Q&A with Dr. William Lane Craig

those that have questions that encourage you to come to this mic right here if it gets a little bit long you can you can kind of line up right here and let's let's go with some of these first couple questions any doctor correct you have anything that you want to say at the beginning only that if I don't know the area that the question is about I'll simply say that this is not something I've worked on and take a pass I don't claim to be the Bible answer man but if there is a question on an area I've worked on then I'll do my best to try to answer that question okay so who would like to be first we need someone to break the ice yes and go ahead and line up behind this fella so we don't have time lag in between I think my question is about the origin of evil yes Christians you know believe that real live evil exists yes it's true there really is evil yellow we don't believe God is evil right and we believe that at some point he is all there was yes so it becomes a conundrum to explain to people who aren't Christians how we got to this state if God's not the author of evil if he didn't create evil and he's not evil and evil does exist I didn't know if you had some thoughts about the origin of that evil yes I see the origin of evil in a disorder in the free will of creatures God has created creatures with a free will angels and humans and these wills are properly oriented toward God as the supreme good when creatures use their free will to direct them toward other goods rather than toward God as the ultimate good this is a disorder in the creature Li will and is the origin of evil so moral evil as a result of creaturely freedom and is a disorder in the creature li will now one might say in addition to that that evil doesn't have any sort of positive ontological status that is say evil isn't a thing that exists and needs to be created by God it's a privation of something it's a privation of right order in the creaturely will and to illustrate thinking physics cold is a privation of heat cold doesn't have any positive ontological status there isn't any thing called cold rather it's an absence of heat so cold is a privation of heat now that doesn't mean obviously the cold is illusory if you go outside on a winter's day you can feel how real this privation is but it's not a positive reality that would need to be created by God and in exactly the same way evil doesn't have any positive ontological status it's a privation of right order in the creaturely will that is due to freedom yes yes I teach mechanical engineering at Bradley University and I ask questions of my students of the cause of disorder and then they'll all agree that disorder is caused by man even the religion professors at Bradley will agree with that but then when I ask the next question is do we live in an isolated system they go agnostic and so how would you how would you engage in agnostic when you start answering the questions of the existence of God and how do you get them engaged right in that discussion rice they go it's not humanly possible for us to answer that question I would encourage every Christian to have a list of arguments memorized that he can share with an unbeliever the typical unbeliever in my experience has no good reason for his unbelief he simply been taught to repeat the slogan there's no good evidence for God's existence and this is really I think a mask for intellectual laziness on his part but it serves very effectively as a conversation stopper because the average Christian doesn't have any good evidence for God's existence and so this in effect gives the atheist the trump card there's no evidence for God's existence and that's the end of the conversation but if you will have a list of arguments memorized at that point what you can do is say to the unbeliever with a surprised look on your face well is that what you think why I can think of at least five arguments for God's existence and at that point he's got to say yeah like what and then you're off and running so when people ask me well there's no evidence for God's existence and I say well sure there is and they they said well like what I typically just list about five arguments I'll say God is the best explanation for why anything at all exists rather than nothing God is the best explanation of the beginning of the universe God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties in the world God is the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth and finally God can be personally known and experienced and I find that many times just giving a list of the arguments is enough to satisfy the unbeliever he doesn't even ask to hear the arguments just hearing a list of them is often enough so I would encourage all of us to have such a list memorized that you can just share at the drop of a hat with an unbeliever now if he does want to press you each one of those points in the list has an argument that has premises or steps that you can memorize and again then share with the for example the argument that God is the best explanation for the beginning of the universe is very easy to memorize it has just three steps whatever begins to exist has a cause the universe began to exist therefore the universe has a cause and that will show that we don't live in an isolated system that there is a transcendent cause beyond space and time beyond the universe that has brought the universe into being which has obvious theological implications so if you have these premises memorized then you are prepared to actually share the argument with the unbeliever but in many cases you won't even need to do that if you just have a list yes Steve good morning bill welcome to Peru again I have a question for you there's a great migration going on in the world of Muslims from closed countries into Western Europe into the United States I know you've worked in Muslim countries before what do you believe is the best way to share your faith with those that are coming from a Muslim background in sharing our faith with Muslims which I really enjoy I love talking with Muslims I think that the key is to focus on Jesus of Nazareth his identity and his claims don't criticize Muhammad don't get their backs up by attacking their prophet I wouldn't even quibble about the Quran and errors in the Quran verses the Bible focus on Jesus you know Paul says that Jesus is the stumbling stone he's the stumbling stone for both Jews and for Gentiles and it's the same with Muslims it is who Jesus wasn't what he claimed that divides Islam fundamentally from Christianity and here I the evidence is just all on the Christian side I mean the one indisputable fact about Jesus of Nazareth that is recognized by every historical scholar is that Jesus died by crucifixion at the hands of the Romans and yet this is the one historical fact about Jesus that the Quran denies the Muslim does not believe that Jesus was crucified in the Quran it says they did not kill him neither did they crucify him but it was only made to appear to them so and so this just makes the Quran historically indefensible and in my experience sharing your faith with a Muslim is very much like sharing your faith with a Jehovah's Witness it will be the same versus the same passages that you will use because the Jehovah's Witness also denies that Jesus is the Son of God denies the deity of Christ and so you'll share