Panel Q&A | Worldview Apologetics Conference 2017

[Music] hi um my question is kind of specific I was in a recent conversation with a Jehovah's Witness and he surprised me with a bit of doctrine that I didn't know they believed he told me that they didn't believe that Jesus was actually raised bodily but just in spirit so then I pointed him to the end of Luke where he came and ate with his disciples and they touched his hands and he at that point said well Jesus didn't raised bodily he just rima t realized as a spirit and he put on a body at that point and then he pointed me to Genesis 18 where Abraham sat with three angels and they ate with him and I was wondering how you might answer that any of you [Laughter] the official teaching on Jesus by the by the Watchtower Bible and tract society is is correct in the sense that Jesus rose invisibly as a spirit they believed that he returned to Brooklyn New York in 1914 invisibly to head up the Watchtower Bible and tract society which the Jehovah's Witnesses consider the theocratic kingdom of God on earth which is why they will not pledge their allegiance to a particular country or nationality because they believe they are living under God's theocratic kingdom that Jesus literally runs the watchtower organization as an invisible spirit from Brooklyn New York today obviously as Christians who believe in a bodily resurrection we would have a number of disagreements with that teaching and and I think one of the ways that we can talk to Joe is witnesses is to talk about some of the historical arguments that we have to believe in a physical material resurrection of Christ physical bodily ascension into heaven that's the testimony of the early church and the overwhelmingly compelling evidence in regards to that so I don't know if anybody has anything to add on that point I my game plan was to come up here and basically defer to dr. Craig on everything so if this is how this is going to be word trouble here guys all right hi my name is Josiah donkey and I have a question about moral relativism so there I have a couple of friends that have been understanding that there is such a thing as objective truth but because we don't actually know what that objective truth is then therefore we can't force our opinions upon other people I was just wondering if you had any comments on that can you can restate exactly the last part again for me you said yes somebody says there's no such thing as moral truth but it has a problem with forcing the moral truths on people yes so more there is such a thing as objective truth they claim but because we as finite beings do not owe because we as finite beings don't actually know what that objective truth is then therefore we can't actually decide I guess I would have a cup of questions I'd say how there's a difference between the truth you want to make and how you want to interact with somebody those are not always the same thing so somebody says there's an objective moral truth but we can't know it I simply want to know how that person knows that and I don't mean that in a trite way I'd simply say how do you know that there's an objective moral standard that's out there and that we as human beings aren't capable of knowing it I would simply want to know and then I would point out examples I would say I think there are certain moral things that we simply know and we know that we know them and you got to kind of take the most extreme example that the person is going to agree with and say so let me ask you a question is it wrong to torture an innocent child for fun and you have to add the fun because someone's going to say well there's nuclear bomb okay fine is it wrong to torture an innocent child for fun and most people are going to say yes and I think dr. Craig is right if somebody says I'm not sure about that that person doesn't need an argument that person needs a therapist so one ways to take what's called the particular position just say you know what there is right and wrong and you know there's right and wrong and by the way if somebody says you shouldn't force your morals upon somebody else something great cocoa has taught me he'll ask the question back is that your morality and the person has to say yes so if it's your morality that we shouldn't force our morals upon somebody else why are you trying to force that moral principle upon me it simply self destructs when you ask a few questions and probe further ok so I had a question about the Kalam cosmological argument I want to get a better idea of what you mean by a beginning because norm yet normally when I think of a beginning I think of an entity which at some point in time didn't exist and then at some point it comes into existence and that's its beginning but I'm not sure if that if there's it that's the sense in which the universe could have a beginning because the there can't be a time in which the universe didn't exist because time is part of the universe so I was hoping to get clarification on that very good this is one of the tools of philosophy conceptual analysis to analyze what it means to begin to exist for example and intuitively a common-sense view would be well X begins to exist if it exists at a time T and there was a time T prime earlier than that at which it did not exist and that would seem to be a common-sense notion it begins to exist except when you apply it to time itself it would make it impossible for time to begin to exist wouldn't it because if time began to exist there would have to be a time before which time began to exist which is contradictory and yet cosmologists do think that began to exist and they're not uttering an incoherent so we need a more nuanced definition of what it is to begin to exist and here's one that I would suggest is X begins to exist at t if X exists at T and there is no time T Prime earlier than T at which X exists X exists at T and there is no time earlier than T at which X exists and that would allow time in the universe to have a beginning because there is no time earlier than that time at which the universe existed so where you put the negation in the sentence is critical in terms of having a coherent definition of begins to exist okay my questions for dr. Craig as well having to do with the cosmological argument for God's existence I've heard a response to that online basically being that is basically our philosophical concept of time that we have a linear timeline on how we see things but what about how would you respond to somebody that might bring up the B theory of time where time is more of just an illusion and it's just like more of a state of flux in the universe rather than an actual linear progression of events how would that fit the argument how would you respond to that with anybody who has to