Unreasonable Faith

How William Lane Craig Overstates the Case for Christianity

James Fodor

• Publisher: Hypatia Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781912701193
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Atheismus

He has written or edited more than 30 books, his arguments for God and Jesus are frequently cited by Christian apologists around the world, and he has severely overstated his case through a series of blatant mischaracterizations and philosophical blunders. You may have heard of William Lane Craig, a professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology who is known for debating atheists, but even if you haven't you have probably heard his arguments through followers and fans. He is known for painting faith as the"reasonable" road, and falsely claiming that he can prove the validity of his religion. From his work attempting to show evidence for Jesus' resurrection to his development of the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God, Craig is respected among his peers on the Christian side of the religious spectrum. But is that deserved? What's at the core of these arguments? Are they philosophically sound? More importantly, is thisUnreasonable Faith? "an excellent destruction of W.L. Craig's entire apologetics. Cogently argued and factually accurate, this is required reading for anyone keen to question the soundness of anything W.L. Craig has argued over the decades. Which makes it an invaluable resource for refuting Christian apologetics generally."
Richard Carrier, author on the historicity of Jesus. "This book should be required reading for anyone who is proposing to debate William Lane Craig on the existence of God. It should also be something that those who debate Craig on that topic advertise: 'this book gives an accurate idea of the amount of material that needs to be provided to begin to address the usual panoply of arguments that Craig puts forward in a debate'"
Professor Graham Oppy, Monash.
James Fodor has a graduate degree in physics at the University of Melbourne, and is a research assistant in structural biology at Monash University. With a keen interest in philosophy, he writes for the Rationalist magazine on various subjects in religion and epistemology. As president of the University of Melbourne Secular Society, he has engaged in numerous discussions and public debates concerning religion, with a focus on secular morality and the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. He also has a keen interest in effective altruism and computational neuroscience.

Chapter One

Introduction

The Purpose of This Book

This book does not aim to convert Christians to atheism, or to undermine faith in God. Unlike many of my fellow public atheists, I have no interest in bringing about a general decline in religiosity as such in society. Rather, my purpose in this book is exclusively to evaluate a particular collection of arguments that have been put forward in favour of belief in Christianity. Specifically, I have written this book as a systematic critique of the apologetic work of leading Christian philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig. Though it is all too easy to forget, there is a significant difference between saying that an argument is unsound and asserting that the conclusion of the argument is false. In this book, I make no attempt to disprove or refute the existence of God or the truth of Christianity. My interest in this text is solely in the evaluation of the arguments put forward by Craig.

There are several reasons why I think it is important to carefully consider Craig’s arguments. First, these arguments have been widely propagated through both his writings and his many oral debates. The fact that many people hear his arguments and find them (to varying degrees) compelling is itself an important reason for subjecting them to greater scrutiny. Second, a detailed analysis of exactly how and why Craig’s arguments fail provides an engaging and important framework in which to sharpen one’s critical thinking and analytical skills, and teaches one how to reason about philosophical, scientific, and historical subjects in a more careful, rigorous way than many people are accustomed to. If my readers were to take away nothing more than an enhanced appreciation for and ability to analyse such arguments, I would regard that as a significant success. Finally, and most importantly, Craig’s arguments attempt to provide a series of reasons in virtue of which even an atheist or agnostic should, if they are responding rationally, adopt a belief in the truth of certain core Christian doctrines. I, along with many other atheists and agnostics, do not believe that Craig’s arguments provide the sort of rational warrant to his conclusions that Craig claims they do. This book, therefore, serves as a means of articulating a rejoinder to Craig’s arguments and explains why it is that I do not find his arguments convincing. I do not regard this as a matter of ‘winning points’ in some sort of intellectual contest, but rather as part of an iterative process of working through a complex set of issues together. As sincere seekers of truth, as I believe we all should be, and given the immense importance of the subject matter under discussion, I regard a careful analysis of Craig’s arguments to be a matter of considerable importance.

