From Blake T. Ostler, The Doctrine Of Creation Ex Nihilo Was Created Out Of Nothing:
C&C begin by arguing that statements in the Book of Mormon
and Doctrine & Covenants (“D&C”) may actually support the traditional
view. The Mormon scripture states: “there is a God, and he hath created all
things, both the heaven and the earth, and all things that in them are.” (2
Nephi 2:14; c.f., Mosiah 4:9; 2 Nephi 11:7; D&C 14:9; 20:17; 45:1). C&C
suggest that one: “could even argue that some of these early passages imply
creatio ex nihilo.”
[3] But of course only the prior assumption that the word create means
creation out of nothing can support this assertion. As I will show, this prior
assumption which forces the text with unwarranted assumptions is endemic to the
way C&C read scripture, including especially the biblical texts.
Joseph Smith received the revelation now in D&C 20 in 1830.
This revelation has added significance because it constituted the “Articles of
the Church,” the first published statement of the Latter-day Saints’ beliefs.
D&C 20:17 states that: “By these things we know that there is a God in
heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same
unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which in them
are.” Now the Mormon scriptures are quite subtle. Notice that God is the
“framer” of all things. Is this one word significant? In the context of later
revelations it becomes important to notice such nuances. C&C fail to take
account of The Lectures on Faith in their reading of Mormon scripture. Now the
Lectures are not included in present compilations of Mormon scripture, but they
were included as a part of the Mormon canon from the time of their publication
in 1835. The first Lecture states God’s mode of creation: “It was by faith that
the worlds were framed – God spake, chaos heard, and worlds came into order by
reason of the faith there was in him.” [4] This text is not speaking
merely of this earth but of worlds. God creates by speaking, and he does not
speak to nothing at all but to the chaos which responds to him in faith. From
very early in the Church, God’s mode of creation was understood to be creatio
per verbum or creation by speaking his word. His word is efficacious because he
is not talking to himself, he speaks to “chaos” which responds faithfully.
C&C argue that Mormon scriptures can be interpreted in a way
that is consistent with creation out of nothing so long as they are not read in
the context of Joseph Smith’s statements. C&C quote parts of D&C 93 as
follows: “‘intelligence, or the light of truth’ was not created or made, that
‘man was in the beginning with God’ and the elements are ‘eternal.'”
[5] They then conclude: “epexigetical [sic] equation of ‘intelligences’
with ‘light and truth’ indicates that ‘intelligence’ here probably refers to
what Doctrine and Covenants 88 calls the ‘light of Christ’… Understood in this
way uncreated intelligence/light of truth can be viewed as part of God’s
eternal being.”
[6] However, this interpretation simply ignores the context of D&C 93.
The entire text is structured to show that persons are like God and can share
God’s glory. In more complete context, D&C gives a very different message:
I was in the beginning with the Father …. Ye were also in the
beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the light of truth …. Man
was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth was not
created or made, neither indeed can be …. For man is spirit. The elements are
eternal. The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.
(D&C 93:21, 22, 29, 33, 35)
In context, the scripture says that “man” existed in the
beginning just like God. The point is that because “man” was in the beginning
and exists just like God, “man” can share fully God’s glory. While it is
possible to give an idealist (i.e., mind-dependent) reading to “intelligence,”
it is much more difficult to see how “elements” can be seen as a merely ideal
reality existing only within the mind of God. It seems to me that the fact that
intelligence is said to be “not created or made” and that “elements are
eternal” is saying that both have always existed without creation.
C&C next suggest that the “affirmation that ‘man was in the
beginning with God’ and that the elements are eternal can be understood in a
relative sense and need not imply that they are literally uncreated.” By
“relative sense” they mean that D&C 93 is only speaking of “this earth and
its inhabitants” as in the Book of Moses (1:33, 35). However, that context will
not work for D&C 93 for the simple and sufficient reason that even if
limited to this earth, the earth is never said to be either eternal or
uncreated — to the contrary, Moses says that God created the earth. Unless the
earth could be understood to be eternal like the elements from which it is
made, the interpretation offered by C&C simply misses the point.
C&C also argue that their reading “removes the tension
between D&C 93 and 2 Nephi 11:7.” What tension? Well, 2 Nephi 11:7 says
that: “if there be no God, we are not, for there could have been no creation.”
I take it that what they mean, though they don’t say, is that 2 Nephi 11:7
implies that we would not exist in any way at all because we could not be
created if there were no God, and the implication of D&C 93 is that persons
are eternal and uncreated like God. Note that they slip into their eisegesis of
this passage the implicit assumption of creation ex nihilo. But 2 Nephi 11:7
clearly does not need to assume creation ex nihilo, for Nephi is speaking of
this life and the fact that we exist as mortals in this life. Thus, as mortals
we are created by God, but as immortal spirits we are not. 2 Nephi 11:7 can be
read as consistent with the view that persons, as spirits, have always existed,
but as embodied mortals are created and if there were no God, we could not
exist as mortals.
Most importantly, C&C simply fail to quote the most
important text of all regarding the eternal existence of uncreated
intelligences! C&C state: “The Book of Abraham creation narrative implies
that the earth was created from pre-existing materials, but it does not
preclude the possibility that God created this matter ex nihilo at some point
prior to the earth’s formation.” [7] Fair enough. Yet why read
that assumption into the text when there is nothing at all in the text to
suggest it and what is there is directly contrary to it? Further, how could
C&C miss the outstandingly clear statement of Book of Abraham 3:18 which
directly refutes their thesis?
[I]f there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent
than the other, yet these two spirits notwithstanding one is more intelligent
than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end,
they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum [Hebrew ‘olam], or eternal.
As I argued in an article that extensively discussed these
issues, it is this scripture above all that shows that intelligences/spirits
are not created and have always existed without a beginning. [8] Moreover,
the fact that spirits/intelligences are individuated in the sense that one is
more intelligent than another shows that we are not dealing with mere ideal
realities, but with mind independent realities that are eternal. The use of the
word “intelligences” is surely intentional here to recall the statements in
D&C 93 that “intelligence … was neither created nor made; neither indeed
can be.” This is the most important scripture in the Mormon canon which pulls
the idea of uncreated intelligences together, and C&C fail to even take
cognizance of it!
Notes for the Above:
3 NMC, 100.
4 The Lectures on Faith (1835 edition
of the Doctrine & Covenants), I, 22 (p. 8).
5 NMC., 101.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Blake T. Ostler, “The Idea of
Preexistence in the Development of Mormon Thought,” Dialogue 15:1
(Spring 1982).