dismiss fundamental elements of our experience as illusions needs to have a very powerful argument in order to defeat what we sense and experience cosmology is based upon the assumption that the universe has a history that it has evolved over time that if you trace the expansion of the universe back in time far enough you come to a beginning and it would require a very powerful argument to say that time is an illusion that would be rather like saying that my sensory experience of the external world is all an illusion that maybe I'm just a brain-in-a-vat and there is no external world and I everything I think is just in the illusion of my consciousness that would require an extremely powerful argument in order to defeat my sensory experience of the external world and the evidence or the experience of the reality of time I think is even stronger than my experience of the external world because not only do I have an experience of temporal passage in the external world but there is also temporal passage in the inner world of the mind as I experienced a succession of contents of consciousness one thought after another so the person who says that temporal passage is illusory is having to defeat not only my apprehension of the external world but even my apprehension of the contents of consciousness in the inner world of the mind and there is no such defeater there is no argument that could be offered to show that these are all the losery and therefore you're perfectly justified with going what your senses and science tell you that there is an objective linear temporal process going on both in the world around you as well as in your thought life hello my question is regarding the LGBTQ movement that is spreading across and as you know we have that florist here locally who is was sued for not agreeing to arrange flowers for a gay wedding um I guess my question is is that as Christians we approach the issue in a Christian worldview as of as for the non-christian world you'd approach it in a secular worldview so I guess my question is how do you bridge the gap in which when you're discussing issues in these matters that they realize that you are looking at it in a Christian kind of perspective and they want that separation of kind of church and state kind of issue that plays into it where we can't legislate laws that are you know religiously kind of loaded I guess in that sense so how how as Christians we navigate that in terms of you know representatives and laws that are being passed and it seems like we're kind of losing the culture war in that sense because since they find out that you're a Christian then you're automatically bigoted or prejudice and the conversations need to just stop right there when it can't seem to continue once they really slap that label on I'll assume since I did a session on same-sex marriage that question was for me I think there was two kind of questions at play here one is how personally do we do this and second how do we pass laws and how far should we take legislation those are distinct questions and I would say that even if I were not a Christian I would still be a supporter of natural marriage I would be because the nature of what a marriage is by looking at objective reality by kids needing a mom and a dad looking at the function in society in which marriage has played and should play for the better part of society actually would be in favor of natural marriage even if I were not a Christian now with that said when it comes to laws every single law legislate some morality every law does so sometimes they'll point Christians say we shouldn't legislate morality every single law legislate some morality the question is what law is going to be legislated and why so when it comes to things like same-sex marriage we have to make our case without appealing to the Scriptures I think people have done that and if we lose the laws we lose the laws we have to do our best but it doesn't mean we stop trying or we just point to the Scriptures in defense of those I think the larger culture though hasn't been lost because of people made better apologetic arguments on the other side I think they told better stories I think Joe Biden was right and you're not going to hear me quote Joe Biden a lot to be honest but he was right he said you referred to Will and Grace as having more influence on the same-sex marriage debate than anything else so one thing we need to do as Christians we absolutely have to keep doing apologetics but we have to tell better stories about marriage we have to tell better stories about parenting we have to be able to capture the imagination so people are open to the mind so when it comes to relationships this is why I think relationships are so important you said the view of Christians is that we're bigoted hateful and homophobic people see that in the media all the time but I think one way we can turn that so people are open to the gospel is when people hear that and they have a relationship with someone like each one of us here and they hear Christians are hateful their first thought is gosh and my neighbor Larry's not he's gracious he's kind he sees the world differently but he loves me that's when I think we win a hearing back so relationships have always been important but now the time it's more important than ever now with that said last thing is one of the strategies of the revisionist side is to build relationships with people so they see that gays are just normal people they're not ruining the country and they'll change their theology so what we need to do is absolutely have relationships with people not just convert them but to love them as human beings but we better know our theology well we better know how to think about marriage and not just point to Genesis 1 it's important that is but be able to make a case for natural marriage and my experience very few people today even know why marriage matters for society well no wonder just don't stand up and speak boldly about it we haven't fought deeply enough about it so keep speaking truth tell better stories and build relationships with people is I think some of the most important things we needed a movement forward I have a question thank you my question is about free will and predetermine ISM specifically as it per talks about Judas did he have the choice to not betray Jesus or was his life be determined and I say it because you just said it would be better for him to not to not have been born [Laughter] Judis right not Jesus Judas is the question because Jesus predicted the betrayal of Judas that therefore Judas was fated to betray him and had no free will yes okay I can speak to that I did some work on divine foreknowledge and human freedom and it seems to me that divine foreknowledge is entirely compatible