Violins of nothing

[JapaneseKappa]

Neither are sufficiently precise expressions, which is why confusion is created where it didn’t exist before.

To say, “something came into being from nothing” makes it sound like “nothing” exerts some kind of agency or is, at least, a prerequisite condition for creation to occur. The preposition “from nothing” is actually irrelevant and unnecessary…

This does not entail that created things can, therefore, create themselves from nothing nor that nothing has any creative power. We are talking about “nothing” in the metaphysical sense of nada, which is the absolute absence of being completely devoid of all positive characteristics which can, logically speaking, do squat, especially not bring things into being.

Interesting, so most of the people using the phrase ex nihilo are actually making a meaningless or unnecessary statement. But I am already aware of the problems of supposing that something could come from philosophical nothing. Indeed, that I why I referred to it as a conclusion we’re not allowed to make. And so if we rule out this one, we’re left with the second possibility: that God’s creation was not actually ex nihilo, but rather ex-God.

What the clause is clumsily attempting to connote is that the thing in question came to be, i.e., came into existence or was actualized as an ontologically subsistent entity, where it didn’t exist prior to its creation.

Neither is there any kind of logical commitment to created things coming “from” or “out of” God. What is implied is that God, by nature as Ipsum Esse Subsistens, is the fullness of actuality (Actus Purus) such that he can actualize or bring into existence entities which then are capable of subsisting as beings/things in their own right.

But as we’ve already said, he cannot do so ex-nihilo. Rather, you must be saying that he takes something of himself and modifies it into “an entity capable of subsisting as things in their own right.” After all, in the beginning, there is nothing else to create from. But I’m curious if you have any reason for choosing “subsisting in their own right” over “remaining as part of God.”

 

[Peter_Plato]

Interesting, so most of the people using the phrase ex nihilo are actually making a meaningless or unnecessary statement. But I am already aware of the problems of supposing that something could come from philosophical nothing. Indeed, that I why I referred to it as a conclusion we’re not allowed to make. And so if we rule out this one, we’re left with the second possibility: that God’s creation was not actually ex nihilo, but rather ex-God.

Again, the difficulty is in pushing the “from” too hard when claiming creation “from” nothing. Things are not made “from” nothing but simply brought into being where they didn’t exist before.

This simply is to distinguish forming or manipulating existing material from creating the form and material holus bolus, i.e., ex nihilo.

But as we’ve already said, he cannot do so ex-nihilo. Rather, you must be saying that he takes something of himself and modifies it into “an entity capable of subsisting as things in their own right.” After all, in the beginning, there is nothing else to create from. But I’m curious if you have any reason for choosing “subsisting in their own right” over “remaining as part of God.”

In God, existence and essence are identical. In contingent beings existence and essence are not so intertwined. Our essence or nature could exist or it could not exist, so we logically could not be “a part of God” nor created “from God” because then our essential nature would be to exist - we could not NOT exist. Ergo, we exist in our own right according to our nature, which need not exist by its essence - unlike God’s essence which exists necessarily by virtue of what that nature is - pure Act of Being or Actus Purus.

In some sense, “ex nihilo” describes an aspect of the essential nature of created or contingent things. That is, they/we are essentially, on our own, deprived of or without existence and, therefore, “nothing.” God brings forth from this deprivation, this nothingness, an existing being, purely by an act of creation, NOT “from” his Being.

 

[oldcelt]

Beauty is a personal concept, and has nothing to do with the creator. If it did, we would all have the same concept thereof.

Johh

 

[thinkandmull]

Again, the question isn’t whether God requires nothing to exist in order to create things, the proposition is merely making the claim that God brings into being things that did not exist previously in such a way that they subsist as entities with their own actuality. The “nothing” being spoken of is not a precursor element nor some primordial “something” from which things are made.

Yes, but not necessarily one with intelligence or will, and Aquinas/Aristotle argue that the “agent” must be of a nature which sufficiently explains the power, which is why the act-potency distinction factors into their metaphysics. Put simply, no agent can give what it doesn’t have. God is existence but that does not require that he imparts the same level of existence on the creatures he brings into being (actualizes.) It does mean he created their potential “whatness” and actualized that potential. That does not mean the created beings must, therefore, exist is the same manner that God does. They may subsist according to their own natures and contingent upon a “support system,” but need not exist necessarily nor by the very nature of their “whatness.”

