The Nature And Relationship Of God And Creation

[Vance]

The kind that has matter.  Where is it?  You are standing on it.  It is speculation to guess what state matter was in before creation - atoms, molecules, sub-atomic particles, etc...who knows?

Or even energy.  After all E=Mc^2.  Or M=E/c^2.  Who says the conversion can only be in one direction?

[Vance]

danielwoods, losing the battle and not knowing it.

 

Where have I heard that before?

 

Humm.

[Anakin7]

    Right here Vance  http://www.cometozarahemla.org/others/mosser-owen.html

 

In His Eternal Debt/Grace

             Anakin7

Edited October 8, 2015 by Anakin7

[stephenpurdy]

The difference is when anyone else creates something, they are using *known* existing material. The context of Gen. 1 is "in the beginning..." which there is only one beginning. ...

 

 

 

You are making a HUGE assumption here.  Gen 1:1 is speaking about the beginning of the creation in which we live. 

 

Just because the text does not explain what God was doing prior to this, does not mean that God had done nothing in "eternity past" prior to this point.  The Bible is simply silent on this issue.  You can't just assume that you know that God had done nothing prior.

 

 

 

Jn.1:1 In the beginning was the Word

and the Word was with God

and the Word was God.

2 The Word was with God in the beginning.

3 Everything came into being through the Word,

and without the Word

nothing came into being.

 

Notice there is no mention of anything else in the beginning. Only God is eternal. 

 

 

 

 

 

I can show you from the Bible that many, many things are "eternal".   Even hills and mountains are called "eternal" in the Biblical text.  Covenants made between God and man are "eternal". 

 

Tell me Daniel, do you believe that you can have "eternal life"?

 

-Stephen

 

P.S.  I deal with the New Testament in this video, which rips a huge hole in your argument that your verses claim ex nihilo creation:

 

[stephenpurdy]

Stephen wrote:  That is what you don't understand.  It does not say "God created the Heavens and the Earth" with a period at the end of the sentence.   That is not the Hebrew language structure.  My video clearly demonstrates what the Hebrew language structure is, and this is obvious because the same language structure is found elsewhere in the Hebrew bible.

 

 

I understand that is your opinion.

 

 

It is not my opinion.  That same language structure is found elsewhere in the Hebrew text.  That is a fact.  I show exactly which verses it appears in the Old Testament in my video.  A seven minute video that you refuse to watch, because it PROVES you wrong.

 

-stephen

[stephenpurdy]

 

The reason there is a debate or difference isn't because of the Bible, but rather because of what the LDS already believed to be true before coming to the bible.  

 

I agree with you that the Bible isn't explicit, but it is the only thing that makes sense of all the pieces. I agree with this writer: 

 

Creation out of nothing is not mere speculation; it is based on other beliefs that are explicitly taught in Scripture and that are part and parcel of traditional, orthodox, classical “Great Tradition” Christianity.

Creation out of nothing is necessary, as I said, because without it one will believe in one of the alternative views mentioned above and will eventually find crucial gospel tenets dissolving. It is the only alternative to those views of creation and alone supports and defends the revealed gospel of truth about God, Christ, and salvation.

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2015/01/why-i-believe-in-creatio-ex-nihilo-creation-out-of-nothing-even-though-the-bible-doesnt-directly-teach-it/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unlike you, Daniel, I am willing to follow the links that people provide.  I will look at the arguments presented, analyze those arguments, and then respond. 

 

In this case, the article you provided, by Roger E. Olsen is

Why I Believe in “Creatio ex nihilo” (Creation out of Nothing) (Even Though the Bible Doesn’t Directly Teach It)

Interestingly enough, he makes the following statement: 

 

"Creation out of nothing is the only alternative to four alternative beliefs about creation that are absolutely untenable for Christian thought. One is pantheism or panentheism—belief that God and the world are either identical or interdependent. In either case the world is part of God or so inextricably united with God eternally that God is dependent on it. (Here “world” refer to creation, the universe, finite reality.)"

 

Now, I find this interesting, because creation Ex Nihilo is, if you think it through to it's logical conclusions, a form of "panentheism". 

 

I explain here:

 

 

-stephen

[stephenpurdy]

You have it backward.

It was precisely non-Mormon biblical scholars who have put forward the view that creation is from already existing material.  Mormon scholars have merely pointed this out after the fact. 

Yes, of course.  You are now beginning to get it.

 

LDS theology posits a natural God, who is part of the natural universe (or multiverse); a God who is coeternal with matter and with the intelligences -- which have no beginning and will have no end.

