Ex-Nihilo: a meaningless concept

[davidv]

So basically it sounds like we’re talking about pure magic, right?

Depends on what meaning of “magic” you are using. Is it:

1. the use of paranormal methods to manipulate natural forces, or
2. the art of appearing to perform supernatural feats

If 1, doubtful.
If 2, definitely not.

God thought of something that was imaginary (since not real before he thought of it) and it suddenly popped into existence - like if I imagined a winged, purple tortoise and suddenly there was one flying around in front of me in the next instant.

(Even then we can only talk about the example coherently because there are already things like space and animals and colors around.)

Now if this all happened inside my mind, well and good. In which case we and space-time and everything in it from quarks to quasars are still inside God’s mind. If, however, we are going to talk about it as if it were outside God’s mind, real like a turtle flying around my study, rather than a turtle that plays a recurring role in my imagination or dreams, we run into trouble:

How could there be an “outside world” into which the turtle appears, and so on, unless I also “popped that into being”? But then, we have merely begun a kind of regress, for how could I pop the outside world into being as “outside” of me, rather than that, too, being merely a (more complex) part of my imagination as well?

What would it mean for something to be “real” to God, rather than just “in His imagination.” Once we can navigate this terrain without resorting to “it’s all a mystery that’s beyond us” - which is always an effective full thermo-nuclear end to any meaningful discussion or intellectual progress - then we might ?] be able to talk about what “existing” and “nothingness” mean by introducing some subscripts to the terms.

 

[Jon_S_1]

So basically it sounds like we’re talking about pure magic, right? God thought of something that was imaginary (since not real before he thought of it) and it suddenly popped into existence - like if I imagined a winged, purple tortoise and suddenly there was one flying around in front of me in the next instant.

(Even then we can only talk about the example coherently because there are already things like space and animals and colors around.)

Now if this all happened inside my mind, well and good. In which case we and space-time and everything in it from quarks to quasars are still inside God’s mind. If, however, we are going to talk about it as if it were outside God’s mind, real like a turtle flying around my study, rather than a turtle that plays a recurring role in my imagination or dreams, we run into trouble:

How could there be an “outside world” into which the turtle appears, and so on, unless I also “popped that into being”? But then, we have merely begun a kind of regress, for how could I pop the outside world into being as “outside” of me, rather than that, too, being merely a (more complex) part of my imagination as well?

What would it mean for something to be “real” to God, rather than just “in His imagination.” Once we can navigate this terrain without resorting to “it’s all a mystery that’s beyond us” - which is always an effective full thermo-nuclear end to any meaningful discussion or intellectual progress - then we might ?] be able to talk about what “existing” and “nothingness” mean by introducing some subscripts to the terms.

I think attributing the qualities of “mind” and personifying God as if he was a huge human holding the universe like a snow globe…Is completely missing the point of the nature of God.

 

[Neoplatonist]

I think attributing the qualities of “mind” and personifying God as if he was a huge human holding the universe like a snow globe…Is completely missing the point of the nature of God.

In your approach would branches of tradition like “Our Father”, the prodigal son, and the groom and bride all go out the window?

Not sure how you got “holding the universe like a snow globe” from my reflection on the tangling of imaginary and real that must occur when we work with terms that have been passed down to us, like speaking of the divine intellect, divine will, and so on.

 

[Jon_S_1]

In your approach would branches of tradition like “Our Father”, the prodigal son, and the groom and bride all go out the window?

Not sure how you got “holding the universe like a snow globe” from my reflection on the tangling of imaginary and real that must occur when we work with terms that have been passed down to us, like speaking of the divine intellect, divine will, and so on.

Of course that imagery does not go out the window…But to stop at that and say, He is just a creature that is bigger than us (or something tantamount) is an error. That imagery is there to aid us in our understanding, not to be the definitive explanation of who God is.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Of course that imagery does not go out the window…But to stop at that and say, He is just a creature that is bigger than us (or something tantamount) is an error. That imagery is there to aid us in our understanding, not to be the definitive explanation of who God is.

