Philoponus’ Creatio ex Nihilo Argument

Abstract

John Philoponus was an influential sixth century Christian theologian, philosopher, and scientist. Philoponus was the first Christian to make use of the concept of infinity to formulate philosophical arguments in favour of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing ), the view that God created the universe out of nothing. In this chapter I examine Aristotle’s notion of infinity, which inspired Philoponus ’ infinity arguments. I then survey Philoponus ’ three infinity arguments, namely, the argument based on the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite, the argument based on the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite, and the argument based on the impossibility of increasing an actual infinite.