Creation ex nihilo

Nothing comes from nothing.  That seems obvious, and Christians have traditionally had some difficulty explaining why creatio ex nihilo is a defensible violation of that basic principle.

According to Catherine Pickstock, Augustine viewed creation ex nihilo as the most rational position.  All around us, “things are continuously coming to be , and continuously emerging from points that are nothing.”  Augustine appeals to geometric and mathematical realities to make the point; yes, the point: Points are nothings, without extension, and yet if you put a number (an infinite number) of these points in a row, they constitute a line (a finite line).  Something from nothing.  You measure a line by starting from an unextended point, but how can an unextended point, a nothing, function as the anchor of measurement?  Rhythm in music is not just the sounds in order, but the sounds organized by intervals of silence, and the intervals of silence – the moment of no-sound – are as constitutive of the rhythm as the sounds themselves.