Are the passion narratives in the Gospels early and accurate?

Have you ever wondered why scholars today consider the passion narratives in the Gospels to be early and accurate? The following clip is from an interview with Dr. William Lane Craig on the John Ankerberg show which seeks to answer this question.

Do Miracles Violate the Laws of Nature?

Have you ever heard the argument that since matter cannot be created nor destroyed, this universe must be eternal? Or since miracles go against the laws of nature, therefore miracles cannot occur? William Lane Craig, John Kennedy, Alvin Plantinga, and Doug Thrower in this video discuss whether miracles do actually violate the laws of nature.

Naturalism Requires Faith

Have you ever heard someone say that the physical world is all there is? That belief is called naturalism. But as William Lane Craig proves in this minute and a half video is that naturalism is not based on evidence, but on faith.

Atheists, How is the Existence of God and Evil Incompatible?

Many people mistakenly think that if evil exists, then therefore God cannot exist. But the question must be asked, "How are the two incompatible with each other?" Dr. William Lane Craig in this short two-minute video shows that the atheist is actually the one who has the burden of proof to shoulder, showing that the two cannot co-exist.

Evil, a Proof of God's Existence

For sure one of the most common arguments used against the existence of God is the fact that there is evil in the world. But in actuality, evil much less than being an argument against God's existence, actually proves His existence. Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Greg Koukl in this close to 3 minute video explain how this is the case.

The Ontological Argument & Refuting Dawkins

The Ontological Argument for God's existence is one that has been greatly discussed as to its validity ever since its first formation by Anselm in the 11th century AD. Since then, the argument has been developed further by various philosophers in response to some of the criticism the argument has received. Dr. William Lane Craig in the following 5 minute video lays out the Modal Ontological Argument, and then addresses some of the criticism that Richard Dawkins has made against the argument.

How to respond to "But who Created God?"

If you have talked with an atheist before about the existence of God, undoubtedly you have heard them respond with, "But who created God?" This is usually in the context of presenting the cosmological argument, explaining that all things that have beginnings have causes, the universe had a beginning and therefore must have had a cause. Atheists strangely think by saying, "What caused God?" they have found a defeater for this cosmological argument. But as Dr. William Lane Craig explains in the following one minute video, the question the atheist is asking there is completely irrelevant, and therefore not a defeater to the cosmological argument.

When Jesus died, did both of his Natures die?

Q&A with Dr. William Lane Craig

Question:

My question is one I have never been able to get a clear answer on. When Jesus died on the cross, did God die? That being, did the essence of Jesus actually die?

This question really bothered me after hearing the song "And Can it Be?" There's a line in there towards the end of the chorus "Amazing Love! How can it be that Thou my God shouldst die for me? Amen?"

I've never really been able to get a clear and concise answer to this question and there seems to be some differing opinions among theologians as to the nature of this question. Pastor John MacArthur seems to think God did die because Jesus is God. But R.C. Sproul on the other hand disagrees and believes that God cannot die.

I don't see how it's possible that God could actually die. For if God were to die then He wouldn't be a necessary Being. But this is impossible because God must be necessary by definition. So when Christ died on the cross, was it just the human part that died?

Jesse

Dr. Craig responds:

I couldn't resist your question, Jesse, since it appeals to my favorite hymn, the magnificent "And Can It Be?" by Charles Wesley. I urge anyone who knows only praise songs and choruses to listen to this hymn and contemplate the wonderful lyrics about God's amazing love.

Your question is one that also troubles our Muslim friends and is therefore very urgent. Fortunately, the historic Christian church has addressed this question clearly.

The Council of Chalcedon (451) declared that the incarnate Christ is one person with two natures, one human and one divine. This has very important consequences. It implies that since Christ existed prior to his incarnation, he was a divine person before taking on a human nature. He was and is the second person of the Trinity. In the incarnation this divine person assumes a human nature as well, but there is no other person in Christ than the second person of the Trinity. There is an additional human nature which the pre-incarnate Christ did not have, but there is no human person in addition to the divine person. There is just one person who has two natures.