But this concept that “nothing gives what it doesn’t have” doesn’t seem to apply to creation. If God was evil but had infinite power, could he still create a good world? The world doesn’t come out of good, so its goodness doesn’t really say anything about the creator is creation was from nothing. All finite things could give what they do not have if they had power to create out of nothing

 

[thinkandmull]

Trees seem to come out of nothing. Compared to the size of a tree, it doesn’t always get all that much water, and it is in the drying sun all day. I couldn’t have come much from the soil, because otherwise there would be no dirt around the tree. So is it made of primarily of the sun rays? very weird

 

[Peter_Plato]

But this concept that “nothing gives what it doesn’t have” doesn’t seem to apply to creation.

Sure it does. What happens in creation is tranformative rather than creative. Material things change or alter materials to bring about new forms, but that isn’t creation from nothing. It is forming existing material and forms into something different via energy transfer.

You eating and digesting a steak or salad brings about a change to the plant or animal matter you consume to transform it into new cells in your body. That only occurs because – for example – the carbon based compounds in plant and animal matter can potentially become proteins or other material forms which constitute your body.

The fact that the structure of a carbon atom allows for a huge number of compounds means that the potential for new forms (compounds and attendant forms) is built into that one element by it capacity to conjoin itself with other elements/compounds. Aquinas was quite correct in claiming that the potential for new entities must somehow exist latently in existing ones. That is certainly the case with carbon

If God was evil but had infinite power, could he still create a good world?

A good argument could be made from the parasitic nature of evil that infinite power would be inherently inconsistent with evil. For Thomists being and goodness are transferable. In other words, being and goodness are the same. Infinite power would mean the unconstrained power to actualize or bring an infinite array of entities into existence. That, by definition, would rule out evil since evil would have the contrary effect of nullifying infinite power. If creative power is infinite, evil could never, ultimately, be ontologically self-sufficient.

The world doesn’t come out of good, so its goodness doesn’t really say anything about the creator is creation was from nothing.

I just don’t understand your point. Everything that exists is to a limited degree “good.” It is good to the extent it exists as an instance of what it essentially is. In some limited degree the “goodness” of God is imparted into the created thing by its being actualized. The goodness is in its “form,” so to speak, but since it is a contingent thing its goodness is conditional upon its existence. Unlike God whose goodness in inherent since his essence is identical to his existence. He cannot NOT be, ergo he is good by necessity.

Recall Jesus’ words: “No one is good but God.” In other words, necessarily good by his very essence.

All finite things could give what they do not have if they had power to create out of nothing

Again, I don’t understand what you are getting at here. Finite things don’t have the power to create out of nothing, therefore to say they COULD give what they do not have is a moot point. In what sense COULD they create from nothing? Only if they had the power to create from nothing; that is, if they possessed being in such a way as to impart it to non-beings and bring being from nothingness. Yet, only Being Itself (AKA God) has that power precisely because he IS Being Itself. Nothing else exists by its essential nature. God alone cannot NOT be.

 

[thinkandmull]

Q. CXVIII Art 1

The power in the semen is to the animal generated from the semen, as the power in the elements of the world is to animals produced from these elements,- for instance, by putrefaction. But in the latter animals the soul is produced by the power that if in the elements, according to Genesis 1:20: Let the waters bring forth the creeping creatures having life. Therefore also the souls of animals generated from semen are produced by the seminal power

So Aquinas and Augustine believed that the elements (see Q. 155 Art 2 also), and even the heavenly bodies, had life powers. Nowadays people say life can come from non-life, that is, it can give what it lacks. Let’s say that A B C and D are the elements that make up a starfish. A scientist has each one separate, taken from the inorganic world. In each element there is a molecular force going back and forth. The scientist links them together into circle and the forces start going around this new circle and a tiny starfish results. Life from non-life. This can be understood because A B C D have no life of the own, but they are not giving what they don’t have because A+B+C+D IS life. You can see this better from the idea of creation. People think of it as is a living light comes from God and out of it comes creation. But that’s heretical. Imagine a Christmas snow globe. Santa Claus sits in there, sealed off from everything else. He squeezes his hand, and behold! a tree grows in China. That is what creation is according to Catholic doctrine. With this we can see better that several things may lack something, but together **are **something. The parts of a house for example. More than this, parents with no musical talent in their genes can have a child with musical genius. This is what modern scientists believe happened with evolution. Life came from the elements, and rational human life is just a latter stage of the development. I don’t see a hard fast argument against it, save we Catholics see the spiritual side of this. The scientists say those elements came from nothing. In that nothing perhaps there was a power. But we Catholics would disagree with them, and say its nutty Buddhism to say, for example, that there is thinking without something thinking. Since there must a be powerful agent, it must be personal because matter cannot suddenly move after an eternity of non-activity. A modern scientist or Asian philosopher-thinker is going to say we can’t understand how time was for the impersonal power agent in “nothing” (anti-matter? many things they would say). I think the Catholic retort is that only a God agent, not nothing, can produce good things from nothing.

