¶1Hi everyone. Today I have the pleasure of receiving on my channel a wonderful Christian philosopher William Lane Craig who has a PhD in philosophy and a PhD in theology. He has worked in apologetics since the 1980s and he has produced many many books defending the Christian faith, defending the existence of God, mere Christianity. And so today we're going to uh ask him lots of questions. Um and first of all, um Bill, welcome to the show.
¶2>> Very good to be with you, Matthew. I'm grateful for the invitation. >> So could you please briefly present yourself? How did you get started in apologetics and uh what has been your journey up until now? >> Well, as you said, I am a Christian American uh philosopher and theologian.
¶3I have been a professor at Talbot School of Theology in California. And I'm the founder and president of an online ministry called Reasonable Faith. uh and the goal is to provide both print materials as well as online uh videos uh and animations and so forth in defense of the Christian faith. >> Great. And so you've been most well known for your work in philosophy on the calam cosmological arguments.
¶4So could you please explain the calam in a nutshell? Mhm. The argument can be very simply formulated. Premise one, whatever begins to exist has a cause. Premise two, the universe began to exist.
¶5Three, therefore, the universe has a cause. And then you do a conceptual analysis of what it is to be a cause of the universe. And a number of striking properties can be recovered from such an analysis. It turns out that the argument leads to the existence of a first beginningless uncaused, changeless, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, enormously powerful personal creator of the universe. And so what have been the most uh well-known philosophical objections to the second premise of the argument which is the crucial one on the beginning of the universe.
¶6You give two arguments in your work. One based on the uh impossibility of an actual infinite and the second one based on the impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition. What have been the most popular objections to these two arguments and how would you respond to them? >> I think that with respect to these arguments probably the most popular objections that are not just based on misunderstandings uh is that the infinite is just very very strange. It is very weird.
¶7But that gives us no reason to think that an actually infinite number of things cannot exist. And so when I share these various metaphysical absurdities like Hilbert's hotel, typically the skeptic will have to simply bite the bullet and say that these things are not absurd and he's willing to live with them. So the goal in this case is to try to raise the price tag of skepticism as high as you can by showing so many different absurdities that would result from the existence of an actually infinite number of past events. Another objection uh particularly to the argument that you cannot form an actually infinite collection of things by adding one member after another. is that if this argument was successful in proving the finitude of the past then it would also prove the finitude of the future which contradicts uh Jewish Christian Muslim beliefs uh about the immortality of uh human persons.
¶8And I think that the best response to this objection is to draw attention to the theory of time that underlies the calam cosmological argument. Namely, it is an a tensed or dynamic theory of time according to which temporal becoming is real. things really do come into existence and go out of existence. And so on that view, if the past is actually infinite, then there have been an actually infinite number of past events prior to today. But the future is infinite only in the sense that the series of events in the later than direction is potentially infinite.
¶9Uh not actually infinite. That is to say, it is always finite but always growing toward infinity is a limit which it endlessly approaches but never reaches. And so I think when we properly understand these notions, these objections fall away. >> And do you think the calam depends on the A theory of time or that you can give the philosophical some philosophical arguments with also the B theory of time that is compatible with B theory? I think Andrew Lok has developed some arguments in this this this direction.
¶10Do you agree with them? Um for the sake of our listeners, let's clarify the terminology here. I spoke of a dynamic or tensed theory of time and as you say Matthew, this is often called the A theory of time. The um opposite of this is sometimes called the B theory of time. And according to this view, all events in time are equally real.
¶11And temporal becoming is just an illusion of human consciousness. In fact, nothing ever comes into being or passes away. Uh the events on the timeline are stretched out like a spatial line. And so for example, even though a meter stick might have a beginning prior to the first centimeter, that doesn't mean that it begins to exist. Um, and so on this B theory of time, you have all events in time as equally real.
¶12Now, I think that it's very difficult to put through the calam argument on the B theory of time. I think in particular the second argument based on the impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition presupposes the reality of temporal becoming. But there is a very bright philosopher uh from Singapore named Andrew Lok whom you mentioned who has defended the calam cosmological argument even given this be or tenseless theory of time. So while I'm not convinced I certainly welcome uh Andrew's attempt to defend the argument on that theory of time. And there have been other philosophers like Robert Coons and Alexander Puce who have developed other uh philosophical arguments for the finitude of the past.
