Ask William Lane Craig Anything! on Unbelievable?

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome along to today's Premier unbelievable live I'm Justin Briley joined uh by my co-host Ruth Jackson and we'll introduce our special guest in just a moment's time but uh hello Ruth hi good job I have a microphone I don't need to shout well look we'll do what we always do and say um lots of people joining us here for today's live webinar but our special guest on today's show is of course William name Craig Christian philosopher author and founder of reasonable Faith a Ministry that engages Skeptics and equips Christians to understand and defend their faith he's been described as the one Christian apologist who seems to have put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists that was atheist Sam Harris and Billy is arguably the world's leading academic defender of Christian belief yeah bill has debated dozens of atheists and non-christians over the years and he's published over 50 books 200 peer-reviewed articles and this is an incredible fact his Kalam cosmological argument is the most studied argument for God in contemporary Western philosophy this live event is your opportunity to ask the William Lane Craig anything so do have a think about what questions or objections um you've got about your Christian faith that you find the most challenging or important absolutely now um You may be a Christian uh tuning in uh you may be not a non-Christian a skeptic we we would love to hear from everybody across the board uh do please submit your questions we will then filter some of those questions and select the ones that we're going to try and ask Bill but welcome along Bill how are you doing thank you very well I'm pleased to say it's good to be with you it's been a little while since we had you on the show normally obviously it's in our pre-recorded format uh probably uh probably I think it was back in lockdown the early days of lockdown that we had you on for a live show so it's been a little while that we've been able to do something like this with a with a live audience um tell us what you've been up to recently you've always got a new project some research on the go what's what's currently going on what is going on now is that for the last two years I have been working on my magnum opus which is a systematic philosophical Theology of the Christian religion uh I've been in this now for two years uh and every day I am writing uh and reading and working on the Systematic Theology it's become something of a Magnificent Obsession for me uh and and occupies almost all my time fantastic fantastic what what are some of um the highlights I mean looking back on your career Bill you've obviously turned your attention to many different areas of study but you've also been engaged in some fascinating encounters over the years are there any sort of particular highlights that come to mind did you think about some of the stages you've shared with well-known personalities both with and without faith well in terms of my academic work as a philosopher I have specialized on What's called the coherence of theism which is a philosophical study of the attributes of God and I think my study of divine eternity that is to say God's relationship to time and then Divine a sayati that is to say God's self-existence have been especially rewarding just uh profoundly Rich studies that have increased my understanding uh so much of who God is and what he's like and how he relates to our world so on the academic side I think those two areas stand out in terms of the speaking Ministry I have loved some of the uh tours that I have done of the UK debating at places like the Cambridge Union and the Oxford debating society as well as in London and various universities around the the nation it's it's just been one wonderful to have that sort of experience in Great Britain well we've so loved having you and Bill one of the questions we'd love to ask is around you know what do you think the current state of apologetics is in the church I guess with a Capital C because you do lots of stuff with lots of different churches I mean are you pleased with the way that the churches are engaging with the intellectual side of Faith would you say well I think there is a significant minority movement within the church today that is very interested in intellectually engaging with our culture and that is tremendously encouraging on the other hand I do think it still tends to be the minority I I think that for the average Christian he's just too preoccupied with his rebellious teenagers or a failing marriage or financial pressures or job and other worries to be much concerned about these intellectual questions and so so it's it's still difficult to motivate people to really become intellectually engaged with their faith I do get the sense though that for me just in the time that I've been running the unbelievable show and and the unbelievable show started really in in the Heyday of the new atheism it felt like the church was perhaps caught on the back foot by that very dogmatic antitheism that that movement represented and I do feel like Ministries like yours and others have really grown up in response to that so I think we're in you know there's a lot more General awareness at least of apologetics and an intellectual defense of faith and then there was let's say 15 to 20 years ago bill I don't know if that's your experience well