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

Today, the Doctrine of Creation, Part 8.

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

God is conceived in traditional Christian theology to be the cause of the world, not only in his initial act of bringing the world

into existence or creating the world, but also in his ongoing conservation of the world in being.

And so today we want to turn to the subject of

continuing creation, as it's sometimes called, which is point three on your outline.

And let's begin by looking at some biblical data concerning continuing creation.

While divine conservation is not as well attested biblically as creation, which is distinguished by the consistent use of past tense

verbs to indicate an action at the beginning of the universe when God brought the world into being.

Nevertheless, there are some important New Testament passages

that speak of God's conservation of the creation in being.

For example, Colossians chapter 1 verses 16 and 17. Colossians chapter 1 and verses 16 and 17. Here Paul says of Christ,

in Him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or

principalities or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. He is before all

things and in him all things hold together.

Now, notice the contrasting verbs in that sentence between verbs of creation,

that all things were created through Christ and for Christ,

but then in addition to that, all things hold together in Him.

The one verb speaks of the creation of the universe initially. The other speaks of God's

ongoing preservation of the world in being.

The word literally means to consist. The world consists in God.

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