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| A Retort of Heresy Answered. That Scripture Should in So Many Words Tell Us that the World Was Made of Nothing is Superfluous. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XXI.—A
Retort of Heresy Answered. That Scripture Should in So Many Words Tell
Us that the World Was Made of Nothing is Superfluous.
But, you will say to me, if you determine that all
things were made of nothing, on the ground that it is not told us that
anything was made out of pre-existent Matter, take care that it be not
contended on the opposite side, that on the same ground all things were
made out of Matter, because it is not likewise expressly said that
anything was made out of nothing. Some arguments may, of
course,6334 be thus retorted
easily enough; but it does not follow that they are on that account
fairly admissible, where there is a diversity in the cause. For I
maintain that, even if the Scripture has not expressly declared that
all things were made out of nothing—just as it abstains (from
saying that they were formed) out of Matter—there was no such
pressing need for expressly indicating the creation of all things out
of nothing, as there was of their creation out of Matter, if that had
been their origin. Because, in the case of what is made out of nothing,
the very fact of its not being indicated that it was made of any
particular thing shows that it was made of nothing; and there is no
danger of its being supposed that it was made of anything, when there
is no indication at all of what it was made of. In the case,
however, of that which is made out of something, unless the very fact
be plainly declared, that it was made out of something, there will be
danger, until6335
6335 Dum ostenditur: which
Oehler and Rigalt. construe as “donec ostendatur.” One
reading has “dum non ostenditur,”
“so long as it is not shown.” | it is shown of what
it was made, first of its appearing to be made of nothing, because it
is not said of what it was made; and then, should it be of such a
nature6336 as to have the
appearance of having certainly been made of something, there will be a
similar risk of its seeming to have been made of a far different
material from the proper one, so long as there is an absence of
statement of what it was made of. Then, if God had been unable to make
all things of nothing, the Scripture could not possibly have added that
He had made all things of nothing: (there could have been no room for
such a statement,) but it must by all means have informed us that He
had made all things out of Matter, since Matter must have been the
source; because the one case was quite to be understood,6337
6337 In totum habebat
intelligi. | if it were not actually stated, whereas the
other case would be left in doubt unless it were
stated.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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