283. Everyone who thinks from clear reason sees that the universe was not created out of nothing, since he sees that out of nothing not anything can be made. For nothing is nothing, and to make anything out of nothing is a contradiction, and what is a contradiction is contrary to the light (lux) of truth which is from Divine Wisdom. And whatever is not from Divine Wisdom is not from Divine Omnipotence. Everyone who thinks from clear reason also sees that all things have been created out of a substance which is Substance in itself, for this is Esse itself, out of which all things which have being can exist. And because God alone is Substance in itself, and consequently Esse itself, it is evident that the existence of things is from no other source. Many have seen this because reason enables them to see. But they have not dared to confirm it, fearing lest they might perhaps come to think that the created universe is God, because from God, or that nature is from itself, and thus that the inmost of nature is what 1S called God. So it is that although many have seen that the existence of all things is from no other source than from God and His Esse, yet they have not dared to progress beyond their first thought on the subject, lest their understanding become em-meshed in a so-called Gordian knot, from which they might not afterwards be able to extricate it. Their being unable to extricate their understanding is because they thought of God, and of the creation of the universe by God, from time and space which are properties of nature, and no one is able to have a perception of God and of the creation of the universe from nature. But everyone, whose understanding is in any interior light, can have a perception of nature and of its creation out of God, because God is not in time and space. That the Divine is not in space may be seen above (n. 7-10); that the Divine fills all the spaces of the universe apart from space (n. 69-72); and that the Divine is in all time apart from time (72-76). In what follows it will be seen that, although God has created the universe and all things thereof out of Himself, yet there is nothing whatever in the created universe which is God; besides many things which will put this matter in its proper light.