passages with the Jehovah's Witness that shows that Jesus made claims whereby he put himself in the place of God himself and then also you've got the evidence for the crucifixion and the resurrection and I think this presents a very very powerful case for thinking that the Christian view of Jesus is correct in contrast to the Muslim view and it puts the focus where it should be it puts the focus on Jesus yes working with college students a good bit of college students would say you know that's that's true for you but that's not true for me just their relative how would you address that kind of what kind of conversation would you have with a student who really believes yeah I guess I would begin to press that student about whether he doesn't think that there are any objective truths because if he thinks that that statement is self refuting is it objectively true that there are no objective truths or is that just your opinion it's just your opinion that I don't have any reason to pay any attention to it or agree with it but if it is objectively true that there are no objective truths then that's self refuting it it shows that his position is indefensible so that kind of blanket relativism is is simply indefensible it refutes itself so he must be holding to some sort of more restricted view where he does believe certain things are objectively true like for example that I have a head or that I live say in Peoria or something of that sort and so you got to kind of just dialogue with him as to what he does think is objectively true and then share with him these arguments for the existence of God that are based on truths of science and history that are generally accepted and if he's going to reject those then he's going to and I think you need to show him this he's going to isolate himself into a radical minority that flies in the face of what most scientists and historians believe and why would anyone want to do that make the non-christian feel intellectually isolated and separated from mainstream thought for example that the universe originated finite time ago in the Big Bang or the jesus of nazareth was first century Palestinian Jew who died by crucifixion these are generally accepted facts that are not unique to Christians and if he has if he's skeptical about these he needs to give some good reason as to why the majority of scientists and scholars are wrong about these things dr. several priests submitted questions I'm just gonna bring one right now our scripture is 100% valid we have a complex answer we give people would love to hear if you have a simple and short answer or scriptures 100% valid well the short answer would be yes um do you have a medium leg let me say this about that I don't argue with a non-believer about biblical inspiration and inerrancy my goal is an evangelist is to set the bar as low as possible to get him into the kingdom I want to put as few obstacles in his way in order to get him saved and so I don't try to convince the unbeliever of biblical inerrancy or 100 percent reliability I'm quite willing to say these documents could be erroneous in many respects there could be inconsistencies and contradictions but nevertheless they are historically reliable with respect to for example the four facts that I shared last night which are sufficient for belief in the resurrection of Jesus and if that's right then you should become a Christian and then the question of biblical inerrancy scriptural reliability that becomes an in-house question among believers so I would really encourage you at least in doing evangelism don't try to set the bar so high that in order to be saved the unbeliever has to come to believe in biblical inspiration and inerrancy that that's simply not necessary and for in order for him to become a Christian an atheist that was given a New Testament and I'm the one who gave it to him he read the New Testament and being a scholar himself he said there's something about the New Testament that confuses me he said Matthew Mark Luke and John quote Jesus Christ and then the epistles and the other letters do not quote their follower why is it that the epistles and the other letters of the New Testament do not quote and say Jesus said this right okay so the question was why is it that when you the epistles of the New Testament for example the letters of Paul you don't have Paul quoting Jesus of Nazareth all the time whereas you do have this in the Gospels well I think the answer to that is that the Gospels are biographies of Jesus and so naturally they tell the story of Jesus life and his teaching so naturally they quote him by contrast the epistles are what we call occasional letters that is to say they were written on specific occasions to address specific issues that were burning in those churches for example the premier example of this would be the letter of Philemon where Paul is writing to his friend delet Onesimus this runaway slave go and it's a very personal letter there there is it's clearly just an occasional letter between Paul and this other person about this specific concern and even in place like Corinth Paul addresses issues like meat offered to idols people were getting drunk at the communion table how do you use spiritual gifts and corporate worship Paul is addressing all of these very specific concerns in these letters and not trying to give a sort of biographical account of Jesus but in fact if you do read the letters of Paul you will find he does quote Jesus on several occasions and even more than that there are lots of allusions to Jesus teachings in Paul's letters where he's paraphrasing Jesus a great example of this is where Paul says now concerning the married he says I have no command from the Lord but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's grace is trustworthy now he's not saying there I have not been inspired by the Lord to give this comment I don't have any sort of inspiration from God and so I'm just giving my view he's saying I don't have any tradition from the historical Jesus to share about this I don't have something I can quote from Jesus about this but as an apostle commissioned by him I'm going to give you my authoritative view as an apostle of Christ and that's a perfect example I think of where Paul is in touch with the Jesus tradition but in this case he said I don't have anything from the Lord about this and so I'm going to give my view by contrast when he addresses in first Corinthians 11 the problems at the communion table there he does say on the night that he was betrayed Jesus took bread and broken and said this is my body which is for you and he quotes the jesus tradition there he's got Jesus tradition and what is especially significant about that you notice Paul in quoting the words of institution about the body and the blood is he says on the night that he was betrayed this shows that Paul knew the historical context of the traditions that he handed on he didn't just have the story of the Last Supper he knew it was on the night of Jews Judas betrayal of Jesus so we see there that Paul understood the wider context of the traditions that he handed on and delivered and and knew the wider Jesus story so only the tip of the iceberg is in view in the epistles and Paul will quote from or allude to the teachings of Jesus only insofar as they impinge upon the occasions that prompted him to write the letter to these