Prime Matter and Creatio Ex Nihilo

Chapter 3 “The earth was invisible and unformed”: Prime Matter and Creatio ex Nihilo

An early point of conflict between Christianity and the prevailing cosmology of philosophers was the origin and nature of matter: was it eternal and uncreated, or did God make it from nothing? The philosophical background for this dispute was a widely-held understanding of matter called “hylomorphism,” which went back to Aristotle (and to some extent Plato). According to hylomorphism, all things that exist are composed of both “form” and matter, the latter being the underlying “stuff” of which everything that exists is formed. The idea was that everything in the universe is constituted from some undif- ferentiated, shapeless stuff. What does this have to do with the Bible? The word unformed (ἀκατασκεύαστος) is used to describe the primal earth in Gen 1:2. This suggested to Justin Martyr this concept of “formless matter.” He thought that the unformed earth at that time was what philosophers called “prime matter.” That is, it was the passive principle of existence that, when it encountered the active principle (namely God), became the physical cosmos. The matter became perceptible only when it took particular “forms.” Justin was thus able to harmonize the science of his day with Gen 1:1–2. Theophilus of Antioch, however, saw a danger in this approach: it seemed to put prime matter on the same level as God, such that the universe came to be, not from one principle but two. God was like the father and matter the mother. Theophilus therefore argued that prime matter itself was created by God out of nothing (ex nihilo). This, however, introduced a new problem: according to philosophy, nothing can come from nothing, so how could matter have come from nothing? This brings us to Origen. He mentions that some educated Christians took the objection that nothing could come from nothing seriously. To solve the problem, they simply rejected the theory of hylomorphism altogether. According to them, only “forms” actually exist: there is no such thing as matter. God made these forms in the beginning, and thus God is the one and only principle of existence. Origen did not take this route. He accepted the theory of hylomorphism, while rejecting the implication that matter must therefore be uncreated and eternal, only the forms coming and ceasing to be. He rejected it because he regarded creatio ex nihilo as apostolic doctrine: God made the universe from nothing, not from uncreated matter.

Origen’s engagement on this point took on a philosophical bent, as he argued that prime matter was not eternal but made by God from nothing. He argued not so much against philosophers themselves as against some of his fellow Christians, like Hermogenes, who accepted the philosophical view. He founds his argument on God’s power and God’s providence. Firstly, if prime matter exists without having been created, then why postulate a Creator at all? Why not simply say that the forms themselves are also uncreated? Christians, of course, believe that God is the Creator and thus, Origen argues, should admit that if he made the forms, then he also made the matter. Secondly, if matter is eternal, then God sure was lucky to find exactly the matter he needed to make the universe! But if we accept this hypothesis, then God’s providence is eliminated. Either God got lucky or received the matter he needed from some higher providence. Again, the argument works against Christians, who cannot accept a providence above God’s providence. It would be like saying that God was made by a higher God. The correct idea, Origen says, is that matter was made by God out of nothing. The philosophers, in their limited understanding, simply failed to understand that God can even make something out of nothing. Basil tackled this problem as well. Unlike Origen, he divorces the scriptural text from the theory of hylomorphism: that is simply not what Gen 1:2 is talk- ing about. The “unformed” earth is not matter, but the earth in its initial, in- complete state. It would not be completed until God made plants and animals upon it. On the question whether matter was eternal, Basil shows his depen- dence upon Origen. He used the same arguments as Origen, but his treatment is polemical and apologetical rather than philosophical. He makes each of Origen’s points very succinctly. His goal was not to philosophize but to inform and entertain his congregation. Rather than carefully laying out why they were wrong, Basil glories in mocking the philosophers for being duped by a false analogy: they should not have thought that God made the universe in the same way that human beings make things from pre-existent material. Origen had mentioned this as well, but only in passing. Like Origen, Basil maintained the theory of hylomorphism. The only problem was thinking that matter must be eternal rather than created. Basil even used the theory to explain what we can and cannot know of God. Just as we cannot perceive prime matter, since it is formless and shapeless, but perceive only the “forms” it actually takes, neither can we know God’s essence. According to Basil, we know God only through his works, which are sort of like the forms that matter takes. Not only did Basil accept hylomorphism, he showed the usefulness of philosophy by putting the theory to work for him. By maintaining hylomorphism, both he and Origen avoided the mistake of throw- ing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. Hylomorphism was good, but