Are there Christians here who reject creatio ex nihilo?
Well, if you believe in the “Big Bang”, it is the same thing.
Not quite, if we look at the latest evidence and theories, there is indeed something where once was assumed was nothing.
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/02/02/can-you-get-something-for-noth/
If you have more time here is Lawrence Krauss explaining it too:
Doesn’t really make much of a difference. If correct, it’ll just push the question one step back. There remains the question wherefrom did the (seemingly wholly arbitrary) rules of the Universe come from, in this case the quantum mechanics. There can really be only one of two answers: either they’ve been here always, for eternity. Or ex nihilo. Both answers are outside the capacity of the human mind to comprehend.
I hear this often, but:
- What does it mean, and
- Who gets to determine it?
I mean, once someone makes a proclamation like this, are we all suppose to say, “Yup, Billy Bob Philosopher sure has a point there. We might as well quit seeking answers about that question!” ?
Creating matter is easy. All you have to do is create an equal amount of antimatter.
No, it’s not. The so called ‘Big Bang’ refers to the expansion of the universe from the initial singularity. The nature of this singularity may not be clear, but that hardly qualifies it as ‘nihilo’.
Reject is a rather strong term. Personally I find questions of origins mostly irrelevant to my relationship with God.
But I am a terrible Christian, at least according to the folks at the last five churches I’ve attended.
Yes, it is my understanding that absolute nothing is impossible, quantum mechanics will not allow it, there is always potential energy and matter.
Thanks for the answer.
It means that I don’t really think the human mind is capable of understanding eternity, although we can make mathematical and philosophical models that describe it. It also means both eternity and ex nihilo are extremely unsatisfying answers. Like if a boy had suddenly discovered zebras have stripes, and goes Whoa! Why? When did they come? And the teacher goes either: 1) oh, they’ve always been there; 2) oh, they came 14:33 August 3 1984. Out of nowhere for no reason. I’d be less that impressed by either explanation.
I am a Christian who believes in a creator God but I am not dogmatic about the big bang theory it is a very interesting subject, my relationship with God is a separate issue
I am happy at my present church, I get a few dark looks from the Sunday Christians
I agree with the comments that both propositions seem hard to comprehend
Yes. Same here. I believe in a created universe. I also believe what science tells me about that universe. The big bang (first proposed by a Catholic priest who was also a scientist, by the way)? Sure. Is that the same as creation ex nihilo? No, it’s not. Not a problem for me.
I was raised Catholic and we were taught, actually taught in CCD which is the Catholic version of Sunday school, that the Bible’s just stories.
Even the conservative Bill O’Reilly has said the Bible’s just stories. (Maybe because he’s also Catholic.)
So creation ex nihilo…does that include the Big Bang to you?
Right. The big bang isn’t creation out of nothing. It’s creation out of the singularity. OK then. Where did the singularity come from? It might be that we could never know the answer to this question, since all evidence about the previous state of the singularity was erased in the transformation of the singularity into our current universe.
In other words, we can trace our universe back to this singularity, but there wasn’t anything before the singularity since there was no before. To have a “before” you have to have time, and there was no time before time existed.
As for the conundrum that you can’t have something from nothing, therefore God must have created the universe, surely everyone has heard the question of where did God come from then? Did God come from nothing? No? Then God always existed? How could God have always existed if everything has a cause? God is the one thing that doesn’t require a cause? OK, but if God doesn’t require a cause then why couldn’t there be other things that don’t require a cause? Like universes?
The only reason we say that events must have a cause is because that’s the way physical law works in our universe. Before time was created then how can we say what physical laws applied when there was no universe? If the cause of our universe is outside our universe then from the perspective of our universe it was uncaused.
Maybe someday we’ll figure out some way to get information about the state of the universe before there was a universe, but as far as we know that’s not possible. Adding “God” into the argument just inserts an unneeded hypothesis that confuses rather than explains.