people but many New Testament scholars have called Paul's epistles a fifth gospel because precisely of his illusions and quotations to Jesus don't be shy about coming up every gap but I do have some stand in line come to stand behind I have a few pre submitted questions when you read about slaughtering Christian children women etc in the Middle East it sounds a lot like what God told Joshua to do in the promised land how can Christians be outraged by Isis and yet worship the God who sent Joshua to do his own version of ethnic cleansing this is a very agonizing question that any believer in biblical Authority faces and I've written on this on our website in question of the week number 16 and then I revisit it again I believe in question of the week 238 and so if you want a fuller development of this issue I would suggest you look at question 16 in question 238 let me just say this there is a world of difference between the judgment upon Canaan that God commanded and the Islamic idea of jihad jihad is a religious war it is the use of violence to convert people to the religion of Islam if the people that you're having jihad against repent and become Muslims then you're not to kill them anymore because now they're Muslims it is a use of violence in the propagation of the Islamic faith it is a tool of evangelism in effect that is completely different than the invasion of Canaan in the Old Testament that was an example of God's judgment upon these corrupt Canaanite tribes that were inhabiting the land of Canaan at that time you remember God allowed Israel to languish for 400 years in Egypt in slavery before he brought them out because he said the iniquity of the amorite is not yet complete God waited until these Canaanite tribes were so evil so reprobate that they were ripe for judgment and they he delivered the land over to Israel and he used the armies of Israel as a tool of judgment as a means of bringing judgment on them but it wasn't a religious war it wasn't an attempt to convert these people to Judaism it wasn't a means of spreading Judaism so it's a world of difference God was judging the nations of Canaan in the same way that he would later judge Israel when he allowed the armies of Babylon to come in and destroy Israel and take its people into exile so there's a world of difference between what Isis and other jihadists are doing and the sort of judgment that God brought upon Canaan and then later brought upon Israel itself now that leaves a host of questions still unanswered but I would refer you at least to those questions that I've written and I think this does help us to see that there is an enormous difference between using war and violence as a tool of evangelism and the kind of judgment that God brought upon the Canaanite tribes and then later upon Israel itself yes yes I have a question about extra biblical evidence for the post-mortem appearances of Jesus if you have any any references that we have to Jesus resurrection appearances that are not in the New Testament documents tend by their very nature to be later and derivative and therefore less valuable these are sources that already know the Gospels you see and so they're not independent and as I explained last night what you're looking for is early independent sources of confirmation and these references outside the documents of the New Testament are derivative and later and therefore they're not really important or valuable for the historian now interestingly enough there is in a sense extra biblical evidence for these appearances but it's not in the sources later than the New Testament it's in the sources earlier than the New Testament that the New Testament writers used in writing their documents so last night I explained that in 1st Corinthians 15 Paul is not writing in his own hand he is quoting from an old formula that probably goes back to within the first 5 years after Jesus crucifixion so this is an extra Pauline source you can't say well this material comes from Paul and AD 55 when he wrote to the Corinthians no no this is a quotation of an extra new testamental source that goes back to within the first 5 years after the crucifixion similarly I showed that in writing the story of Jesus passion mark was not writing freehand he was using this early pre marking passion source that probably also goes back to within the first decade after Jesus crucifixion so one of the most important new developments in New Testament scholarship is the identification of these sources that the New Testament writers themselves used and so that's where the really important quote-unquote extra biblical material is to be found not in these later derivative secondary sources that know the Gospels but rather in the pre New Testament sources used by Matthew and Luke and Paul and Mark and when you get to those early sources and especially if they're independent you see then you're really you've hit a historical paydirt yes thank you so much for being here sure so I have a question I guess not a factual question or a question about your work more of a personal question regarding your work good do you consider apologetics actually let me back up Christians often say that our religion is about a relationship with God or a relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit do you find that your work is part of that relationship or outside of that relationship so what's the interplay there and what have been benefits and possible hurdles that you've had to overcome in that interplay right I think that the question was what is the relationship between the discipline of apologetics and the personal relationship that one has with God or with Jesus Christ and is there attention here how do we relate these this really is an age-old question about the relationship between faith and reason I think and here I have found it very helpful to make a fundamental distinction between knowing Christianity to be true and showing Christianity to be true I think that the fundamental way in which I know Christianity is true is not through argument in evidence but it is through that personal relationship with God made possible by the Holy Spirit Paul says when we cry Abba Father the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and so I think that the fundamental way in which we know Christianity is true is through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit and this is available to every Christian at every place and every time in history so that those who live in times and places where say they have no library resources they may be illiterate they don't have the leisure time to study the evidence for the resurrection they can know and know with confidence that Christ is risen from the dead simply on the basis of the inner witness of God's Holy Spirit to their heart that's how we know Christianity to be true and that then is confirmed by evidence and arguments when it comes to showing Christianity to be true though there were concerned how do we prove to another person that what we know is true and this will involve giving arguments and evidence to the unbeliever in order to show him that Christianity is true but even here it's not done apart from the Holy Spirit rather you present these arguments in evidence trusting the Holy Spirit to use them as you lovingly present them to draw the unbeliever to Christ so in both knowing and showing Christianity