The Moral Argument
Date : June 1, 2017
All You Ever Wanted to Know, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada – January 1, 2011
Talks about some of the issues Christians deal with today
Transcript
Scott Fitzsimmons: Good morning. It’s ten o’clock and time for All You Ever Wanted to Know. It is a new season of All You Ever Wanted to Know, back this fall after the summer off, and we are here today with a very special guest. It’s an hour-long edition, and I am looking forward to this. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a while. William Lane Craig—Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He’s authored and edited over 30 books and done many things over his lifetime. Welcome to All You Ever Wanted to Know. It’s great to have you here, William.
Dr. Craig: Well, thanks, Scott. Great to be with you.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, first off, I would like to tell the people what it is that you do. You are the Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology. Now, what is it that is your main profession?
Dr. Craig: [Laughs] Well, I do wear a number of hats. I only teach one course a year at Talbot. I taught for many years, but I felt confined by the four walls of the classroom. I enjoy much more a kind of itinerant ministry. So, I spend the bulk of my time in either doing research and writing or in traveling and speaking on university campuses throughout North America, Europe, and elsewhere. And then I do a little bit of teaching, one class a year at Talbot, and then I’ve been doing one class a year at Wheaton College.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, where I’d heard of you before was I’ve seen some different debates—you’ve been at the University of Saskatchewan here in Saskatoon previously, and I’ve heard you on the radio in Saskatoon, back a while ago. You’re actually coming back to Saskatoon very shortly.
Dr. Craig: That’s right. In late January I have an invitation to speak again at the university, and they may even set up a debate while I’m there. So, I’ve always had a great time in Saskatchewan, and I’m looking forward to coming to the university again.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Well, that’s great for us to hear. We’re happy that you’re coming back. Now, the main reason that we’ve brought you here on All You Ever Wanted to Know—we want to talk about some of the issues that are facing Christians in their lives these days, causing doubts, maybe even shaking their faith. There are people starting to question things, and it’s a concern for me, for one, seeing some of these people that I’ve known growing up in the church, seeing little things that get thrown at them that they don’t know how to combat, they don’t know how to respond to. And in return, it shakes their faith. And you’ve got a website, it’s ReasonableFaith.org. It goes through a lot of these things and talks about that, and I think that was one of the main reasons I wanted to have you here is so that we can go over these issues and talk about them for people that are listening right now that maybe have some of these questions and don’t know how to answer them for the people that have asked them.
Dr. Craig: Very good. That is one of the reasons that we put up the website. One is to reach unbelievers, but then also, we do want to help believers to be able to articulate and defend their faith more effectively.
Scott Fitzsimmons: So, let’s go back to the beginning. How did you become a Christian? How did you get into research philosophy, into the area you are in right now?
Dr. Craig: Well, those are two very different questions. I became a Christian as a junior in high school. I was not raised in a Christian family or even a churchgoing home, though it was a good and loving family. But when I became a teenager, I began to ask the big questions in life—who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going?
And to make a long story short, I met a Christian girl who sat in front of me in my German class in high school and she shared her faith with me in Christ, and I had never heard anything like this before in my life. I began to read the New Testament, and as I did so I was just captivated by the person of Jesus of Nazareth. After about six months of the most intense soul searching that I’ve ever been through, I yielded my life to Christ and became a Christian in the fall of 1965.
And the vision of becoming a professor of philosophy was one that only materialized gradually as I continued to pursue my education. I went to Wheaton College, and then after Wheaton went to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School to do a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Religion. It was there that my interest in philosophy was really focused and sharpened, and we decided to go on and do doctoral work in philosophy, then, at the University of Birmingham in England. And it was out of that education, then, that I began to see myself as using the tools of philosophy to help better understand our Christian faith and to better defend it.[1]
Scott Fitzsimmons: Well, it’s a great long list of schools you’ve been through, and lots of research you’ve been able to go through. Has it been a long process going through that?
Dr. Craig: Oh yeah, I was a full-time student until I was 34 years of age.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Oh, wow. [Laughs]
Dr. Craig: So, I was really the perpetual student. I did two doctorates: one in Birmingham, and then after that, one in Munich. And so, it wasn’t until I was in my mid-30s that I finally quit being a student.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Hey, it’s worth it, and the knowledge you’ve gained, I’m sure, is just priceless. It’s great to see that coming out in a lot of these debates I’ve seen, in some of the lectures I’ve read, and different things like that. And where it’s brought to the purpose of this interview is talking about the different questions, issues, that people deal with.
