How to Answer, „There Is No Proof of God”

n this short clip, Dr William Lane Craig has an answer for anyone who feels there’s no proof for the existence of God: „Look at these contemporary scientific discoveries!”

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How Can God Providentially Direct A World of Free Creatures?

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The Historical [literal] Adam and Eve

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Why Did God Only Reveal Himself to a Small Part of the World?

William Lane Craig was invited by the undergraduate Christian Union at Imperial College, London to give a lunch-time lecture on „The Evidence for God”. Dr. Craig presented seven arguments and then invited questions from the student audience. The lecture was web streamed at the time. This is a high definition film recording of the event which includes the previously unseen Q&A session. Imperial College, London, United Kingdom – October 18, 2011

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God Is Not Merely Interested In Getting People to Believe In Him

How many ‘Christians’ only believe that He exists? Even the demons believe….

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Establishing the Crucifixion of Jesus – William Lane Craig, PhD

To what extent must we establish the crucifixion before examining the evidence for the resurrection? William Lane Craig interacts with blogs (from Bradley Bowen) and Bart Ehrman.

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Why Did God Create People He Knew Would Reject Him?

On July 27th & 28th, 2012, an On Guard Christian Apologetics conference was held in Tulsa, Oklahoma by the Reasonable Faith Tulsa chapter (http://reasonablefaithtulsa.org/). The conference was named after Dr. William Lane Craig’s new training manual in Christian apologetics entitled, On Guard (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/on-gua…), and featured Dr. Craig, and other first rate Christian scholars. At the conference, Dr. Craig spoke on the Problem of Evil and Suffering, and engaged in a lengthy question and answer time with the audience. In this video, Dr Craig answers the question, „Why did God create people He knew would reject Him?”

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If God is Perfect, Why Did He Need to Create People to Worship Him?

On July 27th & 28th, 2012, an On Guard Christian Apologetics conference was held in Tulsa, Oklahoma by the Reasonable Faith Tulsa chapter (http://reasonablefaithtulsa.org/). The conference was named after Dr. William Lane Craig’s new training manual in Christian apologetics entitled, On Guard (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/on-gua…), and featured Dr. Craig, and other first rate Christian scholars. At the conference, Dr. Craig spoke on the Problem of Evil and Suffering, and engaged in a lengthy question and answer time with the audience. In this video, Dr Craig answers the question, „If God is perfect, why did He need to create people to worship Him?”

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If God is Perfect, Why Would He Create Anything Else? – William Lane Craig, PhD

William Lane Craig answers an Internet objection called „The Problem of Non-God Objects” (by Justin Schieber) objection:

1. If the Christian God exists, then GodWorld is the unique best possible world.
2. If GodWorld is the unique best possible world, then the Christian God would maintain GodWorld.
3. GodWorld is false because the Universe (or any non-God object) exists.
4. Therefore, the Christian God, as so defined, does not exist.

VIDEO by Christianity Reason and Science

Is Philosophy Dead?

William Lane Craig explains how philosophy is unavoidable and indispensable. Unfortunately, atheists like Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss have been suggesting that philosophy have no value to it whatsoever. VIDEO by Theology, Philosophy and Science

Do Evil Acts In Church History Reflect Christ and His Teaching?

VIDEO by drcraigvideos In 1998, Dr William Lane Craig debated Professor Keith M. Parsons at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX. The topic of the debate was „Why I Am/Am Not a Christian.” After the debate there was a lengthy exchange between the debaters lead by the moderator. The debate concluded with a question and answer period allowing both Dr Craig and Professor Parsons the opportunity to respond.

Dr. William Lane Craig’s Personal Journey to Faith

On Thursday, April 10th, 2014 Dr William Lane Craig spoke on the „Objective Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus” at Yale University. Dr. Craig is one of the leading theologians and defenders of Jesus’ resurrection, demonstrating the veracity of his divinity. This is the biggest claim in history!

After the lecture, Dr Craig had a lengthy question and answer time with students from Yale. In this video, Dr Craig shares his personal testimony of how he became a follower of Jesus Christ. VIDEO by drcraigvideos

Carl Sagan vs William Lane Craig (Part 2): The Oscillating Universe

photo credit http://www.atheistexile

William Lane Craig shows despite Carl Sagan’s self-identity as an agnostic, his viewpoint is really atheistic and naturalistic, especially if you claim „The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.” Furthermore, Craig shows through the contingency argument, atheists are presupposing naturalism when they say the universe (despite it being contingent) just is and exists by its own virtue of necessity.