 

God cannot create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it.  Of course He is limited.  By any other measure, He would have to be a monster and completely irrational -- which is why belief in that traditional, paradoxical God is dying.  By your definition, God has to be the author of monstrous evil.  By the Mormon definition, all coeternal entities are responsible for their own evil acts.  Get it?

 

If Daniel would have bothered to watch any of my video series, he would know that non of my arguments depend on the "LDS perspective" .  It is purely arguments from a academic standpoint, but yes it does corroborate what LDS have been saying since the days of Joseph Smith.

 

I am glad that the topic has been brought up about a "limited God".  This reminds me of the article written by non-LDS scholar, Thomas Jay Oord,  "God Can't - and the Bible tells me so."

 

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/god_cant_-_and_the_bible_says_so

 

Now, here is the meat of the article that was posted by Daniel. 

 

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So what revealed truths, held and taught by all branches of catholic and orthodox Christianity (including the Reformers) make creation out of nothing necessary in spite of its impenetrable mysteriousness?

 

First is the transcendence of God, God’s holiness, wholly otherness, majesty, power, glory and freedom. Throughout Scripture God is revealed as not dependent on anything in creation for his actuality. Do you need a proof text? Paul to the Athenians in Acts 17:22-31: God does not need anything and gives life and breath to all mortals. Some may point to another portion of Paul’s soliloquy in Athens—that we “live and move and have our being” in God and are “God’s offspring.” None of that undermines and indeed must be interpreted in light of God does not need anything. That is a constant theme throughout Scripture: That God is “above” creation and does not need anything outside of himself to be God. A God who needs the world for anything is not the God of the Bible. “Without the world, God is not God” is Hegel’s heresy, the root of all panentheism, and it undercuts and undermines God’s holy transcendence. This is “another God,” not the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Isaiah, Jesus and Paul.

 

Second is the gratuity of grace, the revealed truth that redemption is solely gift and that grace for salvation cannot be forced or necessary. It also cannot be presumed as if God owed it to himself or anyone or anything. This belief is integral to Christian soteriology and arises out of biblical revelation and out of the very meaning of grace itself: “For by grace are you saved…and that not of yourselves….” (Ephesians 2:8-9) If creation out of nothing is not firmly held and defended, the freedom of God in redemption and salvation, grace itself as sheer gift, slips away.

 

Third, finally, is the reality of evil and God’s non-involvement in and non-participation in evil. Creation out of nothing protects the reality of evil from being reduced to illusion (our not-yet-knowing of our own divinity) or necessity (in which case it is not really evil).

 

These three Christian ideas, derived from revelation itself, if not directly revealed, depend on creation out of nothing.

 

                           - Roger E.  Olsen

 

------------------------------

 

Any takers? 

 

Allow me to address the first argument.  God's "Transcendence".  From the very first post of this thread, I wanted to address these themes.  Daniel avoided it, never bothering to read the articles that I provided there.  

 

    The God of the Bible is "transcendent" not in a metaphysical sense, but instead in a the sense that He is sovereign over his creation.  He is transcendent because He can bring about the fulfillment of his promises and plans, while men fail to keep their promises or fulfill many of their plans.  Every time the Bible speaks about the difference between God and man, it is not in reference to God being a different kind of being, but instead it is speaking of God's superior characteristics , mostly in the moral sense, but also in relationship.  The Biblical difference between God and man is not "metaphysical".  The difference is God's knowledge, morality, power, dominion, and so forth.  While Cherbonnier may, typical of most Christians, assume Ex Nihilo creation, such an assumption is contrary to everything else he describes in his powerful arguments found in the writings he gave:  

 

    The doctrine of creation does not, as is sometimes held, fix a great gulf between two realms of being, the divine and the human. On the contrary, the existence which God bestows upon Adam does not differ in kind from his own. It is therefore misleading to speak of "discontinuity" between the Creator and his creation. Opposition between men and God there surely is, but it is volitional, not metaphysical. In biblical terms, it occurred after creation. That is, a conflict of wills presupposes that both parties share a single logical context, a common world of thought and action. In this sense, the doctrine of creation is a doctrine of continuity, not discontinuity.     ( http://www.philosophy-religion.org/cherbonnier/logic-bible.htm )

 

 

- - - - - - - - - - - -

 

Now Daniel, you clearly believe in the "mystical God" that Cherbonnier described as being unbiblical.  How can you possibly claim, or post an article that claims,  that the Biblical text is incompatible with the LDS teachings, when the kind of "transcendence" that you and Olsen espouse is incompatible with the God of the Bible?

