When the Bible speaks of God “creating,” [Jeremy Howard] reads into that “ex nihilo.”See:
Blake T. Ostler, Out of Nothing: A History of Creation ex Nihilo in Early Christian Thought
Daniel O. McClellan, James Patrick Holding refuted on Creation Ex NihiloWith respect to Rom 4:17, as Blake wrote in his article, Paul is speaking of the future resurrection:Romans 4:17. Copan and Craig next cite Romans 4:17 KJV: "even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were (καλοῦντος τὰ μὴ ὄνταὡς ὄντα)." There are two possible translations of Romans 4:17. The majority translation does not entail creation out of nothing: "[Abraham] is our father in the presence of God whom he believed—the God who makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do."[15] Another translation indicates that God "calls into existence the things which do not exist" (New American Bible, NAB). The first translation is preferred for several reasons. First, Keith Norman has pointed out that it is contradictory for God to call to that which does not exist.[16] Second, as Moo stated, "this interpretation fits the immediate context better than a reference to God's creative power, for it explains the assurance with which God can speak of the 'many nations' that will be descended from Abraham."[17] Thus, the preferred translation merely states that God summons the future reality of the resurrection as if it already existed. This seems to me to be a far better fit with the context.
Third, as Hubler comments: "The verse's 'non-existent' need not be understood in an absolute sense of non-being. μὴ ὄντα (mē onta) refers to the previous non-existence of those things which are now brought into existence. There is no direct reference to the absence or presence of a material cause."[18] In other words, the Greek text suggests the view that God has brought about a thing that did not existas that thing before it was so created. For example, this use of μὴ ὄντα is logically consistent with the proposition that "God called forth the earth when before that the earth did not exist." However, the fact that the earth did not exist as the earth before it was so created does not address the type of material that was used to make it.
Note also that Romans 4:17 uses the negative μή, which refers to merely relative nonbeing and not to absolute nothing, as required by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. At this point it is important to understand a bit about the ancient concept of matter in the Greek-speaking world and the distinction between relative nonbeing (Greek μὴ ὄντα) and absolute nothing (Greek οὐκ ὄντως). Platonic philosophy—both Neoplatonism and Middle Platonism—posited the existence of an eternal substratum that was material but was nevertheless so removed from the One Ground of Being that it was often said to not have "real" existence. As Jonathan Goldstein observes: "Platonists called pre-existent matter 'the non-existent.'"[19] This relative nonexistence is indicated by the Greek negative μή, meaning "not" or "non-," in conjunction with the word for existence or being.[20] When the early Christian theologians speak of creation that denies that there was any material state prior to creation, however, they use the Greek negation ουκ, meaning "not in any way or mode." As Henry Chadwick explained the usage in Clement's Stromata: "In each case the phrase he employs is ek me ontos not ex ouk ontos; that is to say, it is made not from that which is absolutely non-existent, but from relative non-being or unformed matter, so shadowy and vague that it cannot be said to have the status of 'being', which is imparted to it by the shaping hand of the Creator."[21] Edwin Hatch explained that, for Platonists, "God was regarded as being outside the world. The world was in its origin only potential being (το μὴ ὄν)."[22] He explains more fully:
The [Platonic] dualistic hypothesis assumed a co-existence of matter and God. The assumption was more frequently tacit than explicit. . . . There was a universal belief that beneath the qualities of all existing things lay a substratum or substance on which they were grafted, and which gave to each thing its unity. But the conception of the nature of this substance varied from that of gross and tangible material to that of empty and formless space. . . . It was sometimes conceived as a vast shapeless but plastic mass, to which the Creator gave form, partly by moulding it as a potter moulds clay, partly by combining various elements as a builder combines his materials in the construction of a house.[23]
Aristotle wrote that: "For generation is from non-existence (ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος) into being, and corruption from being back into non-existence (εἰς τὸ μὴ ὄν)."[24] Generation is the act of a new animal being derived from an existing one, or a plant deriving from an existing plant. It is new life from life. He used the phrase from non-existence in a sense of relative nonbeing, where "things" do not yet exist and there is only a formless substratum that has the potential or capacity to receive definite form. This substratum is not absolutely nothing but is not yet a thing. It is "no-thing." Thus, to say that God called to existence that which does not exist, as in Romans 4:17, actually assumes a preexisting substrate that God, by impressing form upon it, organizes into a thing that exists. Copan and Craig simply fail to note this important distinction, and thus their exegesis is critically flawed.
In their book, Copan and Craig cite a number of evangelical scholars who share their theological presuppositions and who opine that this verse refers to creation out of nothing (CON, pp. 75-78). Yet none of these authors provide any analysis or exegesis beyond asserting that the "non-existent" must mean that which does not exist in any sense. For example, Copan and Craig quote James Dunn's commentary on Romans 4:17, which reads in the relevant part: "'As creator he creates without any precondition: he makes alive where there was only death, and he calls into existence where there was nothing at all. Consequently that which has been created, made alive in this way, must be totally dependent on the creator, the life-giver, for its very existence and life'" (NMC, p. 117).[25] However, it is easy to see that the scriptural analogy of God bringing the dead to life in the same way that he creates "things which are not" does not support creatio ex nihilo. Resurrection does not presuppose that the dead do not exist in any way prior to their resurrection, nor does it presuppose that previously they did not have bodies that are reorganized through resurrection. Just as God does not create persons for the first time when he restores them to life through resurrection, so God does not create out of absolute nonbeing.
Moreover, note that Romans 4:17 doesn't expressly address whether things are created out of nothing or from some material substrate. It simply says that God "calls" things into existence that are not. Moreover, such a statement in no way entails or requires creation out of nothing implicitly. If I create a table then I create a table that did not exist before I created it, but it doesn't mean that I create it out of nothing. In this text, the word create is not even used. Rather, what God does is to "call forth" the non-existent. The verb καλέω means to call out loud to something, or to invite.[26] It presupposes something there to be called to or invited. God calls out to the non-existent by his Word, an act described by a verb used elsewhere in Paul's writings (Romans 9:11; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Galatians 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:24). Thus, the most natural reading of this text is that the "non-existent" or μὴ ὄντα refers to a preexisting reality that does not yet exist as God calls it to be. Such a reading has nothing to do with creation out of absolute nothing.
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