How could it be reasonable to base my life on an ancient book (the Bible was written between 2000 and 3500 years ago)? Indeed, how could it be reasonable to base my life on any book? I should think for myself. To live by someone else鈥檚 instructions is to surrender my own mind and personality. That approach produces mindless drones, cultists and terrorists. Yet for two millennia, followers of Jesus from every culture and language have followed the Bible as their authority, from simple folks to some of history鈥檚 most influential scholars and intellectuals, from poor people with no political power to those in positions of great influence. And the world is radically different as a result.
I recently came across an excellent list of questions that every missionary thinking of joining a missions agency should ask before signing up. This list, and the introductory paragraphs, were written by Dan Crane from the First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton. They are reprinted with permission.
Dr. Craig, You have played a vital role in my apologetic development, a long with other philosophers. I am puzzled by the fact that a lot of things are taken for granted although examining their legitimacy is the job of philosophy, thus I need to ask you, why do you believe in time in the first place? Isn't just an idea in our mind that helps us locate an event in relation to our experience? I do not get older because of time, but because of my biological development and entropic reality. These are physical constituents of the Universe that entail space and mass in a dynamical interaction. Moreover, the elements that shape events already exist in our universe, to say the time for x has not yet come, is strictly to say that the physical conditions for x to occur is not satisfied yet by the gathered factors. Can you help me identify what I could be missing here, please?
Have you ever felt like a failure? Inadequate? Ineffectual? Have you ever examined your heart and glimpsed sin and darkness and defeat? I have. It is discouraging and demoralizing. It makes me wonder what God sees in me. There is no doubt that I am a flawed vessel. But does that mean that I am a useless vessel?
Perhaps the real question our friends are asking is this: 鈥淲hat impact does our faith as Messianic Jews have on our support of Israel?鈥 This is a fair question, and it is a reasonable assumption that most Jews who believe in Jesus support the Jewish state.
Dear Dr. Craig, I have been arguing with a friend that is an atheist. I am also an atheist or perhaps more correctly, an agnostic about Leibniz鈥檚 cosmological argument ... If after sufficient research, Leibniz鈥檚 argument proves more plausibly true than false, than on the basis of it and the abductive argument for the historicity of Christ's resurrection, I'm prepared to take Pascal's Wager.
... I have read and listened to you on your reformed epistemologist view; the Christian faith being based on Holy Spirit witnessed properly basic beliefs; distinguishing between knowing and showing your Faith to be true and all. In your statements, and especially with reference to the recent 'Problem with Christian Apologetics' podcast, you state that when a believer encounters a more skilled and sophisticated rebuttal of his Faith, because he knows his Faith to be true primarily by the Witness of the God, he only has to go and research on good defeaters to the rebuttals. The unanswered rebuttals in no way should trump the witness of the Spirit to us on the Truth of Christianity. My question is, wouldn't that be argued to be having the end game in mind and only finding the reasons to shore up a presupposed conclusion? Wouldn't the incentive to beef up your case lead to interpreting the data to fit the conclusion already at hand? I believe you hold that we should move towards where the evidences lead us, how open are we to the evidences if we have a conclusion that has got to and can only be upheld? I would love to have a response from you.
Just this month, after leading a two-week study tour with the Whittier Area Community Church, our group returned home on June 8, 2014. Most of us met a barrage of questions about 鈥淲hat鈥檚 really going on over there? Resulting conversations intensified when the latest surge of 鈥淚srael vs. Hamas鈥 fighting erupted in the Gaza Strip about three weeks later ...
One of the qualifications for an overseer/elder/pastor (all the same office in the Bible) is that he be 鈥渇ree from the love of money鈥 (1 Tim. 3:3). Now suppose that you are on an elder board and seeking to know whether a new candidate for the office is in fact free from the love of money, how can you figure it out? Here are five useful diagnostic questions.
"I'm an agnostic undergraduate philosophy student, and I find the idea of divine necessity particularly interesting for whatever reason. I wonder if you might respond to the following question / argument ..."
In the top-ranked TV show, NCIS, special agent Tony Dinozzo is on assignment in Marseille, France, charged with bringing home to the USA the grown daughter of an Admiral, who is one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both of their phones have been destroyed or compromised, so Tony has limited contact with his Boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs ...