A Brief Biography of Craig

William Lane Craig was born in 1949 into a non-Christian family in Illinois, USA. Craig first became interested in religion during his teen years, when he began to ponder questions like, ‘why am I here?’ and ‘where am I going?’ He tried attending a nearby church, but grew disillusioned with what he considered to be their superficial and hypocritical attitude towards faith. Craig’s views regarding Christianity changed dramatically at the age of sixteen, when a Christian classmate told Craig that Jesus loved him. Craig says that he found this idea staggering, and this event therefore marked the beginning of a long period of soul-searching and seeking. As Craig explains¹:

“My spiritual search went on for the next six months. I attended Christian meetings; I read Christian books; I sought God in prayer. Finally, one night I just came to the end of my rope and cried out to God. I cried out all the anger and bitterness that had built up inside me, and at the same time I felt this tremendous infusion of joy, like a balloon being blown up and blown up until it was ready to burst! I remember I rushed outdoors—it was a clear, mid-western, summer night, and you could see the Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon. As I looked up at the stars, I thought, “God! I’ve come to know God!” That moment changed my whole life. I had thought enough about this message during those six months to realize that if it were really the truth—really the truth— then I could do nothing less than spend my entire life spreading this wonderful message among mankind.”

In 1971, Craig completed his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College majoring in communications, and subsequently completed his dual master’s theses in Philosophy of Religion and Church History at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1975². Having been originally introduced to Christian apologetics in his senior year of college, upon graduation from seminary Craig travelled to the United Kingdom to complete a doctorate under philosopher John Hick in developing a cosmological argument for the existence of God. Craig’s work during this time formed the basis for the much-discussed kalam cosmological argument. Craig completed his Doctorate in Philosophy in 1977, and shortly thereafter commenced a second doctorate program in Theology under Dr. Wolfhart Pannenberg at the University of Munich in Germany, which focused on developing an argument for the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus³. In 1980 Craig returned to the United States, teaching philosophy of religion for seven years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and then for one year at Westmont College, before accepting a position at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. During this period, Craig completed extensive research on the philosophy of time and God’s relationship to time, which is important for defence of his kalam cosmological argument. In 1994, Craig commenced his current role as Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in California.

In the 1990s, Craig began to engage in regular debates concerning the existence of God and the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus⁴. It is through these debates, widely circulated and discussed online, that Craig built his following and profile. Craig possesses a combination of skills and knowledge uniquely suited to such debates. First, he had extensive experience with the techniques of debate and oratory in high school and college⁵, having won the state championship in oratory in high school. Furthermore, Craig’s doctoral work on the cosmological argument and later the resurrection argument, in addition to his many subsequent publications on related subjects, meant that he was a world expert in these areas. Many of Craig’s opponents lacked the debating experience, the rhetorical skills, or the subject-specific knowledge to seriously compete with Craig in these debates, leading a wide range of Christian and atheist observers alike to praise Craig’s debating performance and declare him as the victor in the large majority of his encounters.

In addition to his public debates and scholarly writings, Craig has also written several popular apologetics works, most prominent of which is the book Reasonable Faith. Building upon the successes of this work and his increasing public profile, in 2007 Craig founded the website ReasonableFaith.org, which hosts a large number of Craig’s articles, in addition to a podcast, links to debate recordings, and forum discussions⁶. Today ReasonableFaith.org is one of the leading evangelical apologetics websites. It is because of his high public profile, as well as the relatively poor response to his arguments thus far provided by atheists and agnostics, that I have decided to focus this book on the arguments of Craig specifically.

The Purpose of Craig’s Arguments

Craig states very clearly that the primary reason he believes in the truth of Christianity is because of what he believes to be his direct experience of the Holy Spirit⁷:

“Fundamentally, the way we know Christianity to be true is by the self-authenticating witness of God’s Holy Spirit. Now what do I mean by that? I mean that the experience of the Holy Spirit is veridical and unmistakable (though not necessarily irresistible or indubitable) for him who has it; that such a person does not need supplementary arguments or evidence in order to know and to know with confidence that he is in fact experiencing the Spirit of God; that such experience does not function in this case as a premise in any argument from religious experience to God, but rather is the immediate experiencing of God himself... Thus, although arguments and evidence may be used to support the believer’s faith, they are never properly the basis of that faith. For the believer, God is not the conclusion of a syllogism; he is the living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob dwelling within us. How then does the believer know that Christianity is true? He knows because of the self-authenticating witness of God’s Spirit who lives within him.”

As such, Craig believes that the purpose of rational argumentation and evidence is to strengthen one’s belief in God, and to help bring others to knowledge of God. In this respect reason is completely subservient to faith, with Craig stating that⁸:

“Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa.”

Craig sometimes expresses this by saying that the witness of the Holy Spirit functions as an ‘intrinsic defeater-defeater’, such that it automatically overwhelms any potential defeaters or rebuttals that a believer might be confronted with⁹:

“I have argued the witness of the Holy Spirit is indeed an intrinsic defeater of any defeaters brought against it. For it seems to me inconceivable that God would allow any believer to be in a position where he would be rationally obliged to commit apostasy and renounce Christ. It seems to me rather that in such a situation a loving God would intensify the Spirit’s witness in such a way that it would become an intrinsic defeater of the defeaters such a person faces.”

