Brief Overview:
The field of ontology explores what things exist, and why it is that these things exist. For those who believe in God, there are two schools of thought that serve as a starting point for ontological discussion. Each of these schools of thought inevitably leads in some different theological directions once adopted.
1. Creatio Ex Nihilo (Creation From Nothing)
Proponents of the creatio ex nihilo doctrine believe that God was originally surrounded by absolute nothingness. God then created “from nothing” all else that can now be said to exist–including every atom or particle of any kind.
2. Creatio Ex Materia (Creation From Existing Material)
Proponents of the creatio ex materia doctrine believe that God’s role in creation was not to create from absolute nothingness, but rather to use His knowledge and power to manipulate and organize existing chaotic matter to “create” or give order to the universe.
The LDS church breaks from the popular view held by most modern Christians in that it rejects creatio ex nihilo in favor of creatio ex materia. However, their are plenty of modern Christians who are also arguing that the creatio ex nihilo view should be abandoned. Many have argued against this view from logical, scientific, or philosophical standpoints. However, my primary purpose here is to promote more open-mindedness among Christians by simply noting that the creatio ex nihilo doctrine is absolutely not required by the biblical text. In fact, scholars attest that this doctrine did not arise until the late 2nd century AD–after the apostolic age. Furthermore, this doctrine actually broke from what had previously been considered to be the “biblical” view for thousands of years. Early Christians such as Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria appear to have continued in the older tradition of creatio ex materia.
Given these findings, I think it’s a shame that some of today’s Christians insist that true “bible believing” Christians must accept creatio ex nihilo. This only creates an un-necessary stumbling block for many people. I don’t expect all those of my faith to agree with the thoughts that follow in this paragraph, but I will say that the creatio ex materia position opens many doors for me. It means that I do not have to view God as a “transcendent” being who is absolutely removed from physical existence. I do not have to view God in a Neo-Platonistic manner–as having all power in the most absolute sense. If matter is co-eternal with God, then I can logically conclude that God works within the bounds of natural laws–although His perfect knowledge allows Him to have power that is unimaginable to me. I find answers to the problem of “natural evil,” and I have no problems with a God who would use evolution as the best way to ultimately create bodies for the spirits of His children. Creatio ex nihilo doesn’t sit well with me, and my hope is that the information that follows will at least promote more open mindedness about the issue among Christians.
Does the Bible require a belief in the creatio ex nihilo interpretation of “the beginning?”
Given that there are some Christian leaders today who say that it is un-biblical and un-Christian to reject creatio ex nihilo, I think we should evaluate what biblical and historical scholarship have to say about this foundational issue. There is good reason to believe that LDS views in this regard truly do return to those that were originally considered to be the “biblical” view. Please note that all scholars quoted here are non-LDS scholars. In summary, I fully expect that we should be able to come to an agreement on the following statements:
- The creation ex-nihilo doctrine was a post-biblical innovation that was not seen among Christians until late in the 2nd century CE—long after the Old Testament Biblical records were begun, and long after the death of the Apostles.
- The creation ex nihilo doctrine cannot be traced to apostolic origins, but can easily be traced to the influence of Neoplatonism.
- The creatio ex nihilo doctrine was not only new, it also contradicted the views that had been held for thousands of years by the Jews/Israelites—a view that several of the earliest Christian Fathers clearly continued to accept (ie. Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria).
The issue of creatio ex nihilo is one of many cases where many of today’s Christians essentially declare that the Jews who wrote most of the Bible were “un-biblical” in their beliefs, and that several of the earliest Christian fathers held an “un-Christian” view of the biblical beginning. Many biblical scholars could be quoted, but I will just pick a few favorite quotes in the interest of brevity. Peter Hayman summed up the issue nicely:
“The position represented here by Sefer Yesira and Rab Huna represents no advance whatsoever on Genesis chapter one. God creates order out of pre-existing chaos; he does not create from nothing. Nearly all recent studies on the origin of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo have come to the conclusion that this doctrine is not native to Judaism, is nowhere attested in the Hebrew Bible, and probably arose in Christianity in the second century C.E.”[i]
For thousands of years the orthodox doctrine and the orthodox biblical interpretation was that God created the universe and everything in it from matter that existed prior to the creation of our universe. In other words, the word “creation” was understood to mean more of an “organization” of chaotic matter into the universe we see today, and not a creation that simply made things appear from nothing. James N. Hubler also summarized the issue well:
“Creatio ex nihilo appeared suddenly in the latter half of the second century c.e. Not only did creatio ex nihilo lack precedent, it stood in firm opposition to all the philosophical schools of the Greco-Roman world. As we have seen, the doctrine was not forced upon the Christian community by their revealed tradition, either in Biblical texts or the Early Jewish interpretation of them. As we will also see it was not a position attested in the New Testament doctrine or even sub-apostolic writings. It was a position taken by the apologists of the late second century, Tatian and Theophilus, and developed by various ecclesiastical writers thereafter, by Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen. Creatio ex nihilo represents an innovation in the interpretive traditions of revelation and cannot be explained merely as a continuation of tradition.”[ii]
