Are We About to be Raptured?

Kevin Harris: Bill, people are starting to read your Systematic Philosophical Theology, at least the volumes that have been released, and we have some questions today about this work. By the way, where are you in the writing process?

Dr. Craig: I am thrilled to say that I am currently writing on the final and fifth volume of the series. I'm working on eschatology, which is the doctrine of the last things. The work is nearing completion, and it's just a wonderful dream come true.

Kevin Harris: Well, lo and behold, that's the first question here from Jeremy. It says, “Dr. Craig, Is one's view of time important to one's view of eschatology? What's the most important aspect of Christian eschatology?” Those are two questions. Also, “Will you address these questions in your volumes?” Which you said “yes.”

Dr. Craig: Well, Jeremy, it's interesting. My doctrinal mentor, Wolfhart Pannenberg, has said that the most important issue in Christian eschatology is the relationship of time and eternity. Now, when I read that, I thought that's not true. Surely that's not right. I think that the most important aspect of Christian eschatology is the return of Christ. That's where I would say the center is. But nevertheless, as I reflected on this, I came to see that, in fact, your view of time is so pivotal for your views of eschatology that I think if you take the wrong view of time, this is going to exclude things like life after death, eternal salvation, the day of judgment. So time becomes so important for eschatology that I've had to revise my opening chapter and include a very lengthy section on time as the very first issue that I'm going to discuss.

Kevin Harris: Next question.

Dear Dr. Craig, Will you defend the rapture view in your Systematic Philosophical Theology? Do you think the rapture will be soon? Linda.

Dr. Craig: No, Linda, I do not think that the New Testament teaches that there will be this secret return of Christ prior to the second coming to snatch the church out of the world. This is a view that was invented in the 1800s by Darby in Ireland called Darbyism, and I think that it's not a New Testament view at all. So this will not be something that will be defended in my treatment of eschatology.

Kevin Harris: The next question.

Dr. Craig, I followed the intelligent design movement for many years. However, it seems to have fizzled. Did you write anything about it in your Systematic Philosophical Theology? Steve.

Dr. Craig: Well, I'm really puzzled by your question, Steve. Why do you think that the intelligent design movement has fizzled out? That's not the impression that I get. It seems to be as robust as ever. I think there's a movie coming out in theaters soon called The Story of Everything, which defends the notion of intelligent design and a creator and designer of the universe. So I don't have the impression that this has in any way fizzled out.

Now, I certainly do write about the design in the universe because in volume three, the doctrine of creation, I think one of the most important issues in the doctrine of creation is understanding the relationship between Christian theology and the origin and evolution of life. So I have a very lengthy excursus on the origin of life on this planet and then the evolution of biological complexity and what theological perspective we should take on those issues. So that occupies a large center section of volume three.

Kevin Harris: Next question.

Dear Dr. Craig, Due to the current trend in scholarship away from the penal substitutionary atonement view, were there any adjustments in your Systematic Philosophical Theology, assuming that there is a section on the atonement? Dave.

You may need to address that, Bill, whether you do detect a trend that he's apparently detecting in scholarship.

Dr. Craig: Yeah, again I'm not sure what Dave is referring to here when he says there's a trend away from penal substitutionary atonement. I suppose that's true in that there are many critics of it. Yes, that's right. But I've written a book, Atonement and the Death of Christ, defending the view. And there are many other fine defenses, both biblically and philosophically, of this important atonement motif. So I think that it's in good shape.

Now, there were certainly some changes introduced in the Systematic Philosophical Theology in the section on the doctrine of Christ and the work of Christ. Particularly, I have found many new and fascinating examples of penal substitution in Western systems of justice. The main objection by the detractors of penal substitution is that we have no experience of guilt being ascribed to a third party who did not commit the crime. And that is palpably false in our Western systems of justice. So I give example after example of where crimes and culpability are imputed to third parties who did not actually commit the crime, and a guilty verdict is rendered on such persons, and they are given their just deserts by the judge or the jury. So the section on penal substitution is even stronger now.

Kevin Harris: Now, we may want to point out that just because a certain book or lecture or something is popular, that doesn't mean that there's a trend in scholarship. He may be referring to that book that you critiqued, Lamb of the Free.

Dr. Craig: Yes.

Kevin Harris: Which was the number one book in the Bible study section on Amazon for several weeks. People will see that and say, “Oh, the trend must be away.” Not necessarily. It's one book. It may be popular.

Dr. Craig: Yeah, that's absolutely right. I thank you for that reminder, and I would encourage Dave to take a look at that video with Sean McDowell and then the video that you and I did responding to Rillera’s critique of penal substitutionary theory.

Kevin Harris: Next question.

Dr. Craig, Do you discuss the origin of Satan in your next volumes? What about angels and demons? Also, my friends say I have an unhealthy fascination with this subject. Ricardo.

