Is creation out of nothing a doctrine 'ex nihilo'?

 

Today I will continue to cover the reasons why I reject Young Earth Creationism and believe the earth to be quite old. If you're looking for biblical evidence, reasons, and compatibility you'll find some here. I covered some scientific evidence yesterday including radiometric dating and ice layers.

This is going to have to be a series of posts because there is a lot to cover even off the top of my head so today I will start with the lack of texts that God created the universe out of nothing. I do believe God made the universe out of nothing, but when I examine the Bible there is actually no text that clearly and explicitly states creation 'Ex Nihilo', that is, 'out of nothing'. And before we get too far into this point it is worth saying that the claims of some from the scientific community that the universe indeed did come out of nothing isn't the same thing. For them, 'Nothing' is actually 'Something' such as a quantum vacuum. The move has been deeply criticized for highjacking a term used in philosophy and theology and creating more confusion than light.

Creation 'ex nihilo' is essentially a theological conclusion based upon biblical statements about the nature of God in relation to creation. There are various views on this front: Pantheism, Panentheism, and Theism.

This picture illustrates the differences fairly well. In the middle we see that the universe simply is God, which is pantheism. To the right, we see that the universe is God, but God is still beyond it, or larger than it, or not exhausted by it, which is panentheism. To the left is Theism, which shows that God is completely 'other than' the universe. I think this image does lean more toward a deism, however, because it looks like God is spatially transcendent or beyond the universe with no interaction as though there is a great distance. The Jewish and Christian view of God and creation is one where God is not the universe in any sense, yet sustains it and is immanent, or near, while still transcendent beyond it. The Bible is also clear that God is the only thing or being that is existent from eternity. This is classic theology and because of this view of God and creation it is said that because the universe is in no sense God it must have come into being out of nothing and that such an act was performed by God as the cause.

'But what about Genesis 1?' you ask. This is what it says:

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." (Gen 1:1-2 NIV)

Before the first day where God said let there be light we have an earth without form and deep waters. This is not creation out of nothing. The rest of this creation narrative describes God bringing order out of the chaos of the primordial waters and darkness. If you read through you will notice that there simply is not point in which God creates water. He separates it with a solid dome so that some is held back in the sky for rainfall. He makes dry land appear by gathering the waters together (the land was apparently also already there and was not 'created out of nothing' but made to appear by moving the water). The water was already there and God is controlling it; bringing order. There are similar problems with the other creation texts in the Bible. They simply do not make overt proclamation about the first moment of something from nothing.

Millard J Erickson agrees with my assessment that the Bible does not explicitly teach this doctrine saying, "Although the language in the Old Testament is not conclusive, the idea of ex nihilo creation can be found in a number of New Testament passages where the aim is not primarily to make a statement about the nature of creation. In particular, there are numerous references to the beginning of the world or the beginning of creation." (Introducting Christian Doctrine 2nd ed. 2001, pg 131). The phrases in the New Testament are pretty much variations of "from the beginning of the world..." or "since the creation of the world..." Such instances are incidental and not actually teaching creation ex nihilo, yet the implication of these types of statements make it reasonable to hold to the doctrine by inference.

This may seem like a major tangent and have nothing to do with whether or not the earth is young, but stay with me. Even conservative theologians agree that there are only implications from texts and that many of the clearer sounding texts aren't teaching about creation. This means that the creation texts themselves, and particularly the oldest ones, are not giving an account of the moment where something came out of nothing. It is possible to believe that these texts are describing this event, but there is nothing in the texts themselves that requires us to interpret the texts in this way. That means that the Bible's account of creation cannot be giving a clear indication of the age of the universe.