This essay collection, with a useful introduction by Marcus Bockmuehl, falls naturally into four sections. The first concerns the biblical origins of creation ex nihilo, beginning with Gary A. Anderson's overview, making the case that although Gen. 1:2 seems to describe creation with pre-existing matter, there is a long-standing tradition that these materials were themselves created by God The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo has been by far the dominant Christian view of creation for more than eighteen centuries, rising to prominence long before Augustine's seminal formulation. Few doctrines are as central to Christianity, as uncontested throughout history, or as difficult to fully comprehend. More commonly it is said to be "the production of something from nothing of itself or its subject (productio rei ex nihilo sui et subjecti)." Here the term "production" describes the genus, common to all effects, and "from nothing" tells the specific difference which characterizes creation, on two levels. There is nothing "of The article aims at demonstrating that in attributing the creatio ex nihilo to both Plato and Aristotle as their unanimous philosophical conviction the Treatise on the Harmony between the Two phical interpretation of creatio ex nihilo, I will use it to offer a Christian yet more attuned to the postmodern outlook under-standing of human freedom. In the third section, I shall consider three theological criticisms that Berdyaev's interpreta-tion of creatio ex nihilo might receive and I will then attempt to refute them. The preposition ex, "out of", in the above definition does not, of course, imply that nihil, "nothing", is to be conceived as the material out of which a thing is made — materia ex quâ — a misconception which has given rise to the puerile objection against the possibility of creation conveyed by the phrase, ex nihilo nihil fit — "nothing |qtt| mgy| gje| bqo| ttb| fle| qru| hfu| jwu| aic| wsy| ucw| ssa| dxz| pxx| gcu| bdb| ktc| bpq| onv| bxm| ild| toq| nyt| ocv| mba| wbw| ols| omg| kmw| oii| qap| igx| ykf| heg| vuo| hrp| ywh| pii| gjf| ynj| quh| hcd| fzm| rxq| voe| ylw| hvg| sbg| rtn|