to be true both the Holy Spirit and reason and evidence are at play but the emphasis is rather reversed in those two areas hey dr. Craig hello question about the passage in Matthew where it talks about the dead rising to life and there's been some debate whether that impugns inerrancy just wanted to get your take on that and what you thought about the rites the passage that the gentleman is referring to is in the Gospel of Matthew where at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus the rocks are rent and it says that some of the Old Testament Saints were raised from the dead and then after Jesus resurrection they went into the city and appeared to many now everybody has difficulty with this passage because we believe what Paul says that Jesus Christ is the firstfruits of the resurrection he's the one who was raised from the dead first so how is it that there are these Old Testament Saints that seem to have been raised first at the time of the crucifixion rather than following Jesus resurrection and where what were they doing between the time of the crucifixion and the resurrection when they went into the city and we're seeing by many where they sort of sitting around in the tombs waiting to come out and I mean this seems bizarre so this is a problem for everybody how to understand these passages and it's been suggested by some that the this passage isn't meant to be taken literally rather this is part of what is called apocalyptic imagery used by Matthew apocalyptic Jewish literature is literature that uses symbols and figures to convey deep theological truths and the greatest example of this is the book of Revelation I mean nobody interprets a book of Revelation literally to mean that there's going to be nine headed sea monsters that are crawling up out of the ocean and trying to take over the world like Godzilla these are symbols of nation-states and forces opposing Israel and God's people so revelation is a great example of apocalyptic literature that is full of symbolism and figure and so the suggestion is perhaps this is what Matthew is doing in order to emphasize the earth-shattering significance of Jesus death that he has the rocks rantin the Old Testament Saints are raised and this is just part of the imagery to say that this event of Jesus crucifixion was of earth-shaking significance now is that the correct interpretation of the passage I don't know I am open-minded about this I am open to construing the passage that way but I'm not sure that that's right it may well be that Matthew was in touch with traditions of people who had seen appearances of people in the city following Jesus resurrection that that's not implausible it have been that these people weren't raised to glory and immortality but perhaps just resuscitated the way Lazarus was but Lazarus would die again it wasn't as though he was the firstfruits of the resurrection and the way Jesus did was so I don't know I one is puzzled by the this passage and I just I have an open mind I'm willing to be convinced but I have no firm opinion on it I feel like a good bit of the people have conversation with are just simply not interested spiritually yeah what kind of conversations would you have with them to generate spiritual interest this is a huge problem isn't it the biggest problem that we face today is not opposition it's apathy and some people even talk about apathy ISM as one of the problems that we face there's theism there's atheism but then there's just apathy ISM which is you don't care if God exists well my best shot at trying to jar people out of their apathy is what I call the absurdity of life without God and what I try to do is draw upon the insights of atheistic existentialists writers themselves to show that if God does not exist then life is ultimately absurd and I analyze that in terms of life having no ultimate meaning no ultimate value and no ultimate purpose and this leads to a very very grim view of life it leads to despair in fact I think it is a view that is so filled with the despair that it's impossible I argue to live consistently and happily within the framework of such an atheistic worldview if the atheist lives consistently he would be profoundly unhappy in despair deeply depressed if he manages live happily as most do it's only because they do not carry out their worldview to its logical conclusion but live as though their lives were meaningful valuable and purposeful even though they have no basis for it and then I'll say to the non-believer given the unlivable 'ti of atheism should you go back to square one and say well maybe atheism isn't right after all maybe there really is a God and if that's true that means that life does have value meaning and purpose and you can live consistently and happily within the framework of such a worldview so that's my best shot and if if that doesn't jar them or budge them then I think there's probably nothing left but prayer just to pray for that person that God will awaken him I think that for single people when they get married and start to have children this is when reality hits because you're faced with the question what am I going to teach my children about moral values are there really moral values or really is everything permitted there really is no right and wrong good and evil and that's pretty tough to raise kids with that sort of nihilistic view so this may come home to roost later on give time for the seed to be watered and to sprout ya know ultimate meaning that is say there's no ultimate significance to life no ultimate value there is no ultimate right or wrong good or evil everything's relative and then the third was no ultimate purpose there's no goal of life for which you exist everything just ends in death for every individual and in the heat death of the universe for mankind as a whole this is laid out in my books on guard which is a kind of beginner book for those wanting to get into apologetics for the first time and then also in the book reasonable faith which is a more advanced book a more intermediate level book yes I was going to refer back to the question on the validity of Scripture the state I appreciate your comment on how it's really not necessary for salvation but for the new believer for any believer how would how would you answer that question good question suppose someone is a Christian and now wants to know how should I regard the Bible I think that the key is to look at how Jesus of Nazareth regarded the Old Testament Jesus is our Lord and as his disciples we follow what he taught and when you look at Jesus attitude toward the Old Testament he taught and believed that the Old Testament was the Word of God and that it was reliable and to be believed and followed and I think that gives grounds then for believing that in fact the Bible is inspired by God and therefore trustworthy and true in everything that it teaches so it's been rightly said I think we do not believe in Christ because we believe in the Bible we believe in the Bible because we believe in Christ and that would be the way in which I would justify belief in inspiration and inerrancy yes like a few minutes ago you mentioned revelation briefly and I was wondering what your thoughts were on how close to that point in time we were all right the question was how close in time are we to the return of Christ I don't see any reason to think that we're very close it