Doctrine of Creation (Part 6): Objections to <em>Creatio ex Nihilo</em>

Objections to Creatio ex Nihilo

Today we want to consider objections to the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. Objections to this doctrine may take the form of either objections to the ex nihilo part of the formula or to the creatio part of the formula. Objections to the ex nihilo part say that creation cannot be ex nihilo, that it is impossible to create something ex nihilo, while objections to the creatio part of the formula contend that coming into being ex nihilo is easy and therefore there's no need for creatio. So these objections are polar opposites, and yet you find both of them pressed against creatio ex nihilo.

Objections to ex Nihilo

Let's turn first to objections to the ex nihilo part of the formula. The first objection we’ll consider comes from Question of the Week number 216 on our website ReasonableFaith.org.[1] The reader there said, “We’ve never seen something which doesn’t exist caused to begin existing. Things which don’t exist can’t be caused to ‘do’ anything, since they aren’t *there* to be influenced by a cause.” Therefore creation from nothing is impossible. This objection is nothing but a rehearsal of the fallacious assumption that causing something to begin to exist involves acting upon a non-existent object and bringing it into existence. But as we've seen, creation is not a type of change because there is no subsisting object which endures from one state to another. In creation, an object does not move from a state of non-existence to a state of existence. Rather, it simply begins to exist at the moment that it is created. So this first objection is fallacious.

Let's go to the second objection. This comes from Question of the Week number 240 at ReasonableFaith.org.[2] This reader says,

In response to this objection, I agree that a causal event requires an agent to actualize the event and the potentiality of the event to occur. Moreover, I also agree that “nothingness” (in quotation marks) contains no potentiality or else it would be something. But it doesn't follow from that that creatio ex nihilo is impossible. That inference assumes that in creatio ex nihilo the potentiality of the universe's existence must lie (impossibly) in the nothingness that preceded it. But, as Thomas Aquinas pointed out, in creatio ex nihilo the potentiality of the universe lay in the power of God to create it. Since God has the power to create the universe, then even in the state of affairs of God existing alone, there is the potential for the universe to exist. That potential resides, not in some non-existent object or in nothing, but rather it lies in God himself and his ability to cause the universe.

Let's move on to our third objection which is, I think, a more serious objection. This one comes from the philosopher Wes Morriston. He enunciates another empirical generalization that he thinks enjoys comparable support to the causal principle that everything that begins to exist has a cause. Namely, his principle is everything that begins to exist has a material cause. Notice that Morriston’s principle is not incompatible with the causal principle that everything that begins to exist has a cause. That's not incompatible with saying everything that begins to exist has a material cause. But Morriston's principle would require that the universe has a material cause and therefore creatio ex nihilo is impossible.

In response, the causal premise of the cosmological argument (namely, “everything that begins to exist has a cause”) leaves it an open question whether that cause is an efficient cause or a material cause. Therefore, that principle is actually much more modest than Morriston’s principle. It's the objector then who has the burden of proof to show that every instance of efficient causation must also be an instance of material causation as well. He has to show that his more radical principle is true in addition to the principle in the kalam cosmological argument.

I think we would all admit that the inductive evidence for Morrison's principle that everything that begins to exist has a material cause is indeed very impressive. But it's not of comparable force to the arguments that I present in favor of the causal premise of the cosmological argument. I present three arguments for the premise that everything that begins to exist has a cause. Namely, number one: something cannot come from nothing. Two: if something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything and everything doesn't come into being from nothing. Then number three: common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of this causal principle. Notice only the third of those reasons is an inductive argument based on experience. This is the only one of the three that you might think could be matched by the inductive evidence in support of Morriston's principle that everything that begins to exist has a material cause, though in a moment I'm going to explain how contemporary cosmogony, I think, provides an apparently powerful counter-example to Morriston’s principle. But the main point that I want to make here is that the main grounds for affirming the causal principle are not inductive but rather they are metaphysical arguments for the first premise, not inductive evidence. These are not matched by comparable metaphysical grounds for Morriston's principle that everything that begins to exist has to have a material cause.

Moreover, and here I come to the point I alluded to, the empirical evidence for Morriston's principle can be overridden. He has good inductive evidence for the principle, but it can be overridden. Once we reach the conclusion of the kalam cosmological argument – namely, “therefore the universe has a cause” – once you reach that conclusion, we must now inquire as to the nature of that cause. Is it, or can it be, a material object? Both the philosophical arguments and the scientific confirmations of the premise that the universe began to exist preclude that the cause of the universe is a material object. For, in the first place, if there cannot be an infinite regress of events, then it is physically impossible that the cause of the universe be a material object because material objects are always in constant change at least on the molecular and atomic levels; so there would be an infinite regress of events. Likewise, secondly, the scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the origin of the universe was absolute in the sense that all matter and energy, indeed even physical space and time themselves, came into being a finite time ago. So I think we have really good grounds both philosophically and scientifically for affirming the immateriality of the first cause.

So the origin of the universe, I think, requires an efficient cause of enormous power which created physical time, space, matter, and energy. It is an instance of efficient, but not material, causation. If this is thought to be somehow metaphysically impossible, then some compelling overriding argument needs to be given for that conclusion, and I have yet to encounter any such argument.