Sure. We must remember that our grasp can only be analogous. Given that, the project remains to figure out what the best analogy would be.

Saying that God created out of nothing seems to fall into immediate paradox and absurdity, because there was always God, so what does “out of nothing” even mean? His being/mind is not nothingness, so if all things exist within it, then it’s not “out of nothing.”

If things exist outside God’s mind, what does “create” mean? We only know that something is outside our mind because the thing behaves differently than we will/want/believe it to and/or because other minds confirm/deny the truth of what we think it’s doing. So for us, when we create something, it changes from “in our mind” to “outside our mind.” How would that apply in God’s case?

Sure, he gave us free will, which suggests “independent of his mind”, but we and our free wills only exist within this bubble of space-time,this cosmos, which would seem to still be wholly within his mind.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Sure. We must remember that our grasp can only be analogous. Given that, the project remains to figure out what the best analogy would be.

Saying that God created out of nothing seems to fall into immediate paradox and absurdity, because there was always God, so what does “out of nothing” even mean? His being/mind is not nothingness, so if all things exist within it, then it’s not “out of nothing.”

If things exist outside God’s mind, what does “create” mean? We only know that something is outside our mind because the thing behaves differently than we will/want/believe it to and/or because other minds confirm/deny the truth of what we think it’s doing. So for us, when we create something, it changes from “in our mind” to “outside our mind.” How would that apply in God’s case?

Sure, he gave us free will, which suggests “independent of his mind”, but we and our free wills only exist within this bubble of space-time,this cosmos, which would seem to still be wholly within his mind.

I think when we say God created from nothing we mean that there was nothing physical. So God is not a rearranging person or a construction guru. He is a creator and he simply willed everything into existence.

I don’t believe the church saying “from nothing” means God did not conceive of it or something. We hold God as outside of time as the first and last. He can see all of time at once.

So yes we affirm that God always existed and the plan for the universe always existed in Him. But the universe at some point did not exist. There was indeed nothing but the infinite void of darkness. This is nothingness and from this nothingness God brought forth substance, matter, energy etc…

 

[Neoplatonist]

I think when we say God created from nothing we mean that there was nothing physical. So God is not a rearranging person or a construction guru. He is a creator and he simply willed everything into existence.

I don’t believe the church saying “from nothing” means God did not conceive of it or something. We hold God as outside of time as the first and last. He can see all of time at once.

So yes we affirm that God always existed and the plan for the universe always existed in Him. But the universe at some point did not exist. There was indeed nothing but the infinite void of darkness. This is nothingness and from this nothingness God brought forth substance, matter, energy etc…

OK, if God is outside space-time, then space-time is outside of Him, right? Then does it follow that it behaves in any way differently than he wills/wants/believes it to?

No. There’s no such thing as an infinite void of darkness. There was just God. Then (perhaps) there was “stuff in addition to God.” Of course, that’s still problematic, but in a different way.

 

[Tom_Baum]

It kind of sounds like you just copy pasted some response that seemed like it applied.

I defined absolute nothing as: a state where, if you sat down to make a list of things that exist, the list would have 0 things on it. I reasoned that such a state is logically impossible. If that is not compatible with your conception, you’ll need to elaborate.

As far as, “I defined absolute nothing as: a state where, if you sat down to make a list of things that exist, the list would have 0 things on it.”

What is “illogical”, is your above statement since “absolute nothing” would have no “you” to be able to sit down and make a list, however, that said, your definition of “absolute nothing” seems to coincide with my definition.

“Absolute nothing”, except for God, might be beyond our reasoning abilities to conceive of but that does not in the least make it “illogical” or “logically impossible”.

I happen to think/believe that “absolute nothing”, except for God, is just what God had to work with, so to speak, in God’s work of creation.