 

Olsen points to Acts 17 as a proof text for ex Nihilo or transcendence, which is interesting, because these are the same verses that LDS will quote to say that ALL of the nations of the Earth are the "offspring of God".   This places God in authority.  It places God supreme over all of us, but it certainly does not place God in a different kind of metaphysical existence.  It does not claim that "offspring" should be understood to be created "out of nothing".  Indeed, "offspring" are never and by no means ever created out of nothing.  And they are never and by no means considered to be metaphysically different than the Parent/Father.  This is a very simple Biblical truth about living beings set forth from Genesis: "The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind;". 

 

What does it mean to be "sons and daughters of God" ? 

 

It is yielding offspring after the very same kind of Being that God is.

 

 

 

 

-Stephen

[stephenpurdy]

danielwoods, losing the battle and not knowing it.

 

Where have I heard that before?

 

Humm.

 

It has been going on for a long time on this forum as well.  On the other thread, I challenged Daniels definition of what "eternal" means.

 

I gave examples of how "eternal" is used everywhere else in the text:

 

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Unfortunately, some believing that God is "eternal" somehow gets interpreted as God existing in some kind of simple (no parts), metaphysical, unchanging state from infinite past to infinite future, existing before anything else ever existed, or outside of any kind of time altogether. However, those are huge leaps beyond how the Bible uses “eternal”.

All that can be said of the scriptural usage of these terms (everlasting/eternal) is that whatever is called “eternal” goes beyond our usual sense or scope of existence or beyond our usual experience of time. The ancient authors wrote to an audience according to their understanding, which is limited. Our understanding is limited as well. Time is relative, and anything outside time as we currently know it is beyond the human experience. We think that living 100 years is a long time. Imagine living 100 thousand or 100 million years. It is unthinkable in relation to what we see in our mortality.

Let's say that God is well beyond even billions and billions of years. How can we even fathom that? Having created the Universe and time as we know it, perhaps God transcends time in our Universe, and, if we want to speculate, He may very well have created another Universe or Universes (other "eternities")...

Here are a few Old Testament examples of two terms which are sometimes translated as everlasting/eternal:

עוֹלָם `owlam

Deut 33:15 describes the hills/mountains as "everlasting/eternal". Yet clearly the Bible teaches that the Earth along with the hills and mountains were created.

This is the same term used in the Psalms for God being “from everlasting to everlasting”. Yet most of the time we find this word translated as “ancient”. Other examples include “ancient people” (Isa 44:7), ancient landmark (Prov 22:28), and so forth.

Similarly, we have the Hebrew wordעַד `ad

Job 20:4 "Haven't you known this from ***everlasting/eternal***, since mankind was placed on the earth?

So here, having known since the beginning of the Earth is sufficient to be considered eternal/everlasting. The meaning is "antiquity or of old'. (Interesting also that Isaiah uses this same term in 57:15 to say that God “inhabits eternity.” Almost as if eternity can also be considered a place.)

Keep in mind that this is the same term that is used in Isaiah 9:6 for the “everlasting/eternal Father”.

Lets look at some New Testament words, like Ἀΐδιος aïdios

Jude 1:6 uses the term to describe “everlasting chains” for the angels who “kept not their first estate” which they will have “unto the judgement of the great day.” So, did these chains under darkness exist (in eternal past) before God supposedly created everything Ex Nihilo, including the angels themselves?

Yet this term is the same word used to describe God's “eternal power and Godhead” in Romans 1:20.

How about another term, from which we get aeon. Αἰών Aiōn

Sometimes this one it is not just understood as long periods of time, but as “the worlds” or the Cosmos/Universe, which, as we both know, are created by God, so does not really fit your definition of something that always has been.

Finally, we have χρόνος and Αἰώνιος aiōnios ,

It is used over and over to describe both eternal salvation/redemption/

inheritance as well as eternal judgment/fire/destruction.

It is also used to describe a whole host of other things, like the “eternal weight of glory” to be bestowed upon the faithful. It is used by Paul to describe an “everlasting covenant” between God and man. It is used in conjunction with another Hebrew term to say “since the world began”. It as also used to things that will exist in the future, for example, when comparing our earthly tabernacle, which is temporal, to the tabernacle we will have in the resurrection. (2 Cr 5:1).

So, we should be asking whether or not our definition or meaning of “eternal” is consistent with how these terms were actually used and understood in ancient scripture.

