Why I no longer hold to the teaching of “from nothing” after time in prison.

Introduction: Growing up with Genesis 1:1

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). In my younger years, I often interpreted this verse as a straightforward, scientific account of creation—a chronological ordering of the world as God made everything from nothing. But through deeper reflection, studying the Hebrew language, and considering the overarching narrative of the Bible, my understanding has evolved and become more profound and nuanced-to the point of establishing a deep philosophical implication we will cover within this article.

This scripture is not essentially about how God created, but who God is and his connection to the world and all its inhabitants. It’s an invitation to understand creation through the lens of God’s love, order, and intention and the redemptive nature within God’s ordering and purposes.

It’s a common trend among many fundamentalist and conservative Christian teachers to assert that all things were created ex nihilo—from nothing—basing this belief on Genesis 1:1. For example, John MacArthur affirms this view, emphasizing that “God spoke and created everything out of nothing” (MacArthur, The Battle for the Beginning).

In fairness, this concept of creation ex nihilo is not merely a modern interpretation. The early church fathers also taught it. For example, Augustine asserts, “For Thou, O Lord, didst make the world of matter wholly formless, which Thou madest out of nothing” (Confessions, Book XII, Chapter VII). This historical perspective enriches our understanding of Genesis 1:1, providing a foundation that spans across centuries of Christian thought, and accepted as orthodoxy – though I would suggest while this position has long been central to Christian orthodoxy, yet a deepening more nuanced understanding is now rising through orthodoxy deepening the meaning connected to the hebrew word “created.”

For myself a change has taken place, a reframed theological emphasis. I discovered an alternative understanding of Genesis 1:1. Accepting the orthodoxy of ex nihilo as a significant interpretation within the church, I have found prison study has profoundly changed my perspective. 

Personally, Genesis 1:1 is not creation from nothing, but rather God forming and ordering existing materials—a universe waiting to be conformed from chaos into order, and to be filled and by extension given function. This perspective is deeply connected to my philosophical understanding of life, and a high incarnational theology.

My Revised Understanding of Bārā’

From my prison study of the Hebrew text bārā’ emphasizes divine activity that involves the translation of one form into divine purposefulness filled and functional. It resembles the ebb and flow of seasons, lived experience of the nomadic and their connection within their embedded reality.

It is within this experience that my own understanding could no longer place the emphasis of bārā’ as the orthodox concept as being ‘from nothing,’ but rather from disorder and without form. The word has come to mean something like the forming of artistry from raw materials that hold the potential and possibility, but require forming and an essential change in structure and being, to become what it has potential to be.

This interpretive emphasis is not without precedent. Contemporary Old Testament scholar John Walton argues in The Lost World of Genesis One that Genesis 1 reflects functional rather than material ontology, describing God assigning order and purpose within a cosmic temple framework rather than detailing mechanisms of material origins. Likewise, Jon Levenson, in Creation and the Persistence of Evil, emphasizes the biblical theme of God’s sovereignty over chaos as an ongoing theological reality. Earlier Jewish commentators such as Abraham Ibn Ezra and Samson Raphael Hirsch highlighted the ordering and purposive dimensions of bārā’, while evangelical theologian Henri Blocher notes that the verb consistently stresses divine initiative without specifying material process. In the New Testament, N. T. Wright similarly frames resurrection as a new creation — not the abandonment of matter but its renewal and elevation — reinforcing the biblical pattern of continuity and transformation rather than replacement. While the classical doctrine of creation ex nihilo remains a historic theological formulation, these perspectives suggest that Genesis 1’s primary concern may be the divine ordering of reality into functional, relational harmony.

To further illustrate this point, we can consider the use of bārā’ in Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” In this context, bārā’ clearly does not refer to creating a new, physical heart from nothing. Instead, it speaks to the transformation and reordering of the existing heart—a plea for God to cleanse, renew, and conform the heart to a new order and a new way of experiencing life through Christ. This aligns with the idea of moving from chaos to order and bringing about functionality. Just as God brought order to the formless earth in Genesis, He can bring order to the chaos within us, creating a clean and functional heart that is aligned with His purpose.