Dr. Craig: Well, Ricardo, I do not discuss the origin of Satan or angels and demons in the Systematic Philosophical Theology. And I think this underlines the fact that this is a systematic philosophical theology. I couldn't find any philosophical issues that were raised particularly by the existence of Satan and angels and demons that were not already raised by the existence of human souls as immaterial spirit beings or by God himself as an incorporeal being.

Now, having said that, if you're interested in my take on angels and demons and Satan, take a look at my Defenders lectures on this subject as a subsection of the doctrine of creation.

Kevin Harris: And take your friends’ advice and don't be too obsessed with this topic, that's for sure. Next question.

Dear Dr. Craig, My grandfather and I constantly argue about baptism. He thinks it's necessary for salvation. I disagree. He highly respects you, so I'd like to show him anything you've written in your current writings. Where can I find it? Heather.

Dr. Craig: Thank you, Heather. This is an important issue raised in volume five, which comprises not only eschatology but ecclesiology, or the doctrine of the church. Central to the doctrine of the church will be the doctrine of the so-called sacraments, particularly baptism and the Lord's Supper. So I discuss at great length whether or not baptism is a means of grace whereby God mediates his saving grace to us. Here, I think I agree with you that, in fact, baptism is not a sacrament. It is not a means of saving grace, but rather it is the culmination of our conversion and initiation into the body of Christ whereby we express and confess our faith in Jesus Christ and identify with him in his death, burial, and resurrection.

Kevin Harris: Next question.

Dr. Craig, I have most of your books, so I wonder if I need to get your Systematic Philosophical Theology series. If it's a compilation of what I have, I'll save my money. But if there is new material included, I definitely want to invest in them. Randy.

Dr. Craig: Thank you, Randy, for your interest. There's a lot of new material. This is not just a compilation of old work. In every locus that I discuss, I made a real effort to bring the discussion right up to the cutting edge of scholarship today, in many cases citing works that are still forthcoming and haven't even been published yet. So definitely, there's a lot in these volumes that is new.

Kevin Harris: Next question.

Dr. William Lane Craig, as a former Muslim, I'm most interested in the subject of Islam and would like to know your teaching. Which volume of your upcoming work should I purchase for this study? Anonymous.

Dr. Craig: Well, Anonymous, I suppose for a Muslim, the volume on the doctrine of Christ and the doctrine of salvation would be the most important. Volume four deals with the doctrine of Christ, his person and work, which is very, very different from Islam, and then the doctrine of salvation – how does one appropriate God's saving grace? So although other areas are important too, I think that volume four on the doctrine of Christ and doctrine of salvation would be of paramount importance for you.

Kevin Harris: You can't blame this person for wanting to be anonymous. The way things are.

Dr. Craig: It could be dangerous if he's a Muslim and he's interested in reading Christian theology.

Kevin Harris: A couple of personal questions here, Bill, that you may want to address.

Dear Dr. Craig, I once heard that you do not type. How then are you writing your Systematic Philosophical Theology in its many volumes? Is there a voice-activated program that you use? Kendall.

Dr. Craig: Well, Kendall, what you heard is true. Before word processors were invented, Jan did all the typing of my books and articles, which I wrote by hand. But now with the computer revolution, I'm able to hunt and peck effectively with my index fingers and then also use the dictation feature on the laptop so that sometimes verbally I can enter things in. Though I must say it's really a frustration with this dictation program. It's very frustrating. For example, it will not spell the word “sin.” No matter how clearly I say “sin,” it will put in “soon” or “send.” So I think there's some kind of theological bias that's been programmed into this thing that it doesn't want to talk about sin.

Kevin Harris: It's guilty. It's a guilty program.

Dr. Craig: That's right.

Kevin Harris: Question.

Dr. Craig, May I ask what you plan to do when you complete your Systematic Philosophical Theology? Will you retire, or will we continue to hear from you? Anna.

Dr. Craig: Anna, my wife, Jan, says that the R-word is not in our vocabulary, so we're not going to be retiring. Probably what I would take on, God-willing, if he gives me grace, is a popularized one-volume version of the Systematic Philosophical Theology. So that would probably be the project to follow.

Kevin Harris: A few more questions here. Jackson Gordon has a YouTube channel called Working Through William Lane Craig's Systematic Philosophical Theology.^[1]

Dr. Craig: Wow.

Kevin Harris: Let's check a couple of examples from his videos and see how he's doing so far. This first clip is on the doctrine of scripture.

Jackson Gordon: So I have been reading through William Lane Craig’s Systematic Philosophical Theology. I started in the first volume, and it's been really cool because there have been a lot of topics that I've been wanting to get a deeper understanding of. I have been reading through the first locus that he has in volume one on Holy Scripture.

First point that gets made is about the importance of Scripture. Scripture is the basis for all of our doctrines. Any doctrine that you can have, anything that the church teaches, is going to be founded in Scripture. So Scripture is really the basis for everything.

