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The Giant’s Chair, Natsworthy for SX7280

What does it mean for a chair to exist? A computer? A business? Does something exist merely when its material components exist? Can a chair can be said to exist when all of its parts have just come off the factory line, or do they need to be assembled and working before a chair exists?

Another Way to Understand Existence

Contrary to what the opening paragraph might suggest, this article is not a philosophical argument about a specific ontological position. John Walton, in his work The Lost World of Genesis One, suggests that existence can be understood in other ways than merely by material presence. That is to say, it is possible to understand that something’s existence is not necessarily based solely on the fact that its material is present. He suggests this, not to argue that we ought to revise our own materialist ontological assumptions (although a case might be made for that), it is instead to show that other possibilities exist, namely functional ontology. Existence can be understood in terms of functionality.

Ancient Understand Existence in terms of Functions

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/3378221946/

He argues that the ancients held to this sort of a functional ontology. For something to exist, it not only needs to have a material aspect, but more importantly, it needs to have a function. He argues persuasively in his second proposition, through the literature of the ancient near eastern peoples, that, for them, non-functioning things are non-existent. A barren landscape, to them, is non-existent land. Their creation stories deal with making the world a functioning place out of a non-functioning one.

What Does This Have To Do With Genesis?

This is extremely important in developing an understanding of Genesis. If all ancients held this view of existence, and for something to be created meant that something is given a function rather than given material substance (implying the material substance is required, but not part of the act of creation), then this could change our understanding of what Genesis is trying to convey. What if the act of creating is more literally understood as an act of making the world functional, rather than making its materials?

Next Time

We’ll examine how Walton proposes to make the leap from how non-Hebrew ancient near eastern people viewed creating to how Hebrew ancient near eastern people viewed creating through the evidence from Genesis.