Sometimes they think you have to be a little bit more educated to be able to deal with these issues. Some people think it’s something that they don’t know how to answer, and they don’t know where to get the answers. And that’s where it becomes something that really shakes them. And that’s something we want to talk about today. What are some of the issues that people are dealing with nowadays that are really causing them to question their Christianity?
Dr. Craig: Well, before we talk about those issues, I want to say what I think is the real problem here, because I don’t think the real problem is that you confront issues that you don’t know the answer to or have questions that you’re not sure how to answer. I think the greatest problem is ignorance—that so many Christians are just utterly ignorant of the evidence for the Christian faith. They have no good reason to believe what they do. And so, when they encounter a question to which they don’t know the answer, it’s as though there’s nothing on the other side of the scale, you see, Scott, to counterbalance it. If you have a fairly heavy weight on the other side of the scale, then having unanswered questions isn’t really all that big a deal.
In fact, given the finitude of life, I don’t think we’ll ever have all of the answers to all of our questions. I think that the key to victory in the Christian life is not to have answers to all your questions, but how to learn to live successfully with unanswered questions. And the problem is that many Christians have nothing—literally nothing—on the side of the scale of evidence for Christianity. So, the least little unanswered question or objection on the other side tips the scales against their Christian faith, and they can easily slide into apostasy. So, the first and foremost thing I think that we need to do is to give Christians good, solid, positive reasons to believe, so that when they encounter objections and questions, these won’t have such a devastating impact on them.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Wow. It’s something that we don’t always think about, but I think that, like you said, it’s the importance of knowing. And that’s the one thing that’s been kind of reminded to me is just knowing who our God is—knowing who he is. And where does that come from? Knowing the Bible. And I think that’s been the one part that has hit me the most over the last little while, and something that is true. Sometimes we just kind of set the Bible away and enjoy our Christianity, go to church, but we forget about knowing who God is when those questions really come, there’s nothing there to back it up.
Dr. Craig: Yeah, I think you’re right about that. And I would say, too, for Christians, there comes a point in the Christian life at which you need to get beyond just reading the Bible, and you begin to study the Bible. And what I mean by that is there comes a point in your life as a Christian where you begin to read Romans or Galatians or Colossians, and you say, “Yeah, I’ve read that before. I know what it says already.” When you reach that point and you’re familiar with it, now you’re ready to begin to quit reading the Bible and to start really studying the Bible.
And that is a pursuit that could take you the rest of your life, because the depth and the riches there are just inexhaustible. And it will be the study of the Scriptures combined with study of other areas like apologetics that I think will help to ground a person’s faith so that it’s not just this floating, superficial, emotional sort of faith that’s easily disrupted by the storms of life.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, you bring up that word—apologetics. Some people have heard this but they don’t know what it is. Can you describe for us what apologetics is?
Dr. Craig: Well, apologetics doesn’t mean the art of telling other people you’re sorry you’re a Christian. Rather, apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia, which originally meant “a defense,” as in a court of law where a defense would be given.[2] And so, we’re actually commanded in Scripture to have such a defense ready for anybody who calls us to account for the hope that is in us, that’s 1 Peter 3:15. It says, “Always be ready to give an apologia, a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you.” So, that’s what apologetics is. It’s the field of theology which explores the rational justification for Christian truth claims.
Scott Fitzsimmons: You’re listening to All You Ever Wanted to Know. I’m Scott Fitzsimmons. This is the first week of All You Ever Wanted to Know,back for the fall, and we’re talking with William Lane Craig, Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. We’re going to be talking more about his website, www.ReasonableFaith.org. More with William Lane Craig right after this on All You Ever Wanted to Know.
[Break]
We’re back here on All You Ever Wanted to Know. Scott Fitzsimmons here with William Lane Craig from the website ReasonableFaith.Org. Great website. It’s answered a lot of my questions. I’ve been through different parts of my life, grown up a Christian. You come to a point where some things you kind of have to ask yourself, “What do I believe? These questions that I have, how can I answer them?”
