Editor’s note: We are delighted to offer this excerpt from Chapter 5 of Winston Ewert’s new book, The Heavens, the Waters, and the Partridge: The Historical Interaction of Faith and Science Before Modern Science. Dr. Ewert is a Center for Science and Culture Senior Fellow, a software engineer, and an intelligent design research scientist.
The Scientific Question
What, fundamentally, is the world made of? Many things are composite; they are made up of a combination of other things. For example, a house is made up of wood, wires, pipes, etc. These are in turn made up of substances such as metal, plastic, and cellulose. But what are metal, plastic, and cellulose made of? What, at the fundamental level, is everything made of?
According to classical science, there were four elements making up all terrestrial things: earth, water, air, and fire. These were not quite the earth, water, air, and fire with which we are familiar, but rather idealized and pure versions of them. According to classical science, each of the elements had particular properties or qualities. Fire and air were both hot, as opposed to earth and water, which were cold. Water and air were both wet, whereas earth and fire were dry. Earth was solid, water was liquid, and air was gaseous. Classical science attempted to explain the properties of various things based on the properties of their constituent elements.
However, in the classical conception, elements were not immutable but could change from one into the other. For example, when water evaporated, it was thought to change into air, but turned back into water when it rained. It seemed that in order for such a change to be possible, there must be an underlying material, or matter, that these different elements were made out of. When one element changed into another, the form or shape changed, but the matter or substance remained the same. This would be akin to the idea that if a golden statue of a rabbit were melted down and reformed into a duck, the form would have changed, but the substance of gold would be the same. This only works because there is an underlying material common to both the original rabbit statue and the new duck statue.
This gave rise to a question: could formless matter exist? Was it possible for raw matter to exist apart from being in the form of any of the elements? Plato, in his book Timaeus, gives an account of the creation of the world. In that book, he describes space or matter as an invisible and formless being that could receive any form put on it:
In the same way space or matter is neither earth nor fire nor air nor water, but an invisible and formless being which receives all things, and in an incomprehensible manner partakes of the intelligible.
In Plato’s account, this invisible and formless matter is shaped into the elements and world we know by the demiurge.
In contrast, Aristotle argued that matter and form were inseparable and that one could not exist without the other. Indeed, it is difficult to comprehend what it would mean for matter to exist without a form. One can easily envision matter existing as some sort of amorphous blob, but even an amorphous blob is still a shape or form. To exist utterly without shape makes little intuitive sense….
The Christian Interaction
Some Christian authors, such as Justin Martyr and Ephrem the Syrian, interpret Genesis 1 as indicating that God created formless matter. In his earlier commentaries, Augustine takes the same view; however, his view changes in his later commentaries. Even so, Augustine consistently thinks that Genesis 1 refers to formless matter. In his later commentary; he simply thinks that the Genesis account was instantaneous, and thus there was no actual time when matter was formless.
It is worth emphasizing that these authors did not simply express God’s action in Platonic terms but saw the Scripture as endorsing this view. Justin Martyr went so far as to accuse Plato of plagiarizing his ideas from Moses. These three authors point to somewhat different Scriptural reasons for their positions. Justin Martyr references the Septuagint translation of Genesis 1:2. Ephrem the Syrian does not use the Septuagint but does read the Genesis 1 account as indicating the creation of formless matter. Augustine points to his Latin translation, which was based on the Septuagint as well as the Wisdom of Solomon.
However, other authors instead interpreted the text as referring to the earth’s being in a disorganized or unfinished state. This was the interpretation of Tertullian, Basil of Caesarea, Ambrose, and Chrysostom. These authors all used the Septuagint and had to account for the statement that the earth was invisible. They argued that the earth was covered with waters, there was no light, making it practically invisible, and it lacked the adornment of plant and animal life, making it unfinished or unfurnished. None of these authors show any awareness that anyone interpreted the text to mean that God had created formless matter.
