Tag Archives: Scholarship

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Justin Brierley interviews William Lane Craig on the apologetics project

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Justin Brierley has posted an interview with William Lane Craig in the UK magazine “Christianity”. (H/T Mary)

Here’s the introduction:

Type ‘William Lane Craig’ into Google and you find some surprisingly varied views. For example, you’ll find Rick Warren tweeting about his ‘friend’ for whom he has written a recent foreword, and other Christian leaders praising an academic who combines intellect with humility. On the other hand, you may come across Richard Dawkins labelling him a ‘ponderous buffoon’ along with other commentators on his atheist website who describe Craig in even more colourful terms.

So what is it about one American philosophy professor that inspires such divergent views? Craig is arguably the best known defender of the intellectual case for Christianity in the world today. As a philosopher, his work is published in academic journals and books. As a popular apologist for the existence of God, his high-profile debates with leading atheists have been viewed by hundreds of thousands around the world. His style is polished, systematic and devastatingly thorough.

To his fans he is the commander-in-chief of a resistance movement against the populist New Atheism – the man who can floor Goliaths such as Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. To his detractors, he is a wordsmith and a showman – a professional debater who, to quote Richard Dawkins, ‘brandishes impressive-sounding syllogisms from Logic 101 to bamboozle his faithhead audience’.

To me, he comes across as sincere, humble and somewhat bemused by the opinions that are expressed about him online. Is he affected by the words that some atheists write about him? Laughing, he responds: ‘It doesn’t get to me because I don’t read it. I am in blissful ignorance of what these folks are saying about me.’

So why is Richard Dawkins even bothering to comment on William Lane Craig? It is because he has refused multiple invitations to debate Craig when he comes to the UK this October. They met once briefly in a panel debate in Mexico in 2010, an encounter that led to those online comments. Craig’s supporters (and many of his opponents) would like to see a more substantive one-on-one debate, but Dawkins has resolutely refused to face the philosopher again.

To Craig, it is a confirmation that ‘New Atheism’ is more bluster than substance. ‘I would describe it as a pop culture movement, rather than a serious intellectual one. But as pop culture I do take it very seriously. They have the momentum, and it’s very important that we as Christians expose it for the superficiality that it is.’

Here’s are a few of the questions he answers:

You’ve debated leading atheists all over the world. What is your ultimate hope in participating in these events?

Well, one hope is to help to reshape Western culture, which has become deeply secularised, so that Christianity becomes an intellectual option again. I hope especially to reach out to British students seeking for truth and to show that making a commitment to Christ is not a delusion, but perfectly in step with the dictates of reason.

Is this a biblical approach to evangelism?

I think so, especially in Acts. Paul would argue from the scriptures with his Jewish brethren that Jesus was the Messiah. When dealing with a Gentile audience he would present reasons from nature and conscience, moral and cosmological arguments, and appeal to the eyewitness testimony of Jesus’ resurrection. Paul would do things like rent the Hall of Tyrannus and hold daily lectures there to argue and discuss with anybody who wanted to come. So I see myself as very much following the model of Paul.

Are local churches failing young people by not preparing them for the tough questions they run into at university?

I think we are failing them. If we simply read our children Bible stories and give them entertainment and emotional worship experiences, then we are leaving them unprepared for the tremendous intellectual challenges that they will encounter in secondary school and university. I think it is vital that from an early age Christian parents teach their children to think ‘Christianly’ about the world, and to articulate and defend what we as Christians believe.

Do you see people becoming Christians through your ministry?

We really do. It happens when I speak on a university campus… people will register commitments through comment cards at the meetings, and there are also the wonderful emails that we receive weekly from people all around the world saying ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, this has transformed my life.’ Added to that is the effect that this has had in the lives of people who are Christian believers. Once they become confident that this is really the truth, it has an energising effect on them that makes them want to share the gospel. It gives them a zeal for God and a desire to read his word and know him.

