From Nothing: Creatio Ex Nihilo, Pt. 2

You're entering outer brightness. Hey fireflies, welcome back to outer brightness. In this week's episode we're going to bring you the rest of our discussion on creation.

Did God create ex nihilo or ex materia? Since we posted last episode into several of the discussion groups on Facebook, we've had some really good interaction there with listeners and with Latter-day Saints. Excited for that. I'll call out a couple of the groups where there's been good discussion. Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints, there's been good discussion on our post there, as well as Mormon and Biblical discussion group.

We've had some good discussion there as well. Some of the questions that have come up, why in the previous episode we did not go into a lot of the biblical data related to creation ex nihilo. The reason for that is based on the request from the Latter-day Saint missionary we received, we focused more on the upstream and downstream theological implications of creation ex nihilo or creation ex materia. Last question in today's episode, we'll focus a bit on some of the biblical data, but again, it's not comprehensive.

Again, the reason for that is because we wanted to focus on what are the implications of viewing creation as ex nihilo or ex materia for the rest of your theology. Maybe in the future we'll do an episode focused more on biblical data for ex nihilo specifically, but we do get into some of that within the discussion threads on those Facebook groups that I mentioned. If you're interested, jump into those Facebook groups. You can join and take a look at the discussion there. I'll add links to those discussions in the show notes for this episode. Thanks for listening.

We look forward to sharing the rest of this discussion with you, so let's get into it. Ian, you can do a short answer if you want on this, but do you believe that a God who can't create out of nothing is less worthy of worship than a God who can't? Paul, what do you think?

I do think so. I said really early on when we started the podcast that my experience coming into Christianity was that I experienced true worship for the first time. Looking back, I don't know what I was doing as a Latter-day Saint, but I do know that I was not worshiping God in the same way that I worship Him now. The Gospel of John says this is eternal life, to know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I think Latter-day Saints agree with that scripture. If you look at the lectures on faith and what they have to say about knowing God, it's the first principle according to the lectures on faith. It's sobering to think about who God is. I think a God who cannot create everything is less worthy of worship.

Paul talks about this in Romans 1. Knowing God as Creator, it enjoins us to worship. Why does it enjoin us to worship?

Because God created all things. The Bible says that nothing came into being, the Gospel of John chapter 1, nothing came into being that is coming to come into being without Him, referring to Jesus Christ, the God who was God with God and who was God. I would ask a Latter-day Saint, what or who are you worshiping and how does that worship come about?

Because knowing God is all powerful, leader of all things, knowing that my very existence is a result of His free choice to act and create, that places me in a position where I can say thank you genuinely and from the heart because life is an amazing, beautiful thing. As a Latter-day Saint, I believed I always existed. I didn't come into being because God chose to create.

I would have existed in some form regardless of what God chose as a Latter-day Saint. That's my answer to that question, Michael. All right, thank you for that. Matthew, do you have any thoughts on that? Thanks, Paul, for that.

That was great. I wasn't really thinking about what you just said. It kind of made me ponder about it for a little minute, the idea that just the fact that we exist at all is a gift from God, whereas Latter-day Saints, they existed already. That's a really poignant thought. So thank you for that.

I'll have to think more about that. But yeah, I think it's the God who reveals Himself in Scripture is the God who has created everything that He didn't require something to pre-exist eternally and reshape it to make us. So when you look at like Isaiah 44, 24, this is what the Lord says, He who is your Redeemer and the one who formed you from the womb. I, the Lord, am the Maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the earth alone. It also says He's the one causing the omens of diviners to fail, making fools of fortune tellers, causing wise men to turn back and making their knowledge ridiculous. So He says, I am the one who, in verse 27, I am the one who says to the depths of the sea, dry up and I will make your rivers dry up. It is I who says, Osiris, he is my shepherd and he will carry out all my desire.

And he says of Jerusalem, she will be built and of the temple, your foundations will be laid. So He's in control of everything. He's created everything. He sustains everything, as Paul and you have said earlier. And so, yeah, just just the idea that not only did everything come into existence because of God's will, but He sustains its existence as we talked about in Colossians.

It does give you a sense of awe and wonder, at least to me also, just as Paul was describing. And this idea that I believe does latter-day Saint that God was kind of following the game plan, that it kind of already existed. You know, like when Lucifer said, well, I'm just doing what's been done on other worlds.

