Creation Ex-Nihilo?
-
This is not something thought up by the concillies alone, this found in numerous traditions.
Can you give me an example of Creation Ex-Nihilo pre-Nicea decree?
But the creation out of nothing is found in the Quran. So i don't see your problem.
There is no problem...I am just questioning...thats all...
Ones there was nothing, only God without His creation, then He formed His creation, using His own energy, so we are in Him, but we are not Him, He is us.
This is not Creation Ex-Nihilo...
Here what it means and meant to certain people...
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth#Creation_ex_nihilo
Regards,
-
Peace,
Q
Can you give me an example of Creation Ex-Nihilo pre-Nicea decree?A
The understanding of that God created the universe out of nothing was already given in the Genesis legend, this of course existed already for at least 1500 years before the Nicea-decree. You have to remember that the concillies only made it a law to believe in this, they weren't the ones to be the firsts to believe this. This was already knowledge for the Jews and Persians and People before them. Almost all creation myths start with the one, and that all is created out of the One. Created out of the All. So the term Ex-Nihilo, out of nothing, is not a concept of Christains alone. They made it one of the main pillars of Christianity, that is the only part the Nicea-decree did.Ancient Mesopotamia Legend(3000BC)
"When there was no heaven, no earth, no height, no depth, no name, when Apsu was alone, the origin of all..."American Indian legend of the Hopi's(?500BC)
"First they say, there was only the Creator, Taiowa. All else was endless space. There was no beginning and no end, no time, no shape, no life. Just an immeasurable void that had its beginning and end, time, shape, and life in the mind of Taiowa the Creator. Then He, the infinte, conceived the finite....."Ancient african myth(?500BC)
"In the beginning of things, all the way back in the beginning, when there was nothing, no humans, no animals, no plants, no skye, no earth, nothing, nothing, nothing, except Nzame. In the beginning Nzame created heaven and earth...."Prasna Upanishads(?400BC)
"To him he said Praja-pati(Lord of creation), verily was desirous of creation. He performed austerity. Having performed austerity, He produced the pair, matter and life, knowing they would produce creatures for Him variously."Zend-Avesta(Scripture of prophet Zaroestrha)(500BC)
"Teach thou me, Mazda Ahura, from out thyself, from heaven through thy Mouth, whereby the world first arose."Yayur Veda(1500BC)
"God is the Creator of the Universe, its One lord, the sustainer of luminous objects like the sun. He was present before the creation....."I can go on forever with these creation stories, and they all tell before the creation, there was only the absolute, the One, the All. God. And out of Him, by Him, all was created. So the idea of Ex-Nihilo is as old as humanity.
Q
There is no problem...I am just questioning...thats all...I know, wasn't meant in a wrong way, but i thought you knew it is also in the Quran.
Q
This is not Creation Ex-Nihilo...Oh? It isn't? Let's see....
However, in these traditions, the belief that God gave shape to pre-existing things was not unheard of, and that idea became more fully articulated especially under the influence of Greek philosophy.
the universe was created by God out of pre-existing matter
In most creation stories, the nothing is the same as God, because nothing has been given form yet, and at the same time, this nothing represented matter. or energy where all creation came out of. This is the same, as saying we were created through God. Through His 'energy'. Because we'll never understand His nature, His 'energy'. The beginning of the Gospel of John, has its origins from the Zend-Avesta. That through the will, or word of God, everything came into being.
"through thy Mouth" ="In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God"
Is the same as
- Creator of the heavens and the earth from nothingness, He has only to say when He wills a thing "Be", and it is.
As long as you don't see God as everything, the endless, infinite everything, you will not understand this. The nothing, doesn't mean there was really nothing, it just says, there were no things that had shape or form, or existence, except the One, the All, the Everything, God....
"We look at it, and we do not see it, and we name it 'the
Equable.' We listen to it, and we do not hear it, and we name it 'the
Inaudible.' We try to grasp it, and do not get hold of it, and we
name it 'the Subtle.' With these three qualities, it cannot be made
the subject of description; and hence we blend them together and
obtain The One."(Tao Te Ching by Lao-tze)And wikipedia, is ok, to get some quick information, but in this topic, a lot of things were wrong. They didn't see the connection through all those creation stories. But tried to represent them as different from each other which is not correct. Most stories coincide that all was created from the Absolute, the One. Or were stories about how their people were created.
Peace
-
Peace all. Creation out of nothing is for me not logical or intuitively possible. The way arnoldyasin or idolfree1 have explained it shows that it is creation from pre-existing matter/god and not from'nothing'.I dont believe there is any such real thing as nothing.The word nothing in language just symbolises something we cannot currently perceive.(just as infinity symbolises something too big for us too currently fully perceive.)