And there was an interesting term that got used in here that I'd not heard of before, so I had to go look up what it meant. He uses the term “norma normans”, saying that Scripture is the norma normans of Christian doctrine. Looking up what that means, the term “norma normans” means “the norm of norms” or “the norming norm.” You can think of a norm as a standard or as a rule. So to say that norma normans is the norming norm is to say that it's the ruling rule.

So in saying that Scripture is the rule that rules, it's saying that it's the standard for everything else. It's the ultimate standard for Christian doctrine. Whatever you are trying to formulate or trying to teach in doctrine, it's going to be based on Scripture. It's going to have to align with Scripture, match with Scripture. Scripture is the standard by which all other things are measured or figured out.

Kevin Harris: Okay. How's he doing so far, Bill?

Dr. Craig: Great. I thought that was wonderful. One might just mention that many people take the creeds of the church to be the “norma normata,” that is to say, the normed norms. Scripture is the ruling norm, and then there are these subsidiary norms that must derive from and submit to Scripture. So that's why the book begins with the doctrine of Scripture, because this is the foundation of the whole of Christian theology.

Kevin Harris: Here's another example of what he's doing. He addresses the scriptural claims and circular reasoning from the volumes.

Jackson Gordon: So then it comes to an important question. Is it circular to ask Scripture about the doctrine of Scripture? How can you prove the Bible using the Bible? Isn't that circular reasoning? Isn't that a logical fallacy?

He discusses this in an interesting way. I had not thought about this before reading the book and understanding some of these differences. He talks about the difference between systematic theology and fundamental theology. Systematic theology – or dogmatics, those are the same thing – and the camp of fundamental theology, or apologetics, would be the other name that that's known as.

In the prolegomena, he talks about these different kinds of theology. He talks about how fundamental theology, or apologetics, is chiefly concerned with positive proofs. A positive proof would be what I think about normally when I think of a proof – that I'm trying to prove this to you, to prove why you should believe it.

But systematic theology, or dogmatics, is actually concerned with a very different question. They're concerned about negative proofs. Negative proofs would be a proof of impossibility. It would show that there's either some inconsistency or some logical contradiction within the view, within the doctrine, that you just would not be able to hold that view.

Thinking about the Bible, it's one thing to tell someone what the Bible says about itself and demonstrate how what the Bible says about itself is consistent when you examine that internally. Somebody could acknowledge the things that the Bible says about itself and could acknowledge that it's got a consistent picture of itself, and they might still choose not to believe it. So the choosing not to believe it, that's the area of the positive apologetics where you want to convince them that they should believe it. But that is different from just discussing whether it is consistent and whether there are any arguments against it which would take it out and prevent you from being able to hold to it.

Kevin Harris: How's his understanding, Bill?

Dr. Craig: Very good. This fellow is very subtle, much more subtle than neoliberal theologians like James Barr. James Barr thought that when you explore the doctrine of Scripture that you're trying to prove the Bible by citing the Bible, which is circular. As this fellow quite rightly explains, in doing systematic theology we are simply expositing the body of Christian doctrine and then defending it against charges of inconsistency or falsehood. But you're not quoting the Bible to prove the Bible. So he's doing better here than even these modern theologians like James Barr.

Kevin Harris: Let's look at one more. Here's a guy who's doing something similar. Bryce Neuberger also has a YouTube channel working through the volumes.^[2] This is what he says.

Bryce Neuberger: My number one Christmas gift from my wife, she pleasantly surprised me, was my Systematic Philosophical Theology book by William Lane Craig. This is volume one, though I look forward to grabbing all the other volumes as I finish this one and as they release.

I've added this to my morning reading plan. I don't really like Reformed theology at all, so I was very happy to see a systematic that wasn't Reformed, and philosophical – which is something that I think is missing from theology.

Dr. Craig has written this book, and he has definitely focused on academic rigor and being very specific with his arguments. So this book, just reading through the introduction, was very, very dense. As someone who has grown up in theological circles, not philosophical circles – which is fascinating that he writes in his introduction about that problem. He kind of hands me that problem. It’s a problem he struggled with. He says he's not a master of theology. He's not an expert theologian. He's an expert philosopher, but he's a philosopher who cares deeply for theology. So that's where this book comes from.

He said there's really not been too many philosophic systematic theologies before. I think he cites Plantinga, but beyond that, he said even then they didn't have the benefit of the modern revolution that we've had in philosophy.

Kevin Harris: Bryce went to seminary, and so it looks like this is going to be a good series too.

Dr. Craig: Oh indeed. I'm so thrilled to see fellows like this. Did you notice, although he says he doesn't like Reformed theology, right behind him on the shelf I recognized the four volumes of Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, which I'm also interacting with in my work. So that was really interesting for me to see that.^[3]