The Myth of Ex Nihilo: Why Something Can’t Come from Nothing

 

Even the idea of nothing implies something; structure always precedes form.

The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, the idea that something came from absolutely nothing, has occupied a secure and unchallenged seat in both theological and philosophical traditions for centuries. Its defenders range from early Christian thinkers to modern cosmologists, many of whom argue that a transcendent power, a cause beyond space and time, must have sparked the emergence of the universe from a null state.

On the surface, it may seem intuitive—if we look back far enough, shouldn’t we arrive at a point where there was absolutely nothing, and then something emerged?

Yet, this intuition is not without severe philosophical and ontological consequences.

At its core, the claim that something came from nothing is a metaphysical proposition disguised as a theological or scientific assertion. It demands that we accept two contradictory postulates at once: that "nothing" is truly nothing—without properties, dimensions, or potential—and yet capable of becoming the womb of all things.

This is a contradiction smuggled in as doctrine.

If "nothing" can do something—produce something—then it is no longer nothing. It is something in disguise. It holds latent causality, hidden energy, or abstract possibility. And if it contains even the shadow of those, then it is already disqualified from being absolute nonbeing.

The very concept of "nothingness" used by proponents of ex nihilo creation is seldom consistent.

In popular apologetics or cosmological speculation, the term "nothing" is often used loosely, referring to a quantum vacuum, a pre-spacetime field, or a metaphysical emptiness which nonetheless operates within a conceptual frame.

But all of these frames smuggle in structure.

The "nothing" described still allows for variables, laws, or fluctuations. What is called "nothing" turns out to be a creative precondition, merely stripped of recognizable features. It is never true ontological nothingness. It always has a hidden door.

To imagine a true absence is not simply to imagine darkness or silence. Those are already phenomena—something.

To imagine nothing is to imagine the absence of imagining itself.

And therein lies the collapse.

One cannot think "nothing." One can only name it. But naming is already a step into being.

So when one says, “There was nothing, and then there was something,” the very sentence betrays itself. It attributes temporal sequence to a nonentity. It ascribes potential to absence. And it asserts a before and after where there was never a "before" to begin with.

There’s a more fundamental issue at play.

Suppose the universe did come into being from nothing. Not a vacuum, not potentiality, not a collapsed field—but actual, categorical, contentless nonexistence.

This raises the question: why this universe and not another? Why did anything at all emerge, rather than remain in nonexistence?

If we appeal to a cause, then we must admit that the "nothing" was not nothing.

If we deny a cause, then we are forced to accept that the most total and absolute void spontaneously produced not only a thing, but the structure and logic by which things relate.

This requires more faith than reason should allow.

It is an appeal not to mystery, but to paradox.

Not the kind of paradox that invites exploration, but the kind that swallows inquiry whole.

Furthermore, the assertion of ex nihilo creation presumes a strange relationship to time.

It asks us to imagine a "moment" when there was no time, and then a “first moment” when time began.

But if time began, then it had no prior moment. There was no "when" before time.

To say "at some point, nothing became something" is to use temporal language to describe a non-temporal event.

The very tools used to defend the position nullify it.

We cannot speak of causality without sequence. We cannot speak of emergence without relation.

We cannot speak of "from nothing" without dragging "nothing" into the frame of something.

The position collapses from within.

Some thinkers try to bypass this problem by claiming that God, a timeless and necessary being, caused the universe to exist without any prior material.

But this attempt, while noble in intent, only shifts the burden.

If God is necessary, then nonbeing was never absolute.

If God is truly outside of all being, then God is not a being at all, and nothing should come from that either.

And if God is a being, then there is something—always has been—and the notion of "nothing" as a true origin is discarded.

What we have instead is an eternal source, a continuity, a persistence. Not a break.

The idea that something can come from nothing also violates every structural instinct of reasoning.

It is not a question of scientific improbability, but of conceptual impossibility.

Our most basic rules of understanding depend on some form of continuity. To speak, to think, to know—these are all acts of connecting.

There must be an x before a y. A basis for the next move.

If something could emerge without continuity, then we lose the ability to investigate anything at all.

Every inquiry presupposes stability.

