Apologetics and Academia Part One

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, let’s continue examining the role of apologetics in academia. We can use a recent response to one of our podcasts to do so. Paulogia had Derek Lambert of the MythVision podcast talk about your response to Dr. Richard Miller on how Christian apologists are disdained in the upper echelons of scholarship. Listeners can review that podcast that we did. It's called “Responding to YouTube Critics” on ReasonableFaith.org.^[1] Let's start with a clip of them taking me to task for one of my comments. I couldn't resist, and I accused him in the comments of that video when I saw it of doing apologetics against apologetics.

Oh, my gosh. OK. If we're going to be technical on the definition of “apologist,” it's simply a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial. According to dictionary online – Oxford. But we all know what an apologist is. OK. This is someone who literally makes it their duty to defend their particular faithview. We don't need to get into “Is atheism some type of worldview” and “Is this something that we need to defend.” That's irrelevant to me. You could be agnostic. You could be theist. You can be atheist. You could be whatever you want. But what they're doing is starting with their answer just like you had to sign your faith-waver in order to even go to these schools. They're not starting with a question, and this is the investigation that is against the methodology Richard and those Ivory Tower Scholars I bring on my show and you've been bringing on yours, Paul. They want the questions. They don't scratch the answers. The answers come after you've investigated it.

KEVIN HARRIS: By the way, I felt like I should apologize to Dr. Miller so I did so in the comments section of this particular video for what could be construed as a cheap debater’s trick saying he's doing apologetics against apologetics. And he responded. He was very gracious and agreed that terms need to be defined. So, let's take it from there.

DR. CRAIG: Let's review and take a step back so that our listeners today understand the context of our discussion. Miller had made basically two points by way of criticism of Christian apologetics. First of all, he said that Christian apologists are inconsequential in academia, and that scholars generally either are unaware of their work or simply choose to ignore their work. His second point was that the methodology of apologetics is irreparably flawed because you begin with the position that you think is true and want to defend, and then you develop your arguments for it. We responded to both of those charges. With respect to the first, I actually agreed with Miller that Christian apologists are generally not academics or scholars. Most Christian apologists today are popularizers. They do not have earned doctorates. They do not publish in peer-reviewed journals or with academic presses. They don't read papers at professional conferences. Rather, their role is to take material down out of the Ivory Tower and to make it accessible to the man-in-the-street. And as such they perform an indispensable cultural function in making this material available to the average person. And I said that this underlines the importance of bona fide Christian scholarship which is comparable to the top echelons of secular academic scholarship today. I named some specific people particularly at the institutions at which Miller himself had studied and of whom he seemed to be unaware like Robert Adams and Nicholas Wolterstorff at Yale, as well as Stephen Davis at Claremont, and a number of other of these top scholars. These scholars are second to none in terms of their scholarly credentials and the scholarship that's exemplified in their work. Now, as to the second point concerning the methodology of apologetics, what I argued is that there is absolutely nothing objectionable with stating the view that you've arrived at and then seeking to give a defense of that view. I thought it was tremendously ironic that the definition that these two fellows put up on the screen of their video says that an apologist is someone who tries to explain or defend something, especially a political system or religious ideas. Then two of the examples that were given were both secular! For example, apologists for nuclear power and apologists for hardline government policies. So it is not at all true that apologetics is necessarily defending a faith-based position. After you've investigated and arrived at a position, you can then write a book seeking to explain and defend those ideas. I gave some examples of this. For instance, Jerry Coyne’s book, Why Evolution is True. This is an apologetic for contemporary neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Here's a couple of more examples I found on my shelf. Timothy Williamson's Modal Logic as Metaphysics. Williamson is a professor at Oxford University, and he holds to a philosophy called necessitism which holds that everything that exists exists necessarily. This book is his explication and defense of the philosophy of necessitism. Or here's another one. James Franklin's book An Aristotelian Realist Philosophy of Mathematics. In this book, Franklin seeks to explain and defend an Aristotelian perspective on philosophy of mathematics which represents his preferred view. So there's nothing at all unusual or flawed about laying out your view and then seeking to give a defense of it. I can say in my own work, my defense of the kalam cosmological argument was the result of extensive research on that argument before I arrived at my views. Notice that being a Christian doesn't commit you to the cogency of the kalam cosmological argument or to the soundness of the ontological argument or the fine-tuning argument. In fact, the irony here is that I can be far more objective in my assessment of these arguments than these two fellows can because my belief in God doesn't depend upon the soundness of the kalam cosmological argument or the ontological argument. There are many Christians who don't accept those particular arguments. They might have other reasons for believing in God. But for these two fellows, their worldview stands or falls with these arguments. If they were to admit that the kalam cosmological argument or the fine-tuning argument is a sound argument then it's over. They've got to change their worldview. So you see there's a lot more hanging on these arguments for them than there is for me. I can afford to be completely objective and open-minded about the assessment of these arguments because being a Christian doesn't entail the soundness of any particular natural theological argument or Christian evidence.

