa 43:10 Ye are My witnesses, saith the LORD, (YHWH) and My servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He: before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me. Isa 43:11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside Me there is no Saviour.

Jesus IS YHWH. Col 2:9 For in Him dwelleth ALL the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Also, that the three Persons of the Godhead did not exist as separate "gods" who then "came together" (as a union of sorts) to "create" God, as there has never been, nor will there ever be, two or more of the Divine. There is only one of Him.

Amen and Jesus coming into the physical world IS the beginning of the Creation:

Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

Finally, we know that the preincarnate Son was following the dictates of the Father's will when He came here and lived among us as a man. I'm not sure what you meant by God commanding Jesus to "bring forth into the physical what they had in the spiritual"(?), but we do know He wasn't called or spoken into existence by God, rather, He was "overshadowed" by the Holy Spirit (whatever that means) and was then carried by and "born" the child of a human mother, the virgin Mary.

Phl 2:5 ¶ Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Phl 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
Phl 2:7 But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: Phl 2:8 And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Phl 2:9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name:

The invisible Holy Spirit implanted Jesus into Mary as a surgeon. Amen?