Tag Archives: William Lane Craig

Videos

William Lane Craig explains God’s relationship to time

3 Comments

This is kind of an advanced topic that can make your head explode… so be careful.

Here’s the first video in the series on God and Time:

Summary:

Robert Lawrence Kuhn (host of PBS’ “Closer to Truth”) interviews William Lane Craig on time in relation to God. Questions explored: How do you deal with God and time? What is the tensed (aka A-Theory or dynamic theory) and tenseless (aka B-Theory or static) theory of time? How do they deal with past, present and future? Who is John Ellis McTaggart? How do scientists use the 4-dimension of time? How does special relativity deal with the A-theory and B-theory of time?

And the second:

Summary:

Robert Lawrence Kuhn (host of PBS’ “Closer to Truth”) asks William Lane Craig about God’s personal relationship with time. Questions explored: If God is timeless how can He be active in the temporal world? Who is Soren Kierkegaard? Does it makes sense to talk about a timeless person? Does time affect God? Or does God affect time? Does God have a future? How does Evil and time effect one another? How does God work in time if He were in time? How does God work in time if He were timeless? How would God be in a tensed theory of time? How would God be in a tenseless theory of time?

And the third:

Summary:

Robert Lawrence Kuhn (host of PBS’ “Closer to Truth”) interviews William Lane Craig about whether God is temporal or timeless. Questions explored: Why did it take God so long to create us? What did Leibniz argue against Newton? How did this entail that time had a beginning? How did a timeless God create a temporal universe? Does God change His characteristics in creating time? In what sense is God eternal with relation to time? Can God go back in time and undo what was done? If God works in time is he “locked” in time forever? When God works in time is He “limited”?

Many Christians disagree with Dr. Craig on his ideas about God and Time… but I think they are all wrong!

The least difficult book on this difficult topic is this one.

Videos

William Lane Craig explains God’s omniscience

2 Comments

What does God know? What does it mean to be omniscient?

Summary:

Robert Lawrence Kuhn (host of PBS’ “Closer to Truth”) asks William Lane Craig on God’s omniscience. Questions explored: What does it mean for God to be omniscience? What is meant by proposition? What is meant by non-propositional knowledge? Does God have propositional or non-propositional knowledge? What is the difference between natural knowledge, free knowledge, and middle knowledge? Who is Luis de Molina?

The interviewer is very intelligent and does a great interview!

Tons more videos here. I may post some more when I watch more.

Videos

Frank Turek on the criterion of embarrassment

2 Comments

Here’s the video. (H/T Chris S.)

The criterion of embarrassment is just one of the historical criteria used to select the parts of a piece of ancient literature that is likely to be historical. Other things in the source may have happened, but we can’t know them as history. If significant parts of a text are historical, it is possible to accept it as historical until there are specific reasons to say that some part of it is NOT historical.

Here is William Lane Craig’s list of criteria for a saying or event to be historical:

  1. Historical congruence: S fits in with known historical facts concerning the context in which S is said to have occurred.
  2. Independent, early attestation: S appears in multiple sources which are near to the time at which S is alleged to have occurred and which depend neither upon each other nor a common source.
  3. Embarrassment: S is awkward or counter-productive for the persons who serve as the source of information for S.
  4. Dissimilarity: S is unlike antecedent Jewish thought-forms and/or unlike subsequent Christian thought-forms.
  5. Semitisms: traces in the narrative of Aramaic or Hebrew linguistic forms.
  6. Coherence: S is consistent with already established facts about Jesus.

The criteria is the same for liberals and conservatives although some weight one criteria more than others. E.g. – moderate liberal E.P. Sanders likes embarrassment and multiple attestation, liberals John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg like multiple attestation and early attestation, moderate Dale Allison likes embarrassment and dissimilarity, conservative N.T. Wright likes dissimilarity. Craig likes all of them and uses them all.

If you want to see these criteria used in a debate, watch this debate between William Lane Craig and James Crossley.

This is the best debate on the historical Jesus that I have ever seen.

If someone is asking you whether they should accept the Bible in all by making a faith commitment, then you tell them about the historical criteria, and you show them a debate. Show them a list of sayings or events that are considered to be indisputable. (That list is by the naturalist E. P. Sanders). And show them a fact that even William Lane Craig hesitates to defend. That way, you are not asking them to swallow a camel of inerrancy before they can read the Bible. Give them the criteria and show them how to use it. Talk about the dating of the sources. Be a scholar. Let them read the text as an interested skeptic.