Carl Sagan was a bigger fan of the oscillating universe (the idea the universe went through a number of big bangs and big crunches) compared to the Big Bang Theory. Although Sagan didn’t fully embrace the oscillating universe theory, he certainly found it more plausible than the Big Bang Theory.  VIDEO by religionphilosophy

Does the Universe Go On Forever or Come to An Edge? and If Time Continues Forever, Is That An Actual Infinite Amount of Time?

In 2011 Dr William Lane Craig spoke at the Forum of Christian Leaders (FOCL) in Hungary. While they he spoke on the topic, „Five Arguments for Theism” and took questions from the audience to accompany his lecture. In this clip, Dr Craig answers the question, „Does the universe go on forever or does it come to an end?”

Spatial infinity of the universe

There is no evidence that the universe is infinite in the spatial sense. All the evidence is consistent with the universe not only being finite in time, but also being finite in space. And you wouldn’t come to an edge of the universe, if the universe is finite. The universe could have the geometry of the surface of a sphere, for example, like the surface of the earth, which is finite. But, if you go around the earth, you never come to an edge where you fall off. You’ll just come back to where you started again. Similar to the geometry, the universe could be spherical like that so that it could be finite and yet, unbounded.

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If Time Continues Forever,
Is That An Actual Infinite Amount of Time?

Let me address the question about the infinity of the future. I think it is important to differentiate between two concepts of the infinite. The actual infinite and the potential infinite. According to Aristotle, actual infinities never exist. Infinity exists only in potentiality. For example, if you take any finite distance, you can divide it in half, and then in half again, and then in half again. And that can go on to infinity. And what Aristotle would say is that that finite distance is potentially infinitely divisible. It is infinite in the sense that infinity  is a limit which you can endlessly approach, but at which you will never arrive. And that’s in contrast to the idea of an actual infinite, where you have an actually infinite number of definite and discreet finite individuals that make up this collection.

The notion of a potential infinite, which is Aristotle’s idea, dominated  mathematics right up to the 19th century and is the role of the infinite in calculus, where infinity is just a limit. The idea of the actual infinite was pioneered by Gayard Cantor and is the role of the infinite in set theory, which thinks of sets, like the sets of natural numbers, as having an actual infinite number of members in the sets. Now, how is this relevant to the question about the future? What I would say is this. If time is dynamic, in the sense that the future does not yet exist, but is a realm of pure potentiality only, the, what that means is that the series of events that have occurred at any time is always finite, but increasing toward infinity as a limit. So that, the numbers of events in any point in time toward the future is always finite, but growing. That is to say that it is a potential infinite. And, I agree with Aristotle that there’s nothing objectionable about a potential infinite. So, I would differentiate  between the future and the past in that respect. If, the universe is beginning less, then there has actually occurred an infinite number of events. But, if the universe will go on forever in the future, the number of future events will never be actually infinite. We will never arrive at infinity. It is infinite purely in the sense of potentiality. It will go on and on forever, but will always be finite, but growing toward infinity as as the limit.

What Is Inerrancy? (William Lane Craig)

The doctrine of inerrancy doesn’t mean that everything in the Bible is literally true. What inerrancy, properly understood means is that everything that the Bible teaches is true. Or, that everything that the Bible teaches or affirms to be true is true.

Inerrancy is viewed as so important because if the Bible has mistakes in it, then how can it be inspired by God?

The doctrine of inspiration, I take to mean that the Scripture, as it was originally written was exactly what God wanted to be His word to us, that what those human authors wrote, under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit was His word to us, and therefore is inspired, in that sense. Now, whether or not inerrancy is an implication of that, or not, might be something that one might debate. But, I think, typically, one might think that inerrancy would be a corollary of inspiration, because it is God’s word to us, and God is truthful. Therefore, whatever the Bible teaches or affirms is true. It is God’s word to us.

