Arnold Lunn was born to a Methodist minister, but he was himself agnostic and a critic of Christianity—until he was 45 years old, when he converted to the faith. Lunn died on June 2, 1974. Lunn was a professional skier and full-time enthusiast. He founded the Alpine Ski Club and the Kandahar Ski Club. He brought slalom skiing to the racing world, and he’s the namesake for a double black diamond ski trail at Taos Ski Valley. Lunn credited his agnosticism to the wholly unconvincing cause of Anglicanism. He looked in vain for persuasive arguments for the existence of God and the truth of Christianity. Later he would say that “an odd hour or two at the end of a boy’s school life might not be unprofitably spend in armouring him against the half-baked dupes of ill informed secularists” (The Third Day, xvii). He wrote in criticism of the faith and debated Christianity’s prominent defenders ...
Hello Dr. Craig, With the recent Supreme court decision regarding same sex marriage I reread some of your Q/A response regarding homosexuality. In a question regarding the connection between interracial marriage and same sex marriage you said "Once we start down that route, anything goes: a man and two women, a man and a child, two men and a goat, etc. I see no reason at all to start down that road." with regards to same sex marriage. My question is does this statement constitute a slippery slope fallacy? My concern is that non believers would easily dismiss it ...
Born in 1861, W. H. Griffith Thomas died on June 2, 1924. His greatest and most sophisticated work is his book The Principles of Theology, a commentary on the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Church. But one short and reader-friendly book that should interest students of Christian apologetics is How We Got Our Bible ...
Søren Kierkegaard was born May 5, 1813, in Copenhagen, Denmark. He’s been called a Christian existentialist, a fideist, a satirist, and “the melancholy Dane.” He was concerned about the disconnect between Christian profession and the lived reality of true Christianity. He called his contemporaries to a deeper personal encounter with God. And he wrote with penetrating insight about the failure of the purely aesthetic life—what we today might call secularism—which seeks pleasure without discerning its natural and ultimate end, namely, despair. Kierkegaard’s contribution is considerable, even for the evidentialist. In fact, his sermonic style may be of value to the apologist who insists on the value of evidence. E. J. Carnell, mid-twentieth century, did the most to bring Kierkegaard’s insight into an overall “combinationalist” approach to apologetics. Carnell wrote: “There can be no question that Søren Kierkegaard gave a profoundly convincing defense of the third locus of truth.
I have spent the last eight years attending a oneness church, however, after listening to your defenders class, as well as Dr. David Pawson's teachings on the trinity, I have been convinced that oneness theology is heresy. Most of my questions regarding Trinitarians have been answered and the theology is beginning to make a lot of sense as I listen to yours and Pawson's teachings. The one issue I have a hard time understanding is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being co-equal as you teach in your defenders class. If that is that case, what do Trinitarians do with 1 Corinthians 15:20-28? Is Jesus subordinate to the Father or co-equal? ...
Here are some words of exhortation that have special application to the events and conditions of our present tumultuous age: ... But whence, in this eventful day, can we draw the principles of caution, prudence and wisdom, if not from the Gospel of Jesus Christ? And can we with diligence seek these principles, and with confidence exercise them, unless we have firm faith in the truth of our Holy Religion?
Dear Dr. Craig, thank you for your great work at Reasonable Faith. My question is one borne from a sense of sadness and resentment towards God for His seemingly indifferent attitude to my pain. I have struggled for years with bad eyesight and floaters in my eyes, (especially my left eye), and it really does affect my daily activities like reading and writing etc. I have been praying almost constantly for healing and restoration but have been met with a devastating silence. I happen to know that you yourself suffer from a muscular problem, and would like to hear your personal journey through that. Can you relate to my problems? Have you ever asked God to heal you? Did you feel bitter when He did not? How did you continue believing in His goodness and love? ...
On May 25, 1805 the Christian church lost one of its ablest and most-remembered defenders. William Paley—Anglican minister, professor, and author—is permanently associated with the analogy of a watchmaker and the God of personal theism. He wrote that “the contrivances of nature . . . are not less evidently mechanical, not less evidently contrivances, not less accommodated to their end or suited to their office, than are the most perfect productions of human ingenuity” (Natural Theology, 1802). Paley mined the riches of biology for samples of such contrivance. In his day, the state of scientific knowledge in the field of biology permitted comparatively easy inference to the appearance of teleology in the natural world. Critics today forget this. The “demise” of Paley’s design argument for the existence of God is credited especially to a development that was to happen some 60 years later—the emergence of the new theory of evolution, beginning with the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) ...
