Implications and Entailments Are Secondary-Thinking Entanglements
In yesterday’s post, I suggested that the continuous deterioration of secondary thinking is most evident in the apparent increase in the need to question what symbolic communication in the form of language, writing, and images actually refers to or means.
The most blatant examples of this occur when people begin arguments with statements like, “Well, it depends on what you mean by X.” Case in point, is the short clip below featuring the Jordan Peterson of theology, William Lane Craig.
When asked if Genesis 1:1 teaches creatio ex nihilo, Craig immediately resorts to the following line to preface his line of thinking: “A lot depends on what you mean by the word teach.” Sounds eerily similar to Peterson’s cautious bafflegab when asked if he believes in God. What do you mean “do?” What do you mean by “you?” And so forth.
Like Peterson, Craig could have simply answered the question posed to him with a yes or no, but he chooses the old “a lot depends on” evasion to frame the argument he eventually lands on—Genesis 1:1 does not explicitly assert creation ex nihilo, but it does imply it because it is a logical entailment.
A logical entailment of what exactly? For the sake of brevity, let’s just say a logical entailment of assumptions that exclude the possibility of creation from something. Thus, Craig concludes that creatio ex nihilo is an entailment of Genesis 1:1 and argues that if you take the teaching of scripture to include not only what it explicitly asserts but also what it entails, then yes, Genesis 1:1 does teach creatio ex nihilo even if it doesn’t explicitly assert it. He then alludes to several other passages in the Bible that confirm the validity of this entailment.
No explicit assertion but plenty of implication and entailment, which is interesting if one considers the etymology of imply and entail.
Imply is from Latin and was used in Old French to mean “to entangle, to enfold, and enwrap”. Craig’s assertion that Genesis 1:1 implies creatio ex nihilo suggests that creation from nothing is somehow folded up in the passage and that the right sort of reading or awareness will disentangle the implicit and make it explicit. In other words, even though the passage does not explicitly affirm creatio ex nihilo, it leads to that conclusion via the process of implication.
Entailment is a bit trickier. Entail originates from the 14th century and refers to feudum talliatium, an old legal practice of converting an estate into “fee tail” or a legal limitation ruling that decided property ownership matters in inheritance and prevented property from being sold off until the ownership question was settled. From the 19th century onwards, it was used most often to refer to an inseparable connection. In philosophy and logic, entailment refers to a relationship between statements where the truth of one statement (the antecedent) confirms the truth of another (the consequent).
In a nutshell, Craig’s argument can be boiled down to the following: God created the heavens and the earth, which is true. God's creating the heavens and the earth implies that nothing else existed before that act of Creation. Since nothing else existed, God must have created ex nihilo.
That’s it.
Now, how difficult would it be to form similar types of implications and entailments against creatio ex nihilo? Not hard at all. In fact, many have put forth coherent arguments in favor of creation from something; however, at the end of the day, such arguments all play the same sort of games Craig and others like him engage in. Implications and entailments through and through.
In the end, approaching assumptions like creatio ex nihilo requires direct knowing and primary thinking—the disentanglement of thinking from all the implications and entailments of secondary thinking.
The most blatant examples of this occur when people begin arguments with statements like, “Well, it depends on what you mean by X.” Case in point, is the short clip below featuring the Jordan Peterson of theology, William Lane Craig.
When asked if Genesis 1:1 teaches creatio ex nihilo, Craig immediately resorts to the following line to preface his line of thinking: “A lot depends on what you mean by the word teach.” Sounds eerily similar to Peterson’s cautious bafflegab when asked if he believes in God. What do you mean “do?” What do you mean by “you?” And so forth.
Like Peterson, Craig could have simply answered the question posed to him with a yes or no, but he chooses the old “a lot depends on” evasion to frame the argument he eventually lands on—Genesis 1:1 does not explicitly assert creation ex nihilo, but it does imply it because it is a logical entailment.
A logical entailment of what exactly? For the sake of brevity, let’s just say a logical entailment of assumptions that exclude the possibility of creation from something. Thus, Craig concludes that creatio ex nihilo is an entailment of Genesis 1:1 and argues that if you take the teaching of scripture to include not only what it explicitly asserts but also what it entails, then yes, Genesis 1:1 does teach creatio ex nihilo even if it doesn’t explicitly assert it. He then alludes to several other passages in the Bible that confirm the validity of this entailment.
No explicit assertion but plenty of implication and entailment, which is interesting if one considers the etymology of imply and entail.
Imply is from Latin and was used in Old French to mean “to entangle, to enfold, and enwrap”. Craig’s assertion that Genesis 1:1 implies creatio ex nihilo suggests that creation from nothing is somehow folded up in the passage and that the right sort of reading or awareness will disentangle the implicit and make it explicit. In other words, even though the passage does not explicitly affirm creatio ex nihilo, it leads to that conclusion via the process of implication.
Entailment is a bit trickier. Entail originates from the 14th century and refers to feudum talliatium, an old legal practice of converting an estate into “fee tail” or a legal limitation ruling that decided property ownership matters in inheritance and prevented property from being sold off until the ownership question was settled. From the 19th century onwards, it was used most often to refer to an inseparable connection. In philosophy and logic, entailment refers to a relationship between statements where the truth of one statement (the antecedent) confirms the truth of another (the consequent).
In a nutshell, Craig’s argument can be boiled down to the following: God created the heavens and the earth, which is true. God's creating the heavens and the earth implies that nothing else existed before that act of Creation. Since nothing else existed, God must have created ex nihilo.
That’s it.
Now, how difficult would it be to form similar types of implications and entailments against creatio ex nihilo? Not hard at all. In fact, many have put forth coherent arguments in favor of creation from something; however, at the end of the day, such arguments all play the same sort of games Craig and others like him engage in. Implications and entailments through and through.
In the end, approaching assumptions like creatio ex nihilo requires direct knowing and primary thinking—the disentanglement of thinking from all the implications and entailments of secondary thinking.
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