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The Christian Rejection of Uncreated Matter
…if a mortal king builds a palace in a place where there had been sewers, garbage, and junk, will not whoever may come and say, ‘This palace is built on a place where there were sewers, garbage and junk,' give offense? So too, will not whoever comes and says, ‘This world was created out of chaos, emptiness, and darkness' give offense?
Genesis Rabbah I.V.I
Orthodoxy includes and guarantees incalculable values which man could not possibly draw out of himself.
Frithjof Schuon, Spiritual Perspectives & Human Facts, p. 118.
The Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo reached its traditional form in the treatise Adversus haereses (Against Heresies) written between 180 and 199 CE by St Irenaeus and builds upon the earlier work of Tatian and Theophilus of Antioch. By the beginning of the third century CE, creatio ex nihilo was “regarded as a fundamental tenet of Christian theology.” [1] St Irenaeus developed the doctrine in a polemical context, setting it against two Hellenic cosmogonies, the philosophers who developed them and the gnostics who adopted them. [2] The first of these cosmogonies claims that uncreated matter forms the Substance of Creation [3] and the second that the creation comes to be through a process of emanations from the Divine itself. Some study has been undertaken by traditionalists on the complementary nature of ex nihilo and emanationist cosmogonies [4] and this article is not intended to rehearse or elaborate these discussions. Our task is to consider the rejection of the idea of creation from uncreated matter by the orthodox Christian Churches universally. In other words, we seek to answer, in part, the question ‘ Why, for the Christian, is creatio ex nihilo the best expression of the Cosmogony? ' and to do so in terms of the internal harmony of Christian doctrines and their salvific core.
The importance of the cosmogonic Act lies in its causal determination of the created order, as a centre determines a circumference. This establishes the relationship between Creator and Creature and by extension all subsequent cosmological, soteriological and eschatological truth – indeed, all aspects of the relationship between God and man. We can go further than this: the creative work, the sustaining work, the saving work and the Final work are one and the same Divine Act considered from different perspectives; “God spoke but once. His utterance is but one.” [5] Christianity emphasises salvation, or union, but the Logos is Creator (Jn 1:3), Sustainer/Legislator (Deut. 8:3/Heb 1:3), and Final Judge (2 Tim. 4:1) as well as Saviour. As Pantocrator, Christ rules over all aspects of manifestation.
The Christian Saviour is the Christian Creator: the two roles are aspects of one and the same thing. The Annunciation and Nativity of Christ, the saving Incarnation, must be considered a cosmogonic account. In Genesis , God creates the macrocosm and ‘crowns' it with Adam, the human microcosm; an internal world that complements and reflects the external. In the Incarnation, Christ Himself is the microcosm and returns humanity to its normative and divinised state. By His advent the macrocosm is re-created in His image. “Where time never entered, where no image ever shone in, in the inmost and highest part of the soul, God is creating the whole world.” [6] The First Adam is fitted for the Garden, the Creation, but in the New Creation the inverse is true: the cosmos is re-created for and through the Second Adam who is revealed as both microcosm and macrocosm, and transcends both.
To ask ‘ how did God create the world? ' is also to ask ‘ Who am I as a created human being and who is my Creator? ', ‘ What is my relationship to my Creator? ' and ‘ What does it mean to be saved? ' The answers to these questions lie beyond words. As a result theology, in seeking to speak the silence, is a delicate construct. To be efficacious its threads must possess an overall self-consistency and paradox from which a fabric greater than the words or concepts articulated emerges. This prompts an intellective knowledge beyond knowledge – gnosis – that, as Plato describes, “suddenly, like a blaze kindled by a leaping spark, …is generated in the soul and at once becomes self-sustaining.” [7] This gnosis both passes beyond the limitations of doctrine and affirms the efficacy of doctrinal symbolism. Indeed, the gnostic sees most clearly the fullness of doctrinal, liturgical and sacramental expressions. Disputes over points of doctrine [8] take on a profound import because what is at stake is the symbolic and pedagogical efficacy of doctrine as a whole, without which it could not constitute a spiritual path. [9]
The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is not Scriptural: “…this conception has nothing to support it in the Gospels – it is not a datum of Revelation.” [10] An ambiguous reference in Paul's Letter to the Romans (4:17) is the only New Testament reference. At best, the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo can be considered implicit in Scripture, but not explicit. The Koran, by contrast, is much clearer on this point: “ The Originator of the heavens and the earth! When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! (kun) and it is ” (2:117).
The cosmogonic account of Genesis is also ambiguous. Goldstein observes that “medieval Jewish thinkers still held that the account of creation in Genesis could be interpreted to mean that God created from pre-existing formless matter and ancient Jewish texts state that he did so.” [11] The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon states that God “ created the world out of formless matter ( ex amorphou hules )” ( Wis. 11:17). In fact, the Hebrew Scriptures support a plurality of cosmogonic teachings. [12] St Justin Martyr claims “…we have been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man's sake, create all things out of unformed matter ( ex amorphou hules );” [13] and so far as the Greek cosmogonies are concerned, he writes: “…it was from our teachers – we mean the account given through the prophets – that Plato borrowed his statement that God, having altered matter which was shapeless, made the world”. [14] Justin goes on to quote Genesis 1:1-2 to illustrate a creation from formless matter and such a reading is easily supported by the Septuagint text.