with freedom of the will it's logically fallacious to say necessarily if god foreknows X then X will happen god foreknows x therefore necessarily X will happen that commits a logical fallacy and modal logic from the two premises necessarily if God for knows X X will happen and God for knows X what follows is merely that X will happen but not that X will happen necessarily X could fail to happen but if it were to fail to happen then God would have for known something else instead so the fact that God for knows or Jesus predicted Judas's betrayal in no way Rob's Judas of his free will Judas could have done otherwise but if he were to do otherwise Jesus would have predicted something else instead all right next okay so that's that's me that I just have maybe seven questions oh no I just wanted to ask you questions but I wanted to make I wanted to make it I wanted to make a quick observation of a scripture that since it was a little Thailand on one of the questions in regards to the Jehovah Witness if you go to Luke twenty-fourth chapter and verse 36 it says this is where Jesus appears to the disciples as we're talking about these things Jesus himself stood among them and said to them peace to you but they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit that's exactly what all the Jehovah Witnesses are saying all in all they only saw a spirit there is this he's a spirit creature he's got a bottle of Foreman stuff but if you go on and read just another couple verses or the whole paragraph and Jesus said why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your heart see my hands and my feet that it is myself touch me and see for spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have and when he had said this he showed them his hands and his feet and while they were disbelieving for joy and we're marveling he said to them have you anything to eat here to eat so I think that kind of answers that question a little bit and I have one question each for the Craigs one is what is the necessity for you to believe in Old Earth what is the necessity for you to believe that there's Old Earth rather than a young earth and that's what is the necessity yeah a lot of just said that the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports the idea that the earth is very ancient and that there's nothing in the Bible that requires you to believe otherwise I think that when you read the Genesis narrative from the standpoint of an ancient Hebrew author there are actually indications in the text itself that it doesn't think that this is a literal week of consecutive 24-hour days and so I think the Bible gives you the freedom to follow the scientific evidence where it leads which is that the world is indeed very ancient when you think that we can see the stars that very simple fact that you can see these stars billions of light years away shows how ancient the universe is the person who thinks the world was created a few thousand years ago would have to say God not only created the stars in the earth but he created the star light the star beam in between the star and the earth so that it would hit our retinas and we would have the illusion of seeing these distant objects and that is so ad-hoc and artificial it strikes me as far more plausible to think that these distant objects have emitted this light it's come to us and now we see them and that therefore the universe is very interesting I would love to argue but for the other Craig I've noticed that you had mentioned something about that a good Jew that would not go to a cemetery and be there at night and stuff so I was wondering what you had to say in regards to at the tomb there were the guards that were guarding the tomb and of course they were Roman but what they're also temple guards or just the seal over that or what no indication that they were temple guards my point is that the presentation and the gospel of Peter which i think is a exaggerated fictional account very overt apologetic efforts composed in the middle at the earliest the middle of the second century was just to increase the male witnesses and hostile witnesses for apologetic purposes because that is precisely what Kelso's complains about at the end of the second century is that the witnesses the resurrection or hysterical women and that a more convincing story would have the resurrected Jesus appearing to his enemies and the men the gospel peter is answering that very objection and so but does so clumsily doesn't really know who is the who is in command of Judea and Jerusalem isn't aware that to say that Jewish elders would spend the night in the cemetery doesn't is not aware of the of the fear of ghosts and uncleanness and how that would be most unlikely now trained soldiers under command that's another matter even if they happen to be Jewish not necessarily Roman that's another matter it's like police officers they face danger but no no Jewish scribe no Jewish elder is going to spend the night the author of the Gospel Peter isn't even clear on the chronology which night are we talking about Friday night Saturday night he's not clear I don't I don't know if he even knows there's more than one night so that's my whole point the author of the gospel of Peter the way he tells the story doesn't know Jewish tradition customs sensitivities doesn't really know the Jewish realities of burial tradition and so forth and is driven entirely by a mid-second century apologetic to gussy up the story a little bit and make it more convincing as he thinks it needs to be made okay thank you my question is primarily for dr. Shawn del I have known a number a handful of homosexuals primarily lesbians and I've been good friends with several of them and one of them is an active Christian she's actively pursuing God and she's fighting these feelings that she has and she described to me once that she feels it is something that she had no choice over that it wasn't something she chose or that spontaneously arose it was just a part of her and so I'm curious what what encouragement you give for other people struggling with that same feeling as Christians and what you would recommend how to approach that in from non-christians when they present the same viewpoint of themselves yeah that's a great question thank you for asking that I would say that I really don't believe people simply choose to have same-sex attraction I believe many of my gay friends Christian or non-christian who will say I didn't ask for this in fact I would have it taken away in a heartbeat if I could I find no reason to question I think that's very sincere on the flip side even the APA would say we don't know what causes same-sex attraction we don't know it's probably some combination of nature and nurture and there's probably very