Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Creation Part 2.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

Last time we began our study of the doctrine of creation by looking at biblical data in support of the doctrine of

Creatio X. Nihalo, or creation out of nothing. And we began with the first verse in the Bible,

Genesis 1-1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. This verse appears to teach God's

creation of everything from nothing. But we saw that some scholars have tried to avoid that

conclusion by taking verse 1 as a subordinate clause rather than as a main clause, so that it reads

something like this. When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth

was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep. And it might sound as though

creation actually begins with this chaotic, dark status out of which God then fashions the world.

But I suggested several reasons for thinking that, in fact, verse one is a main clause and not merely a subordinate clause.

This doesn't decide the issue decisively in favor of Creatio X. Nihalo, however,

because other scholars have said, well, the opening verse, though a main clause, is a sort of title for the entire chapter.

It's like a chapter heading that summarizes everything that is in the chapter.

And there were two arguments for taking this as a title.

Let me refresh your memory about those.

First was that the expression, the heavens and the earth, is already an ordered cosmos.

It is an orderly state.

And so in this title or verse one, you already have the creation of an orderly universe described.

And then the second argument for taking it as a title was that God could not create

a chaotic state, such as described in verse 2.

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