God or Godish? A Conversation with William Lane Craig and Philip Goff

Kevin Harris: We want to welcome Dr. Philip Goff to the podcast. Bill, you and Dr. Goff are becoming a familiar duo. This is your third public conversation together after the exchange on Justin Brierley's channel and the panel in London. This one was originally planned for Durham Castle before moving online. So, Bill, if you would, do the honors and introduce Dr. Goff to those who may be new to his work.

Dr. Craig: Well, it's a pleasure to have Philip Goff on the podcast today. Philip is currently a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Durham University in the UK, where his research focuses on integrating consciousness into our scientific worldview and exploring the ultimate nature of reality. He's known for his work in the philosophy of mind, particularly his defense of panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world.

In his 2023 book, Why? The Purpose of the Universe, published by Oxford University Press, he draws on cosmology and panpsychism to argue for a middle ground between traditional theism and atheistic materialism. He was raised Catholic but moved away from traditional religious belief as a teenager. Recently, he has moved back in the direction of Christian belief and considers himself to be a "heretical Christian."

Dr. Goff: Thanks so much, Bill. That was very kind. Thanks, Kevin. It's quite an honor to be on this podcast. I've long listened to this podcast. I listen to it when I go for a run, actually, so it's quite an honor. I've just gotten so much over the years out of engaging with Dr. Craig's work. I agree with some of it, don't agree with all of it, but that's philosophy, isn't it? You rarely find two philosophers who agree. I'm really looking forward to the conversation.

Kevin Harris: I just read in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that panpsychism is actually growing in popularity among philosophers. Has that been your observation, Philip?

Dr. Goff: Yeah. During my career, I suppose in the last 15 years or so, it's gone from being laughed at, insofar as it was thought of at all, to being still a minority view but a respected view that's taught to undergraduates and published on in prestigious journals. So it's been wonderful to be part of that process of real change. More recently, I guess in the last five years, getting that out to a broader audience on podcasts, popular books, and so on. It has been lovely.

Kevin Harris: Well, I'm sure that we're going to chase a few rabbits today. I'll try to keep that at a minimum. Philip, you've done some recent work using Bayesian reasoning to argue that the multiverse cannot explain why our universe is fine-tuned for life. Walk us through that in some plain layman's terms, if you could. What's the core move?

Dr. Goff: Yeah. I am very, very excited about this paper that I'm working on in collaboration with two other philosophers, Kenny Boyce and Mark O'Brien.

Now, it is a very mathematically heavy paper, so maybe I could just give you the punchline.

What we're focusing on is not so much whether we have evidence for a multiverse, but what kind of multiverse we would have evidence for if we do. So we contrast what I call a heterogeneous multiverse and a homogeneous multiverse.

The heterogeneous multiverse is the one multiverse theorists always go for, where the so-called local physics is different in each universe. In some universes gravity is stronger, in some weaker. In some universes electrons are heavier, and in some lighter. So for any individual universe, it's incredibly improbable that you'd get the right numbers for life. But there are so many universes, the thought is that one of them is going to fluke the right numbers for life. So that's the heterogeneous multiverse.

Whereas the homogeneous multiverse has all the universes with the same local physics, and so they're all fine-tuned for life.

Now, obviously, if you end up with a homogeneous multiverse, you haven't dealt with fine-tuning. You've got a whole multiverse that is fine-tuned. Maybe God is going to come back into the picture.

So, what have we done with this paper?

What we have shown is that, given certain quite minimal, quite plausible modeling assumptions, we have mathematically demonstrated that if we have evidence for a multiverse, it's for a homogeneous rather than a heterogeneous multiverse.

So it's quite exciting for me because usually with philosophy it's judgment calls and weighing considerations, but we've actually managed to mathematically demonstrate something quite significant, I think. There's still room for debate with the initial modeling assumptions, but still, there is quite a significant mathematical proof here.

So, yeah, I'm really excited to see how that lands when it eventually gets published.

Kevin Harris: Bill, does that track with the case you've made for years against the multiverse as a rival to design? Where do you find yourself agreeing with Philip, and is there anything in his argument that you'd push back on?

Dr. Craig: I've not read the paper yet, but hearing simply what Philip has just explained, it does seem to me to be very analogous to the Boltzmann brain problems that attend a multiverse. Namely, if you have this sort of heterogeneous multiverse where the constants and quantities vary randomly, then there is absolutely no reason to think that we are ordinary observers rather than Boltzmann brains who have an illusion of an external world around us.

The fact is that, in order to be observable, universes do not have to be finely tuned. They can be universes that have these freak observers in them.