seems to me that the sort of signs that Jesus talked about in his Olivet discourse about wars and rumors of wars and famines and nation rising against nation and so forth he says these are just the beginning of birth pangs the end is not yet and I don't see any reason to think that we're near the end that we're not at the beginning of birth pangs still the task of world evangelization needs to be completed first and that still needs to be done I mean that's what this conference is about so I think that while every Christian needs to be prepared for Christ to return at any moment within his lifetime I'm not one who is anxiously watching the signs of the times and thinking that the end is near following up on apathy ISM pluralism is the line of questioning here right and following on with what you had said earlier this takes me back to 25 years ago and being Japan and taking a tour of the city and listening to the tour guides say that the majority of the Japanese follow the Shinto religion gift and the majority of the Japanese follow the Buddhism and the majority follow Christianity and I was dumbfounded looked at my hosts who were taking me around the city and Abby's on looked at me and smiled and said will we practice them all because one must be right and I didn't have any idea that a young man then how to address that that if you believe in everything you believe in nothing right but it wasn't just a quick comment because for the next couple weeks they took me to a shinto firewalking and a Buddhist temple and showed me that it was no problem in practicing all these different religions in their view so with pluralism again that was 25 years ago I'd be interested in your thoughts how to address someone that truly does believe that you can believe in anything right the question is about religious pluralism and I think this is the burning theological issue of our day now there are two kinds of religious pluralism one is what one might call a naive pluralism and then the other one is sophisticated pluralism the naive pluralist says well all religions are true they're basically all just saying the same thing they're all right this is naive because anybody who studied the world's religions knows that that cannot be correct because these religions are mutually contradictory take for example Islam and Buddhism Islam believes that there is a personal transcendent creator of the world who is omniscient morally perfect holy and before whom we stand guilty and in need of forgiveness it believes that if we believe in him and his prophet and perform righteous deeds we will be saved otherwise we will go into eternal hell the Buddhist believes none of these things the Buddhist believes that ultimate reality is impersonal not personal that there is no creator there is no personal immortality after death indeed there is no self that endures through time and the concept of sin and salvation plays no role whatsoever in this religion so it's simply impossible that both Islam and Buddhism could both be true they could both be false maybe it's the Hindus who are right but they can't both be true so this naive pluralism is I think untenable the sophisticated pluralist today says all of these religions are false the ultimate reality is beyond description beyond characterization and all of the world's religions picture this ultimate reality in different ways that are appropriate to their culture and society but they're all literally false none of these religions is really true they are all different ways of misrepresenting ultimate reality but they are effective in transforming people's lives from being self-centered and evil to making them into good people and so all of these religions work in helping to change people's lives and this is the sort of pluralism is propagated today by religious studies professors and people who are sophisticated pluralists what might we say to that well I think it's very obvious that a person who has a good apologetic face for Christianity will simply disagree with the pluralist that all of these views are equally false that they're good reasons to think that the Christian worldview is true and here you will present your arguments for a transcendent creator and designer of the universe who is a personally embodied good and for the person of Jesus of Nazareth his radical personal claims whereby he put himself in God's place and then the historical evidence for his resurrection from the dead and so if you're apologetic case goes through you've refuted pluralism the the typical pluralist just a seal means that there are no good reasons to think any of these religions are true and what we need to do is simply challenge that assumption hi so one question I have had face to me is if I believe that God sends people to hell for not you know for not believing in him kind of two parts how is how does a good God do that and then also how do I have find joy in salvation if that's my belief if I have friends and relatives that I know have died who have rejected yes that both of these are again very agonizing questions I've addressed these on my website at some length if you look at reasonable faith org there are articles precisely on this question of Christian particularism how is it that salvation can only be through Christ and those who are separated from Christ go into an eternity separated from God I think that the first question is answered by saying that hell is an expression of the holiness and the Justice of God that this is in fact what we deserve by separating ourselves from him I don't think it's God's will that anybody goes to hell the Bible says God is not willing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance and the only reason that God's will is not done is because people freely and irrevocably separate themselves from God forever they are like the drowning man who pushes away the lifesaver again and again that is thrown to him to rescue him from drowning and this is the penalty or the the desserts of sin that is justly administered by God notice that nobody ever asks a question the parallel question how could a just God send people to heaven now as a purely intellectual problem that's every bit as difficult as how a good God could send people to hell how can a God who is perfectly just send anybody to heaven given their sin that they have committed the guilt they have well the answer of course is to be found in Jesus in Jesus the love and the justice of God meat we see the love of God as he dies in our place to reconcile us to him but we see the Justice of God as God's wrath and just punishment for sin is poured out upon Jesus himself and so the reconciliation of God's love and justice I think is found in the person of Christ and anyone who gives his life to Christ as his Lord and his Savior then benefits from Christ's death but those who separate themselves from Christ by rejecting him fall back under God's justice and we know what you deserve there so I see Hell as an expression of the holiness and the Justice of God which people sadly choose for themselves rather than trusting in the provision that God has made in Christ now the second question was how can we rejoice in knowing that family members or loved ones are in hell separated from God forever well we don't know the answer to that but here's here's a possibility it may be that when we go to be with Christ that the