Serious Implications of Creation Ex Nihilo

[cksalmon]

Just what your psychological reasons are for resisting the argument are obvious -- but that isn't about the merits of the argument but your psychology which I'm happy to leave to whatever therapist you may (or may not) have.

Certainly an interesting reply in light of your charge of ad hominem. One hopes it can be chalked up to an attempt at ironic performative instantiation.

The fact remains very simple: matter that exists contingently cannot have its own explanation or cause of its existence in itself,

Bowman hasn't argued otherwise.

nor can it have the explanation for its enduring through time within itself

Bowman hasn't argued otherwise.

because that would require the very property of being able to sustain existence when no such property as existence is or can be possessed [by contingent matter, one assumes].

It's not at all clear to me (and I suspect it's equally unclear to some others) why you insist that Craig (and every proponent of CEN) must answer to Su

[Zeta-Flux]

Rob Bowman,

I asked some questions earlier, and would also like your take on them. Maybe I'll flesh them out a bit. Here goes:

1. Does the universe have a beginning?

2. Could God have created a different universe? Or is His character such that this is the only one He could have possibly created?

3. Do you believe God is necessarily the way He is?

4. Do you believe God is in a timeless state?

5. What does it mean to you when you say that God created the universe?

I'm asking these because from what you've written previously you don't seem to be a proponent of Calvinism, which is the brand of evangelical theology I'm more familiar with.

[Sargon]

It seems to me that a better, and easier to follow, argument against the compatibility of creation ex nihilo and libertarian free will is found in an essay read at Sunstone entitled "It's All in Arminius: Mormonism as a form of Hyper-Arminianism." Blake is a respondent at the end of the essay.

http://sunstonemagazine.com/audio/SL05265.mp3

[handys003]

Rob Bowman,

I asked some questions earlier, and would also like your take on them. Maybe I'll flesh them out a bit. Here goes:

1. Does the universe have a beginning?

2. Could God have created a different universe? Or is His character such that this is the only one He could have possibly created?

3. Do you believe God is necessarily the way He is?

4. Do you believe God is in a timeless state?

5. What does it mean to you when you say that God created the universe?

I'm asking these because from what you've written previously you don't seem to be a proponent of Calvinism, which is the brand of evangelical theology I'm more familiar with.

Actually in his other topic he just started GP and Job 38:7. He just unknowingly gave me a chapter that even more confirms my theological view of CEN being false and also confirming KFD.

Verses from Job 38:

Basically while HF is giving Job a cewing out these verses confirms to me that the universe was created out of something and not nothing.

4 Where wast thou when I ^alaid the ^bfoundations of the ^cearth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

5 Who hath ^alaid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the ^acorner stone thereof;

Basically since HF laid a foundation the materials were already there to lay the cornerstone of buildin the universe.

Regarding KFD Job 38:12-41

12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; 13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? 14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment. 15 And from the wicked their light is ^awithholden, and the high ^b shall be broken. 16 Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? 17 Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? 18 Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all. 19 Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, 20 That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof? 21 Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great? 22 Hast thou entered into the ^atreasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, 23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? 24 By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth? 25 Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; 26 To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; 27 To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? 28 Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? 29 Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? 30 The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. 31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of ^aOrion? 32 Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? 33 Knowest thou the ^a of ^b? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? 34 Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? 35 Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? 36 Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? 37 Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the ^a of heaven, 38 When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together? 39 Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions, 40 When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait? <A name=41> 41 Who provideth for the ^araven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.

Does not these passages sound like a Father to his child that has already experienced these things and know how to do. Exactly termed like as if God has done this all before from experience.