------------------------------------------------

 

To this Daniel replied:

 

Daniel wrote:  If one assumes that the traditional/historical view is correct, then the definition of the words change slightly when talking about God specifically because the context changed. God is a unique being.

 

This is that circular logic that we have been referring to.

 

The "orthodox Christian" says/assumes that eternal means something "different" when referring to God than what it means when using the same term about something else. 

 

Then he turns around and says that we/LDS are making assumptions.  

 

Notice how he dissappeared from the map when confronted by this on the other thread:

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/65453-lds-view-of-godhead-trinity/page-9

 

He conveniently forgot that his point of view was totally destroyed in June of this year.  Then he slipped back in as if it never happened.

 

I feel we are engaged in a lost cause here.

 

-Stephen

Edited October 9, 2015 by stephenpurdy

[danielwoods]

That was the Jewish view a century ago, and clearly in line with Jewish religious dogma (which is also the dogma of Muslims and Christians), so it is no surprise that B. H. Roberts would correctly reflect that view.

 

The understanding of biblical Hebrew has since then advanced a great deal and no Hebrew grammarians any longer support that old view.  As Ephraim Speiser explained in his 1964 translation-commentary on Genesis 1, we must allow the text to speak for itself, despite whatever theological preconceptions we bring to the text.  In other words, his was a plea for simple honesty.

 

Your appeal to scholarship has forced me to collect a list of both scholars and Jewish perspectives throughout history that agree with the ex nihilo position. 

1) Generally translated as creation, but more specifically, creation of something from nothing (Hebrew: b’riah yesh mei-ayin). A true b’riah does not emerge out of its antecedent; nothing predicts it or even suggests its possibility. Rather, it is something entirely new, an entirely unprecedented phenomenon.

The consensus of classic Jewish thinkers is that all existence is a b’riah out of absolute void, as the simple meaning of the opening verses of Genesis implies. Before the act of creation, there was no primordial matter or energy out of which a universe could emerge, nor any law that could explain such an event.

True creativity—creating something that has absolutely no precedent—can only be realized by an entity that itself has no precedent. That entity is the absolute oneness we refer to as G‑d.

By Tzvi Freeman

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1420089/jewish/Creation.htm

2) The Torah view of existence predicated on the principle of "something from nothing" is somewhat more difficult to explain than "something from something" for the obvious reason that "nothing" defies description and can, therefore, only be appreciated by means of analogy. One very useful, albeit imperfect, analogy is creative human thought, an example of which is a daydream….

The Torah, then, is at the heart of the "something from nothing" position. All the "something from something" theorists approach causality from their own perspectives and on their own terms. Judaism, which is at odds with everyone and everything else, is based on the truth that G-d is not a something, and therefore if He is to be approached at all, it must be from His perspective and on His terms.

By Yaakov Brawer

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1136/jewish/Something-from-Nothing.htm

3) John Sailhamer remarks,

Biblical scholars have long believed the idea of "creation from nothing" can be found in the opening phrase of Genesis 1. . . . there is little else the text could mean other than "creation out of nothing." The simple notion that the world has a "beginning" would itself seem to necessitate that it was created "from nothing.”

Sailhamer, “Genesis Unbound”, p. 250

4) German theologian Jurgen Moltmann comments on bârâ', which is used "exclusively as a term for the divine bringing forth." He points out that since bârâ' does not take an accusative (i.e., some object) of a material out of which something has been made, this reveals that "the divine creativity has no conditions or premises. Creation is something absolutely new. It is neither potentially inherent or present in anything else.”

Moltmann, “God in Creation”, p73.

5) bara' in Gen 1:1 is a Qal perfect (so is the first "was" in 1:2, the second is implied). That is the simple-active stem and the perfect state. When God created the Heavens and the earth, it is a done deal. Now it has to be shaped. I do understand that as God creating the heavens and the earth from nothing.

The first explicit statement of creation ex nihilo is in 2 Maccabees, a Jewish book but written in Greek. It deals with subjects of 161 BC. So some Jews did understand it as ex nihilo.

"I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not; and so was mankind made likewise." (2 Maccabees 7:28, KJV)

Frank Luke

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/1230/does-genesiss-creation-account-depict-creation-ex-nihilo

6) Werner Foerster has written, creation in Genesis 1 "arises out of nothing by the Word of God.”

Werner Foerster, "ktizô," in ed. Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 10 vols., trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 3: 1010

7) Bernhard W. Anderson, Contours of Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 88-89. Kenneth A. Mathews' analysis concludes that "v. 1 is best taken as an absolute statement of God's creation"

(Genesis 1-11:26 NAC 1A Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996, 139).