Bart Ehrman’s own evangelical faith was undermined, initially, at least he claims, by his abandonment in his belief in inerrancy. He had a strong view of inerrancy, as a student at Moody Bible Institute, and then Wheaton College. And when he went to Princeton to do his graduate work, apparently when he was doing the exegesis of a certain passage, that looked to have an error in it, and when he tried to think of all sorts of ways to interpret the passage, so as to explain away this mistake, and apparently, his professor returned the paper to him and said, „Maybe Mark just made a mistake.” And Ehrman said this was like the scales falling from his eyes. With that simple comment, his belief in inerrancy just began to collapse. And he thought, „Yeah, maybe the author just made a mistake.” And the problem for Ehrman was that once inerrancy went, it was like the finger in the dyke being released and the whole of his faith disintegrated.

And I think there’s a lesson in this. And it’s this: Inerrancy is a corollary of the doctrine of inspiration. And as such, it’s important to the Christian faith, but it doesn’t stand at the center of the Christian faith. It’s not one of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. If we think of our theological system of beliefs as like a spider’s web, at the core of the web, where the center is there will be things like

• belief in the existence of God. That will be absolutely central to the web of beliefs.
• a little further out would be the deity of Christ and His resurrection from the dead.
• a little bit further out from that would perhaps be the penal theory of the atonement, the substitutionary death for our sins.
• and even further out than that, somewhere at the periphery of the web will be the belief in the inerrancy of Scripture.

What that means is that if one of these central beliefs, like the belief in the existence of God or the resurrection of Jesus goes, that part of the web is plugged out, the whole web is going to collapse because if you take something out of the center, the rest of the web can’t exist. But if you pull one of the strands out that is near the periphery, that will cause some reverberation in your web of beliefs, but it’s not going to destroy the whole thing. And the problem with a person like Bart Ehrman, and I think, many people today, is that they have at the very center of their web of theological beliefs, the belief in inerrancy, so that if that belief goes, the rest collapses, and they are really in danger of committing apostasy.  They’re teetering on the brink by having this belief be at the very center of their beliefs.  And that, I just think is clearly mistaken. If inerrancy isn’t true, that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist. If inerrancy is not true, does that mean that Jesus of Nazareth was not the second person of the trinity, that He didn’t rise from the dead? That He didn’t die for persons? Obviously not.

So, inerrancy isn’t a doctrine that belongs at the center of your beliefs, it belongs on the periphery. What happened to Bart Ehrman was a misconstruction of his theological system. He set himself up for a fall by having a disoriented theology. If inerrancy is not true it weakens the Christian faith, because you would be prepared to say that various Scriptural authors have erred in things that they have said. And then the questions would arise, „Well, then, where do those errors lie?” And this would reduce your confidence and certainty in the teaching of the Scripture. So, absolutely, this is an important doctrine, and one that one would not give up lightly. (10:00)

However, it is a huge mistake to make the focus of evangelism inerrancy instead of Christ. It’s Christ that is the center of the Gospel. And so, He ought to be the stumbling stone, not the doctrine of inerrancy. Inerrancy is an in-house debate for someone who is already a Christian. It’s an in-house argument to what corollaries are there to the concept of inspiration. (10:00)

Suppose somebody did demonstrate an error in Scripture, does that invalidate the Christian faith? I am saying: No. It would mean that you’d have to adjust your doctrine of inspiration, you would have to give up inerrancy of the Scripture, but it wouldn’t mean that Christ didn’t rise from the dead. , and it wouldn’t even mean that you wouldn’t have good grounds for believing Christ rose from the dead. So often, christian apologists give lip service to this idea that if you approach the New Testament documents as you would any ordinary historical document, that they are reliable enough to show, for example, that Jesus thought He was the Son of God, that He did miracles and exorcisms, and that He rose from the dead. But, they don’t really believe that, because the minute somebody point an error, they go up in arms as though to admit this one error it would completely undermine the historicity of the records of Christ. No historian approaches his documents like that. Indeed, the very task of the historian is to sift through the chaff and to find the historical nuggets of truth amidst the errors and mistakes that are typically found in historical writing.

What I’m suggesting is that if you approach Scripture as you would historical documents, and you find in them mistakes, contradictions and errors, that still wouldn’t undermine the general historical  credibility of the Gospels for example. , including things like the miracles and exorcisms of Jesus, His radical self understanding, His resurrection from the dead. Those things don’t hang on the affirmation of biblical inerrancy. (15:00)

So, I am not arguing for biblical errancy. I do believe in inerrancy, myself, properly understood.

