Creating out of Nothing

The ancient doctrine of the Church is that God created all that there is out of nothing. In Genesis 1:2 it says: "And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

It is hard to describe nothingness without giving it some characteristics that make it seem like something.

But, this creation out of the void, or out of the chaos of "nothingness" is not just an abstract teaching of Judaism and Christianity and Islam. This teaching about creating out of chaos is deeply rooted in the experience of living as a human being in this world.

If we share any likeness with God, as scripture says we do, surely we share this: to have our little spirits move upon the face of the deep, to face the empty void and to will order out of chaos, meaning out of despair, and something out of nothing. God is, of course, the Great Spirit who broods over the chaos of the world. But, each of us, broods over our little world, seeking to create against the forces that would bind us and have us simply give in to the void.

Now, I admit that I am taking a very traditional teaching and giving it a certain existential meaning. And, I guess that if you forget that our existential struggle takes place within the context of God's creative movement, then you could end up with the kind of despairing struggle of many early 20th century existentialists, who felt that they were carrying on their struggle to create out of nothing in a universe that was silent to their deepest hopes and needs.

But, these existentialists like Sartre and Camus, and earlier philosophers like Kierkegaard, really did hit upon something at the very core of being human. This struggle for meaning in a world that denies meaning or at least shakes traditional ways of finding meaning, is certainly at the heart of the modern (and, post-modern)thinking and feeling of so many of us.

The remarkable thing about human beings is their ability to begin again, to start over, to look into the nothingness and will somethingness, to stand in the darkness and summon the courage to say "let there be light," because in the beginning, the universe was spoken into being by the Courage of the Great Spirit who looked directly into the emptiness of chaos and nothingness and said: "Let there be light."

For those who face the void often in their experience of life, more courage is required. But, that courage flows into our souls from the Creator whose light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.