Well, OK, so there's this plan already laid out. So God doesn't really have the free will to do anything but what has already been done. He kind of just has to do.

He has to go with the program. Well, we don't believe that he's done that on other worlds or that God has or that other gods have created humans that they've ascended to Godhead like this. You know, as far as we know, this is all of existence. You know, God created it for His glory. And there's no other God.

There's no other existence. So just that that idea, that idea to me, this idea that there is only one God in existence like him and that it's not just following a program, it's God decided to make everything as He did because He chose to do it that way. It just makes, I don't know, for me, it makes it makes it more real and makes it more unique rather than just feeling like, oh, well, there's this game plan that's been set forth, you know, eons and epics before God even existed as God.

And, you know, everybody has to follow this plan and there's these eternal unchanging laws and we're supposed to follow these laws. But instead, God created everything and He made it the way He wanted it to be. Just makes the focus more on Him rather than on us or on this plan that we're supposed to follow or all the laws that God has to obey and that we have to obey. So it gives me more of a focus on God Himself. Yeah, no, I love that, Matthew. I love that verse that you shared too, where it says He's the maker of all things. And I mean, yeah, as a Latter-day Saint, maybe I thought it was a little bit more logical to be like, oh, God's not breaking the first law of thermodynamics, you know, creating, you know, matter can't be created or destroyed. But honestly, even if it's, even if it feels logical, it's boring, to be honest.

You know, there's nothing special about that. It's like, oh, God's just like me. He has to obey. He's under all the laws of science instead of over all the laws of science. And I do get a sense of awe and wonder at a God who can create something that science says cannot be done.

That is amazing. We've talked about how, you know, there's theories out there in Mormonism where God, the first God that was ever out there may have walked this path without any help. And if we're the exact same kind of being, then we do not need this God at all. It completely takes away the need for God.

It's like, yeah, I might go to the grocery store and maybe somebody helping me check out is nice, but there's also the self-checkout and I can go do that just as easily. Like, you don't need that middleman. But in Christianity, there's absolutely a need for this God because we are not the same kind of being. We are not able to ascend to heaven on our own. We need this God that is over science. He's over the problem of evil. You know, he does not rely on evil to exist. Like this is the God that I want to put my faith and my love and my trust in. And although I didn't think it was a big deal when I was a Latter-day Saint, I do now.

And I do not want to give my worship to a God who has to use preexisting material to create because that being is just like me and I'm not going to go and worship another human being. Yeah, that'll preach, Michael. So I got a little carried away there.

All right. So I did say in the introduction of this episode that this doctrine trickles down into everything else. I want to talk about that a little bit here, starting with you, Matthew. In your opinion, does the mode of creation affect what happened during the fall? Does it change things?

Yeah, when I was reading this question and thinking about it, it's kind of difficult just because it's hard to put myself out of where I am now, back to where I was before sometimes. So if we believe that God created everything from something that already existed, how does that affect the fall? Well, it's strange. Well, I think you'd have to go back to their view of this divine council that God assembled all the gods together, as it says in Abraham. And then they decided this plan and they proposed a savior. And there were two that volunteered. There was Christ who volunteered and promised free will. And then Satan volunteered also, and he promised that everybody would be saved. And so Jesus's plan was chosen. And so when you go back to that, and how that flows into the fall, it's difficult to understand why you would want to trust God when he gave two contradictory commandments in the garden, when he gave the command to be fruitful, multiply, but also not to partake of the fruit. And so in Christian theology, we don't have that issue. But, you know, the theology, they were contradictory commands, and it was impossible for them to have children in the garden. But God still created everything set up that way, almost to want them to sin, you know, in Christian theology, we don't believe that God forced them to sin or that they even had to sit theoretically, hypothetically, I guess you could say in that kind of sense, they could have remained in the garden, but they didn't, they they willingly chose to sin. And so when you think about creation from nothing, it, it's a versus ex materia, since we're all since we're all intelligences, and we're all organized, it seemed like God had already chosen Adam and Eve, like specific intelligences to fulfill that role, knowing that they would sin, do you know what I mean? I don't know, there's a lot of things that I've thought about this and try to understand how it would affect the fall. And I'm trying to make connections there with my head, but it's a little bit of a struggle just because there's so much involved with this idea of being creating from nothing versus creating out of matter. So maybe you guys can try to fill the gaps to try to connect something that I've been trying to make. Yeah, it's totally okay, Beth, you actually don't remember what I was even thinking when I wrote the question.