8 ) This absolute understanding of Genesis 1:1 and its status as an independent clause is borne out by the Septuagint's rendering

(En arch' epoi'sen ho theos ton ouranon kai t'n g'n. H' de g' . . . = "in the beginning God created heaven and earth.") William L. Craig. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/creatio-ex-nihilo-a-critique-of-the-mormon-doctrine-of-creation

9) Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 107. The Vulgate also translates the verse as an absolute and treats it as an independent clause: In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram. Bruce Waltke lists "all ancient versions" - "LXX, Vulgate, Aquila, Theodotion, Symmachus, Targum Onkelos" - as understanding Genesis 1:1 as an "independent clause": "The Initial Chaos Theory and the Precreation Chaos Theory," Bibliotheca Sacra 132 (July 1975): 223.

10) The phrase translated "in the beginning" (berêshît) "is used absolutely," and a translation such as "In the beginning, when. . ." simply "cannot" be a reasonable treatment of the text. In their estimation, "the context" indicates "the very first beginning."

C.F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1 ("The Pentateuch"), 46.

The same conclusion is drawn by Victor P. Hamilton, Genesis 1-17, 106.

11) Bruce Waltke notes the unanimity in "both the Jewish and Christian tradition" about the first word in the Bible being in an "absolute state" and that the first verse is "an independent clause." He then comments: "Moses could not have used any other construction to denote the first word as in the absolute state, but he could have opted for a different construction to indicate clearly the construct state."

"The Initial Chaos Theory," 225. See Waltke's entire essay, 217-28.

12) Old Testament scholar Thomas McComiskey concurs that the word bârâ' emphasizes the initiation of the object, the bringing about of something new.

Thomas E. McComiskey, "bârâ'," in ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason J. Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980) 1:127. McComiskey mentions that y‚tzar primarily emphasizes the shaping of an object.

13) Edward P. Arbez and John P. Weisengoff, who show that besides there being nothing in the text of Genesis to affirm that chaotic matter existed before God's action, the use of the verb bârâ' in the context of Genesis 1 makes the best sense if it is understood as creation ex nihilo. For instance, God's activity (expressed by bârâ') brings about the universe ("heavens and earth") "in the beginning" (i.e., the universe had a beginning through the action of God). Nor is there any mention of anything pre-existent which God used. "To create" is more fitting a translation than is "to fashion" or "to shape" or the like.

"Exegetical Notes on Genesis 1:1-2," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 10 (1948): 142, 144; see also Foerster, "ktizô," 3:1010: bârâ' is used in the Old Testament "only of a divine action."

14) These scholars (Arbez and Weisengoff) conclude quite forcefully that the whole of Gen. 1 is permeated with the idea of the absolute transcendence of God and of the utter dependence of all being on God for its existence. The idea of a "creatio ex nihilo" seems to be so logically bound up with the author's view of God that one can hardly refuse to see it in his opening statement.

Arbez and Weisengoff point out that scholars such as Knig, Reuss, A. Heidel, and Wellhausen as drawing this conclusion as well

"Exegetical Notes on Genesis 1:1-2," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 10 (1948): (144-45n).

15) Kenneth Mathews' analysis of Genesis 1 leads him to conclude: "The idea of creatio ex nihilo is a proper theological inference derived from the whole fabric of the chapter."

Genesis 1-11:26, 141 NAC 1A Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996

16) Rabbi Saadia Gaon, the great 10th century scholar and philosopher, explains that the term "in the beginning" implies the very first moment of time. Nothing preceded this moment, since with this moment G-d created time itself.

In other words, while time is itself a creation--a most basic principle of the Jewish faith is that every reality was created by G-d-- it is the first and most primary of creations. Indeed, "creation" (beriah, in the Hebrew), which means bringing something into being out of a prior state of non-existence, implies a "before" and an "after"; so to say that G-d created anything is also to say that He first (or simultaneously) created time. To say, "In the beginning G-d created...," is also to say, "G-d created the beginning.”

http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/2857/jewish/The-First-Creation.htm

 

Edited October 9, 2015 by danielwoods

[danielwoods]

Stephen who? Why would Stephen matter?