and that's certainly true Justin in the Academy I was speaking in the queue in the church pew but in the academy oh my goodness the Renaissance of Christian philosophy and New Testament studies and uh physics and so forth has just been tremendously encouraging and my hope and prayer is that this will filter down to the man in the Pew in the coming generations and that he also will become more intellectually engaged with his faith and as you mentioned the the conferences um in apologetics that are often hosted today Premier has done several of these uh the attendance has been tremendous uh compared to 20 years ago so that is very encouraging yeah absolutely I I can't help but ask as well bill because it's such a wonderful feature of your background there's a skull on your on the shelf behind you um would you mind would you mind telling us or even bringing it down so you could tell us exactly what why there is this this hominid skull okay just a second it was just reaching for the skull now bringing it forward here it is my most recent book was in quest of the historical atom um and this is a life-size uh replica of the skull of homo heidelbergensis which was discovered at broken Hill Mine in Rhodesia and I identify Adam and Eve as being members of this species of homo heidelbergensis which lived around 750 000 years ago and so my wife Jan bought me this replica skull for my birthday last year and it is one of my favorite possessions oh well that's fantastic that's fantastic what a great artifact to have on the shelf behind you well we may get some questions about Adam and Eve which of course has been a major major part of your research in recent years Bill and and if anyone wants to go back in the archives you had a wonderful conversation with Joshua swamadas around the time that your book released on on that subject so so that's worth going and looking for um uh now we we should also mention uh that there's something very exciting that's just recently been launched by reasonable Faith it's called equip we're going to share a quick video of what it is and then we'll ask you about it bill so let's watch this trailer for equip [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you thank you [Music] well just before we hear more about equip I just want to say where some of you are all watching from we've got Singapore where apparently it's 4am so thank you so much for your commitment South Africa Munich Philippines France and we've got lots of people in the US England Scotland France Canada Sydney Finland I feel like we've got sort of almost every country represented but they'll do tell us more about equip because it sounds very exciting this is a program designed to train especially young people in the art of articulating and defending what they believe as Christians and these series of courses are based upon these very special uh zangmeister videos that we've developed at reasonable faith on various Arguments for the existence of God objections to theism the evidence for Jesus and objections to Christian exclusivism and we've developed seven of these courses so far based on these videos and they're layered so that the student will be gradually taken through these from one level to another and along the way he will take quizzes to test his comprehension of the material now nobody's grading you you're not gonna flunk out or anything like that but they are a measure to make sure that the student is grasping the material and so this is a way of trying to make this vast body of work that I've accumulated available to folks in a simple digestible way that is very usable that's fantastic I just love the way in which you know we we can use the internet in these ways and and it sounds like a really excellent wave of unpacking and going deeper with some of the the stuff that you've already obviously popularized so widely bill um right probably time that we started to to ask you a few questions Bill and they have been flooding in my goodness we we normally get a lot of questions but tonight we've got we've already got 72 questions well at nearly 100 actually if you include the ones that we've selected as well so so we're we're already well underway here but why don't we start with one that I I think you know is a good introductory questions Carter Yancey wants to know Bill many Christians are skeptical that Faith needs philosophy how would you explain to a Christian who's skeptical of philosophy why you think it is important why don't we start there yeah I think in virtue of being a Christian you are committed to certain philosophical Theses for example the existence of God the objectivity and the knowability of Truth the objectivity of moral values I would say the reality of the soul and life beyond the grave all of these are enormous and important philosophical commitments and they're part and parcel of the Christian faith so every Christian in virtue of being a Christian is a philosopher the only question is whether he's going to be a good one or not and so I think that all of us as part of Christian discipleship of being Learners of Jesus which is What disciple means need to love the Lord Our God with all our mind and to exercise our minds in the understanding of Christian and Doctrine right well I mean I feel like lots of people will resonate with this question here from Donald who says I have an adult son who is a deconstructed Christian he was formerly a strong Christian leader deeply