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5) THE NATURE OF AND NATURE OF THE EARLIEST WRITINGS AGAINST CREATION FROM MATTER
In fact, the later rash of arguments IN FAVOR favor of creation from nothing near the end of the second century points to the newness of the doctrine of creation from nothing. For example,
Tertullian's tracts (he is
against creation from matter) especially adds to the evidence since his argument FOR creation from nothing was
against established beliefs
within his Church. His tract was directed against a fellow Christians and not against non-christian Platonists.
Tertullian himself concedes that creation out of nothing is not explicitly stated in the scriptures, but merely asserts that since it is not denied either, the silence on the matter implies that God does have the power to create ex nihilo, since (for him), it seemed more logical.
There was a time however when the idea of a creation ex nihilo was being discussed in Christian intellectual circles. For example,
Clement of Alexandria himself seems aware of the difference between an absolute creation out of nothing and creation out of primal matter in at least one passage (where he does not view it as crucial to orthodoxy). But in his
"Hymn to the Paedogogus" he clearly favors the view of creation from preexistent material:
O King. . . .Maker of all,
who heaven and heaven's adornment by the Divine Word
alone didst make;. . . according to a well-ordered plan;
out of a confused heap who didst create
This ordered sphere,
and from the shapeless mass of matter
didst the universe adorn. . . .
Eusebius says (in trying to discourage the doctrine of creation from matter) that it is unholy to say that matter is unbegotten or was only organized at the creation.
Notice the preaching he was trying to stop - that matter was not created and was only organized at the creation. It wasn't created out of nothing; it was organized.
He says that's what the early church taught, (but
HE felt it was wrong to say this and was trying to stamp out the doctrine).
Plato's Demiurge, (which remarkably resembles the "Word" (logos) in John 1:1-14), was the maker of the world (
but even Plato's Demiurge created the world out of preexistent eternal material). (Timaeus 27d-29e, 53a-56c)
Athenagoras, in his earlier Plea for the Christians to Marcus Aurelius and Commodus
still taught a creation by God from preexisting matter, on the analogy of a potter and his clay. He explicitly states God as an artificer (demiourgos) requires matter.
Justin describes God's creative role to be that of
a giver of forms and shapes to matter already present seems so natural to him that the idea of creation from pre-existing matter that he seems never to have regarded it as a problem.
Origen (who DID, initially believe in ex-nihilo) later teaching against it admits that it WAS taught at the Christian school in alexandria at an earlier time by earlier and distinguished christians. Origen, (First Principles 2.1.4), expressed his surprise that
"So many distinguished men" have believed in uncreated matter.
Thomas rogers (In Milton's De Doctrina Christiana), notes that the Great
Milton, (who knew Hebrew and things Jewish), reasons that
neither the Hebrew, nor the Greek, nor yet the Latin verb for create can possibly signify "create out of nothing" (Christian Doctrine , 975-76).
The concept of “creation from nothing” seems to be introduced in bits and pieces in the second century and the campaign for the doctrine to achieve pre-eminence over doctrine from matter achieves more popularity from that time onward.
I think that Sorabji and Winston were correct; that the evolution toward the adoption of Ex Nihilo was used partly as a premise to avoid the taint of
”cosmism” (which the Gods in surrounding religions were subject to) (i.e. the idea that God worked with matter, processed it, adapted it, and used it as a workman, and artisan).
What marks the fourth century, as
Alfoldi puts it, is
"the victory of abstract ways of thinking-the universal triumph of theory, which knows no half measures. The Gnostic idea of the body as a prison is entirely at home with the doctors of the church. They love it because matter is vile."
Groucho Marx (paraphrasing) joked that :
“I wouldn’t join any club which would consider a person like me for membership.” In strange logic, I wonder if people don’t tell themselves “
I can’t possibly believe in any sort of God that can be understood.” and thus pile mystery upon mystery onto their definition of God (and spirit, and matter) until they truly believe such things cannot BE understood.
I believe that the historians are correct regarding the great motive behind ex-nihilo was the neo-platonic philosophy that matter was
too vulgar and
too common for a
“great” and “extraordinary” God to simply USE and MANIPULATE. Ex-nihilo elevated him to a God that NOW, can create something out of nothing, as though such an embellishment somehow made him greater than he was. Just as children brag “My dad can beat up your dad”, the christians wanted a reason to claim “My God is better than your God. Mine doesn’t need matter to create”. (Whereas the other Gods
did because their traditions had them creating out of matter.
This eschewing of association of God and matter continues in our days. for example; The Great Jesuit
H.A. Brongers says that God “
just thinks” and all is there at once (forgetting the “process” of creation that took TIME”
. He claims that the idea of God
working matter, using something already there is horrifying because that deprives him of all his divinity (Though no one explains just HOW that logic works...). His explanation is that “It involves him with the physical world”. So what? Whether ex-nihilo, or from matter, God
IS involved with the physical world that he made and placed us in.
6) CONSIDERATION OF EX-NIHILO AS A RATIONAL ARGUMENT
Regarding ex-nihilo,
there can be no appeal upon purely rational grounds. Ex Nihilo would be debatable were there in existence a self-evident
maxim that all things were created out of nothing; but no such proposition was ever defended as a self-evident truth. It owes its origin purely to
religious influences rather than any scientific or geological influence.
Any an attempt to support ex nihilo by appeal to the
rationality of this principle amounts simply to a question of the rational faculties of mankind in forming rational judgments. Creation from nothing on a purely rational basis denies the correctness of intuitive convictions and demolishes all criteria for judging between the right and the wrong
My point is that the early Judeo-Christians did not take the position that all material things were created "out of
nothing", but they, like modern scientists claim, believed that material things were made of material. Matter.
Though I think you are doing a wonderful job of making some logical and rational points (others, not so good...), I do not think the specific point that the material world was created out of "nothing" is logical or rational and, historically, the Judeo-Christians did not accept this theory as their base belief, but this was a later theory, and, whether one grew up in the early period where the world was felt to be created from matter, or in the later christianity which adopted a creation from "nothing", was somewhat itself arbitrary.
At any rate, I wish you good luck in your journey robin1.
Clear
φυνεφυφυφυω
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