So I don't blame you. But, Paul, do you have any, any thoughts on I'll weigh in a little bit on it? With that admission? No. No, I'm just kidding.

No, I think it can affect it. And I'll kind of talk through why I think so. And see if we can get to an answer. So, Michael, you and I wrote an article together, in which we kind of called out the fact that on Mormon theology, God didn't really give us free agency if we were already autonomous intelligences. So free agency is not really a gift given by God on, on Mormonism.

It's something we already had. And if that, if that is the case, then creation ex materia definitely does, does affect the fall, right? Because, you know, how would, how would God on Mormonism for know that Adam and Eve would fall, if not from the fact that he knew he was creating from autonomous beings already that he couldn't control. And, you know, Mormon is, Mormons lately do, do kind of tend to walk into that, that kind of open theist view where God isn't in control of everything and, and isn't sovereign and is, is constrained by the will of man.

So there's that. How would creation ex nihilo affect the fall? God would freely choose to create beings and give them free will, at least with regards to Adam and Eve. I think both Arminians and Calvinists would agree on that point, that Adam and Eve were fully free to choose how to act. God would also for know how they were going to act. And so the plan would be a plan devised or ordained, if I'm going to use a Calvinist term, by God from the beginning, from before the foundation of the world, as is said of Jesus Christ, that was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. So all of it would be the plan of God and would be fully under the sovereignty of God.

You could get into the difference, some differences between Calvinists and Arminians from the fall forward. But from creation through the fall, I think Calvinists and Arminians are fully agreed that it is all the plan of God. Whereas as you were pointing out, Matthew, with your sly reference to the temple ceremony, on Mormonism, God is just doing what has been done on other worlds. It's one eternal round over and over and over again, which as Michael pointed out is boring.

Well, it's predictable, I guess is a good way to put it. Yeah, so I think I'm starting to kind of get the wheels turning here a little bit. But some of the things that are interesting, if God created everything ex materia, what that means for the fall is that first of all, Adam and Eve were eternal beings, and they've been eternal beings for eternity. Before this moment, they suddenly become mortal. And so it's a much bigger deal, I guess, in that sense for them to be mortal. But it's also kind of like, well, if they're eternal beings then what right does God have to turn them mortal for disobeying him? I mean, they seem kind of equal, it seems odd for them to have to follow his commandments down here. But one thing that's interesting, too, is that in the temple video, you've got Lucifer coming and saying, I'm just doing the same thing that's been done in other worlds, basically meaning, I know that this is the plan, that they're supposed to fall, and I'm here helping it along, so why are you punishing me for doing your will? It actually makes Satan the good guy, because God is giving them contradictory commandments that they cannot keep.

And then there's Lucifer actually pushing the plan along. The other big issue is that if we were all created ex materia, and we were spirits, you know, we were all present in the pre-existence, we all made the conscious decision to come to earth and to obey God's commandments. And then he sent us here, but erased all of our memories, and then condemns us based on our wrong decisions. And that just doesn't seem like a God that is benevolent, if you ask me, to erase our memories and then retest us after we're already loyal to him. I mean, I just can't imagine doing something like that to my kid.

Like, I'm gonna erase your memory and then test you and see if you can get back to me. It's like, just not my thing, I guess. So those are some of my thoughts on that. But let's move on to the next thing here. Hold up. Yeah.

Okay, go ahead. So just, you know, we were talking about Gnosticism earlier. Gnosticism taught that there was this demiurge, this lower divine being who created the physical, the evil physical world, and that he entrapped the Aeons who were eternal beings in this evil physical world. And the secret knowledge is how to ascend out of this evil physical world.

I know, you know, I don't want to get into the parallel of mania, but that sounds very similar to what you were just describing from the temple video, right? But even more than that, the Book of Mormon presents God as kind of tricking Adam and Eve into partaking of the fruit by giving them the contradictory commandments. They can't keep both.