Therefore, what Christ said and did, God said and did, since when we speak of Christ we're talking about a person. For that reason the Council endorses speaking of Mary as "the mother of God." She bore the person who is a divine person. Unfortunately, this language has been disastrously misleading because it sounds as though Mary birthed the divine nature of Christ when in fact she birthed Christ's human nature. Mohammed apparently thought that Christians believed that Mary was the third member of the Trinity, and Jesus was the offspring of God the Father and Mary, a view which he rightly rejected as blasphemous, though no orthodox Christian holds it.

To avoid such inevitable misunderstandings it is helpful to speak of what Christ does or how he is relative to one of his two natures. For example, Christ is omnipotent relative to his divine nature but he is limited in power relative to his human nature. He is omniscient with respect to his divine nature but ignorant of various facts with respect to his human nature. He is immortal with regard to his divine nature, but mortal with regard to his human nature.

You can probably see now where I'm headed. Christ could not die with respect to his divine nature but he could die with respect to his human nature. What is human death? It is the separation of the soul from the body when the body ceases to be a living organism. The soul survives the body and will someday be re-united with it in a resurrected form. That's what happened to Christ. His soul was separated from his body and his body ceased to be alive. He became temporarily a disembodied person. On the third day God raised him from the dead in a transformed body.

In short, yes, we can say that God died on the cross because the person who underwent death was a divine person. So Wesley was all right in asking, "How can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?" But to say that God died on the cross is misleading in the same way that it is misleading to say that Mary was the mother of God. So I think it better to say that Christ died on the cross with respect to his human nature but not with respect to his divine nature.

Source: ReasonableFaith.org

Does Science Prove Atheism?

Have you ever encountered an atheist who claimed that he doesn't believe in God because of 'science'? Dr. William Lane Craig in this 3 minute video objectively examines whether science actually does prove the non-existence of God, and comes to the conclusion that it is actually logically impossible for it to do so.

Could Jesus' Postmortem Appearances have been Hallucinations?

The gospel accounts and Paul's first letter to the Corinthians contain very clear statements about Jesus appearing alive to people after His death. But is it possible that these were just hallucinations? Dr. William Lane Craig discusses this hypothesis to see whether it is actually historically tenable.

Isn't it Unscientific to posit God at the Beginning of the Universe?

In this short 2 minute video, Dr. William Lane Craig responds to the objection that it is unscientific to say that God is the creator of the universe.

If Eveything Needed a Creator, Then Who Created God?

This is a very common objection that people bring up when discussing the Cosmological Argument. In this 1-minute video, Dr. William Lane Craig refutes the idea that God would did a creator for Himself.

Q&A with William Lane Craig: Fine Tuning and Morality

Question:

Fine Tuning: This argument (based on my understanding) is based on the assumption that life can only form under the conditions of our universe and only takes into account life as we know it. Is it not possible for life to form under different physical constants? If so, wouldn't the fine tuning of our universe be irrelevant to the question of God's existence?

Moral Argument: You assert that objective morality comes about through God (to put it very simply). Isn't it just as plausible to see morality as something evolving from early homo sapiens and the development of different societies and civilizations and the necessities that follow from living in those societies? Couldn't morality have come about naturally through the demands of a society to conform to the norms?

Nathan

Dr. William Lane Craig responds:

1. Fine-Tuning. Your understanding of the argument is incorrect. See my exposition of the argument in Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed. When scientists talk about a universe's being life-permitting, they're not talking about just present forms of life. By "life" scientists just mean the property of organisms to take in food, extract energy from it, grow, adapt to their environment, and reproduce. Anything that can fulfill those functions counts as life. And the point is, in order for life so-defined to exist, whatever form it might take, the constants and quantities of the universe have to be unbelievably fine-tuned. You suggest that if the constants and quantities had had different values, then different forms of life might have evolved. But you're underestimating the truly disastrous consequences of a change in the values of these constants and quantities. In the absence of fine-tuning not even matter, not even chemistry, would exist, much less planets where life might evolve.

