19. Objection: Creation out of nothing.
But you will say, Is it not impossible to admit of the making anything
out of nothing, since we cannot possibly conceive it? I answer, No. Because it is not reasonable to deny the power
of an infinite being, because we cannot comprehend its operations. We do not deny other effects upon this ground,
because we cannot possibly conceive the manner of their production. We cannot conceive how anything but
impulse of body can move body; and yet that is not a reason sufficient to make us deny it possible, against the
constant experience we have of it in ourselves, in all our voluntary motions; which are produced in us only by the
free action or thought of our own minds, and are not, nor can be, the effects of the impulse or determination of the
motion of blind matter in or upon our own bodies; for then it could not be in our power or choice to alter it. For
example: my right hand writes, whilst my left hand is still: What causes rest in one, and motion in the other?
Nothing but my will,--a thought of my mind; my thought only changing, the right hand rests, and the left hand
moves. This is matter of fact, which cannot be denied: explain this and make it intelligible, and then the next step
will be to understand creation. For the giving a new determination to the motion of the animal spirits (which some
make use of to explain voluntary motion) clears not the difficulty one jot. To alter the determination of motion,
being in this case no easier nor less, than to give motion itself: since the new determination given to the animal
spirits must be either immediately by thought, or by some other body put in their way by thought which was not in
their way before, and so must owe its motion to thought: either of which leaves voluntary motion as unintelligible
as it was before. In the meantime, it is an overvaluing ourselves to reduce all to the narrow measure of our
capacities, and to conclude all things impossible to be done, whose manner of doing exceeds our comprehension.
This is to make our comprehension infinite, or God finite, when what He can do is limited to what we can
conceive of it. If you do not understand the operations of your own finite mind, that thinking thing within you, do
not deem it strange that you cannot comprehend the operations of that eternal infinite Mind, who made and
governs all things, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain.