The Atheist Dentist
February 23, 2014 Time: 12:40
Summary
An interesting video concerning an atheist dentist and his theist patient got Dr. Craig's attention. He offers his thoughts.
Transcript The Atheist Dentist
Kevin Harris: Welcome back to another Reasonable Faith podcast with Dr. William Lane Craig. We are glad you are here. Dr. Craig, there is a video that has come out on YouTube that has just really gone viral, especially among Christians. [Editor's Note: Video Has Been Removed] Christians have really responded to this video. It is a little short feature that describes a religious or perhaps Christian patient and an atheist dentist. I would like your evaluation on this as to how this believer responds to this non-believer in this setting. Again, this isn't something that happened necessarily, but it is more like an illustration put into skit form. Let's take a look at this atheist dentist and his patient.
Dentist: OK, we're done.
Patient: Yes!! Thank God for that!
Dentist: God?
Patient: What do you mean?
Dentist: Who in this day and age still believes in God?
Patient: Well, I do. Why's that?
Dentist: Well, you obviously missed all the wars, the devastation, the poverty. Everything that goes wrong in this world?
Patient: Well, I don't believe in dentists. If there are dentists in the world, why do so many people have broken, infected, and missing teeth?
Dentist: I can't help people that don't come to me to have their teeth fixed.
Patient: Exactly. And it's the same way with God. It's a bit rich for us to expect God to help people who don't come to him, and instead insist on doing things their own way.
Dentist: And how am I meant to come to God?
Patient:: Just talk to him. He's listening.
Dr. Craig: Well, let's talk about what was positive about this. I think that one thing that is positive is that the young woman was not defensive. She was bright, cheerful, confident in her faith. She didn't get upset. I thought it illustrated very well how a person can engage in a comfortable, natural manner with an unbeliever. That is really good. I thought that was positive. She smiled, she didn't get upset. It also illustrates, I think, how just in everyday conversation there is an opportunity to say something in defense of one's beliefs and not to compromise. To be bold. So I would see that as something that was positive. Another thing, I think, that was positive about her approach was that she asked questions. Greg Koukl has often emphasized that even if we don't know all the answers, we can always ask questions of the unbeliever. So that is what she tried to do. She asked him a question that would make him think about his own worldview. So all of those things, I guess, were positive features of her approach.
Kevin Harris: She spoke pretty clearly. Apparently, she didn't have any nitrous oxide for a root canal! [laughter]
Dr. Craig: In other words, what I am saying is that, apart from the content of what she said, the way in which she went about it I thought was very positive. So whoever wrote this script I think did a good job in portraying how Christians can be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks us the reason for the hope within.
Now, in terms of the content, he brings up the problem of suffering in the world and then she responds with this claim, “Well, I don't believe in dentists.” Trying to provoke him. That is supposed to be parallel to his claim “I don't believe in God.” That is where it begins to get difficult. How are these parallel? He says that as a dentist he can't be responsible for people who have bad tooth decay and other problems if they won't come to him. And she says similarly you need to come to God in order to get those problems resolved. I suppose what bothers me about that, Kevin, is that would suggest that evil and suffering only befalls those who refuse to come to God. That leads to this view that people suffer because they really deserve it. It is really their fault. There is something the matter with them and that is why they are suffering terribly. And that is a really unbiblical view. Remember Jesus said, “When the tower of Siloam fell on those people, do you think that they were any worse than the others? Or when those other people were killed by Pilate that they were any worse?” He says, “No. They were all the same.”[2] In other words, innocent people really do suffer, including Christians.[3] Christians who have come to God will go through horrible suffering. So, while I like her approach of asking a provocative question and trying to get him to think, it is not clear to me that this is a very good answer to the problem of suffering and evil.
Kevin Harris: It is almost like if more people would come to God, there would be less evil and suffering. That may not necessarily be the case.
