Did God really create the world out of nothing?

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jkiernan56

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I have read on this web site many times this theological statement that “God created the world out of nothing.”

I’m not sure I can really agree with that statement. My gut reaction to this is that only something can come from something and only nothing can come from nothing. God obviously does not come from something since His very nature is to exist and who is the first cause but is NOT caused. The whole universe including human beings are contingent beings while God is not.

It seems to me it would be better to say that God created the universe “out of His potentiality” rather than to say “out of nothing.”

Try to imagine the idea of absolute nothingness including the idea of even God not existing (which we know is an impossibility for God). Something cannot result from absolute nothingness. Now bring God who is pure spirit back into the equation before the world was created. Only God existed and it was God who thought and willed to create the universe. But out of nothingness? Isn’t it more accurate to say God created the world out of His own potentiality?

Your thoughts on this?
 
Nothing existed before the beginning, so what could God have used to create the world? He HAD to create the world from nothing. He didn’t change nothing into something, He created the world. Only He existed, and than, He created the world.
 
Eucharisted said:
Nothing existed before the beginning, so what could God have used to create the world? He HAD to create the world from nothing. He didn’t change nothing into something, He created the world. Only He existed, and than, He created the world.
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That is NOT true that NOTHING existed before the beginning. God existed.
 
So if nothing but God existed, are you saying he created the physical universe out of his own substance?

Because the faith systems that have taught this end up in some pretty tough moral dilemas: if every atom is part of God, then every atom is equally sacred, and the ones that make up your body are no more important than the ones that make up a dog.

Or a bale of hay, or a stone: in a world where everything is sacred, nothing is sacred. In a world where everything is special, nothing is special.

This has always been the problem with goddess faths, and why our God has always identified himself as male.

Ultimately, what you are suggesting not only diminishes us, it diminishes God, and places limits upon Him-- he can’t create from nothing, he only uses his own flesh. Chops off an arm, maybe, or a leg, makes the world out of that.

Not a God worth worshiping, really.
 
jkiernan56 said:
Your thoughts on this?
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I personally never understood how someone can see a tree and immediately conclude that there shouldn’t be a tree. Or how someone can see the moon and imediately believe that there shouldn’t be this moon.

How can someone observe and conclude that there is a universe, and then immediately and “reasonably” conclude that there shouldn’t be a universe?

Does anyone else find this odd, even a bit insane?
 
Sam_Maloney said:
So if nothing but God existed, are you saying he created the physical universe out of his own substance?

Because the faith systems that have taught this end up in some pretty tough moral dilemas: if every atom is part of God, then every atom is equally sacred, and the ones that make up your body are no more important than the ones that make up a dog.

Or a bale of hay, or a stone: in a world where everything is sacred, nothing is sacred. In a world where everything is special, nothing is special.

This has always been the problem with goddess faths, and why our God has always identified himself as male.

Ultimately, what you are suggesting not only diminishes us, it diminishes God, and places limits upon Him-- he can’t create from nothing, he only uses his own flesh. Chops off an arm, maybe, or a leg, makes the world out of that.

Not a God worth worshiping, really.
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No - you have completely misunderstood me and have implied things that i do not.

Before creation, it is FALSE to say that NOTHING existed. Before creation God existed. God is not NOTHING.

I DO NOT believe God created out of his substance, but rather His essence and that which God created seen (physical world) and unseen (spiritual world) is NOT God. I do not believe in the fallacy of pantheism. God does not depend on anything for His Existence. God’s name is I AM WHO AM. Any created thing depends on God for their existence, but God does not need or depend on what He has created for His own.

What I am saying is that before creation - God existed. And if God’s essence is to EXIST … to BE … it is FALSE to say that NOTHING existed before creation. To stress this point one more time - God existed before creation. What God is and His potentiality existed. I am talking about SPIRIT and God’s potentiality. God’s potentiality existed.

Thus God created out of His own potentiality … rather than the idea of that He created out of NOTHING.

Only something can come from something is my basic premise.
We did not come from NOTHING, but rather God’s potentiality.

Is my thought making anymore sense?
Please do not infer as you did in the last post. Your inference is your own logic, not mine. My logic does not lead me to where you took it.
 
