An Objection to the Witness of the Holy Spirit

KEVIN HARRIS: You know, Dr. Craig, we can’t go very long before we start hearing about your view on the witness of the Holy Spirit – the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. We find ourselves coming back to it from time to time looking for new aspects of it. In case there is a listener or viewer who doesn't know what we're talking about – the inner witness of the Holy Spirit – why don't you spell that out and then we will have something on Facebook here from a Christian who disagrees with this whole issue.

DR. CRAIG: In my book Reasonable Faith I ask the question, “How do we know that Christianity is true?” I draw a distinction between knowing Christianity is true and showing Christianity is true. And I argue that although the way in which we show Christianity is true is via arguments and evidence, that's not the primary way in which we know Christianity to be true. As I read the New Testament it seems to me that the primary way in which we know that our faith is true is through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. Paul says in Romans 8 that when we cry “Abba! Father!” it is God's Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God which entails Christian doctrinal claims. This emphasis upon the witness of the Holy Spirit is a classical Protestant emphasis and has received renewed attention in Alvin Plantinga's so-called Reformed Epistemology. Plantinga argues that the way in which we know Christian truth claims is through the inner instigation or witness of the Holy Spirit to the great truths of the Gospel which we read in Scripture. So that's the basic idea – God has supplied us with a means of knowing the truth of the great doctrinal claims of the Christian faith that is independent of argument and evidence but is based upon his own inner witness to us.

KEVIN HARRIS: Here is the objection from David on Facebook. He says,

I love Dr. William Lane Craig. He's done amazing work in philosophy, theology, and apologetics. Indeed I would venture to say that I owe him more of an intellectual debt than just about anyone else. That being said, I do think he hangs too much on the inner witness of the Holy Spirit when it comes to the rational justification for Christian belief. He doesn't just claim that the witness of the Holy Spirit can give a reason to believe. He goes further and claims that this witness is so strong as to be capable of overriding negative evidence against Christian belief. For Craig, the witness of the Holy Spirit is stronger than reason. I think this is a very serious mistake.

Let's take that one first.

DR. CRAIG: All right. What David is talking about here is my claim that the witness of the Holy Spirit can defeat objections brought against the rationality or truth of Christian doctrinal claims. When someone brings an objection against something that we believe, in contemporary philosophical jargon this is called a defeater of your belief. Objections based upon the problem of evil or the unreliability of Scripture or other things of this sort are referred to as defeaters. And if we're to continue to hold our belief rationally we need to find some way of defeating the defeater. We need to find a defeater-defeater; that is to say, a way of responding to the objection – of defeating the would-be defeater. Now, usually this is thought to be in terms of finding either a fallacy in the defeater or additional evidence that will defeat the ostensible defeater. But Alvin Plantinga makes a very provocative suggestion that in many cases the warrant for the original belief is so strong that it simply overwhelms the defeater that is brought against it. He gives the very engaging illustration of someone who is accused of a crime that he knows he didn't commit from his own memory beliefs, and yet all of the evidence is stacked against this person such that a jury of his peers would convict him of this crime even though on the basis of his own memory he knows that he didn't commit the crime. What Plantinga asks is: Is such a person rationally obligated to believe that he committed the crime? Is he rationally obligated to deny what he remembers and to believe that in fact he is guilty as the evidence indicates? And his answer is obviously not! There are times when we know something to be true with such good warrant that it simply overwhelms the evidence brought against it. In this case, Plantinga calls this an intrinsic defeater-defeater. If you have other arguments or evidence to defeat the would-be defeater, he calls that an extrinsic defeater-defeater. But in the case that the warrant for the original belief is so strong that it just overwhelms the defeater brought against it, he says you have an intrinsic defeater-defeater. And it seems to me that the witness of the Holy Spirit can be an intrinsic defeater-defeater. Now, that does not imply, as David suggests, that the witness of the Holy Spirit is stronger than reason. The reason that's not correct is that the deliverances of the Holy Spirit are part of the deliverances of reason – a properly basic belief is part of the deliverances of reason just as much as propositions believed on the basis of evidence and argument. So I'm suggesting that the witness of the Holy Spirit can be an intrinsic defeater-defeater. That's the issue before us. Now, let me just say that not everyone thinks that the Holy Spirit can be an intrinsic defeater-defeater. Many would say, yes, the witness of the Holy Spirit does give us prima facie reason to believe, but it can be defeated by arguments and evidence brought against it. So it's a prima facie justification for Christian belief but it's not indefeasible. It can be defeated. And I want to say, well, hang on a minute. Maybe the witness of the Holy Spirit can be an intrinsic defeater of the defeaters brought against Christian belief.

KEVIN HARRIS: People have tried to corner you on this forever at Q&A sessions. I know an atheist friend of mine was speaking to you face-to-face and said, “What if you went back in time and you saw the tomb and the stone was not rolled away and there was no resurrection? Then what would you do?” And I've always thought if I found myself where I'm thinking that I'm back in time 2,000 years ago seeing this scenario or have a video camera with me or whatever, I would be in a lot better position to believe the witness of the Holy Spirit than to believe that scenario – that I somehow jumped back in time.