KEVIN HARRIS: I'm jumping ahead just a little bit here, but I think now it would be a good time to even emphasize this more. Because in all these years of doing this podcast with you, one thing that has come out is that you don't read apologists. You read scholarship. Any apologetics that happen to come out of that does so. You don't pick up the latest pop apologist book and read it. You're a philosopher.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah, that's very true. I thought it a little bit ironic as I reflected for our podcast today that the attitude that these fellows describe of scholars toward popular apologetics is the same as mine! I also do not read popular apologetics! The only popular level book in apologetics that I've read recently was Justin Brierley's book The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God because I was interested in Justin's claim that there are signs of a return of faith now in the UK. That's very exciting to me, and so I wanted to see what evidence he marshalled for that. But generally speaking, my attitude is the same as that of the secular scholars that they mention. I don't pay a whole lot of attention to popular-level apologetics.

KEVIN HARRIS: By the way, we're going to be doing a podcast on Justin Brierley's book – an article that he wrote that synopsizes that book. It's coming up, and it's going to be fascinating. In this next clip, Derek Lambert refers to your Christian testimony, Bill. Let's check this out.

When Bill Craig was a young boy and he found out that God came down and sent his Son – if this has one in a million chance of being true, hallelujah. It's worth believing in. And that day Bill Craig gave his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, he was a teenager. This guy had no clue. The vast critical scholarship that was out there and understanding the broader world and context in which the birth of Christianity occurred. He had no way. But once you sell them – once you are emotionally vested, like you're going to defend a parent. Your parent can do wrong. I found myself doing this. I've been guilty. It's tribalistic in a way. My parent can do wrong. My brother can do something wrong. And I will still fight and defend him most of the time. Naturally. It just comes natural. Once you have the key to a Heavenly Father that could solve all your problems that gives you this gift of Heaven. This promise of salvation with the sealed Holy Spirit, you then are vested in. You're sold. And once you sell, you're no longer questioning that foundation. You're just figuring out what's the proper understanding, what's the proper furniture that goes in this house we call Christianity. How do I organize that furniture? Are the Arminians correct? Are the Orthodox Christians correct? I have Christian scholars who cannot stand apologetics. They despise Christian apologetics. And they love their faith, and they do historical critical research on New Testament, on early Christianity, on early church fathers, on Old Testament. You name it.

KEVIN HARRIS: Kind of a mocking tone to start off there. I might point out that Derek was a teenager when he first prayed to receive Christ. He's an ex-Christian, he says. Looks like Paulogia was, too. But what do you think about what he said?