 

[Tom_Baum]

I think when we say God created from nothing we mean that there was nothing physical. So God is not a rearranging person or a construction guru. He is a creator and he simply willed everything into existence.

I don’t believe the church saying “from nothing” means God did not conceive of it or something. We hold God as outside of time as the first and last. He can see all of time at once.

So yes we affirm that God always existed and the plan for the universe always existed in Him. But the universe at some point did not exist. There was indeed nothing but the infinite void of darkness. This is nothingness and from this nothingness God brought forth substance, matter, energy etc…

As far as “He can see all of time at once.”, don’t you think that time itself is a creation of God?

I am NOT speaking of our ability to reckon time but that which is time, since creation is not just space but space and time and who knows what else but is at least space and time.

Concerning, “So yes we affirm that God always existed and the plan for the universe always existed in Him.”

How can we affirm that “the plan for the universe always existed in Him”?

Are you saying that God is absolutely static, in that God can not come up with any ideas or thoughts or nothing, that God is just some kind of, for lack of a better way of putting it, a preprogrammed entity?

Saying God is unchanging could very well be speaking of the “fact” that God Is a Being of Love, not that God can NOT do anything original, so to speak.

Also concerning, “the plan for the universe always existed in Him”, if this is true then the “idea” for creating us was not even God’s since “the plan for the universe always existed in Him”.

One of the things about us “knowing ALL about God”, at least to me, is that we make God so small.

 

[Neoplatonist]

OK, if God is outside space-time, then space-time is outside of Him, right? Then does it follow that it behaves in any way differently than he wills/wants/believes it to?

No. There’s no such thing as an infinite void of darkness. There was just God. Then (perhaps) there was “stuff in addition to God.” Of course, that’s still problematic, but in a different way.

Just want to re-phrase the key idea I’m wrestling with in this: if creation does not behave in any way differently than God wills it to at each moment, in what way does/could He relate to it as more than a figment of His imagination? How would/could it seem “real” - as in outside - of Him?

 

[The_DNA_Rose]

A state where absolutely nothing exists is self-contradictory, therefore you can no more create something ex-nihilo than you can create something ex-square-circle.

0A. If something does not exist, it cannot have properties
0B. Emptiness is a property.
0C. If something does not exist, it cannot be empty.

1. Consider the set of things that exist. If absolutely nothing exists, then the set is empty.
2. If the set of things that exist is empty, it does not contain itself.
3. If the set of things that exist does does not contain itself, it does not exist.
4. If the set of things that exist does not exist, then it cannot be empty, according to 0C.
5. Therefore asserting that the set of things that exist is empty leads to a self-contradiction.

Objection:
Unicorns do not exist, yet we still say they have properties. Therefore 0A is not true, that things which do not exist do have properties.

Response:
It is certainly true that the definition of unicorns requires that unicorns meet certain necessary conditions (i.e. have certain properties.) When we say that unicorns do not exist, we are asserting that there is nothing that meets the necessary conditions for being a unicorn. We are not saying that some non-existence has the properties of a unicorn. In other words, “unicorns don’t exist” does not mean “There is a unicorn-shaped bit of non-existence out there.”

Nothing is known to exist, past the cosmic inflation of the big bang, unless of course an observer goes there to explore, then the state of non existence, if applicable is destroyed by the observer…

I think Heisenberg might have already figured that out already, not sure if he ever took it past the big bang though…

 

[ynotzap]

We have our being, existence in God, we are not part of Him,and couldn’t be. There is no outside of God. He give existence to creation, and sustains it with His Omnipotence. He doesn’t think, He is Omniscient, all knowing, we are not figments of His imagination, He is His attributes. He is Intelligence. He is Omnipresent, all present, and concurs with our existence (runs along with it) without Him we can do nothing, and without Him nothing exists
God is pure spirit, but in Jesus Christ He assumed human nature. God has no potency but is Pure act, so we couldn’t exist in Him as a potency. To understand the Act of creation we would have to have the mind of God, all we can say is that He willed us into existence. Existence is not our nature, it was given as an attribute, we HAVE existence God is simple, He has not parts, His nature is Existence. Holy Scripture refers to Him as the “I Am Who Am”