And there was a point in my life where I sought out answers and found them, and it was really comforting for me to see the different ways that I could find the answers for those. I ended up going to Bible school for a year for that and got some good answers. But some people are not able to go to Bible school, you know. They don’t know how to study, don’t know how to do these things. There’s a lot of questions out there right now, and I like the way that the Reasonable Faith website can answer these.
Now, your mission statement, your mission for the website, says, “Reasonable Faith aims to provide in the public arena an intelligent, articulate, and uncompromising yet gracious Christian perspective on the most important issues concerning the truth of the Christian faith today.” Now, some of the issues that come up are big ones; some of them aren’t as big. But what are some of the issues that are the most common today in Christianity?
Dr. Craig: Well, the most fundamental, of course, would be the existence of God. I think that is right at the very heart of the Christian world and life view. If God doesn’t exist, then literally everything falls apart. So, that question will be front and foremost. And related to that will be questions about the meaning of life, the foundation of ethical values, the purpose of life—because I think all of those are ultimately rooted in God and in the knowledge of God. So, the existence of God is central. And then beyond that, we’ll be wanting to ask questions about the interface between God and science—for example, about the problem of innocent suffering in the world and whether or not belief in God is rational in the face of innocent…
We’ll want to ask about whether there are other arguments against God’s existence that atheists bring up that need to be considered. And then finally we’ll get to the question of Jesus and raise all sorts of questions about who he was: about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the historical reliability of the records of his life, and Jesus’ claim to be the exclusive way to the knowledge of God and to salvation.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, the debates I’ve seen from you—I’ve seen different debates on atheism, or on the belief of God, the existence of God—and that is something that a lot of people still cling to. I’ve heard it talked about where different people thought that as an intellectual person, the only way to believe would be that there is no God, that science completely proves that there is no God. But in reality, science really takes a step towards proving that there is a God.
Dr. Craig: I believe that’s correct, and one of the things that I like to emphasize in my debates is the scientific evidence that supports premises in my arguments that lead to a significant theological conclusion. I’m not claiming that science proves God, but I’m claiming that science can give evidence for a premise in an argument that leads to the existence of God. For example, I think scientific evidence indicates that the universe began to exist, and that will be a key premise in an argument for God’s existence. Or the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life is supported by scientific evidence, and that will be a key premise in an argument for a cosmic designer of the universe.[3] So, I certainly do look to science as an ally in the quest for understanding about the nature of ultimate reality.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Well, it’s definitely something that is very reasonable, and I like that about your website, Reasonable Faith. It’s something that is very reasonable to believe there is a God. For one, that we’ve experienced, but from what we can see around us. Now, some of the other issues—you talk about the foundation of moral values. I know that that’s a question people have asked me about, the foundation of moral values being a part of Christianity, atheism. What are some of the issues that deal with that?
Dr. Craig: Well, one of the issues will be whether or not objective moral values and duties even exist if there is no God. Traditionally, moral values and duties have been grounded in God. God, in Western philosophy, has been thought to be the highest good. He is the plumb line, so to speak, that determines good and evil, right and wrong. And if that plumb line is removed, then everything seems to become socio-culturally relative. You have different societies and cultures which have evolved different standards of right and wrong, good and evil; and in the absence of God, who’s to say who’s right and who’s wrong?
So, that will be one issue, whether atheism is even capable of providing any sort of a foundation for objective moral values and duties. Now, an additional consideration will be if you do think, then, that objective moral values and duties actually exist, that some things are really right or wrong, some things are really good or bad. Then you’ll be led logically to believe that God exists. So, you’ll have a kind of moral argument for the existence of God.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, what are some of the questions that people come to you with about those moral values? Because I know that some people think that there can be morals inside an atheistic approach.
Dr. Craig: Well, most typically I find that university students will say, “Aren’t moral values just the byproducts of evolution and social conditioning so that we have agreed with one another to adopt sort of this moral standard, because it is beneficial for the perpetuation of our species and it enables people to live together in human community? Sort of, I’ll scratch your back and you scratch mine, this sort of cooperative behavior. And isn’t that sufficient for morality?”
