Out of Nothing
Luann Budd
“By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.”
Hebrews 11:2
We tend to think that God creates the way we create. We design crafts and cars and computers and he makes the universe. Of course, we know God’s creation is more complex and has a more intricate design, but we imagine him designing it with various parts intricately put together. Using design as a metaphor for Creation was inherited from the writers of the 17th and 18th centuries. But design is not the traditional Christian view.
We believe God is the Source. He created out of nothing, ex nihilo. Unlike our act of designing a collage (getting all of the magazines, cutting out pictures, gluing them onto a piece of paper), God doesn’t use materials that already exist and turn them into something else. God creates out of nothing. God is the Source of all matter, space, and time. When he creates, he starts with nothing.
We mistakenly think he is the Grand Designer of the universe. He is not just a Designer. He is the Creator. He brings all into being. If we don’t think of God as creating out of nothing, we think of him falsely. He is not an enormous, albeit holy, one of us. He is totally Other.
When God creates, calling into existence what did not exist before, he is totally free. He is not at all constrained by the materials available to him; he does not have to function within the mathematics of time and space, and he is not limited by the law of gravity as we are. God is free. And this freedom also means he is not in any sense compelled to create. He receives no benefit from creating because his life is eternally full.
To summarize: God is the Source of all. He creates out of nothing. He freely creates and he needs nothing in return from his creation. Therefore, God’s act of creation is first and foremost a gift.[1] The challenge for me has been to take the time to focus on the beauty and wonder of the tiniest blossom, the clouds rolling by, kittens and my neighbor next door, and to personally receive all of creation as God’s gift. If we stay with this truth for the new year, that God’s act of creation is first and foremost a gift, and if we intentionally receive each piece of fruit, each sunrise, each person we see as his gift, we will become radically grateful, deeply joyful people.
[1] “Creation is both the process and product of God’s free, unmerited giving. Creation ex nihilo… is not primarily a metaphysical claim” stating it didn’t have to happen, “but a theological claim about the nature of the Giver of creation and about creation itself; instead of its sheer givenness, we learn of its radical giftedness.” (Hutter, Creatio Ex Nihilo, p. 6)