I found two translations of Heb. 11.3:

(1) “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.”

(2) “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

The relevant portion is the bold part.

εἰς τὸ μὴ ἐκ φαινομένων τὸ βλεπόμενον γεγονέναι.

Eis to mei ek fainomenwn to belpomenon gegonenai

EIS: prep, “into”

TO: def. art. “the”

MEI: Neg. part. “not”

EK: Prep. “out of”

FAINOMENON: Genitive plural participle, “things being apparent” or “things that appear”

TO: def. art. “the”

BLEPOMENON: Accusative singular passive participle, “that which is seen.”

GEGONENAI: (From genomai, “to become”), verb “to have become.”

The question is:

What does the negative particle “not” qualify? Does it qualify “gegonenai” (“was NOT made”), thus reading (2), or does it qualify “fainomenon” (“things which do NOT appear”), thus reading (1)? Very different meanings.

Literally it seems to be:

“So that not out of things that appear were things which are seen made.”

But the “not” can negate what immediately follows or something later.

Is it:

(1) The things we see were made out of things that do NOT appear.

(2) The things we see were NOT made out of things that appear.

Translation (1) makes the claim that the material objects we see were made of out things that we don’t see, i.e., immaterial things/objects or realities. It makes the positive claim that there exist unseen (immaterial) realities that are the stuff out of which the material universe was made. The material is made from the immaterial, which technically speaking is NOT creation ex nihilo. It's creation ex things-which-do-not-appear [i.e., ex immaterial things].

Translation (2) just makes the claim that the material universe isn’t self-sufficient. Here we just have a denial--no infinite regress within the material order. The material objects we see were not made from previous material objects which were made from previous material objects which were made from previous material objects, etc. So an unbroken “chain of becoming” within the material universe is what’s being denied with (2). The material universe isn’t eternal.

(1) = the material universe we see was made from immaterial things we don't see.

(2) = the material universe we see was not made from [other] things that appear within the created order.

Both deny the eternality of the material universe. But (2) stops with this denial and doesn’t say anything more while (1) makes the further claim about what DOES account for the material universe.

Tom

Post Edited (One Love) : 7/22/2009 6:08:30 AM (GMT-5)

All creatures are balanced upon the creative word of God, as if upon a bridge of diamond; above them is the abyss of divine infinitude, below them that of their own nothingness.
--Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow

Post Edited (One Love) : 7/22/2009 6:28:00 AM (GMT-5)

D: It implies it. To affirm God as eternal…

T: If you add God, then to say, “the world isn’t eternal, it came into being” doesn’t itself imply ex nihilo. There is no coming into being of things ex nihilo. There are only coming into being of things ex deo. That’s what I’m trying to say. If it’s ex deo, it’s not ALSO ex nihilo.

It sounds like you want to posit two grounds for the existence of actual things: God and Nothingness. Ex Deo points to the former while ex nihilo points to the latter.

D: (A) The material universe to be partially grounded in non-being or no-thing-ness. (B) Besides the will and energies of God, the material universe would simply not be...and it is only God's working that keeps the material universe from reversion to non-being.

T: I put in the (A) and (B), because I think these appear contrary. Because I agree that the world “would simply not be” apart from God, I think it’s meaningless to say the world is “partially grounded in non-being.” If the world wouldn’t be “at all” apart from God, then God is the world’s sole ground of being, he doesn’t share “grounding the world” with something called non-being (which can’t serve as a “ground” for anything). I could say that as far as epistemology is concerned, your options are God or non-being in the sense that there just is no real viable option left after God is rejected. By that I just mean our own “nothingness” is an abstraction that confronts us when we consider ourselves apart from God. But abstractly considered is all it can be. It can’t be the actual ground for existent things. As we said, God is at the heart of all existent things as their ground. He’s not the partial ground while our nothingness is also a partial ground.

I take your quote to mean just this. You’ve got God as your ground, or absolute nothingness. But the point in specifying nothingness is not to hold it out as a real, actual state of being over and against God, much less as a “partial” ground of our being. Heavens no.

Tom

Post Edited (Similtude) : 7/22/2009 8:55:22 AM (GMT-5)

Who "turns the heart of the king"...while at the same time, gives all things their very being?