Creatio Ex Nihilo vs. Emanation

In the first few centuries after Jesus, when Christianity was taking shape, a handful of people who completely missed the point hijacked the process by asking a bunch of questions that didn’t matter, one of which was “What did God make the world out of?” Three possibilities were debated:

• God made the world out of God’s self. This became known as “Emanation” — the idea that the world emanated from God’s own being.
• God made the world out of nothing. There was nothing apart from God, but God created something out of that nothing. This became known as “Creatio Ex Nihilo”.
• God created the world out of pre-existing material. There was some other stuff laying around that God used to make the world. This didn’t really get a name.

Of these three, the third is the most easily dismissed because it automatically kicks over to “Where did the pre-existing material come from?” which leads to the first two choices. The debate therefore was between Emanation and Creatio Ex Nihilo, and — as we all know — Creatio Ex Nihilo won out and has been the official doctrine of the Church since about 200 CE. The big arguments against Emanation were that it was associated with paganism — the main proponent was Plotinus, a Greek pagan — and that it meant that material reality was of God, not apart from God which was the established theory. Obviously, the fact that something is an established tradition doesn’t make it correct, which is why doctors don’t diagnose diseases based on a person’s “humours” anymore.

I’m a guitar player. I usually hang out in the “free improv/experimental” ghetto, where we just make it up as we go. Suppose I pick up a guitar and pluck out a series of notes. Where did that bit of music come from? The actual sounds came from the guitar, but I mean the series of notes, the melody or pattern of sounds? Did I make them out of nothing? You could say that — the pattern didn’t exist in some nebulous state before I plucked the strings. You could, just as easily and logically, say that the melody, or pattern of notes, emanated from me — I created the pattern using my own style of playing guitar. Because all musicians have their own style — things that they typically do. I try to shake up my own playing so I’m not repeating the same stuff over and over, but I certainly have my ruts and habits. The hypothetical pattern of notes that I’m on about would be within my normal range, my comfort zone. It would have come from me as much as any creative expression comes from the artist who creates it.

To say that I created the pattern of notes out of nothing is the same as saying it emanated from me. They mean the same thing. Creatio Ex Nihilo and Emanation, as theories about how God created the world, are exactly the same thing. God’s creative method was speaking — “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.”, Genesis 1:3 — so God created the world using His speech, which came from Him — emanated from Him — and which had not existed before He spoke — He created it out of nothing. Emanation and Creatio Ex Nihilo are the same thing.

So what? And why would I — a person who is on the record as stating that theology is a hole, a useless and meaningless distraction from the real work of the people of God — go to the trouble of disputing an old doctrine? Because I’m banging away at a point — the accepted doctrines of the Church which were established by councils of bishops in the early Christian centuries are mostly hot air that don’t stand up to scrutiny. They are meaningless jibber jabber. As Christians, we are not followers of Alexander of Alexandria, Augustine, or Athanasius; we are followers of Christ, who did not talk about what God made the world out of because it didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now. What mattered to Jesus — and what should matter to His followers — is how people treat each other. Jesus provided us with plenty of instructions on that subject — clear instructions, fairly easy to understand, though not always easy to follow.

I’ve focused here on a detail of the Church’s position on Creation because the image that I used — my own improvisational guitar playing as a representation of creating — came to me this morning when I was still on my first cup of coffee. It works well enough. I could throw shade on any of the official doctrines of the Church — the doctrine of the Trinity is fairly easy to upend — but that doesn’t mean I’m saying they are wrong. What I’m saying is that we don’t know and should therefore be humble. I agree with the early Church leaders who argued that God was wholly other than anything we can comprehend, but I don’t agree that it necessarily follows that the world can’t be an emanation of God. If God, who is infinite and eternal, can create a world that is finite and temporal, then God can certainly create something out of God’s incomprehensible self that is comprehensible to humans.

Of course, if we accept that the world is of God’s own substance, then it follows that Creation is holy, which shouldn’t be a surprise — God did say that the world was good — which kind of implies that we should be doing a bit more to take care of it than we’re currently doing.

Some folks, who like big words, might accuse me of pantheism, the belief that God is the sum of all things. For those folks, I have a bigger word — panentheism, the belief that God is the sum of all things and more. I am a panentheist Christian. If you want to be strict about it, I’m a heretic. I’m not worried.

I am not disputing the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed. Both of those are true — though neither is all of what is true. It isn’t possible for any human statement to be entirely true if the subject is God because God is wholly other. I am in full agreement with Kierkegaard regarding the “infinite qualitative distinction” between God and creation. So I’m not as heretical as I might be.

Jesus taught His followers to love God and to love other people. He gave examples. How we treat other people is how we follow Christ. Believing in the official doctrines of the Church has nothing to do with it.