Belief in the creation of the world by God, based on the Bible, encompasses a wide range of theological concepts concerning the question of how exactly the world was created.
Concepts of What the World Was Made From
Historically, Jewish and Christian spiritual traditions have had several understandings of what the world was made from.
Creation from Nothing
Belief in the creation of the world by God from nothing (Latin: “ex nihilo,” Greek: “ex ouk onton,” Slavic: “from those who beget”) is the fundamental doctrine of creation in traditional Christian theology. This teaching is based on the text of the Second Book of Maccabees, which is one of the deuterocanonical books of the Bible (included in the biblical canon accepted by Orthodoxy and Catholicism, but not by Judaism and Protestantism), which states:
“I beseech you, my child, look at the heavens and the earth, and seeing all that is in them, know that God created all things out of nothing, and so the human race came into being” (2 Maccabees 7:28).
Although nowhere else in the Bible is there such a direct statement about the creation of the world out of nothing, Christian theologians have accepted and developed this teaching as one of the fundamental truths of the faith [God creates the world “out of nothing” // Catechism of the Catholic Church].
Thus, Saint Theophilus of Antioch criticizes various non-Christian philosophical concepts current in his time, mentioning, in particular, the teachings of Plato:
“Plato and his followers acknowledge God as having no beginning, the father and creator of all things, but then they assume that God and matter also have no beginning, and that matter is coeternal with God. If God has no beginning and matter also has no beginning, then God is no longer the creator of everything, as the Platonists maintain, and God’s sovereignty, as they assume, no longer holds. <…> What great thing is it if God created the world from the matter that underlies it? And the human artist, if he receives matter from someone, makes of it whatever he wishes. This is the power of God: He creates whatever He wishes from nothing, just as the ability to give soul and movement is inherent in no one except God”[Saint Theophilus of Antioch. Epistle to Autolycus 2:4].
Saint Basil the Great also rejects the concepts of creation accepted in ancient Greek philosophy:
“Since each of our arts works with the same substance separately, for example: blacksmithing with iron, carpentry with wood. Since in these arts the matter is one thing, the form another, and what is created by the form is another, and the substance is taken from without, the form is created by art, and the work consists of form and matter, they reason similarly about God’s creation: form was given to the world by the wisdom of the Creator of all things, but the Creator had substance from without, and a composite world arose, which receives its matter and essence from another source, but received its form and appearance from God.” “They therefore deny that the great God has absolute power in the arrangement of all things, but represent Him as a participant in a collective effort and as having contributed only a small part of Himself to the existence of beings. <…> But God, before anything now visible existed, having conceived in His mind and striving to create that which did not exist, also conceived what the world should be like, and created matter corresponding to the form of the world” [Basil the Great. Sermons on the Hexameron. Sermons 2 // Works of the Holy Father Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea and Cappadocia. Part 1. – Moscow, 1891. – Pp. 5-149].
Although belief in the creation of the world by God out of nothing is an integral part of traditional church dogmatic theology, it is not considered obligatory in other monotheistic religions (Judaism and Islam). Thus, in Judaism, the doctrine of creation from nothing became firmly established only in the 11th century, thanks to the efforts of the famous Jewish theologian Maimonides. In the Talmud, in addition to the idea of creation from nothing, there are also other concepts of the origin of the world [Priest Oleg Davydenkov. Dogmatic Theology. Part Three. On God in His Relationship to the World and Man. Section I. God as the Creator and Provider of the World]. The modern Jewish theologian Isiodorus Epstein asserts:
“The question of whether the world arose ex nihilo (from nothing) or from some pre-existing substance is essentially a matter of philosophy and has no direct relation to Judaism. In its doctrine of creation, Judaism merely emphasizes that the universe and everything in it is not a blind coincidence, not the result of an arbitrary combination of atoms, but the creation of God” [Isiodorus Epstein. Chapter 14. The Judaism of the Talmud // Judaism. — Used edition. — 2004].
Creation from Matter
Jewish and Christian theology also hold concepts of God’s creation of the world from matter. These concepts are theologically based on the first verse of Genesis (called the Prologue), which in the Synodal translation reads:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:1-2).
According to a number of scholars, this original text allows for various translations and understandings of its meaning. In addition to the previously mentioned version, “In the beginning God created,” another version with a different meaning is “When God began to create,” implying creation from existing material.[Michael David Coogan, Marc Zvi Brettler, Carol Ann Newsom, Pheme Perkins. The new Oxford annotated Bible. — Oxford University Press, 2001. — P. 11. — ISBN 019528478X, 9780195284782].