[Blake]

It seems to me that a better, and easier to follow, argument against the compatibility of creation ex nihilo and libertarian free will is found in an essay read at Sunstone entitled "It's All in Arminius: Mormonism as a form of Hyper-Arminianism." Blake is a respondent at the end of the essay.

http://sunstonemagaz...dio/SL05265.mp3

The intuition underlying the argument for the incompatibility between creation out of nothing and free will can be simply stated. Most libertarians maintain that to be free in a significant sense, a personal agent must be an ultimate cause or source of one

[Blake]

Here is the more technical argument without footnootes: For any created substance CS, if God creates CS, then God imparts esse to CS. God imparts esse to CS means that God causes CS to be actual. Created substances have only a defective actuality because they do not have esse essentially. Only God has esse as his essence. That is to say, in the tradition God alone has existence as part of the definition of what it is to be God and creatures have non-existence as part of what is definitive of creatures. It follows that only God can impart esse by creating ex nihilo. For Scholastics, causation is a relation that obtains between substances which have powers to act (agents) and powers when acted upon (patients) to bring about states of affairs (effects). More particularly, the agent

[Blake]

Here is another technical argument: I believe that we can focus on what the precise problem is with creation ex nihilo and free will. The problem is that if God creates ex nihilo, then the total nature of an agent must be up to God. There is no problem with God

[Vance]

<SNIP>

I predict more "nuh uh" responses from those that disagree.

[Ahab]

[Ahab]

I predict more "nuh uh" responses from those that disagree.

I agree, and I also predict more "uh huh" response from those who agree.

That's all it comes down to, basically.

We either agree with someone, or we disagree with that person, falling in line either on the right or the left.

[Blake]

I agree, and I also predict more "uh huh" response from those who agree.

That's all it comes down to, basically.

We either agree with someone, or we disagree with that person, falling in line either on the right or the left.

I suspected that the force of logic had no pull with you after your response above. However, you'll have to do more than say "no it isn't," since the arguments are logically valid you'll have to show some problem with the argument.

[Blake]

[

Those who espouse the doctrine of creation ex nilo believe God gave agency to his creation, or at least some of those he created, when he created them from out of nothing.

They don't claim God is the first cause of his or her choices, at least not necessarily. They may attribute good choices to God, but they attribute evil choices to those who rebel against God, either because they're inspired by Satan or because they are Satan, himself.

Ahab, what they claim is beside the point -- the question is what is the implication of the belief that God causes things to exist by creating them out of nothing and such things don't have natural existence or existence as part of their nature like Mormism or naturalism claim.

That is not a logical conclusion, even though some people may think it is.

Like I said, just disagreeing wil get you nowhere except maybe the nods of a few heads with those who refuse to address the argument as well.

The libertarian theory goes something like this:

At one point in time or eternity there was nothing else other than God, with God consisting of only 3 persons, and then at a later point in time God created another kind of being while giving that being the power to choose for itself what he or she would do. Simply put, God created other beings while giving them agency when God created them.

Satan is believed to be the very first person in all of existence who rebelled against God, with the agency God gave him when God created him.

[Rob Bowman]

Blake,

I'm of the opinion that your latest response to me was simply repeating assertions for which I have yet to see any convincing proof. Your argument amounts to saying that if something exists contingently it doesn't really exist at all. There is no good reason to accept this sleight-of-hand reductio criticism of creation ex nihilo, nor am I interested in debating it ad infinitum.

[Rob Bowman]

Zeta-Flux,

Hi there. You wrote:

Rob Bowman,

I asked some questions earlier, and would also like your take on them. Maybe I'll flesh them out a bit. Here goes:

1. Does the universe have a beginning?

2. Could God have created a different universe? Or is His character such that this is the only one He could have possibly created?

3. Do you believe God is necessarily the way He is?

4. Do you believe God is in a timeless state?

5. What does it mean to you when you say that God created the universe?

I'm asking these because from what you've written previously you don't seem to be a proponent of Calvinism, which is the brand of evangelical theology I'm more familiar with.

My answer to your first four questions is Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes, although "timeless" would not be my preferred term. I would describe God as transcendent with respect to time; he is not excluded from time (as "timeless" might seem to imply), but nor is he locked into the flow of time.

Question #5: What I mean when I say that God created the universe is that he brought it into existence. This entails that God acted intentionally; he purposed to create this universe, not another one; he knew that this universe would be the result of his deliberate choice in bringing it into existence.

I imagine that you may see some possible or inevitable conflicts between some of these answers. I don't. For example, from the premise that God is necessarily the way he is it does not follow, in my view, that God could only have created one universe, viz., this one. God could have chosen not to create at all, or to create a somewhat different universe. Classical Christian theism maintains that God is self-sufficient, so that he does not need a creation to be fulfilled. Creation is therefore a free act of God, something he was under no necessity to do.

