Creation from Nothing

The Poverty of Creation

There’s a viral video (warning: explicit language) making the rounds of the comedian Pete Holmes humorously comparing the belief that God created the universe from nothing to the atheist belief that the universe simply emerged from nothingness. The video is a clip from Holmes’s recent Netflix comedy special, Pete Holmes: I Am Not for Everyone, and although perhaps not theologically profound, it offers a funny and creative perspective on a question about which people tend to have set opinions.

God’s creation of the universe from nothing, or ex nihilo, has of course been of interest to Christian theologians for centuries. At least through the Middle Ages, theologians defended this position, not against atheists who denied a Creator, but against the view that the world was eternal. St. Augustine also made the notion of creation ex nihilo central to his polemic against the Manichaeans. Contrary to the Manichaeans, who believed that evil was the creation of an evil god rivaling the good god, Augustine argued that evil is not a distinct substance, but rather the absence or corruption of the good. The finite things of this world, according to Augustine, tend toward corruption because they were created from nothing by God, and therefore have a tendency to return to nothingness. Created things exist and are held in being by God, but only for a time.

Creation ex nihilo became especially important for the Franciscan tradition, particularly through its association with the concept of poverty. For St. Francis of Assisi, poverty was much more than a material condition, it was a recognition of complete dependence on God. Therefore, poverty is not just the condition of those who are materially poor, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, but a characteristic of all of Creation. And at least in this sense, poverty should not be understood in a derogatory way; rather, the poverty of Creation glorifies God because it demonstrates God’s love and generosity in making the world. Francis also spoke of the poverty of Christ in the Incarnation. Although this certainly refers to Christ’s material poverty, it likewise refers to His taking on the dependence characteristic of a finite creature, the “self-emptying” of the Son described by Paul in Philippians 2:7.