The problem with that—and this is where it connects, I think—is that if you are a Boltzmann brain, you could never have any evidence for it because all of your sensory information, all of your scientific evidence, is ultimately illusory. It cannot be trusted. So it's a kind of self-defeating position where, if it's true, it undermines the reliability of your cognitive faculties so that you could never have any way of knowing that it's true. So it results in complete skepticism. We would have no way of knowing that we are ordinary observers surrounded by an external world.

So it does sound like there's a real analogy there between what Philip is doing and the Boltzmann brain problem.

Kevin Harris: You both think the multiverse doesn't get the job done, and yet you land in different places. Philip, you go for something "God-ish" rather than the traditional God, as you've put it. Share your view with us, if you would, please.

Dr. Goff: Yeah. My situation is that, on the one hand, I'm quite persuaded by some of the arguments for God, in particular fine-tuning. On the other hand, I'm also quite persuaded by the most discussed argument against God's existence, from evil and suffering.

I wrestled with this for about a year, I think, and this is what eventually led me to explore, as Bill kindly already said, the middle-ground options between God and atheism. This is what I explored in my most recent book, Why? The Purpose of the Universe.

I guess the middle-ground option I've tended to favor most is a limited God—a good God of limited power, a God who's made the best universe he can. My hope is this can explain both the fine-tuning and the suffering, but obviously there's a lot to debate here.

Kevin Harris: Bill, what are some ways your classical or Christian view of God contrast with that?

Dr. Craig: Well, on the classical Christian view, God is a maximally great being, and therefore he is omnipotent. He has unlimited power, and that implies that there is no state of affairs that God is unable to actualize due to a lack of power on his part. I think this is a biblical view as well. The Bible often speaks of God as Almighty and says that nothing is too hard for God. So I think that classical Christian theism is rightly committed to the view that God is omnipotent in the way that I just described. So I would look for a different solution to the problem of evil and suffering.

I think it's really, really important in this discussion to keep in mind who has the burden of proof here. It's the non-theist that has the burden of proof. He's the one who claims that the suffering and evil in the world is incompatible with the existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God—that it's either logically impossible or highly improbable with respect to the existence of an omnipotent and all-loving God.

I think that places a burden of proof on the atheist's shoulders that is enormously heavy. It's just far too much for him to bear. Therefore, I don't think that the problem of evil, despite its undoubted emotional impact, is a very compelling philosophical argument against God.

Kevin Harris: Philip, is your view similar to what's known as finite godism? Are you familiar with that, or are there any similarities?

Dr. Goff: Yes, I think that is a form of it. I agree with Bill that it's certainly a non-standard view. Maybe process theology, inspired by Alfred North Whitehead and his followers, had something similar—a God of limited power. John Stuart Mill, interestingly, actually considered such a hypothesis.

One thing I've never looked into that Bill's made me think of is the biblical case for omnipotence. What we find in the Bible—the use of "Almighty" and so on—does that correspond to what philosophers these days mean by omnipotent? I don't know. Tom Oord, who's one of the few other Christians who defends a God of limited power, in his work has argued that a limited God is compatible with the Bible, but I just have to say it's not something I've looked into.

But, yeah, I certainly agree. There are considerations on both sides. The solutions to the problem of evil – although atheists might want to slip in ways of dealing with fine-tuning. So it's certainly a complex debate where we have to weigh lots of different considerations.

Kevin Harris: Bill, any thoughts?

Dr. Craig: Well, let me ask one question, Philip, that bothers me about the finite God position. It seems to me that, in order to prevent much of the evil and suffering in the world, God wouldn't need to be very powerful. It wouldn't take a whole lot for him to cause Adolf Hitler to have a heart attack before he starts his pogroms against the Jews or invades Poland. It seems to me that the amount of power God would need to have to prevent so much of the suffering and evil in the world is so small that, if you shrink God down to that amount of power, he really does become terribly, terribly limited. We then have to question whether he's really worthy of worship.

David Hunt, the Christian philosopher, once remarked to me that he thinks God is a lot more like Plotinus's One than like Zeus. I thought, "Yeah, I suppose I would agree with that, too." I don't think we want to say that God is more like Zeus. So that's a reservation I have about the limited-power view.

Dr. Goff: Yeah. What I like about this view I'm exploring is that, if we're just dealing with fine-tuning for the sake of simplicity, then I think we can specify God's limitations very precisely.

Here's how we do it. Take physics. Take the numbers out—the values of the constants. That will give you a certain mathematical structure. Then we say that God can create a universe from a singularity with that structure but is limited and constrained to creating a universe with that structure. So that's a very simple way of specifying the limitation. It's simpler than physics. It's quite a simple hypothesis.