I'm not sure what I wrote that led you to think that I'm not a Calvinist. In fact, my theology would be generally characterized as Calvinist or Reformed (although not specifically Presbyterian, for example). I normally don't trumpet my Calvinism because my focus is on the essentials of the evangelical Christian faith. Given that there is much confusion about what Calvinism does and does not teach, may I request that you not jump to any conclusions about what my self-description as Calvinist must imply about my beliefs? Feel free to ask me any questions, though.

[Ahab]

Ahab, what they claim is beside the point --

I can see how you might see it that way, but I think that what they are claiming is the point of this issue because that is how the issue got started.

They have made a claim, which is either true or not true, and I'm telling you I know their claim is not true.

the question is what is the implication of the belief that God causes things to exist by creating them out of nothing and such things don't have natural existence or existence as part of their nature like Mormism or naturalism claim.

Yes, the question leads people to make implications, but the implications are either true or not true.

Some people claim that if God created anything out of nothing, then by implication that means God is the one responsible for all of the acts of everything God created, but that implication is not arrived at logically.

In other words, that implication is not in harmony with rational logic, and it's not in harmony with the truth, either.

Regardless of whether or not God created ex nilo, the idea that God gave his creation "agency" essentially released and releases God from the responsibility of the actions of his creations who have that agency.

The responsibility rests upon those who act with their God-given agency, because they are the ones who are doing what they are doing, whether or not God encourages them or inspires them to do what they do.

Like I said, just disagreeing will get you nowhere except maybe the nods of a few heads with those who refuse to address the argument as well.

I'm doing more than just disagreeing with you. I'm also telling you why I do not agree with you.

Creation ex nilo does not mean God is therefore responsible for all of the acts of his creations who he has given the gift of "agency", and those who think it does are not thinking logically on that issue.

To understand why God is not responsible, a person needs to come to the point where he/she understands what "agency" is, and it is the power to choose to do whatever is within that person's power to do, including doing something evil to the extent they are capable of doing something evil.

If we are created ex nihilo, then we are not the first cause of anything because the actualization of our natures is solely up to God.

If we were created ex nilo, and if were given agency by God when God created us, then our agency gives us the power to do whatever we can do.

[Vance]

Like I said,

"Nuh uh"

is the response so far.

[Blake]

Blake,

I'm of the opinion that your latest response to me was simply repeating assertions for which I have yet to see any convincing proof. Your argument amounts to saying that if something exists contingently it doesn't really exist at all. There is no good reason to accept this sleight-of-hand reductio criticism of creation ex nihilo, nor am I interested in debating it ad infinitum.

Rob I can see why you don't want to deal with the implications of my arguments. However, caricaturing and misstating my argument as "if something exists contingently it doesn't exist at all" is not merely a vast misstatement, but a rather negligent assertion on your part. What I assert is merely the obvious that all writers who have dealt with this issue agree on: contingent things don't have existence as part of their essence or nature. Nor am I making up the well-estbalished doctrine of divine sustenance -- so well established that I challenge you to find any theologian who has rejected that doctrine. It follows from the fact, assuming creation ex nihilo, created things do not have a boot-strapping power of sustaining themselves in existence. I have given two logically valid arguments and a rather charitable simplified statement of the underlying intuitions. Your response? It is all a slate of hand. I think that in reality is just a refusal to engage the discussion in good faith on your part.

[Blake]

Ahab: I'm doing more than just disagreeing with you. I'm also telling you why I do not agree with you. Creation ex nilo does not mean God is therefore responsible for all of the acts of his creations who he has given the gift of "agency", and those who think it does are not thinking logically on that issue. To understand why God is not responsible, a person needs to come to the point where he/she understands what "agency" is, and it is the power to choose to do whatever is within that person's power to do, including doing something evil to the extent they are capable of doing something evil.

Well Ahab, I have demonstrated in premise form and with clear logic that it does follow. Your response consists in mere assertions without any basis to back them up. It's going to take a lot more than that to deal with these rather meaty arguments. BTW I'm not just making these issues up -- they have been discussed by a number of theologians since the 15th century and a good deal of discussion in modern philosophical journals.