 

[thinkandmull]

Maybe Athiests live in a much less colored or rich world than Thiests. An athiest could ignore what he intuits about the world having enduring “staying power” and diversity in forms, and claim that this and ideas of essential differences between things are just in our heads. This tree may have a similar biology to another tree, but nothing further could be said in their opinion. Universals is just similarity in biology or chemistry for them. So they believe that matter came out of nothing. It would make more sense if the the softest of matter came from nothing, to me. But maybe that is based on nothing. Anyway the most dense of matter they believe came out of nothing, without God in Heaven putting His hand on His Chest to make it pop out of nothing. Let me put it this way: if nothing is keeping this chair more in existence than towards non- existence, if it just is and maybe not be latter, than it could disappear without a cause. Than why cannot it have appeared without one? I see both sides more clearly now and this conversation has actually made me more confortable with my Christian stance

 

[Peter_Plato]

Maybe Athiests live in a much less colored or rich world than Thiests. An athiest could ignore what he intuits about the world having enduring “staying power” and diversity in forms, and claim that this and ideas of essential differences between things are just in our heads. This tree may have a similar biology to another tree, but nothing further could be said in their opinion. Universals is just similarity in biology or chemistry for them. So they believe that matter came out of nothing. It would make more sense if the the softest of matter came from nothing, to me. But maybe that is based on nothing. Anyway the most dense of matter they believe came out of nothing, without God in Heaven putting His hand on His Chest to make it pop out of nothing. Let me put it this way: if nothing is keeping this chair more in existence than towards non- existence, if it just is and maybe not be latter, than it could disappear without a cause. Than why cannot it have appeared without one? I see both sides more clearly now and this conversation has actually made me more confortable with my Christian stance

Apply this line of thought to personal identity and to the faculty of the intellect that functions to apprehend the “staying power” of forms. The fact that, like trees, human beings have “similar biology” to other human beings does not explain the awareness of having a unique personal identity and the consciousness of our own existence which provides the sense of being the loci of our own existence that we, presumably, all have.

Why do I, as the centre of my conscious world exist in the time-space location that I do? Chemistry and biology cannot explain that. The uniqueness of the chemistry and biology in my body does not logically entail that the I that is my conscious centre must have come into being here and now. There is no reason why similar chemistry and biology that could support consciousness might not have brought about my consciousness at some other time and place.

There is nothing unique in the chemical and biological processes currently taking place in my body that entail that I, as the conscious centre of my being, must exist here and now. In particular, since the processes themselves involve constantly changing chemicals.

Why do I, as the loci of consciousness that enables my awareness, exist in this place and at this time? That question is NOT, in principle, answerable by appeals to biology and chemistry.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Again, the difficulty is in pushing the “from” too hard when claiming creation “from” nothing. Things are not made “from” nothing but simply brought into being where they didn’t exist before.

But if God is the only thing that exists, God is the only “where” that there is. You can’t say: “lo, this region of nothingness is now filled with squirrels” because it makes no sense: you can’t draw regions in philosophical nothingness. Any initial creation God does must necessarily be “inside” God, because there is nowhere else; and so the creation would be a re-ordering of whatever was inside.

You might object that I’m using the wrong sense of “where” but I think that 1. my point is valid even if not as relevant as I think, and 2. the other sense of the word “where” does not actually distinguish from “manipulating existing material”

In God, existence and essence are identical. In contingent beings existence and essence are not so intertwined. Our essence or nature could exist or it could not exist, so we logically could not be “a part of God” nor created “from God” because then our essential nature would be to exist - we could not NOT exist. Ergo, we exist in our own right according to our nature, which need not exist by its essence - unlike God’s essence which exists necessarily by virtue of what that nature is - pure Act of Being or Actus Purus.

