The Chicken, the Egg, and the Man Who Was Not Hatched: On Traversal, Creation ex Nihilo, and Why the Paradox Dissolves Twice

This essay argues that the classic chicken-and-egg paradox dissolves not only from the perspective of divine eternity but also from the internal structure of becoming itself. By distinguishing Traversal—the continuous modification of an already-existing subject—from immediate creation, it proposes that no ontological boundary exists within biological continuity at which a first chicken could emerge. The same framework then explains why this reasoning does not eliminate the first man. Adam's soul is not the terminus of a Traversal but the immediate reception of being, while simultaneously inheriting an already-condensed creation. The distinction between self-inheritance and cosmic inheritance unifies biological continuity, creation ex nihilo, and classical Christian anthropology within a single metaphysical account of origin, continuity, and the conditions under which genuine beginnings become possible.