God thought the Universe into being. When we understand it we, re-cognize it, we think it again because it was already thought.
 
Sam_Maloney said:
Because the faith systems that have taught this end up in some pretty tough moral dilemas: if every atom is part of God, then every atom is equally sacred, and the ones that make up your body are no more important than the ones that make up a dog.

Or a bale of hay, or a stone: in a world where everything is sacred, nothing is sacred. In a world where everything is special, nothing is special.

This has always been the problem with goddess faths, and why our God has always identified himself as male.

Ultimately, what you are suggesting not only diminishes us, it diminishes God, and places limits upon Him-- he can’t create from nothing, he only uses his own flesh. Chops off an arm, maybe, or a leg, makes the world out of that.

Not a God worth worshiping, really.
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I do not believe in the fallacy of pantheism. Every atom IS NOT part of God. God does not depend on anything for His Existence.

EVERY Atom depends on God for it’s existence, but God does NOT depend on every Atom (or anything that is seen or unseen for that matter). If God for one brief moment chose to stop thinking and willing His creation, it would NOT exist. But God cannot think and will Himself not to exist, that is an impossibility for God. God’s nature is to EXIST. God cannot do what is contrary to His nature. That is another reason God CANNOT do or commit evil. It is completely contrary to His nature, to His Holiness.

The fact that we (and everything God created) depends on God for its existence (but which God does NOT depend upon it for His) does not diminish us or God or put limits on God. The fact is that man has the most precious and highest relationship with God as adoptive sons and daughters of God and called to share in the same relationship with God the Father as Christ had before the beginning of the world. In John 17 Christ prays for us that we may see the LOVE the Father had for the Son before the creation of the world … God’s glory!

We have been invited to share God’s life and love in a way that not Angels (who are only servants of God) and the other animal kingdom. We are adopted sons and daughter of God!!!

That is a dignity beyond all measure.
We like all creation depend of God for our existence, but the relationship human beings have been called to share, is far beyond any other created thing (seen or unseen).
 
crowonsnow said:
I personally never understood how someone can see a tree and immediately conclude that there shouldn’t be a tree. Or how someone can see the moon and imediately believe that there shouldn’t be this moon.

How can someone observe and conclude that there is a universe, and then immediately and “reasonably” conclude that there shouldn’t be a universe?

Does anyone else find this odd, even a bit insane?
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Shouldn’t or rather “Need Not Be” is a question I ask myself. Nothing needs to be. Only God need Be. God has no need of anything or anyone. God is and could have continued in BEING for all eternity without once thinking of us.

“What is man that you are mindful of him. the son of man that you care for him?” Psalm 8:4

God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (3 Persons in One Nature) are a communion of persons in complete LOVE and totally Happy. They do not need anything to be Happy.
 
Sam_Maloney said:
Ultimately, what you are suggesting not only diminishes us, it diminishes God

.
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I totally disagree with this statement. Dependance and being contingent beings along with all His creation does not diminish the human race. In fact, God considered human beings so wonderful and beautiful that He (the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity) Himself became a human being (with a human soul - intellect and will). God did not become an Angel or a stone. He became one of us … .to be with us … because He Loves Us … so that we can KNOW Him … and in KNOWING Him … LOVE Him … Love God and one another. Our dignity is beyond measure … God is one of us in Christ … God has raised us up to the dignity of being God’s children - a privilege given to no other of God’s creation. We can see and know and love and touch God in and through Christ and His Body - The Church (you and me).
 
jkiernan56 said:
Shouldn’t or rather “Need Not Be” is a question I ask myself. Nothing needs to be. Only God need Be. God has no need of anything or anyone. God is and could have continued in BEING for all eternity without once thinking of us.
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Our observations, all of them, tell us that “something” needs to be. “Nothing” is just a word that has gone philosophical. It is best thought of as “a quantity of zero.” And as we all know, in order to have a quantity of zero there must first be a quantity greater than zero.

At that fundamental philosophical level of there being a god or a universe, there is no difference between the two. They are the same thing. The universe can be measured and observed. The god cannot.
 
