Creation Out of Nothing? Ex Nihilo

[@mariomurillo7586]

He engages with literally no aspect of the Hebrew grammar of the text. The reason why a number of bible translations do not present creation ex nihilo is because the Hebrew text doesn't seem to suggest that. If one wants to argue against the creation ex materia view, it has to be done from the data presented in the text. This professor does't do that. How can one have a serious conversation about this matter in such a way?

[@guywhoisnotbob]

Been studying this lately and I cannot find clear evidence for this concept of Ex Nihilo. The general premise revolves around verses claiming God created our universe from the invisible and simply spoke the universe into existence. In John 1, Christ is described as being the word of God. Psalm 33 tells is "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." Throughout the bible, God is described as being invisible (1 Timothy 6:16, Job 23:8, John 5:37, 1 Timothy 1:17, 1 John 4:12, Romans 1:20). In Colossians 1, we are told that Christ is the image of the invisible and that "in Him all things consist." Where does the concept of Ex Nihilo arise? The invisible is God, and the image of the invisible, the logos, is Christ in whom we exist. This same concept can be extrapolated from our understanding of matter and energy. Energy is invisible. Matter is energy formed. Quantum physics has confirmed the structure of the universe as described in the bible.

[@Tutankhamen210]

The main reason some Christians believe in creatio ex nihilo is because someone (preacher, minister, etc.) has convinced them that they have to believe that God is "omni"-everything. But God doesn't have to be "omni"-everything for God to be greater than we are or for us to believe and have faith in Him. The Bible doesn't unequivocally teach creatio ex nihilo. To argue that it does is a simplistic, easy way out.

[@dellbridge7412]

If God relies on preexisting materials would that not imply, the materials are as great or greater than God himself?

[@Orbservation]

Actually, scripture only infers God created from nothing. When God says for example, “Let there be light”, and light appears, it has not addressed the substance from which light has come, only that it did come. I do not believe God created the world from an eternal substance apart from Himself. I also agree, pantheism, is God and the creation being of one substance, yet, I also believe in Gods immensity, in that God is completely and fully, continually, everywhere, all the time. So, this poses my problem. Where is the nothing, out of which God created, where God is not?

[@SimonDaumMusic]

