Abstract

The concept of Creation from nothing is one of the most typical and relevant themes of the metaphysics of transcendence; this in particular from the moment in which this Principle entered the theological and philosophical panorama through the Jewish-Christian Revelation. In recent decades, one of the most relevant criticisms of this concept has come from the Italian philosopher Emanuele Severino: this latter, after having proposed an innovative ontological elaboration centered on the eternity of each being as such, has addressed objections to various typical themes of Western culture, considered as a whole forgetful of the sense of being: the Principle of creatio ex nihilo would not escape this relief, in particular because the Author assimilates the divine creation to the production technique of the craftsman, and therefore understands it as a variant of the demiurgic model present in the Platonic texts. After having exposed the Platonic doctrine of the Demiurge in its essential terms, the article intends to take this parallelism into consideration and verify whether Severinos’position on the subject under consideration is well founded or whether it is not the result of an incorrect interpretation. Secondly, we intend to provide some indications aimed at defining more precisely the authentic way of understanding the Principle of Creation.