HPB-SB-14-12: Difference between revisions

This has always been my position. I did not suppose that ''nothing'' was used as the raw material; but if the Mosaic account means anything, it means that whereas there was ''nothing'', God caused something to exist—created what we know as matter. I cannot conceive of something being made, created without anything to make anything with. I have no more confidence in

{{Style P-No indent|than I have in fiat money. Mr. Talmage tells us that God did not make the universe out of ''nothing'', but out of “omnipotence.” Exactly how God changed “omnipotence” into matter is not stated. If there was ''nothing'' in the universe, ''omnipotence'' could do you no good. The weakest man in the world can lift as much ''nothing'' as God.}}

Mr. Talmage seems to think that to create something from ''nothing'' is simply a question of strength, that it requires infinite muscle, that it is only a question of biceps. Of course, omnipotence is an attribute, not an entity, not a raw material; and the idea that something can be made out of omnipotence, using that as the raw material, is infinitely absurd. It would have been equally logical to say that God made the universe out of His omniscience, or His omnipresence, or His unchangeableness, or out of His honesty, His holiness, or His incapacity to do evil. I confess my utter inability to understand, or even to suspect, what the Rev. gentleman means, when he says that God created the universe out of His “omnipotence.”