In contradistinction to pagan pantheism, which regards the universe as an emanation from, or a manifestation of, God, so that God and the universe are identical, and to pagan dualism, which assumes the eternal existence of matter (ὕλη ἄμορφος, τὸ μὴ ὄν), fashioned by a deity (νοῦς, τὸ ὄν) into this present world, Holy Scripture teaches that the Triune God created all things that exist outside Himself, i. e., the universe, out of nothing. By "nothing" we do not mean any already existing matter (nihil positivum), but a state of non-existence (nihil negativum). From Gen. 1, 1,. Heb. 11, 3, and Rom. 4, 17 we learn that before the creation of the world nothing existed but God Himself. Calov writes (III, 899): "Creation does not consist in emanation from the essence of God,. nor in generation, nor in motion, or natural change, . . . but in outward action, by which through infinite power things are produced from nothing." Doctr. Theol., p. 164 f. Gerhard says (IV, 7): "Away with the dreams of the Stoics, who devised two eternal principles, νοῦς and ὕλη, mind, or God, and matter, which, they imagined, during the ages of eternity was a confused chaos and at a certain time was at length brought into form by 'mind.' " (Ibid.) Against pantheism, both ancient and modern, Hollaz writes thus: "Creation is a free divine action, because God framed the universe, not induced thereto by necessity, as though He needed the services of creatures, ... but freely, as He was able to create or not, to create and to frame sooner or later, in this or in another matter." (Ibid.) The question why God did not create the world sooner Hafenreffer describes as a "question of madmen curiously inquiring into such things as are of no profit." (Ibid.)