But suppose we were part of God. I.e. suppose God’s essence includes his creation of the universe and us and all that jazz. If that is the case, then asserting that it is possible for us to not exist, or our nature to not exist, is the same thing as asserting that it is possible for God’s essence to be other than it is (i.e. that it is possible for God’s essence to involve “not creating the universe and us and all that jazz.”)

Now you’ve said that it would be impossible for us to not exist. True, and I don’t think that is actually a problem. We say, for example, that we don’t exist prior to our birth. However, God is not restricted by time. Was there actually a “time” prior to God’s creation of the world and everything in it? No, there was not. Will there be a “time” when everything God has created ceases to exist? No, there will not. Therefore, with respect to God’s eternity, we *do *actually always exist. It would be like the characters in a movie. The characters exist regardless of whether or not they are onscreen at the moment. The time prior to our birth is not actually a time when we do not exist, just a time when we are “offscreen.”

Now, I’m sure you have objections to this, since it would be a problem for free will, divince simplicity, etc, but I don’t see any immediate contradiction in asserting that we might have been created from God.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Any initial creation God does must necessarily be “inside” God, because there is nowhere else; and so the creation would be a re-ordering of whatever was inside. . . . . .

It sounds like, in trying to grasp He who is transcendent, you are imagining that God is like you, where a thought is a component of your nature.
That is not what has been revealed and explained in Catholicism.
The analogy has some merit in that it does at least recognize the existence of the Divine.
But, besides the fact that it goes against the church’s teaching, for me it falls short
in its appreciation of the individual existence of the person, who is relational in nature.
In short, it does not know God as Love.

 

[thinkandmull]

From my reading of Aquinas lately, I see that he believes that non-living matter can, if it has a certain form, be made into life through a living “principle” although the life from the principle does not transfer to the new being as if giving it its life. Its merely activates the seeds in nature to become living vegetable life. In animals, the female has a dormant egg of vegetable life, in mating it becomes active, than the semen, which has “vital spirits” within which a principle exists from the soul of the male, activates the egg to go to “sensitive” animal life, its soul coming from the matter, as the semen and its spirits die. That’s Aquinas’s few. So maybe we can see matter differently than just dead, and life only coming from a transference of previous life. I don’t know,

But I think we are in agreement that only an all powerful Good God and get or make good things out of nothing

 

[JapaneseKappa]

It sounds like, in trying to grasp He who is transcendent, you are imagining that God is like you, where a thought is a component of your nature.
That is not what has been revealed and explained in Catholicism.
The analogy has some merit in that it does at least recognize the existence of the Divine.
But, besides the fact that it goes against the church’s teaching, for me it falls short
in its appreciation of the individual existence of the person, who is relational in nature.
In short, it does not know God as Love.

And if love or relations were the only things that existed, you might have a point. But love and relations are not the only things that exist, and so…

It is certainly possible that nothing we can imagine accurately describes God. However, “nothing we can imagine accurately describes God” is a description of God that we can imagine, and so according to the premise “nothing we can imagine accurately describes God” it does not accurately describe God… And so on.

 

[Peter_Plato]

But if God is the only thing that exists, God is the only “where” that there is. You can’t say: “lo, this region of nothingness is now filled with squirrels” because it makes no sense: you can’t draw regions in philosophical nothingness. Any initial creation God does must necessarily be “inside” God, because there is nowhere else; and so the creation would be a re-ordering of whatever was inside.

You might object that I’m using the wrong sense of “where” but I think that 1. my point is valid even if not as relevant as I think, and 2. the other sense of the word “where” does not actually distinguish from "manipulating existing material”

This just seems confused. You are attempting to apply physical dimensionality to God as if “where” is a fundamental aspect of existence AND God’s essence. Location and time may be fundamental aspects of a physical or material universe, but neither need be fundamental to God.

You are “squirrelling in” material properties and claiming they MUST apply to God in order to arrive at a conclusion that the location or “whereness” of the universe depends upon the location or “whereness” of God.

I see no reason that MUST be the case.