Taking scripture literally in this case does not make sense. Anyway creation can be a misleading word...Manifestation of the divine seems better to me. -
No enquirer, it is not pre-existing matter, matter only takes form on the higher level, nothing only resembles, that there was no shape before creation, but God has always been there. Matter is only a level of formed energy into a shape, the energy itselfs comes from infinity. And then we are talking about God. The idea of there was nothing next to God, means God has a size or shape, which is unacceptable in pure monotheism. I agree on with the manifestation of the Divine. We are an expression of God.
Peace
-
Peace arnoldyasin. If the energy is from infinity,then is the energy pre-existing? Or is the energy god? Or a part of god?
Peace. -
Energy is a result of a will of God, we are a result of the will of God. So we are all 'part' of Him. God is everything and more....
Stop trying to grasp God enquirer, God is ungraspable. You will never can give a shape or defintion to God, never.......
-
Too glorious and high is He, too exalted for what they say!
-
God is too glorious for what they ascribe to Him.
-
Too glorious is your Lord, the Lord of power, for what they ascribe to Him.
112 Pure Faith
Al-Ikhlas Makki
In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever-merciful.
SAY "HE IS God the one the most unique,
2. God the immanently indispensable.
3. He has begotten no one, and is begotten of none.
4. There is nothing comparable to Him."Say He is all-knowing, and He is even above our understanding of all-knowing, say He is everything, He is even more then that, He is.........
Peace -
-
Peace arnoldyasin. I am not grasping my dear person. D In my mind i have a concept of god which is currently acceptable to me.
I am asking these questions to try to clarify and understand what you are saying.
peace. -
Yes i understand. For me God is ungraspable, we can only can grasp the creation He made. Energy from where all matter is built up, is also a creation of God, we can 'see', detect it. So this is not a 'form' of God, God will always be on the edges of understanding. Like we discussed in the 'being part of God' topic. But in mine understanding. The 'nothing' in the creations stories, tell there was nothing that had shape, all was One, and still is. But they talk about a 'moment' when there were no shapes and forms. When they were created, they came out of the 'nothing', the non-shape, into being a shape, but they, we, always remind being part of the All, of God, the One who's above all thinking. So there was not like some understandings, a nothing next to God. All is all, everything. And the nothing only resembles not being a being in the Being. Well that is a heck of a sentence! D
Peace
-
Peace arnoldyasin, enquirer and all,
To say that the creation is created from nothing is wrong, I think, because the god was already there, everywhere. He is the eternal, the omnipresent.
Even The "no-thing" as an entity could not exist because only the creator was, is and will be.
The god allowed the "no-thing" to exist, but the "no-thing" can not survive or resist the presence of the god.
It is like trying to make a hole in the surface of stable lake, as soon as you put and remove the finger from water, the void space free of water will be filled again, it can not exist for long.
The creation as we see it, is the part of the water removed that is flowing to fill the gap again, thus the multidimesionnel movement of the creation, following a set of rules also created by the creator when making the "nothing" (the hole= no water).
And the water was there before making the "no water". Without the water, the hole (the no-water) can not exist.
So, we are not from nothing, we and all the creation are from the god, allowed to exist through the creation of the "no-thing", and to the god we will return.
The state of the "no thing" is only a step in the process of the creation.
--
-
That is exactly what i said...............
-
Peace someone and arnoldyasin. See how words are sometimes almost inadequate to describe what we are saying ? Even more amazing is the fact that you both are saying seemingly the same thing in different ways. ! Im begining to think that truth can be worded/explained differently,but still mean the same truth. Subjectivity rules ! ...But only when expressing the truth.
Peace all. -
Hello arnoldyasin,
I think perhaps you may not have understood what Creation Ex-Nihilo means within Judeo Christian and Islamic sense. It litterally means creating something out of nothing. Nothing in this sense means neither matter or energy nor it is a empty space or quantum vacuum. But it means nothing.
If you look at the creation myths you have listed you will see that none of these have Creation Ex-Nihilo in the Judeo Christian and Islamic sense. All of these have Gods or Goddesses that either Create the World from their own energy or matter or from pre-existing matter or energy. Even Apsu and Tiamat in the Sumerian myth you have quoted emerged from a watery waste and not from nothing.
APSU - A primeval Sumero-Akkadian god who personifies the primordial abyss of sweet waters underneath the earth
Creation Ex-Nihilo is indeed starts with the Genesis account in the Bible but this idea was alien to the pagan contemporaries at that time. It was Nicea decree that made Creation Ex-Nihilo an official Christian Doctrine.
Regards,
-
I know exactly what it means, but the idea that there was nothing in the real sense, comes from the later greek thinking frame, the Bible doesn't say nothing in the term, nothing. It never denies it didn't came out of the energy of God, and i never really professed ex-nihilo. You can interpretate "nothing" from different point of views. Genesis just says, God created the earth and heavens...It never gives any defenition how the fill gap before that in. That the Christians did that by saying there was nothing, is there point of view. And they copied that from the Greeks sects, who copied that again from the Persians sects and they copied it from the.....and so on and so on. You have to remember that Genesis has its origins in Babylonia, so the roots of understanding in their time of Genesis, was the same as how the Sumerians looked at their creation myth. So the early Jews, also believed it all was created out of God. If you only tried to refer to the Greek-Christian ex-nihilo of that particulair group, yes, i don't accept that, why? Because that view gives a size to God, that the nothing was bigger then God, or that there was a nothing next to God, and by thus again giving Him a size.
