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

Today, the Doctrine of Creation Part 4.

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

We've been talking about the biblical data concerning the doctrine of creation,

and in particular creation

ex nihilo and now as we begin our systematic summary of this doctrine

we want to define more closely the notion of creation

intuitively creation involves gods bringing something into being so that if God creates some entity, E, at a time T, then E comes into being.

And we can analyze this notion as follows. E comes into being at T if and only if, that's what IFF means. It's not a typo. It means if and only if. So we're going to state necessary and sufficient conditions for

E's coming into being at T.

And the first condition is, one, that E exists at T.

Obviously if E comes into being at T, then X, or rather, E must exist at T. Secondly, T is the first time at which X exists. T is the first time at which E exists. E did not exist prior to time T. T is the first time at which E exists. And then

condition three would be that E's existing at T is a tensed fact.

And I'll say something more about that third condition in a moment.

So, E comes into being a T, if and only if, E exists at T,

T is the first time at which E exists, and E's existing at T is a tensed fact.

Now, this gives an analysis of creation.

If we wanted to add that this creation is X Nihalo, then we'd need to add a fourth condition here, and that is that

E does not have a material cause. That will give you then creation out of nothing. This is creation.

If you add a fourth condition that E has no material cause, that will give you creation out of nothing.

So this is what it is for something to come into being at a time T.

So to say that God creates E, we can give necessary and sufficient conditions for that as well. God creates E at T,

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