Letter to the Editor

Sir,

Malcolm E. Schrader’s brilliant and exhaustive article “Creation” in Issue XXXVI:3 (July-September 2008) brings to mind an old conundrum of my own. Here it is: If it was Something from Nothing, God’s Uniqueness and Priority are upheld.

However, there is a Maimonidean distinction between physical and logical impossibility that comes into play here. To illustrate physical impossibility, Rambam cites the example of “A ship of iron flying in the air.” I will put aside the fact that today we have such ships of iron flying in the air. The important point is that while God’s Omnipotence does not allow such impossibility for Him, there is another impossibility that His Omnipotence does allow. And that is the logical impossibility of Yes and No at the same time.

In other words, if Something from Nothing were only a physical impossibility, we could well say that God could do it, create in this manner. But if we consider Something from Nothing a logical impossibility, for existence and non-existence cannot exist, so to speak, simultaneously – then we cannot allow for this doctrine to stand. For even the Omnipotent God could not defy logic and create Something from Nothing.

On the other hand, if Matter, or something else, did exist before Creation, then we have the dilemma of a God who is limited by the existence of something outside of Himself. While we accept this concept after Creation, which happens by His Omnipotent Will, how can we admit the existence of something before Creation, which is independent of His Will?

Jacob Chinitz Jerusalem