Nothing can be made out of nothing (Lucretius, On the Nature of Things). God creates freely out of nothing (CCC 296). Reason suggests that the former statement is true. Faith requires the latter to be held as true. But faith and reason are not opposed to one another, they are not even separated by an invisible wall that permits them to run alongside one another but never to intermingle. Faith and reason overlap, the former elevating the latter, the latter guiding the former.
Precisely because of their compatibility, one instilled by nature, the other given by grace which works on and builds upon nature, man can reach a deeper understanding – although not a complete one – of the ontological dimension of being. This understanding however cannot be reached without revelation from God of Who He is. Without Him reaching out to man to open for us the door to His intimate life, through revelation, man cannot possibly conceptualise of God, as He is, but only as a “first principle”, a “creative force”, a blind “first mover”, rather than the Holy Trinity, a communion of divine persons, co-eternal, all one Living Flame of Love (St John of the Cross).
At first, God’s revelation to us, as the eternal, loving, and infinite Creator of all things seen and unseen (Nicene Creed), seems to complicate rather than to elucidate the ontological question, which is always a set of questions: why is there something rather than nothing, what is being, what is “nothingness” – if anything at all? where does existence come from? Revelation tells us that God is (Exo 3:14). He possesses His own being, He is His own being, and all that He has created (Gen 1, 2) has its being rooted in His own (St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas).
However, the Church teaches us that God is totally and infinitely other than His creation: He is not His creation, even if He is closer to His creation than any of His creatures can ever be. This appears to create a paradox: if God is, then there is nothing outside or besides, underneath, or above God. There is no “nothing” from which God created everything, as we read in the Catechism. And this is true, there is no “nothing”, at least not as the word itself proposes to our intellect the meaning by which we tend to conceive of “nothing” as an ontological state, as a something with a being of “nothing”, consisting of “nothingness”.
This confusion stems from a lack of understanding of the nature and function of language – topics that are too difficult to tackle in a short article, such as this one. What is sufficient to stress here is this: the words of man’s language are confined, not determined, by virtue of being symbols rooted in the inner personhood of a created being. The only reason man is capable of language, and animals, plants, rocks, and other created beings are not, is because he alone is made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27). However, man’s personhood – and all that it is capable of expressing – is created and confined to this status. To be created means to receive one’s being. God possess His own being, but man does not: the Creator gives being to creatures, and creatures receive their being from the Creator.
The language of man, as defined by words – written or spoken, operates within creation, because it stems from the heart of a created being. This is also why we can never say anything accurately or totally of God, because He is not one of us, ontologically speaking, but He is the eternal, divine, and infinite Other Person. Everything that is created has being. “Nothing”, used in an ontological context, points directly to the absence of this being, as it points indirectly to its presence: “nothingness” can only be conceptualised by virtue of the fact that something has being.
However, as we stated above, language is confined to creation. As such, when we speak of “nothingness” as an ontological concept we can only do so in relation to creation, and we can mean two things: a) that something or someone has not been yet created by God and thus it or they have no being, or b) that something that or someone who has being must have a source for its or their existence, for it or they cannot exist by its or their own accord: epistemological objects (one’s accord to be) are secondary to ontological objects (the fact that one is or is not) in their being because knowledge requires the existence of the knower as well as of that which / who is known.
To bring it all together then, as I understand, the Church’s teaching on creation as expressed in CCC 296 is this: creation out of nothing, this process, consist of the very essence of any created being, an essence which differs in kind but not in nature (man is not a monkey, even if they are both created), and this essence cannot be understood in itself by a creature, unless God reveals this mystery Himself, for the creature is already contained in the process of being created out of nothing and it cannot get out of this, as it were outside creation, were only God is.
The words “out of nothing” denote precisely this complete “otherness” of God’s ontological dimension, a personhood that is infinite (as opposed to man’s finite personhood). God created out of nothing means, therefore, that He created something (which did not exist from all eternity) totally other to Himself to enjoy eternity with Himself who is love (1 John 4:8).
Indeed, we also know that God made everything out of His love (CCC 1604). As such, we can more fully – but not totally, as we have already stated – understand this truth, that God created everything out of nothing, if we equate it with this statement: God created out of His love. We can see here that the mystery of God’s love, revealed fully in Christ Jesus, but which is never exhaustible, is reflected in the manner of creation: out of nothing therefore means something which had no prior being now has being given in love – and this is the created being for the creature.
We cannot peer into the bottom of this process, which is the essence of being, for this knowledge belongs to God. But we can see that there is no conflict between faith and reason, that one helps the other, in exploring the infinite depths of the mystery of God’s love which is, in the end, the source of all creation.
Image credit: Giovanni di Paolo, The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise, 1445
Nihil Sine Deo 