Assessing the stengths and weakness of the doctrine of creation out of nothing ( Ex Nihilo).
My objective of this essay is not only to assess the stengths and weaknesses of this doctrine. Firstly I will give a briefly describe the doctrine before exploring the background. In order to conherently display the strengths and weaknesses of this doctrine, I will set out this essay in sections with a summary at the end. I am using a review by ostler of coplan and craig on there work of was the doctrine univesal in the early church and also. craigs work on ex nihilo.
If we are to begin to see the outlining picture of this doctrine then we need to have a starting point in order to discuss where to tackle this from. Is it from a purely religious or metaphysical view? The latin name in the title Ex Nihilo which translates to something out of nothing creates for us our first stumbling block it is quite simple to know what defines creation but what defines nothing? If we look at the definition of the word it only describes a lacking of something that is already in existance, In physics the explanation is again very debatable, nothing may refer to a vacuum but even in a vacuum there is a flucuation of matter. In order to overcome this issue for the sake of this essay I propose that in the context of the subject matter we agree that nothing is a state before creation what ever that may be.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 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" (nrsv).
In a review of Paul Copan and William Lane Craig. “Craftsman or Creator? An Examination of the Mormon Doctrine of Creation and a Defense of Creatio ex nihilo by Blake T. Ostler. he states that.
"this doctrine was not an invention of the philosophers but has always been the well-established “Christian” belief. In so doing, they argue against the vast majority of biblical and classical scholars. I contend that their arguments on these points are seriously flawed, that there are compelling reasons to support the view of the majority of biblical scholars that the Bible teaches creation out of a preexisting chaos" (Ostler.2004.pg3)
The term pre-existing chaos is the state in which according to Greek mythology was before creation, something that was already in existance before it was acted upon by God or God's. This is also where the Aristotilian Prinum moven or first cause is diverved.
Now Ostler states in his review of Copan and Craig that they have misrepresented the data in regards to the doctrine of Creatio ex nihilo. Ostler presents reasons why the majority of scholars agree that the doctrine was first formulated around AD 200 in arguments with the Gnostics, Stoics, and Middle Platonists.(Ostler.2004). The reason that I am using Ostler reviews of Copan and Craig is because it establishes the discussion of weather this doctrine was from early Christian teaching or a later addition due to influences of other philoshy such as helenistic. By looking at the origin of this doctrine we can judge its strength overall as we look more into where it reaches. In the desciption from Genesis which I have put at the top it says that the spirit of God was hovering over the water, now the water is what is being refferred to as pre-existing chaos or the pre-mordial chaos according to those who support the position that this account of the creation story is influenced by earlier stories such as that of the egyptians which I will talk more about that later. There is no referance though to the water being created. Ostler states that scripture in 2nd Peter supports that the water was already in existance.
"There are five crucial points in 2 Peter 3:5 that support the view that the author of this scriptural passage believed that everything was organized from a preexisting chaos. First, the text addresses the formation of “heaven and earth,” or all that is said to be created by God in Genesis 1:1–2. Indeed, the parallel with Genesis 1:1 is unmistakable and clearly signifies that 2 Peter speaks of the same creation spoken of there". (Ostler.2004.pg257).
William Lane Craig of the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School states in his writting for the journal of scienctific afflication that he has four reason as to why he thinks that the universe had a beginning.
"The first philosophical argument: 1. An actual infinite cannot exist. 2. A beginningless series of events in time is an actual infinite. 3. Therefore, a beginningless series of events in time cannot exist."( Craig.1980.pg6)
His first philosophical argument conclueds by saying that a beginningless series of events cannot exist in time, this supports the Aristotilian notion of Prinum moven first cause.However the steady state model which was very popular and first proposed in the 1948 claims that the univserse has always existed in the same state. The model has been critized for being openly anti-theoligcal and perhaps even anti-christian. One of the failings of the theory is that the amount of galaxies admitting radio waves shows that there was once more radio sources than there are today, thus showing that the universe is not in a steady state. This discovery came in 1965 by A. A. Penzlas and R. W. Wilson who found that the universe has a background of microwave radiation, showing that it was once different to how it is now. The second model that Craig brings into question is the oscillating model of the universe.
"According to this model, the universe is sort of like a spring, expanding and contracting from eternity. It is only in the last three or four years that this model has been dis- credited. The key question here is whether the universe is "open" or "closed."(Craig.1980.17).
The problem with this Craig goes on to say is that if the Universe is open then it will never contract, meaning that this theory is false and that Scienctific evidence would indicate that it is as he describes the final state of the universe.
" If the universe has a low density, its death will be cold. It will expand forever, at a slower and "lower rate. Galaxies will turn all of their gas into stars, and the stars will burn out. Our own sun will become a cold, dead remnant, floating among the corpses of other stars in an increasingly isolated milky way.Eventually, equilibrium will prevail throughout, and the entire universe will reach its final state from which no change will occur."(Craig,1980.20).