I think there is more evidence that speaks against Ex Nihilo, here are just some of the reasons.. 1. Genesis 1:1 "In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" has been translated from the Hebrew: "Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim veet haàrets". The word "bara"which is pronounces "ba-RA", can have different meanings, which are: "to form, to choose, to divide". But what it does not mean whatsoever, is that something got created out of nothing. So, if we do a literal translation of this Genesis passage, then it was the much later historical manipulation of a theological matrix, based on distoring translations, that has it saying that it actually means "creation out of nothing". The scholarly consensus in regards to Genesis 1, meaning the whole chapter and not just the first verse, is that it points to creation out of matter, which is also something, as shown above, that we get out of a literal translation from the original text. In addition to that, the word “Bereshit” occurs about four or five or six other times in the Hebrew Bible, and it never means „in the beginning“, it always means „in the beginning of something“, usually it's referring to the beginning of of the reign of some King, This is also why you will find in many more scholarly modern translations of Genesis 1:1 that it says: „when God began to create the heavens and the Earth“. 2. Colossionas 1:16-17 "For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" Now, taking a deeper look on this scripture, a literal translation of the greek "created", is the verb"κτιζω". This verb is used to describe God's creation of both the earth & humans, and means "to create", "to build", "to form", or "to shape". "Forming" and "shaping" are unambiguously not acts of creation ex nihilo, but involve working with existing materials. As such, even if κτίζω meant creation out of nothing in some circumstance, it cannot be taken to always carry that meaning. There is no unambiguous usage of κτίζω to mean "creation out of nothing" in the New Testament (which is why the early Christian writers who supported creation ex-nihilo used 2 Maccabees, not the New Testament, as a proof. There are, on the other hand, examples in the New Testament where κτίζω clearly means to create out of something that already exists: - Ephesians 2:15 - 1 Cor 11:9 - Ephesians 4:24 - Matthew 19:4 (critical text) In particular, compare 1 Cor 11:9 and Matthew 19:4 to the description of those events in Genesis 2:7,22. God created (κτίζω per 1 Cor, Matthew) out of things/entities that already existed. 3. What about 2 Maccabees 7:28? “I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not; and so was mankind made likewise." There is no way we can read that, or any scritpure, without looking at them within the existing cosmologocal worldview of that time. The scholarly consensus regarding the book Maccebee is that its Author was highly influenced by the Greco-Roman worldview, written in a much later time period than Genesis, around the second, first century BCE, mayby even in the first century CE. So, the phrase:"and consider that God made them of things that were not", in greek literally means:"not out of the being things", and "being", in greek "onton", is sometimes used to mean "existence". So that means, it can sometimes refere to things not being made from that which exists, or in other words, things being made out of nothing.. BUT, thats, why the cosmological backound is so vital, for the excact same phrase is also used elswhere in Greek literature to refer to sexual procreation among humans, and with that reflects a more Aristotelian view of "being" and "non-being" as two different states in which matter could exist. The "non-being", in that case, didn't refer to "non-existence", but instead referes to not having had"form and function", and to give something form and function, was to move it from the realm of the non-being into the realm of the being. In that sense, "to create out of nothing" could simply refer to God breathing in the soul into lifeless, and until then useless matter, making something meaning full out of something not so meaningfull. 4. The creation (invention) of "Ex Nihilo" Now, it seems the doctrine of "ex nihilo" is not found clearly anywhere in the Bible. The academic consesus is that it is a creation of the 2nd century CE Christianity that arose within debates between Christians and Gnostics and other Greco-Roman thinkners. Originally it was Greco-Roman wisdom that matter existed apart from deity.. it was less than deity and so forth.. Ultimately Christians came up with the idea that matter belonged to God and that God created it, which was a direct rejection of more conventional Greco-Roman wisdom about "nothing being able to come out of nothing", a view that allowed the Christians to say: "Oh look, our God is much more powerful than yours philosphies..". 5. What abour all the waste of Matter in our Universe If God created everything out of nothing, that would mean to me that everything was created for a very specific purpose. If everything was created with and for a very specific purpose, than why is most of the matter filling our universe just waste floating around with seemingly no purpose at all? If God created everything out of nothing, I would expect more purpose to things right here and now, and not for things evolving into becoming purpose over billions of years, that would just not make much sense to me, if I believed in "ex nihilo". The argument that God is so far beyond that we can not grasp the purpose of all things may certainly come up, but what tends to disturb me on that argumentation is, that it can pretty much always be used when we can't explain things, or even worse, to justify evil calling it good, because simpy everything that comes from God is good, not matter how evil it actually is, merely because we stop questioning once we are certain we are connected to the one and only true God and being of the Universe, which actually seems one of the major causes why Christians have brought into the world and justified most of the evil that has ever happened.. but I asume that actually is worth another, seperate discussion. 6. Scientific view on creation and destruction of Matter and Energy I know that scientific findings and facts may not convince any Christian to change his or her mind about biblical truths, but, from the Bible we know that nature bears testimoy of God, and that our world and its laws mirrow in many ways God's eternal truths. With that in mind, I find it specifically interesting when we look at the "law of conservation of matter and eneryg", which states that "the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be conserved over time. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another".. ...which according to my understanding means that even eccording to science, everything is eternal and indestructible. So as conclusion, I get why people do believe in God having created everything out of nothing, but I whole heartely have to disagree, especially when looking at the literal meanings of the original texts, aswell as when including the cosmological and social worldview and backround of the given time, aswell as looking deeper into the context in which these texts were written. In no way do I claim that what I say is the ultimate truth, but I think that there is enough out there to actually question the idea of "ex nihilo".

[@truthbebold4009]

Genesis 1 is primarily about God ordering/organizing the Earth. It's His material. It's His Earth to begin with.

[@SimonDaumMusic]

@@truthbebold4009 I totally believe that God organized the earth with material and that therefore it is his organized creation, but the Bible itself does not support the idea of things being created out of nothing.

[@truthbebold4009]

@@SimonDaumMusic it's God's universe. It's like the Muslims when they argue that Jesus never says "I am God". I don't need the Bible to declare specifically that God made the universe out of nothing. I understand that matter does not exist independently of God. I understand that all life and all matter throughout the universe exists by God's decree. Who is the Sovereign of the universe? Are there other rulers throughout the universe? Does matter exist independent of God? Will God eradicate evil from the universe or just this planet? Does God have any laws of His own?