¶13And in his book infinity causation and paradox, Alex Puce mentions the grim reaper paradox. Um but he also has an interesting small section in the beginning of his book where he argues that any causal regress can be reduced to uh circular causation. And he gives the examples of chicken and eggs causing each other. Uh if you have a chicken egg, chicken egg, chicken egg, chicken egg going back infinitely through the past, you could ask the question, why do the eggs exist? And the answer would be well it's because the chickens exist.
¶14And then when you ask the question why do the chicken exist? Well the answer is because the eggs exist. And so you have the circular explanation and and circular explanation or causation is impossible and hence uh we should reject the possibility of this infinite causal chain. Chicken egg chicken egg chicken egg. But if the past were possible, then it would be metaphysically possible to construct an infinite regress of chicken egg, chicken egg, chicken egg.
¶15What do you think of this argument? >> That first argument that, as you say, is briefly mentioned only in chapter one of Pruce's book is really Thomas Aquinus's argument against the uh possibility of an infinite causal regress. Thomas thought that it was limited only to hierarchically ordered causes. Uh but he didn't think it would apply to temporally ordered causes going chronologically back into the past. But Pruce makes an advance over Aquinas in this respect by saying no uh the argument applies to temporal causal regresses as well.
¶16And I think he presents a pretty persuasive case that you cannot have any sort of uh event that is the product of an infinite number of causes either chronologically prior or hierarchically prior. But the bulk of the book is the presentation of these wonderful probability paradoxes. uh if there were an infinite past. Uh and here as a a mathematician, Puce is just unaccelled in dealing uh with these paradoxes. And I was so thrilled to see both Rob Coons and Alex Puce uh come out in favor of the calam cosmological argument.
¶17Usually when a philosopher um offers an argument for something like uh God's existence, what happens is everybody else dumps on it and criticizes it and attacks it and most of the discussion will be dealing with objections. And so to have such eminent philosophers as Puce and Coons uh come out in support of the argument uh was just a tremendous encouragement to me and I think that their arguments are very good >> and it's also quite funny because they're toists and historically Aquinus was opposed of proving the finitude of the past and it's nice that to see in the in the 20th century or 21st century we have tomists uh who actually start defending some versions of the kalam. And so yeah, I think it's uh there's some irony here. >> Uh there is there definitely is. When you read the suma contraentilles by Thomas, uh he has long chapters devoted to the kalam cosmological argument which was being pressed by the medieval Islamic philosophers.
¶18and he admits that these are good probability arguments for the beginning of the universe and the existence of God. But for Thomas, in order to be a good argument for God, the argument had to be demonstratively certain. Uh it had to demonstrate its conclusion with absolute certainty. and he didn't think the calam argument rose to so high a level as that. Well, in today's um philosophical culture, no one would insist on so high a standard for a successful argument.
¶19If you can show that your conclusion is highly probable on the evidence, then you will have presented a successful argument. And so I think it's really good that these contemporary tomists are um seeing that in fact Thomas didn't really refute the argument. H and I'm pretty sure that um Alexander Puce and Rob Coons can think that the these demonstrations at least demonstrations like that you can reach metaphysical certainty with these kinds of arguments because uh well at least Vatican 1 says that you can reach by reason alone the existence of God with metaphysical certainty and so uh it's actually a dogma of the Catholic faith that reason alone can prove with certainty the existence of God. It's in Vatican 1 and Dilious the dog dogmatic constitution and so yeah that's actually magisterial authority for for us but yeah um perhaps uh uh I want to have your thoughts on this in Aquinus there's an inconsistency I think because he thinks that actual infinites are impossible he has a section in the sumas saying that actual infinites are impossible yet he holds that it would be it could be metaphysically possible to have an infinite past and uh this seems to be uh like obviously false, right? You could read the arguments against Aquinus saying if an infinite past were possible then an actual infinite uh would be possible but premise two actual infinites are impossible.
