These incautious writers of "Natural Theology" all assert, as a fundamental doctrine, that God is the Absolute and Unconditioned Cause. We might ask, Whence do they derive this fundamental truth that God is "absolute and unconditioned," if not by an _à priori_ rational intuition? We let that pass, however, to press the more pertinent question--How can God be "the absolute cause," if matter is coeval with and independent of Him? And how can He be the "unconditioned cause," if space, time, number, and matter necessarily exist as the _conditions_ of the Divine agency and manifestation? If matter, with its essential properties and laws, exist independent of the Deity, do not these impose conditions upon the action of the Deity, and determine it to certain necessary modes? If so, God can not be the unconditioned Cause. Instead of one supreme, sole First Principle, there are at least two principles, God and Necessity, and may be more. No system of Natural Theology can maintain its integrity and consistency except by holding fast to the fundamental postulate--God is the Absolute and Unconditioned Cause of all things, of matter and form, quality and relation, purpose and law. And now, in conclusion, we may properly ask, Whence arises the necessity for assuming the coeval and co-eternal existence of matter besides and independent of God? Why should the theologian feel himself under the necessity of prejudicing the Biblical conception of Creation by any such concession? The only reasons we have seen assigned are, first, that "creation out of nothing is discredited by the discoveries of modern science;"[119] secondly, that "an absolute origination is inconceivable and self-destructive."[120] In attempting an estimate of the weight of these reasons, we would first suggest that the question of _absolute_ creation has been prejudiced by the persistent employment of the old formula of "creation out of nothing," as though "nothing" contained the cause of existence, and the universe was developed out of nothing. The Christian Fathers, who first employed the phrase κτίσις ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, never indulged in such representations. The idea they sought to express was that the production of "_otherness_," the awarding of existence to something besides Himself, was an absolutely free act of God which was not conditioned by any thing external to Himself--in a word, that God is the positive original ground of all existence.