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...the smaller [spheres]. Then He shaped some of those spiritual parts into a pine-cone form and made from it the ring of fire; then into an octagonal form and made from it the ring of earth; then into a dodecagonal form and placed on it the orbit of air; then into a twenty-sided form and made from it all the water. They settled on this account and believed it as a doctrine of faith.
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Against them on this doctrine I have twelve objections: the first four are those that demonstrated to us that all things are newly-made, and the next four are those that demonstrated that the Creator made things from nothing. Beyond these eight objections that they must absorb, I find four additional ones that fall specifically on them.
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This only multiplies the unintelligible — they fled from 'something from nothing' and landed in something far more remote and absurd. Third objection: I consider it far-fetched — indeed impossible — for something shapeless to take on shape so as to become fire, water, air, and earth; and for what has neither length nor breadth nor depth to yield something with length, breadth, and depth. If their answer is that such transformations were possible because the Creator is wise and capable of effecting them, then His wisdom and power suffice to create from nothing — and we are spared these void spiritual entities.
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It reached me that a group among our own people had imagined that the subject of the verse 'YHWH acquired me at the beginning of His way, the first of His works of old' (Prov 8:22) and the rest of that passage referred to these spiritual entities. When I examined this, I found they had misinterpreted this passage in fifteen ways: twelve of which are the twelve rational objections I have set out.
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First linguistic objection: the word qānānī requires the meaning 'created,' as in 'El Elyon, Maker (qoneh) of heaven and earth' (Gen 14:19), and 'the earth is full of Your acquisitions' (Ps 104:24). If they insist that this word entails eternity, they must then claim that heaven, earth, and all that is between them are eternal and uncreated — thereby annulling the very creation-from-spiritual-matter they intended to defend.
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Second linguistic objection: the phrase 'the beginning of His way' means 'the first thing created,' for the same expression is used of the greatest of beasts: 'it is the beginning of God's ways' (Job 40:19). Just as that means the behemoth was the first creature made among the beasts, so here it means the described entity was the first thing created. If they reject this reading, they are forced to say that the behemoth too is eternal.
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Third linguistic objection: the described entity promises life to those who find it ('whoever finds me finds life,' Prov 8:35) and death to those who reject it ('all who hate me love death,' Prov 8:36); it is to be sought and guarded ('and now, children, listen to me,' Prov 8:32). If the entity in question is the spiritual matter, these attributes must apply to it either in its simple state or after composition. If in the simple state: at that point there is neither truth nor falsehood, neither life nor death, and no one exists to seek it.
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It also reached me that others supposed the passage 'But wisdom — where is it found, and where is the place of understanding?' (Job 28:12) and the rest of that chapter describes the spiritual entities, since it ends 'God understands the way to it and He knows its place' (Job 28:23). I found that these too have misread the passage.
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...when He created the elements and their branches — and His wisdom was manifest in that He created all of this wisely. The third doctrine: those who say the Creator made bodies from His own substance. I found these people were not prepared to deny a Creator, yet their intellects also refused to accept 'something from nothing' — so since there was nothing besides the Creator, they concluded He made things from His own self. These people, God have mercy on you, are more foolish than the first group.
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I intend to expose their error in thirteen ways: eight are the same as those against the spiritual-matter school (four proofs of temporal origin + four proofs of creation from nothing). The five new objections: first, the transformation of the eternal — which has no form, no state, no magnitude, no boundary, no place, no time — into a body with form, magnitude, states, place, and time.
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...is of benefit — and this is nothing but an instance of the impossible. Third new objection: God is the Just One who does not wrong. How could He then decree suffering on part of Himself? It cannot avoid being one of two things: either that portion deserved it — which would require that part of God to have committed a transgression — or it did not deserve it, in which case this is sheer injustice.
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The sixth doctrine: those who maintain the four natures. These people claimed that all bodies are composed of four natures — heat, cold, moisture, and dryness — each of which existed separately at first, then combined to produce bodies.
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...takes form and is worked for a time, then is used up, rises, and another portion takes its place in operation. Yet on their premises these vicissitudes can have no end, since the whole from which they come is infinite. How foolish these ignoramuses were — in fleeing 'something from nothing' they landed in this absurdity.