This functional emphasis finds an echo in later biblical reflections, such as Hebrews 11:3, affirming that ‘what is seen was not made out of things which are visible’ (μὴ ἐκ φαινομένων τὸ βλεπόμενον)—or, more literally, not from things that ‘appear’ or meet the eyes. This doesn’t demand creation from absolute nothingness but highlights origins from the unseen: perhaps the invisible divine word, or a formless, chaotic state awaiting God’s ordering breath. For me, this echoes Genesis 1’s own starting point—not blank void, but tohu wabohu and brooding waters—emphasizing God’s purposeful transformation from disorder to relational beauty, a pattern that arcs toward full renewal in Christ.

These word lessons lean towards a freedom to interpret the creation story as a movement not from nothing to something, but rather a formless chaotic nothingness into a structural somethingness resembling divine purpose and order.

Nomadic, Oral Context

Genesis 1 reads like a nomadic fireside story intended for memorization and recitation. Its rhythm, repetition, and patterning reflect lived experience in nomadic or early agrarian contexts with their connection to seasons, rhythms and the flows of life. Hebrew scholars have pointed out that this is written within a poetic genre with rhythm and a chiastic structuring.

As such this narrative is not meant to be interpreted from an outside perspective, one distant and looking in as a bystander, but rather as if we are standing within it, alongside the Holy Spirit experiencing something of who this God is within the tasks being achieved.

Here the Spirit is described as brooding over the waters, waiting for something to occur, anticipating with an emotional embeddedness to what is unfolding. In the invitation to witness the forming and bringing about of the world as it unfolds we find our movement within creation cycles. The emphasis on day and night, seasons, and cycles provides existential reassurance: the world is ordered, reliable, and appointed for life and vocation.

This story becomes a lived experience—an oral story designed for those within creation to remember, recite, and pass down. Its narrative reflects the ongoing process of divine ordering, the conceptual building block of further revelation and the metanarrative of redemption and renewal. It becomes a personal as well as a cultural religious encounter.

And what of the Spirit hovering over the waters?

Firstly, I see the waters as the symbolic embryonic waters holding that which is waiting to be birthed – a natural nomadic imagery even the children were closely aware of. One might see the Spirit is like one brooding within the analogous feminine archetype of anticipated birth.

 This Hebrew word rachaf, translated as “brooding,” implies a protective hovering, nurturing, similar to a bird shielding its nest or young. Just as a bird broods to hatch eggs, the Spirit’s presence indicates the anticipation and bringing forth of life. This brooding sets the stage for God’s spoken word (“Let there be light”), transforming chaos into a structured, habitable world. 

Connected to brooding we have the “Spirit” as a noun pointing to its action, the ‘verb’, so His being and action are united into this activity in personhood. It represents the divine energy or ruakh—the “breath” that brings life and order to darkness. By recognizing these aspects, we gain a deeper appreciation for how Genesis 1 invites us to witness the unfolding of creation from within, as active participants in the story.

This noun and verb is revisited again when God breathing into the nose of Adam, and there was existence and essence within the newly formed order and formation of creation – a new order being imbued with the Divine Image.

Corrective Monotheism

When compared with surrounding Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) myths, Genesis 1 presents a striking contrast: a single, sovereign God without rival deities or cosmic violence. Unlike the often chaotic and violent narratives of other creation myths, Genesis portrays a peaceful and orderly creation brought about by the deliberate word of God, as a creative and beautiful artistry.

Furthermore, humans as this image bearer, is entrusted with stewardship and vocation, rather than created as afterthoughts or slaves to the gods. This elevates humanity to a position of dignity and responsibility, reflecting a unique relationship with the Creator.

This positions Genesis 1 as a culturally aware corrective narrative, establishing covenantal monotheism in contrast to the polytheistic traditions of the time. It challenges the prevailing worldview by asserting the existence of one God who is both powerful and benevolent, and who invites humanity into a relationship of partnership and purpose.

Ultimately, this corrective monotheism shifts our attention from the question of whether everything was created from nothing to the more profound questions of who God is, what His purpose is, and what His character is as represented in this narrative. The concern is not a scientific investigation, it is something even more essential allowing us a deeper spiritual investigation into Godhood and his will.

