Demonstration of the Atheist's Folly, Part Five

Wow, I really have been remiss. A combination of a bad cold and many other demands on my time. I'll try to do better.

In the next section of his argument, Charnock maintains that no creature can create itself. In the specific case of man, he quotes Psalm 100:3: "Know that the Lord himself is God; it is he who has made us and not we ourselves." To delve into the matter deeper, he observes that every created thing began to be (i.e., had a beginning, as already demonstrated) and once was not. If something is not, does not exist, it is no thing or nothing. At one time, I was not--depending on precisely when you want to time my beginning, we can say at least that prior to 1958 I did not exist and therefore was nothing. That may be existentially uncomfortable, but there you have it. And when I was nothing--when I did not exist--I could do nothing. That which is nothing cannot act. It cannot do. Nothing can act before it is. And therefore no creature can create itself, for to create is to act and the creature cannot be and not be in the same time and in the same relationship. Rationality 101, folks--the law of noncontradiction.

Tomorrow I hope to move to the next section of this argument in which Charnock considers not just the impossibility of creatures self-creating but the necessary processes by which things are created.