Creation from Nothing
Did God make the world, or did the Big Bang?
Main teaching: De fide
The big question
Science tells us the universe began about 13.8 billion years ago in the Big Bang, and that life developed over billions of years through evolution. Genesis says God created the world in six days. Do Christians have to choose between them? And if science can explain how the world developed, is there anything left for God to do?
What the Church teaches
God created the whole world, visible and invisible, from nothing. Nothing existed alongside God out of which he made it (Lateran IV, 1215, DH 800; Vatican I, Dei Filius ch. 1 and canon 1.5, DH 3002, 3025).
God created freely, not out of any need, but to show and share his goodness (Dei Filius ch. 1; DH 3002).
The world had a beginning; it is not eternal (Lateran IV; DH 800; CCC 338).
God keeps everything in existence at every moment, and governs it by his providence (Dei Filius ch. 1; DH 3003; CCC 301).
How sure is this? De fide. See CCC 279–301 and 337–349.
Where it comes from
Scripture. The Bible opens: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The mother of the Maccabean martyrs states creation from nothing directly: “God did not make them out of things that existed” (2 Maccabees 7:28). The Letter to the Hebrews says that “what is seen was made out of things which do not appear” (Hebrews 11:3).
Scripture also teaches that God holds creation in existence. The Book of Wisdom says to God, “you love all things that exist”, and asks how anything could endure if God had not willed it (Wisdom 11:24–25). St Paul says of Christ that “in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).
The early Church. Greek philosophers held that the world was formed out of eternal matter, as a potter shapes clay. Early Christian writers such as St Theophilus of Antioch (second century) and St Irenaeus rejected this: God is not a craftsman working on material that was already there, but the source of everything, matter included. St Augustine added that God did not create the world at a moment in time, as if time were already running; he created time together with the world (City of God 11.6).
How theologians explain it
Creation is not a change. Every change in nature works on something already there: a seed becomes a tree, gases become stars. Creation does not. “From nothing” does not mean nothing was a kind of material; it means not from anything. So creation is not one more process inside the universe. It is the giving of existence to the whole universe and everything in it.
Creation is now, not only then. Because creatures do not have existence of themselves (Lesson 2.3), they depend on God for it at every moment, not just at the beginning. Aquinas compares this to light in the air, which lasts only while the sun shines (Summa I, q. 104, a. 1). If God stopped holding the world in being, it would not decay; it would simply cease to be.
Why science and creation do not compete. Science studies how things in the world act on each other. Creation is about why there is a world at all. The two answer different questions:
| Science | The doctrine of creation | |
|---|---|---|
| Question | How do things in the universe develop and interact? | Why is there anything rather than nothing? |
| Method | Observation, experiment, measurement | Reason and revelation |
| Example | The Big Bang; evolution by natural selection | Everything depends on God for its existence |
So the Church has no objection in principle to the Big Bang or to evolution. Pius XII taught that the Church allows the evolution of the human body to be studied and discussed, while holding that each human soul is created directly by God (Humani Generis 36). St John Paul II later noted that new findings had made evolution more than a hypothesis (Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1996). Lesson 4.3 covers the soul.
The beginning of time. That the world had a beginning is a truth of faith. But Aquinas held that reason alone cannot prove it; we know it because God revealed it (Summa I, q. 46, a. 2). The Big Bang fits well with a beginning, but the doctrine does not depend on it.
The six days. The Catechism says Scripture presents the work of creation symbolically, as six days of divine “work” followed by a day of “rest” (CCC 337). The days are a literary frame, carefully arranged: on the first three days God separates light from darkness, sky from sea, and land from water; on the next three he fills each space with sun and stars, birds and fish, animals and man. The point is theological: everything comes from the one God, everything he made is good, human beings have a special place, and the week leads to the Sabbath, a rest in God.
Philosophy bridge
The philosophy course defines change as something passing from potency to act. Creation is not a change, because there is nothing beforehand to be changed. God’s creating does not compete with natural causes; it is what gives natural causes their existence and their power to act at all.
What the Church does not claim
- Not that the earth is young or the days are 24 hours. The Church does not require a literal reading of the six days (CCC 337).
- Not that the Big Bang proves creation. The Big Bang is a scientific theory about the early universe; creation is a truth of faith that does not stand or fall with any theory.
- Not that evolution is incompatible with faith. Evolution of the body is open to study. What the Church rejects is the claim that evolution shows there is no God or no soul, which is a philosophical claim, not a scientific result.
- Not that God made the world and then left it. God keeps all things in being and works through them at every moment.
Check your understanding
- What does “creation from nothing” mean, and what does it not mean?
Show answer
It means God made the world without using any pre-existing material: not from anything. It does not mean that “nothing” was a kind of stuff God used.
- Why is creation not a scientific event in competition with the Big Bang?
Show answer
Because science studies how things in the world develop and act on each other, while creation is about why there is a world at all. Creation is not a change within the universe but the giving of existence to the whole of it.
- Use Aquinas’s image to explain why creatures depend on God at every moment.
Show answer
Light in the air lasts only while the sun is shining. In the same way, creatures exist only as long as God gives them existence. If he stopped, they would not decay; they would cease to be.
- What did Pius XII teach about evolution in Humani Generis?
Show answer
That the evolution of the human body may be studied and discussed by experts, while the Catholic faith holds that each human soul is created directly by God.
- If the six days are not literal, what do they teach?
Show answer
That everything comes from the one God, that all he made is good, that human beings have a special place in creation, and that the week leads to rest in God. The days are a literary frame for these truths.