Wednesday, March 1, 2023

James Noel Hubler on 2 Peter 3:5 and John 1:1-3

  

2 Peter 3.5 represents a New Testament text which is clearly in tune with the Near Eastern traditions which we saw in chapter 3:

 

For they willingly forget that the heavens existed of old and the earth was formed from waters and by waters through the word of God. (2 Peter 3.5)

 

2 Peter shows continuity with the tradition of the creation from waters, but uses the creation in a new polemic, to justify the teaching of the end of the world and judgment. Already the polemical connection between creation and final judgment had been made.

 

Several New Testament texts have been educed as evidence of creatio ex nihilo. None makes a clear statement which would have been required to establish such a break with tradition. None is decisive and each could easily be accepted by a proponent of creatio ex materia.

 

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came about through him and without him not one thing came about, which came about. (John 1.1-3)

 

The punctuation of the last verse becomes critical to its meaning. Proponents of creatio ex materia could easily qualify the creatures of the Word to that “which came about,” excluding the matter. Proponents of creatio ex nihilo could place a period after “not one thing came about” and leave “which came about” to the next sentence. The absence of a determinate tradition of punctuation in New Testament texts leaves room for both interpretations. Neither does creation by word imply ex nihilo (contra Bultmann) . . .and even in 2 Peter 3.5, where the word functions to organize pre-cosmic matter. (James Noel Hubler, “Creatio ex Nihilo: Matter, Creation, and the Body in Classical and Christian Philosophy Through Aquinas” [University of Pennsylvania, PhD diss., 1995], 107-8)