I really recommend you read the whole thing. I hope that we are making more scholars like Craig, because Christian scholarship is the best defense to the secularism that threatens to suffocate Christianity once and for all. I really do think that the church has to get serious about motivating and funding scholars like Craig, and not just in the area of philosophy, but in all the areas that are relevant to the task of apologetics. I think that young Christians should choose to study areas that are relevant to the task of apologetics, especially, science, history and philosophy. That’s where the action is.

About William Lane Craig

William Lane Craig is currently conducting a debating and speaking tour of the UK, with stops at Oxford, Cambridge, London and points in between.

Let’s review William Lane Craig’s qualifications:

William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California.

Dr. Craig pursued his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College (B.A. 1971) and graduate studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.A. 1974; M.A. 1975), the University of Birmingham (England) (Ph.D. 1977), and the University of Munich (Germany) (D.Theol. 1984). From 1980-86 he taught Philosophy of Religion at Trinity… In 1987 they moved to Brussels, Belgium, where Dr. Craig pursued research at the University of Louvain until assuming his position at Talbot in 1994.

He has authored or edited over thirty books, including The Kalam Cosmological Argument; Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus; Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom; Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology; and God, Time and Eternity, as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology, including The Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science.

Craig’s CV is here.

Craig’s list of publications is here.

Here are some of Craig’s recent publications: (it’s a little out of date, now)

From 2007:

  • Ed. with Quentin Smith. Einstein, Relativity, and Absolute Simultaneity. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2007, 302 pp.
  • “Theistic Critiques of Atheism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, pp. 69-85. Ed. M. Martin. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  • “The Metaphysics of Special Relativity: Three Views.” In Einstein, Relativity, and Absolute Simultaneity, pp. 11-49. Ed. Wm. L. Craig and Quentin Smith. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2007.
  • “Creation and Divine Action.” In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, pp. 318-28. Ed. Chad Meister and Paul Copan. London: Routledge, 2007.

From 2008:

  • God and Ethics: A Contemporary Debate. With Paul Kurtz. Ed. Nathan King and Robert Garcia. With responses by Louise Antony, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, John Hare, Donald Hubin, Stephen Layman, Mark Murphy, and Richard Swinburne. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
  • “Time, Eternity, and Eschatology.” In The Oxford Handbook on Eschatology, pp. 596-613. Ed. J. Walls. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

From 2009:

  • Ed. with J. P. Moreland. Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • “The Kalam Cosmological Argument.” With James Sinclair. In Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Ed. Wm. L. Craig and J. P. Moreland. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • “In Defense of Theistic Arguments.” In The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue. Ed. Robert Stewart. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Forthcoming:

  • “The Cosmological Argument.” In Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Issues. Ed. Paul Copan and Chad Meister. Cambridge: Blackwell.
  • “Cosmological Argument”; “Middle Knowledge.” In The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology. Ed. G. Fergusson et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • “Divine Eternity.” In Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Ed. Thomas Flint and Michael Rea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Craig has debated dozens of times against the top atheist scholars. If you have never taken in any of his debates, take a look at his debate against Christopher Hitchens on Youtube.

News

Humanist Association president Polly Toynbee runs away from debate on God

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Is this what atheism amounts to?
Is this what atheism amounts to?

Here’s the story at BeThinking.

Excerpt:

The President of the British Humanist Association has pulled out of debating renowned Christian philosopher William Lane Craig. Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist and prominent critic of religion, readily agreed in April to debate Craig on the Existence of God but withdrew her involvement last week saying “I hadn’t realised the nature of Mr Lane Craig’s debating style, and having now looked at his previous performances, this is not my kind of forum”.

The event, hosted by Premier Christian Radio and due to take place at London’s Westminster Central Hall in October, has already been advertised and hundreds of pounds of ticket sales banked. Toynbee apologised for the “inconvenience”. Organisers will be contacting ticket holders, but are hoping to find an alternative leading atheist voice for the debate [see note below], who is willing to dispute the strong rational grounds for Christian theism that Professor Craig is renowned for defending.