Charging that this issue is "all a sleight of hand" as Rob Bowman does is to dismiss with a mere ad hominem a very serious problem. I expected better.

[Ahab]

Ahab: I'm doing more than just disagreeing with you. I'm also telling you why I do not agree with you. Creation ex nilo does not mean God is therefore responsible for all of the acts of his creations who he has given the gift of "agency", and those who think it does are not thinking logically on that issue. To understand why God is not responsible, a person needs to come to the point where he/she understands what "agency" is, and it is the power to choose to do whatever is within that person's power to do, including doing something evil to the extent they are capable of doing something evil.

Well Ahab, I have demonstrated in premise form and with clear logic that it does follow.

No you haven't, and if you did I would have noticed, because I've been paying attention, and I'm really smart, and so smart, in fact, that I'm able to detect logic when it's presented to me.

I'm sure you think you have, but you really haven't.

Are you still willing to present your point, logically (again?)? I am.

I'm going to use words as pictures this time, so try your best to follow along:

Diagram A: Picture of God showing that God is all there is in existence, and with God defined as only 3 persons.

Diagram B: Picture of God creating some other person/being, while giving that person/being "agency".

Diagram C: Picture showing the 3 persons of God and this other person, with all 4 of them possessing the power to make their own choices, whether good or evil.

Diagram D: Picture of agency, showing how agency gives the bearer the power to make whatever choice he/she wants to make, whether that choice is good or evil.

Diagram E: Picture of the person God created exercising his/her agency.

Diagram F: Picture of God pointing at that person God created, with God saying:

I didn't do that. He/she did that. That wasn't me.

Diagram G: Picture showing how God is not responsible for the actions of the person God created, because God gave that person his/her own agency to make his/her own choices, whether good or evil.

There you go.

Feel free to deny that what I am saying is true as much as you want to do that.

BTW I'm not just making these issues up -- they have been discussed by a number of theologians since the 15th century and a good deal of discussion in modern philosophical journals.

Yeah, well, people have been doing all kinds of less than perfectly intelligent things for quite a while now.

But that was them, and this is me, and there you are, with nothing new under the sun.

Charging that this issue is "all a sleight of hand" as Rob Bowman does is to dismiss with a mere ad hominem a very serious problem. I expected better.

When it comes right down to it, one of us is right, and one of us is wrong.

Feel free to think you are the one who is right, when you really are wrong, as much as you want.

[cksalmon]

Here is the more technical argument without footnootes: For any created substance CS, if God creates CS, then God imparts esse to CS. God imparts esse to CS means that God causes CS to be actual. Created substances have only a defective actuality because they do not have esse essentially. Only God has esse as his essence. That is to say, in the tradition God alone has existence as part of the definition of what it is to be God and creatures have non-existence as part of what is definitive of creatures.

Your argument seems to begin with, indeed, to rest upon a prejudicial assumption: viz., that

[jwhitlock]

I'm going to use words as pictures this time, so try your best to follow along:

Diagram A: Picture of God showing that God is all there is in existence, and with God defined as only 3 persons.

Diagram B: Picture of God creating some other person/being, while giving that person/being "agency".

Diagram C: Picture showing the 3 persons of God and this other person, with all 4 of them possessing the power to make their own choices, whether good or evil.

Diagram D: Picture of agency, showing how agency gives the bearer the power to make whatever choice he/she wants to make, whether that choice is good or evil.

Diagram E: Picture of the person God created exercising his/her agency.

Diagram F: Picture of God pointing at that person God created, with God saying:

I didn't do that. He/she did that. That wasn't me.

Diagram G: Picture showing how God is not responsible for the actions of the person God created, because God gave that person his/her own agency to make his/her own choices, whether good or evil.

There you go.

This makes a huge - and erroneous - assumption that God can, in effect, roll the dice with a CEN creation and let that creation become a random event generator that He no longer has any control over. Because, He can only disavow any responsibility if He no longer controls its outcomes.

Of course, this raises the following questions:

- Can there really be anything an omnipotent God, in the context of CEN, can't control?

