God, How Do I Know You're There?

Kevin Harris: Dr. Craig, really good questions have come into Reasonable Faith. A question on the finitude of the past.

You have said that if the past comprises an actually infinite number of past events, then the present would never occur because before today would ever happen, you would need an infinite amount of previous days to happen first. What if the past is not actually infinite but potentially infinite? What if the past is increasing toward infinity as the present continuously slips into the past? Could we then say that we have an infinite past, or would a B-theory of time be able to avoid the problem of the present? Daniel, United States

Dr. Craig: As I've explained in my published work, you cannot analyze the past as a potential infinite as you can the future. For the past to be potentially infinite, it would have to have a beginning in the present and be increasing in a backward direction, even though it is at every point finite, and that is simply incompatible with the nature of time. It is the nature of time that one event happens after another. Events do not begin in the present and then happen sequentially earlier and earlier than one another. Our thoughts can range over past events beginning in the present and regressing into the past, but the events themselves are happening forward, so to speak, from the earlier to the later-than direction. And so the idea that the past could be potentially infinite, I think, is incoherent. The past would have to be finite but growing in a backward direction, which makes no sense at all.

As for the so-called B-theory of time, what he's talking about there is a view of time according to which there is no difference between past, present, and future. There is no temporal becoming. All events in time are equally real. And yes, that would solve this problem of how you could have the past formed by successive addition ending in the present because on this view of time, there is no temporal sequence. All of the events simply exist, and the past does not form sequentially by one event happening after another. And so the question then will be: Is this theory of time true or false? I've argued extensively in my published work that in fact this theory of time is incorrect; that time is, as they say, tensed; that there is an objective difference between past, present, and future; and that temporal becoming is a real and objective feature of reality. Therefore, if the past is beginningless then an actually infinite number of past events has been successively enumerated ending in the present.

Kevin Harris: This question from Germany.

Dear Professor William Lane Craig, I'm a great admirer of you and your work. My question is whether one has to reject everything an atheist says, or can one still find parts sympathetic and right even though this person rejects Jesus Christ. Thank you very much. Respectfully, David, Germany

Dr. Craig: I certainly think that we can learn a great deal from atheists. I read atheist philosophers all the time and find them sometimes insightful. And this will be especially true if you're working on an area that is relatively neutral religiously. For example, in my study of the philosophy of time – this is an area where Christians are very underrepresented and have done little work. So most of my reading in philosophy of time was of secular philosophers and physicists, and it was very, very educational and a source of great insight. Similarly, in my work on abstract objects – this is another area where Christian philosophers are underrepresented. In learning about the various anti-realisms like fictionalism and neutralism and pretense theory and so forth, most of the authors I read were secular, and I learned an enormous amount from them. It was wonderful. I've even been able to become friends with some of these philosophers and correspond with them.

So I think David should avail himself of the truth wherever he finds it. My philosophy professor at Wheaton College, Arthur Holmes, had a saying that was a favorite of his, and that is that all truth is God's truth. Therefore we can avail ourselves of truth wherever it is to be found. All truth is God's truth.

Kevin Harris: Next question,

Dr. Craig, in one of your Questions of the Week you said that you hoped you would be with God in heaven. While it may have just been a semi-amusing or humble comment, don't you feel assured that your salvation is secure? Winthrop

Dr. Craig: It wasn't meant to be semi-amusing. I take it that I was expressing the same sort of modesty that the apostle Paul expressed when he says, “Brethren, I do not consider that I have attained it, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, I press on toward the mark of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Paul says he did all these things so that, if possible, “I might attain the resurrection of the dead.” So this represents not a lack of confidence in God but, as it were, a lack of confidence in my own abilities and perseverance.

The error of the apostle Peter was overconfidence. When Jesus said, “You will all deny me. All of you will fall away,” Peter responded, “Lord, I will never deny you. Even if I must go to my death for you, I will do so.” And we all know how that led to Peter's multiple denials of Christ. My comment was simply to say that while I have assurance of my salvation and the witness of the Holy Spirit is borne in my heart, nevertheless I do not want to be presumptuous. My prayer is that I might persevere to the end and finish well.

Kevin Harris: Question. He says,

I'm an atheist curious about the existence of God. In particular, your argument from the historicity of the resurrection interests me, but most importantly for me, a layman about history and philosophy in general, and as you mention it to be so for yourself, would be to receive that self-authenticating inner witness of the Holy Spirit. I know it might not be straightforward to answer, but for someone who fears I might simply never know enough or even simply fail to see the force of other apologetic arguments—they don't presently convince me—I really feel the need to ask: How do you ask for such an experience? Do you ask for it in the first place? What kind of experience might one expect? How to be sure it is not illusory? I definitely want to at least go the route of allowing such a self-authenticating experience of the Holy Spirit into my heart before resigning belief in it to the neutral place that it really has right now for good. Sebastian, United States

Dr. Craig: I want to commend Sebastian for his openness to seeking the Lord. As he said, the answer to this isn't straightforward. There isn't a recipe that you can follow to find the Lord and the witness of the Holy Spirit. But the promise of the Scriptures is, in the words of Jeremiah, “You shall seek me and you shall find me if you seek for me with all your heart.” What we're talking about here is a spiritual quest, a longing for God, a hungering or thirst for God that is humble and open rather than proud and presumptuous.