And what I point out to students is that if God does not exist, then they’re absolutely right. That is exactly what morality is. But, you see, that isn’t objective, that is just a kind of social contract where the pedophile or the child abuser or the rapist or psychopath doesn’t really do anything wrong when he murders and rapes a little child, he’s just acting unfashionably. He’s just acting out of sync with the conventions that the rest of society has adopted. He’s sort of like the person who belches at the dinner table or picks his nose in public. He’s socially a misfit, but he doesn’t really do anything morally wrong. And I think when most people think about that, they realize that child abuse and rape and torture and cruelty aren’t just socially unacceptable behavior, these are actually morally wrong.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Wow, that is a way I had never heard it answered before, but it’s true. It’s not really something we look at that way, is it?
Dr. Craig: Yeah, I think that often students give a kind of superficial lip-service to relativism, but I find that if you really talk to them and give them examples, that 95 percent of them will very quickly come to recognize that there are objective moral values and duties. For example, when I was in Saskatoon on my last trip, I remember walking down a hall in the university and seeing a sign, a poster, put up by the Sexual Assault and Information Committee at the U of S, and this sign said, “Sexual assault: no one has the right to abuse a child, woman, or man.”[4] And I thought to myself, that’s a very interesting sign. Most of us would recognize that that is true, that it is morally wrong to abuse a child, woman, or man. But how can the atheist make that affirmation that’s on that poster? He really can’t.
Scott Fitzsimmons: I know that a lot of people have these questions. I know a lot of them university students, a lot of very intelligent people, maybe they’ve grown up in the church, I’ve seen a lot of them go into universities, don’t necessarily have a background, and begin to be taught these things almost from a secular point of view, and then don’t know how to change that. I mean, the people that are teaching them these ideas in these university classes, and they’re taking it as truth because they don’t know any better. Is that—
Dr. Craig: Yeah, I think that’s right, and I lay the blame for that not so much with those persons, as with the churches in which they’ve been raised which have not adequately prepared them for this. I think it is scandalous that we feed our youth in youth groups with entertainment and pious devotional thoughts when we need to be training these kids for intellectual warfare. We’re sending kids out to public high school and university like unarmed men into a battlefield, and it’s no wonder there are casualties.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Yeah, it’s very true. People go out there without any type of protection and any type of knowledge that can dispute otherwise. And I think they go to universities thinking that these are people that are here to teach them truth, when in reality, can be as one-sided or biased as a Christian perspective.
Dr. Craig: Yeah, you know, I was just reading last night a scientific survey conducted by the Hudson Institute of American Colleges and Universities, some 712 universities and colleges were polled, and they found that of the faculty polled at these universities, 53 percent had a negative attitude toward evangelical Christians. This was far, far higher than any other group that they asked them about, where over half of the faculty have a negative attitude against evangelical Christians. Now, just think of what a hostile environment that is.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Yeah, that would be very hard to go into as an evangelical Christian.
Dr. Craig: Oh, it’s shocking. I mean, if this were an attitude toward say Jews or blacks or women or any other sort of group, this would be an outrage. It would be a civil liberties scandal. And yet, for evangelical Christians, it doesn’t seem to matter.
Scott Fitzsimmons: You’re listening to All You Ever Wanted to Know. Scott Fitzsimmons talking with William Lane Craig from the website www.ReasonableFaith.org, and we’re going to be talking more with William Lane Craig about different issues that are troubling Christians today, shaking their faith. And we’re going to talk about some of the ways you can combat that right after this on All You Ever Wanted to Know.
[Break]
We’re back here on All You Ever Wanted to Know. Scott Fitzsimmons with William Lane Craig from ReasonableFaith.org. It is a website talking about how faith in Christ and faith in God is very reasonable to believe in, and we’re going to continue talking about that. You have had debates about the existence of God. Atheism is kind of tending to make a comeback in different ways and looking for ways to attack the Christian faith. One of the ways they’re talking about is the resurrection, or the accuracy of the account of the resurrection. What are some of the biggest questions that come to you about the resurrection of Christ?