Origen believed that 2 Maccabees clearly taught creatio ex nihilo. [15] It reads:
I beseech thee, my child, to lift thine eyes unto the heaven and the earth, and to see all things that are therein, and thus to recognise that God made them from non-existent things… (ex ouk onton) (2 Macc. 7:28). [16]
We have this book only in Greek manuscripts and the meaning of ex ouk onton ( or ouk ex onton in some manuscripts) is ambiguous. “Indeed the Platonists called pre-existent matter ‘the non-existent [ to me on ]'.” [17] Goldstein observes that the Greek could be interpreted to refer to creatio ex nihilo or equally to mean that the world and its creatures had no existence “as such, but only as pre-existent matter.” [18] O'Niell states that “the key difficulty in understanding 2 Macc. 7:28 is the preposition ek . Once a writer about God as Creator used the word ek , the possibility that the ek implied some pre-existent stuff seems impossible to exclude.” [19] Clement of Alexandria writes:
…the philosophers, the Stoics, and Plato, and Pythagoras, nay more, Aristotle the Peripatetic, suppose the existence of matter among the first principles; and not one first principle. Let them then know that what is called matter by them, is said by them to be without quality, and without form, and more daringly said by Plato to be non-existence (to me on). [20]
Nevertheless, Origen felt obliged to state that “the view of those who hold matter itself to be uncreated, [is] a view which we believers cannot share”. [21] For St Thomas Aquinas, the creation of the world out of nothing is a matter of faith alone, and inaccessible by any other means. [22] There is, in other words, no unambiguous imperative for Christianity to insist exclusively on the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo and reject uncreated matter. Neither Scripture, Jewish precedent nor the Greek philosophy incorporated into Christian theology made such demands. Judaism seemed able to maintain God as sole creator and first principle without demanding doctrinal exclusivity in cosmogony. Platonists also accepted both of these divine attributes “yet adhered stubbornly to the doctrine of creation from pre-existent matter.” [23]
To say ‘Christian' is to say ‘Trinitarian' and ‘Incarnational.' The Christian understanding of the divine nihil and salvation is based upon these dogmas. [24] Before continuing, then, it is useful to explore the Christian understanding of Christ's creative function and the place of the Trinity in this dispensation. Christ performs the two-fold Demiurgic function as both Purusha /vertical/essential/masculine and Prakrti /horizontal/substantial/feminine. [25] Here we are reminded, irresistibly, of the two-fold Person of Christ. But this function does not exhaust His essence ( ousia ). His essence is the Absolute essence of the Triune God. Similarly, Christ's legislative, judicial and salvific functions do not exhaust His essence, either individually or collectively. Christian metaphysics does not readily accept the notion of a distinct Demiurge, which allows (but does not necessitate) an understanding that the Demiurge creates without reference to the Highest Good, [26] or that the Creator God is evil – as it does for the heretical gnostics. However Orthodox theology does make the provisional distinction between the essence of God and the uncreated energies ( dunameis ). This distinction made, however, the essence is considered to be energetic and the energies essential and both essence and energies are Trinitarian. [27] It is through His energies that He acts and the Demiurgic activity does not, therefore, circumscribe His essence in any way. When describing the structure of Reality the Christian emphasis is placed on essential identity not existential separation and this is in keeping with the Christian emphasis on salvation or theosis .
“ All things were made through ( dia ) him; and separate from him was not any thing made that was made ”( Jn 1:3). [28] By ‘through him,' John's Gospel both affirms Christ's distinct Demiurgic function but also points to the pure Absolute as the ultimate Origin of Creation. As Schuon states, the “‘pure Absolute'… determines M a y a …” and “ M a y a determines God, the creative Person; without whom there could be no creation.” [29] Being (Demiurge) is determined and this makes it separate from Beyond-Being (pure Absolute), but from the monistic premise that “There is no Reality but The Reality” it must be understood that the Demiurge cannot be other than Beyond-Being. It is rather the Absolute considered in the relation of the Relative to it. The distinction, therefore, is both real in one sense and unreal in another. Martin Lings has recently stated that distinctions are
undifferentiated in the Absolute Oneness of the Essence which nonetheless allows differences to retain their full scope, mentally a contradiction in terms but in the Heart an aspect of what Sufism calls ‘the union of opposites', the grasping of which is a condition of grasping the Truth. [30]
This also seems to be the guiding metaphysical principle behind the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine affirms that “the distinction between Beyond-Being and Being is a distinction in fact in divinis …”. [31] It is, ultimately, an illusory distinction; there cannot be Being that is not Beyond-Being; Cutsinger writes that “there cannot be simply this and that. Allowance must be made for this to be in that, and for that to be in this.” [32] The Trinitarian hypostases are utterly essential and yet distinct from the essence. [33] The hypostases are distinct from each other yet each is the other two without distinction. Indeed, Lossky notes that the terms ousia and hupostasis were virtually synonymous (the former a technical philosophical term and the latter a popular term adopted by the Stoics). [34] Thus Christianity affirms that there is multiplicity in unity and unity in multiplicity, and in doing so states clearly the unlimitedness of the Absolute, beyond both the distinction of ‘one' and that of ‘many' – for God is not determined by such attributes. ‘Three' expresses both multiplicity and, according to the sacred and qualitative mathematics of the Greeks, is a return to ‘one.' The highest Christian vision could not be otherwise. The nihil of the Demiurge is ‘determined' by and not other than the nihil of the Absolute, which is the Origin and the Supreme beyond-thingness and Christians look through Being (“I am the door”, said Christ) to the Absolute Source. St Paul writes:
But to us there is but one (heis) God, the Father, out of (ek) whom are all things, and we into (eis) him [return]; and one (heis) Lord Jesus Christ, through (dia) whom are all things, and we through (dia) him [return]. ( 1 Cor 8:6) [35]
This Source is, however, not other than the door; it is the door considered in its inalienable and ineffable Plenitude.