The passage in Matthew 27 is that at the time of the crucifixion, there were some, not resurrections, but revivifications of some saints who actually came out of the grave, and who appeared to people, much like other resurrections or revivifications in other Gospel accounts. And, whether that’s historical, or whether that’s language to illustrate  the profundity of it, we don’t know. Whether this looks like an error to some critics, it would be really quite irrelevant to either the historicity of the crucifixion or the historicity of the resurrection. It is just a red herring to try and distract people.

I’m happy to say, about this passage in Matthew that I’m not sure what it means, and that’s perfectly consistent with believing in biblical inerrancy. Believing biblical inerrancy doesn’t mean that you understand everything. I don’t understand the Book of Revelation. When I read the Book of Revelation, with all these various symbolic figures and images, I am not sure what it’s saying. But, that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that it’s inspired by God or inerrant in what it teaches. That’s perfectly consistent.

Scholars have given good explanations on this passage that it was the first fruit of the dead in Christ and that we would expect phenomenon like this to go on at such a profound event, at the crucifixion and the resurrection. So, it’s not a knock down error. For me it’s a triviality. It doesn’t prove anything. This is an addendum to the crucifixion story of Christ. It’s not part of the resurrection account. This is a part of the account of the crucifixion. And yet, no historian denies the truth that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. So that even if you regard this a piece of apocalyptic imagery on Matthew’s part, and not something that literally, historically happened, nobody thinks it does anything to undermine the fact that Jesus of Nazareth died by Roman execution, by crucifixion. So, it is just a triviality, a red herring.

Norman Geisler is very encouraging to those that are disturbed at the longer ending of Mark not being authentic, not being in the oldest manuscripts, and he just says, „So what? So we have some extra material that we don’t quite know what to do with. Well, textual criticism helps us sort these things out. But, that’s quite a different answer than inerrancy. As we said before: Inerrancy is the view that whatever the original Scriptures, the original documents teach or affirm is true. But the question of textual criticism is: What were the original documents? So on discrepancies, an informed inerrantist won’t be upset by that, on the contrary, he’ll be involved in textual criticism, because he’ll be anxious to understand what the original text really did say, lest he me misled by copyist errors. So, somebody like a Daniel Wallace, for example, who is a fine New Testament textual critic at Dallas Theological Seminary is an inerrantist, but he’s also very much involved in establishing the original text in the New testament. And he, like other text critics would say the longer ending of Mar, as well as the shorter is spurious, it’s an accretion by some later author. That the original Gospel of Mark either ended with verse 8 of chapter 16, or else the original ending has been lost and has not been recovered. This is not really relevant to inerrancy at all.

What we need to understand is that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy  is a corollary of the doctrine of inspiration. As such, it is an important doctrine, but it is not a central doctrine to the christian faith. You can be a christian and not affirm it. And, if one does give it up, it will have some reverberations in your theological web of beliefs, but it won’t be destructive to that fundamental web of  Christian beliefs because it stands somewhere near the periphery. 

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Christianity & Islam: Did the early church believe Jesus was God?

William Lane Craig and Shabir Ally answer a question from the audience concerning the claims of Jesus to be God. In March 2002 Dr William Lane Craig began participating in a series of debates with Shabir Ally on the topic, „Christianity and Islam.” One of these debates was held at the University of Western Ontario on the subject, „Who is the real Jesus? The Jesus of the Qur’an or the Jesus of the Bible?” (Photo of book – www.kalahari.com)

Did the early church believe Jesus was God?

Dr. William Lane Craig: You can show that in the earliest portions of the New Testament documents are materials that refer to Jesus as God and pray to Him as God. And they use Old Testament proof texts about Yahweh and apply them to Jesus. For example in 1 Corinthians 16, you find the oldest recorded prayer of the early church: „Our Lord come,” and this is directed to Jesus, who is called Lord. Moreover, they apply Old Testament proof texts to Jesus. In the Old Testament it says that whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And Paul, in Romans 10 picks up this Old Testament citation and applies it to Jesus. And this word ‘Lord’ applies to Yahweh, for Jehovah in the Old Testament. He says, „If you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, and that God raised Him from the dead, then you shall be saved”- and then comes the Old Testament proof texts for ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, shall be saved’.