Dr. Craig: Well, I think you’re quite right, Scott, in saying that there is a kind of backlash occurring now—the so-called New Atheism, represented by people like Dawkins and Harris and Dennett and Hitchens. Atheism has been on the retreat for some time now, and now they’re hitting back hard. But I find, frankly, that in the books that I’ve read by these folks, they do not interact in any sort of a detailed and intelligent way with the evidence. They seem to only know a kind of popular Christianity that is devoid of any sort of rational apologetic. And so, I don’t hear from these folks any significant attack on the resurrection of Jesus. Instead what you might hear is just sort of silliness such as, “Well, Jesus of Nazareth never even existed” or that “if he did exist you can’t know anything about him”—claims that would be rejected by the community of historians just out of court.[5]
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, one of the questions that has come to me is about the timeline of the resurrection of Christ, saying that it’s inaccurate; and without an accurate account or timeline of the resurrection, it really puts a kind of shakiness on the belief in the resurrection of Christ.
Dr. Craig: Alright, now, there are two claims there that we need to tease apart, because I think this is very important. The first claim is that there isn’t any kind of coherent timeline of events that is constructible. The second claim is that without such a timeline the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus becomes negligible. And I would want to first and foremost dispute that second claim. My arguments for the resurrection of Christ historically do not depend in any way on being able to reconstruct a detailed timeline of the events following the crucifixion. I see absolutely no reason to think that the historicity of the resurrection hinges or stands or falls on our ability to reconstruct an accurate timeline of the events.
Instead, I focus on three main facts that any historical hypothesis must account for. Number one is the discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb by a group of his women followers on the Sunday morning following his crucifixion. Number two is the appearances of Jesus alive after his death to various individuals and groups of people. And thirdly would be the fact that the earliest disciples, despite every predisposition to the contrary, suddenly and sincerely came to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead.
Now, those three facts represent the mainstream view of New Testament scholarship today. The majority of New Testament critics—not all, but the majority, in fact, the wide majority—would agree with the historicity of those three facts. And I think that the best explanation of those three facts is what the disciples said: God raised Jesus from the dead. And that piece doesn’t depend in any way upon being able to reconstruct a detailed timeline of the events of the resurrection.
Now, with respect to that timeline, however, I’d like to hear where the difficulty is supposed to be. I think that you can construct a timeline of the appearances, for example. It seems to me that they took place first in Jerusalem while the disciples were there for Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Then they returned to Galilee, and there were appearances in Galilee. And then they returned again to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost, and those were where the final appearances were. And I can give, I think, a very plausible timeline and order of the appearances, so I don’t think that’s a problem.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, taking a look at the accounts coming from the Gospels, some people start to question the reliability of the Gospels themselves.
Dr. Craig: Yes.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, what are some of the questions that people have where they question that?
Dr. Craig: Well, I think that the serious question would be whether or not these narratives of the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances, as well as the burial narrative, are early accounts very close to the events that they record, or are these later accounts that are decades and decades after the events so that legend and myth began to overlay the events, so that the original historical facts have been lost, and all we have now are these later legends? I think that would be the key issue for the historian to explore. And so, in my work what I focus on doing is showing how these accounts are based upon testimony and tradition that is very, very early and goes right back very close to the events that they describe.
Scott Fitzsimmons: You’re listening to All You Ever Wanted to Know. Scott Fitzsimmons talking with William Lane Craig from ReasonableFaith.org. That is the website, you can check it out. There are many great answers to questions that people put up there. How many questions would you say you get on a regular basis on that website?
Dr. Craig: Oh, I haven’t counted. We have a thing called Question of the Week, and every week a bunch of questions come in and then I try to pick one that I think will be of interest to many people that reflects some knowledge of my material on the website and that is on a variety of different topics.[6] But then in addition to that there’s the open forum on the website where anybody can contribute, and there’s just a bubbling pool of conversations on all sorts of different threads going on in that open forum constantly.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Well, I know that it’s good to have a place like that for people to ask the questions, because I find that’s a problem too is that people don’t want to ask the questions, maybe they’ve got these questions that they think are stupid questions or don’t think that they’re kind of on the same level. But having that ability for people to open up and maybe see some answers that they never thought about, that’s a good place to be.
Dr. Craig: Yeah, I think so too. It really gives people a chance to be open about things that are bothering them.
Scott Fitzsimmons: I know that one of the biggest questions I had, you know, growing up was the free will versus predestination, and do you find that people are still dealing with that issue?
