Born from Nothing (Tao Te Ching 40)
40.
The Tao’s flow
involves reversals.
Its methods are flexible.
The living things in this world
are born from something.
That something was born from nothing.
Written Reflection
The so-called pre-Socratic philosophers spent most of their time asking about the fundamental essence of the natural world. Thales (c. 585 BCE) thought it was water. That was an understandable proposal, since so much of our planet is water, and all of the life on this rock depends on water. Water is easily perceived as it moves between states. It is from the sea that life appears to arise. This has some affinity with the ancient Taoist appreciation for the humble but powerful behavior of water.
Perhaps even closer to Lao Tzu’s approach to the cosmos was that of Anaximander (c. 610-546) who believed that something called the apeiron, an eternally swirling creative energy, was at the heart of the universe, though Lao Tzu describes the Tao as being another level behind such energy.
Other proposals came from thinkers like Anaximenes, who thought everything was a manifestation of air. Pythagoras thought everything was an expression of numbers. Xenophanes thought everything was an expression of an eternal soul. Heraclitus thought everything was merely the movements of great state of flux brought on by a clash of opposites, of yin and yang if you will. Parmenides instead thought everything was actually a single, uncreated and unchanging unity. Zeno of Elea likewise argued that we only have the illusion of time and change as we experience the infinite unity.
Despite their differences from Lao Tzu, many of these pre-Socratic philosophers resonate with part of the cosmology of the Tao Te Ching. Perhaps the only exception is the seemingly more modern pre-Socratic philosophy of atomism, taught by Democritus and Protagoras. They believed that the world was made up of tiny indestructible bits. In a sense, they recognized the importance of the “ten thousand things” or wan wu (萬物)—what we render the living things—but didn’t look back behind the material world to see the nothingness behind it.
For that, we see here in chapter 40 what goes beyond the world of essences to the void. Interestingly, there is a way in which this chapter concurs with classical Christian cosmology to the extent that the early church advocated the idea of creatio ex nihilo, that is: creation out of nothing. God spoke through the Logos and the world took shape out of its formless void.
Despite thinking his theoretical ideas destabilize religious thinking, theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss’ book A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing arguably confirms Lao Tzu’s suspicions and, while it suggests that there is no need for theism, does not actually disprove the existence of God, and is compatible with the Christian ex nihilo concept. What was harder to grapple with in fact was Aristotle’s view that the world was eternal and only changed forms.
This sort of pondering goes back to the origins of intellectual history. But it isn’t just about idle speculation. By understanding the point of this chapter, we see that the breathing in and out of being and nonbeing, and the “nothingness” behind the something we experience helps us to understand why the world appears so paradoxical to us. For, if even existence and nonexistence are in a sort of dance with each other, we ought not be surprised when less startling paradoxes come our way from, for example, sages like Jesus who said things like:
· The last shall be first and the first shall be last. (Matthew 20:16)
· We should be in the world but not of the world. (John 17:16)
· The greatest leaders are servants (Matthew 20:25)
· Whoever grasps at life will lose it but whoever loses their life for the true way will find it. (Luke17:33)