What we do in science and philosophy is try to find the simplest hypothesis that accounts for the data. We've got to account for fine-tuning. We've got to account for suffering. Here's a very simple hypothesis—simpler than physics—that can account for both. What's not to like?

Kevin Harris: Let's visit your view on the atonement of Christ, Philip. As you know, that's a favorite topic of Bill's.

You hold to an Eastern Orthodox view, the participation theory. Can you explain what participation means in that tradition, and why you find it more compelling than the penal substitutionary atonement picture?

Dr. Goff: Yeah. This is really the core of my faith, really what gives my life meaning and purpose. For the Eastern Church, the atonement is all about Jesus bringing unity, or oneness, between God and creation. The key image here is Jesus' beautiful image of the vine and the branches. Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches." We get this wonderful idea of an intimate, organic unity. So that's the core of it—oneness and unity.

How does the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus bring this unity between God and creation? For the Eastern Orthodox Church, they think of the Fall as kind of a separation between the human form of life and the divine form of life. These have become separated, and they think of this as sort of a spiritual sickness, a kind of dysfunction. They think of Jesus as a sort of physician. What Jesus does through participating in human existence, human life, and human death is bring these back together, reunifying the human and the divine form of life.

Because of this, they think we can share in the divine form of life. They even call it deification. They don't think we will become God, but they do think we will fully share in the divine form of life. Indeed, the whole physical universe will one day fully share in the divine form of life.

So it's a very mystical understanding of Christianity in the sense that it's all about oneness or unity with God. This really resonates with me. I take mystical experiences very seriously. As Bill knows, I've had a very powerful mystical experience myself. So really, there's an intellectual and an experiential basis to my Christian faith. Head and heart, if you like. The intellectual basis is the fine-tuning. The experiential is mystical experiences. I find that in Eastern Orthodox theology, head and heart come together.

Kevin Harris: Bill, your work puts penal substitution at the foundation, but you also speak of Christ's identification with us, language that may be doing some of the same work as participation. How do you understand that, and how does it relate to what Philip just described?

Dr. Craig: I think that the New Testament doctrine of the atonement is a multifaceted doctrine. So, in my theory of the atonement, I want to have a multifaceted doctrine that is rather like a beautiful jewel that includes these motifs of participation, ransom, penal substitution, moral influence, and so forth.

So I definitely want to affirm our participation in Christ. Paul talks about how, in Christ, we are elect. We are forgiven. We are seated with Him in the heavenly places. So our participation in Christ is important.

But I think the difference, Philip, between you and me here would be that I see this as centered on the cross, not on the incarnation. I think the Eastern Orthodox Church misplaces the center of salvation and atonement in the incarnation rather than in what is achieved on the cross, and I think that's an unbiblical emphasis. Paul said that "I chose to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He will often speak of the cross of Christ as the gospel message. Twenty-five percent of the Gospels is devoted to the passion, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ, showing where the emphasis lies.

So I think the way in which we participate in Christ is by owning Him as our proxy before God. He stood in our place before God and represented us before God in the way that a proxy does. And so by owning Him as my proxy, when He dies, I die. When He pays the penalty for my sins, I pay the penalty for my sins. So I do want to have this strong motif of participation in Christ, but I think it's important that we not shift the center of emphasis from the cross to the incarnation.

Dr. Goff: That's really interesting. I think we find in the New Testament that it's the death and the resurrection that are the basis of atonement.

I guess some people worry—I'm not sure what I think about this myself—that maybe penal substitution focuses just on the death and doesn't really have that much to say about the resurrection.

But I would say the participatory view involves both. The idea is that Jesus participates in human life and in death – enters into and fully shares in death, and transforms it into new life, transforms it into something new. So I think it includes both.

Coming to the biblical evidence, as it were, I've come to think a lot of the passages can be somewhat ambiguous. I think there are some passages that definitely involve participation. The Last Supper monologue in John's Gospel has a repeated theme of oneness. Bill has talked about many things Paul says, for example, about how we are members of the body of Christ.

There are other passages that I've come to find sort of ambiguous maybe. For example, in Galatians, where Paul says Jesus became for us a curse. I think Protestants think, "Oh, that's penal substitution." But the way the Eastern Orthodox Church reads that is that it's about Jesus immersing Himself in human fallenness, human dysfunction, completely participating in the sinful human condition, and then transforming it into something good, something wonderful.