 

You are indeed getting closer. ex-nihilo was influenced by the Greek philosophies. "Ancient Jewish writings teach that God created the universe by giving form to formless matter. It was not until the second century after Christ that Christian thinkers began, under the influence of Greek philosophy, to teach creation ex nihilo, and the doctrine only gradually gained wide acceptance." The citation for this is as follows:

See Gerhard May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts: Die Entstehung der Lehre von der Creatio Ex Nihilo, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 48 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1978); Jonathan A. Goldstein, “The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo,” Journal of Jewish Studies, Autumn 1984, pp. 127–35; David Winston, “Creation Ex Nihilo Revisited: A Reply to Jonathan Goldstein,” Journal of Jewish Studies, Spring 1986, pp. 88–91; Peter Hayman, “Monotheism—A Misused Word in Jewish Studies?” Journal of Jewish Studies, Spring 1991, pp. 2–4; Frances Young, “Creatio Ex Nihilo: A Context for the Emergence of the Christian Doctrine of Creation,” Scottish Journal of Theology, 44 (1991):139–51.

 

It has been brought up that the word "create" used in the scripture has the implication of creating out of something - to form or shape.

In Genesis 1:2 it states: "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

Verse 1 states what God did. Verse 2 and after goes into how He did it.

God took those raw materials and created something wonderful - this earth.

 

Stephen the guy who started this thread. 

 

Ex-nihilo is a jewish idea. Ex-materia is a greek idea, as argued by Plato. 

 

There is no mention of raw materials already existing before God or co-eternal with God anywhere in Genesis. 

[danielwoods]

You are making a HUGE assumption here.  Gen 1:1 is speaking about the beginning of the creation in which we live. 

 

Just because the text does not explain what God was doing prior to this, does not mean that God had done nothing in "eternity past" prior to this point.  The Bible is simply silent on this issue.  You can't just assume that you know that God had done nothing prior.

 

 

 

Actually, Gen. 1:1 states "heaven's and earth" which is a jewish statement for all that exists, everything!

[danielwoods]

Stephen wrote:  That is what you don't understand.  It does not say "God created the Heavens and the Earth" with a period at the end of the sentence.   That is not the Hebrew language structure.  My video clearly demonstrates what the Hebrew language structure is, and this is obvious because the same language structure is found elsewhere in the Hebrew bible.

 

 

 

 

It is not my opinion.  That same language structure is found elsewhere in the Hebrew text.  That is a fact.  I show exactly which verses it appears in the Old Testament in my video.  A seven minute video that you refuse to watch, because it PROVES you wrong.

 

-stephen

 

It's your opinion that it proves me wrong. 

 

I have a different opinion. 

[danielwoods]

 

 

Now, I find this interesting, because creation Ex Nihilo is, if you think it through to it's logical conclusions, a form of "panentheism". 

 

 

Only if you don't believe that God is truly transcendent. 

[danielwoods]

 

    The God of the Bible is "transcendent" not in a metaphysical sense, but instead in a the sense that He is sovereign over his creation. 

 

CFR that God of the Bible is not transcendent in the metaphysical sense. 

[stephenpurdy]

CFR that God of the Bible is not transcendent in the metaphysical sense. 

 

You are asking me to show you a verse ... to prove a negative?   LOL.

 

The CFR is for YOU to prove.  Where in the Bible does it say that God is transcendent in a metaphysical sense?  The concept of "transcendence" developed from "Greek philosophical monotheism".  They believed that there was an "unmoved mover" (primum movens), which was the only thing which moved everything else , but itself was not moved by anything else.  It was from this concept that "ex nihilo" evolved.  This primum movens was distinct from everything else, because it was the cause of motion of all other things. 

 

stephen wrote:  Now, I find this interesting, because creation Ex Nihilo is, if you think it through to it's logical conclusions, a form of "panentheism".

 

 

Only if you don't believe that God is truly transcendent. 

 

Not at all.  Since I already know you wouldn't bother to watch the video (the simple illustrations are too devastating for you apparently), ... so,  let me summarize.  Ex Nihilo directly results in "panentheism" , it doesn't matter how you try to define transcendence. 

 

Where did we exist before creation?  Did God know what we would do before God decided to create us?  If not, then , according to your viewpoint, God is not omniscient.  God must have known every single thing that every single individual would do before we did it.  If God did not want a single individual to do any particular thing, then God could have simply decided not to create that individual. 

 

We must have existed as an idea in God's mind before we were even created.  According to your theology, Our existence is simply an outward manifestation of what God imagined us to be doing before God even created us.  We do exactly what God wanted us to do, and if God did not want us to do it, then he simply would have refrained from bringing us into existence "out of nothing".  Therefore, everything that exists and every action that is performed is what God wanted to exist and occur.   That is a form of "Panentheism."