¶20And he conceds premise two. And so you only need to give an argument for premise one uh saying that if an uh if an infinite past were possible then you could have an actual infinite and it's very easy to do that for example God creates x neo one atom every day since the beginningless past the numbers of atoms today would be an actual infinite and so aquinus would have to hold that god would not be metaphysically capable of creating x neilo one atom every day from a beginning list past and that's that's absurd right that's an argument I have against >> I think you're right Matu that there's a real tension here in Thomas's thought and in fact he himself gives a wonderful illustration of a blacksmith who is working from eternity in his uh workshop and he continues to break his hammer as he uh uh works the iron. Uh and so if he's been doing this from eternity past, uh then how many hammers would there be today that have been discarded by the blacksmith? Well, there would be an actually infinite number of broken hammers as a result of his work. So Thomas himself gives a great illustration of how you can generate an actually infinite number of things if the past is infinite.
¶21>> Absolutely. So uh perhaps we can go now to the scientific evidence for the kalam because in your work in the blackwell companion to natural theology you give these two uh metaphysical arguments but you also have scientific evidence you present afterwards uh for a probable argument for the beginning of the universe and so you give uh scientific evidence based on the big bang the the second law of thermodynamics and the board goodankan theorem. Um, how do you think these arguments make a good case for the beginning of the universe? >> When I first did my work on the Kalam cosmological argument at the University of Birmingham in England, it it was primarily a philosophical study, but I was vaguely aware that contemporary cosmology um was saying that there's good evidence that the universe began to exist. And so I began to look into it and I was absolutely stunned by what I discovered.
¶22What I found is that the standard model controlling contemporary astrophysics is that the universe is not past eternal but had an absolute beginning that's been dated somewhere around 13.8 billion years ago and that it's been expanding ever since. And there is no naturalistic explanation where the universe came from. It just appears from nothing a finite time ago. It is an absolute uh beginning of the universe. And the cosmological evidence in support of this model continues to accumulate.
¶23And the Bourg Gualen theorem that you mentioned is simply one of the more recent singularity theorems that show that under a very general single condition uh a beginning of the universe at a point in the finite past is inevitable that it cannot be avoided. So the expansion of the universe provides very good evidence that the universe is not past eternal but had an absolute beginning. In addition to that is the evidence of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics holds that in a closed system energy will be diffused and therefore uh the available energy to do work will decline. This is called the increase in entropy.
¶24And if the universe has existed from infinite past, then we should now be in a state in which there is no work that can be done whatsoever. The universe should be a dark dilute uh lifeless state. But it's not. And the best explanation for why we find the universe in its present state of disequilibrium is known as the past hypothesis. And the past hypothesis says that the universe began to exist a finite time ago and that its initial energy was simply put in at the moment of creation as an initial condition.
¶25And so in addition to the philosophical arguments, we have these two independent um scientific uh arguments that make the beginning of the universe much more probable than not. And I've heard some videos of Alan Goth saying afterwards that he didn't think that his theorem proved the beginning of the universe uh with absolute certainty and that we didn't really know uh for the beginning and whereas Villain seems to be more on the side of yes there is a beginning and the theorem goes in that direction. Uh have you heard of these Alen Guth reactions and what would you say to respond? >> Well there's a couple of things to be said. First, the idea of certainty as you pointed out earlier Machu is uh an irrelevance.
¶26No one is talking about looking for certainty about these matters. Uh science is always provisional. Uh and therefore what we try to do is to show that the best scientific evidence that we have supports this premise that the universe began to exist. And so what Valenin claims is that relative to the evidence of thermodynamics and the expansion of the universe, it is highly probable uh that the universe began to exist. And I I think that conclusion is well established.
¶27The other thing that needs to be said about Guth is that I have seen private correspondence from Allan Guth that was shared with me by Daniel Ca, a philosopher at the University of Liverpool in England in which Guth says that the reason he thinks that the past might be eternal is on the basis of a particular model of the universe according to which as you go back in time at some point the arrow of time flips over and runs in the opposite direction for infinity. Now, far from avoiding the beginning of the universe, this model actually implies it because that mirror universe um is in no sense in our past. When you hit the the this the surface that joins when you hit the surface that joins these two universes, the arrow of time runs in opposite directions. So you really have two distinct universes with a common beginning point. So it turns out that the model that Guth was talking about actually implies the beginning of the universe.
¶28>> That's interesting. I didn't know about this private correspondence. Um perhaps now we can turn to another argument you defend in natural theology which is the fine-tuning arguments for uh the universe. And so in a nutshell, what is the fine-tuning arguments and what would be uh your objection to your response to the multi multiverse objection? All right, the expression fine tuning does not mean designed.
