glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

world which is its medium of manifestation and finally the Universe of which this world
represents but a minute fragment. [TB, Cosmological and Eschatological Viewpoints]
Creatio ex nihilo: One must not tire of affirming it: the origin of a creature is not a
material substance, it is a perfect and non-material archetype: perfect and consequently
without any need of a transforming evolution; non-material and consequently having its
origin in the Spirit, and not in matter. Assuredly, there is a trajectory; this starts not from
an inert and unconscious substance, but proceeds from the Spirit – the matrix of all
possibilities – to the earthly result, the creature; a result which sprang forth from the
invisible at a cyclic moment when the physical world was still far less separate from the
psychic world than in later and progressively “hardened” periods. When one speaks
traditionally of creatio ex nihilo, one means thereby, on the one hand, that creatures do
not derive from a pre-existing matter and, on the other hand, that the “incarnation” of
possibilities cannot in any way affect the immutable Plenitude of the Principle. [FDH,
Aspects of the Theophanic Phenomenon of Consciousness]
In the expression creatio ex nihilo, the word nihil determines the meaning of the word ex:
thus ex does not presuppose a substance or a container as is normally the case, it simply
indicates the possibility in principle – which possibility is denied precisely by the word
nihil in regard to creation – rather as the word “with” indicates a possible object even in
the expression “with nothing,” which in fact means “without object.” Hence there is no
point in blaming the theological formula in question for suggesting an extra-divine
substance and thereby a fundamental dualism; that would amount to playing with words
and taking too seriously the small fatalities of language.
Obviously, creation “comes from” – that is the meaning of the word ex – an origin; not
from a cosmic, hence “created” substance, but from a reality pertaining to the Creator,
and in this sense – and in this sense only – it can be said that creation is situated in God.
It is situated in Him in respect of ontological immanence: everything in fact “contains”
on pain of being non-existent – on the one hand Being, and on the other a given
Archetype or “Idea”; the divine “content” is ipso facto also the “container,” and even is
so a priori, since God is Reality as such. But things are “outside God” – all sacred
Scriptures attest to this – in respect of contingency, hence in respect of the concrete
phenomena of the world. [PM, Ex Nihilo, In Deo]
Ex nihilo may mean: “out of nothing which could be external to God”; but this meaning
is strictly esoteric because it presupposes the understanding of the doctrine of All-
Possibility, hence that of the homogeneity of the possible. [EH, Theological and
Metaphysical Ambiguity of the Word Ex]
Creation: Creation is the great “objectification” of the Divine Subject; it is the divine
manifestation par excellence. It has a beginning and an end insofar as a particular cycle is
envisaged, but it is in itself a permanent divine possibility, a metaphysically necessary
objectification of the divine infinity; to deny the necessity of the creation would amount
to attributing arbitrariness to the Divinity . . . Creation is perfect by its very oneness and
totality, it reabsorbs in its perfections all partial disequilibria. [SW, Manifestations of the
Divine Principle]
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