“Several New Testament texts have been educed as evidence of creatio ex nihilo. None makes a clear statement which would have been required to establish such an unprecedented position, or which we would need as evidence of such a break with tradition. None is decisive and each could easily be accepted by a proponent of creatio ex materia…The punctuation of [John 1:3] becomes critical to its meaning. Proponents of creatio ex materia could easily qualify the creatures of the Word to that “which came about,” excluding matter. Proponents of creatio ex nihilo could place a period after “not one thing came about” and leave “which came about” to the next sentence. The absence of a determinate tradition of punctuation in New Testament [Greek] texts leaves room for both interpretations. Neither does creation by word imply ex nihilo…as we have seen in Egypt, Philo, and Midrash Rabba, and even in 2 Peter 3:5, where the word functions to organize pre-cosmic matter.”[iii]
Scholars thoroughly agree that the creatio ex nihilo doctrine did not show up until the late 2nd century, and that it was actually first postulated by a Gnostic Christian by the name of Basilides before being adopted by Tatian (who ultimately became a Gnostic Christian) and others shortly thereafter.[iv] The creatio ex nihilo view no doubt gained additional traction in the third century with the growing popularity of Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism was a movement of the third century that attempted to reconcile Greek philosophy with Christian doctrine. However, it is important to note that Neoplatonism openly broke from Platonism in some ways. For example, the Platonists believed in the eternity of matter. In contrast, the Neoplatonists spoke of God as “the One”—who transcends all things, and is “prior to all existents,” a “potentiality without which nothing could exist,” the “source of the world,” and the “One” from which all things “emanate.” Christianity ultimately rejected the term “emanation,” but the Neoplatonic view of God seems to have required a belief in a creatio ex nihilo doctrine, and it seems likely that the popularity of Neoplatonism was a key influence in helping the creatio ex nihilo doctrine to gain lasting traction. Edwin Hatch further discusses the origins of creatio ex nihilo:
“With Basilides [a second century Gnostic philosopher], the conception of matter was raised to a higher plane. The distinction of subject and object was preserved, so that the action of the Transcendent God was still that of creation and not of evolution; but it was “out of that which was not” that He made things to be . . . . The basis of the theory was Platonic, though some of the terms were borrowed from both Aristotle and the Stoics. It became itself the basis for the theory which ultimately prevailed in the Church. The transition appears in Tatian [ca. 170 A.D.]”[v]
Despite the introduction of this new doctrine in the late 2nd century, some of the earliest Christian Fathers such as Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria continued in the long held traditional biblical interpretation that God had created or “organized” the universe from existing chaotic matter. For example, Justin declared that “He in the beginning did of his goodness, for man’s sake, create all things out of unformed matter.”[vi] Clement similarly declared that “Out of a confused heap who didst create this ordered sphere, and from the shapeless mass of matter didst the universe adorn…”[vii]
Conclusions:
If you accept the creatio ex nihilo doctrine as the foundation of your theology, then by all means, knock yourself out. If you want to tell me that the LDS church is wrong for rejecting creatio ex nihilo, go ahead and knock yourself out. However, if you’re going to suggest that the reason that we are wrong on this issue is because the Bible declares the creatio ex nihilo doctrine, then I’m afraid the biblical and historical scholarship simply do not support your claim. LDS theology does not break from biblical teaching. Rather, LDS theology breaks from a particular brand of post-biblical philosophy that became popular among Christians a few hundred years after the rise of Christianity. Furthermore, it should be recognized that this philosophy actually broke from thousands of years of previous biblical interpretation that had been held by the Jews/Israelites. If anything, biblical and historical scholarship support the conclusion that LDS doctrine truly does return to the original “biblical” understanding of “the beginning.”
[i] Peter Hayman. “Monotheism: A Misused Word in Jewish Studies.” Journal of Jewish Studies 42/1 (1991): 1-15.
[ii] James N. Hubler, “Creatio ex Nihilo: Matter, Creation, and the Body in Classical and Christian Philosophy through Aquinas,” PhD dissertation from 1995, University of Pennsylvania, pg. 102.
[iii] James N. Hubler, “Creatio ex Nihilo: Matter, Creation, and the Body in Classical and Christian Philosophy through Aquinas” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1995), 107–108.
[iv] Edwin Hatch, “The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church,” pg. 263-264. “The philosophers of the school of Basilides, who, as we have seen, had been the first to formulate the doctrine of an absolute creation of all things from nothing…”
http://www.archive.org/stream/influenceofgreek00hatcuoft#page/262/mode/2up
[v] Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 195–196.
[vi] Justin Martyr, “First Apology of Justin,” in Chapter 10 Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886)1:165.
[vii] Clement, “Hymn to the Paedagogus,” in Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886) 2:296.
The Mormon Memo 