Someone might think, "But maybe in a universe governed by different laws of nature, such disastrous consequences might not result." But this objection also betrays a misunderstanding of the argument. We're not concerned with universes governed by different laws of nature. We have no idea what such universes might be like! Rather we're concerned solely with universes governed by the same laws of nature but with different values of the constants and arbitrary quantities. The philosopher John Leslie gives the following illustration: imagine a solitary fly, resting on a large, blank area of the wall. A single shot is fired, and the bullet strikes the fly. Now even if the rest of the wall outside the blank area is covered with flies, so that a randomly fired bullet would probably hit one, nevertheless it remains highly improbable that a single, randomly fired bullet would strike the solitary fly within the large, blank area.

In the same way, we need concern ourselves only with universes governed by the same laws of nature in order to determine how likely it is that one of them should be life-permitting. Because the laws are the same, we can determine what would happen if the constants and quantities were to be altered. And the results turn out to be disastrous. A life-permitting universe is like that solitary fly on the wall.

2. Morality. The answer to your questions is: It all depends! If God does not exist, then, as I've argued, what you say is exactly what moral values are: mere byproducts of biological and social evolution. But if God exists, then they're not. For the truth of a belief is independent of how you came to hold that belief. You may have acquired your moral beliefs through a fortune cookie or by reading tea leaves, and they could still be true. In particular, if God exists, then objective moral values and duties exist, regardless of how we come to learn about them. The socio-biological account at best proves that our perception of moral values and duties has evolved. But if moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual and fallible perception of those values no more undermines their objective reality than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines its objective reality.

So the real question is: do you think there is an objective distinction between good and evil, right and wrong? I'm sure you do. Philosophers who reflect on our moral experience see no more reason to distrust that experience than the experience of our five senses. I believe what my five senses tell me, that there is a world of physical objects out there. Similarly, in the absence of some reason to distrust my moral experience, I should accept what it tells me, that some things are objectively good or evil, right or wrong.

Extracted from ReasonableFaith.org

Is God a Delusion? Discussion

William Lane Craig vs Lewis Wolpert

In 2007, Professors William Lane Craig and Lewis Wolpert undertook to debate each other on the topic of the existence of God. Below is a series of 4 reasonably short videos of the pretty humorous discussion that took place after the debate, moderated by BBC's John Humphrys.

Why is Richard Dawkins so Popular?

In this four minute video, Dr. William Lane Craig responds to the question about why Richard Dawkins seems to be so popular among atheists.

Things Science cannot Prove

This 3-minute video is a snippet of a debate between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Peter Atkins, addressing the important issue of: 'Are there things that Science cannot prove?'

The Concept Of God In Islam and Christianity Debate

William Lane Craig vs. Shabir Ally

The concept of God is remarkably different between the two biggest religions of the world, Islam and Christianity. However, the question must be asked: Which one is true, as both religions claim there is only one God?

This debate was held at McGill University, in Quebec, Canada in February 2009.

Download Audio (Thanks to Apologetics 315)

Note: Not all the views expressed in this debate by Dr. Craig are shared by Operation 513.

Do Improbable Events Necessitate Design?

Question:

I'm interested in how the teleological argument can escape the criticism of some who would argue that if an infinitesimally improbable event such as a finely-tuned Universe could warrant belief in a God, then how what about other incomprehensibly improbable events?

For instance, imagine a possible Universe that is much larger than our own, in which there are only two small space rocks in existence, but they are located on different edges of the Universe. The possibility of these two small rocks colliding is fantastically improbable, but if it did theoretically happen, would that warrant a supernatural explanation?

Ariel

Dr. William Lane Craig responds:

If you read the work of Intelligent Design theorists, Ariel, you’ll find that none of them appeals to the simple high improbability of an event or thing as a basis for a design inference. Your own existence, for example, is due to the incredibly improbable union of a certain sperm and a certain egg, yet we would not infer on that basis that your conception was intelligently designed.

The dean of the contemporary Intelligent Design movement William Dembski argues that in addition to high improbability there also needs to be conformity to an independently given pattern. When these two elements are present, we have what Dembski calls “specified complexity,” which is the tip-off to intelligent design. Thus, for example, in a poker game any deal of cards is equally and highly improbable, but if you find that every time a certain player deals he gets all four aces, you can bet this is not the result of chance but of design.