But suppose we were part of God. I.e. suppose God’s essence includes his creation of the universe and us and all that jazz. If that is the case, then asserting that it is possible for us to not exist, or our nature to not exist, is the same thing as asserting that it is possible for God’s essence to be other than it is (i.e. that it is possible for God’s essence to involve “not creating the universe and us and all that jazz.”)

Now you’ve said that it would be impossible for us to not exist. True, and I don’t think that is actually a problem. We say, for example, that we don’t exist prior to our birth. However, God is not restricted by time. Was there actually a “time” prior to God’s creation of the world and everything in it? No, there was not. Will there be a “time” when everything God has created ceases to exist? No, there will not. Therefore, with respect to God’s eternity, we *do *actually always exist. It would be like the characters in a movie. The characters exist regardless of whether or not they are onscreen at the moment. The time prior to our birth is not actually a time when we do not exist, just a time when we are “offscreen.”

Now, I’m sure you have objections to this, since it would be a problem for free will, divince simplicity, etc, but I don’t see any immediate contradiction in asserting that we might have been created from God.

With respect to God’s eternity it is not true that we “exist” necessarily merely because God is eternal. Having actuality in the sense of having subsistent reality may be quite a different matter than not having it. The manner in which created entities are actualized vis a vis God could be quite a different matter than merely being “offscreen” – as far as God is concerned.

Again, you are squirrelling in what you think MUST be so in order to argue your conception of the matter. Your conception, however, need not be God’s.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

This just seems confused. You are attempting to apply physical dimensionality to God as if “where” is a fundamental aspect of existence AND God’s essence. Location and time may be fundamental aspects of a physical or material universe, but neither need be fundamental to God.

You are “squirrelling in” material properties and claiming they MUST apply to God in order to arrive at a conclusion that the location or “whereness” of the universe depends upon the location or “whereness” of God.

I see no reason that MUST be the case.

Because God created physical things, and physical things require them. You can’t just say: well he made a squirrel, but it didn’t have any dimensions. Such a thing wouldn’t be a squirrel, it would be an idea of a squirrel or something.

But even if we consider “non-physical” things, some minor adjustment should make my objection clearer. I believe old philosophers have used the phrase “in the same respect” when they want to generalize the concept of some sort of physical time-space location e.g. Something cannot be both A and not A in the same respect. Now my objection is that these “respects” do not extend into a philosophical nothing. If God is the only thing that exists, there is no respect that will let you “get outside” of God. For example, you can’t say “before God” or “next to God” or “in God’s pantry” because none of those (in this case, physical) respects refer to things that exist, and are therefore meaningless.

With respect to God’s eternity it is not true that we “exist” necessarily merely because God is eternal. Having actuality in the sense of having subsistent reality may be quite a different matter than not having it. The manner in which created entities are actualized vis a vis God could be quite a different matter than merely being “offscreen” – as far as God is concerned.

Again, you are squirrelling in what you think MUST be so in order to argue your conception of the matter. Your conception, however, need not be God’s.

Sure, we are both asserting different things. But assertions by themselves aren’t very useful, we need a reason to choose one over the other. I don’t see you pointing out anything other that my assertions may not be the case. That is fine, but that sort of approach seems to at least acknowledge there is no automatic contradiction in them, i.e. that it is possible that they are correct.

I would also like to know how you are certain that we have a subsistent reality. It is certainly possible that we do, but it also seems possible, given my previous assertions, that we do not. As far as I can tell, there is no way to find out for sure.

 

[Aloysium]

And if love or relations were the only things that existed, you might have a point. But love and relations are not the only things that exist, and so…

It is certainly possible that nothing we can imagine accurately describes God. However, “nothing we can imagine accurately describes God” is a description of God that we can imagine, and so according to the premise “nothing we can imagine accurately describes God” it does not accurately describe God… And so on.

Relationships exist between separate subject-objects / self-others.
We are created in the image of God - the Trinity.
All this was/is brought into being in relation to that Source,
the ultimate aim of time being growth towards the eternal holy Union
with the Father, by virtue of the Son’s incarnation and the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Even if one can imagine that with which one is not in relation, there would be no point to it.
Just knowing about another person involves some sort of relationship.
Having information about another person, knowing facts and having ideas about them cannot compare to actually relating to that person, say as one’s spouse.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Because God created physical things, and physical things require them. You can’t just say: well he made a squirrel, but it didn’t have any dimensions. Such a thing wouldn’t be a squirrel, it would be an idea of a squirrel or something.