Other examples would be in Colossians 1, in Hebrew 1, in John 1. All of these refer to Jesus as God, or as Lord. They also offer worship to Jesus, regard Him as forgiving sins, you can go on and on… An excellent book on this is by Murray Harris. It’s called ‘Jesus as God in the New Testament’. It is a very fine treatment on this subject, so that your worship of Jesus as God is in line with that of the early church.

VIDEO by drcraigvideos

If Jesus Didn’t Claim to Be God Why Was He On Trial For?

Dr. William Lane Craig: If you look at Robert Gundry’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark, he has a lengthy discussion of the trial scene of Jesus. What it points out is that God of the Old Testament is portrayed as the destroyer of the temple, and also portrayed as the builder of the temple- the accusations brought against Jesus. So, Gundry says on page 900: „Saying Jesus predicted both his destruction of the temple and His rebuilding of another, brings to virtual certainty the entailment of a charge that he arrogated to himself of divine roles. He also shows why it is an authentic saying that Jesus claimed to be the Son of Man, coming on the clouds of heaven, seated at the right hand of power, thereby making Himself equal to God. So, Jesus is making claims that were blasphemous . Merely healing on the Sabbath wouldn’t have led to His crucifixion. As King of the Jews, that can only be explained by His making Messianic pretentions, which is what got Him into trouble with Jewish authorities.

What Role does the Holy Spirit play in Apologetics?

VIDEO by drcraigvideos For more resources visit: http://www.reasonablefaith.org

Dr William Lane Craig answers a question in this clip about the role of the Holy Spirit in his ministry and apologetics. He says there is a difference between knowing Christianity to be true and showing Christianity to be true. On March 21, 2013, Dr Craig spoke at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas on the topic of faith, science and philosophy. This event was put on by the Veritas Forum which hosts university events that engage students and faculty in discussions about life’s hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life. The style of this talk was more like a conversation than a lecture as Dr Craig shares much of his own personal story about how he came to faith in Jesus Christ.

Dr. William Lane Craig, FROM VIDEO: I have found it very helpful to differentiate between what I call ‘knowing Christianity to be true’, and showing Christianity to be true. I think that the fundamental way in which we know that Christianity is true, is through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. I do not think that arguments and evidence are necessary, in order for faith to be rational, or for you to know that God exists or has revealed Himself in Christ. 

So, I would say, that the fundamental way we know that Christianity is true is through the witness of the Holy Spirit, and reason and argument, then, can confirm the Spirit’s witness. The person who has good apologetics arguments, has in a sense a double warrant for his faith. He has the warrant provided by the Holy Spirit. And then, he has a double warrant, provided by argument and evidence. But, should he lack the argumented evidence, he can still be warranted, just on the basis of the Holy Spirit. That’s knowing Christianity to be true.

When it comes to showing Christianity to be true, we’re dealing with somebody else, and therefore, we’ll need to give them arguments and evidence to show them that what I know to be true, is true. And then, the role of the Holy Spirit will be to use those arguments and evidence, as I lovingly present them, to draw that person to Himself.  

So, in knowing Christianity to be true, the Holy Spirit is primary and argument and evidence is secondary. But, in showing Christianity to be true, argument and evidence is primary, and here the Holy Spirit is secondary, in using those as means by which He draws a person to Himself. Faith is trusting in what you have reason to believe is true. That reason doesn’t just mean arguments and evidence, that reason could be the deliverance of the Holy Spirit.

Can We Know Things to Be True Through Faith?

 

VIDEO by drcraigvideos:
Dr William Lane Craig answers a question about the relationship of knowledge to faith? Is faith a way to truth? On March 21, 2013, Dr Craig spoke at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas on the topic of faith, science and philosophy. This event was put on by the Veritas Forum which hosts university events that engage students and faculty in discussions about life’s hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life. The style of this talk was more like a conversation than a lecture as Dr Craig shares much of his own personal story about how he came to faith in Jesus Christ. For more resources visit Dr. Criag’s website: http://www.reasonablefaith.org