It has been asserted that any interruption or change of these fixed laws would indicate a weakness and want of foresight on the part of the Creator, and a fault in the plan of the Creation. This notion has led people either to deny the truth of the Biblical accounts concerning the miracles wrought by the Almighty, or to admit the correctness of the facts while denying their miraculous character, or to consider the fixed laws of nature, together with their exceptions, as designed in the original plan of the Creation. How short-sighted is man! He cannot even fully comprehend his own short-sightedness! God made him ruler over the works of His hands, and he presumes to be the ruler of God Himself! When we learn from numerous observations and experiments the law that seems to regulate certain recurring phenomena, have we then fathomed the infinite wisdom of God in the Creation? Do we know the reason which led Him to produce certain things according to certain laws, and not otherwise? Have we in discovering a law of nature obtained the power of prescribing the same law to God, and disallowing Him to deviate therefrom? Far be it from us human beings, dust and ashes, to arrogate to ourselves such a right! It may even be one of the objects with which miracles were wrought to teach us that we do not yet know all things, that events may happen which we are unable to foresee, that phenomena may appear which we are unable to explain according to the laws hitherto discovered; in short, that our knowledge and wisdom are limited. The fact that God has created the universe ex nihilo has been expressed by Jewish philosophers as follows:—God is the only Being who demands no cause for His existence; the very idea of God implies existence, and cannot be conceived without it. All other beings owe their existence to certain causes, in the absence of which they would not exist. God alone is therefore only active, without ever being passive, only cause without ever being effect, whilst every other being is both active and passive, cause and effect; it has been produced by certain causes, and is in its turn the cause of the existence of other beings. In the first article a phrase expressing this idea has been added: “And He alone is the active cause of all things, whether past, present, or future.” By the addition of this sentence it was intended to deny the Eternity of matter (‏קדמות העולם‎). The reference to past, present, and future is to emphasise the constant action of the Creator, and the dependence of the natural forces on His Will. The first principle has, therefore, the following form:— “I firmly believe that the Creator, blessed be His name, is both Creator and Ruler of all created beings, and that He alone is the active cause of ALL things, whether past, present, or future.” [3]