The doctrines of creatio ex nihilo and uncreated matter converge from a super-ontological perspective. The nihil of the orthodox formulation points apophatically to super-ontological beyond-ness – ousia or huperousia – to the Absolute that – being beyond all categories – is beyond the category of ‘thing' and expressible as no-thing, nihil . The Substance of Creation, then, is the Essence of God. This is the perspective taken by the apophatic theologians of the Christian Tradition. It has recently been reiterated in its explicitly Christian context by Philip Sherrard [36] and in principle by Frithjof Schuon. [37]
Similarly, the doctrine of eternal uncreated matter can be understood to refer to a Divine Origin considered kataphatically as cosmic foundation. Clement of Alexandria understands it in this way and writes sympathetically of the doctrine: [38]
[Plato] not only showed that the universe was created, but points out that it was generated by him as a son, and that he is called its father, as deriving its being from him alone, and springing from non-existence . [39]
From this perspective the uncreated matter, materia prima , is not itself matter but Substance – the non-manifest and divine principle of manifestation. It is Essence considered as Substance, [40] the two being one and the same. ‘Matter' is eternal in its principle ( materia prima ) because that principle is the Absolute considered from the perspective of immanence. It is eternal and uncreated because the Absolute is eternal and uncreated and it is eternally Substance because the Absolute admits of no mutability or privation.
As descriptions of super-ontological origin and essential divine identity both doctrines are satisfactory. Sherrard says that the expression nihil
…denotes the absence of all space, time and matter, or of everything extended in space and time – the absence, that is to say, of all that can be called a ‘thing'. … It refers to that in God which is free from all form, material or non-material, and which to us presents no identity because it is beyond the capacity of our minds to grasp it. …[It is] the pre-ontological ‘nihil' from which all things proceed . [41]
The notion of uncreated matter expresses the same truth in kataphatic terms. What is described in both doctrines is the Essential Identity between the Absolute and the Relative, the Relative that can be nothing other than the Absolute and, so to speak, only relatively Relative.
Each of these doctrines is capable of fulfilling the pedagogical needs of Christianity from the perspective of essential identity and continuity with God. Indeed, in this respect they are complementary, creatio ex nihilo provides an apophatic way and the eternity of matter a kataphatic way. In fact, because of its kataphatic language the doctrine of uncreated matter states more clearly than ex nihilo the immanent presence of the Absolute in the Relative. God as ‘Matter' makes that presence concrete and unmistakable. So why is the doctrine unsatisfactory for Christians?
Like all religions, Christianity provides a formal and symbolic environment capable of sustaining the exoteric as well as the esoteric worshipper, and suitable for the practitioners of, to use a Hindu term, different yogas . This necessitates doctrines and symbols that act and interact harmoniously and on many different levels; ‘multivalently' as Marco Pallis put it. [42] It is not sufficient that a doctrine or symbol be adequate and efficacious from a single perspective. It must be intelligible from several perspectives and to each according to his or her natural ability to penetrate, more or less deeply, into the rarefied and super-rational Truth. This is the ‘natural esoterism' that Guénon observes in Hinduism. [43]
Having explored the agreement of the doctrines from the perspective of Essential Identity we must also consider their implications from an ontological perspective that contemplates the realm of dualistic distinctions and views the created order from the perspective of its ‘fallenness;' the perspective of ontological discontinuity and existential separation. A religion must provide each perspective – essential identity and existential separation, continuity and discontinuity – in equilibrium. “God is… at the same time totally inaccessible and really communicable to created beings; neither of the terms of this antinomy excluded or minimised in any way.” [44] “ I am He and He is I, except that I am what I am, and He is what He is” says the Prophet Muhammad. [45] Failure to maintain this equilibrium leads to errors that are, properly speaking, satanic.