 

stephen wrote:  It is not my opinion.  That same language structure is found elsewhere in the Hebrew text.  That is a fact.  I show exactly which verses it appears in the Old Testament in my video.  A seven minute video that you refuse to watch, because it PROVES you wrong.

 

 

It's your opinion that it proves me wrong. 

 

I have a different opinion. 

 

No.  The very same Hebrew words and grammar structure  "In the beginning of..." is found elsewhere in the text.  That is not an opinion.  It is a FACT.  I explained exactly which verses. 

 

You sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting LA , LA, LA will not change that fact. 

 

Now, if you were to bother and watch the video and learn which verses I am talking about, and what the Hebrew words were, then you might simply say .. "well, even though it is found elsewhere in the text, it MUST mean something different in Gen 1:1", then you could try to weasel out of it, like you have done with other topics.  But apparently you are not even willing to do that when it comes to this topic.  Amazing.  Absolutely amazing.

 

C'mon buddy.  It is 7 minutes and 20 seconds.  You can do it:

 

 

 

-stephen

[stephenpurdy]

 

5) bara' in Gen 1:1 is a Qal perfect (so is the first "was" in 1:2, the second is implied). That is the simple-active stem and the perfect state. When God created the Heavens and the earth, it is a done deal. Now it has to be shaped. I do understand that as God creating the heavens and the earth from nothing.

The first explicit statement of creation ex nihilo is in 2 Maccabees, a Jewish book but written in Greek. It deals with subjects of 161 BC. So some Jews did understand it as ex nihilo.

"I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not; and so was mankind made likewise." (2 Maccabees 7:28, KJV)

Frank Luke

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/1230/does-genesiss-creation-account-depict-creation-ex-nihilo

 

 

Please think about what you are quoting and posting.

 

You are acting like a mindless parakeet.  I address Maccabees 7:28 VERY SPECIFICALLY in my Pre-Ex Nihilo video at 10:21 (in case you don't want to watch the first 10 minutes). 

 

At 10:58, I even demonstrate that you don't have to be a scholar to understand that Ex Nihilo is not being taught.  The context itself reveals it. 

 

Now, If I go to a beach, and create a sand castle.  That which "was not" is now there.  There was no castle before it was formed.  Is that "out of nothing"?

 

Man was "made from the dust" according to the Biblical text.  Not "out of nothing".   2 maccabees compares the creation to the creation of man out of the dust.  Kind of destroys your argument ... does it not?

 

Furthermore, I go into the grammatical states of "bara" in this video, and show this "scholar" you quote to be nothing but a hack:

 

 

-Stephen

Edited October 9, 2015 by stephenpurdy

[stephenpurdy]

Please think about what you are quoting and posting.

 

You are acting like a mindless parakeet.

 

If I go to a beach, and create a sand castle.  That which "was not" is now there.  There was no castle before it was formed.  Is that "out of nothing"?

 

Man was "made from the dust" according to the Biblical text.  Not "out of nothing".   2 maccabees compares the creation to the creation of man out of the dust.  Kind of destroys your argument ... does it not?

 

Furthermore, I go into the grammatical states of "bara" in this video, and show this "scholar" you quote to be nothing but a hack:

 

 

If you bothered to watch the videos, you would see that I have already dealt with everything you are trying to use to counter me.  But how would you know?  You are not a seeker of truth.

 

-Stephen

[stephenpurdy]

 

11) Bruce Waltke notes the unanimity in "both the Jewish and Christian tradition" about the first word in the Bible being in an "absolute state" and that the first verse is "an independent clause." He then comments: "Moses could not have used any other construction to denote the first word as in the absolute state, but he could have opted for a different construction to indicate clearly the construct state."

"The Initial Chaos Theory," 225. See Waltke's entire essay, 217-28.

 

 

I hate to break it to you, But Bruce Waltke was a ground breaking scholar who wrote the book

Creation and Chaos: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Biblical Cosmogony

He explains exactly how and why the Bible teaches creation from Chaos, rather than creation "ex nihilo"

 

 

 

Ex-nihilo is a jewish idea. Ex-materia is a greek idea, as argued by Plato. 

 

 

 

Wrong.  Neither the Jews or the Greeks thought of creation out of nothing.   Ex nihilo was a new/novel idea which was presented by gnostic thinkers in the mid to end of the second century A.D. 

 

Wow.  You are wasting soooooo much time.  The videos are much , much shorter than the time you are wasting.

