[Kevin] Talk a little bit about the Defenders topic and series today that mentions John Walton,
and look at a response that he has made to you that's making the rounds on YouTube.
Tell us a little bit about what the series was and who John Walton is. We've
discussed him before. [Craig] I take it that this would be the series I did on doctrine of creation,
and I looked at Walton's views of the narrative in Genesis 1 where he argues
for a mutually exclusive distinction between what he calls material creation and functional
creation. Material creation is bringing something into existence that did not exist before.
So for example, when a carpenter makes a desk, that would be an example of material creation.
Functional creation would be when something begins to function in a certain way. And
the example Walton gives is of a restaurant. Imagine a restaurant that is a renovated factory,
and you could ask well when did the restaurant begin to exist? Well the answer would be
when it opened as a restaurant, even though the building was already there. You don't go back
to when the factory was originally created and say that's when the restaurant began.
Rather, it's when the building began to function as a restaurant. And he uses this distinction to
claim that Genesis 1, in describing God's creation of the light, the seas, the dry land, the sea
monsters and creatures, and finally man himself, that this is really just specifying the functions
of these things and not actually bringing them into existence. [Kevin] Okay. This is from a
podcast. It begins, Bill, with a clip from you that Walton interacts with. Let's go to that
now. [Moderator] I think I have a clip here, let me see if this will play. It's about 30 seconds.
You can respond to it. [Craig] whether Genesis 1 describes God as bringing into being the things
that are described, whether he uses material or not, or does he merely specify the functions
for things that are already in existence? I think that we have to guard here against
erecting false dichotomies. Just because a text speaks of God specifying an object's function
doesn't exclude efficient causation as well. Walton has to show that the text of Genesis 1
is concerned exclusively with functional creation. It is not enough to show that functional creation
is involved. He has to show that efficient causation does not come into the picture at all.
[Moderator] That was William Lane Craig, obviously he speaks of you very highly.
He said that you know that you're a super bright person, that you're a prolific author,
you know he obviously spoke about you very highly. He said he had correspondence with you so
he obviously understands that that you're a scholar of top
rank, right? But this is one of the critiques that he has, and I just wondered did you want
to respond to that and kind of tell us what do you see wrong with that critique? [Walton]
Well one of the most common critiques, you know Dr. Craig didn't make this up,
one of the most common critiques is people who say why can't it be both? You know it's all well and
good to talk about how order and function and role and purpose are significant in the biblical text,
but why can't it be material too? And that's basically the nature of his question.
I don't have to prove that it is only function and order. It's not like the burden of proof is on me;
I had to prove that there was function and order involved. Now he sounds like he's assuming
that material must be involved. You can't assume that; prove it to me!
Show that material is involved. And so I go through day one, nothing material. It's time,
light; those are not material. Day two, space; nothing material. Day three, it says let the
plants grow, let the dry land emerge; it doesn't say he made them. Nothing material. Day four,
he made the sun, moon, and stars, or he "did" the sun, moon, and stars. Okay,
those sound material, but of course they're not to the Israelites,
and therefore an Israelite wouldn't read day four and say oh here God is making material objects.
Well no, they don't think they're material objects; they think they're lights.
Day five, let fish swarm, let bird's team, you know,
when day after day after day after day it doesn't talk about the material,
that leads me as a hopefully sensitive reader to say that wasn't very interesting to them.
But again I have to emphasize that doesn't mean that God did not create the material
world. Of course he did. And when he created the material world, our theology tells us
he created it out of nothing, because there's no material that was not created by God. So I
absolutely believe in creation out of nothing, but I don't think Genesis 1 is
talking about creation out of nothing, because creation out of nothing is a material category,
and if it's not talking in material categories, then that is not its interest.
[Let's let him finish right here.] In that sense I feel like there's a burden of proof
that they need to pick up, to say why do you think that it is material? And they're trying to say
I have the burden of proof to prove that it's not material, and you heard what my proof is.
[Kevin] Okay Bill. [Craig] Anyone who proposes a particular interpretation of a text has the
burden of proof to give supporting arguments for that view. Walton supports and enunciates the view
that Genesis 1 is exclusively about God specifying the functions
for the things, not bringing the things into existence, and if he's going to maintain that,
then he does have a burden of proof to support that point of view, and to show that it can't be
both, that it can't be both material creation of objects and specifying their functions.
Now those who maintain that this is about material creation are not saying that these are created out
of nothing. That's a red herring that needs to be not pursued. Whether there is material stuff out
of which the animals and plants and seas and so forth are made, or whether it's out of nothing, is
immaterial, no pun intended. The question is, does God bring these things into existence over this
six day period? And that's very obvious that they do. Over and over again God says "Let there be,"
and there was! So he creates light, he creates seas, he creates the dry land,
the lights and the heavens. These things didn't exist until God created them. And so the whole
narrative is about how God either said let there be, and these things come into being, or it even
says God made them, and before they were made they didn't exist. For example in Genesis 2
reflecting back on the creation of man, it says that before God created man there was no man
to till the soil, and that before he created Eve there was not found any creature that would be
fit as a helper for the first man. So clearly material creation of these things is being
described, as well as then assigning to these material things various functions to carry out.