* * * * *
From this perspective, the first and most oft considered objection to uncreated matter is that it presents a rival to the sole sovereignty of God. If matter is uncreated, pre-existing the creation, then there are two Absolute Principles and a dualistic metaphysic results. Uncreated matter presents
…a distinct and independent substance in its own right, over which God may exercise His power but which has no inner roots in His own Being. Yet if this is the case, God is not infinite: there is another substance in the universe by which His infinity is limited . [46]
Affirming a second Absolute principle limits the infinitude of God. St Irenaeus writes,
[Those who] do not believe that God (being powerful, and rich in all resources) created matter itself… know not how much a spiritual and divine essence can accomplish . [47]
We find a hint of this in Hebrew mythology: “The sea resisted God's creative work, so that He had to use force against it [see Job 26:12].” [48] While God's power is such that the uncreated sea could not overcome the Divine Will, it nevertheless tried and continues to try – it must continually be held in check. The sea's resistance indicates that its nature is not in conformity with the Divine Nature; it is an independent principle in its own right. It cannot be destroyed or changed, only partially controlled and shaped. While this affirms the Power of the Creator God in one way, in another and more important sense it denies him the Power to create self-subsistently. God cannot be self-subsistent and omnipotent if he requires something outside of Himself for His creative activity.
Athenagoras explains the theodicy implied in such a cosmogony. He notes that such a dualistic cosmology explains the disequilibrium of the cosmos – the presence of evil – as the result of the incommensurable nature of the two underlying principles of creation; the evil substance and the good workman. Created things are not in complete conformity with the divine will because their composite nature is “in accordance with the tendency of matter on one hand, and of the affinity of divine things on the other…”. [49] Evil is the result of matter's natural, essential and eternal resistance and exists because the good Absolute principle can only partially overcomes the other. An hierarchy of Power results, but the two remain ontologically equal and incommensurable. In such a dualism, evil has a positive ontological status and this too is at odds with the Christian notion of evil as privation and the result of misdirected human will, not inalienable nature.
* * * * *
To say that God's ability to order the cosmos is mitigated by the intractable nature of that uncreated other substance, and that this is the cause of evil, is to also prescribe a limit to Divine Providence. To posit a substance apart from God is to “either disallow or enfeeble the action of providence…”. [50] This composite Creation (which, for Aristotle, is the sublunar sphere) is “devoid of foresight, guideless, and is under the sway of that nature alone which belongs to itself” while, in contrast, that which is free from intractable matter (Aristotle's super-lunar spheres) are “arranged in the midst of all order and foresight and governance.” [51] All of this establishes limits upon God's ability to accomplish His Will and while it provides a theodicy that explains chaotic and unjust phenomena, Christianity must take a different path to answer this problem.
These dilemmas are recognised by those Christians (Tatian, [52] Theophilus of Antioch [53] and St Augustine [54] ) who do champion pre-existent matter. They claim that pre-existent matter was itself created by God. In doing so they seem to maintain both doctrines, and Scripture supports such a reading. However, by their redefinition pre-existent matter is no longer uncreated or Absolute. Is short, it is no longer the doctrine in question. It is instead merely an elaboration of the process of Creation over the six primordial days within the boundaries set by the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo . The doctrine of uncreated matter has been gutted and to say that these Christians ‘rescued it' is revisionistic.
To understand ‘the deep' of Genesis as a second uncreated Absolute principle is to abandon the unique sovereign Majesty and providential Power of Reality, which alone Is. The reflections above have important implications for the Christian understanding of salvation and it is to this issue than our attention must now turn.
Salvation properly understood is the union between Creator and Creature. [55] This is accomplished in Christianity by the inner union of the two in the person of Christ. This is to say that it is Incarnational. The soteriological union encompasses the whole of Creation – ‘gathered up' into the mystic in a Restoration to the primordial and unitive state. This union is complete and includes the created psychic and material elements, which are transfigured: not annihilated but rather returned to their pristine and primordial state. [56] This is the experience of St Simeon the New Theologian who described mystical union with God thus:
Suddenly God came, and united Himself to me in a manner quite ineffable. Without any ‘confusion of persons' He entered into every part of my being, as fire penetrates iron, or light streams through glass . [57]
He explains:
Man is united to God spiritually and corporeally, for his soul is in no way separated from the spirit, nor the body from the soul. God enters into union with the whole man . [58]
This is an experience verified, so to speak, in the dogmatic Christian doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation. The hypostases or Persons of the Trinity are united ‘indivisibly but without confusion,' as are the created and uncreated natures of Christ. The Christian who enters into the Divine Unity realises identity with the Divine Logos , and through Him the Trinity, and at the same time is transfigured into an individualised and particularised expression of that Logos , fitted for God's theurgic work.