Time is defined as “change” We are constantly changing that why it is said that we are composed of Potency and Act, a real capacity to become to the actual becoming, eg (we were infants, and now we are adults, we were ignorant, now we are knowledgeable)

 

[Alindawyl]

Just want to re-phrase the key idea I’m wrestling with in this: if creation does not behave in any way differently than God wills it to at each moment, in what way does/could He relate to it as more than a figment of His imagination? How would/could it seem “real” - as in outside - of Him?

Creation can and does quite often behave differently than God wills it to at each moment. We call that behavior sin. If we were nothing more than figments of God’s imagination, then there would be no such thing as sin because everything we do would be compelled by the thoughts of God. Murder? God made me do it. Lying? God made me do it. Rape? God made me do it. Slander or libel? God made me do it.

Unless you’re prepared to argue that all of our actions come from the direct will of God, that evil is a logical impossibility, that crime does not exist, that all criminals cannot be considered as such and must be allowed to do whatever they are doing because they are merely carrying out the will of God by their actions, you should rethink this argument.

Unless, of course, God is compelling you to make it for whatever reason

 

[Neoplatonist]

Creation can and does quite often behave differently than God wills it to at each moment. We call that behavior sin. If we were nothing more than figments of God’s imagination, then there would be no such thing as sin because everything we do would be compelled by the thoughts of God. Murder? God made me do it. Lying? God made me do it. Rape? God made me do it. Slander or libel? God made me do it.

Unless you’re prepared to argue that all of our actions come from the direct will of God, that evil is a logical impossibility, that crime does not exist, that all criminals cannot be considered as such and must be allowed to do whatever they are doing because they are merely carrying out the will of God by their actions, you should rethink this argument.

Unless, of course, God is compelling you to make it for whatever reason

Characters in my dreams do horrible things all the time.

As a separate consideration: Does not the fact that God can blink us out of existence with a wink of His will suggest a similar condition? We can’t blink “real” things out of existence with a thought.

 

[Neoplatonist]

We have our being, existence in God, we are not part of Him,and couldn’t be. There is no outside of God. He give existence to creation, and sustains it with His Omnipotence. He doesn’t think, He is Omniscient, all knowing, we are not figments of His imagination, He is His attributes. He is Intelligence. He is Omnipresent, all present, and concurs with our existence (runs along with it) without Him we can do nothing, and without Him nothing exists
God is pure spirit, but in Jesus Christ He assumed human nature. God has no potency but is Pure act, so we couldn’t exist in Him as a potency. To understand the Act of creation we would have to have the mind of God, all we can say is that He willed us into existence. Existence is not our nature, it was given as an attribute, we HAVE existence God is simple, He has not parts, His nature is Existence. Holy Scripture refers to Him as the “I Am Who Am”

Time is defined as “change” We are constantly changing that why it is said that we are composed of Potency and Act, a real capacity to become to the actual becoming, eg (we were infants, and now we are adults, we were ignorant, now we are knowledgeable)

How can you say in the same breath that God is intelligence and that he doesn’t think?

I also fail to see how you can argue that his mind is beyond anything we can comprehend but also claim that it could not be such as to contain us.

God may not have parts, but does that mean his ideas cannot be complex and contain many parts?

 

[Alindawyl]

Characters in my dreams do horrible things all the time.

Ooooooo! Shame on you

As a separate consideration: Does not the fact that God can blink us out of existence with a wink of His will suggest a similar condition? We can’t blink “real” things out of existence with a thought.

An omnipotent being has the power to blink anything he has created out of existence. Otherwise he is not omnipotent.