Can create ‘stuff’ out of nothing. The formation of a particle and an antiparticle out of nothing is allowed by quantum physics. They self anhialate each other leaving nothing.

check out this link astrosociety.org/pubs/mercury/31_02/nothing.html

If you’re really interested there’s a book by Henning (not me 😃 ) Genz called ‘Nothingness: The Science of Empty Space’
 
One of those questions that the human brain can not comprehend. To question how God could have created the world out of nothing is to be naive to think that you could actually understand how God created anything. You have limited capabilities, no matter how hard you try physically and mentally you are limited.

God is not.
 
jkiernan56 said:
We did not come from NOTHING, but rather God’s potentiality.
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Philosophically speaking, God has no potentiality. He is all actuality, or a philosopher would say, he is all act and no potency.

Once something exists, then it is true that only something can only come from something. But ‘before’ there was matter, energy, space, or time, there was only God, and God is not material. So when he creates, he creates from nothing.

(In physics, I believe that it is possible to have ‘creation’ from nothing in that a matter/anti-matter pair may spontaneously come into existence out of the quantum foam–empty space–and then anhiliate themselves again. But that is another matter entirely. It requires pre-existing space/time, which had to be created out of nothing by God.)
 
jkiernan56 said:
I have read on this web site many times this theological statement that “God created the world out of nothing.”

I’m not sure I can really agree with that statement. My gut reaction to this is that only something can come from something and only nothing can come from nothing. God obviously does not come from something since His very nature is to exist and who is the first cause but is NOT caused. The whole universe including human beings are contingent beings while God is not.

It seems to me it would be better to say that God created the universe “out of His potentiality” rather than to say “out of nothing.”

Try to imagine the idea of absolute nothingness including the idea of even God not existing (which we know is an impossibility for God). Something cannot result from absolute nothingness. Now bring God who is pure spirit back into the equation before the world was created. Only God existed and it was God who thought and willed to create the universe. But out of nothingness? Isn’t it more accurate to say God created the world out of His own potentiality?

Your thoughts on this?
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Greetings,

I find the subject of creation rather interesting, and difficult to grasp. JimG in post #14 pointed out that in God there is no potentiality. This is correct. God is pure actuality. This means God is the fullness of being. Nothing can be added to his being. Neither can his being be diminished in any way. Our experience is with contingent beings only, who are an admixture of act and potency. Contingent being can come into existence and it can be corrupted. I can gain knowledge and lose knowledge, for instance. On the other hand, God possesses the fullness of knowledge. God cannot lose or gain knowledge. His knowledge is infinite, i.e. not limited. Hence, there is no potential in regard to God’s knowledge. This hold true with his existence, love, power, and so on. God is infinite being, pure actuality.

We have no experience with infinite being. We only know contingent beings and reason about God by removing the limitations of contingent being from our conception of him. Our knowledge of God is strictly analogical. It is based on an analogy we make with limited being. All of our knowledge begins in sense experience. So too, all of our experience about creation involves creation from pre-existing matter. The artist creates or fashions his work of art from pre-existing materials. The carpenter builds a house from pre-existing material. On the other hand, when we say God created the world from nothing, “creatio ex nihilo”, we are saying that he brought the world into being from non-being. He did not create from pre-existing matter. To create from pre-existing matter would be called “creatio ex materia”. Neither did God create from his own being, which would be called “creatio ex deo”. Creatio ex deo is an ontological impossibility.

Creation from nothing, creatio ex nihilo, is something we have no experience with. Conceptually, the human mind rebels at such a notion. That is what you are experiencing. Human language cannot properly express that which we can hardly grasp. Creatio ex nihilo is a bringing into existence, not from anything that exists already, that which had no existence. Only an infinite power is capable of creating “from nothing”.

God revealed to man that he created the universe ex nihilo. It is a matter of Revelation, a matter which the Catholic accepts on faith. We can get completely perplexed if we try to understand creatio ex nihilo by relying too much on our notion of creation derived from limited human experience.