DR. CRAIG: Yes, their own examples belie what he just said about being so invested in your faith that you don't question it and don't explore the foundations. They chose to abandon their faith as teenagers, and too many Christians do later lose their faith in life. I'm just so grateful that as I progressed in my education I did not lose my faith. It's true that I was ignorant as a teenager, but the Spirit of God spoke to my heart, and I responded. I'm glad I did. But notice here that the question is not a question of my personal psychology or the firmness of my Christian commitment. The question is: Are my arguments sound? And you cannot refute an argument by pointing to the personal psychology of the person who offers the argument. That is an ad hominum fallacy. As I explained in our last clip, I can actually be more objective about these arguments than these fellows can because if they admit the arguments are sound they've got to change their whole worldview whereas if I come to the conclusion the arguments are not sound that doesn't mean that therefore my worldview is false. In fact, I've changed my mind with regard to some of the arguments. I did not think at first that the ontological argument was sound, but it was only after reading Alvin Plantinga’s book The Nature of Necessity that I became persuaded that this is, in fact, a sound argument. Similarly, I rejected the Leibnizian cosmological argument from contingency. I thought it was based upon a premise that was an extreme version of the principle of sufficient reason that was self-defeating. And it wasn't until I read a version of the argument by Stephen T. Davis based on a much more modest principle that I thought to myself, “Oh, well, wait a minute. This argument has got more going for it than I suspected.” So I can be objective about these arguments. Can they? Now, I think it's wonderful that at the end he does recognize the credibility and the worth of much Christian scholarship. That's my point that I was making originally. There are people who are doing first-rate Christian scholarship in various areas. So what is the problem supposed to be? I offer the same arguments that they do. So why are the arguments good arguments in their hands, but they're not good arguments in mine? I wonder what these two fellows would have me do? I mean this question sincerely. I want to ask them. Give me some advice. What am I supposed to do? It seems to me I've got three alternatives. First would be I should abandon my Christian faith. But that seems unreasonable because I believe that Christianity is true. So why would I abandon something that I believe to be the truth? Well, perhaps instead I should not publish my opinions anymore. Just refrain from writing on these things. But, again, that seems an extreme option. Because then that would just leave the field open for secularists and atheists to criticize the Christian faith, and I would never respond to such objections. I would never offer any defense for the existence of God or for the historicity of the New Testament. So why should I be silent and allow these objections and questions to go unanswered? So the third option would be: Perhaps I should just try to be as objective as I can in assessing the arguments and the evidence. Well, that's exactly what I'm already doing! I'm trying to do good scholarship in which I offer arguments that when assessed objectively I think are logically valid and based on true premises.

KEVIN HARRIS: I had to laugh when I saw that picture of you in the video as a teen. I guess that's an AI-generated picture of you – what you would look like as a teenager. I've seen at least one picture of you as a teen, and you didn't look anything like that. But it was a good effort. Let's check out this next clip talking about big fish in a little pond.

You know, William Lane Craig. You need to keep that pond having plenty of water because there's an ocean – not a pond – of solid scholarship that's out there that is bringing great information. I do not think that they're all correct on some of the points. I mean, I could probably find something I personally disagree with with almost any academic that I've ever interviewed. But that big ocean – it's not only enormous, but it's going to swallow up that little pond if you don't keep your little bubble there. But I can tell you this. Those big fish in that little pond will never influence the ocean's fish. They will never make the impact the larger academic world is not even aware of these fish, and they don't care.

KEVIN HARRIS: Are you neglecting the big fish scholarship in your work?

DR. CRAIG: This clip doesn't even respond to the remarks that I made. My point was that evangelical popular apologists are big fish in a little pond – a little evangelical pond – and therefore they are ignored in the wider lake of academic scholarship. Now, he just borrows my metaphor but substitutes an ocean for a lake. I think that's probably hyperbolic or exaggerated because the field of philosophy in which I work is a fairly small field. It's a fairly small discipline. So it's more like a big lake compared to the little pond. But I made exactly the point that he was making that many evangelicals are just big fish in a little pond, and they don't interact with a wider world of scholarship. So we need to make every effort to participate in that wider world. We need to attend and read papers at professional conferences like the American Philosophical Association or the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature. We need to publish in the top rate peer-reviewed journals and with the best academic presses like Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and so forth. That's the wider world in which I'm seeking to participate. I gave many examples of fine Christian scholars who do the same thing as well.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. Let's stop right there for today. Part two next time. By the way, if you have not downloaded the Reasonable Faith app, be sure you do that. Go to ReasonableFaith.org. You can download it and have instant access to all the resources from Reasonable Faith right there on your device. While you're at ReasonableFaith.org, please consider giving a financial gift to the work of Reasonable Faith to help us continue to produce great content like this that reaches the world. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time on Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig.^[2]