So they have to break one to keep the other. They have to partake of the fruit in order to procreate. And, you know, the Book of Mormon clearly teaches us Adam fell that men might be. It's a free choice, according to Mormonism, on Adam's part, but it's still kind of a deception to, as you were pointing out, Michael, they had been, on Mormonism, they had been eternal beings for eternity. So it's almost a way of entrapping them in immortal probation. Now, I know Mormonism escapes that through their whole cosmology, where from the council in heaven, it's presented that they freely chose to enter, that we all freely chose to enter mortality, right? But it just strikes me how many similarities there are to Gnosticism within Mormonism. And when you consider the connection with Freemasonry and Smith's familial connection with Freemasonry, it's not surprising. Yeah. I mean, the more you're talking about it, the more I'm just like, man, that really does sound super familiar. So that is crazy.

And yeah, that is a lot of stuff that I hadn't really considered. I was just going to add one quick thing at the end of our discussion that came to mind. If we think about how we are eternal beings and we all practice our free agency, don't we believe, didn't Latter-day Saints believe that Adam and Eve were the most righteous basically apart from Christ amongst all the children of God, and that's why they were chosen to be the first?

Yeah, I think I've heard that. So they were among the most righteous of God's children, and they were chosen to be the first children and yet they were put in this position to where they were supposed to disobey. Does that seem like it doesn't make a lot of sense? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. God's like, all right, you're the ones that will do exactly as I tell you. So now go down and do something that's going to completely confuse you.

And one way or the other, you're going to basically be forced to disobey. And then when you think about it more, it kind of makes the fall a good thing. When we read the Bible, it talks about how the fall brought death, it brought disease, it brought corruption, it brought sin, it brought all these negative things on not just humanity, but creation. And Latter-day Saints do believe that a lot of these bad things came, but ultimately it was good. It was good that they sinned because otherwise we couldn't come to be. So when we believe this pre-existence with God and that these righteous ones came to Earth and that they were basically kind of almost forced to sin like they really didn't have much of a choice, right? It was either while you sin one way or the other. That's one way why it kind of linchpins into the position where it has to be good.

The fall has to be good, no matter how you look at it. So that's just one thought I had. Yeah, one thing that does too is, in my opinion, it takes the first sin away from Adam and Eve and it places it on God for putting them in that position in the first place. I mean, I think immediately you're stuck with not having a holy God who's going to force sin on you when you're not a sinful creature yet. And the other thought that just came to my mind too is, it's kind of crazy because in the pre-existence, supposedly we all made this conscious decision that we're going to come down and we're going to keep our first estate and take bodies, but then all of our agency is placed on Adam and Eve where they have the choice to override all of our choice to come to Earth if they just decide never to eat the fruit. And it's like, well, how's that fair? Because that impedes our agency if they don't eat the fruit. Do you guys have any other thoughts or should we move on to the atonement?

Okay. You are listening to Outer Brightness, a podcast for post Mormons who are drawn by God to walk with Jesus rather than turn away. Outer Brightness.

There's no weeping and wailing and mashing of teeth here, except when Michael's hangry that is. We were all born and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, more commonly referred to as the Mormon faith. All of us have left that religion and have been drawn to faith in Jesus Christ based on biblical teachings. The name of our podcast, Outer Brightness, reflects John 1, 9, which calls Jesus the true light, which gives light to everyone. We have found life beyond Mormonism to be brighter than we were told it would be. And the light we have is not our own. It comes to us from without.

Thus, Outer Brightness. Our purpose is to share our journeys of faith and what God has done in drawing us to his son. We have conversations about all aspects of that transition, the fears, challenges, joys, and everything in between.

We're glad you found us and we hope you'll stick around. How does the mode of creation affect the atonement? Paul, I'll go to you first on this one. Yes.

No, I'm just kidding. How does the mode of creation affect the atonement? So the atonement comes about because of the fall. The fall places us in a situation where we are at odds with God. I think both Mormonism and Christianity would agree on that point. Mosiah 3.19, then where the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever unless he yields the enticings of the Holy Spirit and become at the saint. I don't know how the rest of that goes.

I was close. But so the fall places us at enmity with God. And the atonement is the solution to that.

Jesus came and died for our sins. There's possibly a significant separation of the paths between Mormonism and Christianity at that point because of Mormonism's teachings about the Garden of Gethsemane and that the atonement took place there rather than on the cross. And there are many Mormons who still believe that that's an important doctrinal difference for them because according to the them, it means that God only required the obedience of Christ and didn't require a sacrifice for sin.