If nothingness could suddenly erupt into being, without reason or ground, then the entire fabric of reality is suspended on a whim with no traceable pattern.

In such a world, no event could be explained. There would be no laws, no rhythm, no logic.

And yet, we find ourselves in a universe of stunning intelligibility.

This brings us to the question of structure.

Every form of being we observe exhibits structure.

Whether it is mathematical, biological, metaphysical, or aesthetic, there is coherence.

Even randomness obeys definable rules.

Entropy is not chaos; it is patterned decay.

Probability operates within calculable bounds.

If being emerged from nonbeing, not only must matter arise—but structure, relation, and interaction must also emerge fully formed or in potential.

That is an extraordinary claim.

It is easier to believe that being was always structured than that structure was bootstrapped from absence.

To deny creatio ex nihilo is not to deny mystery or transcendence.

It is, rather, to refuse contradiction masquerading as revelation.

It is to demand coherence, not reduction.

There may be realities beyond what we currently see or understand, but they must not violate the foundations of intelligibility.

If something has always been—even in forms we cannot yet describe—then inquiry remains possible.

But if nothing birthed something without precedent or anchor, then all inquiry is voided in principle.

The very act of questioning loses meaning.

There is also a moral dimension to this.

If we believe that the universe came from nothing, then we implicitly accept that groundless things can be real.

That an action can arise with no consequence, a decision with no root, an event with no narrative.

This has implications for ethics, responsibility, and justice.

If anything can arise from nothing, then anything can return to nothing.

Meaning itself becomes fragile.

The permanence of things becomes a fiction.

And this breeds not only confusion, but despair.

A metaphysics of rootlessness encourages a psychology of detachment.

It is no accident that cultures which embrace ex nihilo frameworks often struggle with alienation and nihilism.

The loss is not merely conceptual—it is existential.

To affirm instead that being must be, that it always was in some form, is not to limit the scope of creation.

It is to give it coherence.

It is to insist that the fabric of all things is not stitched by miracle alone, but by continuity.

That existence, however mysterious, rests on a bedrock that cannot fall through.

It invites us to explore, not just adore; to build understanding, not surrender it.

It asks us not to worship the inexplicable, but to examine the explainable with reverence.

We must also ask ourselves what it means to say “being” in the first place.

If everything that is, has always had to be in some way, then the category of being is not accidental—it is essential.

It cannot be borrowed from elsewhere.

It is the fundamental frame within which all things either stand or do not.

The idea that something could ever escape this frame is not only illogical, it is unthinkable.

There is no outside to being, because even the idea of "outside" belongs to the domain of relation, which presupposes being.

So to posit a pre-being, or a state before existence, is to posit an illusion.

It is to chase a ghost that never had a grave.

In this sense, the only real alternative to ex nihilo is not another theory of origin—it is a reevaluation of the nature of existence itself.

Perhaps there is no origin in the way we imagine it.

Perhaps existence is not a line with a start, but a tension with two poles: presence and absence, affirmation and negation, relation and isolation.

But even this tension would have to be.

It could not come from what is not.

It could only emerge within a reality that already makes room for it.

The trouble with ex nihilo is not that it’s hard to believe—it’s that it disables belief entirely.

It provides no soil for thought to grow. No field for logic to map. No frame for reality to explain itself.

It undermines the very process of knowing by demanding that we accept a rupture that cannot be parsed.

And in doing so, it transforms wonder into surrender.

But true wonder, the kind that fuels philosophy, science, and art, does not come from abandoning reason.

It comes from stretching it to its edge, and finding—miraculously—that the edge still holds.

To move forward, we must let go of the myth of nothing.

Not because we have seen all things, but because we see anything at all.

The presence of being, in whatever form, demands a consistency deeper than mere appearance.

It requires that we rethink what we mean by origin, by cause, by substance.

And it invites us to build a metaphysics not on silence, but on signal.

Not on rupture, but on rhythm.

We do not need to fear the implications of this.

If being always was, then so was the potential for meaning.

So was the possibility of relation.

So was the encounter with what is greater than ourselves.

In affirming that something could not have come from nothing, we are not rejecting the divine—we are rescuing it from incoherence.

And perhaps, in doing so, we are also rescuing ourselves.