If you ask a physicist whether or not this is possible, their gut reaction would be to say: "No." However after discussing the inner workings of Up and Down quarks inside a proton at the centre of a nucleus, it is possible to theorise that matter can be created where is was not already in existance.
Energy and Mass are one in the same thing. particles that are made up of quarks, have those quarks bonded by the strong nuclear force. If this bond is extended or separated, the force becomes greater rather than decreasing with distance as the electromagnetic or gravitation force behaves. if you try to separate a quark from other quarks, the force becomes so great that it is energetically advantageous for a particle, antiparticle pair to emerge from the vacuum of space near them, bind with each of the quarks you are separating, therefore reducing the separation force. hence the creation of matter, with a little help from energy. In addition with collisions in particle accelerators, if the energy of collision matches or exceeds the energy of a particle, it can be created.
As a philosopher or a theologian, we now need to discuss the impact that this process ca have on our view of creation. Russell would speculate as to the impact that this would have on our view at all, should we even concern ourselves with these questions? Anthony Kenny would suggest that this fundamental sub-atomic process has no impact on a Christian doctrine of creation. To the extent that the natural processes causing the universe to be sustained are inherent within the act of creating, and as a result it is therefore santioned by God. Find more on this in Kenny's dialogue prompted by Aquinas' writings on cosmology.
Wittgenstein would ask about the nature of cosmology that it can be 'mystical'. Does cosmology not seek to find images, the big bang/multi-universe theory/processes in the nucleus, by which to express events so unlike anything experienced on Earth, therefore rendering literal language of little use? If we therefore render language useless how can we seek to compare theological creation as allegory with the contemporary perception of creation?