I think it's perfectly appropriate to ask God to meet with you in your experience. Tell him in prayer, “God, I want to know you if you are there. Speak to me. Draw me to yourself.” Wrestle with God in prayer. Contend with God in prayer. Go to him again and again on your knees seeking for him with all your heart. At the same time, read the Scriptures. Read the Gospels and the teachings of Jesus and try to understand what Jesus says. Understand your own sin and your need for confession and repentance before God—a holy God before whom we stand guilty and dirty and in need of his forgiveness and moral cleansing. If Sebastian will do this with an open heart and an open mind, then the promise is that he will find, that he will come to a knowledge of Christ.

Now he says, “How do I know that this isn't illusory?” That is like the question that single people always ask married people: How do you know when you're in love? It's frustrating when the answer is, “Well, you just know.” That may be frustrating, but it's really true. You just have the experience. That's what it means when it says it's self-authenticating. If God gets a hold of Sebastian's life and he comes into this knowledge of God, finding forgiveness, cleansing, and spiritual rebirth, he'll know it and will not need to have some sort of external authentication of it.

So I would just encourage him to go on this sort of spiritual quest such as I've described and trust God to meet him on that quest.

Kevin Harris: This next question, she says,

I'm a 13-year-old female Christian, but I want to become a male. If I asked God to make me a male or got surgery for it when I get older, would that be a bad thing? Anonymous, United States

Dr. Craig: I would urge this young girl not to do this. God cannot make her a male in the sense that surgery would do so. She's using the word “male” here in both a kind of gender sense and a biological sense. Surgery could alter her physically, but that doesn't alter her psychologically. God isn't going to alter her in the way that surgery would. She doesn't need God to alter her psychologically to become a male because she feels like she already is a male in gender. So the request just doesn't make sense.

I would encourage her not to go this radical route of getting surgery. It may well be that her feelings will change, and she could plunge herself into a life of terrible misery and ruin by taking so radical a step as undergoing surgery. Instead, I would encourage her to accept the sexuality that God gave her, that she was born with, and then to get counseling and try to do the best she can to live a sexually pure life as a female even though she has this strong orientation toward the gender of being male.

Kevin Harris: Next question. We've talked about transworld depravity a few times. This is a question on that.

Dr. Craig, thank you for all you have done to defend the Christian faith. My question is this. Do you accept Alvin Plantinga's notion of transworld depravity and its use in response to the problem of evil? If I understand correctly, transworld depravity is the notion that doing at least one morally wrong action is an essential property of free human creatures. But why should we accept this? Depravity as defined above does not seem to be essential to humans in the same way that, for instance, three-sidedness is essential to triangularity. I can conceive of free creatures who also do what is morally right, but I can't conceive of things like a non-three-sided triangle. Forgive me if I've misunderstood Alvin Plantinga's argument. Thank you, and God bless. Thomas, United States

Dr. Craig: I think Thomas has misunderstood the notion of transworld depravity. Transworld depravity is not the suggestion that doing at least one morally wrong action is an essential property of every possible human being that God could create. There are certainly possible worlds, on Plantinga's view, in which everyone always freely does the right thing. But what Plantinga is suggesting is that those worlds may not be feasible for God.

It might be the case – it's possible – that every creaturely essence has the property that if it were instantiated then it would do at least one morally wrong action. Now that's not to say that it is essential to this creature that it do morally wrong actions. Not at all. There are plenty of possible worlds where it lives a sinless life. But what he's talking about are these counterfactuals of freedom—that it's possible that for any person that God could create, if he were to create him, then the person would freely sin.

Thomas needs to understand the difference here between possible worlds and worlds that are feasible for God. It has to do with these counterfactuals of freedom. It's possible that for any person God might create, if he were to create that person, then that person would freely sin. That's transworld depravity.

Kevin Harris: Hey, just one quick word before we go. If this podcast has encouraged you, I want to encourage you to consider giving back. Reasonable Faith is a completely listener-supported ministry, and your donation helps us do what we do each year. Whether that's Dr. Craig's writing of a systematic philosophical theology, our animation videos on the attributes of God, or the podcast you just listened to, help us reach more people with the truth of the Christian faith by partnering with us today. Just go to ReasonableFaith.org and click donate. Every gift makes a difference. And thank you very much.^[1]