Christianity describes the Being of an unregenerate (or degenerate) creature as (apophatically) non-existent or (kataphatically) ‘other than' God. The Being of the regenerate or reborn creature is the Being of God. This regenerating Gift is described in temporal terms: previously the person lacked Being, lacked true existence, lacked spiritual integrity, then he or she did not. This change is wrought by the ‘descent of the Holy Spirit', which is outwardly manifest and sealed in the theurgic work undertaken in the ritual of Baptism. This is the gift of Grace, the gift of ‘new life', the gift of Being which transfigures its recipients into ‘adopted sons and co-heirs;' partakers of Divine Plenitude.
Of course Being could never be lacking from any creature: without it no creature could exist. “The Holy Spirit”, writes St Maximus the Confessor “is not absent from any created being…” [59] However the realisation (from the perspective of gnosis ) and actualisation (in terms of praxis ) of the inalienable and uncreated Divine Self in the alienated and created human person does occur in time. Transfiguration, then, is not a change in any absolute sense. On Mount Tabor, Christ “does not become something which previously He had not been; He simply shows forth what He always is. And what He shows forth is what man is in his pre-fallen, or natural and normative state.” [60] Christianity describes this temporal realisation, really an epistemological change, as ontological. In doing so it emphasises the importance of this Gift. One may have an inalienable Divine Identity, but without realising and actualising this Identity, one is nothing; salvation, or union, has not been achieved.
This Gift of Supreme Identity incorporates all of the integral human being and all elements of the creation and in no way violates or annihilates that integrity. This ontological gift of Grace does not replace or displace any positive element of the human being but, so to speak, fills a vacuum. It provides ‘Being' where previously there was nothing.
You should know, God cannot leave anything void or unfilled, God and nature cannot endure that anything should be empty or void. And so, even if you think you can't feel Him and are wholly empty of Him, that is not the case. For if there were anything empty under heaven, whatever it might be, great or small, the heavens would either draw it up to themselves or else, bending down, would have to fill it with themselves. [61]
* * * * *
From the perspective of ontological discontinuity – or existential separation – between Creation and Creator each doctrine ( creatio ex nihilo and uncreated matter) expresses the distinction between God and creature. Again, creatio ex nihilo does this apophatically and uncreated matter kataphatically. The notion of uncreated matter says of the Substance of Creation, ‘It is not God – it is another thing. It has an actual and positive ontological existence, it is eternal and eternally other .' Ex nihilo says of the Substance of Creation, ‘It is not' and in an apophatic silence says nothing more. It gives no actual, eternal existence to an uncreated ‘other'. The nihil “…possesses no substantive existence and so cannot be invoked as positing a reality outside or independent of God, or in any way implying that His infinitude is limited.” [62] In fact, it gives it no determination whatsoever.
If the ‘otherness' of the Substance of Creation is an actual, positive, determined, eternal and essential quality of that Substance, then Creation and the human being as the crown of that creation could never be united to God in the fullness of the soteriological promise in which the integral identity of the Substance of creation is preserved. Between the uncreated Creator as Essence and uncreated matter as Substance there could be no commensurability, no ‘meeting' or cruciform locus which is the divinised human being. Plotinus sees this same dilemma (but in a different context; to explain the inclusive nature of the One): “And what, of a Nature contrary to its own, could enter into it when it is (the Supreme and therefore) immune [to change]?” [63] The salvific act would end where matter begins; God's power could go no further: He could not enter into it and it could not enter into Him.
The cosmogonic teachings of the Greek philosophical tradition and the ‘heretical' gnostics, where we do find the doctrine of uncreated matter in its natural context, culminate in a vision of contemplative liberation that, with Socrates, states:
We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things in isolation with the soul in isolation. [64]
This matter, this body, must be escaped. Christianity says that one must be saved from the privative modes of fallen matter (and psyche ). But matter (and psyche ) as such ‘are good'; fallenness, otherness is an accidental quality. [65] On the basis of the Trinitarian and Incarnational mysteries, a union with God that does not include the entirety of the human being is unacceptable and any doctrine that includes such an omission is thereby difficult to harmonise with the Christian promise. Meister Eckhart writes: “…having all things as well as God is nothing other than having God alone… Therefore, receive God in all things, and that will be a sign that he has given birth to you as his only begotten Son, no less.” [66] In fact, Goldstein claims that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo was formulated to defend the belief in bodily resurrection [67] and goes on to demonstrate the historical relationship between these two doctrines. While Goldstein's conclusion is reductionistic and fails to do justice to the doctrine's real value, the connection he sees between these two doctrines is in itself quite informative. It affirms the Infinitude of God's providential Power and the place of this Providence in salvation.
The orthodox doctrine of creatio ex nihilo posits no actual or independent ontological integrity for the Creation. Ex nihilo maintains that, in its fallen state of existential otherness from God, the Creation is sustained utterly by His Mercy alone. [68] It is without immutable eternal Substance and entirely and continually dependent upon that Divine Mercy invoked by Abraham ( Gen 18:16-33) and all intercessors. Creatio ex nihilo expresses the existential separation or discontinuity between Creator and Creation but in doing so it accentuates the depth of the Gift of Grace, which is the Gift of Divine Identity itself.
