There is still a possibility that instead of making the world out of nothing, God made it out of himself, i. e., that it emanated from him as light from the sun. This, as we know, is the opinion of the Neo-Platonists; and Israeli comes very close to it as we saw before (p. [6]). Saadia is strongly opposed to any such doctrine.
It is unlikely, he says, that an eternal substance having neither form, condition, measure, place or time, should change into a body or bodies having those accidents; or that a wise being, not subject to change or influence, or comprehensibility should choose to make himself into a body subject to all of these. What could have induced a just being who does no wrong to decree that some of his parts should be subject to such evils as matter and material beings are afflicted with? It is conceivable only in one of two ways. Either they deserved it for having done wrong, or they did not deserve it, and it was an act of violence that was committed against them. Both suppositions are absurd. The fact of the matter is that the authors of this opinion to avoid the theory of creation ex nihilo went from the frying pan into the fire. To be sure, creation out of nothing is difficult to conceive, but this is the reason why we ascribe this power to God alone. To demand that we show how this can be done is to demand that we ourselves become creators.[57]
The question what existed in place of the earth before it was created evinces ignorance of the idea of place. By place is meant simply the contact of two bodies in which the one is the place of the other. When there is no earth and no bodies there is no such thing as place.
The same thing applies to time. Time means the persistence of existing things in heaven and earth under changing conditions. Where there is no world, there is no time. This answers the objection raised by some, namely, how is it possible that before all these bodies were made time existed void of objects? Or the other difficulty which is closely related, viz., Why did not God create the world before he did? The answer to both is, there was no before and there was no time, when the world was not.
The following question is a legitimate one, Why did God create all things? And our answer is, there was no cause which made him create them, and yet they were not made in vain. God wished to exhibit his wisdom; and his goodness prompted him to benefit his creatures by enabling them to worship him.[58]
We have now proved the existence of God as the cause of the existence of all things. We must now try to arrive at some notion of what God is as far as this is in our power. God cannot be corporeal or body, for in our proof of his existence we began with the world which is body and arrived at the notion of God as the cause of all corporeal existence. If God himself is corporeal our search is not at an end, for we should still want to know the cause of him. Being the cause of all body, he is not body and hence is for our knowledge ultimate, we cannot go beyond him. But if God is not corporeal, he is not subject to motion or rest or anger or favor, for to deny the corporeality of God and still look for these accidents in him is to change the expression and retain the idea. Bodily accidents involve body.[59]
The incorporeality of God proves also his unity. For what is not body cannot have the corporeal attributes of quantity or number, hence God cannot be more than one.[60] And there are many powerful arguments besides against a dualistic theory.
A unitary effect cannot be the result of two independent causes. For if one is responsible for the whole, there is nothing left for the other, and the assumption of his existence is gratuitous. If the effect consists of two parts of which each does one, we have really two effects. But the universe is one and its parts cannot be separated.[61] Again, if one of them wishes to create a thing and cannot without the help of the other, neither is all-powerful, which is inconsistent with the character of deity. If he can compel the other to help him, they are both under necessity. And if they are free and independent, then if one should desire to keep a body alive and the other to kill it, the body would have to be at the same time alive and dead, which is absurd. Again, if each one can conceal aught from the other, neither is all-knowing. If they cannot, they are not all-powerful.[62]
Having proved God's existence, unity and incorporeality, he proceeds to discuss his most essential attributes, which are, Life, Omnipotence, and Omniscience. These easily follow from what was said before. We cannot conceive a creator ex nihilo unless he is all-powerful; power implies life; and the thing made cannot be perfect unless its maker knows what it is going to be before he makes it.
These three concepts our reason discovers with one act of its thinking effort, for they are all involved in the concept, Maker. There is no gradual inference from one to the other. The reason we are forced to use three expressions is because of the limitations of language. Hence it must not be thought that they involve plurality in God. They are simply the implications of the one expression, Maker, and as that does not suggest plurality in God's essence, but signifies only that there is a thing made by the maker, so the three derivative terms, Living, Omnipotent, Omniscient, imply no more.