Now in your example, if the two rocks collided, you would infer neither design nor chance as the best explanation, but the third alternative, physical necessity. Since gravitation acts over infinite distances, it is actually inevitable that those two masses will eventually collide. What would warrant a design inference would be if the rocks were to break into pieces which then came together to spell “Welcome to the Milky Way.”

To detect design look for high improbability conjoined with an independently given pattern.

Source: ReasonableFaith.org

Are there Objective Truths about God?

Over the centuries and even today, many people claim that it is impossible to know anything about God. Dr. William Lane Craig, in this audio, examines and sufficiently refutes each one of these opposing worldviews.

Download MP3 (1 Hour - 14.1 MB)

Is there any Hope in Atheism?

Question:

Hello Dr. Craig,

I read your article “Does God Exist” and in it you stated this:

“If God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. If there is no God, then there is ultimately no hope for deliverance from the shortcomings of our finite existence.”

I have to simply disagree with this. I think as an atheist one can certainly live with tremendous hope. I mean if there is no God then there is no ultimate accountability. No fear going before a Just and Holy God to give an account of one’s life. One can live the life of their choosing as a result of this, with no fear of retribution. This is hope to the atheist.

Can you refute this kind of hope?

Thank You,

Bill

Dr. William Lane Craig responds:

Well, Bill, yours is certainly a novel defense of the atheist’s hope: hope of escaping the judgement of God! I must concede that the atheist may--indeed, must--hope that he will not fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10.31)!

But that doesn’t really negate what I said. I identified specific senses in which atheism is a philosophy without hope:

2. If God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. If there is no God, then there is ultimately no hope for deliverance from the shortcomings of our finite existence.

For example, there is no hope for deliverance from evil. Although many people ask how God could create a world involving so much evil, by far most of the suffering in the world is due to man’s own inhumanity to man. The horror of two world wars during the last century effectively destroyed the 19th century’s naive optimism about human progress. If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope for deliverance from evil.

Or again, if there is no God, there is no hope of deliverance from aging, disease, and death. Although it may be hard for you as university students to contemplate, the sober fact is that unless you die young, someday you—you yourself—will be an old man or an old woman, fighting a losing battle with aging, struggling against the inevitable advance of deterioration, disease, perhaps senility. And finally and inevitably you will die. There is no afterlife beyond the grave. Atheism is thus a philosophy without hope.

Notice that I’m talking about the shortcomings of our finite existence. I identify two in particular: (i) evil and (ii) aging, disease, and death. It seems to me that atheism is hopeless in these matters. In a famous passage, the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell lamented,

That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; . . . that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.1

Sartre, Camus, and many other atheists have eloquently expressed the despair to which atheism leads. In this sense atheism is hopeless.

Ironically, Christianity, by contrast, not only provides hope of deliverance from evil and from aging, disease, and death, but it also furnishes the hope which you yourself cherish: deliverance from the hands of a just and holy God. This was Martin Luther’s great insight. The same righteousness of God that wrought his condemnation as a sinner outside of Christ, that very same righteousness became the source of salvation for him as one who by faith is united with Christ. For when you trust Christ as your Savior and Lord, God reckons to your account Christ’s righteousness. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8.1).

Thus any hope the atheist might entertain is enjoyed many times over by the Christian, for we enjoy, not merely escape from judgement, but positive salvation. You might say that Christians thereby give up being able to act with impunity, as the atheist can. Granted; but, Bill, I wouldn’t want to act that way! When you come to Christ, God changes your desires so that you want to live a righteous and blameless life. The Bible says that the fruit of God’s Spirit’s filling your life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5. 22). Think about that list of personal virtues. Isn’t that really the kind of person you’d like to be?

One final point: you’ve described the atheist’s hope. How firm is that hope? How well-founded is it? Most atheists I’ve talked to admit that atheism cannot be proven; indeed, many insist on it. But then how do you know atheism is true? The Christian’s hope is firmly founded, not only on the witness of the Holy Spirit, but on the arguments of natural theology and the evidence for Jesus and his resurrection. But the atheist’s hope is by his own admission without strong foundation. So what if your hope is ill-founded? What if you’re wrong?

Endnotes

1 Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, eds., Robert E. Egner and Lester E. Denonn (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), p. 67.

Source: ReasonableFaith.org