- Did God control the creation of agency, its structure, and how it operates? If so, then God is still responsible for the outcome of the exercise of such agency (in the form of a chaos / random process) since He also controlled its creation.

- And what purpose would God have in creating something by rolling the dice, so to speak, where He couldn't control or be responsible for the outcome? With the concept of CEN, why on earth would there be any purpose in doing such a thing, when the alternative is to create perfection out of nothing?

- Which then leads us to ask whether God, as a perfect being, is capable of creating something flawed out of nothing? Because, as you have described, the application of agency can only be perceived as introducing a flaw into God's creation, since the use of agency causes that creation to exercise actions in opposition to God.

The rationale presented by CEN supporters that God can endow agency on His perfect creations, over which He exercised full control of the creation process, and then that God can disavow responsibility for the actions of that creation, and can then punish that creation, makes absolutely no sense. It is, to use the words of Sheed, "insanity".

[Ahab]

This makes a huge - and erroneous - assumption that God can, in effect, roll the dice with a CEN creation and let that creation become a random event generator that He no longer has any control over. Because, He can only disavow any responsibility if He no longer controls its outcomes.

No, because God has so much power that God can do whatever God wants to do even if nobody else will cooperate with him/them.

Of course, this raises the following questions:

- Can there really be anything an omnipotent God, in the context of CEN, can't control?

Good question, and just as with anything else, everybody will not agree on the answer.

I believe God has total control over what God does, and thinks, and feels, but when God gives others the power to make their own choices God is in effect giving those others the power to choose to do what???

The power to do wrong if they want to do wrong. The power to be wrong if they will not accept what is right.

The power to do anything they can do with the power they have, whether it is for good or evil.

- Did God control the creation of agency, its structure, and how it operates?

I believe so, to some extent, mainly by determing how much power we have to do what we can do.

For example, it was God who placed us on this Earth to be tested, after giving us the choice of whether or not we wanted to come here to be tested.

If so, then God is still responsible for the outcome of the exercise of such agency (in the form of a chaos / random process) since He also controlled its creation.

How so?

If a man chooses to do something evil with the agency God gave him, which endowed him with the power to be able to choose to do something evil, then how does that make God responsible for that man's choice to do something evil?

If you can explain that, logically, I will be very impressed.

- And what purpose would God have in creating something by rolling the dice, so to speak, where He couldn't control or be responsible for the outcome?

His purpose was and is to give us th power to make our own choices, and once we do, we are then responsible for the choices we choose.

With the concept of CEN, why on earth would there be any purpose in doing such a thing, when the alternative is to create perfection out of nothing?

Even if God created us as perfect creatures from out of nothing, and God then gave us the power to choose to do whatever we wanted to do within our own power, that still wouldn't guarantee that we would remain perfect, because we could choose to do something evil which would make us less than perfect, or perfectly good.

- Which then leads us to ask whether God, as a perfect being, is capable of creating something flawed out of nothing?

Whether or not God created us out of nothing, we are told that God created us as "good" when God created us through our parents, Adam and Eve. Now all you need to realize is that it wasn't God's fault that we, through Adam and Eve, chose to obtain knowledge of evil.

The rationale presented by CEN supporters that God can endow agency on His perfect creations, over which He exercised full control of the creation process, and then that God can disavow responsibility for the actions of that creation, and can then punish that creation, makes absolutely no sense. It is, to use the words of Sheed, "insanity".

I agree with them on a few points, though.

I believe God endowed agency on His perfect creation, Adam and Eve, and at that point they were perfectly good.

I believe God exercised full control over the creation process, in the sense that he set everything up so that Adam and Eve would have what they had in the garden of Eden, including the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

I believe it wasn't God's fault (or responsibility) when Adam and Eve chose to obtain their knowledge of evil by doing what Satan told them to do.

And I believe God will punish everyone (or hold everyone accountable) for their choices, including their choices to do evil, which is why I choose to repent from doing evil.

[jwhitlock]

No, because God has so much power that God can do whatever God wants to do even if nobody else will cooperate with him/them.

The argument that God can do anything, and it is under that argument that the "endowment of agency on CEN creations notion" falls, is not a catch all for whatever assumptions one wants to make in order to claim God doesn't bear any responsibility for what we do (in the context of CEN).

