Monday, June 16, 2025

Blake Ostler on 1 Clement 60 Teaching Creatio Ex Materia, not Ex Nihilo

  

1 Clement. Clement, bishop of Rome, shared the same worldview as Philo of an eternal fabric or constitution of the world from which the world was created. Clement stated: “Thou . . . didst make manifest the everlasting fabric of the world. Thou, Lord, didst create the earth.” The terms used here by Clement are significant. He asserts that God did “make manifest” (ἐϕανεροποίησας) the “everlasting fabric of the world” (Σὺ τὴν ἀέναον τοῦ κόσμου σύστασιν). He is referring to an eternal substrate that underlies God’s creative activity. Clement is important because he is at the very center of the Christian church as it was then developing. His view assumed that God had created from an eternally existing substrate, creating by “making manifest” what already existed in some form. The lack of argumentation or further elucidation indicates that Clement was not attempting to establish a philosophical position; he was merely maintaining a generally accepted one. However, the fact that such a view was assumed is even more significant than if Clement had argued for it. If he had presented an argument for this view, then we could assume that it was either a contested doctrine or a new view. But because he acknowledged it as obvious, it appears to have been a generally accepted belief in the early Christian church. (Blake Ostler, “Out of Nothing: A History of Creation Ex Nihilo in Early Christian Thought,” FARMS Review 17, no. 2 [2005]: 293-94)

 

 

To Support this Blog:

 

Patreon

Paypal

Venmo

Amazon Wishlist

Email for Amazon Gift card: ScripturalMormonism@gmail.com

Email for Logos.com Gift Card: IrishLDS87@gmail.com

Blog Archive