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Questions on Atheism, Abortion and Molinism

December 30, 2013     Time: 14:35
Questions on Atheism, Abortion and Molinism

Summary

An atheist questions Dr. Craig on abortion. And, is there scriptural support for Molinism?

Transcript Questions on Atheism, Abortion and Molinism

 

Kevin Harris: This letter, Dr. Craig, says,

Even as an atheist, I cannot bring myself to approve of abortion at any stage after conception because I believe it to be a unique life form and I believe all of life is precious. I read your post on abortion and I was delighted to see you explain in detail the moral degeneracy of abortion. However, I feel you’ve left out a few points, if you can touch on in detail. Common rebuttals I get to this point goes as follows: the right to life is for those who live as beings with emotions, are self-aware, and thought; therefore, abortion a few days after conception is justified as the bunch of cells have no emotions, are not self-aware, and cannot think. I find this absolutely morally reprehensible and I cannot find a single piece of material to rebut this. I would be much obliged if you could respond to this. Thanks in advance.

Dr. Craig: Well, it is wonderful to hear an atheist who is morally reflective upon this atrocity of abortion on demand, isn’t it, Kevin? There is nothing about the abortion issue that is particularly religious. As I’ve said in my writings on this, it seems to me that there are two questions you need to answer about abortion to decide whether or not abortion on demand is ethical. The first one is: do human beings have intrinsic moral value? I wouldn’t say with him that all life is precious. I think he means probably by that all human life is precious. There is nothing the matter with eating eggs for breakfast. But human life, I think, is precious because human beings are endowed with intrinsic moral worth. So do you believe that human beings are intrinsically morally valuable? If you do then the second question you need to ask is: is the developing fetus or embryo a human being? That is not a religious question. That is a medical, biological question. And it seems to me the answer is yes, this is a human fetus or human embryo. It is not canine, it is not bovine, it is not feline. It is human. So because I think the answer to both of those questions is yes – that human beings are intrinsically valuable, and that the developing fetus is a human being – I think it is therefore immoral to have abortion on demand – to take the life of this human being – without moral justification for that action.

Now, the objection that is raised here (that the developing fetus doesn’t have emotions, self-awareness, and thought processes) assumes that those are essential to humanity. If that is the case, Kevin, the problem is then little babies are not human because they don’t’ have self-awareness and emotions and rational thought. So this would justify infanticide. It has horrible moral implications. I think that at most you could say that an organism which has the potentiality for self-awareness, rational thought, and emotions is valuable. But then the fetus certainly does have that. So the difficulty here for the abortionist is that if you defend abortion on these grounds you are going to need to start defending infanticide, too. Some of the more radical and consistent defenders of abortion do go that route and have said that you should be able to kill the newborns 30 days – I’ve even heard up to a year or so, two years – after birth because you don’t really have self-awareness and self-consciousness until that stage, which I think most of us would say is morally reprehensible.[1]

Kevin Harris: They are just following the logic, really.

Dr. Craig: That’s right. So this is not a good criterion for being human or for having intrinsic moral worth. If he wants to look at more literature on this, our friend Greg Koukl has a website called StandToReason.org which has lots of material on it related to the ethics and legality of abortion.

Kevin Harris: Dr. Craig, a letter from Ryan here. I want to go to the end because I want you to hear what he says. He really appreciates you.[2] He says,

Whenever you have a bad day, Dr. Craig, just remember there are thousands of people who you don’t know and will never meet that think very highly of you. On top of that, the Lord of heaven and earth has used you to reach them and greatly enriched the quality of their experience with him. That should be a pretty awesome feeling.

So, Bill, you haven’t had a bad day lately have you?

Dr. Craig: [laughter] No, I haven’t, but that’s very encouraging. Thank you, Ryan, very much.

Kevin Harris: This is a long, involved question from Ryan. Bill, we really only have an opportunity here to take a little of it – the first part of it. Quite good question, so keep looking at the resources on this particular topic at ReasonableFaith.org. He says,

I am certainly not a Calvinist but I have had a hard time settling on what I actually believe as opposed to defining my belief in terms of who I disagree with. This has led me to Molinism – a position I find to be quite satisfying in many regards. I would have to say it is where I currently reside, although somewhat tentatively. However, that decision is not without difficulty. To that end, I have two questions for you. Number one, whenever the topic comes up among Christians – and this is the one we are going to take, Bill – other believers (at least those who have heard of Molinism, which I regard as theology’s best kept secret) tend to respond with, “Well, where is that in the Bible?” or something along those lines.