And so therefore they see their view of the atonement as being superior because God's not bloodthirsty, to put it in pretty stark terms, right? But if you're talking about creation ex materia, we've talked a lot tonight about, you know, how Latter-day Saints try to get around some of Joseph Smith's more thorny teachings towards the end of his life about multiple gods by saying, well, maybe Elohim is the first. Well, if Elohim is the first, as we talked about tonight, we don't need this mortal probation to walk. If we are co-eternal with God, we could just simply figure it out on our own, how to do what Elohim did. Creation ex nihilo, how would that affect the atonement? And I'm just trying to talk to get to an answer, guys.

So if you guys want to jump in. God chooses to create. Why does God choose to create? God is Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, eternally one God. There is love experienced by the three members of the Trinity and for one another. And the decision to create is a decision of love to share what the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have with the creatures that would be created.

I'll throw something in there. Yeah, I got a couple of thoughts, so maybe I can grease the wheels a little bit. So one thought that came to me is, you know, if this is this pattern that is continually going on, you know, Jesus himself would have come to earth and he would have been earning his own exaltation too. So I think that's a huge difference in the atonement right there. That Jesus is doing it not solely as an act of, I guess, grace for us, but it's also going to have a selfish element to it where this is part of my ascendance into heaven, which I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but I find it troubling to think that a finite being, one who had not been perfected yet, somehow was able to perform an infinite atonement. But you also mentioned, Paul, that Latter-day Saints will say their version of the atonement is superior because they're not saying that God is bloodthirsty, right?

That there was, there's evil and it's always there. And so, you know, God was just giving us a way out of a predicament that naturally exists, whereas they'll accuse us of saying, well, God saved us from the punishment of his own sin. And they'll try to say that God is a moral monster because he was going to throw us down to hell and he just saved us from himself. So that's, that's one thing that I've heard Latter-day Saints bring up quite a bit.

I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on that. Yeah, that brings us back to God as creator, right? Paul's point in Romans 1 is that kind of the beginning of sin is a failure to recognize who God is as our creator, right? And that we owe him our worship and allegiance. That's the whole point of Romans 1. And that's kind of the beginning of sin is just not recognizing who God is as creator. And what I mean by that is, like I said before, we owe our very existence to him without God's free choice to create you, Matthew, and I would not be here and no one else would either. And so when you owe your very existence to God, that does place you in a position where your allegiance and your worship and your trust and your everything is owed to God. On the Mormon view, why would you worship?

What is sin, right? Does God have, on the Mormon view, does Elohim have the right to punish sin on other eternal beings? Why would he?

I can't think of a reason why he would. But having a creator God who created everything that is ex nihilo, that God does have the right to punish sin. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, it really does. Because, you know, if we're co-eternal with God, I mean, that's like a co-worker following you home from work and pulling you over and giving you a ticket for speeding or punishing you for your job that you do at work.

It's like, dude, you don't have the authority to, you know, write me up or fire me or anything because you're my co-worker. It's like, you're not perfect either, dude. So yeah, I completely get what you're saying there. Another thing, too, that I thought of is the way the atonement works. And I don't know if you can argue that this is a natural production of creation ex materia. But, you know, all the atonement does in Mormonism is it just paves the way for you to then progress on your own with God's help a little bit. And I think that makes sense if you're an eternal being already and you've got that potential where maybe you could have become a God on your own without any help from a deity, that the atonement would work in such a way that you're kind of pulling yourself out of the muck.

And I know a lot of Latter-day Saints will disagree with my terminology there, but with creation ex nihilo, I mean, yeah, I think it makes more sense. Like this God has to jump in and save us. We're not eternal beings. We're not God's an embryo. We actually do need him to reach down and save us. We do not have that capability ourselves. What do you think, Matthew?

Any thoughts on this? I can't hear you, Matthew. I think we lost you. Okay. Sorry. Yeah.

Yeah. So piggybacking off what you guys were talking about, if we go back to what we were talking about, how God made this, well, God didn't make this plan. This plan has always existed. It's been happening in other worlds. People have been placed in this mortal probation. They've been tested and they've received exaltation.