“What Christ is by Nature we will become by Grace” runs the ancient formula, and “God became man so that man might become God,” said Saints Irenaeus and Athanasius. All Christian doctrinal statements must reflect this Revealed soteriological Truth and consequently be enshrined in the overall hermeneutics of a ‘metaphysics of mercy'. Creatio ex nihilo indicates our essential identity with the Absolute – Plenitude expressed apophatically – and balances this by also indicating our existential or ‘fallen' separation. In considering this existential separation, creatio ex nihilo emphasises the work of Divine Mercy, establishes the need for salvation or union and reveals the availability and efficacy of this Gift. Uncreated Matter expresses both essential identity and existential separation but from the latter perspective sets limits on the Divine Mercy by setting limits upon Divine Infinitude and Providence. Creatio ex nihilo expresses metaphysical truth in a symbolic and linguistic framework of Divine Love and Mercy. This is the unique spiritual ‘perfume' of Christianity and is an indispensable and properly providential element of that spiritual path. It is motivated by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, through the teachings of enlightened souls and the decrees of Providence, which is to say by Divine appointment not human contrivance.
The existence of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo in Christian thought is Providential; it is an essential and divinely inspired thread of the fabric of Christian doctrine that traces a spiritual path of God's Love, revealed by God to his creatures and most clearly and profoundly expressed amidst the multivalent harmony of orthodox doctrine. It could not be otherwise.
Graeme Castleman
[1] May, G. Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing' in Early Christian Thought. tr. A.S. Worrall, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994. p. 179.
[2] See May, G. Creatio Ex Nihilo. p. xii.
[3] Wolfson, H.A. “Patristic Arguments against the Eternity of the World”. Harvard Theological Review , v.59, 1966, 351-67. pp. 351-2; Wolfson, H.A. “Plato's Pre-existent Matter in Patristic Philosophy.” in The Classical Tradition: Literary and Historical Studies in Honour of Harry Caplan . ed. L. Wallach, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966, 409-20. pp. 409-411.
[4] See, for example, Cutsinger, J. “On Earth as It Is in Heaven”. Sacred Web: A Journal of Tradition and Modernity , no.1, 1998, 91-114. In this article Cutsinger highlights the work of Frithjof Schuon on this subject – especially pertinent is the essay “Dialogue Between Hellenists and Christians” in Schuon, F. Light on the Ancient Worlds. tr. L. Northbourne, 2nd ed. Bloomington: World Wisdom Books, 1984. Of particular interest is the discussion of the interplay between liberty and necessity in the work of creation. Unfortunately, the scope of this paper means that this all too brief allusion to the issue must suffice. For an example of such a doctrinal convergence in Christian theological thought see Wolfson, H.A. “The Identification of ex nihilo with Emanation in Gregory of Nyssa”. Harvard Theological Review , v.63, 1970, 53-60.
[5] Meister Eckhart. Sermon 18 . Throughout this paper, references from Meister Eckhart's sermons use the numbering system employed in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises. tr. & ed. M. O'C. Walshe, London: Watkins Publishing, 1979.
[6] Meister Eckhart. Sermon 18 .
[7] Plato. Epistle VII . 341d.
[8] Disputes that can, and often do, deteriorate into pedantic systematising, which is a recognition but also fatal exaggeration of the need for self-consistency and harmony in a doctrinal framework at the expense of paradox. This exaggerated response to a nevertheless very real need – and that need is not in doubt – ignores that the purpose of such a formal framework is always to recognise its limitations and to consequently point beyond itself to the Reality it describes, not, Pharisee-like, to bar the door to heaven and prevent others from entering: ‘the letter killeth.' Plato warns that “…there is no way of putting it [the study of Reality] in words like other studies” ( Epistle VII . 241c ) .
[9] For an excellent apologetic for the Church's responses to various heresies and the soteriology preserved by the Church against the heresies, see chapter 1 of Lossky, V. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976.
[10] Sherrard, P. Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998. p. 234.
[11] Goldstein, J.A. “The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo”. Journal of Jewish Studies , v.35, 1984, 127-35. p. 127. See Genesis Rabbah IV:VII: “The Holy One… took fire and water and beat them together, and from the mixture, heaven was made.” See also Gen. Rab . X:III.
[12] See Obenhaus, S.R. “The Creation Faith of the Psalmists”. Trinity Journal , v.21, no.1, 2000, 131-42.
[13] Justin Martyr. 1 Apology. X.
[14] Justin Martyr. 1 Apol. LIX.
[15] Origen. commentarii in Jo. I.18.
[16] Translation based upon KJV.
[17] Goldstein, J.A. “The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo”. p. 127. Goldstein believes that the primary purpose of the doctrine is to counteract arguments against the resurrection in the flesh – if God made us from nothing, then he can remake us from nothing just as easily. He states (or rather overstates ): “In essence, creatio ex nihilo is a polemical doctrine, invoked to defend the belief in bodily resurrection!” (p. 134) This resurrectionist theme appears in the Koran. For example: “ Have they not seen that Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth and was not wearied by their creation, is Able to give life to the dead? Aye, He verily is Able to do all things” (46:33).