 

[ynotzap]

Thinking is a human action, reasoning with concepts obtained from reality, abstractions from empirical realities, the physical world around us, then deeper abstractions called mathematical concepts, and also metaphysical abstractions concerning ultimate causes. God is the author of all those things for which we strive to obtain by our thinking, ultimately the truth. God is the source of the truth, He is the Truth, and is not required to think, He is omniscient, all knowing, to attribute to God the action of thinking is to humanize the Divinity. This will hold true regarding Jesus’ human nature, but it is not true regarding His Divine Person who is the author of all reality, so what is it He achieves by thinking when He already knows. He is Intelligence because He created intelligence, and He can not give what He doesn’t have. The appetency ( the appetite of the mind,) of man’s intelligence is truth. God is Truth. Also God is His attributes, He has not parts, thinking belongs to man, it is one of the powers of the soul, intelligence along with the power of volition, the power of making a choice. God does not possess these powers, He is their cause,and supercedes them, in God all power is one, His omnipotence Consider the angels, they don’t think, they intuit, their intelligence is infused with knowledge by God, they just know. Sometimes for a lack of a better definition we use human terms to try to explain divine actions but we fall short.

To be part of God is to say God has parts, to say in Him we have our being and not be part of Him is to say that our existence is sustained by Him by His omnipotence, separate from Him, if we were part of God that would be the error of Pantheism, and that we would have always existed, and our experience tells us that we all had a beginning, God is eternal, we are not in our nature, we are not infinite, but finite, limited, and dependent.

 

[Neoplatonist]

To be part of God is to say God has parts, to say in Him we have our being and not be part of Him is to say that our existence is sustained by Him by His omnipotence, separate from Him, if we were part of God that would be the error of Pantheism, and that we would have always existed, and our experience tells us that we all had a beginning, God is eternal, we are not in our nature, we are not infinite, but finite, limited, and dependent.

Characters in my dreams are not parts of me, nor have they always existed as long as I have existed. They are bounded in numerous ways that I am not. They have their being in me, certainly, but act in ways I would not.

Now we can “say” other things and pile up sentences with clever ad hoc terms, but can we come up with an imaginable model that is closer than this? (Sure, we think we are real. So? Characters in my dreams act and speak as if they think they are real as well.) I don’t want a definition or a passage of the catechism that says this model is wrong - I want a better model that accounts for the weird features under consideration. Anyone?

 

[ynotzap]

You may be having a difficulty distinguishing dreams, and imagination from reality. You can’t have fiction without non-fiction. so what you have in imagination is found in reality is some form or way. If your concepts are subjected to your own thinking, they may or may not be true depending on how objective your thinking is, (objective meaning that they are in contact with the world apart from your mind) After all that is where our thoughts come from, from outside of us, we can use our creative imagination using these thoughts

For believers, we know that angels and devils exist, and can exercise their influence on our thoughts, tempting us, exhorting us, inspiring us, discouraging us, and even providing visions of a spiritual nature to deceive, or to inspire. You have references to these beliefs in Holy Scripture. And I know this for a fact, since I have had these experiences. Dreams can also be the minds way of releasing tensions, also can be an escape mechanism from a painful reality.

 

[Neoplatonist]

You may be having a difficulty distinguishing dreams, and imagination from reality. You can’t have fiction without non-fiction. so what you have in imagination is found in reality is some form or way. If your concepts are subjected to your own thinking, they may or may not be true depending on how objective your thinking is, (objective meaning that they are in contact with the world apart from your mind) After all that is where our thoughts come from, from outside of us, we can use our creative imagination using these thoughts

For believers, we know that angels and devils exist, and can exercise their influence on our thoughts, tempting us, exhorting us, inspiring us, discouraging us, and even providing visions of a spiritual nature to deceive, or to inspire. You have references to these beliefs in Holy Scripture. And I know this for a fact, since I have had these experiences. Dreams can also be the minds way of releasing tensions, also can be an escape mechanism from a painful reality.

Sorry, I think you’re looking through my telescope the wrong direction. I’m saying we are figures in God’s imagination…