In regard to the speculations of modern physicists about matter popping into and out of existence, I must take issue. The theory entails a metaphysical impossibility, even given the pre-existence of time and space.
 
itinerant1 said:
Our knowledge of God is strictly analogical. It is based on an analogy we make with limited being. All of our knowledge begins in sense experience. So too, all of our experience about creation involves creation from pre-existing matter.
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I think our knowledge of God is MUCH more than analogical.

Our knowlege of WHO God is … is now visible in a human person … Christ. We can know God much more than just through the means of analogical reason.

“In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is His as the on Son of the Father.” John 1:1, 14

“That which existed since the Beginning, that we have heard and seen with our eyes, that we have watched and touched with our hands, the Word who is life. That life was made visible, we saw it and are giving our testimony, telling you of the Eternal Life which was with the Father and has been made visible to us.” ! JOHN:1-2

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: "Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
John 14:8,9

The eternal life of God (infinite) has now become visible in a human person (finite) … We can know God much more than just through the use of analogy. We can see and know God in a person … in a personal relationship with Christ … who wants to have a personal relationship with each one of us with the gift of His Holy Spirit … at least that has been my experience.
 
JimG said:
Philosophically speaking, God has no potentiality. He is all actuality, or a philosopher would say, he is all act and no potency.

Once something exists, then it is true that only something can only come from something. But ‘before’ there was matter, energy, space, or time, there was only God, and God is not material. So when he creates, he creates from nothing.
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Thank you for your reply. I looked up the word potentiality and actuality in the dictionary. Here are some of the definitions:

POTENTIALITY - 1: existing in possibility. 2: capable of development into actuality; 3: something that can develop or become actual "

ACTUALITY - 1 : the quality or state of being actual 2 : something that is actual : in fact , in actuality :
3: 3existing in act and not merely potentially; existing in fact or reality

God is only ACTUALITY you mentioned?
 
itinerant1 said:
In regard to the speculations of modern physicists about matter popping into and out of existence, I must take issue. The theory entails a metaphysical impossibility, even given the pre-existence of time and space.
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I probably should not even have referred to this, as it is a purely physical concept and is not related to metaphysics at all.

But, (now that I’ve already started) one thing to keep in mind is that empty space is not nothing. Empty space, physically speaking, is something. It has dimensions, at least above the quantum level. So that the creation of antiparticles out of empty space does not really qualify as creation from nothing.
 
jkiernan56 said:
I have read on this web site many times this theological statement that “God created the world out of nothing.”

I’m not sure I can really agree with that statement. My gut reaction to this is that only something can come from something and only nothing can come from nothing. God obviously does not come from something since His very nature is to exist and who is the first cause but is NOT caused. The whole universe including human beings are contingent beings while God is not.

It seems to me it would be better to say that God created the universe “out of His potentiality” rather than to say “out of nothing.”

Try to imagine the idea of absolute nothingness including the idea of even God not existing (which we know is an impossibility for God). Something cannot result from absolute nothingness. Now bring God who is pure spirit back into the equation before the world was created. Only God existed and it was God who thought and willed to create the universe. But out of nothingness? Isn’t it more accurate to say God created the world out of His own potentiality?

Your thoughts on this?
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this seems to suffer the illusion that G-d is subject to the laws of energy conservation, in refutation let me post this argument, as he is not part of, and therefore would not be subject to the physical laws of this universe, this is my proof from accepted cosmology.

here you go

it has come to my attention in various conversations that the accepted big bang theory proves the existence of an infinity prior to the expansion.

here is why.

the mathematical regression from the observable universe back to the big bang posits a ‘moment’ (for lack of a better word) when no physical laws and no time existed. it also posits a singularity from which the universe expanded.

that singularity is an assumption that explains from ‘what’ the universe expanded, it is not actually mathematically possible to show that the singularity existed, the math does not extend past the ‘moment’ in which no time or physical laws existed

with no singularity the theory reduces to a mathematical proof of an infinity prior to and outside of the observable universe

further that infinity in which no time or space exists is, by the nature of an infinity, self existent, as bacon said, should one infinity exist it would preclude all others.

proof, i believe, of an existent First Cause that is infinite in its nature.

just as we have always claimed G-d to be.
__________________:thumbsup:
 
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