by a word. The passage tlien expresses the highest idea of omnip- otence. The actual and the possible are equally subject to his will ; the non-existing, the merely possible, is as much obedient to Him as the actually existing. Or to call may as elsewhere mean, as De Wette explains it, to call into existence. " Der das Nicht- seiende als Seiendes hervorruft." Who calls the non-existing into existence ; " the ws ovra being for ws iao/xeva or for cts t6 elvat m ovtcu On this text Bengel says, " Cogita frequens illud "'n'^ Gen. i. ex- primitur ti'ansitus a no7i esse ad esse, qui sit vocante Deo. Conf. Ez. xxxvi. 29." 1
6. The Scriptural doctrine on this subject is confirmed by all those passages which ascribe a beginning to the world. By the world is not meant the /<oo-/xos as distinguished from chaos, the form as distinguished from the substance, but both together. According to the Bible there is nothing eternal but God. He, and He alone is The Eternal. This is his distinguishing title, — He who is and was and ever shall be. As the world therefox'e began to be, and as the world includes everything out of God, there was nothing of which the world could be made. It was thei'efore created ex nihilo. This is taught in the first chapter of Genesis, " In the beginning (before anything was) God created the heaven and the earth." In many other parts of Scripture a beginning is ascribed to the world, as in Ps. xc. 2, " Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from ever- lasting to everlasting, thou art God." Ps. cii. 25, " Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth." In John xvii. 5, our Lord speaks of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. The foundation of the world is an epoch. "Then time began. What was before the foundation of the world is eternal. The world, therefore, is not eternal, and if not eternal it must have had a beginning, and if all things had a beginning, then there must have been a creation ex nihilo.
7. The doctrine of creation flows from the infinite perfection of ^Gfid^ There can be but one infinite being. If anything exists
independent of his will, God is thereby limited. The idea of the absolute dependence of all things on God pervades the Scripture and is involved in our religious consciousness. The God of the Bible is an extramundane God, existing out of, and before the world, absolutely independent of it, its creator, preserver, and gov- ernor. So that the doctrine of creation is a necessary consequence of Theism. If we deny that the world owes its existence to the 1 Gnomon, edit. Tubingen, 1759, p. 614.
662 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Cn. X. — Creation.
will of God, then Atheism, Hylozoism, or Pantheism would seem to be the logical consequence. Hence, on the one hand, the Scrip- tures make that doctrine so prominent, presenting it on the first page of the Bible as the foundation of all subsequent revelations concerning the nature of God and his relation to the world, and appointing from the beginning one day in seven to be a perpetual commemoration of the fact that God created the heaven and earth. And, on the other, the advocates of Atheism or Pantheism contend against the doctrine of creation as the primary error of all false philosophy and religion. " Die Annahme einer Schopfung ist der Grund-Irrthum aller falschen Metaphysik und Religionslehre, und insbesondere das Ur-Princip des Juden- und Heidenthums." ^
§ 4. Objections to the Doctrine, 1. It has in all ages been urged as an objection to the doctrine of creation that it is inconsistent with an axiom, ex nihilo nihil fit. That aphorism may, however, have two meanings. It may mean that no effect can be without a cause, — that nothing can produce nothing. In that sense it expresses a seTf^vident truth with which the doctrine of creation is perfectly consistent. That doctrine does not suppose that the M^orld exists without a cause, or comes from nothing. It assigns a perfectly adequate cause for its existence in the will of an Almighty intelligent Being. In the other sense of i the phrase it means that a creation ex nihilo is impossible, that God ! cannot cause matter, or anything else, to begin to be. In this sense it is not a self-evident truth, but an arbitrary assumption, and con- sequently without force or authority. It is indeed inconceivable ; but so also are the ordinary operations of the human will incon- ceivable. No man can understand how mind acts on matter. As the world actually exists, we must admit either that it began to be, or that it is eternal. But the difficulties connected with this last assumption are, as we saw when arguing for the existence of God, far greater than those which attend the admission of a creation ex nihilo. It was partly the difficulty of conceiving of the non-exist- ing passing into existence, and partly the need for a solution of the question concerning the origin of evil, that led Plato and other Greek philosophers to adopt the theory of the eternity of matter, which they regarded as the source of evil ; a theory which passed over to Philo and to the Platonizing fathers. The Scriptural the- ] ory, or rather doctrine of the origin of evil, refers it to the free ' agency of rational creatures, and dispenses with the preexistence j of anything independent of God. 1 \
1 Fkhte, T. sel. Leben, p. 160.
§4.] OBJECTIOxXS TO THE DOCTRINE. 563
2. A more formidable objection, at least one which has had far more power, is that the doctrine of a creation in time is inconsistent with the true idea of God. This objection is presented in two forms. First, it is said, that the doctrine of creation supposes a distinction between will and power, or efficiency and purpose in the divine mind. Scotus Erigena ^ says, " Non aliud est Deo esse et facere, sed ei esse id ipsum est et facere. Coseternum igitur est Deo suum facere et coessentiale." This was the common doctrine of the scholastic theology which defined God to be actus purus, and denied any distinction in Him between essence and attributes, power and act. If this view of the nature of God be correct, then the doctrine that supposes that God's eternal purpose did not take effect from eternity, must be false. If God creates by thinking, He formed the world when He purposed it. Secondly, it is said that the doctrine of creation is inconsistent with the nature of God, inasmuch as it assumes a change in Him from inaction to activity. What was God doing, it is asked, from eternity before He created the world ? If He is Creator and Lord, He must always have been such, and hence there must always have been a universe over which He ruled. These difficulties have led to different theories designed to avoid them. Ox'igen, as before mentioned, taught that there has been an eternal succession of worlds. Others say that creation is eternal, although due to the will of God. He did from the beginning what the Scriptures say He did in the beginning. A foot from eternity standing in the dust, or a seal from eternity im- pressed upon wax, would be the cause of the impression, although the impression would be coeternal with the foot or seal. Pantheists make the world essential to God. He exists only in the world. " Das gottgleiche All ist nicht allein das ausgesprochene Wort Gottes (natura naturata) sondern selbst das sprechende (natura naturans) ; nicht das erschaffene, sondern das selbst schaffende und sich selbst offenbarende auf unendliche Weise." ^ That is, " The universe is not merely the outspoken word of God, but also that which speaks ; not the created, but the self-creating and self-reveal- ing in unending forms."
Answer to the above Objections.
With regard to the objections above mentioned, it may be re- marked, —
1. That they are drawn from a region which is entirely beyonl
1 De Divisione Natures, i. 74.
2 Schelling, by Strauss, Dogmatik, vol. i. p. 658.
664 PART I. - THEOLOGY. [Ch. X. — Creation.