The season of Advent is one in which the Church anticipates, prepares for, and celebrates the coming of Jesus Christ into our midst. As I thought about waiting expectantly for the presence of Jesus, I started wondering what exactly I am waiting for. What is it I expect from his coming? Am I waiting for him to come and fix my circumstances or get me out of a tight place? Do I just want him to ease my suffering and pain, to bring comfort and solace?
This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. Dear, Dr. Craig, My daughter died a little over a month ago. She would of been three January 18th.I loved her more then anything. She was born with a rare neurological disease. My question is... How could an all loving God, who loves his children and who has such great "power" would allow this to happen. How come everything that happens good to a believer confirms faith and the bad is considered a test or a cliquiest " God is mysterious" explanation. If he is so great and so good, then why he take my daughter from me?! ...
Readers of this blog may be interested in the short article I have written over at Reformation 21. The gist of my claim is that the person of Jesus Christ shapes our primary ethical response to torture and our attitude to its perpetration by our authorities. Person, that is, over procedure, particularly over fear based consequentialist reasoning that might allow in extremis the ends of security to justify the means of torture. I very minimally offer that the health of our moral imaginations as Christian citizens is attested to in our habits of corporate prayer.
The Bible claims to be our supremely authoritative guide to life. But isn’t it irrational, oppressive, or even dangerous to base our lives on an ancient book—any book—rather than to “think for ourselves”? My claim in this short series is that basing our lives on the Bible is exactly what thinking for ourselves leads us to do—if we’re thinking well ...
This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. "... You might say that there are objective moral values and they need to be followed regardless of the fact that they do affect our salvation or not. Bible and Jesus also teach us to do good deeds. I agree with these assertions but the question still lingers for a person like me and many others (people who are primarily concerned with the bottom line result) that why do we have to take moral commandments/values so seriously when ultimately they are not going to count in our 'scoring sheet' in the hereafter. Of course there are objective moral values and Bible & Jesus Christ teach us to be good human beings. But Bible/Jesus Christ teach us lot of good things and no Christian can claim to fully adhere to these teachings. This is what evangelical Christianity teaches us that whatever good we do, we cannot merit God's salvation which is an unmerited gift and comes with faith alone ..."
To what extent should Christians follow the Old Testament law? I submit that the proper question should not be “Which laws are relevant?” but rather “How are all these laws relevant?” Instead of dismissing priests, holy places and sacrifices as unrelated to Christian living, one would do better, in my opinion, to explore how God is revealed through all of these and how God specifically relates to the ritual categories of space, status and time in the contemporary Christian experience.
Students often ask, What does a Christian leader need in order to experience an effective life of ministry in the local church? A key part of the answer has to do with the kinds of people we gather around ourselves. As I look back over some thirty-five years of local church ministry, four kinds of relationships (besides God and my natural family) have proven indispensable to the health and vitality of my own pilgrimage as a pastor ...
This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig: I'm taking a philosophy class at a local community collage. I wrote a paper on the fine-tuning argument presented by Robin Collins. The fine tuning is improbable given atheism. Here we have all of the number for fine tuning for life given by Collins. But my professor raised an objection that I have never heard before, namely what is the probability of God? His objection is that if have a probability for the fine tuning we need a probability to compare it to. Since we don't have a clear one, why should we conclude that God is more likely than atheistic fine tuning? If you could help me understand this I would greatly appreciate it. I can understand that it seems like a very reasonable thing to think God is not as unlikely as the fine tuning but is there a strong philosophical argument or case to be made here?
Stability is a good thing – knowing that your favorite chair won’t collapse when you plop down in it after a hard day – being able to count on the love of someone no matter what. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we need to be willing to adjust with the changes that come with such a commitment. The first disciples were so inclined, and because of it, we have the gospel, are born-again, and look forward to an eternity in the presence of our loving Father.
This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig: While taking an anthropology course at San Jose State University about 10 years ago, the instructor took a poll on the first day of class asking students if that we were there because: 1) God created the world that we know including humans in their present form. 2) God guiding evolution to present times. 3) Evolution without God via chance and natural selection. The instructor ended the survey by saying that by the end of the course he would convince the class that #3 is, in fact, the truth. One of the examples that he used was the argument involving vestigial limbs and body parts. He pointed to humans resembling tadpoles with tails in the embryo state, whales with hip joints, dogs with toes high on their legs that are useless, genetic trail showing that a horse's hoof is really the middle toe that continued to grow longer than the others, etc. I would love to hear Dr. Craig's answer to such evidence. I have been strengthened by your ministry and I will continue to support it. Please feel free to paraphrase my question to correct any grammatical errors.
At the end of September I had the honor of speaking at the installation of my good friend, Mickey Klink, as head pastor of Hope Evangelical Free Church in Rosco, Illinois. The following is the text of my talk and I thought I would share it in this venue as it might possibly serve as encouragement for others who are about to embark on the journey of pastoral ministry. (I’ve shared this with Mickey’s permission) ...
Merry Christmas! Today, November 18, is Jesus' birthday, according to a few ancient sources. A few years ago, I came across an interesting article about the date of Jesus' birth by Paul Meier, a prominent New Testament scholar. Here is a summary: We celebrate Jesus' birthday on December 25, but it is quite unlikely that he was born on that day. That date was picked out in the fourth century, possibly as a replacement celebration for the winter solstice or other pagan holidays. Paul Meier suggests a birthday in November. This is based on two pieces of data....