engaged in Ministry and evangelism after college he began to ask questions that his religious spiritual peer group could not answer and over a period of time he reached a decision point that he claims to be materialist not believing in God Spiritual Beings or a human soul and he goes on to say please recommend an approach to begin a conversation on the reality of God and the resurrected Jesus and as I say Bill I feel like lots of people will have a similar experience where you're just not even knowing where to start that conversation with a former Christian deconstructed Christian yes well what a shame that he was looking to his peer group for guidance rather than to truth um and I would recommend my book on guard for a beginner which lays out the importance of the question of God and then gives a number of arguments as to why we should believe in a Transcendent personal uh Creator and designer of the universe who is the locus of absolute moral value and then it also gets into the subject of whether or not this Transcendent Creator and designer has revealed himself decisively in the person of Jesus so that would be a great place to begin if one wants to go deeper my book reasonable faith is then a more intermediate level to which one might graduate after doing on guard that's really helpful Bill thank you um here's an interesting question from John who says Dr Craig which argument used to defend Christianity do you find the weakest or even harmful and have you ever had to change your mind on an issue or an argument I it's not a question that often comes up normally it's what's the best one you know but but do you think have you heard bad ones that you were Jay no that's that's really not a good way of Defending Faith well I've certainly changed my mind on certain issues for example I once thought that the cosmological argument from contingency was not sound because it depended upon a very strong principle of sufficient reason that seemed to me to be self-defeating and it wasn't until I read Stephen Davis's defense of the contingency argument that I became persuaded that this in fact is a sound argument for God and have since defended it similarly I thought that the ontological argument was not a sound argument for God's existence so it was an attempt to define God into existence until I read Alvin Flanigan's nature of necessity and became convinced that this is um a sound and plausible argument for God's existence so yes I have changed my mind on certain key issues like that now the worst argument well I suppose I mean besides thinking of just utterly invalid or fallacious argument I would say the argument from fulfilled prophecy is one that is hard to make because you have to show that the prophecy was intended to speak of these events in the future uh and then you have to show that those events actually did historically occur in fulfillment of that prophecy and that's very difficult to do so I think the argument from fulfilled prophecy is one that is hard it's tougher to defend yes I suppose any argument as well can be formulated in ways that are better or worse and and so you inevitably get people who who make a real hash of what could be a you know if any good argument for God that is the lesson of the contingency argument or the ontological argument certainly there are in valid or unsound forms of those arguments but that doesn't mean that the core of the argument is incapable of being properly and cogently articulated well this might be an opportunity to hold up your skull bill so I'll just give you a pre-warning there this is a question from Sheila which I you know I would imagine again is echoed by lots of people she says here's a big one bill my husband believes that the Adam and Eve story is a myth he is a scientist however I can think of no better explanation of how sin entered the world assuming that creation was originally perfect than that so-called myth what do you think I think that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are quasi-mythical that is to say I think that they exhibit many of the characteristics of what folklorists and classes is called myth now I hasten to add that when I use that word I am not talking about myth and the popular sense of the word of a falsehood like the myth of the low calorie diet or the myth of the self-made man rather for classicist and folklorists myths are narratives that uh feature deities that attempt to ground the values and institutions in the author's Uh current Society in events in the Deep primordial past and certainly Genesis 1 to 11 is aimed at doing precisely that now it's characteristic of myth as a literary genre that it is full of figurative language or symbols that need not be taken literally and I think that's exactly what you find in Genesis 1 to 11 the starkest example of this is the description of God in Genesis 2 and 3 as some sort of a humanoid physical person walking in the cool of the day in the garden looking for Adam and Eve in the bushes this is clearly an anthropomorphic description of God whom the author of The pentateuch believes to be an incorporeal Transcendent being who in the beginning created the heavens and the Earth so I would agree with her husband uh that it is quasi-methical and that's not a threat to the truth of these narratives but I would add that it is mythohistorical the presence of the genealogies that transform these primeval stories into a primeval history uh showed that