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Does Dr. Craig Believe John 3:16?

January 25, 2021
Does Dr. Craig Believe John 3:16?

Summary

Someone on Facebook accused Dr. Craig of not believing John 3:16. Dr. Craig straightens things out.

KEVIN HARRIS: Dr. Craig, I was on Facebook the other day and I’m very surprised to see that you don’t believe John 3:16, at least according to one commentator. Obviously, that got my attention. Brady was commenting on a totally unrelated topic and he said, “Unfortunately, Dr. Craig denies John 3:16 and teaches a work salvation.” We’ll get into the nitty-gritty in a little bit, Bill, but is there any reason anybody would think that?

DR. CRAIG: Well, having read Brady's post, I do think I understand him, though he doesn't explain himself very clearly. But I think I get it. I think I also see where the confusion lies because obviously I do not teach salvation by works but believe that salvation is by grace through faith alone and that we do nothing meritorious to earn salvation.

KEVIN HARRIS: This is what he says. He says,

External salvation is not a salvation by faith that works. Those that say that one must have faith that works, they claim that one is saved by faith in Christ plus nothing but that true faith in Christ results in commitment, obedience, turning from sins, etc. This may sound significantly different than salvation by faith plus works, however, it is actually another way of saying the same thing.

What is he getting at?

DR. CRAIG: Well, there he's making the claim that if you believe (as I do) that someone who has saving faith will manifest that by a transformed and changed life then you're actually teaching salvation by works – that these are the same thing. So when he uses this odd phrase “salvation by faith that works” he means a faith that produces changes in the life. The sort of faith that James talks about in the epistle of James where he says faith without works is dead. That's not a real saving faith – a faith that doesn't work. But Brady thinks that if you affirm that then in fact you are saying that your works somehow merit or earn salvation.

KEVIN HARRIS: I don't know. This seems to be what I would call a tangent. I mean, he's so strong on this. It seems to be his one go-to theological issue.

DR. CRAIG: It is the heartbeat of the Reformation – the idea of sola gratia sola fide, that salvation is through faith alone. It's by grace alone. It's not on the merit of our works. And that's very different from the traditional Roman Catholic view which says that by God's grace infused into us we are able to perform good works which in turn merit salvation. As I make very clear in my lectures on the doctrine of salvation in our Defender's class, I do not agree with that traditional Roman Catholic view that any of our works that we do are meritorious of salvation. So it is an important question, but I think Brady is quite confused as we'll see.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. Just continuing what he says:

There's no real difference between saying that to be saved you must turn from sins, commit your life to Christ, and believe in him and saying that believing in Christ necessarily results in turning from your sins and committing your life to him. Both insist that turning from sins and commitment of life is necessary to obtain final salvation. While some argue that works are not a condition for entering heaven but an inevitable result, those who have that view are playing a word game for whatever is necessary to achieve a goal is also a condition for receiving it. To call anything an inevitable result is to call it a necessary result, and thus to make it a condition.

Is there anything in that? He's trying to be philosophically rigorous.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. And this is where the confusion lies. He is confusing causal conditions with logical conditions. Logically, in a conditional statement if P then Q, P is a sufficient condition of Q and Q is a necessary condition of P. So if I say, “If you are saved, you will perform good works,” salvation is a sufficient condition of performing good works, but good works is a necessary condition of salvation in a logical sense. And that's the key. We are talking here about necessary and sufficient conditions in a logical sense, but that's very different from talking about necessary and sufficient conditions in a causal sense. Let me illustrate the difference. Suppose I say, “If you jump in the swimming pool you will get wet.” Now, in that case, jumping in the swimming pool is a sufficient condition of getting wet, and getting wet is a necessary condition of jumping in the swimming pool. It is a logically necessary condition of jumping in the swimming pool that you will get wet. But nobody in his right mind would say that getting wet causes you to jump in the swimming pool – that getting wet is a causal condition of jumping in the pool. It is a logical condition, but logical conditions are not causal conditions. In this case, the causality – the causal relation – flows one way, and that is from jumping in the pool to getting wet. Now, exactly in the same way with regard to salvation, being saved is a causal condition of performing good works. If you are a saved person then that is a sufficient condition causally for you performing good works. Your good works are a necessary condition of being saved but only in a logical sense – only in the same sense that getting wet is a necessary condition of jumping in the swimming pool. So there's nothing objectionable about saying that good works are a necessary result of salvation and a condition of salvation in a purely logical sense.