But even if we consider “non-physical” things, some minor adjustment should make my objection clearer. I believe old philosophers have used the phrase “in the same respect” when they want to generalize the concept of some sort of physical time-space location e.g. Something cannot be both A and not A in the same respect. Now my objection is that these “respects” do not extend into a philosophical nothing. If God is the only thing that exists, there is no respect that will let you “get outside” of God. For example, you can’t say “before God” or “next to God” or “in God’s pantry” because none of those (in this case, physical) respects refer to things that exist, and are therefore meaningless.
Sure, we are both asserting different things. But assertions by themselves aren’t very useful, we need a reason to choose one over the other. I don’t see you pointing out anything other that my assertions may not be the case. That is fine, but that sort of approach seems to at least acknowledge there is no automatic contradiction in them, i.e. that it is possible that they are correct.

I would also like to know how you are certain that we have a subsistent reality. It is certainly possible that we do, but it also seems possible, given my previous assertions, that we do not. As far as I can tell, there is no way to find out for sure.

It seems you have just conceded that your argument that God CANNOT create ex nihilo and must create out of himself NEED NOT be correct. In order for it to be correct YOU would have to be sure of all of the above.

If you admit “there is no way to find out for sure” then there is no way for you to be sure that God COULD NOT create ex nihilo. Your argument basically dissipates ad nihilo.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

It seems you have just conceded that your argument that God CANNOT create ex nihilo and must create out of himself NEED NOT be correct. In order for it to be correct YOU would have to be sure of all of the above.

If you admit “there is no way to find out for sure” then there is no way for you to be sure that God COULD NOT create ex nihilo. Your argument basically dissipates ad nihilo.

I’m not sure why you think that. If we can’t decide between A and B on their own, but one assertion we make suggests A, I don’t see what the problem is if someone asserts B instead. I would simply take this discrepancy as evidence for agnosticism with regards to the issue, because “well lots of people actually believe B and you’re only pretending to believe A” isn’t really any sort of evidence at all.

I have no problem “failing to reject” your assertions for a few reasons:
Firstly, my “no ex nihilo” position is not some sort of cornerstone of my personal understanding of the world. I have no philosophical stake in the outcome.

Secondly, I am essentially playing devil’s advocate against the more traditional Christian view. In this pursuit, creating a hypothesis that cannot be rejected is a win; since it creates agnosticism where there once was certainty.

Finally, I’m not entirely sure that my “no ex nihilo” assertion does actually lead to those conclusions. In fact, the conclusions will very likely be different depending what conceptions of God you use. Its most likely that I would draw different conclusions depending on who I was talking to and what they believed about God. It was not my goal to draw out the conclusions, so as long as there isn’t some inherent contradiction in them, I don’t really care what they are.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Relationships exist between separate subject-objects / self-others.
We are created in the image of God - the Trinity.
All this was/is brought into being in relation to that Source,
the ultimate aim of time being growth towards the eternal holy Union
with the Father, by virtue of the Son’s incarnation and the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Even if one can imagine that with which one is not in relation, there would be no point to it.
Just knowing about another person involves some sort of relationship.
Having information about another person, knowing facts and having ideas about them cannot compare to actually relating to that person, say as one’s spouse.

I still don’t understand how this is at all relevant. Sure, relationships exist. But you need objects in order to have relationships between objects. God has to create objects. I have pointed out problems in the concept of creating objects ex nihilo.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Now, I’m sure you have objections to this, since it would be a problem for free will, divince simplicity, etc, but I don’t see any immediate contradiction in asserting that we might have been created from God.

Try…

plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/

Especially 4 - 4.2 where the question of “…if God is identical with the property of being powerful, then he cannot share this property with Socrates…” is taken up. Notice the same issue as with being powerful arises - as you point out - with existence, as well. If God is identical with Existence Itself then he cannot share the property of existing with Socrates without - as you insist - Socrates being created “from God.” Dr. Vallicella briefly explains responses by Oppy and Miller in 4.1 and 4.2. The problem is not unsurmountable, though it is difficult to grasp.