And also saying the Christain version of ex-nihilo is the same as the islamic is not quite correct. Now it is, because the 'farmer'islam is more spread then the intelligent Islam. If you read the old islamic philosophers, you'll see they also believed God is everything, and i don't mean the sufi philosophers. It more depends in what age you wanna look. Like now, protestant Christians, see God as an All-pervading power. The catholics in the old day, looked at God as if He were Zeus. So the concept changed every 100 years, and depended on from which culture you looked. So what you mean is, the ex-nihilo from the Greek-Christians, around the year 200-400 till a small portion of the Catholics now. So you cannot just say, the Judeo-Christian point of view, because there are to many different understandings to generalize them with one term.
So, on one point i misunderstood you, yes, i didn't knew, you meant the exact term of that particulair group, that got the upper hand in the concillies because of Constantine, that looked at God as He was Zeus. The exact term of ex-nihilo decreed in the Nicea-decree. Because even in those concillies, most of the scholars disagreed on this, and they were forced to believe this by the rulers. My mistake...
St Augustine "confessions" 400AD
"What was God doing before He created the Universe? Before He created Heaven and Earth, God created hell to be used for people such as you who ask this kind of question."Peace
-
My understanding of this matter is limited to following image
God created the worlds and the time. Time is the common axis through which the process of becoming (manifestation) becomes possible.
HE is not subjected to anything even TIME. so HE also made the time.
Before God created the world . FAILURE . Before is a time related word. Before He created, there was no time. (Even was is a time bounded word).
The same algorithm goes for thing and nothing.
OUR TIME-BOUNDED, THREE DIMENSIONAL UNDERSTANDING CAN NOT GRASP IT.
As far as I have understood, If you go through Quran , when talking about hereafter, instead of using time frames, it talks about immortality, but does not mention any time frame. Will the conception of time differ in the coming world? maybe!
peace.
-
Hello Arnoldyasin,
If you only tried to refer to the Greek-Christian ex-nihilo of that particulair group, yes, i don't accept that, why? Because that view gives a size to God, that the nothing was bigger then God, or that there was a nothing next to God, and by thus again giving Him a size.
But if you say even God can't create something out of nothing then you are limiting God's omnipotence are you not?
And also saying the Christain version of ex-nihilo is the same as the islamic is not quite correct.
Yes, it is true that Falsafa, the Islamic philosophers came to reject creation ex-nihilo. But creation ex-nihilo was the doctrine of the majority of the muslim Ulemas I think...
St Augustine "confessions" 400AD
"What was God doing before He created the Universe? Before He created Heaven and Earth, God created hell to be used for people such as you who ask this kind of question."
PeaceI take it you have read "Zorba The Greek" -)
-
Peace,
Quote
But if you say even God can't create something out of nothing then you are limiting God's omnipotence are you not?No, most people see God as having a certain form or size, see Him 'float' in the nothingness, and then He created out of the nothing, that is what i mean with God and the nothing next to it. What is meant with nothing, is there was no form of creation, but everything was God, God with no form or size or limit. Nothing only is a definition for no shape, or created form, inside God. I hope it is clear what i mean...
Quote
I take it you have read "Zorba The Greek" -)No, i read Augustine myself...... ;D He is an interresting philosopher.
Peace
-
Peace,
Quote
But if you say even God can't create something out of nothing then you are limiting God's omnipotence are you not?No, most people see God as having a certain form or size, see Him 'float' in the nothingness, and then He created out of the nothing, that is what i mean with God and the nothing next to it. What is meant with nothing, is there was no form of creation, but everything was God, God with no form or size or limit. Nothing only is a definition for no shape, or created form, inside God. I hope it is clear what i mean...
So there is no such thing as "nothingness" then? Nothingness as in absence of both matter and energy? Absensence of form is not "nothingness" as understood in the judeo Christian and Muslim concept of Creation Ex Nihilo.
Regards,
-
No, this is my concept of it...........
I follow Quran and science, no tradtions or perceptions from ancient mythology.... -
Strictly logically speaking
Nothing = lack of any and all properties
Existence = a property
Thus nothing does not and nor did it ever exist.Therefore creation from nothing is impossible since it can't exist.
However, if we take the scientific definition of 'nothing' (which is by and large a 'pure vacuum', but however is not property-less) then creation from 'nothing' is possible.
-
Therefore creation from nothing is impossible since it can't exist.
Even for an omnipotent God?
Regards,