So maybe some biblical support for your view of Molinism? What do you think about it when he says theology’s best kept secret?

Dr. Craig: That’s funny, isn’t it? I think it is getting to be more and more an open secret. The very fact that he is asking about it is significant. I want to make a couple of comments. First, he seems to be backing into Molinism based upon what he is opposed to. He disagrees with these other views and sort of finds his way into Molinism. I would encourage Ryan to look at the positive arguments on behalf of Molinism that I offer. For example, in my little book called What Does God Know? which is published by RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministries) I lay out some arguments for Molinism that I think are very convincing as to why we ought to think that God does have middle knowledge and, given that, it will then provide the means by which he can providentially order the world. As for this question about where is it found in the Bible – perhaps the best retort would be to say to the other person, well, where is the doctrine of the Trinity found in the Bible? Or where is the doctrine of the two natures of Christ found in the Bible? What the other person will have to say is, “Well, that doctrine isn’t found in the Bible in terms of a proof text. Rather, that is a theological construct based upon the materials in the Bible that make sense of these biblical materials.”

Kevin Harris: Boy, that is so important. Absolutely. I had an encounter with a Jehovah’s Witness over weeks of time and he said, “Show me that verse, that one proof text, that says there are three persons in the one God. I want to see the verse.” And I just had to explain, “Look, it is a case of looking at the full data of Scripture and how you handle the data. The doctrine is founded upon the full data of Scripture.”

Dr. Craig: Right. And in the case of Molinism, what you would do is look at all of the passages in Scripture that talk about God’s sovereignty over the world, the way in which God controls the world and directs it toward his ends. And then you would also look at all the passages in the Scripture that affirm human freedom and contingency. And you ask what is the best model for putting this data together? Then you would compare various theories, like Calvinism – that God unilaterally causally determines everything that happens. That explains divine sovereignty very well, but it runs roughshod over the data of Scripture that support contingency and human freedom. On the other hand, so-called Open Theism affirms the data concerning man’s freedom and contingency, but it cannot do justice to the biblical data concerning God’s sovereignty and providential control over the world. But Molinism beautifully explains both of these without bruising the data. It allows you to have divine sovereignty with a full affirmation of human freedom and contingency. Therefore, this is the best model for making sense of that biblical material.[3]

Another thing that you can show is that God does indeed have (scripturally) knowledge of counterfactuals of freedom. That is to say, the statements in the subjunctive mood of the form “if X were the case, then Y would be the case.” You can show that God does know these. There are statements in Scripture that we as Christians believe are true. One of my favorites is 2 Corinthians 2:8 where Paul says with respect to the crucifixion of Jesus, “None of the rulers of this age understood this. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.” Now that is a counterfactual statement about how free creatures would behave in different circumstances. If they had understood this – which they didn’t – they would not have crucified Jesus.

So if you believe that statement is true, if you don’t think that is a truth value gap in the book of 2 Corinthians – then you have to say that God knows this truth. He knows this counterfactual truth. When does he know it? Does he know it logically prior to his decree to create the world or does he only know it logically posterior to his decree to create the world? Well, if it is only subsequent to his decree to create the world, then I think that annihilates human freedom because now it is God who determines the truth value of that counterfactual. He brings that about. That eliminates the freedom of, in this case, the rulers of this age. So it is plausible, if not required, that this truth be known by God logically prior to his decree to create a world and his selection of which world will be actual. That just is Molinism. That just is middle knowledge.

So I think that the doctrine of middle knowledge, and the Molinist view of providence based on it, is the best systematic explanation of the biblical data concerning divine sovereignty and human freedom.[4]

  • [1]

    One such example of defenders of infanticide can be seen in the following article: Alberto Giubilini, Francesca Minerva, “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?,” Journal of Medical Ethics, March 1, 2012. http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full (accessed January 9, 2013).

  • [2]

    4:58

  • [3]

    10:00

  • [4]

    Total Running Time: 14:35 (Copyright © 2013 William Lane Craig)