different kinds of things that can cause it to be in somebody in different ways than it is from somebody else now as Christians we kind of have a cause that's called original sin that all of us are born with different desires and attractions that we didn't ask for and we don't want and the question is what are we going to do with them so I found in many conversations I'll say look I believe you that you didn't didn't ask for this and the question is what are we going to do with this so I found a lot of times especially on this issue I'll spend more time listening than I do talking I'll just say tell me your story when did you first come to with same-sex attraction how would people treat you when you came across same-sex traction what are some helpful things people did what are some unhelpful things that if people have done because I think studies shown there's just a lot of hurt that's involved around this question personally and corporately that carving some of that away just to have space to talk and be real it's helpful with people now what I would do is because I don't have same-sex attraction I'm not going to pretend go I've heard people say oh man I've been attracted to this I totally know what you mean well I don't think you do I've had some of my gay friend say no say you cannot understand what it's like to have same-sex attraction because of the nature of this if you don't have it I'll say fine I I concede that but I know some Christians who are faithful and who are single amidst this and I want to introduce you to them if you're open to them people like Christopher yuan from Moody Bible College and he's writing a book on singleness and being a Christian people like edgehog who's written a book called same-sex attraction in the church because a lot of the a lot of same-sex desires are rooted in deep in Porsha important human needs that we have for affection to be cared for for love these are good natural desires in a sense that all of us have the question is how can this person begin to have those deeper relational needs met in a healthy way that's honoring with what the scripture teaches so people like the book by Ed Shaw thinks extraction the church and Christopher yuan can be a model for many of these people struggling with this who want to live out their faith faithfully in terms of what Jesus taught and finding help from other Christians and I'd also encourage that person I'd say let me find some other Christians around here that struggle with same-sex attraction you can identify them you will understand them and find kind of a solidarity that will help help those people through the difficult questions that you're asking hello this question is for a William Lane Craig so when you're talking about the problem of evil and suffering if you make the assumption that freewill does not exist how would you go about approaching that problem if if we make what assumption that freewill does not exist oh I'll leave that up to the Calvinists that's a huge problem it seems to me that in the absence of freewill it's almost inevitable that you make God the author of sin and and the author of evil which I regard as unconscionable and unacceptable so for me through free will is a non-negotiable and I don't I think the reformed thinkers are going to be very very hard pressed to have any kind of acceptable solution to the problem of evil without the will not make God the author of evil and sin it's dr. Craig last night you you opened up that can of worms about the the billions versus millions of years and since this is an apologetics conference I wanted to give you an opportunity to make a defense in light of Scripture and I appreciate the fact that the Christian brethren can have disagreements on this issue and it's certainly not a Salvation issue so I'll make that clear but but I do think it has some real importance and you know would go to mark chapter 10 where Jesus is making a case against divorce and in doing so he makes the statement that have you not read that God made Adam and Eve and marriage at the beginning of the creation his point being that because it was foundational to everything God was about that that's why you shouldn't get divorced nevertheless he makes this point about creation that he made Adam and Eve in marriage at the beginning of the creation so given that statement by Jesus did God create Adam and Eve in marriage 14 billion years after the beginning of the creation or did he create Adam and Eve in marriage within six days of the beginning of the creation and that's really for all of you not just dr. Craig I don't think Jesus does say at the beginning of creation in that passage he says that from the beginning it has not always been so God made them male and female etc and he could be talking about the beginning of the book of Genesis or the beginning of the human race I think you're trying to freight this single verse with an enormous amount of theological weight that it simply doesn't bear let me give a plug for something some of you I know are very interested because you've asked me outside of this on the age of the earth in a particular dr. Craig's we have creation he has two weekly podcasts if you don't listen to him you need to listen to him one is reasonable faith where he answers questions like this live the second one is the defenders Sunday school class that he teaches and he spent I don't know how many weeks 20-some weeks on creation going step by step through the different views I listened to it twice super helpful you might disagree with him when it's all sin done but he lays out carefully all the different views critiques them and really fair this is a question I'd go back to the defenders class look at a series on creation I'm sure it's in the feed or on its website well worth the time to go back and wrestle through that defenders class and then the other one is just reasonable faith right I'm giving you a series plus do you active no really are sure how that was any kind right that defenders is my weekly Sunday School class in Christian doctrine and apologetics and there is a section called doctrine of Kriya nation and there's an ex cursus on creation evolution where we look at the opening chapter of Genesis and discuss about nine different interpretations of this and assess their strengths and weaknesses including the literal interpretation and others and so this is a an open question I think among Christians and not one frankly that ought to occupy our time here at a conference like this which should I think be occupied more in commending our faith in a secular culture than our doing amongst ourselves hello gentlemen over here so it's kind of a newer Christian I and just I kind of lean towards just my personal personality I lean towards humanism want