These things are compatible though in principle. Finally, at a more spiritual level, I guess I just come back to the parable of the prodigal son. What does the father do when he sees the sinful son in the distance on the road? He runs up to him and gives him a hug. The son tries to accept punishment. He tries to set himself up for punishment, and the father wants nothing to do with it. We're going to throw a party instead. I don't know. I suppose the idea of God that I get out of that, I find it hard to fit with penal substitution.

So, as long as I find ambiguity in the New Testament, as long as I find spiritual resonance with these participatory mystical themes, and as long as I can fit with the prodigal son, that is making more sense to me at the moment.

Kevin Harris: I'd like to bring up an issue. Philip, in your interviews, I hear you spell out your view or make an argument, and you emphasize that you're trying to handle all the data as best you can. Well, of course. Bill, when it comes to philosophical theology, if one has a high view of Scripture, then even if a particular philosophical view may be smoother or simpler without Scripture, you've always emphasized that we make sure our philosophy is in line with the scriptural data. Correct?

Dr. Craig: Yes. One of my complaints, Kevin, about the work of contemporary Christian philosophers on the atonement is that it proceeds in such ignorance of the biblical data. At best, they will craft a theory of atonement based upon how reconciliation is achieved between human persons who have had a falling out with each other. Then, maybe at the end, they'll quote a couple of Scripture verses as proof texts, but there's no serious engagement with biblical exegesis. That's where I think it's absolutely critical that we do that first, that we make sure we are proposing a Christian theory of the atonement—one that is consonant with Scripture.

As I indicated here, I think that the centrality of the cross is clearly taught in the New Testament. So we need to figure out how it is that, by means of the cross, we become identified with Christ and participate in His redeeming work.

I think that the motif of penal substitution is foreshadowed in the Levitical animal sacrifices, where the animal dies in place of the worshiper so that the suffering that the worshiper deserved is borne by the animal instead as a sacrifice. This is a graphic picture of substitutionary atonement.

Then this comes to expression in Isaiah chapter 53, the chapter on the suffering servant of the Lord who bears our iniquities and is wounded for our transgressions. Isaiah 53 is picked up by multiple New Testament authors and applied to the cross and redemption of Christ.

So I think there are good biblical grounds for affirming vicarious punishment for sin as one aspect of a full-orbed doctrine of the atonement.

Kevin Harris: Philip, you can comment on that before we move on to the next topic. It seems to me that you do have a high view of Scripture. You quote Scripture, and you try to bring in the biblical data to your conclusions.

Dr. Goff: Yeah, I might agree with Bill actually that analytic philosophers aren't thinking enough about Scripture. Maybe they don't think Scripture is an important source of evidence, but they need to make that case. I think many of them do but just neglect it.

On those two points that Bill raised. I think where I am up to with my biblical study is that I just think it's a lot less clear than Bill does. On the point of the Leviticus atonement sacrifices, I think many biblical scholars disagree with Bill that it was to do with substitution. Perhaps most notably, the influential Jacob Milgrom, who doesn't think that it was about substituting or the sins of the person going on the animal. I know Bill has things to say in response to that, but I'm not entirely convinced by it. Maybe we could talk about that. It's not that I think Bill is wrong. I just think it's very unclear.

Then, on the second point, the suffering servant. I used to find this very convincing actually. I thought surely this does point to penal substitution because in the suffering servant itself there does seem to be something like substitutionary suffering: "He was pierced for our transgressions." But, actually, some friends who are biblical scholars have pointed out to me that there are a hell of a lot of connections drawn in the Old Testament – for example in the book of Daniel – in pre-Christian sources to the suffering servant whenever there's righteous suffering. So the suffering servant sort of becomes the theme music for righteous suffering. Like in a film whenever someone kisses, the sort of violins come on or something. Maybe I'm making a cartoon of it, if you'd like. But anyway. So it sort of just became, as it were, the theme that comes up whenever there's righteous suffering, even if the righteous suffering in question had nothing to do with substitution.

And so that makes me think that just because the New Testament writers were connecting Jesus—or even because Jesus Himself was connecting to the suffering servant – that doesn't mean they were thinking in terms of substitution. Again, I'm not saying Bill is wrong. I just think there's ambiguity and scope for interpretation.

Kevin Harris: Let's move to another topic. In fact, we've already opened this can of worms. Philip, you've argued that God might be loving but limited in power, and that this does more explanatory work on the problem of evil than the traditional omni-God. What pushed you toward that view, and what does "limited" mean here? Limited by what, exactly?

Dr. Goff: Yeah, that's a good question. It's not that I think there's something outside of God that's limiting God. I think it's just a fundamental fact about God that he can do some things and not others.

Maybe to help with that a little bit, I think everyone has to think something is primitive and unexplained, even if it's just the existence of God. Even for the very traditional theists like you and Bill, God's existence is unexplained.

