Some Thoughts About Nothing

Others take the view expressed by Plato, that giant among the Greeks. He said that God had made all things out of pre-existent and uncreated matter, just as the carpenter makes things only out of wood that already exists. But those who hold this view do not realize that to deny that God is Himself the Cause of matter is to impute limitation to Him, just as it is undoubtedly a limitation on the part of the carpenter that he can make nothing unless he has the wood. How could God be called Maker and Artificer if His ability to make depended on some other cause, namely on matter itself? If He only worked up existing matter and did not Himself bring matter into being, He would be not the Creator but only a craftsman.

~ St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, I.2

Since the Roman Catholic Church celebrates St. Athanasius today, I find myself musing on the implications of his critique of Plato, and am both fascinated and troubled by the metaphysical problem of creatio ex nihilo versus a "crafting" of our universe (and selves) from some pre-existent "stuff."

In his book A Universe from Nothing (New York: Free Press, 2012), astrophysicist Lawrence M. Krauss explores the implications of particle physics, the fabric of the observable universe, and how this fabric adds up to "nothing." In short, the universe that we observe (according to Krauss) was generated from non-observable "stuff" -- in short, "nothing." I have no intention of entering into an explanation of the deep science of this book; however, as some may recall, Martin Heidegger, in What is Metaphysics?, engaged the perennially troubling question: "Why are there beings (or being) rather than nothing?"

Those who place their feet firmly on the ground of this earth, and take comfort in the solidity of life, often create for themselves a mini-empire of self, and seek for nothing beyond their immediate surroundings (by which I mean family, job, pointless hobbies, etc.). Levinas provided a reminder that we are, in our existence, usurping the space of an other, that we have no ontological right to occupy the space we do. If the universe was created from pre-existing "stuff," then we, by logical extension, are fragments (if you will) of the stuff; it would not be possible, in such a system, for us to occupy any other space than the one in which we find ourselves. There is some comfort in that; but it is the comfort taken by an unthinking being. A true person (hupostasis) engages dynamically with the world to form a ground or foundation of being, which is precisely what hupostasis (or in Latin, subiectum, whence English "subject") means.

Philosophically, the notion of creation from nothing makes our existence shaky, does not permit us to feel ourselves to be necessary beings but rather privileged beings, whose existence demands a response, a stewardship as it were of the world and others. This is the basic tenet of the philosophy of St. Maximus the Confessor, and it is, in my view, a healthy way of engaging with the life-world.

An atheist -- and I have struggled with my own atheistic tendencies recently, despite my philosophical embrace of Christianity -- may take comfort in the notion that our universe (and hence selves) amounts in the long run to "nothing," but such a view makes ethics and morals voluntary, not a necessary component of the authentic person. The idea that we are generated from the mind of an eternally thinking Being or Mind (the ego eimi ho On of Exodus 3:14, in the Septuagint) inspires us (one would hope) with a feeling of obligation to all existing things, not just other people, but animals, plants, our entire eco-system.

Creatio ex nihilo inspires us to view our existence as a gift, not as some random accident in a pathetic universe that amounts to "nothing."