¶29That's very important to understand or the argument looks like it's circular. Finetuning means that the constants and quantities that are found in the mathematical equations that express the laws of nature must fall into an incomprehensibly tiny life permitting range. Otherwise there would be no embodied conscious life in the universe. And so the question is how do you best explain this fine tuning so understood? And there are basically three alternatives.
¶30One would be just chance. All the constants and quantities just happen to fall into the life permitting range. And I think the problem with that is that the odds of this happening by chance are virtually infinite decimal. They're they're incomprehensible. So that that's not a good explanation.
¶31Um the other way would be to say that they're physically necessary, that these constants and quantities must have the values they do. And again that's not a very good explanation um because um scientists uh can develop theoretical models of the universe which have the same laws of nature but different values of the constants and quantities and describe what those universes would be like. And so there's absolutely nothing about the laws of nature that would suggest that these constants and quantities have to have the value they do. The third explanation would be design that there is a transcendent mind or cosmic designer who has fine-tuned the universe to be life permitting. Now the multiverse objection that you mentioned is an attempt to rescue the alternative of chance by multiplying our probabilistic resources.
¶32For example, it is much more probable that if you spin the roulette wheel that your ball will come up on the red 22. If there are hundreds of thousands of roulette wheels spinning with balls being thrown somewhere in that collection of roulette wheels, by chance alone, the ball might come up red 22. So similarly what multiverse proponents say is that our universe is not all there is. There is a world ensemble of different causally unconnected universes out there and they are randomly ordered in their constants and quantities. So that by chance alone somewhere in the ensemble a finely tuned universe will appear by chance.
¶33And therefore we shouldn't be surprised that we see that the constants and quantities are fine-tuned for our existence because if they weren't fine-tuned then we wouldn't exist. We wouldn't be here to be surprised about it. So given that we are here, we should expect the universe to look fine-tuned. Now what is the fallacy with that reasoning? Well, I think the most important argument against it is the so-called Boltzman brain objection that was developed originally by the Austrian physicist Ludvish Boltzman.
¶34And what the objection points out is that in order to be an an observable universe, a universe does not have to be finetuned. In fact, there can be universes that have freak observers, a a single brain that fluctuates into existence out of the vacuum with illusory perceptions of an external world. So that if um there is a randomly ordered multiverse of worlds, we could never know that we are ordinary respectable observers who can trust our sense impressions rather than Boltzman brains who live in a sort of solopistic world of our own creation. Well, no sane person believes that he's a Boltzman brain and therefore I think this alternative uh to design is just utterly unavailing. >> Go ahead.
¶35>> Um would you like to speak about one of the other natural theology arguments you've developed or would you like us to talk about the historical evidence for Christianity? Well, I have just published a new book with the uh ethicist David Bagot on the moral argument for the existence of God. And I frankly find this to be probably the most persuasive and compelling argument for the existence of God. My favorite is the calam argument, but I have to admit that I think the moral argument is far more persuasive to most people. And one version of that argument goes like this.
¶36If God premise one, if God does not exist, then moral objective moral values and duties do not exist. That is to say, if there is no God to serve as the absolute plum line for moral values and duties, then everything becomes relative. So that if God does not exist, there are no objective moral values and duties. Premise two is but there are objective moral values and duties in our moral experience. We apprehend moral values that impose themselves upon us and moral duties that we all have.
¶37One um agnostic uh philosopher Michael Roose uh has stated that the man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says 2 + 2 equals 5. Now that puts these moral truths on the same level of necessity and certainty as the elementary truths of arithmetic. And so I think we have very good reason to believe in the objectivity of moral values and duties. And in that case um it follows logically that therefore God exists. And uh in response to this argument, there's a difference between what you see in academia, which would uh object to premise one and defend uh some sorry, object to premise uh uh yeah, object to premise one and defend objective moral values and duties like Eric Wheelenberg with oral platonism.
¶38And in the in the lay audience and the non-academic audience, they would uh do contest the other premise and just uh defend nihilism and uh relativism. And so um do you agree with this assessments and what would you say in both cases? >> I I do agree with you. Um, sociological surveys have shown that students are actually more relativistic than university professors. And of the university professors, the philosophers are the ones who are least likely to be moral relativists who believe in the objectivity of moral values and duties.