[18] Goldstein, J.A. “The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo”. p. 127.
[19] O'Neill, J.C. “How Early is the Doctrine of Creation ex Nihilo?” Journal of Theological Studies , v.53, no.2, 2002, 449-65. p. 450. Schuon recognises this semantic implication but rejects the notion that it has any real relationship with the reality described: “…only an altogether artificial logic would treat the word ex … as if it indicated that nothingness is implicitly considered as a ‘thing,' hence as something which absurdly ‘preexists' creation. In reality the word ex pertains exclusively to the structure of the language, it therefore cannot prove an idea.” ( Schuon, F. Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism. tr. G. Polit, Bloomington: World Wisdom Books, 1986. p. 49.)
[20] Clement of Alexandria. stromateis . V.14.
[21] Origen. Jo. I.18.
[22] Thomas Aquinas. summa theologica . 1.46.2.
[23] Goldstein, J.A. “The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo”. p. 129.
[24] This is to say that it is based upon Revealed teachings (both in Revelation and Tradition) that have an axiomatic status. Any valid approach to revealed teachings must begin with trust in the revealed truth because “What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe ‘because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive or be deceived'.” ( Dei Filius 3, quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church. Homebush, Aust.: Society of St Paul, 1994. 3.I.III.156. p. 42.). For this reason, theology proper is always informed by the mystic experience, for from that alone comes the authority to teach. There is no tension between theologian and mystic, only between mystical silence and theological speech. Lossky writes: “There is… no Christian mysticism without theology; but, above all, there is no theology without mysticism.” ( Lossky, V. Mystical Theology. p. 9.)
[25] On the two-fold Demiurge, see Schuon, F. Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism. p. 52.
[26] See, for example, Plato's Timaeus 28a-29a where each possibility is entertained with the conclusion that the pattern used by the Demiurge is the Divine pattern (29a) and the Demiurge good (29e-30a).
[27] We can also distinguish between the Trinity as it is, inscrutable, in Itself without reference to Manifestation or indeed to anything ‘outside' Itself and the Trinity as it operates in the economy or dispensation of Manifestation – this has some parallels with the essence/energies distinction but is not identical to it. Lossky claims that the failure to recognise this particular distinction is the foundation of the dispute over the filioque . It is only from the perspective of dispensation that the Trinity can be represented in a vertical hierarchy and then only provisionally.
[28] Translation based upon KJV. ‘ Dia ,' translated as ‘by' in the KJV, denotes the medium through which an action takes place and is better translated as ‘through' (as it is in many other translations) or ‘by way of'. ‘ Dia ' indicates neither origin nor destination. Christian writers establish Christ as origin and destination in other ways; “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says Christ.
[29] Schuon, F. Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism. p. 55.
[30] Lings, M. “On ‘The Virgin' (Letter to the Editor)”. Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies , v.7, no.1, 2001, 207-09. p. 208.
[31] Cutsinger, J. Advice to the Serious Seeker: Meditations on the Teaching of Frithjof Schuon. Albany: SUNY, 1997. p. 37.
[32] Cutsinger, J. Advice to the Serious Seeker. p. 42.
[33] ‘Trinity' is deeply apophatic; “the deity is neither one nor many; its perfection goes beyond the multiplicity of which duality is the root…” ( Lossky, V. Mystical Theology. p. 47).
[34] Lossky, V. Orthodox Theology: An Introduction. tr. I. Kesarcodi-Watson and I. Kesarcodi-Watson, Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978. pp. 40-1.
[35] Translation based upon KJV. There is a complex relationship at work here between the prepositions used ( eis , ek , dia ), the monistic logic of the near homonyms ‘one' ( heis ) and ‘into' ( eis ), and the parallel structures of the two statements. This is not the place for a detailed discussion on this point but I provide the Greek prepositions used in order to hint at it and to justify my retranslation.
[36] See Sherrard, P. Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition. Ch 10 ‘The Meaning of Creation ex nihilo '. Sherrard names St pseudo-Dionysius, Eriugena and Meister Eckhart in this context.
[37] Schuon, F. Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism. pp. 50-1.
[38] Itter, A. “Mutual Inclusiveness: Creatio ex nihilo and the Eternity of Matter in the Work of Clement of Alexandria.” in Esotericism and the Control of Knowledge . ed. E. Crangle, Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2003. (forthcoming). Amongst Christians, Clement of Alexandria is virtually alone in this recognition. ( May, G. Creatio Ex Nihilo. p. 178).
[39] Clement of Alexandria, str. V.14. Itter observes that the cosmos deriving its being from ‘non-existence' does not contradict the previous statement of the creation “deriving its being from him [God] alone”. For the ‘non-existence' is the no-thing of the apophatic divine nihil .