to be more right improved argument and less so much about carrying the person and it's been a struggle as me trying to mature as a Christian and trying to love the person on the other side and then also kind of gaining reasons for my my faith and trying to love them and also serve them at the same time and also try to explain what I believe in how do you kind of temper your your I mean definite passion towards like I know I'm in I know I'm in the right but more so still want to take care of the person and and try to balance that out hopefully that makes sense well you know in the last session I just taught I really stressed to the group that was their first Peter 3:15 Peters admonition is he calls us to be ready always to give the answer to anyone who lasts us for the reason for the hope that we have all right that first assumes that they're recognizing a difference about our lives that there is some hope within us that they're asking us about but then when they ask us about our hope were to be ready and equipped to give them a reasonable answer for why we believe what we believe as Christians but the second half of that verse is as important as the first half Peter goes on he says in do with gentleness and respect and especially in our post-christian culture today that that piece is so important in our apologetic evangelistic efforts as Christians it's one thing my dad used to always tell me it's one thing to win the intellectual battle it's another thing to potentially lose the war for a person's heart and you can equip yourself with the best apologetic arguments here's the thing we can win the debate friends the truth is on our site so if you study enough and you educate yourself enough you can you know you can become the greatest debater and win every argument out there but if you walk away from that encounter and the person thinks man what a jerk that guy was right they're not going to care how smart you were or how many answers you have and so as Christians I think that's really a paramount importance for us to balance our our truth with our grace and our love I think Shawn's answer earlier record em instating that you care enough to hear about their concerns of the person to hear you know what's your background where are some of their concerns and questions coming from and then and then to respond again with reasonable answers in a very gracious and compassionate way that's a powerful apologetic approach I have a question based on your dr. Craig your lecture this morning on good and evil and suffering sorry it was on suffering and evil and you kind of cited that butterfly butterfly effect right which was that the vast complexity of events it's hard from our limited perspective to see what what a situation causes or what situations right are suffering and what that causes and kind of that vast complexity of God's kind of intelligence with design and I wanted to know how you would relate that to the concept of dualism there are the culture of subdue illusion of dualism so so there's there's an idea that the creation of that concept the creation of the separation between good and evil is is what caused that or is there the concept of it is what is what causes the wrist is what causes sin so so I'm kind of wondering if you or what I've heard that do you believe that that perfection of the kingdom of God is an understanding of the world view without dualism with with a trust in God grand design or do you believe that basically that that you have to make absent what is evil like you have you have to have that separation between God and evil okay I think you're reading things into what I said that aren't there if I understand your question my only point was that when people say that because this evil has entered my life and I don't see any point in it that therefore probably God doesn't have a morally sufficient reason for allowing that and my point was that we're simply not in a position to make those kind of probability judgments with any sort of confidence because God is providentially or during history so that the his ultimate ends are achieved through human free decisions and he might allow an incident of suffering into my life because 300 years from now a Mexican peasant will come to Christ and find eternal life as a result of the ripple effect descends through history it seems to me to be just so obvious that we are not in a position to make these kind of probability judgments with any confidence and that therefore the Atheist is not justified in saying God probably doesn't have morally sufficient reasons for allowing the evil and suffering in the world and it doesn't have anything to do with dualism it just has to do with our limited insight and intelligence our confinement to a brief time of space and history that prevents us from being able to May these kind of probability judgments dr. Gregg you get to be popular today so I recently used the moral argument in a conversation I had with an old friend of mine and it seems to me that there are effectively there's an additional part to it to the argument where well let me let me just get straight to my question but the first premise of the argument is that if God does not exist then objective moral values and duties do not exist and I had trouble when he challenged that well how do you what do you mean how can that be and I had trouble articulating a response to that the second one you know I'm pretty clear on your advice on how to implement you know come up with examples to demonstrate but the first one I wondered if you had any any suggestions on that and oh I remember the first part of what I was going to say was that the first challenge which you do take care of in your animated short is that you're not saying atheists are immoral you're saying they don't have a foundation yet for morality so you have to take some time to explain that and that usually takes a few minutes but I had a little bit of trouble on defending the first premise right the question then concerns an argument for God's existence that we haven't presented at this conference called the moral argument which basically goes one if God does not exist objective moral values and duties do not exist two but objective moral values and duties do exist 3 therefore God exists and the question is how do you defend that first premise that if God does not exist than objective moral values and duties do not exist well what's key here is the word of objective objective is defined as independent of human opinion and if you don't have God to be the transcendent anchor of good and evil right and wrong then it would seem that you are dependent simply upon socio-cultural evolution of values in human societies and that there is no objectivity to that because there is no transcendent