Having concluded in his writting that the Universe has a beginning the question Craig poses is that, was that beginning caused or uncaused? This seems to be straight forward in that something being created is not without a cause but the second question he poses is weather that cause was by a personal or impersonal creator. Craig present his evidence and argument to support the conclusion of there being a creator God from a scienctific view point in the Philosophical and Scientific Pointers to Creatio ex Nihilo. Where as Ostler focuses on the history of the doctrine through the Church in his critic of Coplan and Craigs writting Craftsman or Creator? An Examination of the Mormon Doctrine of Creation and a Defense of Creatio ex nihilo.
The appearance of the doctrine in the writings of Tatian and Theophilus in their arguments with Stoics and Middle Platonists around 180AD would eventually lead to the Council of Chaledon.(Ostler)This doctrine also has other implication such as everything that occurs must be caused by God and without this everything would cease to exist. This as Ostler states is a very strong form of divine determinism and predestination entailed by the doctrine. His critism of Coplan and Craig defence of the doctrine of creation ex Nihilo is that their argument is overstated.
"They give a false impression of the evidence and fail even to note the necessary distinctions between absolute negation of existence and relative non-being that are necessary to make sense of the texts in the postbiblical era. All in all, their argument for creatio ex nihilo as the universally accepted doctrine of early Christians simply does not withstand scrutiny."(Ostler.2004.pg69).
Craigs "the Philosophical and Scientific Pointers to Creatio ex Nihilo" is critized by Wez Morrissons in his Writting "Creation Ex Nihilo and the big bang".
"Craig argues that the big bang theory entails creation ex nihilo."the stagering implication" of what is known about the expansion of the universe he says is that "at some point in the past the whole known universe was contracted down to a single point as we go back in time we reach a point at which the universe is shrunk down to nothing at all" and this Craig insist that this shows that the universe was created out of nothing at all" (Morrison.2002.pg25)
Morrison then goes through the the philosophical and scientific points that Craig makes and highlights the problems with his explainations, one of his main issues is that even if there was a single point in which an initial singularity was created that does not mean that this is when time began also, Morrison does acknowledge that this is speculative and that deriving any conclusion from the big bang theory about the truth of falisty of classical theism is premature at best.(Morrison).
I would now like to discuss the writting of James Noel Hulber and his work "Creatio ex Nihilo: Matter, Creation, and the Body in Classical and Christian Philosophy Through Aquinas". here the subject is not about the scienctific collaberation with the biblical faith based evidence or even the critism of it but the origins and the controversy of the doctrine in history. I will be mainly focusing on chapter four "Early Church: The origins of creatio ex nihilo". According to Hulber the earliest writting of the doctrine came in the late second century it was first documented in the writtings of Tatian who was a Syrian christian theologian of that period.
"Tatian is the first Christian theologian known to us who expressly advanced the proposition that matter was produced by God. We are concerned here with an idea which sooner or later had to be drawn from the biblical belief in creation, as soon as Christian thought engaged in a critical debate with the philosophical doctrine of principles." ( Hulber.1995.104)
This teaching was in opposition to the philosophical Greek thought of the time. The Christian resurection did not fit with the Greek teachings of the material world, with the resurecction being such an vital part of Christianity meant that the Christian apologist of the time had to redefine the foundation of what was then in the greek teaching the basic principles of matter.(Hulber).
From this we begin to see that creatio ex nihilo was not something that came from the Christian tradition but rather was constructed in order to accomodate the opposing position of rival ideological thought. Hubler uses different quotes from scripture to highlight the issue of definition
"Just as it is written, "I established you as the father of many nations," because he trusted in God who raises the dead and calls the non-existent as existent". (Romans 4.17)
he states that the verse for non-existents need not be understood in an absolute sense of non-being. This is due to the Greek understanding of non-existance. Aristotle uses the term of non-existance to which something is generated, this does not deny the material cause of generation.
As we can see the subject of creatio ex nihilo is one which involves alot of difficulty in understanding. From Hubler we see the issue between the creation of the doctrine being formulated by Tatitan in order to justify the resurrection in order to combat, the critism from other schools of thinking most notelable the Platonist. We see evidence of this issue in Acts
"When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed, others said, "We will hear from you on this matter later." So Paul left them". (Acts 17.32).
In Tatitan's writtings in defence of the doctrine he aggressively asserts that nothing is outside possibilty for the Christian God, and attacks the Helenistic culture and traditions.This position would later be adopted and built upon by other Christian apologists such as Augustine who as assistant to the Bishop of Hippo wrote "de Fide et Symbolo, an exposition of the Apostle" In this he argued that the omnipotent God of the Scriptures creates ex nihilio (Hulber).
In conclusion we see that Craigs argument for Creatio ex nihilo from a scriptural and scienctific viewpoint shows strengths of the doctrine, however the critism of Criag's argument from Ostler and Morrison we see that some of the proof Craig uses to support his position is not from the sound explaination of his theory but the in his view the failing of other rival positions basically saying im right because this is wrong. From Hulber we see the a piece of the story in which the doctrine becomes a weapon used in the war of ideas between the Christian apologists and those opposing them, again this does not prove the validity of the doctrine and its strength is pehaps only judge by its popularity if enough people subscribe to it then it becomes the right view. This is all essentialy unknowable and the arena of understanding these concepts is confined by the human language.