There is also a wide difference of opinion among Oriental scholars with respect to the precise import of the verbs בָּרָא (bara), עָשָׂה (aysah), and יִצֶר (yetsar), as employed in the Hebrew Scriptures. Some distinguished critics, as Parkhurst, Clarke, Lange, and Delitzsch, assert that בָּרָא means to originate _de novo_, to create in an absolute sense; and that עָשָׂה and יִצֶר strictly mean to fashion out of pre-existent materials.[47] But Pusey, Kitto, Tayler Lewis, and some of the Rabbinical commentators (Aben Ezra especially), affirm that בָּרָא, both by its etymology and its connections, indicates _formation_ as much as origination, and is, in fact, indifferent and neutral either as to a supposed creation _ex nihilo_, or a creation, that is, a formation from pre-existing materials. Furthermore, it is affirmed that the three Hebrew verbs are used indiscriminately in the Mosaic record. It is said in Gen. i. 27 that God created בָּרָא man, and that statement is amplified and explained at ch. ii. 7: "And the Lord God formed עָשָׂה man _out of the dust of the earth_."[48] An appeal to the merely verbal expressions of Scripture does not, therefore, promise any satisfactory and conclusive results. By what method, then, are we to determine the Biblical notion of Creation? Clearly, not by a critical study of the several words which are employed to express the creative act--not by confining our attention to the visible embodiment of the Divine word, and neglecting the informing thought. We must ground our conception of creation upon the fundamental ideas and principles of Divine revelation, and determine it in harmony with the Christian idea of God, and the Christian doctrine of the relation of the world to God. These fundamental principles we have already presented. They may be succinctly restated in the following propositions: (1.) God is the one only self-existent, independent, unconditioned Being, "who alone hath immortality," "the incorruptible or immutable God" (ἀφθάρτος Θεός), "with whom is no variableness or shadow of change."[49] (2.) God is the sole causality of the heavens and the earth, in the most absolute sense. Whatever is, and is not God, is the creature of God. "By Him were all things created which are in heaven and which are upon earth, things visible and things invisible"--the objects of sense-perception and of rational intuition. The origin, development, and end, the principle, law, and reason of all existence, are in God and from God--πάντα ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐν τῷ Θεῷ, εἰς τὸν Θεόν.[50] (3.) The all of the finite is in ceaseless and complete dependence on the Divine causality--"He upholdeth all things," and "by Him all things consist."