It could mean, as Bonaventure wanted, “from a situation where there was nothing.” But it could also just mean “not from something (non ex aliquo),” in the sense that God needed no matter to form a world, in other words nothing whose potential for being a universe needed to be realized (ST 1 Q46 a1 repl obj 6). Aquinas even goes so far as to cite Avicenna for the idea that eternal creation could be “from nothing” in this sense.7 He would also agree with Avicenna that when philosophers establish God as a principle who “comes before” all other things, the priority in question has to do with
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