Creation Ex Nihilo
The doctrine that God created the world from no pre-existing matter, against philosophers who posited eternal matter or co-eternal principles. In Sacred Scripture, "to create" means to make something from nothing. St. Thomas teaches the universal emanation of all things could only have come from nothing. Against Plato and the Stoics, who said the world was created from eternal and unbegotten matter, which would be uncreated and coeternal with God.
Chapter I (The Six Days of Creation)
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He Created
— God created properly from nothing, from no pre-existing matter; alone, by His own omnipotence, not through angels.
"HE CREATED -- properly, that is, from nothing, from no pre-existing matter."
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He Created
— In Scripture, "to create" means to make from nothing; St. Thomas teaches the universal emanation of all things could only have come from nothing.
"For, as St. Thomas teaches, Part I, question 61, art. 5, the universal emanation of all things could only have come from nothing."
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He Created
— Against Plato and the Stoics, who said the world was created from eternal and unbegotten matter, which would be uncreated and coeternal with God.
"Second, the error of Plato and the Stoics, who said that the world was indeed created by God, but from eternal and unbegotten matter; because this matter would be uncreated and coeternal with God, and consequently would be God Himself, as Tertullian rightly objects against Hermogenes."