there is definitely a historical interest on the part of the author of The pentateuch and that just as he indisputably regarded Abraham and his descendants as historical so he thought that Abraham's ancestors were historical so I see Genesis 1-11 as an intriguing uh fascinating blend of myth and history real people real events but described in the figurative and metaphorical language of myth well let's stick with that theme because David Harris wants to ask um I recently read some sections of your new book on the historicity of Adam and really enjoyed it my question is as I rethink Genesis 1 to 11 I am moving away from a literalistic reading and this has led me to wonder how best to find meaning in these passages if a literalistic approach is not the best way and I agree with you on this and how do I read these well and what I have some resources you recommend to help me pursue the intended meaning of these passages I think what you need to ask yourself as you read the narratives is what is the theological point that the author of The pentateuch is trying to make for example clearly in chapter one the point is that the things of nature the stars and the planets the animals and the vegetation are not Gods nor infused with God rather they are just natural products that are the creation of the Transcendent creator of the universe um and so it results in a desacralized view of nature nature is not full of gods it's not a haunted house uh and therefore is open to rational exploration and Discovery so it struck me forcefully that the desacralization of nature that paved the way for modern science that is often credited to the pre-socratic Greek philosophers pride of place belongs to these Hebrew authors of Genesis 1 to 11 particularly Genesis 1 who enunciated a desacralized view of nature which is the natural product of this Transcendent Creator and so look to see what is the point that the author is trying to make let me give you an analogy that may be helpful Jesus Parables were not meant to be taken literally these were not historical stories they were stories that he made up to illustrate a point and I think in almost every case it's pretty obvious what the point of the parable is trying to teach you you read the parable and say what is it that Jesus is trying to teach by the story of the Good Samaritan uh or the story of The Prodigal Son and in the same way that you can see the central point that this Parable teaches even though it's not literal uh nevertheless I think you can do the same thing with Genesis 1 to 11 and see the central theological points that emerged there and I list 10 such points in my quest for the historical atom well there's another question on this topic and then perhaps we might take some from a slightly different route this is from James in Brighton and he says how can all humans be descended from Adam and bear the image of God considering the geographical fossil evidence of humanoids of humanoids being so widely distributed throughout the globe well this requires you to push the date of Adam and Eve very far into the past I mentioned that I identified Adam and Eve as members of the species homo Heidelberg enzas or Heidelberg man Heidelberg man was the common ancestor of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens he was the stem species from which neanderthals and Homo sapiens emerged so by placing Adam and Eve in the Deep past around 750 000 years ago that gives ample time for Heidelberg man to defuse throughout the world and indeed his skeletons are found throughout the world and he migrated into Africa into the Middle East and and Europe and in Africa evolved into Homo sapiens in Europe and Asia he evolved into neanderthals so that problem of geographical distribution is met by having a sufficiently early date for these persons one more question before we move on um and there's a fantastic amount of chat going on today very Lively in the chat this evening back and forth on the nature of Genesis as we've been talking it through bill um but but here's just one more from Jonathan who says I commend your book in quest for the historical atom as I believe this work was done with the utmost Integrity sincerity and objective scholarship my question is this has the content of that book made you question any other material within other works you've published would you change or adjust any material from past Publications yes thank you for that question it did cause me to revise uh one important view that I had as a result of my study of the resurrection of Jesus I concluded that physical human death is the result of sin uh and that it is because of the fall of Matt Adam that human beings are mortal and need the resurrection to solve that problem as a result of my study of the historical atom I came to the conclusion that that view is in fact wrong I think that Adam and Eve were created mortal just like any ordinary biological organisms they would have eventually died if they lived long enough in the garden and and evidence for that is the fact that if they were naturally Immortal there was no reason to have the Tree of Life In The Garden the tree of life was there because it was a sort of Fountain of Youth as it were that would continually rejuvenate them and when they fell into sin they were expelled from the garden precisely so that they wouldn't eat of the Tree of Life moreover you notice that When God says in the day you eat of it you will surely