[@SimonDaumMusic]

@@truthbebold4009 And if you do not need the Bible to understand this doctrine, then what is your source of understanding such truths? When you use the BIble though, you have to read and interpret it the way it was originally meant by God and by the authors of the Bible, and when we take a honest look at the Bible in that way, creation ex nihilo is not found in there, but evolved much later in debates between christians and the gnostics on the topic of matter.. we can literally see when and how this idea evolved later on. I would like to ask you a question, and mayby you feel like you want to give an answer to that, though I don't expect it of course, but when it comes to spiritual matters, how do you truly know that what you believe is the truth? What is your way to discern spiritual truth from deception? What is your authority you lean on to discern? Because I think this is probably one of the most vital questions, but also believe Jesus offered a perfect way to know and discern. It is interesting that you bring up that Jesus never claimed to be God, because in deed when we read and interpret the Bible in its original meaning, another option what Jesus meant seems way more likely.. Jesus actually nowhere claims to be God in the New Testament, what Jesus claims though is to be the authorized bearer of the Divine name, and therefore to manifest the presence and the Divinity of God and to have the power and the authority to do what only God is supposed to be able to do. But that's actually not unique or new to Jesus, that's just the logic of Divine Images applied to a sentient personal being and that's a pattern that is already developed in the Hebrew Bible, where we have the angel of the Lord, who similarly manifests God's presence and Divinity and does, what only God is supposed to be able to do. First time we come accross this tradition is actually in Exodus 3:2-6, where the „Angel of the Lord“ appears unto Moses in the burning bush, shortly after speaking to Moses as „the God of Abraham...“ Then in Exodus 23:20-21 we now have God send an Angel before the people of Israel, that is even empowered to „forgive sins“, speaking as authoritative voice for God, because „Gods name is in him“. Other places we learn about this tradition are Genesis 16:7-13, Judges 6:11-23 and Judges 13:3-23. ...and this tradition is further developed in the literature of Greco-Roman period Judaism and the enochic literature, for instance, where the son of man is endowed with the Divine name and will be worshiped by everyone on Earth and manifest the presence of the Ancient of Days. Another example is the Angel Yahwehl from The Apocalypse of Abraham. We even get Metatron asserting possession of the Divine name and in later Jewish texts people confusing Metatron for „Adonai“, because Metatron possesses Adonai's name and can be referred to as Adonai. That means that they do what only God is supposed to be able to do, because of the Divine name that dwells in them, so this is just Jesus aggregating or consolidating a number of pre-existing Traditions regarding sentient Divine Images.

[@truthbebold4009]

@@SimonDaumMusic What I actually said was "I don't need the Bible to declare specifically..." In other words, the Bible doesn't have to explicitly state that God is the One who created the very material which He later ordered and filled with life. I will not treat God as anything less than The Sovereign of the universe. There are laws that govern every aspect of existence. I will not treat God as anything less than The One who initiated all the laws that govern every corner of the universe.

[@antascii]

I find it interesting that Carl Sagan said that matter was composed chiefly of nothing, here’s the quote: “...Nevertheless most of the mass in an atom is in the nucleus, the electrons are, by comparison, just bits of moving fluff. Atoms are mainly empty space; matter is composed chiefly of nothing!” - Carl Sagan ( Cosmos, episode 9 : the lives of the stars)

[@Wabbelpaddel]

Wrong. In between there are quantum fluctuations. There can not be any "gaps" in reality.

[@pinoychristianpilgrim]

The most optimistic doctrine! I like that!

[@alfredhitchcock45]

Creatio Ex nihilo Historical Fall Story Story of Redemption - JC

[@JeremyWS]

Thank you for this, what a wonderful message. First!

[@izzthatcarlos]

Great words! Blessings!

