display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
| 14028 | Nothing comes to be from what doesn't exist [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Nothing comes into being from what is not. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 38) | |
| A reaction: King Lear puts it better: Nothing will come of nothing [1.i]. There seems to be an underlying assumption that coming into being out of nothing is much weirder than just existing, but I am not convinced about that. It's all equally weird. |
| 14029 | If disappearing things went to nothingness, nothing could return, and it would all be gone by now [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If that which disappears were destroyed into what is not, all things would have been destroyed, since that into which they were dissolved does not exist. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 39) | |
| A reaction: This follows on from Idea 14028. Theologians will immediately spot that this is the underlying principle cited by Aquinas in his Third Way for proving God's existence (Idea 1431). |