die and yet they don't drop over dead when they sin but they are immediately spiritually alienated and estranged from God and that suggests that the death spoken of there is spiritual death that ensues from sin not physical death and so when you go to the New Testament it's so interesting in Romans 5 Paul is talking about spiritual death and what is the remedy for Spiritual death it's justification and justification remedies spiritual death but in First Corinthians where he's talking about physical death what is the remedy for physical death it's not justification it's Resurrection from the dead so the resurrection remedies the mortality that we share and conquers physical death but the answer to spiritual death is not Resurrection it's justification um fantastic so that was a major change brilliant well let's move on I mean there may well be some more questions about Adam and Eve coming in but if we move just just a little bit and lots of people have been talking about artificial intelligence recently particularly chat to gbt we've got a question in here from Aaron which says do you find any utility in artificial intelligence such as chat gbt have you experimented with it much um but I guess yeah what what do you think about it Bill what's your opinion on artificial intelligence I I haven't um I prefer to do my own research uh rather than to ask some artificial intelligence I I think it can be useful when you want to know certain geographical facts or what's on the Telly or uh who's playing you know Manchester on the weekend or something but when it comes to really serious things I I don't think you should use it I I noticed that somebody actually reconstructed a debate through artificial intelligence between me and Richard Dawkins and when I read it I thought man if I did that bad I would be ashamed of myself against Richard Dawkins so I don't think this artificial intelligence was very intelligent at all well sticking without I mean one of the questions that I think this new technology and the fact that it does seem to have come up on in Leaps and Bounds in recent years has raised bills is whether we are approaching some sense in which technology itself computers and so on could in some sense become intelligent in the human sense in in having meaning and purpose and agency and and you know being able to associate ideas in a meaningful way do you think we'll ever get to that point where where there is a sort of human level Intelligence coming out I'm not equipped to say Justin uh I I my opinion wouldn't be worth anything on this because I am simply not expert on AI what what well here's a related question then one that I know you have thought about a bit more which is from Michael who says what bill is your theory of Consciousness specifically um Michael wants to know supervenience with regards to mental and physical properties and do near-death experiences affect your view of Consciousness at all I haven't been very persuaded by what I know about near-death experiences um but it seems to me that we want to say that the soul uh is the seat of Consciousness and is a substance distinct from the body if you say that the soul or Consciousness is merely supervenient upon the brain um then that is incompatible with mental causation because in that case all the causation is from physical brain state to physical brain State and conscious just rides along on the surface in a causally impotent way and so there is no mental causation for the same reason there is no freedom of the will because these mental states have no ability to do anything everything is determined physically by the brain States and the stimuli that they receive there would as a result be no moral agency either because the deterministic outcomes of brain states are not morally significant uh it's hard to explain intentionality on on this basis either that I have the ability to think about things that don't even exist so for all of these reasons I think it's very important to maintain that whatever the relationship between the mind and the brain the brain the mind is more than just a supervenient reality it can be correlated with brain States but um I don't think we could say that it's it's simply supervenient on them well Bill we've had quite a lot of questions understandably in a in an event like this around suffering and evil so I mean how would you approach the question of suffering if God is good if he exists why would he allow suffering I like to draw a distinction between the intellectual problem of suffering and the emotional problem of suffering the intellectual problem is how to reconcile the existence of an all-loving all-powerful god with the horrible evil and suffering in the world the emotional problem consists of how to dissolve people's dislike of a God who would allow them or others to suffer so and I'm persuaded Ruth as I talk to folks that for most people the problem of suffering is not really an intellectual problem they've never really thought about it deeply it's an emotional problem um and therefore needs to be resolved I think in an emotionally intellectually I would say that the problem of suffering and evil puts a burden of proof on the atheist shoulder that is so heavy that it is unsustainable The Atheist has to show that it is either impossible or highly improbable that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the suffering and evil we see and that involves probability judgments way