Origen rejected the existence of formless matter. He references the existence of many who thought that Genesis 1:2 referred to formless matter. However, he argued that this was not formless matter in the technical sense. Furthermore, he tried to argue that the Scriptures referred to underlying matter in other places.
Aquinas also rejects the existence of formless matter. He explains both Augustine’s instantaneous creation and the unfurnished, hidden-earth interpretation as possible readings of the text that do not imply formless matter. His arguments against formless matter are based on the assumptions of Aristotelian metaphysics.
Luther offers an interpretation much like the unfurnished, hidden-earth interpretation of prior authors. However, because he does not use the Septuagint, he does not have to explain why the earth might be invisible. Crucially, he brings up the idea of formless matter, which he rejects on a Scriptural basis. He finds it to be inconsistent with both Genesis 1 and 2 Peter 3.
Calvin speaks of the earth as being formless. However, he does not appear to mean this in the same sense as the prior authors, who held to formless matter. Rather, his formlessness seems more like an amorphous blob of mixed materials than matter without any form at all.
Modern Science
Modern science’s view of matter is very different from that of classical science. Instead of the four elements, we have the periodic table with 94 naturally occurring elements. In classical science, matter was continuous, whereas in modern science, matter is divided into discrete units that we call atoms. The transmutation of one element into another was thought to be common in classical science but only occurs due to nuclear reactions or radioactive decay in modern science. For classical science, the elements were the basic constituent parts of reality, but in modern science, atoms are themselves made up of subatomic particles. Furthermore, with quantum mechanics, those particles do not operate as we’d intuitively expect them to. As such, the question of whether or not formless matter could exist is now moot because matter does not have the nature postulated by classical science.
Evaluation of the Response
Some historical Christians thought that the Bible taught that God created formless matter. Under modern science, such an idea is either nonsensical or wrong. How did historical Christians come to this incorrect view? Part of the answer is that they were influenced by Platonic ideas. They already believed that the world had been formed from formless matter and thus readily understood the Bible as referring to that idea. Nevertheless, there did seem to be some Scriptural support for the idea. As discussed, the Septuagint translation of Genesis 1:2 suggests something like formless matter, and the Wisdom of Solomon explicitly states that God created from formless matter. However, those sources reflect the understanding of Greek-influenced Jewish thought and not the underlying Scriptural sources. As such, this incorrect view was caused by reading flawed science into the text and failing to go back to the original sources.
Others, such as Origen and Aquinas, argued that formless matter cannot exist and that the Genesis 1 account does not describe the creation of the world from formless matter. These authors were also influenced by the science of their day, but the science had changed. The influential science of their day rejected the possibility that formless matter existed, and as such, they sought to argue that the Bible did not teach the existence of formless matter. Origen went so far as to attempt to draw support for the classical conception of matter from irrelevant Biblical passages.
However, still others interpreted the Bible as merely stating that the earth was hidden and unfinished, not that it was formless. This reading does not strictly imply that formless matter could not exist; it does not address formless matter at all. As such, science poses no problem for this reading because it neither endorses obsolete scientific theories nor makes claims now thought to be false regarding formless matter. Obviously, the creation account is scientifically controversial in a myriad of other ways, but not with respect to this issue.
What led these authors to take this reading? Most of these authors do not raise the issue of formless matter; they show no awareness of that alternate interpretation. Luther raises the issue of formless matter but rejects it on the basis of incompatibility with the text and not scientific or philosophical concerns. As such, these authors were simply following the text and, by doing so, avoided the trap of reading flawed science into it.
In this case, we have a scientific issue that is unfamiliar to the modern Christian. But what we find is an example of the pitfalls of reading Biblical texts in light of the scientific ideas of a particular age. At different times, different ideas were read into the text. In either case, the solution is to go back to the source and follow the text to see what it actually says.
Read the rest in Dr. Ewert’s new book, The Heavens, the Waters, and the Partridge: The Historical Interaction of Faith and Science Before Modern Science. Listen to “The Ancient Roots of Modern Materialism and Scientism” and “Using Historical Reasoning to Navigate Today’s Scientific Debates” on ID the Future.