KEVIN HARRIS: His final comments here, he comes back to John 3:16 where we began. It says,

Take a look at John 3:16. It tells you when a person is saved: the very moment one believes in Christ. For everlasting life, salvation is said not to be a process but a present possession.

DR. CRAIG: And I would agree with that – when you are regenerate God pronounces you justified, redeemed, saved, and that is absolutely true. But that doesn't contradict that that saving faith – that regeneration – will necessarily issue in good works if you continue to live.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. And so here's the crux. He says, “Only after one is saved by believing alone in Jesus one then may have results, but not necessarily will they have results.”

DR. CRAIG: And in that I think he's clearly unbiblical. The Bible is very clear that faith without works is dead. That the person who claims to be a regenerate Christian with saving faith but who experiences no life change, who continues to live in sin, well, John is very explicit. He says he “is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”[1] So I think the Scripture is very, very clear that saving faith does not simply possibly have good results, but saving faith necessarily will have good results if you continue to live. If this is not a deathbed conversion it will issue in life change, and there's no objection to that. It does not in any way say that those good works are meritorious, that they earn salvation. The sense in which they are a necessary condition of salvation is purely logical, not causal, and therefore unobjectionable.

KEVIN HARRIS: Where does sanctification come in in all this? Because he’s kind of hung up a little bit on this process thing – that it's not a process. You possess it immediately. Isn't there sanctification, though? Meaning that you do grow in your faith. What do you think?

DR. CRAIG: Yes. The Protestant Reformers would all affirm that – that someone who is justified and therefore united with Christ in faith will grow in faith as he is conformed to the image of Christ by the Holy Spirit at work in his life. The Holy Spirit will produce the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are all the fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer, sanctifying him and conforming him to the image of Christ.

KEVIN HARRIS: I think this has been very helpful because people really want to emphasize the biblical teaching on not being saved by works, and yet also want to say, “But, come on now – is the Holy Spirit producing good works in you, or are you in some kind of constant state of disfellowship with God?” Just trying to work all that out.

DR. CRAIG: I found that the distinction between causal conditions and purely logical conditions to be tremendously illuminating here, and I think one of the benefits of studying logic.

KEVIN HARRIS: All of this can be spelled out if people will go to the Defenders course.

DR. CRAIG: Yes.

KEVIN HARRIS: You have a series on the doctrine of salvation. As we conclude today, maybe talk a little bit about some of the things you cover in that series.

DR. CRAIG: In the doctrine of salvation, we talk about the doctrine of justification, what is it? We talk about regeneration, how it is that a person comes to be born again and experience new life. We talk about our mystical union with Christ. And then we talk about perseverance – once a person is regenerate can he lose his salvation or is his salvation assured and guaranteed? Those are all covered in the doctrine of salvation in the Defender's class.

KEVIN HARRIS: I have to say something about Facebook, and that is I know that you try (I certainly try) just to kind of go on Facebook and be social and only occasionally you mention something rather serious. Other than that, it's just . . . I try to have fun. I always fail because I always end up putting something controversially on, but even when you mentioned this delicious meal that Jan made for Thanksgiving and for Christmas for just the two of you and a lot of people gave you the thumbs up and said “Oh, that sounds delicious” and “It's great” but I'm looking through the comments and so many of them say, “Yeah, but what about Molinism? But what about foreknowledge?” So try as we may.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah. I want to tell folks who visit the Facebook page that although I do look at the messages, it is a site for social networking not for serious philosophical questions. There has been one person lately hounding me about inflationary cosmology, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem, and geodesic incompleteness of spacetime. I told him, “Look, this is not the place for these kinds of discussions. Send in a question of the week if you’ve got a serious question. But this is not the place.” So please understand that while I can respond to little short questions with a sentence or two, this isn’t the place to try to engage in long philosophical discussions.[2]

 

[1] 1 John 2:4

[2]Total Running Time: 15:16 (Copyright © 2021 William Lane Craig)