ex nihilo

ex nihilo

• Belief that there was no pre-existing matter before creaton and everything had to come from God 

• The existence of the universe is down to God’s freedom, goodness and nature 

• The decision to create the world is an example of a personal God making a decision to create the world 

• Against prev theological and philosophical arguments in favour of an eternal cosmos, the Church fathers asserted the biblical doctrine of creation and in doing so they emphasised the transcendent otherness of God and the immensity of God’s power 

augustine

• ngeless and timeless God who creates out of nothing 

• Reality and act of creation is solely down to the will of god 

• God creates because he wants to, and out of goodness, not because the creative act is somehow a necessity 

• RE: time 

• If God is eternal/ unchanging, how could he suddenly decide to create? Would that not imply a change in God? 

• Augustine argues that time itself is part of creation -> before creation, time did not exist. God’s act of creating the universe was not a temporal event but an eternal expression of His will 

• God’s will is eternal -> creation was not a change in God but an expression of his eternal nature 

• Demonstrates divine omnipotence -> if he had created the world from pre-existing matter, his power would be limited by something external. 

strengths

• Upholds God’s omnipotence 

• Augustine 

• Plantiga argues that only an all-powerful God could cause reality to exist from absolute nothingness 

weaknesses

• Not logically coherent 

• Principle of ‘ex nihilo nihil fit’ (nothing comes from nothing) has been accepted by philosophers since parmenides (5^th Century) 

• Hume argues that cause and effecct require some pre-existing reality 

prob of evil

• If God created everything, must have created potential for evil 

• Unlike dualistic/ emanationist views, ex nihilo makes God fully responsible for the existence of evil 

• Mackie argues that if God is omnipotent, he could have created a world with free will but no evil 

• HOWEVER: 

• Theodicies