beyond our ability to make with any sort of confidence so I don't think there is a good intellectual objection to the existence of an all-powerful and all-good God based on evil and suffering in the world now the emotional problem Still Remains however and there I would say that those who are going through terrible suffering need to meditate upon the cross of Christ when we meditate on the cross of Christ we see that God himself took upon himself in Christ incomprehensible suffering even though he was totally innocent and why did he do it because he loves us so much and so was willing to bear that suffering that we deserved as the punishment for our sins in order to redeem us and bring us into an eternal relationship with himself far more wonderful than we could ever think or imagine and I think when we think about the extent of his love and what he was willing to endure for us that can give us the emotional strength and courage to Bear the cross that God asks us to Bear during this finite human existence I'll ask a follow-up question to that bill um James asks well so first of all says thank you for your amazing commitment to upholding truth but James works with a youth group in a church in Brighton and says could you help me explain as simply as possible a response to their question why would God being all-powerful create a world with sin and suffering in it why allow so much pain and and perhaps this is another the question why not just skip straight to heaven why do we have to go through this veil of failure I think that the the second question provides the key to the first okay heaven is not something that God imposes upon people independently of their Free Will rather this world is a veil of decision making in which we are allowed to freely determine our own Eternal Destiny by freely choosing for God or against God and and so God isn't some kind of a Divine rapist who imposes himself upon us and therefore he cannot simply send everybody to Heaven which would violate their freedom of the will now what that means is that God has created a world at a certain epistemic distance from himself a certain arm's length from himself so that he doesn't overwhelm our free wills by his glory and power and I think Justin honestly it is not at all improbable that only in a world suffused with natural and moral evil would the optimal number of people freely come to know God and embrace his salvation and so I think God's overriding aiming human history is to bring as many people as possible into the kingdom of God freely uh with as little loss as possible and the doing that may well require permitting enormous amounts of suffering and evil in the world it's in such an interesting way of looking at it Bill I've heard something that sort of sounds similar that I think goes back to Alvin planting aware he talked about the fact that sometimes people object to you know that there are other possible worlds for instance where we could have had a world with slightly less suffering or something and God would still have you know been able to fulfill his purposes but I think planting his response to that was it's just possible that the a world in which Christ had to come in and die a sacrificial death demonstrating that the greatest possible love possible is the best of all possible worlds that we're actually living in despite the you know all the evidence that appears to be to the contrary the fact that it's a world which required Christ's sacrifice and the great good that that exists in and of itself is in fact an indicator that we may well be living in the best of all possible worlds because of what Christ has done in that sense planning is hypothesis is so interesting because on this view the self-sacrificial atoning death of Christ for our sins is an incommensurable good so that when you weigh different possible worlds against each other worlds that include this incommensurable good far outweigh these worlds without it now think about that in order for Christ to die for your sins the world has to be full of sin and therefore evil would be a concomitant automatically of the atoning death of Christ so that is really an interesting perspective and I think is one that is well worth consideration we're just on that before we move away from suffering because as I said there's lots of different questions around this Mark Bashir has said this loving parents don't want to see their children in pain so why did God allow Jesus to suffer so much because he loves us so much that the father and the son agreed that the son would bear the punishment for our sins so that we might be redeemed and come into this eternal love relationship with God one of the most popular bible verses is that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life so the atoning death of Christ is tremendous testimony to the self-sacrificial love of God and particularly for Jesus voluntary self-sacrifice for us bit more of a personal question bill because what you've described is obviously an important part of the Christian understanding of the gospel and what it means to to accept Christ um so you can if this if this prize too much into personal conversations feel free to say but but Keegan wants to know what was it like talking to Ben Shapiro a well-known talk show host who is Jewish himself by background especially in regards to the gospel I know that you obviously had an interview on Ben Shapiro's show bill um can you share anything