 

 

 

 

Allow me to say that ... IF you were to watch the videos ... you would see that they are extremely fair.  No assumptions are made.  The points are laid out nice and easy.

 

-stephen

Edited October 9, 2015 by stephenpurdy

[stephenpurdy]

 

6) Werner Foerster has written, creation in Genesis 1 "arises out of nothing by the Word of God.”

Werner Foerster, "ktizô," in ed. Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 10 vols., trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 3: 1010

 

 

 

I specifically speak about this Greek term in this video (which I have posted several times already).

 

Would you have quoted this "scholar" if you really knew what this greek verb means or how it was used?

 

You are making a fool out of yourself Daniel. 

 

You are unwilling to listen to the other side of the argument.  You are unwilling to investigate, and your mind is closed to other viewpoints. 

 

I made the videos because some people are too lazy to read.  Now, you are such a denier, that you are too lazy to watch.  I have tried to demonstrate how this is supposed to work:

 

1) you present an argument or provide a link that shows some kind of view point with argumentation.

 

2) I read and investigate the viewpoints and then I respond to each part

 

If you are unwilling to do this, then quite frankly you are wasting people's time here.

 

-stephen

[stephenpurdy]

I apologize to the other posters of this forum.

 

I feel that I can no longer talk to Daniel without becoming "un Christ-like".

 

He is the kind of "blind sheep" that I get very , very frustrated with.

 

Unless he shows any evidence of showing that he has watched and understands the arguments presented in the videos ... I am out.

 

 

-Stephen

Edited October 9, 2015 by stephenpurdy

[Vance]

CFR that God of the Bible is not transcendent in the metaphysical sense. 

CFR that the God of the Bible (a rather ridiculous phrase) is transcendent in the metaphysical sense.

[danielwoods]

You are asking me to show you a verse ... to prove a negative?   LOL.

 

 

 

You made the claim. I'm asking you to back it up or take back the claim. You claimed, "The God of the Bible is "transcendent" not in a metaphysical sense, but instead in a the sense that He is sovereign over his creation."

 

CFR is for your claim above, since you are so smart it should be  a simple task for you. 

[stephenpurdy]

You made the claim. I'm asking you to back it up or take back the claim. You claimed, "The God of the Bible is "transcendent" not in a metaphysical sense, but instead in a the sense that He is sovereign over his creation."

 

CFR is for your claim above, since you are so smart it should be  a simple task for you. 

 

Really?  You are asking me to find Biblical verses that teach that God is sovereign over creation. 

 

Yes.  This is a simple task.

 

"Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God" (Psalm 90:2).

 

"The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. (Heb 1:3)

 

"LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens" (Psalm 8:1)

"For you, LORD, are the Most High over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods" (Psalm 97:9).

 

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account" (Hebrews 4:13).

 

"The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters" (Psalm 24:1-2).

 

"Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all" (1 Chronicles 29:11-12).

 

Note:  Every verse that you can try to find which supposedly claims that God is different than man, refers to God being morally superior to man.  Man is a liar, God is not.  Man does not keep his promises, God DOES keep his promises.  The thoughts of God are above/superior to the thoughts of man.

 

Every verse that differentiates God from man is found within these kinds of contexts; there is no context which refers to God as being a different being in a metaphysical sense.

 

-s

Edited October 10, 2015 by stephenpurdy

[Robert F. Smith]

Actually, Gen. 1:1 states "heaven's and earth" which is a jewish statement for all that exists, everything!

Correct.  "heaven and earth" is a hendiadys or merism for every thing which was to be organized from chaos.  You have overlooked the grammar of Gen 1:1-3, as you always do, and thus fail to understand the full sentence and its meaning.  Your incorrect use of an apostrophe in "heaven's" is indicative.  You just didn't pay proper attention in English class.

[Robert F. Smith]

...............................................................................

Ex-nihilo is a jewish idea. Ex-materia is a greek idea, as argued by Plato. 

 

There is no mention of raw materials already existing before God or co-eternal with God anywhere in Genesis. 

Citing rabbis from Chabad (ultra-orthodox) on this is like citing fundamentalist polygamous Mormons:  You're not likely to get an unbiased and objective view based on scholarship.  The same applies to citing primarily views from Hebrew grammarians of a century ago.

 

Of course, since you can't read the Hebrew text, this makes no sense to you.  Your theological preconceptions override any other consideration.

 

Creatio ex nihilo is a late Jewish-Christian-Muslim dogma, and it is not biblical.  As usual, you have it backward.