Questions on C.S. Lewis, Necessary Beings, and Accommodating Culture
October 11, 2015 Time: 18:42
Summary
Dr. Craig fields questions on the imagination, Leibniz, the Trinity, advice on going into the ministry, and how Christianity should accommodate the culture.
Transcript Questions on C.S. Lewis, Necessary Beings, and Accommodating Culture
KEVIN HARRIS: Dr Craig, we’ve been busy taking some questions from some groups on Facebook – Christian Apologetics Alliance. Chris says,
C. S. Lewis wrote that he believed stories could “steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood . . . Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons?” I am curious what Bill’s take is on this kind of imaginative apologetics. Have we overlooked capturing a person’s imagination in helping them want Christianity to be true along with providing reasons and evidence for it?
DR. CRAIG: This issue came up at the conference that I participated in in Westminster Abbey on the 50th anniversary of Lewis' death two years ago. I refer Chris to the videos of that conference as well as the book that is forthcoming based on it. I would really agree with him that imaginative apologetics is something that is valuable and important, but it is just not my calling. I think there is a division of labor, and I have chosen to work upon theism and the historicity of certain events in the life of Jesus. So I haven't worked in areas like film and poetry and fantasy and so forth, but I am all for those who are working in those areas. We have a different calling, and the body of Christ is gifted in such a way that different people can take different approaches.
KEVIN HARRIS: Michael asks,
If we apply a Leibnizian question to God and ask “Why is there God rather than nothing?” the response would be because God is a necessary being – he cannot not exist. But why is there a necessary being rather than no being? Isn't it simpler to have no being rather than a necessary being? What determines the necessity of the being?
DR. CRAIG: I don't think that Michael has really grasped the notion of a self-existent being. This is a being which is such that if it is possible then it exists necessarily. The question “Why is there a necessary being rather than nothing” is a meaningless question. God's nature is such that if he is possible then he exists. There isn't any further question as to why there is a necessary being. God exists by a necessity of his own nature.
KEVIN HARRIS: He asks a second question:
Can we somehow derive the concept that God is tri-personal from his ontology? There does have to be more than one person in order for love to be manifested between them, but why three persons? Why not two or four?
DR. CRAIG: I am inclined to agree with Thomas Aquinas on the Trinity – that this is a revealed truth based on Scripture and not one that you discover by natural reason. I think he is right that you can give plausibility arguments for there being a plurality of persons in God based upon the essential character of love – to give oneself to another. As he says, that will get you two persons in the deity, but it wouldn't get you exactly three. So I don't see that as something that we can derive deductively from the fact that God exists.
KEVIN HARRIS: I invited this group as well, Dr. Craig, to suggest what they think are some of the more pressing issues in Christian philosophy and apologetics. Clinton says homosexual is a huge one:
Our stance on same-sex marriage and homosexuality being a sin seems to be a deal-breaker for many atheists.
DR. CRAIG: Let me just say here that I don't think that the Christian stance is that homosexuality is a sin. Homosexuality is an orientation which may be beyond the person's choice. What would be a sin would be acting out and committing homosexual acts. That is proscribed by the Bible in the same way that any sort of activity outside of marriage is proscribed by the Bible.
KEVIN HARRIS: So we are making a difference between the orientation and the behavior?[1]
DR. CRAIG: Right. But nevertheless he is right in saying that this certainly is a deal-breaker for a lot of non-Christians. They simply cannot come to believe that God would proscribe homosexual behavior for certain persons. I guess there I would try to appeal to some degree of intellectual humility on their part and say, “How do you know what God would proscribe? Maybe you are wrong?” If God were to proscribe eating red beans, as the ancient Pythagoreans thought, then I think that would be wrong. Apart from God, where are you going to get any moral duties? Where would you get any moral prescriptions or proscriptions if you deny that God exists? If you need God to ground morality, you cannot ignore the question: what does God think about this behavior? How can you be so confident that God has prohibited this sort of behavior? I think there needs to be a degree of intellectual modesty about this. But still, Clinton is absolutely right that it is a deal-breaker for many.