It's been happening over and over and over again. And it's like Paul said, God didn't really freely choose to do that. It's kind of like a package deal that's always been there. And God is kind of forced to do that. He's like, he has no other choice, but to send his son to die for every single person. And so we can think of it as more of something that God owes to us because we as eternal beings were his children. Well, he owes that to us because I'm his child. So he owes me an atonement. And because it's a plan that's been set forth long before he was ever God.

Well, then I deserve that plan. And he has to provide that. And so when we think about it that way, the focus really is on us and what God can do for us, provide for us rather than like we've been saying all along, pointing it, pointing us back to God and just seeing how gracious and how merciful he is that he decided to first create us anyway, because he didn't have to. He was completely self-sufficient and completely happy and, you know, in eternity past before we were existing. So to decide to even create us for one thing is a huge act of condescension on his part. And two, to save us simple creatures as an act of grace on his part is, and it's not something that we, that we do that, that demonstrates that we deserve it. And it's not something that we earn.

It's nothing like that. It's something that he gives completely freely by his own choice. It affects the atonement in that sense.

It's, it just completely sheds us of any pride or any thought that we deserve any kind of treatment. You know, it's not something that we agreed to in a council before we came to this earth and we all signed the dotted line. So now God has to keep his end of the bargain.

It's nothing like that at all. God does it completely by his own free will and choice. And he does that out of grace and mercy and love for us.

Yeah. The thought that came to my mind is, you know, the Mormon God, the whole LDS plan of happiness, it's really kind of akin to like, God bought a franchise. It's not something that he created. It's just something that he, you know, bought a, bought ownership of, but it already is supposed to function a certain way. And there's expectations that come from that.

And it's really not as impressive as starting your own business or starting your own thing and then being able to set all the rules. And that's, that's really our position as a Christian. Yeah. But Michael, don't you realize you yourself can have your own franchise. You just got to get your own children underneath you.

It's really a cool deal. Yeah. I just, my, my children that already exist out there somewhere and are just waiting for me to, to come put them together. Just waiting for you to pitch the pyramid scheme to them.

Yeah. It's just, you know, eternity's gone by and I'm pretty sure that they've already like figured out how to form themselves. And how do I know that they're not already God's laughing at my inability to reach that position already? They're looking at you, you know, they're, they're like looking at the kid who's the, the the son of a, you know, a huge entrepreneurial, you know, businessman, you know, he's like the Billy Madison, you know, you're like the Billy Madison, you know, you're, you're drinking and getting high by the, by the pool every day. And they're like, come on, man.

I want to get to earth already. Good wasting my time. Okay. But what's the penguin in that analogy? That's Satan in the garden instead of a serpent.

It's a penguin. All right. So getting back on topic, let's, let's conclude the conversation today. Let's just kind of go around and, and talk about any, any Bible verses that you want to any final thoughts that you would like to share with Latter-day Saints, Matthew, you want to go first on this one?

Sure. I think we might've already quoted it earlier, but when we were talking about this or preparing for it, the passage that comes to my mind is Colossians chapter one. And a lot of scholars actually think that this was actually in response to some first kind of proto Gnostics that were starting to grow in that region. So it wasn't like full Gnosticism, but there were some weird groups, add some strange ideas that were starting to grow that similar ideas to what would later develop into full Gnosticism.

There were, there was a possibility of people that were worshiping angels. There was a, when we talked about the aeons and the Demi urges that it wasn't a true and the holy God that created everything, but they believed that there was some kind of a on or Demi urge created the earth that had kind of evil ideas. So some people think that this is Paul's rebuttal of those ideas by directly demonstrating that Christ is the perfect image of God and that he created everything.

It's not some evil God. It's not some other gods, lesser God, but it's Christ who is God created everything. So in Colossians chapter one, starting with verse 15, it says, Christ, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation for by him, all things are created in heaven and on earth, visible and indivisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him, all things hold together.

And he is the head of the body. The church is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent for in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the, of his cross. And so I think whether it's creation, um, fall, the atonement, glory, all of that is made for God, for his glory. And it's made by God and it's, it will be reconciled to God at the end of all things. So everything will be reconciled to God, whether we are glorifying God, uh, by worshiping him in eternity, or whether we will be punished for our sins, all things are, will be reconciled eventually. And so when we look at the crossroads of time, um, God created everything for him and I don't, and there's nothing there that that's not listed, whether it's on earth or in heaven, well, that already includes everything visible or invisible that again already includes any, everything you can either see it with your eyes or you can't see it. There's no third option and whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. So Paul's making it abundantly clear that everything that exists was made by God, for God, for the glory of God and all, all things will be reconciled to God.