about sort of what you felt how the conversation went and how I can say that I found him to be very congenial really a friendly uh casual fellow not at all self-important or presumptuous we really hit it off well and I noticed that when he started pressing me about the resurrection of Jesus and I started laying out the evidence he retreated very quickly and changed the subject uh which I thought was sort of interesting but I I greatly enjoyed our conversation Nation if I could ask one more sort of that's sort of in the realm of people who deal with apologetics online and that sort of thing you you've appeared on Cameron Bertucci's Channel a few times uh he he runs the capturing Christianity YouTube channel and uh and has spoken to many apologists over the years um Cameron is sort of the Justin brierley of the United States but maybe maybe I I wouldn't like to compare myself to the camera but anyway um well he's been on an interesting journey I don't know how much you're aware of this recently bill but he's he's recently converted to Catholicism um and there does appear to be says Marco A Renewed interest around protestantism and Catholicism and which one is a more faithful representation of Christianity well Marco isn't asking you to comment on on Cameron specifically but but I'll simply for you Bill what are your main reasons for being a Protestant rather than a Catholic I suppose the primary reason is that I take is my Authority for Christian doctrine scripture alone Sola scriptura um which was the watchword of the Reformation any Authority that is invested in the church or ecclesiastical tradition or even creedal statements seems to me to be derivative from the scriptures and so there are lots of accreted doctrines that I don't think are scriptural and that I couldn't believe in it even if I wanted to like the Ascension of Mary into heaven or marries Immaculate Conception that the Immaculate Conception was not that Jesus was born without sin but that was Mary was born without sin well there's no scriptural grounds for that so while I love and respect Catholic Brethren I I couldn't be one of them because I just don't believe those things Ruth do you want to take the next one yeah there's a really interesting question here from Justin Bennett who says as a former Christian now in agnostic atheist I've watched many of your debates and hold you in high regard as an excellent apologist and orator but one of the many things I could not reconcile as I was deconstructing was of all the the Creator Gods there are how could I continue to believe in Yahweh as the one true God how do you reconcile this outside of your own personal belief well I would say that the arguments for the existence of God that I've defended such as the contingency argument the Kalam cosmological argument the fine-tuning argument the moral argument narrow down the field of the world's religions to basically the great monotheistic faiths Judaism Christianity and Islam and perhaps deism but it excludes all of the polytheistic and pantheistic religion so if these arguments are correct then you're already down to about only four Alternatives now beyond that point Beyond a generic monotheism I think that you have to look at the person of Jesus of Nazareth and ask which religion gets Jesus of Nazareth right and clearly it's not Islam because Islam denies that Jesus of Nazareth was ever crucified that he ever died which is the one indisputable fact about the historical Jesus um Judaism I think is fine up until the point of Jesus but then it doesn't explain who Jesus was particularly the evidence for his radical personal claims and his resurrection from the dead if God really did raise Jesus from the dead then he is unequivocally Vindicated those radical personal claims for which he was crucified uh and that implies therefore that Jesus is the self-revelation of God and that rules out these other monotheistic faiths such as Judaism Islam and and deism so that in a nutshell would be the reason for preferring Christian theism and I I hope that um our listener that submitted this question will reconsider those arguments um with a view toward coming back to Christ I think we've got a number of people who are on different parts of the faith Spectrum watching and listening tonight Bill a mark for instance describes himself as a respectful and curious Doctor Who has been following your work for some time now now Mark says I am a theist and a medical doctor I've often heard stories of miraculous healings and other extraordinary events that are attributed to God's intervention however I've noticed that there seems to be an absence of such evidence in the scientific literature do you have any thoughts on why there seems to be a lack of empirical evidence for miracles bill you know this is really a controverted question I have a friend in Southampton Dr Peter May whom I know Justin knows well I'm going to quickly pin bill because we had pizza on the show just recently uh debating this very subject with Craig Keener who I'm sure you're aware right has been cataloging modern evidence for miracles and so they had quite the debate I can tell you on on that show but yeah I think for our doctor friend who submitted the question he needs to be aware that in order to be a Christian you do not need to believe in contemporary Miracles even if you think that Peter May is is wrong is overly skeptical there is absolutely no doubt that this man