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(Hard Questions Real Answers) [By: CRAIG WILLIAM LANE] [Oct, 2003]
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September 7, 2024
THE FAMED CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER EXPANDS AN EARLIER BOOK
William Lane Craig (b. 1949) is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He is also a prominent philosophical apologist (see his debates with atheists, such as 'God?: A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist' and 'Does God Exist: The Craig-Flew Debate'), and author of books such as 'Reasonable Faith,' 'The existence of God and the beginning of the universe,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2003 book, "This book is a revised and updated version of my earlier book, No Easy Answers. The original book flowed out of a series of sermons I delivered on 'Unpopular Themes,' that is, topics frequently shunned because of the hard questions they raise. As a Christian philosopher and theologian I have been impressed at how much easier it is to raise hard questions than to answer them. Students and laymen ... sometimes pose difficult questions which are even knottier than they themselves realize. They deserve better than pat answers. They deserve real answers, which is what I try to give in this book."
He observes, "the frustrating thing about unanswered prayer is that on occasion none of the obstacles just listed seems to impede the way, and still God does not grant our request. We may have confessed all known sin in our lives, prayed out of a desire to glorify God, and prayed in faith with earnestness and perseverance, and still God doesn't come through as Jesus said He would. Indeed, it is precisely when all those elements are present that the experience of unanswered prayer is apt to be devastating and demoralizing. There is, however, one final, important qualification of Jesus' promise that needs to be made: our request must be in accordance with God's will." (Pg. 52-53)
About the "Problem of Evil," he concludes, "if the objector aims to show that it is logically impossible for God and the evil in the world to both exist, then he has to prove that God cannot have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the amount and kinds of evil that exist. And he hasn't given us any proof for that assumption. We can go even further than this. Not only has the objector failed to prove that God and evil are inconsistent, but we can, on the contrary, prove that they are consistent... all we have to do is provide some possible explanation of the evil in the world that is compatible with God's existence... [For example] God could not have created a world that had so much good as the actual world but had less evil, both in terms of quantity and quality; and, moreover, God has morally sufficient reasons for the evil that exists. So long as this explanation is even possible, it proves that God and the evil in the world are logically compatible." (Pg. 86)
He adds, "mankind is in a state of rebellion against God and His purpose... The terrible human evils in the world are testimony to man's depravity in his state of spiritual alienation from God. Moreover, there is a realm of beings higher than man also in rebellion against God, demonic creatures, incredibly evil... who seek to destroy God's work and thwart His purposes. The Christian is thus not surprised at the moral evil in the world; on the contrary, he EXPECTS it... God's purpose is not restricted to this life but spills over beyond the grave into eternal life... When God asks His children to bear horrible suffering in this life, it is only with the prospect of a heavenly joy and recompense that is beyond all comprehension." (Pg. 96-97)
He suggests, "someone might further object that God would not create persons who He knew will be lost but who would have been saved if only they had heard the gospel. But how we know there are such persons? It's reasonable to assume that many people who never hear the gospel would not have believed the gospel even if they had heard it... Suppose, then, that God has so providentially ordered the world that ALL persons who never hear the gospel are precisely such people. In that case, anybody who never hears the gospel and is lost would have rejected the gospel and been lost even if he had heard it... So long as this scenario is even POSSIBLE, it proves that there is no incompatibility between an all-powerful, all-loving God and some people's not hearing the gospel and thus being lost." (Pg. 160)
Craig's book will be of great interest to those interested in apologetics (particularly of the "philosophical" sort).
William Lane Craig (b. 1949) is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He is also a prominent philosophical apologist (see his debates with atheists, such as 'God?: A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist' and 'Does God Exist: The Craig-Flew Debate'), and author of books such as 'Reasonable Faith,' 'The existence of God and the beginning of the universe,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2003 book, "This book is a revised and updated version of my earlier book, No Easy Answers. The original book flowed out of a series of sermons I delivered on 'Unpopular Themes,' that is, topics frequently shunned because of the hard questions they raise. As a Christian philosopher and theologian I have been impressed at how much easier it is to raise hard questions than to answer them. Students and laymen ... sometimes pose difficult questions which are even knottier than they themselves realize. They deserve better than pat answers. They deserve real answers, which is what I try to give in this book."
He observes, "the frustrating thing about unanswered prayer is that on occasion none of the obstacles just listed seems to impede the way, and still God does not grant our request. We may have confessed all known sin in our lives, prayed out of a desire to glorify God, and prayed in faith with earnestness and perseverance, and still God doesn't come through as Jesus said He would. Indeed, it is precisely when all those elements are present that the experience of unanswered prayer is apt to be devastating and demoralizing. There is, however, one final, important qualification of Jesus' promise that needs to be made: our request must be in accordance with God's will." (Pg. 52-53)
About the "Problem of Evil," he concludes, "if the objector aims to show that it is logically impossible for God and the evil in the world to both exist, then he has to prove that God cannot have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the amount and kinds of evil that exist. And he hasn't given us any proof for that assumption. We can go even further than this. Not only has the objector failed to prove that God and evil are inconsistent, but we can, on the contrary, prove that they are consistent... all we have to do is provide some possible explanation of the evil in the world that is compatible with God's existence... [For example] God could not have created a world that had so much good as the actual world but had less evil, both in terms of quantity and quality; and, moreover, God has morally sufficient reasons for the evil that exists. So long as this explanation is even possible, it proves that God and the evil in the world are logically compatible." (Pg. 86)
He adds, "mankind is in a state of rebellion against God and His purpose... The terrible human evils in the world are testimony to man's depravity in his state of spiritual alienation from God. Moreover, there is a realm of beings higher than man also in rebellion against God, demonic creatures, incredibly evil... who seek to destroy God's work and thwart His purposes. The Christian is thus not surprised at the moral evil in the world; on the contrary, he EXPECTS it... God's purpose is not restricted to this life but spills over beyond the grave into eternal life... When God asks His children to bear horrible suffering in this life, it is only with the prospect of a heavenly joy and recompense that is beyond all comprehension." (Pg. 96-97)
He suggests, "someone might further object that God would not create persons who He knew will be lost but who would have been saved if only they had heard the gospel. But how we know there are such persons? It's reasonable to assume that many people who never hear the gospel would not have believed the gospel even if they had heard it... Suppose, then, that God has so providentially ordered the world that ALL persons who never hear the gospel are precisely such people. In that case, anybody who never hears the gospel and is lost would have rejected the gospel and been lost even if he had heard it... So long as this scenario is even POSSIBLE, it proves that there is no incompatibility between an all-powerful, all-loving God and some people's not hearing the gospel and thus being lost." (Pg. 160)
Craig's book will be of great interest to those interested in apologetics (particularly of the "philosophical" sort).
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