Posted: Apr 04, 2018 12:08 am
Wortfish wrote:Spinozasgalt wrote:So, you're ditching creation ex nihilo entirely? Or what? Because that's more like the process view than classical/traditional theism. And if that's the case, your picture of divine causation will likely be quite different from people like Craig. And whatever else you want to say about the non-traditional view, it's by no means the most popular one among Christian theists nowadays. So it's hardly a mistake on the part of atheists to address the classical view.
Most theologians would agree that God didn't create the universe from absolutely nothing. What ex nihilo creation really means is that God did not use any pre-existing substance other than his own essence to create everything. So, nothing other than himself.
Erm, which theologians? Because the way you have God's essence standing in for an outside substance looks and sounds like ex Deo rather than ex nihilo. And that would again be steering close to something like process theology or panentheism. Neither of those count as classical theism.