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Did God Create the Universe Out of Nothing? Or Something?

The third question is whether God:


It has been the universal understanding of orthodox Christianity that God created the universe from nothing, or ex nihilo, to use the classic Latin term. But this doctrine has been a focal point of much vicious attack. So let us examine the evidence for ourselves so as to better internalize it and have confidence in it. Showing that God created the universe from nothing also definitively forces a correct translation of verse 1 as was done above. That is because it is somewhat possible to translate the beginning of Genesis as “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void.” This incorrect translation implies that God started His work with some preexisting matter, but such a translation is not possible if it is shown that God did not start with any preexisting matter.


Let us first examine some other Scriptures before returning to Genesis. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3). Here we see that Jesus was and is God. Also, nothing was made except through Jesus Christ, who was in the beginning. Putting this together, we see it is through our Lord Jesus Christ that everything was made. Genesis 1:2 teaches us that the Holy Spirit was also working in creation. It would be absurd to exclude our Heavenly Father, so we can simply say that God made everything. Now, if God made everything, then before God first made something, there was nothing. Therefore, there can be no previously existing material (that God did not make) out of which God made the heavens and the earth. Nothing existed until God created it out of nothing. John’s Gospel is not the only place that teaches all things were made through our Lord Jesus. “But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:2).


“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3). Today, to our scientifically informed minds, we can think of many things that are real, but not visible. But although philosophers speculated about invisible things, they were not part of everyday experience to the ancients. This verse is difficult to unambiguously interpret and commentators are divided. But if the Greek, properly understood, does teach God did not create the universe from anything now visible, then it is evidence for creation from nothing.


Now let us return to bawraw, the Hebrew word that is translated created. We can, with profit, see how bawraw is used elsewhere in Scripture. Here are some statistics. For the full list see Appendix C.


A.

12

verses refer to God’s original creation or of the New Heavens and New Earth.

B.

14

verses refer to God’s creation of humans.

C.

10

verses refer to God creating a miracle or specific event.

D.

2

verses refer to God working spiritually in a believer.

E.

2

verses refer to routine events of God’s providence.


Let us consider now whether or not bawraw indicates that God is creating something from nothing. Remember that we are not discussing the English word create, which does not quite mean the same thing. For now, we skip A above, since that is the one in question. First, observe that everything in the list above is something only God can do. For each category, an example from Appendix C is quoted.


Category E: “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). There is a sense in which God’s creation and providence are the same kind of work of God; only the time of the event is different. The three uses of bawraw in the two verses in this category do not shed light on the present question of the meaning of bawraw. In light of this, we chose to treat category E like category A: the meaning of bawraw in these verses is yet to be determined.


Category B: “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made” (Isaiah 43:7). This verse above speaks of creation of a human, then of God forming the embryo, then growing it into a newborn baby, made in God’s image at all stages. Scripture as a whole speaks of people as individual and particular creations of God. Of the fourteen verses in this category, six of them speak of God creating particular people or groups of people in the present or future tenses; these thus refer to God creating them after the original creation of Genesis 1 and 2. Also, “Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it” (Isaiah 42:5). “Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord” (Psalm 102:18). Here we see that, in the past, God created the heavens and the earth, but presently gives spirit30 to people, and that there are people yet to be created. A human soul, once created, is eternal and will vastly outlive this universe. The soul is something mysteriously spiritual and made for God, to yearn for God, and to interact with God, not made out of any raw material from this universe, or even available within this universe. This author finds it difficult to conceive how an eternal soul that is able to dwell in Heaven can come from a finite and physical universe. By contrast, humans will receive their bodies, reconstituted glorious in Heaven, or reconstituted able to endure eternal torment in Hell without perishing. But Scripture says nothing similar regarding souls; they go directly to their eternal home. Hence, a human soul can only be created by God ex nihilo, from nothing, because there is no “something” in this universe available for the job. Passages in Category B thus use bawraw to mean to create from nothing.


