Creation Ex Nihilo: Must One Believe?
Regardless what one believes as a creation story, there must have been an ex nihilo event in history.
If evolution is true, there must have been an ex nihilo creation event in history.
Ex Nihilo: "from nothing."
Did you know that evolution is a creation story? It is a God-less creation story, but evolution is a narrative account of how everything we see around us was created.
Evolution as a creation story alleges that everything that exists now came to be by natural processes mindlessly and purposelessly arranging and rearranging matter. Atoms in mindless motion, perpetually banging about from the explosion of the Big Bang: we are the result.
The standard Big Bang model, as stated by evolutionist Paul Davies, predicts that there was in the distant past an "initial singularity as the beginning of the universe." Davies continues:
On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.
See, P. C. W. Davies, “Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology,” in The Study of Time III, ed. J. T. Fraser (New York: Springer Verlag, 1978), 78-79.
A creation event? Yes, and as John Barrow and Frank Tipler emphasize,
At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo.
See, John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 442.
It seems that evolutionists who hold that matter in motion powers the engine of evolution must also believe that all that matter flying about was created ex nihilo.
But there's a problem. There is no scientific reason to believe that matter can be created ex nihilo. At one point before the Big Bang there was no matter, and then "poof" matter spontaneously appeared from nothing?
Of course, Godless materialists cannot fathom such a requirement. But it is a requirement, if not of the Big Bang, of another natural occurrence. For what it's worth, more recent theories based on the "inflation" of the universe state that there was no "singularity" event at the Big Bang. Cosmic inflation, we are told, preceded and set up the early, hot-and-dense state of the Big Bang.
Maybe. But in any event, any evolutionary theory of the universe requires that one of only two conditions must be true: (1) matter (or energy) eternally existed, or (2) matter (or energy) was created out of nothing, that is, ex nihilo.
What other creation story also bears witness to something necessarily existing eternally and creation of everything else out of nothing?
That's right, the Bible.
Some say that the Bible does not teach creation ex nihilo. But they are wrong. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament teach that God has existed eternally as an uncaused cause and he created "all things." Here is a representative sample.
Psalms 33:6 states, "By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth."
Isaiah 44:24, "...I am the LORD, who made all things ..."
John 1:3 states of Jesus as the creator in the beginning: "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."
Colossians 1:16 tells us, "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible ... all things were created by him and for him."
As stated well by Dave Armstrong in the National Catholic Register, from which the above scripture quotes are drawn:
If God created all “things” then he must have created ex nihilo because no thing (nothing) existed initially if there was no thing that he did not create. How much clearer could it be made?
See, Creation Ex Nihilo is in the Bible: National Catholic Register, https://www.ncregister.com/blog/creation-ex-nihilo-is-in-the-bible.
Agreed. But, it seems, clarity is not the issue. Belief is.
But which is more reasonable to believe? That matter existed eternally or was spontaneously created out of nothing at the Big Bang (or before)? Or that God existed eternally and created matter spontaneously out of nothing?
Think about it.
Further Reading:
See, Creation ex nihilo: Theology and Faith, by William Lane Craig: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/creation-ex-nihilo-theology-and-science, from which quotes for this post were drawn.
See, Debunking William Lane Craig, https://debunkingwlc.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/wlc-quotes-john-barrow-and-frank-tipler/