experience of being in the very presence of Christ without the alloy of sin or the veil of sin that separates us from him now will be so beautiful so over well nning that it will just preoccupy our minds so that there would be no consciousness of those who are lost and are in hell think for some example of someone who is undergoing say during the Civil War a leg amputation the pain is so overwhelming that he's not thinking of saying the multiplication table which he knows he knows the the facts of multiplication but he's not thinking of them at that moment because the experience of pain just overwhelms him now in exactly the same way the vision of Christ I think is possibly so beautiful so overwhelming that it will simply drive from consciousness any knowledge that one might have that there are loved ones that are separated from him and and lost forever that knowledge would be privileged to God alone and it would be God alone who would bear that heavy burden in his heart of knowing that there are people that he loves who have rejected him and are separated from him forever but it may well be the case that we will not have to bear that burden ourselves now I don't know if that answer is true but it seems to me that that is a plausible answer and that therefore is a satisfactory answer to this question do you want to follow up on that well I think the only thing was um that question was posed to me was more today where's the joy of my salvation Oh knowing knowing that this belief I mean if I just speak personally I don't think that's a problem at all because one is still hoping for their salvation as well you rejoice in the forgiveness and the love that God has lavished on you and though your heart aches for those who don't know him you pray for them you share with them always in hope that they may yet come to Christ and know the same joy dr. Craig I'd first like to say it is a blessing to have you here because it wasn't more than a month ago that I saw a debate between you and a dr. Keith Parsons hope I was an atheist and my heart really went out for him I think the title of it said atheist versus Christian Christian wins but my question to you is has any atheist or anyone of any other religious belief that you have debated in the past ever came to Christianity and let you know about it no the person who claimed closest was Antony flew Antony flew was perhaps the greatest philosophical atheist of the 20th century he was active from 1948 until the end of the century and wrote extensively on atheism and near the end of his life flu became persuaded by the arguments for design that this couldn't be the result of chance and therefore came to believe in God that there is a transcendent designer of the universe now he did not become a Christian so far as I know unless on his deathbed perhaps he took that final step and we can hope that he did but he did come to believe in God as a result of the evidence for design in the universe and it was interesting to see the a reaction in the Atheist community when he did this they reviled him they said this was due to senility and old age and just really insulted him and flu said why are they doing this I simply did what I have done my entire life I followed the evidence where it led and he believed it led to Christ I mean to to God now I I want to make clear that the purpose of the debates that I do engage in is not to convince the other person anyone who would get up in front of hundreds and even thousands of people and denounce God and Christ is not apt to become a Christian or change his mind in the course of that debate the purpose is to reach the students in the audience whose minds are still open and to are searching and seeking and so the target in these debates is not my opponent it's the students in the audience and there it has been very gratifying to see people coming to faith or coming back to faith as a result of seeing these debates flu wrote a very nice short book that I would recommend following up on Jana's question I I think maybe it was also we have loved ones who to our knowledge did not accept Christ and I wondered if your answer meant that we can't know for certain what anyone did on their best deathbed so there's always some sure that wasn't my answer Sam but that certainly is true and that we can always hope that those that we love made a last-minute decision to turn to Christ so I have a Muslim friend that um he he uh he doesn't have like he he sees our assurance of faith as a lack of motivation to do good works and so he sees that his like his non assurance and not knowing if he's going to make it to heaven or not as more motivation to do good and so he does understand why we even bother and so I tried to point him to what we call special grace you know like in the fact have gratitude for what God has done for us in Christ but he responded to that bike what we call common grace and say well I'm thankful for all the good things God has given to me and so why isn't that enough I guess I don't know what your thoughts would be his claim that people who have assurance of salvation are not motivated to do good works is just demonstrable and empirically false he should come to a conference like this and listen to the stories of what the people that are supported by this church are involved in we heard last night about the sort of humanitarian efforts that are going on in places like the Ukraine and other countries to help war-torn countries or in the Middle East with Syrian refugees and so forth and historically Christians have been at the forefront of the founding of hospitals and leper colonies and bringing clean water and health care and education uplifting the status of women it's just demonstrably false that people who have a firm assurance of the truth of their faith are not actively involved in humanitarian projects so I feel frankly sad for him that he would not have an assurance I'm glad he's happy for the common grace that he experiences but he shouldn't think that if he has assurance of his faith that then he wouldn't be motivated to do good humanitarian works in the name of Christ that just is utterly contrary to what the Christian Church does yes my question is that if a person has never ever been exposed to the gospel has never heard anyone go and give them the gospel and they die without hearing the gospel even once without hearing the name of Jesus saves them and for them how would God judge them okay the question here is how does God judge people who have never heard the gospel of Christ and I think that the Bible indicates that God judges people on the basis of the information that they have he judges them on the basis of the light that they have so that those who have never heard of Christ will not be judged on the basis of whether they've placed their faith in Christ that would be manifestly unfair they've never heard of Jesus how could they place their faith in him rather Paul says in Romans one and two that they will be judged on the basis of how they've responded to God's general revelation in nature and in conscience Paul says in nature all men at any time in history any place in the world can know that there is an eternal and powerful deity who has created the world and in chapter two he says that God's moral law is written on the hearts of all people even those who do not have the Old Testament law so that we do by