Creatio Ex Nihilo


"In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth."
-Genesis 1:1

In 1215, the Catholic church spread temporal creatio ex nihilio as official church doctrine at the Fourth Lateran Council, declaring God to be "Creator of all things, visible and invisible,...who, by his almighty power, from the beginning of time has created both orders in the same way out of nothing." God brought the universe into being without a material cause.
There is no preexistent material, only God who created.
"In the Beginning"- bereshith indicates absolute beginning used equally in Isaiah 46:10.
"Create"- bara, a word used only with god as its subject and which does not presuppose a material 'substratum.'
"The Heavens and the Earth"- eth hassamayim we'eth ha'arets, this is a Hebrew expression for the totality of the world, or universe.
Darwin in his "Origin of the Species" has other ideas. There are some questions to ask, and answer. What is natural selection? Can mutations be beneficial? Do animals really change from one kind to another kind? Are we still evolving? Philosophically speaking toward naturalism, nature or matter is all that exists. Everything CAN and MUST be explained by TIME+CHANCE+LAWS OF NATURE working on matter. Some key questions to consider are, when did DNA information come into existence? How did DNA information get changed and argumented?


In the end, natural selection can explain the survival of the fittest, but NOT the arrival of the fittest, which is the REAL question.
We'll be digging more into this, so stick around, this is important to know. However before we go digging it's important to get our doctrine and theology straight. Does Everything come from God? You see the doctrine of creation does not describe an event. It points to the situation of creatureliness and to its correlate, the divine creativity. Our very existence from day to day is utterly dependent on God, and that is the sole point of the Christian doctrine of creation. So at this point, I'm going to give you homework, whether you do it or not, I can't control but I would urge you to do it because if you're going to need to know this knowledge, I promise you. This is all apart of defending your faith! BTW: You can highlight the questions and paste them into word and print so your hand doesn't get tired of writing. ;) I'm going to present a question and give you scripture references to go look up based on the question:

A. Did the Universe, including matter, have a beginning?
Gen. 1:1, Ps. 90:2, Jn. 1:1-3

B. Did the stuff (raw material) of the universe arise spontaneously out of nothing, or did it come from God?
Gen. 1:1-2, Rom. 11:36, 2 Cor. 5:18, Heb. 11:3, 1 Cor. 11:12

C. Are all things "out of" God by a process of emanation or by a free act of God's will expressed in His word?
Ps. 33:6,9; 148:5, Jn. 1:1-3, Heb. 11:3

D. In addition to the initial creative act (Gen. 1:1-2, the immediate creation ex nihilo), what other creative acts are mentioned? List the things said to be created or made on each day (Gen. 1:3-2:3, mediate creation.)

E. Did God employ any existing materials in creating the various things of Gen. 1:3-2:3? (See Gen. 2:7 and consider why the term "make" is employed synonymously with "create" in these passages.)

F. How many times does "after it's own kind" occur in Gen. 1 and 2? How would you define "kind"? With which if any, of the following scientific classifications would you identify kinds of Genesis?
Kingdom Order Genus
Phylum Family Species
Class

G. How much time elapsed between the mediate creative acts? How long were the days? How long were days before the 4th day and after the 4th day?
Ex. 20:11, Gen. 2:4, Josh. 24:7, 2 Chron. 15:3, Lev. 25:8, 2 Pet. 3:8, Jer. 6:1-6, Ezek. 7:7-10, Ps. 90:5-6

In conclusion to all of this, can we believe that God is in complete control of the forces of our universe now, if he was not at its origin? Is matter evil in itself? Is the physical body evil in itself? (1 Tim. 4:4-5 and 1 Cor. 3:21-2). Should you regard any person, animal, or thing as your highest object of concern? On the other hand, should you despise any person, animal or thing God created?

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