La semana pasada mi esposa, Ang茅lica, y yo celebramos 16 a帽os de casados. Ang茅lica es, sin duda, la mayor bendici贸n que he recibido y nuestro matrimonio ha sido el mejor y a la vez el m谩s dif铆cil tiempo de mi vida. Estoy profundamente agradecido por la dicha de haber encontrado el favor divino en mi esposa y puedo asegurar con toda certeza que soy feliz a su lado. Tambi茅n he de reconocer que el matrimonio no es f谩cil y caminar por la vida junto a otra persona por momentos pareciera una carrera de obst谩culos. Esta combinaci贸n de realidades, aunque parecieran contradictorias, reflejan acertadamente mis a帽os de casado y estoy seguro la de la mayor铆a de los matrimonios entre seguidores de Cristo.
Each August the Hellermans spend several weeks vacationing in the mountains, in Mammoth Lakes, CA. One afternoon, on one of our getaways, our oldest daughter (then thirteen years old) came out of her room with a play she had written. Rebekah has always been into drama. She had participated in a number of children鈥檚 theater productions at our previous church. On the home front, Rebekah recruited neighborhood friends and staged 鈥減lays鈥 before a captive audience of indulgent parents ... So began an adventure that continues to unfold today, sixteen years later.
"Can you be an anti-realist about some things and a realist about others? For example, do you no longer give the realist resolution to the Euthyphro Dilemma, no longer ground the Good in God's nature? Couldn't abstract objects be grounded in the Logos (divine, rather than Platonic, essentialism)?"
I am all for weekends (even when I have to work, such as doing lesson planning, grading, or writing a blog post!). But sometimes we can fall into the trap of thinking of work as the negative and leisure or rest as the positive aspect of our lives. Work can become something we need to 鈥済et through鈥 in order to make it to the weekend; Sundays are our 鈥渟piritual鈥 days as opposed to our 鈥渨orking鈥 days that begin on Mondays, and so forth.
I gleaned more wisdom from my parents than any blog could contain, but here are three more lessons that stand out in my mind and heart as I remember Bob & Reka, lovebirds to the end.
After six months of on-and-off reading, I have just completed N.T. Wright鈥檚 book, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. The book is 1660 pages long if you include the bibliography and indices. (If you don鈥檛 it鈥檚 only 50 pages long鈥ust kidding.) Here are three things I liked about this two-volume book, and two things that I struggled with.
People have studied leaders for centuries. To study leaders is to analyze the characteristics of individual people who demonstrate the ability to gather a group of followers. However, the study of leadership is a relatively new discipline dating from about the year 1900. To study leadership is to inspect the interactions a leader has with his or her followers. Both areas of study require one to define a leader. So just what is a leader? ...
It鈥檚 wedding season and there are many ways to celebrate on that special day for the bride and the groom. One of the best ways to celebrate this occasion is through the traditional toast that is given during the wedding reception. However, I鈥檝e recently seen that what should typically be one of the high points of the reception just flops miserably... This is not what we should do to the bride or groom! I鈥檇 like to offer a few suggestions in this blog of what not to do in a toast and then what one should do in order to make the celebration a wonderful and meaningful one.
Hi Dr Craig I was wondering today after binge listening your podcast if there are any women theologians or philosophers you read/quote in your arguments/works. I've listened to a great deal of your podcast and read a small handful of your work but I don't remember ever seeing you've favourably quoted or referenced a women as a peer ...
In 19th century England, Atheists knew more about the Bible than most Christians do today. So did Liberal Anglicans, Anglo-Catholics, Unitarians, and Agnostics. So claims Timothy Larsen in A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians (Oxford, 2011) ...
It鈥檚 been over two weeks since I last shared on the Good Book Blog. That means it鈥檚 time for me to share some more tidbits for life gleaned from my folks.
This week's Q & A topic with Dr. William Lane Craig addresses the beginning of the universe and includes reflections on Dr. William Lane Craig's recent debate with Sean Carroll.
A question that naturally surfaces in [the reading of Luke 18:18-27] is whether Jesus considers wealth to be compatible with a life of faithful discipleship. Some interpret this story to say that material things and following Jesus do not mix well. This interpretation is sometimes based on a plain reading of passages like this, but it can also be motivated by material excesses in Christianity that make us uncomfortable. Too much focus on material blessing as a necessary indicator of God鈥檚 approval can stifle efforts at legitimate Christian disciplines such as frugality, generosity, and financial sacrifice. As such, divesting material wealth is sometimes seen as a corrective to bad prosperity theology ...
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