KEVIN HARRIS: He says,
Mainly social issues are confronting Christianity today. Even the abortion issue is seen as a religious issue. If Christianity doesn't start to lean in a more progressive direction, many atheists don't want anything to do with it. In fact, many Christians don't want anything to do with a conservative Christianity.
DR. CRAIG: I think he is right. And that is my great fear. Out of a desire to win atheists or non-believers to the Gospel, people will begin to compromise and start to lean in what he calls a “more progressive direction.” I think that is simply to betray biblical Christianity. You cannot change the truth out of a desire to make it palatable to people what they want to hear. In fact, we are warned against that in the New Testament, aren't we? False teachers are those who will tell people what they want to hear. The Bible calls those “people with itching ears.” You will tell them whatever will scratch those ears and make them feel good. At some point our efforts to make our Gospel or make the truth winsome will cease and there will be the offense of the Gospel to people. Then we simply have to trust God to open their hearts by his Spirit's conviction and draw them to him. But I think that the sort of thinking that “if we don't lean in a progressive direction Christianity will die” is the old message that the mainline neo-liberal denominations have been saying for decades. You've seen what has happened to them in Europe and in the United States. This is a prescription for the suicide of the church. There is good empirical evidence for that. Look at the recent Pew study on religious affiliation in this country. The mainline denominations are in free fall, losing members, whereas evangelical Christianity is holding its own and even increasing in terms of absolute numbers. It is really misguided and counterproductive to compromise biblical truth out of a desire to make it palatable to a secular culture.
KEVIN HARRIS: Jordan asks,
Since Dr. Craig is an anti-realist about abstract objects, how does he account for the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom? It seems to me that one would have to simply concede that this is just some sort of brute fact.
DR. CRAIG: I would say that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom no more exist as entities or objects than do ordinary propositions. These are useful fictions for talking about the way the world is. But that is all they are. We can adopt language of propositions or counterfactuals to usefully discourse about how things are or how they would have been. But that doesn't commit us ontologically to their reality. That doesn't mean that they are just some sort of brute fact. That is getting into the question of the grounding objection which we already addressed elsewhere. In the same way that you don't need, I think, indicative propositions, you don't need counterfactuals propositions. You would just find these to be useful devices for talking about the way the world is. For example, the truth predicate “is true” is a way of ascending semantically to talk about a proposition rather than talking about the way the world is.[2] I could say, for example, “Hitler was evil” or I could ascend semantically and say, “It is true that Hitler was evil.” In the second case I am no longer talking about Hitler, I am talking about the proposition and ascribing a truth value to it. It is true that P, where P is “Hitler was evil.” Or you could make that a counterfactual proposition. The truth predicate, I think, is simply a way of ascending semantically, but it isn't something that is a genuine property of objects that actually exist. Anytime you say “it is true that” or “it is false that” you can just descend semantically and instead of saying “it is true that we are going out to dinner tonight” just descend and say “we are going out to dinner tonight.” You don't need to bring in the truth predicate. I think that there isn't any problem here for the anti-realist with respect to propositions of any sort.
KEVIN HARRIS: Eugene says,
What advice does Dr. Craig have for someone who is going into ministry? It is about twelve years down the road because I am going for a doctorate in biblical studies, and I am going to start a ministry after that. What does a ministry entail in terms of how it runs and operates? Would it be a better idea for me to become a professor of biblical studies on a Christian campus or a secular one? I've been thinking it would be better on a secular campus because there are more opportunities to reach out to those who are lost instead of just preaching to the choir.