Actually, maybe I can say another thing I like about the Eastern Orthodox Church. They think that God's essence, or God's core identity, is completely unknowable, completely beyond human comprehension. So I'm inclined to think that if we could maybe, in the life to come, fully grasp God's essence, we'd just see, "Oh my God, God has to exist." And if I'm right, we'd see, "Oh, God has to have these limitations. That just follows from God's essence." But that's just something beyond human comprehension. So that's how I'm thinking of it.

Really, I suppose I'm just not satisfied with the traditional solutions to the problem of evil. There's always something to them, but I never feel they quite give the full story. They never give me a satisfying explanation, for example, of why God chose to bring us into existence with the horrific process of evolution by natural selection.

Whereas here is a very simple, elegant solution both to fine-tuning but also to the suffering we find in the world. So I guess I think it's where the evidence is pointing. Theists tie themselves up in knots trying to explain suffering. Atheists tie themselves up in knots trying to explain fine-tuning. Here's a theory that can explain both.

Kevin Harris: Bill, go ahead and comment. I want to say that I get the impression from philosophers and theologians that the problem of evil is so thorny that whatever view of God best handles that should prevail. What's your basic objection to Philip's view? And secondly, can we keep God's omni-attributes when dealing with the problem of evil and suffering?

Dr. Craig: I want to reiterate that it is the atheist who bears the burden of proof here to show that God's omni-attributes cannot be reconciled with the evil and suffering in the world. That's, I think, virtually impossible to do. So I don't think, intellectually, that the problem of evil is that big of a problem, especially if you've got good reasons to believe in God.

Now, Philip's solution—the finite God, or limited-power solution—I'm bothered by that because, as I say, for you, Philip, here is a God who is able to bring the universe out of this structureless singularity and impose upon it natural laws, and then fine-tune the constants and quantities that appear in those laws so as to make the existence of finite embodied agents possible. This is a God of enormous power, certainly of enough power to give Adolf Hitler a heart attack or to kill him in his cradle. So I don't think that the problem of evil is any less of a problem for your view, given the enormous power that you are willing to attribute to God.

Now, if you do pull back even more on God's power, as some would do, then I think, as I say, you've got a God that's more like Zeus and isn't worthy of worship.

Dr. Goff: Yeah, it's an important challenge. I guess I would push back and say that Bill's objection relies on the idea that all power is on a single scale. But I think there are different kinds of power. Who's more powerful, Vladimir Putin or the strongest man in Russia? Well, they're powerful in different ways.

So I think what I've specified was a coherent, as I said, quite simple hypothesis that, if it's true, does entail that God couldn't have stopped Hitler but could have fine-tuned the universe. So I think, as long as it's simple and coherent, it avoids the worry. Maybe just before Bill comes back, I'm curious about something. We discussed the problem of evil an earlier time we talked, but we didn't talk about a particular aspect of the problem of evil that I know Bill takes very seriously: the problem of hiddenness.

This is one of the deepest worries for me. To make it concrete, I have a couple of friends who are atheists who, I think from our conversations, would sincerely love to believe in God, and they just honestly think the evidence points strongly against that. I think they're mistaken, but these are difficult judgment calls, and I think they're honestly wrong about that.

So I find it hard to understand why a loving God who could do anything wouldn't make his existence more evident to these people. Maybe give them more of an overwhelming spiritual experience or something. I don't know. There are two different points there, I suppose.

Dr. Craig: I think that the problem of evil and suffering has really morphed into the problem of the hiddenness of God. As I say, it's really, really difficult for the atheist to show that the suffering and evil in the world is incompatible with an omnipotent and all-loving God.

But then the question does arise, "Well, why doesn't God make his existence more obvious? Why is he so hidden?" Here I find myself actually more in agreement with Philip.

First of all, I don't think God is hidden. If God existed, what more evidence would we expect to find of his existence than the origin of the universe out of nothing at a point in the finite past, than the fine-tuning of the universe for embodied conscious agents, for the uncanny applicability of mathematics to physical phenomena, for the objectivity of moral values and duties in the world, and evidence concerning the claims of the historical Jesus to reveal God and God's raising him from the dead in vindication of those claims?

I think that God has given abundant evidence of his existence, which is sufficient for rational belief in God, even if we don't know why he permits every single instance of suffering or evil to enter our lives.

So I don't think that God is, in fact, hidden in that sense.

The second thing I want to say is that God knows whether or not giving greater evidence of his being would lead more people freely to love God and find eternal life. Therefore, if he knows that it wouldn't do any good, he's not obligated to provide that evidence.

