**Creatio ex Deo vs. Creatio ex Nihilo**
*Creation Out of God's Own Substance vs. Creation From Nothing*
The doctrine of *creatio ex nihilo*, or creation out of nothing, has long dominated Christian theology. It proposes that when God created the heavens and the earth, He did not use any pre-existing material but brought everything into being from non-being—pure nothingness. While this might seem like a theological safeguard of God’s omnipotence and transcendence, it is a position that lacks biblical foundation and philosophical coherence.
The Scriptures are largely silent on *how* God created. They tell us *what* God created—"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1), and "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God" (Hebrews 11:3)—but they do not specify the medium or substance through which this act of creation occurred. *Creatio ex nihilo*, then, is not a biblical doctrine, but one constructed later in response to competing cosmologies—particularly Gnostic dualism and various Platonic philosophies. As such, it became a reactionary doctrine rather than one organically derived from revelation.
If not out of nothing, then what? The alternative—often dismissed as heretical—is *creatio ex deo*: creation out of the very being, the corporeal spirit-substance, of God Himself. This does not mean that creation is God, nor that the universe is identical to God (pantheism), but that God emanated the world from His own essence—thus allowing for a distinction between Creator and creation while affirming their ontological connection. This view is better classified as panentheism: all things exist *in* God, though God is not reducible to them.
Scriptural testimony supports this. In Genesis 2:7, we read that “the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” The breath of God—the *ruach* or Spirit—is what animated man. This divine breath is not a metaphor for oxygen; it is God’s own emanation. Jesus reenacts this process in John 20:22: “He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” This parallel is not coincidental—it is revelatory. The Spirit comes from within God’s own being and enters into humanity.
Further support comes from the Apostle Paul. In Acts 17:28, Paul proclaims, “In him we live and move and have our being,” quoting a Greek poet yet affirming it as true theology. Ephesians 4:6 declares that there is “One God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” Colossians 3:11 states of Christ that he “is all, and in all.” These are not vague spiritual generalities; they are ontological claims. They affirm the immanence of God in creation and creation’s ongoing dependence upon Him.
If *creatio ex deo* is true, it means that creation was not an act of sheer externalization but of internal emanation—God drawing forth from Himself, forming creation out of His own spiritual-corporeal substance. This fits more coherently with how Genesis depicts creation: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” But what is the word of God? According to John 1:1-3, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… Through him all things were made.” This Word is not some detached command—it is the mind, intention, and substance of God Himself, later “made flesh” in Jesus (John 1:14). The Word, then, is the divine pattern or blueprint emanating from within the being of God.
This concept helps us explain not only spiritual truths but physical ones. The first atoms of creation were not conjured from void, but issued from God’s own spirit-matter, giving rise to all subsequent matter. The Genesis narrative affirms that humanity was formed from *pre-existing* material: “the dust of the ground.” This is not insignificant. It reinforces that mankind is not created *ex nihilo*, but from created elements, which themselves ultimately came from the divine.
Scientifically, we understand that matter cannot be created from nothing. Even the Big Bang theory presupposes an initial singularity—something. The principle of conservation of energy asserts that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed. If that is the case, and if God is the primal source of all that is, then the universe is a transformation, an emanation of God's own power and being into ordered complexity. The divine substance became the matrix from which time, space, matter, and life emerged.
Colossians 1:17 says of Christ, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” The Word is the binding agent of reality—not just spiritually, but materially. God's presence is what sustains atomic cohesion, gravitational laws, and biological processes. The visible world is a continuous emanation of divine force, a structured outflow of God's own corporeal reality. Creation, then, is not something God *once* did but is something God continually upholds.
To summarize: *creatio ex deo* challenges the abstraction of *creatio ex nihilo* by grounding creation in the corporeal, spirit-substance of God. It finds stronger support in Scripture, aligns more closely with the scientific understanding of matter and energy, and deepens our sense of reverence for the material world—not as a detached other, but as something birthed from within God Himself. This worldview affirms the holiness of creation without collapsing Creator and creation into one and the same. It invites us to see the universe as sacred space—matter suffused with Spirit, atoms born from glory.