¶39So you're absolutely right in the academy. Uh premise two that there are objective moral values and duties is not widely disputed. That seems to be more an opinion in pop culture where people think that moral values and duties are just subjective expressions of personal preference. uh and the difficulty for that I think is that when you probe a little bit I think you'll find that 98% of people really do believe that there are objective moral values and duties. Look, for example, in our culture at the moral denunciation of homophobia, for example, or discrimination uh or um tyranny and fascism.
¶40People make moral judgments all the time. And so for example, someone like Richard Dawkins who gives lip service to relativism is actually himself a a moralist uh whose book the God delusion is just filled with moral pronouncements. And so I think that the average man who tries to deny the objectivity of moral values and duties is really deeply conflicted. And if you'll just talk to him a little while, give him some examples. Uh say for example, do you really think that the medieval crusades were a good thing?
¶41Do you really think that the Spanish Inquisition was morally good? Um they almost always come around and say, "No, I guess there are some things that really are morally wrong afterwards. after all. >> And um you've also defended in your work uh a case for the the resurrection of Jesus. Uh because after showing the existence of God through natural theology, we have to ask ourself uh does this God that we've established his existence by natural reason alone, has he revealed himself in the world uh in a particular religion?
¶42And so the resurrection is the the central piece to uh analyze here because if the resurrection is true then uh Christianity is true and all the other non-Christian religions are false. Uh and if the resurrection is false then Christianity is false. So everything stands on the resurrection. And so you've done extensive uh doctrinal work on this and you've published a great book called the sun rises the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus which I've used in my personal work and apologetics. So I want to thank you for that and so could you please summarize uh your case for the resurrection here?
¶43>> Yes, this flowed out of my work um at the University of Munich under Wrat Pollenbar uh who is one of the most eminent was one of the most eminent systematic theologians in the world who defended the resurrection of Jesus historically. And it seems to me that a case for the historicity of Jesus resurrection uh has two parts. Part one is establishing the facts to be explained and then part two is offering uh what is the best explanation of those facts. Now with regard to part one uh what are the facts to be explained? It seems to me that the evidence can be summarized broadly under three major facts.
¶44Number one, that on the Sunday morning following Jesus crucifixion, Jesus tomb was discovered to be empty by a group of his female followers. Number two, that thereafter various individuals and groups of people on multiple occasions and under varying circumstances saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death. And thirdly, that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead despite having every predisposition to the contrary. Now, what may surprise our listeners is that those three facts are not simply the beliefs of conservative Christians, Catholics, or Protestants. Those represent the conclusions of the wide majority of New Testament critics today who have written on these subjects whether they are Christian conservatives or liberals or agnostics or even Jews.
¶45Uh so the facts I think are well established and in my books I try to lay out multiple lines of evidence for each of those three facts. That takes you then to part two. What is the best explanation of these facts? And I think that when you assess the various alternative explanations of the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances, the origin of the disciples faith by the standard criteria that historians use like explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, and so forth that the explanation um that I call the resurrection hypothesis, namely God raised Jesus from the dead is the best explanation of those facts. >> And so if you were a skeptic, what would be the most plausible alternative theory to the resurrection and why do you think it fails?
¶46>> That's a really interesting question. uh because most of the naturalistic theories are so bad that they none of them has generated significant support among contemporary scholars. If you had to come up with an alternative, I think that it would have to be a kind of complex or composite theory. You would explain the empty tomb by saying that there was working in Jerusalem at that time an unknown necromancer who was dealing in body parts of deceased people, particularly executed criminals. And he would use these body parts uh in magical spells and potions in his work as a necromancer.
¶47And so what he did after Jesus was crucified and laid in the tomb by Joseph of Arya uh with the help perhaps of associates, he uh stole the corpse of Jesus out of the tomb in order to use it for its body parts in his u magic formula. So that would be the empty tomb. Now what do you do about the post-mortem appearances? Well, it seems to me that you have to conjoin then to that hypothesis an independent hypothesis, namely that what the disciples saw after Jesus death were what are sometimes called bereiement visions um people who have lost a loved one, particularly a spouse, will often testify that they have suddenly seen their spouse appear in the bedroom and speak to them. And these visions of the deceased can be extremely real as as real as though the person were actually there.