DR. CRAIG: Well, that's an extreme case where people are talking about time travel and finding the bones of Jesus which isn't going to happen. But I think what one could say as well is that if one were to find the bones of Jesus then there would be no inner witness of the Holy Spirit. But given that there is an inner witness of the Holy Spirit, we can be pretty confident that they're not going to find the bones of Jesus.

KEVIN HARRIS: Yeah. Exactly. The hypotheticals that people come up with from time to time just tend to miss the point.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah, I think we can leave those aside for David's question and focus on real life situations. For example, when I traveled in the old Soviet Union and met Christians behind the Iron Curtain, I'll tell you my heart was just broken for these brothers and sisters who were maintaining faith in the face of overwhelming Marxist propaganda and university professors that instilled dialectical materialism into them. They clung to faith despite that. And I said to one of them – I remember well – “Have you no resources to help you in your Christian faith?” And he said to me, “Well, there is an encyclopedia of atheism that the state publishes, and by reading that you can learn a little bit about Christian faith because of what they're attacking.” But he said besides that there's not a whole lot. And I thought to myself, “What an incredible circumstance.” Here this brother has no resources to bolster his faith but reading the encyclopedia of atheism put out by the state propagandists. So this isn't a hypothetical. This is a real life situation. And I want to say in such a situation that the witness of the Holy Spirit can be so strong as to be an intrinsic defeater of that Marxist propaganda brought against it.

KEVIN HARRIS: David goes on to say,

I'm a rationalist, so I think reason is primary and inescapably so. Any justification that could be offered for giving the Holy Spirit such a high epistemic priority would inevitably lead to self-contradiction since this would immediately give evidence priority over the Holy Spirit.

DR. CRAIG: Now let's just pause for a moment. Although David claims to be a rationalist, I don't think that's correct. What he means is “I'm an evidentialist.” In contemporary philosophical jargon, an evidentialist is someone who thinks that rational beliefs have to be based upon propositional evidence. So he thinks that for us to believe in the great truths of the Gospel we need to have propositional evidence for this. And Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology is an attack, frankly, upon this sort of evidentialist epistemology. What Plantinga wants to say is that the deliverances of reason includes properly basic beliefs as well as beliefs based on propositional evidence. That's fully in line with David's claim that reason is primary and inescapably so. This is not fideism, that is to say, a leap of faith. The properly basic beliefs grounded by the witness of the Holy Spirit are deliverances of reason. Now David seems to think that this is going to lead to a self-contradiction. So let's go ahead and see how he argues for that.

KEVIN HARRIS: He says,

Theoretically, the witness of the Holy Spirit could be strong enough to function as a form of evidence for making Christian belief rational, but if you have strong contradictory evidence as well then I believe that withholding belief is the appropriate response. Personally, I don't experience the witness of the Holy Spirit in this strong way. The Holy Spirit plays a role of confirmation for me (i.e gives me confidence) but my faith is primarily based on the evidence.

DR. CRAIG: OK. Now, that last statement is an expression of his evidentialism. “My faith,” he says, “is based primarily on the evidence” by which he means apparently propositional evidence. And yet he says the witness of the Holy Spirit could function as a form of evidence. So now he's willing to allow the witness of the Holy Spirit to be a sort of evidence, and I think many people on the contemporary philosophical scene do agree that the evidentialist construed the notion of evidence too narrowly in saying that evidence has to be propositional evidence. Today, so-called phenomenal conservatives would say that if something seems to you to be true then that gives you prima facie evidence for believing it. Now, that could be defeated by other considerations, but at least prima facie if it seems to you to be true then that is a sort of non-propositional evidence. So on that basis you could say that it seems to me that Christianity is true, that the Holy Spirit is witnessing to my heart that the great truths of the Gospel are true. That seems to me to be true, and David seems to allow that in that case, broadly construed, the witness of the Holy Spirit would constitute evidence for the truth of those Christian beliefs. But now here's where we reach the rub. He says if there is strong contradictory evidence (that is to say, if you have a defeater) you should withhold belief. And that's what I disagree with David. I do not believe that a Christian, confronted with a defeater that he cannot answer, should withhold belief and that would be an appropriate response. I'm going to claim as we continue this discussion that that would be a wholly inappropriate response. Now, for justification of his claim David said, “Personally, I don't experience the witness of the Holy Spirit in this strong way.” I grant the point. Many of us do not experience the witness of the Holy Spirit in that strong way. For many of us, it's just a confirmation of what we know through propositional evidence. But what David doesn't reckon with is that the witness of the Holy Spirit can vary in its intensity with the circumstances, and God can provide someone like that man I met in the old Soviet Union with a witness of the Holy Spirit that is so much stronger than the one I experience that it is an intrinsic defeater of the defeaters brought against it. So the fact that David doesn't experience the witness of the Holy Spirit in this strong way is no indication at all that for people who are in these exigent circumstances where the evidence turns against Christianity for them in their relative historical circumstances that God cannot intensify the witness of the Holy Spirit so that the appropriate response is to continue to believe despite the presence of that defeater.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. Just really quickly on that, it seems it's very difficult to describe or try to tell what the inner witness of the Holy Spirit is like for you or for me. Because I could describe it and then someone listening to me could say, “Well, that's not my experience at all.” Also it seems like we would run the risk of saying you're supposed to feel this or you're supposed to be in touch with this and then that leaves someone searching for some weird thing.

