Many of the early Christians who
adopted Plato’s explanation in their interpretations of the creation account in
Genesis 1 agreed with the former, literal Platonic interpretation that the
cosmos was created in time; with Plato’s Timaeus, they believed that
this was not a creation from nothing, but a creation from pre-existing,
disorderly matter which was put in order. These early Christians include Justin
and Athenagoras. Interestingly, their interpretation of the account in Genesis
1 as an explanation how chaotic, disorderly, pre-existing matter was organized
in creation has been vindicated by many modern exegetes of Genesis 1, who are
of the opinion that Genesis 1 does not reflect the notion of a creation from
nothing, but that the depiction of how “the earth was a formless void and
darkness covered the face of the deep” (Gen 1:2) describes the preliminary
situation, which is changed by the creation that is already announced in the
opening line of the book of Genesis (Gen 1:1) and subsequently described in
what follows the description of preliminary chaos. (George Van Kooten, “’Mind the
(Ontological) Gap!’: The Collateral Loss of the Pauline-Stoic Creation ‘From
God’ in the Joint Attack of the Arian-Nicene Creation ‘From Nothing’ on the
platonic Creation ‘From Disorderly Matter,’” in From Protology to
Eschatology: Competing Views on the Origin and the End of the Cosmos in
Platonism and Christian Thought, ed. Joseph Verheyden, Geert Roskam, and
Gerd Van Riel [Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 130; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022], 168-69)