is a deeply committed Christian who loves Jesus Christ but he just doesn't think that God is in the business of doing the sort of Miracles today that were done through the ministry of his son Jesus of Nazareth so this is a question on which Christians are Liberty to disagree and if he is skeptical of modern Medical circles that's just fine if you don't mind me asking Bill where do you fall on that do you it's not necessary but I really hope Peter is not right here I don't want to tie God's hands and say you can't do this anymore Lord I want to be open to Miracles and yet on the other hand I I have to confess that there are a lot of really spurious Miracle claims and that many are poorly attested I expressed a moment ago some skepticism about near-death experiences for example so I'm I'm open-minded I'm ready to follow the evidence where it leads um but I I don't have a strong view okay well Bill you mentioned near-death experiences there but there's a question I guess kind of related to that um from gay Vivian who says Dr Craig can you tell me what happens to us when we die including the final Resurrection I can tell you what the Bible says um what it says is that when your physical body dies and decays yourself or soul that immaterial aspect of your being goes to be either with God if you are a regenerate uh and redeemed person or it goes into a situation of Separation uh from God and it will stay in that intermediate State until the end of the universe when God so to speak rolls up the scroll of human history and brings our space-time Continuum to an end and inaugurates the new heavens and a new Earth and it will be at that time at the end of the age that the dead will be raised uh and that they will be reunited with an immortal Everlasting uh Supernatural spiritual body uh and then taken into the new heavens and the new Earth if they are indeed children of God or separated from God forever Bill we we are rapidly approaching the end of our time and you've answered all these questions so well and that you haven't seen any of these in advance of course so thank you for for the excellent job you're doing and this is a just maybe finishing with a couple of slightly lighter ones because we've done some deep thinking today um Zoe has a question if you could have a coffee and a chat with anyone from the Bible except for Jesus who would you choose and why most certainly Paul I am in awe of the Apostle Paul this man was a genius a brilliant thinker and moreover what a soldier what a brave man when you think of how he was stoned and whipped and beaten and yet every time would get up and go on to the next city and proclaim the gospel I I'm just in awe of someone with this kind of courage and perseverance so I would love to sit down with the Apostle Paul and have a coffee yeah so it would be his first time having coffee I imagine as he as he lived 2000 years ago but maybe he'll get to experience it in the in the new creation um well it's been fascinating maybe with time for one more and I wonder if I can just put this last one to you because you you were in a sense of devoted your life to um to making the case for Faith for a new generation of Christians today and indeed Skeptics who are interested in inquiries but Andy wants to say I'm a full-time Pastor Bill with five young children what advice do you have for parenting while also serving in full-time Ministry which as you know can be very challenging I want my kids to know and love Jesus and love and belong to a local church as adults any advice from yourself as a as a father yourself Bill yes what I want to say to our fathers out there is that you fathers need to take ownership of instructing your children in Christian doctrine and apologetics very simply at first from a young age but then with increasing depth as they grow older do not leave this to Mom or to the Sunday School to to do the image of a male figure a loving but authoritative father committed to the truth of Christian doctrine and screening his children has a tremendous and I think life lasting impact upon those kids so start early and and you fathers take responsibility for doing this one tool that we've tried to develop for doing this is our cartoon booklets called what is God like featuring brown bear and Red Goose who teach their little children uh the attributes of God what God is like and it is a great way to start a conversation with your kids about things like God's being all-knowing or being Eternal or all-powerful or what happens when you die so those are our attempt to provide some tools for uh young children to be begin their training very early fantastic well that probably does draw our time to a close thank you so much bill for taking on all of those questions I hope that if your question didn't get answered well don't worry because um you can always submit questions uh to Bill's own website there's lots of opportunities to engage with Bill and of course you should go and read some of the many books that he's written as well Bill thank you so much for being our guest on the show today it was my pleasure [Music]

Channel: ReasonableFaithOrg

Views: 24,893

Keywords: William Lane Craig, Apologetics, Christianity, Faith, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Philosophy, Theology, Science, History, Cosmology, Kalam, Reason, Logic, Existence of God

Id: mAjHqGqmCCQ

Length: 54min 23sec (3263 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 12 2023