Eventually. It doesn't mean, you know, universalism, it just means that all things are made and will be, will, will be used for the glory of God. And so that's why I think that that's a really powerful passage. I think that points to creation, uh, ex nihilo, just the idea that everything is created and exists because of God's power and by his sovereign grace. Um, there are certainly other passages I think you could point to, but to me, this is most, the most powerful and all of it is for God's glory.

It's to pointing to him. That's not for us. It's not to make a testing ground for us to prove whether we're worthy of eternal life or exaltation or something. Um, God certainly participates, allows us to participate in the divine nature by his mercy, but the, the creation is, is for God's glory primarily.

It's not for our glory. Yeah. Um, so, so Matthew where it says there that, uh, that he creates all things, including principalities and thrones, then I guess I don't, I hope I'm not saying the obvious here, but I mean, it sounds to me like there was no, uh, force of evil before creation that was warring against God. Like when you say it's pretty clear that doesn't exist according to that, that passage.

Yeah, I would say that's true. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that we, that we state that because, uh, it says it pretty clearly, but I just wanted to make sure, uh, all right, Paul, this is your, your, your time to shine. You got any passages for us? Uh, yeah, I've got a few.

I, I, sorry about my dog. Um, I, right now, of course I alluded earlier to John one, three, um, where it says all things came into being through him, uh, the him here being referred to as the word, the logos, uh, all things came into being through him and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. Um, that's clear enough, but I've had latter day saints argue against it and say, well, that's only referring to things that, um, came into being right. So there are things like intelligences that did not come into being. So we were not created.

Okay. So moving on, uh, Hebrews 11 verse three, by faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God. So that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. Uh, presumably, uh, intelligences would be visible, uh, presumably, uh, chaotic, uh, unorganized matter, uh, that the world would be made out of would be visible.

Uh, it's visible now to us, the, the, the universe is visible now to us via a telescope, um, including black holes and other, uh, things within, uh, the universe. So, um, again, though, going to Romans four 17, um, this one, uh, just completely obliterates, I think, uh, the latter say it, latter day saints ability to, uh, try to walk back from John one, three, uh, in Romans four 17, Paul says that God is the one who quote, gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. So, um, you know, my, my theology professor, Jack Cottrell writes in his book about this passage, uh, his book, uh, God, most high, uh, God, the creator, ruler and Redeemer. Uh, Jack Cottrell says, quote, here, the two greatest works in the repertoire of omnipotence are laid side by side, calling life into existence out of its opposite and calling being into existence out of its opposite non-being or non-existence itself. There is no more forceful statement of creation from nothing in the Bible or anywhere. And then, uh, revelation four 11, um, says of God quote, you created all things and because of your will, they existed or were created here. John says, not only that God created all things, but that of him, all things existed.

So, um, the, the challenge that latter day saints use that, that the creation of creation, doctrine of creation, next Niello comes late. It comes after the Bible. Um, I just don't think that stands up when you actually look at the new Testament as a whole and you look at what, uh, Jews believed, uh, about, uh, the old Testament and the creator God.

All right. I'm glad you brought up the Hebrews one. Um, I was going to talk about that one, but I think he talked about it a lot better than I was going to. Um, so I'm just going to point the listeners to, uh, the very beginning of the old Testament in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now I know as a latter day saint, I would probably try to say, well, I'm sure, you know, the original language doesn't say, you know, created or it can be translated or that's not translated correctly, you know, pretty standard, uh, LDS response.

So today I was like, I wonder what the pro great price says. So I went to Moses chapter two and lo and behold, it still uses the word created, which I thought was really interesting because it's, uh, it's inaccurate, uh, for in LDS theology to say that God created anything because he doesn't create anything in Mormon doctrine. He only forms things, um, out of preexistent material. And so I thought, well, maybe, uh, maybe Moses too, will you kind of talk about things differently, but it is almost identical to the Genesis account in the Bible where he says, I said, let there be light. And there was light. Uh, he doesn't say I formed the intelligence and turned it into light. Um, and then I said, let there be a firmament, let there be, you know, all the, all the plans. And it's just his word creating these things.