DR. CRAIG: There are so many levels on which one could answer a question like this. Since Eugene is a fellow, I would say that one of the very most important things he could do – if he hasn't done so already – is to find a wife who will be 100% supportive of his vision in life and what he wants to do. I think that having a mate who is yoked with you in a common task in ministry will be the greatest strength that he could have. Whereas being united with someone who is pursuing an independent path and isn't very enthusiastic or supportive about him is going to make his ministry very much more difficult to carry out. I would say that would be the most important thing that he could do in preparing for his ministry. I'd also encourage him to get the very best education that he can. The years spent in study and particularly doctoral study are invaluable. That opportunity may never come again. So he needs to apply himself diligently to getting the very best education that he can get in preparation for ministry. I'd also encourage him to try to have a clear vision of what area of ministry he wants to go into. It does seem like he is interested in biblical studies, but it would also be helpful for him to get some philosophy under his belt. I find that those who are doing biblical studies are often quite naive philosophically and can fall prey to philosophical errors or conceptual confusion because they haven't been trained in good analytic philosophy. Finally, with respect to his specific question, it is difficult to know whether to be affiliated with a Christian campus or a secular one. I have been in Christian education for my career path. I have really loved it. It forms a supportive community that is very strengthening and helpful. On the other hand, he certainly will have more of an impact in reaching out to the lost if he is on a secular university campus. But then the sort of pressures of political correctness and other forces may come to bear upon him in a difficult way. That is a choice that will be a matter of his individual calling that he will have to weigh.
KEVIN HARRIS: Wes says,
A friend who was once a Christian said that reading the Gnostic gospels found in the last century interweaved in the Gnostic idea of dualism opened him to profound ideas that changed his faith and ultimate reality of soul-spirit-body. The authenticity of each of the Gnostic gospels is very weak and was very publicized to be true lost gospels. I want to know Dr. Craig's views on those books and what I can do to firmly underline the difference in reliability in the New Testament true Gospels and these false Gnostic gospels.
DR. CRAIG: I think there is no doubt at all that the canonical Gospels are the primary sources for the life of Jesus that are closest to the time of Jesus and those who were with Jesus and knew him compared to these later Gnostic gospels which arose not before the second half of the second century after Christ and even much later than that.[3] They really originate not in Christian thinking but in pagan philosophy. Jesus is adopted as a sort of sock puppet to become a marionette or spokesperson for Gnostic philosophy. These are forgeries under the apostles' names from centuries later than Christ. Everybody knew it at the time, and there is no reason whatsoever to think that these give us much insight into what the historical Jesus said or did. Craig Evans, a fine historical Jesus scholar, remarked to me a couple of years ago, that the Nag Hammadi documents, which for some were so hopeful as new sources of Jesus, have panned out to be virtually worthless. Those who championed them are now really desperate to find any sort of shred of historical material in them that would illuminate or shed light on the life and teachings of Jesus. They've just proved to be really quite worthless, says Craig.
KEVIN HARRIS: T. W. says,
I'd like to know if Dr. Craig knows Food Network star Alton Brown. I know Brown used to attend Johnson Ferry Baptist Church.
DR. CRAIG: She is right! We have seen Alton Brown here at the church on occasion. But I have never had the occasion to meet him personally. But Jan and I do enjoy watching him on the Food Network. I think he is very entertaining. He is, or at least was, a member here at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church.
KEVIN HARRIS: We need to invite him over to show you some cooking skills.
DR. CRAIG: Yeah, we should have him cook for a Reasonable Faith dinner!
KEVIN HARRIS: That would be awesome! Daniel says,
I have another question on abstract objects. On Dr. Craig's nominalist view when he says, “A given abstract object does not actually exist, such as properties” is he saying properties are not factual features of reality or simply that they do not exist independently of that to which they are associated?
DR. CRAIG: I am saying the former – they are not actual features of reality. They are useful fictions like useful fictions in science like the frictionless plane or points at infinity – things of that sort. Talk of properties is very useful for discoursing about objects that exist, but I would say that it is just that – it is a façon de parler, it is a manner of speaking or a useful fiction that we use to say things in a convenient way. But there isn't any reason to think that there really are these mind-independent objects out there called “properties.” I would take an anti-realist view of these things.
KEVIN HARRIS: We thank these groups on Facebook for their tremendous questions. We'll do this again sometime, so keep it right here on Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig.[4]