DR. CRAIG: I think at root the witness of the Holy Spirit involves what in popular parlance is called assurance of salvation. Christians often ask, “Do you have assurance of your salvation?” And I think that through the witness of the Holy Spirit this is something that God vouchsafes to us, that by his Spirit (as Paul says) I cry Abba! Father! It is God himself bearing witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. So I have an assurance of my salvation. If there are any of our listeners today who are wondering about the witness of the Holy Spirit in their lives I would just ask them: do you have an assurance of salvation? If so, then you do experience the witness of the Holy Spirit.

KEVIN HARRIS: Let's go to his last paragraph then. He says,

Craig often appeals to 1 John in support of his view where we see that the Spirit bears witness that we (believers) are children of God. But I don't think that this verse challenges my position at all. I agree that the Holy Spirit bears witness to believers that they are God's children, but 1 John is concerned with assurance of salvation; it's not about epistemic justification for the truth of Christianity. And the verse certainly does not say that the Holy Spirit overrides contradictory evidence. I think that Craig and others hang more on this verse than it really says. Just my thoughts as an evidentialist.

DR. CRAIG: What I want to say is that I appeal to John's teachings about the witness of the Holy Spirit not to ground my claim that the witness of the Holy Spirit is an intrinsic defeater-defeater. David has misunderstood me there. I appeal to 1 John simply to say that the witness of the Holy Spirit does provide warrant for belief in Christian truth claims. If the Holy Spirit does give you an assurance of salvation (if this is really the testimony of God) then the assurance of salvation entails certain Christian truth claims such as that God exists, that Christ died for my sins, that I am reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. So in making it rational for me to believe in my assurance of salvation the Holy Spirit does testify to the truth of the great things of the Gospel. The question is: Does it constitute an intrinsic defeater of the defeaters brought against it? And here David is certainly right. 1 John does not say that the Holy Spirit can override contradictory evidence, and I don't appeal to this verse in support of the view that the witness of the Spirit is an intrinsic defeater-defeater. Rather, my appeal here is to the warnings against committing apostasy that pepper the New Testament, especially the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews 3, 6, and 10 there are the most severe warnings to Christians not to fall away and of the dire consequences of what will happen if they do fall away and reject Jesus Christ out of their lives. They will be lost forever. They will be damned. And so it can never be God's will, it can never be an appropriate response to a defeater, to reject Jesus Christ out of your life. The author of Hebrews says that those who do so have outraged the Spirit of grace by which they were sanctified and they trample underfoot the blood of the Son of God. And this can never be God's will for your life. That's evident from the judgment that follows it. Once we grasp the severity and gravity of these warnings against apostasy, I think we can see that it is never an appropriate response to defeaters to abandon Christian faith and reject Jesus Christ and the witness of the Holy Spirit. Rather, as I said, God can be trusted in such circumstances where we feel at a loss as to how to answer the defeater and we have no extrinsic defeater of the defeater, God can be counted on to so intensify the witness of the Holy Spirit that that will enable us to have an intrinsic defeater-defeater so that the appropriate response is to continue to believe with the hope that someday we may, in fact, find an error in that defeater and be able to expose its falsehood.

KEVIN HARRIS: As we wrap up today, there were a lot of comments on this particular Facebook post. Several people said, “Go back and re-read Reasonable Faith in that chapter on the difference between knowing and showing.” On the difference between knowing Christianity is true and showing Christianity is true. I was personally pleased to see that a lot of people knew of that chapter and encouraged him to begin reading it.

DR. CRAIG: I just want to say here that taking the witness of the Holy Spirit to be a source of rational justification for Christian beliefs and taking it to be a sort of prima facie evidence for the truth of Christian beliefs doesn't in and of itself commit you to my additional claim that the witness of the Holy Spirit is an intrinsic defeater-defeater. But as I contemplate these warnings against apostasy in the New Testament and I think of what God wills for his children, how much he loves them and how he would never will for one of his children to reject Jesus Christ and cast him out of his life, that gives me pretty strong confidence that in fact I’m right in thinking that the Holy Spirit is not just a prima facie source of warrant but that the witness of the Holy Spirit is an intrinsic defeater-defeater.^[1]