Dr. Craig: Oh yeah, that is perennial, and I have a particular take on that that is interesting. It’s called Molinism, which I think is a viewpoint that is a kind of rapprochement between traditional Calvinism and contemporary Arminianism. And so, I am very enthusiastic about this Molinist perspective, and have exploited it to try to solve a number of theological problems, including predestination and providence and foreknowledge.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Dr. Craig: Right, it’s based on the idea that God knows not only everything that could happen and everything that will happen, but he also has knowledge of everything that would happen under any set of circumstances, so that he knows exactly what you, for example, Scott, would have done if you had been say, in Peter’s place as one of the 12 disciples, or if you had been the governor of Judea in Pontius Pilate’s place, or he knows what you would have done if you had been in Herod’s place or any other circumstances that you might imagine. God knows what any person would freely do in any set of circumstances in which God might place him. So, by arranging just the persons in just certain circumstances, God can bring it about that his purposes are achieved in human history through the free decisions of agents.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Wow, I had heard it different than that, but that is a very good example of free will there. I like that.
Dr. Craig: It’s not original with me, obviously, so I can say I think it’s brilliant. I think that Molina, who developed this idea—he was a 16th century counter reformer—I think he was just brilliant in his insights in developing this account of divine sovereignty and human freedom, which gives God sovereignty over human history, but without annihilating human freedom or turning us into puppets.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Well, I think the one thing that really hit me the most when I went to a theology class was I asked the question and the teacher said, “God does know, but knowledge isn’t causal. He’s created us to continue life, to continue doing these things with the free will.” And I think that was the first real answer that I was able to take with me and really kind of solidify that.
Dr. Craig: Yeah, I think that’s right. When you think that God’s knowing something in advance doesn’t have any kind of causal influence on the events, it’s hard to understand how his merely knowing about something could in any way constrain an event or remove human freedom. The theological fatalist, the person who thinks that God’s foreknowledge removes human freedom, is implying a non-causal constraint on human freedom that is just altogether unintelligible and mysterious.
Scott Fitzsimmons: That’s one of those things that sometimes we can’t understand, that kind of goes above our thought patterns. One of the things that some people can’t grasp is the Trinity—three in one, Jesus being fully God, yet fully man. Some of these things, along with time—God creating the universe outside of time, inside of time. I don’t truly grasp it, but that’s one of the questions that comes up often, isn’t it?
Dr. Craig: Oh yeah, and all three of those – the Trinity, the incarnation, divine eternity, and God’s relation to time – all three of those are handled in articles on the website.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Really? Very nice. That’s something that people will want to check out—ReasonableFaith.org is the website.[7] We’re talking with William Lane Craig and enjoying this conversation about the different topics that people are dealing with right now, shaking some of their faith, and we would like to kind of feed into that, to help them to understand better who God is. If you have questions, you can check out the website, ReasonableFaith.org. We’re going to be back with more with William Lane Craig right after this on All You Ever Wanted to Know.
[Break]
We’re back here on All You Ever Wanted to Know.Scott Fitzsimmons here with William Lane Craig of the website ReasonableFaith.org. You can find out a lot more about that, just go to the website, see some of the questions that people are asking—because they could be the exact same questions you are asking—and find some of the answers.
One of the reasons I brought you on here is that I really want people to hear that it is very reasonable for people to believe that Christ is the Son of God, that God created us, and there are answers to some of these questions that you have.
Dr. Craig: Yeah, absolutely, Scott. I am amazed at how some of the popularistic atheist writers today treat Christians as though they were intellectual morons and nincompoops, when in fact some of the finest philosophers, biblical scholars, and scientists today are outspoken Bible believing Christians. The idea that Christians are somehow intellectual losers or backward is just rooted in ignorance, and these so-called New Atheists like Dennett and Dawkins and Harris and others simply haven’t done their homework. They are not reading the best work that Christian scientists, philosophers, and historians are putting out.
Scott Fitzsimmons: It’s true. I know that as a Christian myself, and seeing a lot of different people that have read a lot, they’re reading mostly what their university professors are handing them. They’re not necessarily coming at it from both perspectives. A lot of people are kind of losing where their authority is coming from, and I know that that’s one thing that I’ve been talked to by my mentor here. He had said that it comes down to authority—who are you going to choose as your authority for your beliefs?
