Maimonides 13 Principles of Faith: 4. God as Creator

4. I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, is the first and the last.

This principle states that God is before all things, and that he created all that is not God, and not from anything.

Abraham Ibn Ezra said that the creation account only refers to the sublunar world, since the heavenly bodies are eternal in his commentary on Genesis, as well as in his commentary on Daniel. In the latter Ibn Ezra states that the heavenly bodies do not begin or end. Many of the rabbis interpret this as a denial of creation ex nihilo, such as Levi ben Abraham, R. Nissim ben Moses, R. Joseph ben Eliezer Bonfils, R. Ezra Gatigno, R. Isaac Abarbanel, R. David Arama, dn R. Joseph Solomon Delmedigo.

According to R. Samuel Ibn Tibbon, the four elements are eternal. Gersonides said that the world was made from formless pre-existing matter. Gersonides even said that cration ex nihilo is imposible.

R. Shem Tov Falaquera also believed taht creation was from pre-existing eternal matter.

R. Abraham Abulafia, R. Hasdai Crescas, and R. Joseph ibn Kaspi argued that God continually creates the world, holding it in existence, from eternity past.

Even Maimonides himself seemed to hold two different views on the matter. In Hilchot Yesodai Hatorah, Maimonides argued taht God is the First Existent, and is the being upon which all else depends. There is no mention of creation ex nihilo.

The Guide of the Perplexed discusses the Platonic position, and Maimonides concludes that both the creation ex nihilo, and the Platonic view of an eternal world are both viable. Maimonides states that there is no religious reason to reject the Platonic view.

According to the Maimonidean scholar Warren Zev Harvey, the Mishneh Torah reveals that the Aristotelian view that the world is eternal is required for the fulfillment of the divine commands to know God that that he is one, and that Abraham had come to know this view based on the premise that the world is eternal.