[@jailtheology]

Notice that he does not cite a single verse that supports creatio ex nihilo (and that's because there are none). Also, ex nihilo is clearly not the teaching of church throughout its history as the Professor says, it did not start till 180 AD, see 'From Nothing', p1, by McFarland. He did not state how ex Deau leads to pantheism (just assumed). He says twice that the world was not intended to be with sin, how it is, but what about Acts 4:25-28, Acts 2:23, and other similar verses? Those don't point to a specific plan for the world to be just like it is? I could go on. Theology professors don't preach Bible, they preach theology, which is the words of men, and the words of men are lies (Rom. 3:4). I am sure people reading this will just say I am being difficult and trying to stir up disunion, fight with my brothers and sisters in Christ, but we are expected to understand that men will follow their own agendas in the last days, and misrepresent the Scriptures--how many verses do we need to pick out of the NT that say that? The average Christian does not read nor know the Bible, nor Christ. John 5:39.

[@jacobfranklin7100]

Colossians 1:17 “And he is before ALL things, and by him all things consist”

[@jacobfranklin7100]

This implies God (Christ) existed before ALL things. Therefore God created us out of nothing

[@jailtheology]

@@jacobfranklin7100 Yes, GOD is before all things, but why does this mean that all things only can come from nothing? Why couldn't things come out of GOD, out of Him, as it plainly states in Scripture (e.g., John 1:13, among many others I could cite)?

[@Liberty-LLama]

How does the concept that matter and elements have always existed, make them not intrinsically good? This notion that it must have come into existence from nothing in order to be good is nonsense.

[@MidnightSaint760]

My sovereign count is at about 100, I will assume this Baptist is Calvinist.

[@l.ronhubbard5445]

Well apparently i am the 667th person to watch this video. Sorry guys. I would take it back if I could

[@alfredhitchcock45]

Pantheism Dualism Deism

[@kentheengineer592]

God Is The Nothingness But Not As a Given But Via Establishing Nothingness As a Given Because Of Teleology of Nothingness

[@joshmuehlendorf8153]

Sadly, while you made a great case for the importance of creation out of nothing, you did not make a biblical case. You did not read through Genesis and exposit the text in a way that demonstrates how God created out of nothing. You merely told us what doctrines are at stake if it didn’t happen. I believe that God created the universe out of nothing. I just don’t believe you actually made a biblical case for it.

[@BatSoup67]

Peak nefesh

[@timw4383]

How can you teach that God created all things out of nothing when there is no evidence for this in scripture? In chapter 1 the Earth already exists when Elohim begins to create. He pulls the earth up from beneath the waters. I don't think chapters 1 and 2 are about creation at all.

[@jaywilliams4879]

How can the universe create it self out of nothing

[@timw4383]

@@jaywilliams4879: This is a good video that explains very well in laymen terms what scientists mean by "out of nothing". I am a little hesitant to suggest this video because it is put out by Creationists who falsely claim science is catching up with Biblical explanations. But it's good. So, take it with a grain of salt. Seriously. kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZrIaqCrqKx4p7M

[@timw4383]

@CALEB ALVAREZ: That isbhow Genesis 1:1 is translated, but that is not how the Hebrew actually reads. The Hebrew reads: "In the beginning when Elohim began creating." Then it goes on to speak of the earth as if it already exists when Elohim began to create (Christine Hayes, Yale University). Your translation is merely an inaccurate tradition.

[@timw4383]

@CALEB ALVAREZ: The word does not indicate past tense. It's active. For centuries they have missed that throughout the Hebrew Bible Yahweh declares himself to be the future Christ. Why should this be any different?

[@timw4383]

@CALEB ALVAREZ: bara

[@fhhfhdfdhhdhhdfhdf138]

thought this was gonna be a video about credit creation... fourth

[@mr_myster_y]

Mormons are going crazy in chat. It’s understandable. Imagine being promised your own little universe where you would become the God of it and be worshiped by your own little creation then, founding out it’s a lie… 🤫

[@TheGuiltsOfUs]

ex nihilo is impossible

[@shaun.august]

if ex nihilo is impossible, how could it be that soul of yours is now a reality, not just possible which is far harder to understand than creation out of nothing. Let me tell you a truth that you will even come to know after you die. Creation out of nothing is not only possible but it has been proven to be a fact by quantum physics. Moreover, nothing was ever existing except for God Himself and God decided to grant existence to all that exist in the universe and He created this on his own. He says in Quran when He decides to create something all He has to do is just say the word (happen) and it just happens out of nothing.

[@IDK-qi2it]

Second