nature what the law requires we have an instinctual grasp of right and wrong and so those who have never heard the gospel will be judged on the basis of their response to God's general revelation in nature and conscience now that does not mean that someone can be saved apart from the work of Christ what it would mean is that the benefits of Christ's death could be applied to someone without his conscious knowledge of Christ if he were to look out at the world and say I know there's a god who's created all this looking at his own heart and say I don't live up to the demands of God's moral law and he flings himself on the mercy of this God asking for forgiveness and pleading for mercy and grace that person would be saved by grace through the blood of Christ even if he had no knowledge of Christ he would be like people in the Old Testament who had no conscious knowledge of Christ at all but they responded to the light that they had and were judged by their response to that light now this raises all sorts of questions are there any people like this I hope so I hope Aristotle gets in but if you take Romans 1 seriously I think you have to say there's not very many people like this Paul says that rather than worship and serve the Creator people turn to gods of their own making and turn away from God and rather than live up to his moral law they plunge themselves into immorality and degeneracy and so find themselves condemned before God just on the basis of his general revelation in nature and conscience so I don't think we can be optimistic that very many people will access salvation through general revelation but nevertheless I think it is possible that that it is salvation is available to them if they will respond in an appropriate way and God will judge them fairly and justly because that is God's very nature thank you um so when you were in these debates um the people that you go up against do you do you think that what you say can have a spiritual effect on them because obviously if they're debating against you they already have knowledge on the Bible or other biblical influences yeah so when you talk to them does do you think that it affects them more and that God can work through you and delivering the word to them the question was when we engage in these debates do I think that God can use what I share in the lives of my opponents I suppose he can I hope that he will there's very little evidence of that happening as I say these atheists are resolutely opposed to God they some of them hate God and so hearing arguments in a debate with me isn't apt to make much difference in their lives but one can always pray and hope that it will but so far at least there's not much evidence of that but as I say that's not my target audience I'm having these events to reach the students in the audience not my opponent he's simply there to draw crowd Jonah was in the fish tummy for three days and three nights and I wanted to know Jesus in Matthew it says that Jesus was also three days and three nights and then we celebrate Easter and Sunday and there is no that much gap between okay now because of your accent I didn't understand clearly the question was was the question about Jesus being in the earth for three days and three nights and cared to Jonah being in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights yes okay obviously there were not three days and three nights between Friday and Sunday morning when Jesus rose from the dead but I don't think that that's of much significance because this is an idiom in Jewish language that is variously expressed sometimes it will say Jesus rose after three days more often it will say Jesus rose on the third day and in Jewish reckoning the day begins at sundown at six o'clock so if Jesus was placed in the tomb on Friday afternoon before 6:00 and then he was in the grave on Saturday and then rose sometime after 6:00 p.m. on Saturday or Sunday morning that is on the third day according to Jewish reckoning indeed if Jesus were interred at 4 o'clock on Friday and raised at 7 o'clock Saturday night the Jew would say he was raised on the third day and so all of these expressions are just Jewish idioms that are drawn from the Old Testament expressing the time of Jesus resurrection and I think it probably is an indirect reference to the time of the woman's visit it was on the third day after the crucifixion that the women came and found the tomb empty and so naturally the resurrection itself came to be dated on the third day and it's simply an idiom to pick up the jonah story that Jesus like Jonah was in the belly or was in the ground for three days and three nights shouldn't be pressed for literality it's an idiom the use of the third day motif in the Old Testament is a theologically significant motif when you look at how that phrase is used in the Old Testament again and again it's on the third day that God delivers Israel from distress the third day is the day of God's deliverance and victory and so calling the date of the resurrection on the third day is a way of saying this is God's day of deliverance and victory most of the people or people want evidence to believe in Jesus Christ Thomas was one of them he wanted evidence to believe in jesus christ and jesus answered him and told him blessed are those who do not see and yet have believed could you elaborate on the people who come to Christ through evidence and then the final beatitude of Jesus Christ as blessed are those who do not see and yet believe you know what is yeah what is the blessedness in those who have not seen and yet believed in alright make that the darest and this passage where Thomas refuses to believe so Jesus appears to Thomas and says don't be doubting put forth your finger and feel my wounds put forth your hand and feel my side and Thomas doesn't do it then he just falls on the floor and says my lord and my god and Jesus then says do you believe because you have seen me blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe is this somehow depreciating the value of evidence and saying that it's better to believe by blind faith without evidence I don't think that that's a proper understanding of the passage what Thomas refused to do was to believe the Apostolic testimony to the resurrection of Jesus the other apostles had said to him we have seen the Lord and Thomas refused to believe the Apostolic witness to Jesus but demanded that he himself be able to see the risen Lord and I think what Jesus is saying blessed are those who do believe the Apostolic witness but aren't demanding that I appear to them at every generation in history to every individual who's ever born but rather they believe on the basis of the eyewitness testimony that the Apostles gave and so that's why after that blessing on Thomas it goes on to say Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God so John is emphasizing the sufficiency of the Apostolic testimony that he delivers to the resurrection of Jesus which Thomas doubted wrongfully and we shouldn't be like Thomas we should not demand that Jesus appear to me in my bedroom but that we should believe the Apostolic eyewitness testimony to this event we have two more questions and then we'll be done so Nancy won't you go and then run yeah good morning and thank you I've been I'm kind of a bystander witness to a long-standing chatter on Facebook over the question of whether