ex nihilo, which is precisely God’s core job description: God is the one “who
gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist”
(Romans 4:17b), according to a wonderful line from Paul. Or as Walt Whitman
so beautifully put it:
All goes onward and outward...and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and much
luckier.*3