Dr. Craig, I wanted to ask you a question as someone who is simply curious about Christianity. Can you explain what I consider to be the two "W"s of life under your God. These are work and worship ...
Dear William Lane Craig, I am a philosophically unsympathetic fan of yours. I very much admire your philosophical learning, your rhetorical skills and your ingenuity in defense of your faith; at the same time, I reject both your faith itself and the apologetic project at the center of your work in philosophy. I'm sure this is a combination you're already familiar with. What interests me at the moment is something in your recent podcast on Tim Maudlin and the fine tuning argument, and I hope you don't mind considering these short comments ...
Justin Martyr (ca. 100-165 AD) is considered by many to be the first great apologist of the Christian church. The apostle Paul is surely a better candidate for that distinction. But Paul was an inspired author of Scripture. This is not true of any of the other great Christian apologists. And Justin apparently was the first of these. Certainly, he is the first whose writings have survived and are available in English translation ...
Hello Dr. Craig. My question was awakened after having been listening to your class on ''The Ontological Argument''. My question to you is: Does a maximally great being, necessarily have be what we humans are able to imagine as the greatest being? Can it not just be that the being (God) who is in reality the greatest of all beings (since no greater being exists in reality), is the greatest conceivable being. Why do our imagining of a greater being need to devaluate the greatness of the already greatest being. Even if we could imagine a greater being, can it not just be that those ''greater/higher attributes'' are unnecessary and therefore not really greater attributes?
Dear Dr. Craig, First off, I want to thank you for all that you have done for me through your ministry and hope that your reach continues to spread. I grew up in a conservative Christian home and for the most part accepted everything that I had been taught. Then during my junior year of high school I read some Richard Dawkins, and the likes, and quickly lost my faith. About six or so months later I discovered your ministry and my life was changed! Your arguments convinced me and in no time I had gone back to my faith. I read On Guard and Reasonable Faith among other Christian authors as well. I felt that my faith was strong and I even considered changing my major to Philosophy for a short time. But now, I am saddened to say that I am slowly losing my faith in the Christian God ...
Hello Dr. Craig, I have always wondered about your claim that Christianity is the only true religion (based on historical evidence as you say). But how can you be so sure when Islamic and Jewish scholars claim the same claim? As a former atheist and now an agnostic, the question of which religion to choose is essential. I'm very well acquainted with Islamic Theology and unlike your claim. Islam affirms that Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same god ("Allah" is not a special god for Muslims rather it's the term for god in Arabic). So what is your position on Islam? (And I would really like to know from who do you get your information on Islamic theology). I also would to invest some time in Christian theology, would kindly recommend some introductory books?
I'm taking a philosophy of religion course right now, and it is very fascinating to me. I'm taking the course because I am interested in Christian Apologetics. One aspect of Christian Apologetics is to argue for intelligent design. To my surprise, my professor, who is a Christian, does not believe in intelligent design (ID). I also wanted to point out the fact that in an astronomy class my girlfriend is taking, the professor lectured on how most Christians do not believe in ID. As I'm pondering on why my Christian professor doesn't believe in ID and how an astronomy professor lectures on how most Christians don't believe in ID, I start to question if I even know what ID really is ...
Hi Dr. Craig, Let me first say that while not a Christian myself (although I've somehow ended up doing a theology degree...) I am a very big fan of your program of presenting rigorous and rational justification for Christian doctrine - in particular you have thoroughly convinced me on the cosmological argument! However I am unwilling to move beyond belief in a minimalist Deist creator God for several reasons, among which is the question of: Is the incarnation compatible with theodicy? ...
Dear Dr Craig, I was born in Turkey and simply followed the traditions and became a Muslim. I have always been hungry for knowledge and understanding. So I started to research Islam with the hope that I could have a closer/stronger connection with God. But unfortunately I realized that the Prophet Mohammed stands between God and me. This was my first disappointment. I also found out certain things that put me off so much from Islam, and in fact, from all the other religions. I then became and atheist because I believed it was intellectual, logical and rational. After I studied Mathematical Physics (and understood the true meaning of science, rationality and logic) at university, I realized that atheism was not for me either. My question is about Jesus. I am not a Christian but feeling very close to Jesus since the first day I came to know him. I don't understand him dying for our sins. What does that mean? No Christian has given me a satisfactory answer and I can't think of an answer myself. I am ready to die, today, for my mother but that's not what Jesus did (I assume?). What does it mean to "die for someone else's sins"? ...