William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, California. He has debated leading atheists the world over including Anthony Flew, Lewis Wolpert, Christopher Hitchens, and most recently Sam Harris, who described him as “the one Christian apologist who has put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists.” Following the debate with Hitchens, an atheist website concluded that Craig had “spanked Hitchens like a foolish child.”

Craig says of his debates, “These are academic forums, where one concentrates on the arguments and counter arguments, the truth of the premises in those arguments and objections to them, and not on personality or ad hominem attacks.”

Richard Dawkins recently described Craig as a “deeply unimpressive … ponderous buffoon”, who uses logic for “bamboozling his faith-head audience.” Yet he still has not responded to the actual content of the arguments presented by Craig. Dawkins’ refusal to debate one-to-one with Craig was recently described as “apt to be interpreted as cowardice” by Dr Daniel Came, a lecturer in Philosophy at Oxford University. Dr Came, who is himself an atheist, called it “a glaring omission” on Dawkins’ CV.

Meanwhile, A.C. Grayling, who this year published a humanist ‘bible’ called The Good Book has refused to debate with Craig on the foundations of atheist morality. With secular Britain beset by moral difficulties, not least among politicians, police and the press, this seems to be a neglect of his moral and intellectual duty. Grayling stated that he would rather debate “the existence of fairies and water-nymphs”.

Bolstering his own refusal to debate, Richard Dawkins posted this statement by A.C. Grayling on his website: “Craig claims to have debated me before – that is not correct, unless a brief and rather pointless exchange of emails counts as such.” Why should Craig claim to have debated Grayling, if it was not true?

This embarrassing lapse of memory on Grayling’s part has been exposed by Premier Radio who on 3rd July broadcast a recording of the entire Grayling vs. Craig debate on the Problem of Evil from 2005 and placed it on their website. Within the next 10 days, 10,000 people had downloaded it. It is now available on YouTube.

The Chairman that evening, Roger Preece, remembers it well. “The Debate was excellent. Craig and Grayling spoke to a packed house of 4-500 students at the Oxford Union. I enjoyed chairing the debate and it was a memorable and robust exchange, as the audio tapes confirm.”

Grayling has since commented “I was wrong about debating Lane Craig – but Lane Craig is wrong about everything else in the universe, so I guess I don’t do too badly in the deal.”

Dr Peter May, Director of the Craig Tour, said, “If Craig is ‘wrong about everything else in the universe’ and his arguments for the existence of God are so easy to refute, it is hard to see why the leading atheist voices in the country are running shy of having a debate with him. Rather than hurling ‘ad hominem’ attacks on Craig from their bunkers, it would be good to see these figures come forward to rationally defend the atheism they publicly espouse. At the moment it’s looking like a rout.”

While Toynbee is President of the British Humanist Association, Dawkins and Grayling are both Vice-Presidents. The BHA describes one of its core values as “engaging in debate rationally, intelligently and with attention to evidence”. [View the BHA core values here.]

And now we sing the atheist theme song:

If I were an atheist, I would be ashamed. This woman turned down a formal academic debate with a leading Christian scholar. The debate format is neutral, featuring fixed length speeches and no interruptions. Craig’s style is to use scientific evidence and formal logical arguments. I thought atheists were supposed to be good at logic and science? I guess not, though. “I don’t like God telling me what to do” is apparently as far ahead as they’ve thought. Is that all atheism is? Is it just a childhood tantrum that has run on too long? Is there no argument or evidence to sustain it at all? Are the “best” atheist debaters simply the ones who can rant the most shrilly? Is there anything more to atheism than whining and insults?

If you are interested in seeing William Lane Craig debate, check out the two videos below:

Yes, that is Christopher Hitchens in the first debate.

Related posts

Mentoring

J. Gresham Machen on the relationship between knowledge and faith

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Christian scholarship is the new Crusade
Christian scholarship is the new Crusade

Most of my readers are familiar with William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland – they are two of the most famous Christian apologists out operating today. They both cite a person named “J. Gresham Machen”, and today I want to tell you more about this person.