¶48And so what the skeptic might say is that the disciples having lost their beloved teacher uh projected these berment visions of him alive from the dead. And that led them mistakenly to infer that Christ was risen from the dead and therefore they came to believe in his resurrection. Well, uh what responses might one make to this? Well, there are multiple problems with this theory. Perhaps most basic problem is that it fails the test of simplicity.
¶49um it doesn't have a single explanation for all three facts. You have to cobble together these two independent theories about a necromancer working in Jerusalem and then these bereavement visions to get your theory. And by contrast, the resurrection hypothesis is a simpler theory that explains all three uh lines of evidence and therefore is to be preferred. Moreover, in terms of each individual theory, the idea that there was a necromancer working in Jerusalem is really really highly improbable. Necromancy was uh regarded as blasphemous uh and against uh Jewish law and religion.
¶50And so there is absolutely no evidence out of the first century uh that there was necromancy being practiced in Judea. The evidence we have for necromancy comes from the 3rd century AD primarily from Egypt uh where there are these magical papyrii that describe these formula and potions and so forth. And then in in uh Greco Roman literature, you have stories about witches and magic spells and things of that sort using body parts. But these are not historical. These are just uh fantasies.
¶51They're kind of like stories of the boogeyman that you use to scare people. They're not real. So the idea that there would be someone in Jerusalem trafficking in unclean body parts uh and who would have the audacity to steal the body out of the tomb I think is really really far-fetched in terms of the bereavement visions. Uh of course a problem there is going to be the physicality of the resurrection appearances. If Jesus did appear physically and bodily to the disciples, then they cannot be regarded as visionary.
¶52But leave that point aside. Uh wholly apart from that, there is just nothing in the psychological case books of either psychology or parasychology comparable to the resurrection appearances of Jesus. Jesus didn't appear just one time, but many times. Not just to individuals, but to groups of people. Not just under one circumstance and on one occasion, but under a wide variety of circumstances and on multiple occasions.
¶53Not just to believers significantly, but also to unbelievers uh and even enemies. So there's just nothing comparable in the um literature on bereavement visions that would be comparable to these resurrection appearances. >> Yes. and the the case for the resurrection uh that you've put forward um some there's the minimalist camp and the maximalist camp in the literature and the maximalist objection to to the case is to say that you need these details in the gospels of people touching Jesus speaking with him having the this real interaction uh to argue against the hallucination hypothesis if you only focus on Paul you don't have that much details of the disciples speaking touching Jesus. And so uh you to make the case really solid and strong you need to rely on a more maximalist case or at least you need to defend first gospel reliability not inherency but reliability before making the case and that you cannot rest on the Habermas or Likona way of arguing much on Paul and leaving the gospel.
¶54What what is your stance on this objection from >> I I don't take that other approach. Uh you will find a lengthy discussion of the physicality of the resurrection appearances in the gospels uh looking at each appearance uh in turn and its historical credibility. But I would disagree that the case for the post-mortem appearances depends essentially on that. Um I think that the uh case uh against visionary appearances can be made independently of the uh defense of their physicality. As I just said a moment ago in uh explaining the unparalleled nature of these resurrection appearances >> and what is your stance on Lewis's trilemma?
¶55Either Jesus is right when he says he's God or he's a fool or he's a liar. Uh and so this is the trilemma you have to choose. Do you think this is a good argument? Um yeah. What is your stance on this?
¶56Well, CS Lewis said that given Jesus claims to divine status, he was either a liar, a lunatic, or he was the Lord. Uh, in English, you have their very nice alliteration of three L's. Liar, lunatic, or lord. Um, but I think that Lewis left out a fourth alternative, and that also starts with L, namely legend. uh modern skeptical critics would not say that Jesus was a liar or that he was a lunatic, but they would say that the gospel records of Jesus claims to divinity are legends that occurred over the years and over the decades and got changed and altered in their transmission until they finally came to be recorded in the gospels.
¶57And so one of the tasks of the contemporary apologists will be to make a case for the historicity of Jesus radical personal claims to show why they are uh authentic claims that is to say claims actually uttered by the historical Jesus. >> Yes. Exactly. And I think this can be done and Brans Petri a scholar Catholic scholar on this has done great work even arguing only from the synoptics you can show it with Mark 2 and uh the trial with Kyifas in Mark 14. So this can be argued I think even from the synoptics.
