ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the objections urged against the doctrine of creation on the ground of its alleged incompatibility with the divine attributes-infinity, immutability, liberty. In considering whether creation is compatible with the attributes which reason compels to ascribe to God, it might seem natural to begin with the attribute of infinity. A word must first be said about the Hegelian idealism from which it sprang. This system, though owing its origin to the speculations of Kant, was none the less in great measure a reaction against his theories. In the finiteness of created being lies the explanation of the multiplicity of the exemplar ideas realized in creation. Creation is the realization outside God of certain aspects of his infinitude the overflow, if people may so term it, of infinite perfection and has its final reason in that perfection itself. The gift of freedom enables man to separate in his case the primary end of creation from the secondary.