or not Christians and Muslims worship the same God and I've yet to hear a good biblical answer to that question all right this has become hugely controversial last year Wheaton College my alma mater dismissed one of its faculty members because she said that Muslims and Christians with worship the same God and she was not able to defend her position apparently er explained it adequately theologically for the college to feel that they could keep her on the staff well this brought down on the college enormous bad press and heaps of abuse even many Christian theologians say that the college was wrong that Muslims and Christians do worship the same God and that it was incorrect what the college did now I have addressed this issue in one of my questions of the week on the website probably about a month or two ago so if you go to the web site look at the questions of the week for about a month or two ago there's one on do Muslims and Christians worship the same God and without wanting to get too complicated let me say that the way that question is phrased raises all sorts of difficult philosophical questions about what it means to refer to the same thing because we can refer to something under a false description for example I could say that man in the corner drinking the martini is my uncle but it turns out that he wasn't drinking a martini it was water and yet I am referring to the same person under a false description and so the claim is well maybe Muslims are worshipping the same God but under a false description of who God is and that raises in all sorts of philosophical problems of what it means to refer to the same thing and how do you successfully refer I think the question is better reworded by saying is the concept of God in Islam the same as the concept of God in Christianity do we have the same understanding of God and there I argued that they are worlds apart that the concept of God in Islam and Christianity is very very different and one of the principle ways in which they are different is that the Muslim concept of God I believe is morally defective it is a morally defective vision of who God is as the greatest conceivable being a morally perfect being God must be all loving and this is exactly what the Bible teaches the Bible teaches that God loves sinners his love is impartial it is universal it is unconditional and this is a world of difference from the god of the Quran according to the Quran God does not love sinners he does not love unbelievers he is an enemy to unbelievers God in the Quran only loves those who first loved him so that his love rises no higher than the sort of love that Jesus said tax collectors and sinners exhibit they love those who love them and that's the kind of love that the god of the Quran exhibits so the Quran assures us of God's love for the god-fearing and the good doers but he has no love for sinners and unbelievers the Quran says that God does not love the very people that John 3:16 says God loves so much that he sent His only Son to die for them while we were yet enemies Christ died for us so this is a huge difference between the god of the Quran and the God of the Bible the the heavenly father revealed by Jesus loved sinners loves unbelievers wants him to come to him his love is universal impartial and unconditional love but the god of the Quran his love is partial it is selective and it has to be earned it is conditional only those who earn it will receive it so this is a vastly different conception of God so I would agree with those who say that the God of Muhammad is not the God of Jesus Christ he's not the God of the Bible these are in fact I would say that the god of the Quran is a defamation of the Heavenly Father revealed by Jesus actually following up on about God being a God of love the scriptures say that you know there is no greater love that a man lay down his life for his friend and yet there are many documented instances where non-believers especially during time of war a buddy will fall on right Nate or something like that give up his life for his friend and yet as a non-believer how does one answer a person that says how can this loving God send this individual to hell if he's not if he's a non-believer yeah let me say something about that question before I answer it that's kind of interesting I've been studying lately the doctrine of the atonement and this has been a very rich study the idea that Jesus died for us as the New Testament says and what some of the author's or commentators point out is that this was actually a very widespread motif in the ancient world the idea of dying in the place of someone else because of your loyalty to a friend or your devotion to your husband you were willing to give up your life in the place of another one of the most famous examples of this in ancient Greek literature is Al cestus a wife who was willing to die in the place of her husband so that he could continue to live and serve his proper reign and and and so forth and she was held up as an example of nobility and courage in ancient Greek literature because of her willingness to die in the place of her husband and some commentators I've read says they think this is actually what Paul has in mind when he talks about for a good man one might die and for a right or one might dare even to die for a righteous man he maybe fishy that that Paul maybe thinking of a cestus in this case in in the ancient world so it may well be the case that this idea of dying in the place of someone else is a motif that is very prominent in the ancient world and one to which the Gospel writers and Paul appeal to show how Jesus was willing to die in our place but even greater in that he died not for a good man or a righteous man but while we were enemies of God he died for us and that is unparalleled in the ancient world that someone would give his life not for a good man or a righteous man but for an ignoble man an enemy so that just kind of underlines a little bit of Atonement theology with respect to Christ dying in our place and as agonizing again emotionally as it is to think that someone would exhibit such great love as to die for another person could be separated from God forever I think that what we have to say is that no one can earn salvation by works that it is impossible to earn salvation it is only by God's grace that when God judges the totality of one's life if you irrevocably reject Christ out of your life then you repulse the grace of God and you fall back on his justice and as we said earlier you know where you stand there so even though the unbeliever may do this act of tremendous courage and good it isn't as though that merits eternal life if he is rejecting Christ he is rejecting God's gracious provision for sin he is rejecting the one who has died in his place and therefore choosing to have to die himself and that isn't unjust on god's part because this is what every one of us really deserves grace is a salvation is by grace and not by works well thank you very much for your time for coming out early this morning I've enjoyed being with you [Applause]

Channel: GracePres

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Keywords: Dr. William Lane Craig, Grace Presbyterian Church, Peoria, Illinois, theology

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Length: 79min 56sec (4796 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 12 2016