Basic HTML Version
123
generally distinguish between active and passive creation, the former denoting creation as an
act of God, and the latter, its result, the world’s being created. The former is not, but the latter
is, marked by temporal succession, and this temporal succession reflects the order determined
in the decree of God. As to the objection that a creation in time implies a change in God,
Wollebius remarks that “creation is not the Creator’s but the creature’s passage from
potentiality to actuality.”[Quoted by Warfield, Calvin and Calvinism, p. 294.]
4. CREATION AS AN ACT BY WHICH SOMETHING IS BROUGHT FORTH OUT OF NOTHING.
a. The doctrine of creation is absolutely unique.
There has been a great deal of speculation
about the origin of the world, and several theories have been proposed. Some declared the
world to be eternal, while others saw in it the product of an antagonistic spirit (Gnostics). Some
maintained that it was made out of pre-existing matter which God worked up into form (Plato);
others held that it originated by emanation out of the divine substance (Syrian Gnostics,
Swedenborg); and still others regarded it as the phenomenal appearance of the Absolute, the
hidden ground of all things (Pantheism). In opposition to all these vain speculations of men the
doctrine of Scripture stands out in grand sublimity: “In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth.”
b. Scriptural terms for “to create.”
In the narrative of creation, as was pointed out in the
preceding, three verbs are used, namely, bara’, ’asah, and yatsar, and they are used
interchangeably in Scripture, Gen. 1:26,27; 2:7. The first word is the most important. Its original
meaning is to split, to cut, to divide; but in addition to this it also means to fashion, to create,
and in a more derivative sense, to produce, to generate, and to regenerate. The word itself
does not convey the idea of bringing forth something out of nothing, for it is even used of
works of providence, Isa. 45:7; Jer. 31:22; Amos 4:13. Yet it has a distinctive character: it is
always used of divine and never of human production; and it never has an accusative of
material, and for that very reason serves to stress the greatness of the work of God. The word
’asah is more general, meaning to do or to make, and is therefore used in the general sense of
doing, making, manufacturing, or fashioning. The word yatsar has, more distinctively, the
meaning of fashioning out of pre-existent materials, and is therefore used of the potter’s
fashioning vessels out of clay. The New Testament words are ktizein, Mark 13:19, poiein, Matt.
19:4; themelioun, Heb. 1:10, katartizein, Rom. 9:22, kataskeuazein, Heb. 3:4, and plassein, Rom.
9:20. None of these words in themselves express the idea of creation out of nothing.
c. Meaning of the term “creation out of nothing.”
The expression “to create or bring forth out
of nothing” is not found in Scripture. It is derived from one of the Apocrypha, namely, II. Macc.
7:28. The expression ex nihilo has been both misinterpreted and criticized. Some even
considered the word nihilum (nothing) as the designation of a certain matter out of which the