Hi Dr. Craig! I consider myself to be a Christian layman, as I am not formally trained in philosophy (I am a computer science major). However, I have been reading content on your website for about three months now and have read Reasonable Faith, On Guard, Contending With Christianity's Critics, Is God a Moral Monster, and I am currently working through Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview ...
Dr. Craig, Firstly, thank you for all that you do for the Kingdom. Your work has been a great encouragement to me since I came to faith in Christ a few years ago. Recently, in the March issue of the popular philosophy journal 'Think', Raphael Lataster attacks your argument from Jesus' resurrection as circular. The article is titled: "A PHILOSOPHICAL AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF WILLIAM LANE CRAIG'S RESURRECTION OF JESUS ARGUMENT" ...
Dear Dr. Craig, On Jan 5th I made a statement that I was not going to allow doubt in regards to Jesus into my life, Jesus appears to be the best choice and that’s what I’m going with and I’ll reevaluate at the end of the year. Well, a few days after I made this statement some books by Rabbi Tovia Singer (Let's Get Biblical) that I ordered earlier arrived and I couldn’t help myself to start reading them. I hate that I’m so inconsistent, but I will not apologize for yearning for truth ...
Hello Dr. Craig, ... I am a student of philosophy looking to go into apologetics ministry. In my studies and my time witnessing I've had to address many of the common objections to Christianity. One of the more recent objections has come from a Jewish man that I am witnessing to. It seems that one of the crucial things that is holding him back is the worship of Jesus. He couldn't see any way how this wouldn't end up being idolatry because, as he claimed, “you would be worshiping man rather than God”. Of course, I tried to point out that Jesus has two natures but it seems like this point was missed. Do you have any helpful ways to explain our worship of Jesus in a way that bypasses this objection? How should we understand our worship of Jesus? Do we worship him in deity and merely admire his humanity? ...
I am a physician (pulmonology) and, until recently, a lifelong atheist, although one who saw great non-religious value in Judeo-Christian culture and civilization. I became increasingly convinced by the moral arguments that atheism could not lead to a society with moral values and thus by the moral arguments for God. Your site, and debates and your Reasonable Faith book, along with CS Lewis and other reading, now have me convinced in at least the likelihood of Christianity. My question is what are the next best steps for someone who has taken this rarer intellectual path towards Christianity? As someone who never attended Church, who has no preferred denomination or family tradition, it is a bit hard to know where to begin. Any advice would be welcomed. Thank you very much for your incredibly useful site and work and the clarity of thinking behind it ...
Dear, Dr. Craig, As one who has recently discovered the realm of apologetics in the past couple years, you were one of the first I had come to know, and it has been a pleasure reading some of your material and watching your debates. I am currently only a junior in college and am studying philosophy and religious studies and love it, and hope to attend seminary in the future and get my masters in apologetics, God willing. My question for you is not necessarily a theological or philosophical question but a question that I am hoping I could get some pastoral advice from you about that I feel you are perhaps the best suited to answer. I recently got married this past summer to an amazing woman I met at a one year bible college I attended a couple years ago and it has been great. But between transferring to a new (secular) school and being constantly busy with school and work I feel like my relationship with God is constantly on the backburner, as I am not getting into the word nearly as much as I used to and my prayer life is nearly nonexistent, and because of this my relationship with my wife is not where it should be either ...
Dear Dr. William Lane Craig, ... My question is about the model of the Incarnation you and J.P. Moreland present in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, which states that many of the divine attributes of Jesus were located in his subconsciousness. I'm having a problem with this. Maximal greatness would seem to me to imply having access to any and all knowledge on the spot, which would in turn seem to imply that God would have omniscience in His consciousness, where all the knowledge can be directly accessed. Can you please clear this up for me?
Dear Dr. Craig, ... My question is regarding one of the latest news. I am an Indonesian living in Surabaya and the QZ8501 accident has had a huge impact on me. But most of all it was a great shock for a friend of mine. She is a Christian attending Mawar Sharon church with her parents. They were such wonderful persons, as well as a good Christian. But then they were traveling on QZ8501, while my friend stayed at home. You know the rest of the story ...
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