¶58Yeah. >> Yeah. The the trial scene in Mark is remarkable because there all three of these titles come together where Jesus claims to be the unique son of God, the son of man prophesied by Daniel uh and the long awaited Messiah. All three of these come together in the trial scene. And so it's no wonder they uh condemned him for blasphemy.
¶59H um perhaps we can talk about the most well-known objection to Christian theism which is the problem of evil. And so the problem of evil has two forms. The logical version and the probabilistic version, the evidential version. What is your general line of response to the problem of evil? And uh what is your favorite theodysy?
¶60I distinguish between the intellectual problem of evil and the emotional problem of evil. The intellectual problem of evil concerns uh how to reconcile the existence of an allloving and all powerful God with the horrible evil and suffering in the world. The emotional problem of evil deals with how to dissolve people's dislike of a god who would permit them or other innocent people to suffer so terribly. And I am convinced on the basis of many years of experience that for most people the problem of evil and suffering is not an intellectual problem. It's really an emotional problem.
¶61They just simply reject a god who would permit them or others to suffer so terribly. as an intellectual problem. I think that contemporary philosophers have shown that the problem of evil places a burden of proof on the atheist's shoulders that is so enormous that no one has ever been able to sustain it. To put his argument through, the atheist would have to show that it's either impossible or highly improbable that God could have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the observed suffering and evil in the world. But how could he possibly prove that?
¶62How how could he possibly know that God does not have morally sufficient reasons uh for permitting the evil and suffering? And therefore I think that the version the intellectual version of the problem of evil e in either its logical or probabilistic form is really impossible to put through. >> And as for the theotices theists usually apply to free will but then there's the objection of natural evil that does not depend on free will or and animal suffering things like that. So we need to say more than free will. What is your stance on um the fallen angel theodysy explaining natural evil through the fall the fall of the angels created after creation and that's when natural evil entered into the world uh and that caused uh the natural evil and so natural evil could be reduced to uh freedom of of the will from the angels and uh yeah >> I don't think very many people would take that seriously as a theodysy.
¶63It It just seems fantastic to think that there are fallen angels pushing uh tectonic plates about causing earthquakes in Venezuela for example. Um rather planting Alvin Planting perhaps the greatest living Christian philosopher offered that not as a theodyssey but simply as a defense. What he was trying to show is that it's logically possible that all the evil in the world could be due to free will. But he's not saying that's the actual explanation. There's a difference between a defense and a theodysy.
¶64and he was simply offering that suggestion in order to show that the atheist has not been able to prove that there is a logical inconsistency between God and the evil and suffering in the world. Now in terms of my own thinking if I were to offer a theodyssey it would go something like this. I think that as a good and loving God, God's goal in human history is to bring as many people as possible into the kingdom of God. I think that he wants to build loving relationships with as many people as possible. That there would be as few people as possible that would reject him and his love and that he would be able to win the free um consent of the the maximum number of people uh to his love and grace.
¶65And so his goal then is to providentially order the world in such a way that there is an optimal balance between saved and lost. Uh he he would not want to create any more of the lost than was necessary to create the maximal number of the saved. So both in terms of absolute numbers and in terms of the ratio between saved and lost, God would want to create an optimal balance between these. And then I would say it is not at all implausible that the actual world has such an optimal balance. Keep in mind that the actual world includes not only the past and the present but also the future.
¶66as well. And I honestly believe that it is not at all improbable, not a wit improbable, that only in a world suffused with both natural and moral evil that the optimal number of people would freely come to embrace God and find salvation. What the atheist again would have to show is that there is a world that is feasible for God that he could have actualized that has a more optimal balance between saved and lost and yet involves less evil and suffering. But how could the atheist possibly prove something like that? It's sheer speculation.
¶67>> Yes. And we can even concede as theists that evil gives some evidence in favor of atheism or naturalism. But we could say there's more evidence on the other side that compensates the evidence that it gives to a atheism. So you have to take into account the global evidence we have the total evidence. And so yeah, that's what I would say.
¶68>> I'm just highlighting some brief points here for the sake of our listeners. In my published work, I go into this in greater depth and I certainly agree with your point that the problem of evil and suffering is not to be considered in isolation. But the question is, is God's existence improbable relative to the full scope of the evidence, which includes things like the absolute beginning of the universe at a point in the finite past, the fine-tuning of the universe for embodied conscious agents, the existence of objective moral values in the world, and the historical evidence for the facts undergirling the resurrection of Jesus. When you consider all of the evidence, then I think it's quite probable that Christian theism is true. >> And I would add the evidence from contemporary miracles that have been well documented in books like Craig Kenir's uh um books on miracles.
