'Creatio ex nihilo' cannot be repeated

"The idea that the cosmos is transformed, not abolished but transfigured, is expressed in images of the destruction of the old heaven and old earth and the 'creation of a new heaven and a new earth.' This is not a new 'six days of creation,' a new creation out of nothing: this creation cannot be repeated. Rather, it is a renewal of the created world."

I just read that in Sergei Bulgakov's The Bride of the Lamb. It's the second sentence that strikes me – that creation "out of nothing" cannot be repeated. There can never again be "nothing" because there is now something, and what's happened is, irrevocably – things cannot be rewound, undone, or reinitiated.

I realize the complexities inherent in such a thought, as there wasn't a "time" when there was nothing. But there is, I think, an experience had by God that is prior to there being anything at all, right? Maybe not. And maybe I'm reading Bulgakov wrong, here. It makes my head spin.

Anyways, the idea that a creation out of nothing cannot be repeated lends an almost-overwhelming sense of seriousness and permanence to the experience of life, in my mind. And I think I only ever lack that seriousness to begin with because of some bad ways of (mostly subconsciously) thinking about the nature of ... things – subconscious habits of thought that trivialize existence itself.

(But maybe Bulgakov isn’t saying that creatio ex nihilo cannot logically be repeated, but just that, because of how we are related to God and who God is, it would not be fitting with God's nature to somehow "repeat" this?)

I also realize that this is, in a sense, obvious. But it's hard to keep straight, and I sometimes think crappy science fiction goes a long way toward giving us broken (and even psychologically dangerous) ideas about "what's possible" – Twilight Zone twists like "wiping" memories or "downloading" consciousness or "rewinding" history, all without acknowledging the logical and philosophical problems therein.

"Imagine that you could go back in time and..."

That is, of course, a hopelessly complex premise for any story or discussion. We can talk like that in order to address other topics (like ethics) at an angle, maybe. But while the idea of a time machine (among other common science fiction tropes) is easy enough to showcase on film, it's a hilariously perilous thing to navigate if you're trying to take it seriously.

And I think when we do try to take it seriously (and internalizing what Bulgakov says here is one small way to start doing that in regards to the nature of creatio ex nihilo and the irrevocability of all that is), we can shed a lot of the crude hypotheticals and false possibilities that muddy the way we think about these sorts of things.