Dr. Craig: Well, on one level there certainly would. Can you imagine if everybody were to behave according to the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount and follow the Golden Rule. Crime would cease, when there was an earthquake or a hurricane, people would rush to the relief of the victims with compassion. Certainly in a world in which there was no sin, suffering and evil would be greatly reduced. They really would be greatly ameliorated, but I think you are right that it doesn't mean that there wouldn't be any suffering in such a world. There would still be pain.
Kevin Harris: In the present world, yeah. In this cosmos that is groaning, as Paul says, in travail, the kernel I guess that you are trying to mine is that had there not been sin, had there not been a Fall, had there not been this separation from God, we wouldn't have the evil that he is describing?
Dr. Craig: We wouldn't have the moral evil, but there would still be plenty of natural evil (although there is the question whether you should call it evil) – suffering from natural disasters like mudslides and hurricanes and earthquakes and disease, for example. There is lots of natural evil that we experience just in virtue of being embodied organisms in a world run by natural laws. The fire that we can use to heat our meal can burn us. So it is not true that if everybody were to come to God that there wouldn't be any cancer, say, or any accidents.
Kevin Harris: If there had never been sin, would we have these natural disasters?
Dr. Craig: Christians differ on that issue. Could Adam in the Garden of Eden have stumbled over a root and skinned his knee? I think he probably could have.
Kevin Harris: Yeah, but he wouldn't curse when he did it. [laughter]
Dr. Craig: Right. That is a theological question that Christians have different views on.
Kevin Harris: Some will say that without the burden of sin or without the deteriorating effect, or effacing effect, of sin that we would have solved so many of the natural evils. We would have figured out tectonic plates and prevented hurricanes and all that kind of stuff because we weren't corrupted by sin. We could have fellowship with God and what we planned on doing and participate in that. So, yeah, there are two different questions, and I am wondering if her illustration could have encompassed both.
Dr. Craig: It seems to me that what you are saying Kevin, and I think this is more correct, is to say she should have offered a free will defense with respect to the evil in the world.
Kevin Harris: I was trying to think what I would say rather than “ouch!”
Dr. Craig: That is really what you are saying. Much of the evil and suffering in the world results from creaturely freedom. She did seem, I think, to say something like that. I am just puzzled by the line, “I don't believe in dentists.” That is the thing that puzzles me about the approach that she took. Maybe that is good. That is sort of what Jesus did, too. He would make a provocative and puzzling statement – a brain teaser – that would then make people think about it so that they would then begin to explore these questions. Maybe that is good about what she did.
Kevin Harris: I guess if you were to really press it, Bill, she might be accused of a category mistake comparing a finite, localized, limited dentist with the God of the universe.
Dr. Craig: Exactly. How could she not believe in dentists when he is standing right there in front of her and he just worked on her teeth. Maybe what she should say is “I don't believe that dentists are good” or something like that. That they exist, but they are not good. Some people could say that about God – yeah, God exists but he is not good, and that is why he is indifferent to all the suffering and evil in the world.[4]
Kevin Harris: Bill, if you were in that chair and the dentist brought up the problem of evil, give us some practical tips. You would see that as an open door perhaps and maybe talk to him a little bit. Would you give him a free will defense at that point?
Dr. Craig: I think I would probably ask questions. If he said look at all the suffering and evil in the world, I think I might say, “Well, how do you know that God doesn't have good reasons for permitting the suffering and evil in the world?” The burden of proof is back on him. At some point I would get around to saying, “Well, despite the evil and suffering in the world, I think we have really good reasons for believing that God exists.” Here might be an opportunity to give a moral argument for God. If God does not exist, there are no objective moral values and duties in the world. Evil exists. Therefore, objective moral values exist. Therefore God exists. So evil on a superficial level might call God's existence into question, but at a deeper more fundamental level it really proves God's existence because without God evil and good as such would not exist.
Kevin Harris: With the time we have left, Bill, it is kind of exciting to see things like YouTube and the technology available to do illustrative little skits and videos like this to bring out a point and try to make it as succinct as possible.
Dr. Craig: Absolutely. That is one other positive thing that we haven't mentioned about this. They are using this medium to try to get the message out. That is great. Look at how it got us to talking about it.
Kevin Harris: That's right![5]