It's really important to understand that, according to the Christian view, God is not interested so much in getting people to add another item to their ontological inventory of things. If he made his existence as plain as the nose on your face, yes, a lot of people might believe that God exists, but they wouldn't necessarily come to love him, worship him, and come to know him.

I think that it's not at all improbable that God has so providentially ordered the world that each person does have sufficient evidence for God's existence, and that if God were to provide more evidence of his existence, there's no reason to think that would have resulted in more people freely coming to know and love God. Then the other thing that I agree with Philip about is the non-argumentative, or non-inferential, knowledge of God that is available through a spiritual experience of God, through seeking God and trying to come to know him.

Blaise Pascal, the great French philosopher, said that God has given sufficient evidence for those who really want to know God, but it is sufficiently obscure so as not to compel those whose hearts are closed. He says there is enough evidence for those who only desire to see, but enough obscurity so as not to compel those of a contrary disposition.

So I think this combination of external evidence and internal spiritual experience means that God is not hidden in a problematic way.

Kevin Harris: Oh, by the way, Philip, I heard in an interview that when you were about 14 years old, you were already kind of moving toward atheism, and you visited a priest who put Pascal's Wager on you. You didn't respond to that very much. In fact, you didn't think it was very convincing.

Dr. Goff: Yeah. I don't remember why I didn't like Pascal's Wager. I just remember he said it in a funny way. He said, "You're going to feel like a bit of a fool if you meet God and you haven't believed."

So I can't remember, but all I remember is it didn't convince me at the time.

Kevin Harris: Well, that was a quick rabbit trail, but let's look at one more important topic that has come up in your past dialogues: the resurrection of Jesus. Philip, as you know, this is one of Bill's favorite topics. You've put forward what you call the identity theory of the resurrection. Can you explain what that means and what role objective visions play in it?

Dr. Goff: Okay. Let me tell you what I think happened the first Easter Sunday morning.

Actually, my view on the resurrection is very intimately connected to my view on the atonement that I was laying out earlier.

I think Jesus changed reality. I think he brought into being this radically new form of human existence, one lived in unity with the divine, in unity with God.

So I think what happened to the followers of Jesus that first Easter morning was that they were overwhelmed by this radically new experience of unity with the divine. I don't think it was about seeing and touching a body. I think it was more like how we perhaps imagine Paul on the road to Damascus. I think they were getting thrown to the ground and just being overpowered with God as an active, living force permeating every fiber of their being.

It's those experiences, I think, that kicked off Christianity, this vibrant new religion.

Okay, but you're going to be thinking, "Well, in what sense is that a physical resurrection? This sounds like a purely spiritual event." Well, no. I would say I believe in the resurrection. I believe in the ascension. I just think that they were one and the same event.

So I think on the first Easter Sunday morning there was an empty tomb. But what happened was that the physicality of Jesus was, as it were, absorbed into the fullness of God. I think it was that move that completed things, that ensured unity between God and creation.

Just to connect this a little bit to Scripture, finally. In the Last Supper monologue that means so much to me, Jesus says, "It's good I'm returning to the Father because if I didn't do that, the Holy Spirit couldn't come to you."

I think this makes a lot of sense in participatory terms. Again, this connects maybe to Bill's worry about how the death figures in all this. The idea is that Jesus comes into the world, fully participates in human life and human death, and then takes that humanity and unifies it with the fullness of God. It's that that brings unity between God and creation, that allows us to fully share in the divine life. That's the idea.

Kevin Harris: Bill, you've responded directly to this area in your work through the years. Make the case for why you think the appearances were bodily rather than visionary, if you would, please.

Dr. Craig: It seems to me that Philip's view is obviously incompatible with the witness of the New Testament, and in particular the Gospel resurrection narratives, which have bodily, physical appearances. So for someone like myself, who takes scriptural authority very seriously, Philip's view isn't an option for me.

But let me make a case for why I think we ought to believe what the New Testament says about the physical, bodily nature of Jesus' resurrection appearances.

First of all, I think that Paul implies that the appearances were physical and bodily, and he does so in two ways.

First of all, he conceives of the resurrection body as a physical body. This is evident in his discussion of the resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15. For Paul, the idea of an invisible, unextended, immaterial, intangible body would have been a contradiction in terms. So in affirming the resurrection of the body, as he does, I think Paul brings us very close to saying that the appearances of Jesus in bodily form were historical.

Secondly, Paul, and indeed all of the New Testament, make a conceptual distinction between a resurrection appearance of Jesus and a vision of Jesus.

The resurrection appearances of Jesus soon ceased, but visions of Jesus continued in the early church. Think of Stephen's vision of Jesus in Acts 7.