[40] I have taken the terms ‘Essence' and ‘Substance' as defined by Frithjof Schuon: “the masculine [vertical] pole refers to essentiality and to transcendence, and the feminine [horizontal] pole to substantiality and to immanence.” Schuon, F. The Play of Masks. Bloomington: World Wisdom Books, 1992. p. 89. We should also note that the distinction between the terms is not universal, and that they are often used interchangeably. (see n.2, p. 88.)
[41] Sherrard, P. Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition. p. 239.
[42] Pallis, M. “The Veil of the Temple: A Study of Christian Initiation.” in The Sword of Gnosis: Metaphysics, Cosmology, Tradition, Symbolism . ed. J. Needleman, Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin, 1974, 81 - 103 ; Pallis, M. “Supplementary Notes on Christian Initiation”. Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies , v.6, no.1, 2000, 37-70.
[43] “…because there is no doctrinal dualism of exoteric and esoteric; it can only be a matter of natural esotericism, in the sense that each goes more or less deeply into the doctrine and more or less far according to the measure of his abilities, since there are, for certain individualities, limitations that are inherent in their own nature and that are impossible to overcome.” ( Guénon, R. “Oriental Metaphysics.” in The Sword of Gnosis: Metaphysics, Cosmology, Tradition, Symbolism . ed. J. Needleman, Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin, 1974, 40-56. p. 41.)
[44] Lossky, V. Mystical Theology. p. 68.
[45] quoted in Perry, W.N. ed. A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom. Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2000. p. 894.
[46] Sherrard, P. Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition. p. 233.
[47] Irenaeus. adversus heareses. II.10.3.
[48] Patai, R. The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. p. 109.
[49] Athenagoras. legatio . 25.
[50] Origen. contra Celsum . 1.21.
[51] Hippolytus. refutatio omnium haeresium . VII.7.
[52] Tatian. oratio adversus Graecos . V.
[53] Theophilus of Antioch. ad Autolychum. II, 10.
[54] Augustine. Confessions . XII.25-6.
[55] Excepting certain ‘pharisaic' and reductionistic accounts, which have failed to preserve the harmony between complementaries, in this case, the harmony between essential identity and existential separation, between the untouchability of God and the full extent of His Mercy. By setting limits on the extent of the soteriological promise reductionistic soteriology inadvertently (but unavoidably) slanders His Mercy.
[56] See Bourgeault, C. “The Egoic System and the Nurture of the Heart”. Sacred Web: A Journal of Tradition and Modernity , v.4, 1999, 67-76. for a discussion on an inclusive approach to the ego in salvation.
[57] quoted in Spencer, S. Mysticism in World Religion. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963. p. 228.
[58] quoted in Sherrard, P. The Sacred: in Life and Art. Ipswich: Golgonooza Press, 1990. p. 96.
[59] St Maximus the Confessor, “Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice,” I.72 in The Philokalia: the complete text. tr. G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard, and K. Ware, London: Faber & Faber, 1981. 2v. p. 180. In fact, St Maximus makes his point even more emphatically: “The Holy Spirit is present unconditionally in all things” but this inalienable presence only makes one a son of God when realised (I.73, p. 180), as described below.
[60] Sherrard, P. The Sacred: in Life and Art. p. 86.
[61] Meister Eckhart, Sermon 4 . A vacuum that exists from the perspective of existential separation and a filling of the vacuum from a temporal perspective. From the perspective of essential Identity ‘vacuum' is meaningless.
[62] Sherrard, P. Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition. p. 234.
[63] Plotinus. Enneads . III.7.4
[64] Plato. Phaedo . 66e. (emphasis mine)
[65] It is from this perspective that the Gospel statement of Mark 13:20 is best read: “ And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh ( sarx ) should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days. ” This ‘flesh' is fallen and not the body ( soma ) as such.
[66] Meister Eckhart. Sermon 18 .
[67] Goldstein, J.A. “The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo”. p. 129.
[68] As long as is commensurable with Justice, the masculine aspect of Mercy. Only so long as righteous and holy persons continue to exist can the conservation of the creation be justified – it is only in their absence, when the pillars that hold heaven and earth apart are removed, that the eschatological event occurs in order to save a fallen world that has completely lost its spark of truth. Cutsinger observes that: “The universe is never a fait accompli . It is in each instant, or better between every instant, being brought forth – by God, the theologian will say, from God, in metaphysical terms; or… according to a certain fusion of perspectives, by God from nothing other than God .” ( Cutsinger, J. “On Earth as It Is in Heaven”. p. 95.) At heart the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo implies the creative conservation of the divine, without which creation would sink back into nothingness. When God ‘rested' on the seventh day, he did not rest from the conservation of creation. To think otherwise is to misunderstand creatio ex nihilo . Having stated that God made the world ex nihilo , St Irenaeus states that the Holy Spirit nourishes and increases creatures ( adv. haer . IV.38.3.) and that created beings “continue throughout a long course of time according to the will of God” ( adv. haer . II.34.3.). St Thalassios the Lybian writes: “The sublime providence of the Creator preserves everything that is.” (“On Love, Self-control and Life in accordance with the Intellect”, I.61. in Philokalia . 2v . p. 310.)