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The fourth doctrine: one who combined both preceding claims, holding that the Creator made existing things both from His own substance and from co-eternal things — making spiritual souls from Himself and bodies from the eternal material. This school incurs all seventeen objections combined. Moreover, if they allowed all these impossibilities on the basis of the Creator's power — crediting Him with power to transform His own substance — then it is far easier for that same power to produce something from nothing.
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...the good — while all the evil in it derives wholly from the root of evil. This led them to say: the realm of Good is infinite in five directions — above, east, west, south, and north — but is bounded below where it touches the realm of Evil. Likewise the realm of Evil is infinite in five directions — below, east, west, south, and north — but is bounded above where it meets the realm of Good.
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They further held that these two principles had always been distinct, then mixed — and from their mixing these bodies arose. They disagreed on the cause of mixing: some held that Good was the cause, as it softened the edge of Evil where it bordered; others held that Evil caused it by greedily craving Good's pleasure. Both agreed the mixing has a set duration, at whose end Good will prevail and Evil be suppressed.
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I found that attributing two actions to one agent is the straightforward position, for many reasons. First: we observe a person who is angry and wrathful, then becomes gentle and pardons, saying 'I am satisfied and I forgive.' If Good is the one forgiving, then it was also the one who was wrathful — and if Evil is the one forgiving, then Evil has done a good thing by pardoning. Either way the action belongs to one agent.
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Then I examined their claim that one action can belong to two agents — and found it null and void on two grounds. First: when we imagine two makers producing a single product, we conceive of one making the whole and the other
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...while we conceive in our minds of a product left in an intermediate state — which is a plain contradiction. So you see: they denied what observable experience establishes and affirmed what observable experience refutes. That gives five objections: three against their denial of two actions from one agent, and two against their affirming one action for two agents.
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Furthermore I say: they fled from 'something from nothing' because they had never seen such a thing, yet they landed themselves in something equally unseen. First: they admitted that each of the two principles is infinite in five directions, yet they had themselves observed that each is bounded in the sixth — and then refused to infer that the five unobserved directions are likewise bounded by analogy with the sixth they had observed.
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Then I examined the two explanations the dualists gave for the mixing and found both defective. If the mixing was the act of Good (intending to soften Evil's border), then Good became evil in intending to mix with Evil. If it was the act of Evil (craving Good's pleasure), then Evil became good in that intention. In either case the agent has reversed its own nature.
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Then I examined the very fact of mixing after original separation — and found observable experience refuting it: fire visibly repels combination with water, and air visibly flees mixture with earth. If the small portions of each repel one another, how much more will the greater parts repel — meaning complete mixing could never occur.
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...prophecy is established through miraculous signs, and miraculous signs consist in the occurrence of what is not in nature or custom. But this school denies whatever contradicts nature and custom, relying always on nature and convention in their argumentation — which disqualifies them from claiming a prophetic basis. That completes fifteen refutations.
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But I am not satisfied with all I have stated until I show that the very thing this school clings to — darkness — is not an independent principle opposed to light, but merely the absence of light. First proof: a person cannot create an independent principle. We see this when someone stands in sunlight and cups one hand over the other — darkness forms between them. The person has not created the essence of darkness; he has only blocked the light from the air between his palms, which then became dark from the absence of light.
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...and carries it to us. If no sound strikes the air, we hear nothing — but we do not call that silent air the opposite of sound; it is merely the absence of sound. Similarly: air receives a scent wherever it exists and carries it to us; if there is no scent, we smell nothing — but that is not the opposite of scent, it is its absence. So too: air receives light and delivers it to our eyes; if there is no light, we see nothing — but that is not the opposite of light, it is the absence of light.
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And I know that God has described Himself as 'forming light and creating darkness' (Isa 45:7). I say, in accord with what observable experience shows, that He
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...He created it to distinguish it from what the dualists claim. That is why He says 'forming light and creating darkness' — and we learn also that both light and darkness have an end, a single refutation of the dualists: 'He drew a circle on the face of the waters, at the boundary between light and darkness' (Job 26:10).
