Ex nihilo

Creatio ex nihilo (Latin: creation ex nihilo or creation out of nothing ) refers to the Christian as well as the philosophical doctrine that the creation of the world is absolutely unconditionally as the work of God the Creator.

Theology

The term originated in the early Christian theology ( Tatian and Theophilus of Antioch ) in engagement with the Greek philosophy. This continued since Melissos requires an eternal and disordered material ( chaos), as can not possibly be something out of nothing ("ex nihilo nihil fit" ).

From monotheistic view of God is the sole cause for the creation of the world. Even space and time are only entered into appearance with the creation of an extra- divine reality. Since God is absolutely on time without any life or lives, you can not testify of him that he " before" the origin of the world alone existed, but "only" that he was "without" world. Through the creation out of nothing is every non- divine beings in the real relation of dependence upon God, is essentially relative beings ( cf. contingency ).

In the story of creation ( Genesis 1:1 ff ) states: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." The Hebrew word " bara " "create" for used here is used solely by the divine activity. The only place in the Bible that explicitly of a " creation from nothing " speaks, is found in 2 Maccabees ( 7:28); which states: " I beg you, my child, look at the sky and the earth; see everything that is there, and know. God has created from nothing, and so do the people arise "Even in the Christian theological interpretation is the origin of the whole except the divine reality to God himself as the sole Allursache ( causa prima ) returned. By " heaven and earth " means all except divine things is meant. The word " in the beginning" is intended to express the absolute beginning of all things and the world time.

Assuming a creatio ex nihilo was already in the book of Genesis ( 1:1-2:4 a) contain, is contradicted by Old Testament scholars. Oswald Loretz denies that this idea could be read out of the text. In Judaism, the idea of ​​creation was formulated out of nowhere the first time by Maimonides (1138-1204) in his major work, Guide of the Perplexed.

The biblical account differs significantly from the other ancient Near Eastern world origination teachings ( cosmogonies ), in which also always one of Gods creation ( Theogony ) is mentioned.

Philosophy

The philosophical subdiscipline Natural theology believes with the help of natural reason (without supernatural, divine help, that is, revelation ) to come to the same conclusion: Since everything that exists is contingent, it would refer to an absolute, in other words, God (id quod omnes dicunt deum - Thomas Aquinas ). The all-powerful, perfect and absolute God is inwardly and outwardly completely independent in all his acts; before its creation is nothing but him.

The philosophical counter-position to the theological assumption of a creation out of nothing is often attributed to Melissos; but Parmenides already taught:

From these ideas later, the formula Ex nihilo nihil fit was ( " out of nothing created nothing " ), so the meaning or after can also be found in Aristotle (Physics I 4), Lucretius, Aquinas and other philosophers.