ground moral values would just be the biological spin-offs of evolution and the influence of social conditioning so that for example just as South sacrificial and even altruistic behavior can be observed among social animals like a troop of baboons so natural selection is programmed into Homo sapiens a sort of herd morality which functions well in the perpetuation of our species in the struggle for survival but there's nothing that makes this morality objectively binding and true if you were to rewind the film of human evolution and shoot it all over again a very different sort of creature might even evolve with a very different set of moral values and for me to say well our values are the ones that are true and binding and yours are not would be example of specie is 'm and unjustified bias in favor of your own species so it's just in a sense an invitation to ask your partner in conversation if you deny that god exists as the transcendent ground for moral housing duties what do you propose to replace it him well what is the basis then for objective mind independent moral values and duties and I think he'll be very hard-pressed to come up with anything hi my question is for Doug I have a question about the great works than this um I believe you said something about like Greg works are not like do miracle which I believe but what is then what is great works then or what do you consider as great work and biblically speaking okay is this long okay so yeah so I was saying that on one view the most natural reading of the passage in John 14:12 is that these are miracles speaking of Jesus miracles and it would follow from that then the greater works would be greater miracles and but that's not a natural reading of greater miracles because it would be very difficult to outmatch Jesus with regard to the miracles so now the question then becomes well then what are the works and and that's what you're asking right what are they well one I mentioned a couple of things one is the works of the work of preaching the word that when Jesus did the work the works of the Father that he was commanded to do it included his proclamation of the of the kingdom of heaven that had come and so I put in there the preaching of the word and actually continuing the preaching that Jesus did after he leaves the earth and goes to the Father he makes direct reference to the father when he says because I go to the Father Jesus has come to the earth by the will of the Father and he has done the will of the Father in proclaiming the kingdom of heaven and he says now I'm leaving okay so now who's going to do this well you are so that's part of your work is to carry on the work that I've done and it doesn't make direct reference to miracles as any kind of necessities now why is it greater that might be your your real question is so what's greater about what they do well I do think that the spread of the word is much greater and it's greater through through the power of the Holy Spirit but through an initial nucleus of followers of Jesus Christ and so there is a greater effect in terms of the numbers who believe but not in terms of the numbers of miracles or the difference in quality of miracle or type so I think that's a big part of it is and illustrated by what happens shortly after Jesus returns bodily from the grave and before his ascension promises what's going to happen what they're going to do and it's again it's this Proclamation they're going to disseminate the truth worldwide that's a pretty big task and so that's a great work that they're going to do and it's inaugurated in in actual concrete events at Pentecost when Peter preaches and so many believe and that brings me then to the second part of what could be included in the scope of a work if you're believing itself as a work because and then I mentioned the idea of Paul that there is the obedience of faith and so exercising faith is itself a work and so they're evoking that in their preaching appealing to others to believe as well and that is an extension of the work of Jesus Christ so they do the same things but there's an extension of what he does and that's the sense in which it's greater now none of this precludes the actual occurrence of miracles or their performance of miracles of course because if you look at the book of Acts you see them doing many of the same things but you don't see them doing greater works in the miracle sense in the book of Acts and if you want to know what the greater works are Acts is the place to turn for the answer to that question not to something that's self proclaimed apostles and prophets are saying about their own acts 2,000 years later after what they call a hiatus in miraculous events hi this question is for dr. Craig and it has to do with I'm curious what impact have you found the ontological argument to have with atheists that you've come in contact with and the background is when I've talked to atheists and presented to them the ontological argument as a what do you think about this what impact does this have on you they kind of give me a blank stare as a well you you're a believer so that would make sense to you but that doesn't have any impact on me and even I was listening last year I think Alvin Plantinga was interviewed on Justin brierly's unbelievable and Justin brierley asked him that what do you think about the ontological argument and as a persuasive method and he basically swatted it away and said I don't think you should use that at all but I hear you talk about it all the time so I'm curious what what has been your experience with atheists when you present the ontological argument does it have an impact on them well I can't say that I've had any experience with atheists in presenting the ontological argument but I have been very surprised by the feedback that I get from people about the autological argument we produced a little animated video comparable to the ones that I've shown at this conference on the on illogical argument and I thought that it would elicit the sort of reaction that you mentioned skepticism and irrelevance but I would rather pleased and surprised by the number of people who find this to be very powerful now maybe they're already Christians I don't know I have no way of knowing from these sort of Facebook reactions but I've been quite pleased with how positive people have been in response to the ideological argument but any case I think it's just part of a cumulative case and some arguments will appeal to some people in some will I find that the most powerful argument in sharing with people is the moral argument because you can ignore the cosmological evidence for the origin of the universe or the fine-tuning of the universe you can brush aside the ontological argument get along just fine but every