Hace unos días tuve el privilegio de participar en el IV Congreso sobre la Reforma Protestante Española que tuvo lugar en la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad Complutense en Madrid, España. Este importante congreso internacional tuvo como tema principal la Reforma en Hispano América. Entre los participantes se encontraban profesores, historiadores y eruditos para dialogar acerca de la influencia del protestantismo en América Latina y su relación con la reforma española. Aunque el número de participantes no eran tan numeroso, el significado de esta reunión y los temas tratados son de suma importancia y son relevantes para nuestros días. Me gustaría compartir en este espacio algunas reflexiones sobre el pasado y el presente basadas principalmente en los temas tratados en este congreso.
This week's question: "...In watching your debates, I came across your debate with Sean Carroll. What an outstanding performance by the both of you. I think it might be the best debate available on your site. But Carroll made a point in passing that bothers me, and I wonder if you might not flesh it out more for me. It is: How are the teleological argument, and, for that matter, the cosmological argument, not God of the gaps? It seems the argument really is "we don't know how this fine-tuning could occur without God, so it must be God." Or, "we don't know how something came from nothing, so it must be God." I admit, as I think it through, why can't the atheist simply tack on "yet." This does seem like an Ancient Greek saying "we don't know how lightning exists, so it must be Zeus." The correct answer then was simply to tack on a "yet" after "we don't know how lightning exists." I'm certain I'm missing something, but I do find this troubling from an intellectual standpoint."
Whether shock-and-awe biblical archeology, “lost” gospels found just in time for the Easter documentary season, or conclusive proof that the Nephilim of Genesis 6 were actually ancient aliens, the ol’ World Wide Web abounds with juicy rumors. While no one is talking about the big “John the Baptist Skull” story (because I just made that up 10 minutes ago), Facebook has recently been “abuzz” with an article published by the website, World News Daily Report, entitled “Newly-Found Document Holds Eyewitness Account of Jesus Performing Miracle.” This is the same website, incidentally, that broke the story, “Rancher Shoots Down UFO Near Area 51.” Despite the site’s self-identification as a “political satire web publication,” the article was posted and passed around social media hundreds of thousands of times. As a historian focused on the Roman Mediterranean, I’ll comfortably go on the record stating that this story is a pure and fantastic invention. Rather than debunking this particular Jesus rumor, however, I’d like to address a larger question facing many modern followers of Jesus: How should we respond when confronted with such “breaking news”? How might we advise those we disciple on these kinds of intriguing and quick-to-go-viral claims?
As indicated in a previous post, Talbot School of Theology will be well represented this year at the Evangelical Theological Society's national meeting [need link here]. For those unable to attend (most of you, I assume!), here is a video clip that touches upon some key ideas that I will be sharing in my plenary address. The interviewer is Dr. Jason Cusick, a pastor at Journey of Faith Church in Manhattan Beach, CA. The clip was shown in a church service as part of a series on the church and the family.
Dear Dr. Craig, I was listening to an older podcast of yours wherein you stated that one can affirm states of affairs without needing to affirm the truth-status of the proposition used in the affirmation of any state. However, if we deny the reality of truth-status' (in an effort to avoid making propositions or "truth" a real, existing thing), then how can one say that any proposition is self-refuting? ...
Sometimes I have to stop when I’m reading my Bible—and laugh. Let’s admit it; some passages are just plain funny. Here are some that my daughter Lydia and I collected together.
Kyle Strobel (assistant professor at Talbot's Institute of Spirtual Formation) and Jamin Goggin ('03, M.A. '08) recently released Beloved Dust: Drawing Close to God by Discovering the Truth About Yourself. We wanted to learn more about this book, so we put together some questions that Kyle graciously answered.
This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. " Greetings Dr. Craig ... It seems to me that the fact that life exists anywhere at all is miraculous. Your syllogism defending the fine-tuning argument is great but I would like to hear what you would personally say to Dr. Tyson ..."
Every year Bible scholars from around the world gather for a series of conferences about the Bible and related topics. This year the conferences are being held in San Diego, making it convenient for many Biola faculty to attend the conferences, present papers, see friends, and wander the book tables. The following list (thanks to David Roberts for compiling it) includes the presentation titles by those associated with Biola. As you can read, our professors are engaged in research in many different and interesting areas!
It was twenty-five years before church growth researcher Win Arn, building on the initial discoveries of Donald McGavran, conducted one of the largest studies of how people come to faith in Christ and to the church in the United States and Canada. Arn’s Institute for American Church Growth surveyed over 17,000 persons in 1980 asking, “What or who was responsible for your coming to Christ and to your church?” Arn published his findings in The Master’s Plan for Making Disciples, and church leaders were astounded ...
This series of posts presents several of my active assignments from the required freshman class Biblical Interpretation and Spiritual Formation. This one has the students examine their use of time and money, and usually students are surprised at the results. Here are the instructions ...
One of the joys of teaching at Biola University and Talbot School of Theology is the privilege of investing in present and future church leaders who, in turn, go out and invest in the lives of others. It is the process of discipleship at its finest. As a faculty, we disciple students so that they disciple others so that they disciple others ... When this happens, the impact of our teaching reaches around the world. In many ways we will not know the full impact of our ministry until we all get to heaven.
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