William Lane Craig quotes him in this chapel address to Wheaton College students. (I am adding some context to Craig’s citation: Craig started the quote at “False ideas…” and ended it at “…harmless delusion”)

We are all agreed that at least one great function of the Church is the conversion of individual men. The missionary movement is the great religious movement of our day. Now it is perfectly true that men must be brought to Christ one by one. There are no labor-saving devices in evangelism. It is all hard-work.

And yet it would be a great mistake to suppose that all men are equally well prepared to receive the gospel. It is true that the decisive thing is the regenerative power of God. That can overcome all lack of preparation, and the absence of that makes even the best preparation useless. But as a matter of fact God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable conditions for the reception of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion.

I was actually in the audience when he gave this speech – I was there for the philosophy conference.

So Craig is citing J. Gresham Machen. What about Moreland?

Here’s an essay that Moreland wrote for Christian Leadership Ministries, the faculty arm of Campus Crusade for Christ.

He cites he exact same passage by J. Gresham Machen, as well, only he starts his citation at “God usually exerts…”.

So that’s Craig and Moreland. Citing the same passage, by the same writer. Interesting.

So who is this J. Gresham Machen anyway?

Here’s the bio:

J. Gresham Machen was professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary before becoming one of the founders of Westminster Theological Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). This address on The Scientific Preparation of the Minister, was delivered September 20, 1912, at the opening of the one hundred and first session of Princeton Theological Seminary, and in substance (previously) at a meeting of the Presbyterian Ministers’ Association of Philadelphia, May 20, 1912. It was first published in The Princeton Theological Review, Vol. 11, 1913.

And Craig and Moreland are citing this essay, which you can read online for free. If you want to know what makes the Wintery Knight the Wintery Knight, this is the place to find your answers.

The essay was published in the Princeton Theological Review in 1913. The essay explains what the church should have done, but didn’t. And the only way out of the mess we are in now is to go back to the fork in the road and make the right turn this time.

You really need to read the essays I linked to by Craig, Moreland and Machen. It will open your eyes and show you how there can be so many Christians attending church on Sundays, and yet they have so little impact on the culture as a whole.

Autobiographical note

When I was a young man, I was exposed to the writings of William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, Walter L. Bradley, Greg Koukl, Hugh Ross, and Philip E. Johnson – and they changed my life. It really does make a big difference to young people when they are engaged at an intellectual level, with logic and evidence. I had no other connections to the church at that time. No one in my family, and none of my friends, were religiously inclined. I had no felt needs for religion. But approaching Christianity as knowledge worked for me. Before my conversion, I never attended the feminized church. And I was never told that Christianity was opposed to logic and evidence. Imagine my surprise to see what was being taught in the church compared to the public, testable claims to knowledge in the Bible, and the public, testable claims to knowledge that Christians scholars made in their books.

This passage from R.C. Sproul and John Gerstner in their otherwise useless book on Christian apologetics was formative for me, as well:

Secularism, on the other hand, is a post-Christian phenomenon carrying in its baggage, a conscious rejection of the Christian world view. It supplants the Christian consensus with its own structured view of reality. Less barbaric on the surface than paganism, secularism adopts a benevolent paternalism toward the not yet enlightened Christian who continues the practice of an anachronistic faith. Wearing a benign mask, the secularist loudly proclaims his commitment to religious tolerance on behalf of those weak-minded souls who still cannot bear to face a hostile, or worse, an indifferent universe, without the narcotic effect of ecllesiastical opium. The church is safe from vicious persecution at the hands of the secularist, as educated people have finished with stake-burning circuses and torture racks. No martyr’s blood is shed in the secularist West – so long as the church knows her place and remains quietly at peace on her modern reservation. Let the babes pray and sing and read their Bibles, continuing steadfast in their intellectual retardation; the church’s extinction will come not by sword of pillory, but by the quiet death of irrelevance. It will pass away with a whimper not a bang. But let the church step off the reservation, let her penetrate once more the culture of the day and the Janus-face of secularism will change from benign smile to savage snarl.

This is the problem we are facing today. We have changed Christianity into “faith” instead of KNOWLEDGE.