This version, in particular, has become widely known in English thanks to the translation by the Jewish Publication Society (English)Russian, in which the Prologue is part of a sentence describing the time period when God began creation:
“When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth was welter and waste, and darkness was over the deep, and God’s breath hovered over the waters, God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light…”
Theories about the creation of the world from existing matter developed historically within ancient Greek philosophy. Jewish thinkers acknowledged the consistency of biblical accounts of creation with this theory. For example, Philo of Alexandria developed a concept of creation based on Plato’s teachings, from which he eliminated the assertion of eternally pre-existent matter. According to Philo, God first created primordial matter, and then the world from it. Another, later Jewish thinker, Gersonides, adhered to Aristotle’s philosophy and believed that God created the world from eternal, formless matter. Gersonides believed that the doctrine of eternal, formless matter is contained in the Torah. Another Jewish thinker, Abraham Ibn Ezra, leaning toward Neoplatonic emanation (see below), completely rejected the idea of the beginning of the world in time. He believes that the resolution of the contradiction between the traditional understanding of the Bible on creation and the idea of the eternity of the world may be contained in the doctrine of God’s eternal, continuous creation of many worlds, which already exists in Talmudic literature. [cf. Cosmogony in Jewish Philosophy of the Hellenistic and Medieval Periods // Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia]
Some modern Jewish authors see in this doctrine of God’s eternal creation of worlds a possible connection with the theory of evolution. Thus, Pinchas Polonsky, expounding on the Midrashic idea, reflected in Kabbalah, that during the creation of the world, God “created worlds and destroyed them, and then on their ruins created new ones,” asserts that this concept of “the creation of new worlds from the fragments of old ones” is one of the classic ideas of Judaism, and further notes:
1. “In this regard, Darwin’s evolutionary theory of the development of the world … was assessed by some Kabbalists … as being closest to the Jewish tradition. According to Jewish Kabbalistic views, some evolution undoubtedly occurred in the world—but it certainly did not occur through Darwinian “natural selection” or “the ability to survive.” It was, according to the Jewish viewpoint, the materialization and realization of spiritual potentials inherent in the upper worlds. Therefore, when we excavate and find the remains of various animals, and when we extrapolate into the past, we obtain billions of years, it is entirely possible that what we observe are the ruins of worlds that the Almighty destroyed in order to build our world today from their fragments.” [Pinchas Polonsky. The Kabbalistic Concept of Evolution // Two Stories of Creation, Chapter]
In our time, many theologians, both Jewish and Christian, attempt to combine the concept of creation from nothing with the concept of creation from matter, using scientific data on the evolution of the universe. They believe that the creation of the world from nothing is comparable to the Big Bang, which gave rise to the universe, after which it develops from existing matter.[For example: Catechism of Creation Part II: Creation and Science // “Catechism of Creation” of the Episcopal Church in the USA]
Believers who support evolutionism adhere to the position that the creation of the world represents a gradual development of matter according to God’s plan and with God’s direct intervention at certain key moments (such as the creation of the living from the non-living or of Homo sapiens from humanoid animal ancestors)[Fr. Alexander Men. Creation, Evolution, Man // History of Religion : In Search of the Path, Truth, and Life. Moscow: Slovo, 1991. Vol. I. The Origins of Religion. ISBN 5-85050-281-5].
Most Christian evolutionists, however, continue to believe, in accordance with traditional church doctrine, that matter itself is not beginningless, but was created by God out of nothing.
Some Christian theologians, however, such as Thomas Jay Urd, believe that Christians should reject the doctrine of creation out of nothing. Urd cites the work of scholars such as Jewish studies professor Jon Levenson, who argue that the doctrine of creation out of nothing does not derive from the creation story in Genesis. Urd proposes that God created the universe billions of years ago from chaotic elements. Urd proposes the view that God creates everything without creating from complete nothingness. [Catherine Keller. Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming. — Routledge, 2003. — P. 240. — ISBN 0415256496, 9780415256490]
Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith rejected the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, introducing certain revelations that countered this doctrine.[Doctrine and Covenants 93:29, Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8, Abraham 3:24 // The Official Scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that matter is eternal, infinite, and can neither be created nor destroyed.[Creation/Creatio ex nihilo // FAIR: Defending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1997]
Such ideas about the eternity of matter have almost never been expressed in traditional Christian theology. Although the outstanding Catholic theologian, proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, who adapted Aristotle’s philosophy to the needs of Christian theology, believed that the idea of an eternal universe does not contradict the correct understanding of creation, since creation means, first of all, the dependence of the created on the Creator, therefore the eternally existing world needs God just as much as the finite world does[J. M. Aubert. Recherche scientifique et foi chretienne. – Paris, 1964. – P. 88-89].
Illustration: God creating fish and birds. Miniature from the so-called “The Book of Hours of Joseph Bonaparte” ca. 1415 // BnF, Latin 10538, Heures dites de Joseph Bonaparte, XV e siècle, f. 274v.
