The idea that God creates out of Himself seems quite attractive. Many find great appeal in holding that a temporally finite universe must have a cause (say, God), but I think there’s also great appeal in holding that there’s pre-existent stuff out of which that universe is created—and what could that stuff be but part of God? Though attractive, the idea of creation ex deo hasn’t been taken seriously by theistic philosophers. Perhaps this is because it seems too vague—‘could anything enlightening be said about what those parts are?’—or objectionable—‘wouldn’t creating out of those parts lessen or destroy God?’ Drawing from Stephen Kosslyn and Michael Tye’s work on the ontology of mental images, I respond to the above questions by developing a theory on which God creates the universe out of His mental imagery.

上帝用自己创造的想法似乎很有吸引力。许多人认为，一个时间有限的宇宙必须有一个原因（比如，上帝），但我认为认为存在创造宇宙的先存物也很有吸引力——这些东西可能是什么但上帝的一部分？虽然很有吸引力，但有神论哲学家并未认真对待前世创造的想法。也许这是因为它看起来太模糊了——“关于这些部分是什么，能说些什么有启发性的话吗？”——或者令人反感——“用这些部分创造会不会削弱或毁灭上帝？” 借鉴 Stephen Kosslyn 和 Michael Tye 关于心理意象本体论的工作，我通过发展一种理论来回答上述问题，即上帝从他的心理意象中创造了宇宙。