Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Who says the world was created?

Who says the world was created?

Aristotle didn't think it was created. Rambam thought it was, but acknowledged Aristoteles argument had force and that he couldn't prove creation was true. All he could do was show the flaws in Aristotle's argument, one of which is this: 

 Aristotle's underlying assumption was that "will" is evidence of imperfection and therefore a perfect God couldn't have suddenly willed the creation of the world. However, while its true that human will is aroused by a lack or a need or some external factor, divine will might be different. Divine will might be independent of those things. In fact when we speak of human will and divine will we might be speaking of two entirely different things, that are alike only by analogy. As Rambam says (paraphrase) a men might decide to build a house because he's cold, or decide not to build the house because he doesn't have tools. So his will is contingent on these surrounding external factors.

If God's will to create the world is uncaused by anything outside of God we are talking about a very different type of will. If God's will to create the world is uncaused by anything aside for the will itself, this would not be evidence of any imperfection on Gods part as He is not changing in response to anything outside of himself.