Imagine this story as part of a family or tribe sitting around the fireside, with elders passing down knowledge through generations. It’s a story designed to be deeply memorable—one that can be recalled at any time, in any circumstance. When these early peoples stood amidst other cultures with contrasting creation myths, this narrative offers a distinct perspective. Rather than an apologetic argument, it serves as a theological affirmation: this is the God we serve, the God who made us, the God who reveals himself to us.

This narrative reassures those who hear it that, even in times of uncertainty and upheaval, there is a profound truth about the nature of God anchored within the divine  story that is both memorable, transformative and lays the foundation for reconciliation and redemption. 

It reveals that what is out of order—what is not in God’s intended purpose—can be touched by His Spirit and His Word, a deep reflection on Trinity and Incarnational theology. Just as God breathes life into the dust, bringing forth new creation from the old, so too does His Spirit work to restore and renew. 

It is the pointing towards the salvific power of the cross, tomb and resurrection – from one way of being to that which is deeper and more eternal.

Creation, Continuity, and Eschatology

Genesis 1 isn’t just about the start of everything; it’s a blueprint for the entire biblical story. It shows God bringing order out of chaos—transforming unstructured, uninhabitable matter into a structured, relational, and sacred space. The climax is the Sabbath—a relational and liturgical completion where God rests knowing all is “very good”—highlighting that the goal of creation is about relationship and divine harmony realised in our eschatology.

This cyclic pattern of ordering and renewal repeats throughout Scripture. It is the midrash we can not afford to neglect even in the first few words of scripture. When prophets speak of “new heavens and new earth,” they echo Genesis’ bārā’—focusing on restoration, renewal, and reordering-the sacred task of reordering in Christ. 

Similarly, Jesus’s resurrection isn’t about abandoning the material world but about re-creating and elevating it. His body—recognizable yet transformed—mirrors Genesis’s pattern: material continuity with functional elevation and harmony.

The story of Noah’s Ark is a vivid example. The pre-flood world was chaotic, violent, and broken. God’s judgment was tragic but necessary—a divine act of re-creation. The Ark, though physically new, became a symbol of renewal, showing how out of chaos and judgment, something radically new and redeemed emerged.

In essence, Genesis 1 declares from the outset the pattern of God’s redemptive purpose.

Human and Experiential Significance

Allowing Genesis 1 to speak afresh under constrained conditions, such as in prison, brings a unique perspective to the text. Stripped of institutional biases and academic abstractions, the narrative speaks directly, engaging individuals on a deeply personal level. For me it was a promise of re-creation, renewal and reordering. Put simply, it is simply who God is and how he deals with us.

In its hopeful narrative it reveals that creation is not just a cosmic event but an ongoing invitation to participate in God’s re-creative and redemptive work. These insights model how humans can experience order by recognizing the structured nature of creation, find purpose through understanding their vocation as stewards of the earth, and discover hope by reflecting on the fulfillment of creation in Christ.

In this way, Genesis 1 becomes more than just an ancient text; it becomes a living story that speaks to the human condition, offering guidance, comfort, and inspiration to those seeking meaning in their lives. It also allows a lived out philosophy that emphasises hope and renewal as central themes within our thinking and living.

Conclusion: Meaning, Renewal, and Hope

By shifting the reference point of Genesis 1:1 from ex nihilo to a movement from tohu wabohu—from chaos and emptiness to order and fullness—and by emphasizing restoration and redemption, we recognize that this story when embedded in our minds, offers us moments to reorganize ourselves through faith and agency, to move from old ways to new, and to become part of the new creation.

Even outside a Christian framework, this perspective speaks to the existential human condition. While nihilism and absurdism may offer a certain perspective, Genesis 1 invites us to choose purpose and meaning, to find something dynamic and wonderful, and to bring about something new in the world.

As Christians, this narrative reminds us that we are being renewed daily. In this renewal and hope, we see the eschatological move as a promise that everything will be brought into Christ and made complete. Furthermore, it offers a new way to approach the problem of evil. Rather than asking why evil exists if God is good, we recognize that creation is not yet completed in Christ. At its foundational level, creation still carries elements of its original chaos, disorder, emptiness, and dysfunction waiting for its final restoration by Christ as it becomes fully within Him, for Him and through Him. These foundational qualities still exist, but they are the weak forces within the current reality, into which God has breathed meaning and purpose—a purpose that will be fully realized when Christ returns.