Now the question is, what's the difference between a resurrection appearance and a vision of the exalted Christ? Well, I think the answer of the New Testament is clear. A vision, even if it's caused by God, was purely in the mind, while an appearance took place out there in the external world.

So I think Paul, in these two ways, implies that the resurrection appearances were physical and bodily.

My second argument would be that the Gospel accounts show that the appearances were physical and bodily. Again, I think two points deserve to be made here.

First, every resurrection appearance related in the Gospels is a physical, bodily appearance. The unanimous testimony of the Gospels in this regard is quite impressive. If none of the appearances was originally a physical, bodily appearance, then it's very strange that we have completely unanimous testimony in the Gospels that all of them were physical, with no trace of the supposedly original non-physical appearances.

The second point would be that if all of the appearances were originally non-physical visions, then one is at a complete loss to explain the rise of the Gospel accounts. Physical, bodily appearances would be foolishness to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to Jews, since neither of them, for different reasons, could countenance a physical resurrection from the dead. But they would be quite happy to accept visionary appearances of the deceased.

So positing a string of originally visionary experiences, I think, is at a loss to explain the rise of the Gospel accounts. For that reason, I think the Gospels also give us good reason to think that the resurrection appearances were physical and bodily.

Dr. Goff: Yeah, that's great. I think there's an important challenge for me here, certainly, which is why they talked about resurrection if they weren't seeing and touching a body. So here's my thought on that.

I think essentially it was because Jesus predicted his death and resurrection. This is what we find in the Gospels, and it's what I take seriously, partly because it explains, or forms part of an explanation of, why they describe this as the resurrection.

So here's how I think of it.

Before Jesus' death, they've had this kind of nailed into them: "I'm going to die and I'm going to rise again. I'm going to die and I'm going to rise again." It's kind of nailed in, and they're confused by it. Or he says, "On the third day I'm going to rise again. On the third day I'm going to rise again."

Then on the third day they have these overwhelming experiences of unity with the divine like nothing they've ever had before, completely permeating their being. Now what are they going to do? Are they going to say, "Oh, well, Jesus was completely wrong about that resurrection business, but this is cool as a secondary thing"? I don't think so. I think they're going to trust that this was what Jesus meant by his resurrection, by his rising again. Maybe it's a bit different from what they would have expected, but I think this would be enough to take Jesus at his word, that this is what he was getting at.

You might say, "Well, hold on. Was Jesus lying to them?" No. I think the resurrection was physical, not spiritual. I'm surprised, actually, Bill brought up Paul because I think Paul fits very well with what I'm saying. In Paul we have the sense of continuity but radical difference. He has the metaphor of the seed and the wheat, emphasizing continuity and radical difference. He talks about different kinds of physicality.

So I do think he's ruling out a purely spiritual resurrection, if there could be such a thing. But he's struggling to make sense of it. It's physical, but it's so radically different, and I think that's what my view is trying to get at. N. T. Wright is very good here. He talks about transphysicality. He's not going as far as me, but it's something heading in that direction.

Finally, I agree: if you're a biblical inerrantist, this view is no good. I think Luke did his best. He was talking to eyewitnesses. He got a lot right. He is wonderful in so many ways, but I think he wasn't an eyewitness of the resurrection, and he was filling it in a bit as best he could. He thought heaven's up there. He knew Jesus had returned to the Father, so he thought, "Oh, he must have floated up there." I think we now know heaven isn't up there, so it makes more sense that he was just doing his best to convey that this was a physical event. I agree with the core of it—that it was physical and it was about returning to the fullness of God.

Kevin Harris: You know what I'm picking up here is a distinction between "bodily" and "physical." Are you making a distinction between the two, Philip?

Dr. Goff: Yes, I suppose I am.

I think Jesus' body was transformed into a radically new physicality that can't be seen and touched but is real, the same sort of stuff.

To me, at a spiritual level, the idea that in the final, ultimate stage of existence we'll still have intestines and fingers—there seems something spiritually implausible about that to me. Maybe this is what Jesus was getting at when he talked to the Sadducees, who were skeptical of the resurrection. They said, "A woman who's been married seven times—who's she going to be with when she's resurrected?" Jesus said, "Oh, you fools. You don't get it. You're not married in the afterlife." Now, the superficial meaning of that is, okay, you're not married in the afterlife. Maybe you don't have sexual relations. Do you have gender? Do you have sexual organs? But there's always a deeper meaning with Jesus. I think what he's getting at here—what my sensus divinitatis tells me reading that—is that he's saying it's radically beyond anything you can imagine. It's physical, but a wonderful new kind of physicality.

