Creation He argues that Christians should abandon the doctrine of creation
ex nihilo. Oord points to the work of biblical scholars such as
Jon D. Levenson, who points out that the doctrine of
creatio ex nihilo does not appear in
Genesis. Oord speculates that God created our particular universe billions of years ago from primordial chaos. This chaos, however, did not predate God, for God would have created the chaotic elements as well. Oord suggests that God can create all things without creating from absolute nothingness. Oord offers nine objections to
creatio ex nihilo: • Theoretical problem: One cannot conceive absolute nothingness. • Biblical problem: Scripture – in Genesis, 2 Peter, and elsewhere – suggests creation from something (water, deep, chaos, etc.), not creation from absolutely nothing. • Historical problem: The
Gnostics
Basilides and
Valentinus first proposed
creatio ex nihilo on the basis of assuming the inherently evil nature of creation, and in the belief that God does not act in history. Early Christian theologians adopted the idea to affirm the kind of absolute divine power that many Christians now reject. • Empirical problem: We have no evidence that our universe originally came into being from absolutely nothing. • Creation-at-an-instant problem: We have no evidence in the history of the Universe after the
Big Bang that entities can emerge instantaneously from absolute nothingness. As the earliest philosophers noted, out of nothing comes nothing (
ex nihilo, nihil fit). • Solitary power problem:
Creatio ex nihilo assumes that a powerful God once acted alone. But power, as a social concept, only becomes meaningful in relation to others. • Errant revelation problem: The God with the capacity to create something from absolutely nothing would apparently have the power to guarantee an unambiguous and inerrant message of salvation (for example:
inerrant Bible). An unambiguously clear and inerrant divine revelation does not exist. •
Problem of Evil: If God once had the power to create from absolutely nothing, God essentially retains that power. But a God of love with this capacity appears
culpable for failing to prevent evil. • Empire Problem: The kind of divine power implied in
creatio ex nihilo supports a 'theology of empire', based upon unilateral force and control of others. ==NNU employment==