And you don't see any of the work being done, which would need to be done if it was being formed by these, uh, these intelligences. So I thought that was really telling that even according to the pro great price, you don't get this, uh, this clear message. And it seems to point more to the Protestant position of, uh, ex neo.

Yeah. I'm glad, glad you brought up Genesis one. Um, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth on Mormonism. Uh, God lives on a planet near the star Cola. Uh, did that God create the heavens and the earth or did that God shift around some planets to make a space for his children? Um, yeah, Genesis one doesn't really work with, uh, with what Joseph Smith later claimed, uh, about what bow row means, whatever he claimed in the, in the King follow this course. Um, so yeah, thoughts on that.

Yeah. Although I'm not sure if, um, maybe you guys would know when it says he created the heavens and the earth. I know a lot of times Jewish thought was that the heavens was just like the heavens. There were the various levels of heaven, you know? So was that speaking of everything or just the heavens surrounding the earth immediately?

You know what I mean? Yeah. But even if it was just the heavens surrounding the earth, it still says he created it. Um, and it's still, I still don't see in the Genesis account anywhere, any sort of evidence that, that there was a putting together of anything. It's just, it wasn't, he spoke it into existence and then it's there. Um, but I don't, I don't know if, I don't know the exact answer to your question. I was just trying to think of how a lot of the same apologists might respond to that.

Yeah. It's just funny because, uh, I would, it's sort of a double-edged sword for them to respond to it because, uh, a lot of times I would hear them saying, uh, I'd hear Protestants talk about the, uh, the three heavens, right? Like Paul, Paul says, he saw the third heaven and they're like, Oh, well that's one heaven is just the atmosphere. And the other one's outer space. And I'd be like, well, that's ridiculous, but you can't say it's ridiculous for that. And then turn around and say, it's ridiculous for Genesis.

Like it's, it's going to be consistent, uh, all the way around. But, uh, yeah. Any, any final closing thoughts guys? Did I ever tell you guys my, uh, X Nilo joke? No, but let's hear it. Okay.

So, uh, the other day I was praying and I was, I was thanking God for creating the world and the universe and all the heavens. And he responded and said, Oh, it was nothing. Good one. That's something.

It would be a bar joke, but sorry. All right. Fireflies. That's it for this topic. Feel free to share your thoughts on the outer brightness group on Facebook. Is there an aspect of this topic we missed something you'd like to see us discuss in the future?

Let us know next week. We will have a special guest on our friend Herman and by Herman, I mean hermeneutics until then shine bright fireflies. We thank you for tuning into this episode of the outer brightness podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Please visit the outer brightness podcast page on Facebook. Feel free to send us a message there with comments or questions by clicking, send a message at the top of the page, and we would appreciate it. If you give the page alike, we also have an outer brightness group on Facebook where you can join and interact with us and others as we discuss the podcast, past episodes and suggestions for future episodes, et cetera. You can also send us an email at outer brightness at gmail.com.

We hope to hear from you soon. You can subscribe to the outer brightness podcast on Apple podcasts, cast box, Google podcasts, pocket casts, pod beam, Spotify, and stitcher. Also, you can check out our new YouTube channel and if you like it, be sure to lay hands on that subscribe button and confirm it. If you like what you hear, please give us a rating and review wherever you listen and help spread the word. You can also connect with Michael, the X Mormon apologist at from water to wine.org where he blogs and sometimes Paul and Matthew do as well. Music for the outer brightness podcast is graciously provided by the talented Brianna Flournoy and by Adams road.

Learn more about Adams road by visiting their ministry page at adamsroadministry.com. Stay bright, Flyer flies. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. The word made fresh, the risen son. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. All of this world doesn't decay, but the word of our God through ages remains. Lord, you promised that we as your church would remain upon this rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against us.

Cause you have power to keep your word unspoiled in purity. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. All of this world isn't decay, but the word of our God through ages remains. As the rain falls down from heaven and waters the earth bringing it life.

So the word that goes out from your mouth will not return empty, but does what you desire. Lord, we hear your word and believe in you. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. All of this world isn't decay, but the word of our God through ages remains. The word of God remains.