Creatio ex Nihilo

God exists necessarily, but he produces things freely, and the power of things is produced by God but is different from the divine power, and things themselves operate, although they have received their power to act.

- Leibniz

I. Introduction

Creatio ex nihilo (CEN) has recently come under heavy criticism from the philosopher Felipe Leon in his exchange with Joshua Rasmussen.  Rasmussen declined to defend CEN in the dialogue for the sake of greater focus on the arguments he did wish to defend.  While this is a good choice by Rasmussen in a discussion of that format, CEN nevertheless can and should be defended.  That’s the purpose of this post.

II. Leon’s Argument

Leon presents his reasoning as a sort of parity style argument.  Broadly, it goes something like this:  If one rejects the dictum that everything that exists requires a material cause, then one should also reject the PSR.  

In his own words:  

(IUC) It is metaphysically impossible for a concrete object to come into 

existence out of nothing, without any cause whatsoever.  (a version of the PSR)

(PMC) It is metaphysically impossible for a concrete object to come into existence by an efficient cause if it lacks a material cause. 

The thing to see is that PMC’ looks to be on an epistemic par with IUC. Both are self-evident (if either is), and both enjoy the support of universal experience. Moreover, neither principle is a strict logical truth (entailed by logical axioms), and so one can deploy the Humean gambit above to resist them both if one is so inclined. Given that IUC and PMC are in the same epistemological boat, therefore, it seems unprincipled and arbitrarily selective to accept one while rejecting the other. It therefore looks as though one should treat them similarly: either accept both, or use the Humean gambit to reject both

I think there’s a number of ways to go about motivating a rejection of this sort of alleged parity between the two principles. 

III.  Responses

a. Counterexamples:  Here’s one easy route of attack.  Reject that PMC enjoys the same sort of empirical support that IUC holds.  Perhaps there are cases in our experience where things arise without a material cause, though never without a cause or reason of some sort.  If such a case can be found, then IUC would hold while PMC would fail.  

Philosophers through the ages have in fact suggested a couple of items in our experience that may meet such a requirement.  First, the origin of human souls seems like it may be such a case.  If our souls are not material, not derived from the material of our parents' souls, and not pre-existent, then they seem to be created ex nihilo on the occasion that we come into existence.  This position has traditionally been the main position of Christian theologians.

Leibniz alleges another counter-example to the parity of empirical support for PMC and IUC.  

Spinoza places among fictions the dictum, “Something can be produced from nothing.”  But, in truth, modes which are produced, are produced from nothing.  Since there is no matter of modes, assuredly neither the mode, nor a part of it, has preexisted, but only another mode which has disappeared and to which this present one has succeeded.

This example requires further research into what Leibniz means by “modes” but seems promising.

b. Reasons for motivating an exception to PMC:  As we learned in a previous post, we should use Rasmussen’s toolset in probing the nature of the foundation or ultimate reason for reality.  One of the tools in the toolset is that of shaving off arbitrary limits.  Being incapable of creating ex nihilo seems like a limit, at least without further motivation.  So we should not think it impossible for the foundation to create things ex nihilo.  

One way to reject this move would be to try and argue that creatio ex nihilo is incoherent.  But it doesn’t seem to be incoherent, at least not logically.  So it’s difficult to motivate why we should think the foundation lacks the power to create ex nihilo.  

Furthermore, perfect being theology (PBT) bids us to ascribe to God whatever attribute is maximal or perfect.  It’s greater to be able to create ex nihilo than to not be able to create ex nihilo.  So we should ascribe to God the power to create ex nihilo for reasons of PBT.

c. IUC enjoys greater support from reason than does PMC:  IUC can be derived from more fundamental principles, while PMC cannot.  For instance, IUC can be derived from the very weak and plausible thesis: It is at least possible that all of contingent reality is caused by something, while no similar argument can be given for PMC.  Thus PMC and IUC are not on par.

Further, there’s been recent work trying to derive the PSR (or, IUC) from more fundamental principles by Stephen Harrop.  Leibniz himself seems to have attempted such a derivation on multiple occasions, despite his calling the PSR a “first principle.”  If such a derivation is possible, and if such a derivation is lacking in the case of PMC (which seems like the case), then the two principles are not on par.

d. The rejection of CEN pushes towards ex deo, and not necessarily ex materia:  As we saw in a prior post, accepting PMC pushes us towards ex deo creation.  But ex deo creation has a number of problems on its own.  First, it seems that the divine foundation is not capable of being parsed given motivations for divine simplicity.  It also seems that if we can motivate the Scholastic language of God as pure act, that God would have no potential for being so parsed.  So ex deo creation is not a route that we should take.

If CEN is rejected, the above reasoning pushes us back to the idea of God existing alongside a quiescent materia out of which he fashions the universe.  But given that this postulates two a se beings, God and materia, rather than just God, should make it a less favorable hypothesis if PMC can be rejected.  And given that we’ve seen that there’s good reasons to think that creatio ex nihilo is possible, that the foundation is capable of achieving it, that there may be actual cases of ex nihilo creation in our experience, and that rejecting PMC does not lead to a tit for tat rejection to the PSR given that the PSR can be motivated on more general grounds of reason, then I do not see why we would accept that God existed alongside an a se materia.  Creatio ex nihilo is fully rational and defensible, despite our arguments not giving us a full demonstration of it.  

e. Obscure metaphysical reasons for CEN:  Saurez in his disputation 20, which can be found online, offers a metaphysical argument for the actuality of CEN given general Aristotelian grounds.  I won’t try to duplicate the argument here.  Perhaps later.  It may be worth the research.  Leibniz’s metaphysical system may also be of help.  He held that we never observe any thing coming into existence.  All substances were created at the initial act of creation.  So there is in fact no empirical support for PMC, as we never witness anything coming to be.  Further, Leibniz’s rejection of primary matter may be relevant as well.  Not sure.