God cannot contradict Himself. And, God cannot remove Himself from being responsible for something over which He had complete control in bringing into existence out of nothing.

Because since God had full control, and there were no other outside factors beyond His control in bringing us into existence, then He alone is responsible for the outcomes related to His creation - again under the doctrine of CEN. He cannot create something and then let it loose on its own, disavowing any responsibility for its actions. Such a concept would make God an irresponsible God, and ultimately an unjust God in damning His own creations.

Under CEN, we are what we are because God made us that way. In the process of making the choices we do, we make them because of what we are - and God is directly responsible, under CEN, for what we are. There is ultimately no other influence on us that did not originate from God.

That is the problem that the rationale of God giving us agency cannot answer - that our choices in that agency are made because of God being responsible for what we are.

If a man chooses to do something evil with the agency God gave him, which endowed him with the power to be able to choose to do something evil, then how does that make God responsible for that man's choice to do something evil?

Again, because under CEN God made us what we are. Our choices are an outcome of what we are, nothing else. That makes God, under CEN, responsible for the choices we make - even if those choices are tied to agency.

And I believe God will punish everyone (or hold everyone accountable) for their choices, including their choices to do evil, which is why I choose to repent from doing evil.

Under CEN, God punishing those who do "evil" would make Him an unjust and an arbitrary God - because He is ultimately responsible for those choices.

It is only under the concept that there is something in us that God is not responsible for, because He did not bring it into existence, that would justify Him passing judgment upon us, and making us responsible for our actions.

The restored gospel has the answer to what that "something" is. I have yet to find out what that "something" could be within the framework of CEN; the rationale of God rolling the dice via the bestowal of agency and disavowing any further responsibility simply doesn't make much sense.

[Vance]

No, because God has so much power that God can do whatever God wants to do even if nobody else will cooperate with him/them.

That statement is based on ignorance.

God (your God to be more specific) can NOT create (or reproduce) a being like Him (or Her, It or Them)self(ves).

[Rob Bowman]

Blake,

You wrote:

Rob I can see why you don't want to deal with the implications of my arguments.

Blake, since I have gone round and round with you on your argument and its implications, I can't agree that I don't want to deal with those implications. I simply don't agree that my doctrine has those implications.

You wrote:

However, caricaturing and misstating my argument as "if something exists contingently it doesn't exist at all" is not merely a vast misstatement, but a rather negligent assertion on your part. What I assert is merely the obvious that all writers who have dealt with this issue agree on: contingent things don't have existence as part of their essence or nature.

The problem is that you interpret this premise to mean that contingent things aren't really things. I don't think this is a caricature or misstatement of your contention at all. You claim that if God created the universe ex nihilo, then nothing in the universe can exist for more than a moment at a time, and therefore all continuity of things existing from one moment to the next, of events happening to these things, and of some of these things actually acting, are illusions. That means that there really are no such things as stars, planets, trees, horses, or people. There is only the illusion of such things, because supposedly if God created the universe ex nihilo and sustains contingent things in their existence, he must re-create them ex nihilo at each and every moment. Therefore, your argument does amount to claiming that if something exists contingently it doesn't exist at all.

You wrote:

Nor am I making up the well-estbalished doctrine of divine sustenance -- so well established that I challenge you to find any theologian who has rejected that doctrine. It follows from the fact, assuming creation ex nihilo, created things do not have a boot-strapping power of sustaining themselves in existence. I have given two logically valid arguments and a rather charitable simplified statement of the underlying intuitions. Your response? It is all a slate of hand. I think that in reality is just a refusal to engage the discussion in good faith on your part.

My use of the expression "sleight-of-hand" seems fair to me, given my understanding of what your argument purports to do. Your arguments may seem logical to you, but they appear question-begging to me. Again, since I have addressed your arguments repeatedly, I cannot agree that I have refused to engage the discussion in good faith.

You wrote:

Charging that this issue is "all a sleight of hand" as Rob Bowman does is to dismiss with a mere ad hominem a very serious problem. I expected better.

Blake, the charge that your argument is "sleight of hand" is not ad hominem. It is a criticism of your argument, not a criticism of you as a person.