day you wake up you answer by how you treat others whether or not you think people have objective moral value or not and therefore that moral argument is inescapable it's existentially inescapable to deal with the question do I believe that there are objective moral values that people have objective moral worth and if so what's the basis of it so of all of the arguments that go into this cumulative case I mean probably the most effective and existentially gripping would be the moral argument certainly not the ideological argument hi I'm a junior and high school I was wondering how do my Christian peers and I within our schools deal with this quickly accumulating atheist outlook that causes fellow classmates to automatically deny me and my ideas just because I'm Christian to deny what finished it one more time forms deny me and my ideas just because I am Christian first off that's awesome he came to the conference on apologetics as a junior in high school [Music] good for you I have two suggestions I'd love if anybody else jumps in number one is if it's you and your friends and you feel like they're denying you in some capacity one of the things you have to do is be equipped with good answers and how to engage conversations to stop this from happening in a respectful kind of way and this can happen when you're you have reasons for what you believe why you believe it and you're able to ask the kinds of questions in a thoughtful manner you can actually make quite a bit of difference so you're here so you see the hunger in this if some of your friends do as well I get some of the resources back they're probably the top thing I'll do is get your friends to get them to summit honestly twelve days of in-depth apologetic training for students and then you'll be able to think about the issues of marriage think about the issues of life think about the existence of God think about how we know the Bible is true and then when you have that kind of training then you're equipped to give more thoughtful answers and not be steamrolled as Greg cocoa would say second is if you feel like atheists are treating you this way one things I'll do is I'll just try to reach out and befriend some of those people there may or may not want you to but in my experience a lot of you like that I just go outside the classroom I'd show up at their meetings I'd if they play sports I'd show up their sports and support them I would try to build a genuine relationship with those people so they see you as human beings now they may or may not let you do this but I think in a lot of circumstances people will and when you when they do that and really see you as a human being for which you have common ground with them then I think they will in good chance many circumstances treat you differently now if it's abusive and really bad there might come a point where you have to report or talk to a teacher and say look we are being bullied we are really being but that's the last resort that you go to at the end somebody else jump in on that one cheat on something I don't think in 14 these I've done this but there's a method to my madness and Craig this questions for you and it's twofold in one of your books you had said something about because of so many of our New Testament scholars not having a real background in Semitic languages that really impact sometimes what they see or don't see now I'm going to make you a bet and heed him he may be embarrassed to ask you this but I told you when we started include Josh Josh told me his hip was just killing him he just said can I bow out I said yep we'll love you anyway so that's why he's out here I said you got six Giants and I truly believe that I don't think most of you unless it's unusual will ever run into a guy that's got the background that he does and expertise when you're talking manuscripts I mean he dealt with that all through the conference I would like to know because I want them to know how many Semitic languages do you read because I know it impacts what you can do with the new and I'm not trying to say it as a show I want them to understand and I mean this in a great way you are dealing with some heavy weights here can't can are you okay to help me with that yeah I'm fine I'll talk about it I work with 10 language did you do this in one of the Semitic languages okay Baruch atado Adonai Eloheinu yeah would you like to have a prayer I could tell you a real funny joke in Hebrew anyway yeah give it to you in English it'll just kill you but it's good let me yeah historical Jesus studies is a difficult field because it is just linguistic it touches on a lot of fields and in fabricating Jesus I talked about that a little bit and I knew I was on on the edge and there were some Jesus Seminar scholars you know that group in California they were offended and one reviewer said you were hitting below the belt you know stuff like that but I wasn't trying to be mean about it or anything but it's a difficult field because it involves a lot of things think about it historical Jesus research okay what was the language of Jesus it's Aramaic Aramaic is not taught normally in seminaries so right away you've got all these scholars that have maybe two years of Greek and one year of Hebrew they've not studied Aramaic and so they're going to talk about the the words of Jesus and cast colored beads to decide if he those are his words so right away out of the gate it's goofy Bruce Chilton a good friend of mine at Bard College he was a member of the Jesus Seminar and they never listened to him and he knew Aramaic real well see so there's there's problem the other thing is we're talking about historiography how you do research in history how you assess documents and and how you you know make decisions about what's historical not historical that is an area of expertise the average person in the Jesus in mark does not know that - my own major in fact was history and I was very impressed with a course that was given over to historical methodology how to assess documents I don't think there's a single member that Jesus Seminar has ever had a course on that they don't even know it's a subject so here they are this is the time talk about this in fabricating Jesus so what is the average Jesus Seminar kind of person and it's easy to find out because they list their credentials the fellow 78 of them you can see them they got their BA here in some subject they got the rim and give it as Seminary they got through PhD somewhere else typically it's this somebody does a BA in psychology or English literature and he goes to seminary does a regular m.div program gets one maybe two years agree can maybe one semester maybe two in Hebrew and he decides to pursue a PhD and he writes a PhD on Luke's understanding of possessions or