Given the foregoing, it is evident that the purpose of the arguments Craig develops is not to help to determine whether Christianity is true, but rather to serve as apologetic tools in the task of furthering Christianity. In particular, Craig believes that apologetic arguments are useful for showing that Christianity is true¹⁰:

“We must make a distinction between knowing that it is true and showing that it is true. We know Christianity is true primarily by the self-authenticating witness of God’s Spirit. We show Christianity is true by presenting good arguments for its central tenets.”

Craig thus judges the success of his arguments by how persuasive they are in this task of showing that Christianity is true. Regarding persuasiveness Craig says¹¹:

“Since we cannot hope to persuade everybody, our aim should be to make our cumulative apologetic case as persuasive as possible. This can best be done by appealing to facts which are widely accepted or to intuitions that are commonly shared (common sense). When we appeal to expert testimony, our authorities should not be partisan but neutral or even anti-Christian.”

I do not agree with Craig’s view that such ‘intrinsic defeater-defeaters’ can overwhelm any other possible evidence or arguments against a belief. I believe that we should form our beliefs about the world such that our mental models of reality best account for the phenomena that we observe via our senses. Going into more detail about my views on this subject would lead us beyond the scope of the present volume, however, and so I will not engage in a lengthy critique of Craig’s views on this matter. Suffice it to say that Craig’s arguments will only be persuasive to others to the extent that they adhere to the generally accepted principles of logic, rationality, and evidence, and it is by these standards that I will attempt to adjudicate the strength of his arguments in this book. Consistent with established practise for persuasive arguments, I will require that his arguments are logically valid, and that the premises are defended on the basis of either generally-accepted facts, or by appeal to widely shared intuitions or experiences. Craig does not claim that his arguments show with certainty that Christianity is true, but rather he claims to develop a cumulative case, in light of which it is considerably more likely that Christianity is true than false. This is then the claim that I will critically analyse in this book – how good are Craig’s arguments in establishing that Christianity is probably true?

The Structure of This Book

In his oral debates and published writings, Craig defends four main arguments in favour of the existence of the Christian God. Three of these arguments attempt to establish the existence of a deity, while the fourth attempts to identify this deity with the God of Christianity. Craig thus presents what is in effect a cumulative case for the truth of Christianity. In this section, I will briefly summarise each of Craig’s main arguments, and in so doing outline the structure for the remainder of the book.

In chapter two I discuss the kalam cosmological argument. This attempts to show that the universe must have had an absolute beginning in time, and so cannot be eternal in the past. Craig has three main arguments for this: first, that an infinite series of past events is impossible, second, that the present could never be reached following an infinite succession of events, and third, that there is powerful scientific evidence that the universe began to exist. Having presented a case for the beginning of the universe, Craig then argues that anything that has such an absolute beginning must also have a cause of its coming into existence. This cause, Craig argues, must be something that can exist outside time and space (since neither existed at the time of creation), and also be capable of bringing about an effect from an initial changeless state. Craig argues that only a nonphysical agent endowed with free will could function as this sort of cause, and thus such a mind is the best explanation for the original cause of the universe. This agent, of course, Craig identifies as God.

In chapter three I discuss the fine-tuning argument. This attempts to show that various physical constants have been discovered by scientific inquiry to be finely-tuned for the existence of intelligent life, such that if the values of these constants were even slightly different, intelligent life could not exist. Craig argues that the only possible explanations for such fine-tuning are chance, physical necessity, or design. He then argues that chance and physical necessity fail as plausible explanations for various reasons, and therefore design emerges as the only plausible explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. Such design, however, naturally implies a designer, which Craig identifies with God.

In chapter four I discuss the moral argument. According to this argument, though we can all discern the existence of objective moral values whether we are religious or not, only under a theistic worldview can we make any sense of how such objective moral values could exist. Craig argues that in the absence of a God to serve as the source of morality and the paradigm of goodness, there simply could not be anything that would make objective moral values exist. Without God, morality would simply be an evolutionarily-evolved set of adaptations and preferences conducive for the survival of Homo sapiens, but would not have any ultimate objective truth or binding force. Since, however, we all know deep down that objective moral values do exist, it follows that God must also exist to serve as a foundation for such values.

In chapter five I discuss the Christological argument, also know...