Dr. Craig: Yeah, now I would agree with that partly, Scott, in that I think ultimately our authority is God himself in his revealed word, in the Scriptures. But it’s not just a question of who your authority is. It’s also going to be a question of who are your teachers? Whom do you trust to teach you? And quite honestly, I mean, I have to say it candidly, that many non-Christian professors have an agenda-driven curriculum, and therefore, they will not assign Christian literature, they will not assign work by Christian philosophers, and so you don’t get a fair picture of an issue or scholarship on an issue many times in the university classroom. So, you have to be careful whom you pick as your teachers.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, when you are looking at some of your research, when you’re talking to people, who are some of the people that you look to as some of your teachers?
Dr. Craig: Right, well in the area of philosophy, for example, Alvin Plantinga is just a stellar light today. He is probably the world’s greatest living philosopher. I think he is a modern day Leibniz, and I consider it a privilege to be living and working at the same time that someone like Plantinga should be at work. In the field of New Testament studies, people like Craig Evans, Ben Witherington, N. T. Wright, John Meier, Dale Allison—all of these would be really top notch scholars that one would look to. In the area of the sciences, I would say people like George Ellis and Christopher Isham, those are folks in cosmology that I’ve looked to for guidance. I think Michael Denton in the whole area of evolutionary biology. Michael Behe, I think, is first rate. Those would be some of the people that I respect.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, one quick question there. Is evolution still something that people are still kind of taking a look at as a fact?
Dr. Craig: Oh yeah, this continues to be a pot boiler. People like Dawkins actually think that biological evolution disproves God. So, they’re using it as a, you know, war sword against theism, against God. And then on the other side you’ve got the whole creationist movement as well as the new intelligent design movement.[8] So, the whole issue is very much alive and a fermenting issue today.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, do you still debate on evolution at all?
Dr. Craig: I don’t personally, because I have a layman’s interest in it. But I think you really need to be an evolutionary biologist to speak authoritatively on this topic. So, I follow the debates with interest, and I do sometimes philosophically interact with the issues that arise. It’s striking, but very, very often I find, Scott, that the key issues in the debate will not be scientific, but will be philosophical—things about the nature and limits of science, for example. And then I do feel free to jump into the discussion.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Yeah, now, on a personal level, I’m sure you’ve got people around you that come to you asking these questions. What do you think is the most important thing for people to know? And this may be just reiterating what you said earlier, but what is the most important thing for people to take into mind when really looking at some of these questions?
Dr. Craig: Well, now that’s a huge question. But I guess I would say the most important and fundamental thing to know is the difference between knowing and showing your faith to be true. I think the fundamental way in which we know our faith to be true is through the self-authenticating inner-witness of God’s Holy Spirit. God himself is the ultimate foundation for our knowledge of the truth. But the way in which we show our faith to be true to someone else is to marshal arguments and evidence in favor of those truth claims. So, that distinction between knowing and showing, I think, is just absolutely fundamental, and one that we mustn’t lose sight of.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Now, you are going to be in Saskatchewan again, which I know a lot of people are very excited about. Coming up at the end of January you will be at the University of Saskatchewan. What are you going to be doing while you’re here?
Dr. Craig: Well, I’ll be giving some lectures. There may be a debate, but so far the topics haven’t been fixed yet. We’ve simply fixed the dates, but the details are not yet in concrete.
Scott Fitzsimmons: Alright, well thank you so much for talking with us. It’s been great to have you here, to learn from you, and I look forward to talking to you again.
Dr. Craig: Well, thanks, Scott. And if there is anybody that’s in the Saskatoon area, they can go to the website, ReasonableFaith.org, and click on the calendar, and as the date nears, more information about this will become available in terms of contact information and topics and so forth. That will be on the website, on the calendar page.
Scott Fitzsimmons: So, that’s ReasonableFaith.org. Thank you so much, William Lane Craig. Have yourself a wonderful day, and I look forward to talking to you again.
Dr. Craig: Thanks, Scott. Great to have been with you.
Scott Fitzsimmons: This has been All You Ever Wanted to Know. Thank you so much for listening to this special one-hour edition of All You Ever Wanted to Know. We’re going to be back again next week with another great list of guests on All You Ever Wanted to Know. Have yourselves a great day, and be blessed.[9]