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The sixth doctrine: those who hold the four natures, claiming all bodies are composed of heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. I say first: they rejected 'something from nothing' to avoid positing something with no perceptible parallel — and then adopted something with even less perceptual support. For no one has ever observed pure isolated heat, pure unadulterated moisture, pure cold in itself, or dryness by itself.
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...it is absurd that it should come on its own to combine with its opposite. Then I examined their account of the combination, and found it cannot avoid one of two alternatives: either the combination was for the essences' own sake — in which case their claim that these essences were always separate is refuted; or it was for something other than the essences — in which case that is precisely what we mean when we say there is a Creator who created them combined.
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These objections fall on them in addition to the twelve prior refutations — namely, the four proofs
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...and the eternity of air — since this school imagined that 'the earth was formless and void' (Gen 1:2) means it was in that state before creation. This is sheer ignorance: the Torah says 'the earth was' only after it first stated 'In the beginning God created' — so the earth, when it was created, was earth-matter and nothingness. And scripture explicitly attests to the wind: 'For behold, He who forms the mountains and creates the wind' (Amos 4:13); and to the lower waters: 'The sea is His, for He made it' (Ps 95:5).
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The seventh doctrine: those who hold the four natures plus prime matter (hylē). These are more foolish than all who preceded, for they made the product itself into the producer, and they made things neither substances nor accidents. This school incurs the sixteen objections that apply to the four-natures school plus the five that apply to the spiritual-matter school — twenty-one in all.
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...the cause of which is water. And we find them saying: we all agree fire burns — so why do you attribute the action to something other than fire? We reply just as we all agree a knife cuts — yet the real action belongs to the one who moves it, and that mover may itself have a mover. So too: fire burns, but fire has a mover which is air; air has a mover which is the Creator; and the action truly belongs to the Creator, who is the First Mover.
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The eighth doctrine: those who say heaven is the maker of bodies. This school makes heaven eternal — not composed of the four natures but of a fifth substance. When confronted with the heat of the sun, its adherent claims the sun's body is not itself hot but rather heats the air through the force of its rotation, and that warmth then reaches us.
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See how this person, on the basis of this weak analogy, committed himself to positing an unintelligible fifth substance — and proceeded to explain away the perceptible heat of the sun by attributing it to the air rather than to the sun's body. It is a strange way of reasoning: to treat a certain truth as an interpretable analogy, and treat a mere analogy as certain truth — fleeing from 'something from nothing' because he had never seen its like, while positing a fifth nature he had equally never seen.
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Third refutation — from increase and decrease: every day that passes of heaven's time is an addition to what has passed and a decrease from what is to come. Whatever is subject to increase and decrease is finite in power — and finitude entails temporal origin.
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Fourth refutation — from the variety of motions: an infinite power does not vary within itself. Since we observe celestial motions to be varied — some bearing to others in a ratio of thirty to one, or three hundred sixty-five to one, or even greater — we know that each is finite in power.
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'For You made all these things' (Isa 45:11); and: 'My own hands stretched out the heavens, and I marshaled all their host' (Isa 45:12). The ninth doctrine: the chance-theorists. This school claimed that their reason led them to conclude that the heavens and the earths came into existence by chance, without intention from any intentional agent and without any action — neither voluntary nor involuntary.
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There is no doubt that these are the most foolish of all who have been mentioned. First objection: a chance event is always described relative to a natural event that accompanied it — one is natural, the other accidental. If everything is by chance, I would like to know what then is 'natural.' Second: chance events are small in magnitude.
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They say: 'bodies converged and crowded together.' But let them tell us from where they came — whether in their view there is any place other than this universe where they previously existed, and from what they fled, and what caused them to leave the first place and move to the second.
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Furthermore: if they are right about chance, let them show us — or at least allow — that the stones and timber of a house could gather on their own, arrange themselves, and become a house; or that the planks and iron of a ship could fit themselves together on their own and sail the sea. They will find no such observation, and they could not allow it even in speech without feigning ignorance.