¶69He has very like three very good books on miracles. Calb Jackson has done also very strong work on modern healings that have been documented with medical uh evidence before and after. And so these need to be taken into account today by the skeptic who needs to find an alternative explanation in all these healings that have been put forward. Um so yeah um perhaps one last question, one last objection would be on Adam and Eve. Lots of people say today Adam and Eve just contradicts science.
¶70It's irrational to believe that we all descend from one couple uh Adam and Eve. And uh we all know through science that polygenism is true. So how would you refute this line of argumentation? >> Actually Matthew I want to correct something there. It is not true that contemporary biology believes in polygenesis.
¶71It believes in monogenesis. That is to say that the human uh organism has arisen only one time in history. It would be fantastically improbable if there were independent and multiple origins of the human race on this planet. So monogenesis is the view of evolutionary biology today. But they do not believe that the human race is descended from a founding pair.
¶72rather there was always a breeding population of human beings on this planet that never got as low as just two persons. Uh and so it's for that reason that they are skeptical of the existence of um two human progenitors of the entire race. Now, in my book entitled Inquest of the Historical Atom, I examine both the biblical uh material to see if we as Christians uh or believing Jews or Muslims are committed to the existence of a historical Adam and Eve. And I think that we are. I think that uh anyone who is a a bibleelving person is committed to the existence of original human pair from whom everyone is descended.
¶73But I do not think we are committed to saying that they lived relatively recently, say 20,000 years ago or so. But if they lived in the deep primordial past, say somewhere around 750,000 years ago, then the uh evidence of contemporary population genetics and paleoanthropology is entirely consistent with the existence of a founding human couple uh whom we call Adam and Eve. So, it's really all about the dating of Adam and Eve. If you date them in the deep past, say somewhere around 750,000 years ago, then there is no conflict with the scientific evidence. >> What is your theory for the the children of uh Cain, Abel, and Seth?
¶74Uh do you think they uh the the children of Adam and Eve? Do you think they had um how did they uh have babies? Did they have babies like together or with other or breeding with other animals, humanlike animals? Well, if they had sexual intercourse with nonhuman primates, that would be beastiality. Now in a sinful fallen world I don't think you can exclude that that might have gone on that they did engage in beastiality but we don't know that it is possible that they simply interbred within their own family and within just a few generations there would be explosive growth so that there wouldn't be any delotterious biological effects from this sort of and breeding.
¶75So, uh I like to think that they probably uh just married other members of their own family. >> Okay. So, you prefer incest to bestiality. We we have to choose, right? >> Uh that's a porative way of putting it, but yes, I I would say yes, but of course at that time it wasn't incest.
¶76>> Okay. Well, thank you Dr. Craig for coming on this channel to speak about apologetics, your great work in philosophy, theology. It's very helpful for us French people to learn from uh the American and English-speaking philosophers. We don't have that many analytic philosophers in France.
¶77And so we're grateful for all the work you've done uh all these years in these subjects. And I've used lots of your work for mine. So we want to thank you for that. and perhaps uh let you um give any advice to to the French audience who wants to study more apologetics. What would be your last word on this?
¶78>> Well, I have a talk that is on our reasonablefaith website uh at reasonablefaith.org. There are massive amount of resources for Christians uh for the defense of the faith and many of these are in French. We have a section where you can get translations in other languages like Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Chinese and so I would direct our listeners uh who are native French speakers to look at that material. My book Reasonable Faith is also available in French uh and I would commend that. But having said that, I I think that French Christians today should like you, Matthew, um make an effort to really master the English language.
¶79And the reason for that is that the amount of resources that are available in English is just prodigious. uh it is far far in excess of what's available in different European languages. So if you can master English in the way that you have done so beautifully, uh it will open up a whole new world to you of valuable resources. >> I agree. So French people, please learn English and so that you can read all the great books of Dr.
¶80William Lane Craig. We'll recommend your books in the description. And thank you again for coming on this channel. It was a pleasure to meet you. >> My pleasure.
¶81M you