something like that it's perfectly good they need to joins the Jesus Seminar he's not equipped he's not qualified he hasn't had any is any work in history or historiography hasn't studied Aramaic okay doesn't know the Jewish world has never read the Dead Sea Scrolls can't access them in their original language in any event doesn't know any of the early rabbinic stuff or any of the targets and so it's not trained or equipped in any of the requisite fields in order to cast those beads but but they don't know that they don't know see that's the problem so I talked about that at the beginning I'm trying to be gentle I don't want to insult these people they're my friends I see them every year at Society biblical winter meetings they're not properly trained what's my own training well I was a history major minored in philosophy so that's why I just love hearing Bill Craig and sean mcdonagh you know McDowell all these guys talk on these philosophical legs I really track well with them but I was a history major and pursued that in the grant in graduate studies I went to seminary but I went crazy over the Greek and the Hebrew and Aramaic and went to Portland State University for classical Greek oh my goodness my head was about to pop open then I'd pursue PhD studies and wind up writing a dissertation in Old Testament on Isaiah which happened to be Jesus's favorite book and so while there studied Coptic study Syriac studied more Aramaic more Hebrew read unpainted he protects to your eyes the average biblical studies person cannot read on pointed Hebrew that's why they're so stuck on the mathematic text I was joking in the green room the lounge with the boys about do you teach Old Testament here at Dallas seminary or not I mean that sounds really good but they don't they teach rabbinic Bible with the master etiquette pointing they can't read on pointed Hebrew that's it from the first century BC it's a training just isn't there and seminaries are worse than ever now you're lucky if even a semester of Greeks required and yet these guys go on under trained and then they say well I'm a historical Jesus scholars no you're not but they just don't know it so it's actually a difficult field so you know I do work with classical Greek stuff there are lots of biblical scholars they never had a course in Latin they can't I think they've never read an inscription they can't read a papyrus the only only Greek they read is the printed systematize Byzantine era spelling Greek that's in in a book with word spacing in the accidents the diacriticals there I think they can't read a papyrus they can't read one sentence so it's a difficult field I'm being sympathetic I'm not trying to be sarcastic it's a very difficult field and that's why people get it so badly they take shortcuts and everybody's quoting each other I have traced footnotes back 100 years and it originated with a guy who misunderstood a text and as quote it's quoted and referenced in referencing nobody has gone back everybody likes to refer to this technical book on book hands and I thought well okay this is interesting I'm going to get the book oh it's out of print you can't get it anywhere no library has it it took forever to get a hold of it then I found out everybody was citing the wrong page and that told me nobody had seen it and yet for bard Airmen and others this was a decisive source for coming to a conclusion about how good the Christian scribes were there nobody has seen the book they're all citing the wrong page it's hard to find I am scrounging around in German sources that for a hundred and fifty years ago it's in Gothic texts no library has them anymore or if they do they're on the East Coast and they will not check them out for interlibrary loan thank goodness for google books because these are public domain there is no copyright so there they are and I down low my gosh it's I can barely make out the letters it's in Gothic German and the print is horrible but then you find out what Friedrich Nietzsche actually edie because the translations that we have in English are sanitized so then I realize all this philosophy I read is in fact misleading because the most hateful and ugly stuff a lot of these guys said Nietzsche look Victor Bach and others have been there not in the English translation you get in the original German and you realize holy smokes this stuff is ugly but somebody named Adolf Hitler could read the German and it's his it's his philosophical underpinnings that he put into practice see what I'm saying so it's really hard to do this kind of work because it involves lots of languages and and and some of the texts are inaccessible and are so difficult to get a hold of and you know you end up working with ten languages or more if it's ancient history stuff and that's not a huge number don't be impressed Robert dick Wilson could read 30 languages that impresses me I mean that's Egyptian oeuvre anything you know that yeah so I just want to know it's a difficult field it involves all kinds of stuff oh my goodness my learning curve is very steep and I'm trying to keep my brain healthy so I can just keep working away at it but you know I'll run out of gas one of these days but it's a tough field ah thanks Karl for asking but yeah there you have I want to jump in on this only in the sense of I was asking dr. Evans a similar question about this last night over dinner who are the up-and-coming scholars in this field and you you know what you junior here in high school you young people here who are looking for a future in apologetics we need top-level scholars in the core Bible believing Christians studying this stuff we need guys who are doing philosophy we need guys who are doing science at the highest levels and so I would just encourage you guys dedicate yourself in service to the Lord and whatever pursuit whatever field of study God calls you to because we need I mean the apologetics community the church needs you and there's a place for you and we need the future dr. Evans some of you guys might be sitting out here some somebody out here might be the future William Lane Craig and I would just encourage it to continue to study continue to pursue and I grow on your faith seek the Lord and I God can open up incredible doors for you to have a profound impact for the kingdom thank you I would like you to say thank you to the five men here and we'll hope Josh can hear it wherever he is God love you god bless you to get MacCready yeah you

Channel: ReasonableFaithOrg

Views: 61,873

Keywords: William Lane Craig, Apologetics, Christianity, God, Jesus, Theism, Atheism, Cults, Religions, Philosophy, Theology, Science, Faith, Reason, History, Christ

Id: LGbbuHsqfsY

Length: 65min 39sec (3939 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2017