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There are those who think this school defeats its debaters and that no argument can be established against them. Let me show that they are the most foolish of all mentioned. First I say: their very first transgression is that after proclaiming 'we affirm only what our senses have apprehended,' they affirmed precisely what their senses have not apprehended.
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I further find them contradicting their own claim when each of them holds as true the towns he has traveled through, the deeds he has done, the people he has seen, and the accounts he has undertaken — even after they are past or those involved have died. He cannot perceive these by sense, since they are gone; he knows them by reason alone.
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This is proof that there is knowledge that began in the service of sight and then transcended linguistic expression. In claiming 'there is no knowledge except what the senses have apprehended,' they abandon their own principle — for if they may affirm nothing except through sense, they may equally deny nothing except through sense; and I would like to know by which sense they have negated all knowledge beyond the perceptible.
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The eleventh doctrine: the relativists (aṣḥāb al-ʿinūd). This school makes things simultaneously eternal and created, on the grounds that the reality of things consists in accordance with beliefs. They are more foolish than all who have been mentioned.
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...from nothing — making twenty objections in all. Whoever among them adds prime matter to his doctrine incurs its additional objections; whoever adds the four natures incurs those. And scripture has already joined rational knowledge with perceptual nature, saying: 'Does not the ear test words as the palate tastes food? Wisdom belongs to the aged, and understanding to those of long life' (Job 34:3–4).
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The eleventh doctrine (continued): the relativists. Their primary error is the reversal of the order: things do not exist on account of beliefs — rather beliefs exist on account of things, in order to apprehend their true natures. These fools have inverted the proposition.
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...the ten beliefs would each nullify one of the thing's true natures — and they would never be able to determine with certainty how many true natures any given thing has, since they have not met all people to know how many kinds of belief they hold about it.
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So it would follow that a liar who falsely claims that a living person is dead would thereby confer on that person the reality of death — just as the truthful person who correctly calls him alive confers the reality of life. And if this holds for one true and one false statement, it must equally hold for two false statements — so that a red color, when two people look at it and one believes it white and the other believes it black, becomes simultaneously white and black.
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I say: if their view is that the true nature of everything is suspension of judgment, then they must equally suspend judgment about suspension itself and not assert that it is the truth. Nor do I impose this on them without first imposing it on myself: if I believe that knowledge is true, I hold that by this very knowledge I know it to be true.
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And their seeking out the skilled craftsman, the expert physician, and the accomplished engineer shows they are not sincere in their doctrine of suspension — for if they truly held it, they would employ whoever they happened to find.
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...the truth — by which we lead them to acknowledge the temporal origin of things, as Wisdom commanded: 'Learn shrewdness, O simple ones; gain understanding, O fools' (Prov 8:5). The thirteenth doctrine: the absolute skeptics. This school, in addition to denying rational knowledge, denied perceptual knowledge as well, saying that nothing has any true nature whatsoever — not in the domain of the knowable, not in the domain of the perceptible. These are more foolish than all previously mentioned.
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For when you say to them 'can something be eternal but not created, or created but not eternal, or both, or neither?' they answer 'yes' to each. And when you say to one of them 'can that person be a human and not a donkey, or a donkey and not a human, or both a donkey and a human, or neither?' they equally say 'yes.' Whoever has reached such a degree of foolishness — or been driven there by stubbornness — there is no basis for holding a conversation with him.
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...they seek food, drink, and rest — they have already acknowledged the first category adjacent to the perceptible. We then continue with them, stepping them up from thing to thing until we bring them to complete knowledge and thereby demonstrate to them that things are newly-made.
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I should note that there are other doctrines beyond these twelve — but they are not root doctrines. Some are offshoots of a single root; others are offshoots that combine two or three roots. By setting out these twelve root doctrines and making their refutation clear, their offshoots are thereby also refuted and their branches severed. The first principle stands established: all things are newly-made, originated from nothing, as I have explained and demonstrated.
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Chapter 4. Now that I have completed the exposition of these doctrines — the argument each school uses for its view and the objection it faces — I will follow these claims with matters someone might ask about in this area.