Category C: “Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy” (Isaiah 4:5). Many times, when God speaks of His miraculous works, He speaks of creating some new thing or creating the miracle itself. In the passage above, similar to what He did during the Exodus sojourn, God provided a fire that burned in midair with no fuel source. Since God is, at least partly, using resources not available in the universe itself, God creates these miracles from nothing (ex nihilo). For example, there are rocks and there is water, but not significant water inside desert rocks. “‘Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.’ And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel” (Exodus 17:6). God created the water from nothing.31 Passages in Category C thus use bawraw to mean to create from nothing.


Category D: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). Finally, we come to cases when God the Holy Spirit works directly on a human soul. Just as God creates souls from nothing in this universe, so any improvements to human souls must also be from nothing (ex nihilo). The truth of this depends on the reasoning given for Category B and the fact that, if the soul is not originally created from anything available within this universe, then any improvements to the soul itself cannot be made using anything available within this universe. Passages in Category D thus use bawraw to mean to create from nothing. Of course, this does not prevent the Holy Spirit from using physical things as means of grace—for example, in the sacraments.


Thus we see that the Bible uses bawraw elsewhere to mean creation from nothing. Depending on the word under study, this type of word study can be a powerful tool, and it works well in the case of bawraw; there are many examples, the doer of the verb is always God, and the contexts are similar: supernatural works of God.32 Other passages of Scripture also support the fact that God created the universe from nothing. Thus, when bawraw is used in Genesis, chapters 1 and 2, it must mean creation from nothing.


Further, there is good evidence from the natural world to show that passages in categories A and E use bawraw to mean to create from nothing. “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6). Because God does not change, and things in the universe do change, it is clear that God is transcendent, that is, entirely separate from His creation. No part of creation is part of God and no part of God is part of His creation. So, if the universe did not come from God’s substance (for lack of a better word), from what did it come? Did the universe come from itself?


Optional Science: Albert Einstein’s famous E = mc2 teaches that energy and mass are convertible. But, as long as energy remains energy, energy is conserved; it can be changed from one form to another, but not created or destroyed. Mass (matter) is also conserved. For example, you can take a match or splinter of wood, put it in a sealed container on a sensitive scale, and ignite the wood, perhaps with an electric igniter. The scale will not move. The smoke, ash, carbon dioxide and water vapor will weigh just as much as the original wood and oxygen. This is an example of conservation of mass. A machinist, while hardening steel, can plunge a piece of orange-hot steel into a bucket of water. The steel will cool drastically, the water will warm a noticeable amount, and the temperature of the room will go up a tiny bit. But the total heat energy of the steel, water, and room will stay the same. This is an example of conservation of energy.


Apart from a work of God, the old saying is true: “You can’t get something for nothing.” A universe cannot come into existence by itself, but only by some power from outside the universe itself. Consequently, there was no preexisting “something” God could have used; God had to create the universe from nothing (ex nihilo). Humans can dig clay, make and fire bricks, and build with the bricks. But only God can create that clay out of nothing.


From all the observations above, we see that bawraw carries with it the meaning of creation from nothing (ex nihilo). We have seen for ourselves the truth of the historic teaching of orthodox Christianity: God created all things from nothing (ex nihilo), either directly or out of something God previously created from nothing.


30While the exact relationship between the human spirit and human soul is unclear, Scripture does make it clear that they are inseparably connected, unlike body and soul, which are separable. Scripture often uses spirit and soul interchangeably, but never defines their relationship. Just as head count refers to whole people with whole bodies, so a reference to spirit must also refer to the soul, or an inseparable part or aspect of the soul.

31Those who reject the supernatural will carp that the water must have come out of a previously unknown underground stream or something. But the Holy Bible says that the water came out of the rock, not a hole in the rock.

32Our word study makes a good strong case that bawraw means to create from nothing. But, as with any word study, to fully cinch the case that bawraw means to create ex nihilo requires a fair amount of additional advanced scholarly work beyond the scope of this book. Orthodox scholars who have done this work have come to the same conclusion.

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