Kevin Harris: Bill, anything on bodily and physicality?

Dr. Craig: You notice that I used both words in saying that I was presenting a case for the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus. These are not the same in meaning. I wasn't being redundant. Jesus not only appeared in a bodily form or shape, but this was a physical body. Now, I think there's so much to talk about what Philip said, but let me just make one small point. We're not at liberty to arbitrarily pick and choose which parts of the Gospels we think are authentic. Philip denies the historicity of the resurrection appearance narratives, but he accepts the historicity of Jesus' predictions of his resurrection. In fact, most critical scholars would say that those predictions are written back in after the fact.

So you've got a real difficulty here. If you're willing to say that the predictions are historical, which are less well attested than the resurrection narratives themselves, then how can you not also accept the historicity of the resurrection narratives?

Dr. Goff: Yeah, that's a good challenge. Actually, I find Dale Allison has given some quite convincing evidence—maybe we don't need to go into it here—that Jesus did predict his own resurrection, surprising as that might seem.

Dr. Craig: I've just got to say something here, Philip. This is so important. How does Dale Allison defend the historicity of those predictions? The way he does it is by saying Jesus was predicting his eschatological resurrection, the resurrection at the end of history. So if the disciples had these visions of Jesus in heaven, they would just say he's been assumed into heaven, where he's gone until the parousia, until the return of Christ, when the Son of Man will come back again and the dead will be raised.

Dr. Goff: Well, actually, the evidence I was focusing on is that, in the earliest Gospel, Mark's Gospel, Jesus says, "After three days," which seems, on the face of it, in tension with what we find, where it's Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. It's not after three days. Then this is later, one might argue, corrected in the later Gospels to "on the third day." So this seems to be some evidence that he actually did say, "After three days."

But one way I could defend this is just to say, look, I agree with you, Bill. I agree with you, N. T. Wright, that I need an explanation of why they were talking about resurrection. Here's my explanation. He really did predict his resurrection. He really did talk of this. Maybe he was using the concept of resurrection because he knew this would make sense to them. Then, of course, you've got to look at my view in the whole. But I would say if that can be part of my whole picture, which can give perhaps a more satisfying explanation than the traditional one, then I think I've made my case.

Kevin Harris: As we wrap it up today, Philip, what kind of response have you had from your friends and colleagues as you've embraced and articulated your relatively recent religious views?

Dr. Goff: Yeah, maybe I can say a sort of negative and a positive thing quickly.

The negative point is that I do think there is still—less so than there used to be—but there is still a significant bias against religious belief. I feel silly talking in front of my peers about fine-tuning and the purpose of the universe, and it can be quite challenging. I think people in the West, raised in Western intellectual circles, are raised to be wary of religious bias, but there's very little attention paid to possible secular bias. There's always groupthink, and we just have to be aware of all biases and try to be evidentially informed, deal with rigorous arguments, and not worry about these cultural biases.

But in a more positive sense, what I've found actually—and this might be of interest to viewers and listeners—is that this Eastern Orthodox way of thinking about Christianity, or more generally the participatory view, really resonates a lot more with younger people and with spiritual-but-not-religious people.

So maybe a lot of viewers and listeners will not have much time for my very non-standard views, like a limited God and my view of the resurrection. Fair enough. But actually, my view of the atonement is not non-standard or heretical. It's just what the Eastern Orthodox Church thinks.

So, for budding apologists, it might just be worth bearing in mind that there is a way of thinking about Christianity that can connect with a certain group that might otherwise be hard to reach with the Christian message.

Kevin Harris: Bill, if you would again do the honors and thank Dr. Goff for joining us. Perhaps you can reflect on today's dialogue. I, for one, would like to see continued future discussion between the two of you.

Dr. Craig: Thank you, Philip, for being on the podcast today. It's a pleasure to have a conversation with someone as congenial as you are, and I applaud your boldness for speaking out about these matters in the face of a secular culture that is often skeptical. So thank you for doing this today. It's been a pleasure.

Dr. Goff: Oh, thanks a lot, Bill. Thanks a lot, Kevin. It's been a great honor, and it's been very enjoyable.

Kevin Harris: Thank you so much for being with us today, and thank you for your prayers and financial support for Reasonable Faith. Your prayers and gifts keep Dr. Craig's work and ministry in a position to impact hearts and minds for Christ all over the world. Thank you very much. You can give online at ReasonableFaith.org. I'm Kevin Harris. We'll see you next time. Some great topics are coming up on Reasonable Faith.[1]

[1] Total Running Time: 59:17 (Copyright © 2026 William Lane Craig)