Is Dr. Craig Wrong About Deconstruction? Part One

KEVIN HARRIS: Welcome to Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig. I’m Kevin Harris. You may have heard Dr. Craig talking about so-called deconstruction. Well, we're going to talk about it again today. Someone on YouTube thinks Dr. Craig is very wrong about this whole issue. This is going to be a two-part series. Let's go to part one in the studio with Dr. Craig.

Bill, we continue to hear about individuals who are deconstructing their Christian faith and are very vocal about it. Deconstruction is somewhat of a trend, and I think seems to be rather ill-defined. Today we're going to look at some excerpts from an atheist – an ex-Christian – who thinks you have it all wrong on deconstruction. He's commenting on your remarks at an event that was special to you, and we'll talk about that in a moment. Perhaps we should define “deconstruction” as it is most often presented in social media for those who are unfamiliar with the term.

DR. CRAIG: I think, as it's most often presented, Christian deconstruction involves the revision or the dismantling of one's system of Christian beliefs. It involves discarding some important beliefs because they are in some way unacceptable. So the process of deconstruction is essentially destructive in nature.

KEVIN HARRIS: The event was at Austin Ridge Bible Church in Texas where you were interviewed by your son, John. That was a special moment for you.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, it was. This was the first time that John and I have ever been partnered together in public ministry. Jan and I have been very careful raising our children to shelter them from the public eye and preserve their privacy. So we've not tried to push them into ministry. But at Austin Ridge Bible Church, John was invited to teach an apologetics seminar, and he asked me to be the speaker in the final session of that seminar during a visit to Austin. So for me this was really meaningful to stand there with my own son and to be involved in apologetics ministry.

KEVIN HARRIS: It's really a blessing because so many children of ministers fall into what I call P. K. syndrome – preacher’s kids syndrome. They usually, in an attempt to carve their own identity, they tend to . . . we all tend to rebel against our parents a little bit. I don't know if John has done that in the past, but it sure is a blessing that he has come to embrace your ministry and also be involved in apologetics.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I smile because I remember when John and Charity first went off to study at Biola University. They were so sheltered that they came back home for vacation and said, “Dad, all of these people in Biola know who you are!” They had no idea that I had any sort of repute at all as a Christian philosopher, theologian, or apologist. So it was really very funny.

KEVIN HARRIS: John asked you about the deconstruction trend in his interview with you. To set the context for this podcast, let's take a look at what you said. Here are you and John.

JOHN: Something that's also relevant is the very in vogue thing. I think I've seen it on Tik Tok. The deconstructing your faith movement, whatever that means specifically. How would you respond to folks who say that they feel better after doing that?

DR. CRAIG: Oh, I think how you feel is irrelevant. I could well imagine that some people who have been really struggling with Christian faith would feel real relieved about letting it go, but that doesn't determine truth. Feelings are very deceptive and misleading. The question is: What is the truth? And I am not in the least interested in deconstructing someone's faith. I'm interested in constructing a Christian world and life view that is biblically coherent and in accord with the best philosophical, scientific, historical, psychological facts that we know. So I think the whole project of building a Christian world and life view is one of construction, not deconstruction.

KEVIN HARRIS: This is what got a deconstructionist so upset. We have some clips from him. Before we look at his concerns, is there anything that you want to add to those comments?

DR. CRAIG: Only that this project of constructing a Christian world and life view is precisely the project of systematic theology. This is the project, as you know, that I have been engaged in the last five years.

KEVIN HARRIS: Here's the first excerpt from Brandon, who hosts a YouTube channel, and he thinks you're quite wrong on deconstruction. Let's check out the clip.

AUDIO OF DR. CRAIG: “I could well imagine that some people who have been really struggling with Christian faith would feel real relieved about letting it go.”

BRANDON: Even though the question is simply about the deconstruction process, the way that Dr. Craig answers it is immediately to assume that one deconverts. But of course they feel better when they leave the faith if they were struggling with their faith, and deconversion obviously (or what should be obvious) is not always the end result of deconstruction.

DR. CRAIG: He says that deconversion is not always the result of deconstruction; that is to say, someone who deconstructs his Christian faith need not cease to be a Christian. Now, whether deconstruction results in deconversion, I think, is going to depend upon the centrality of the discarded beliefs. If those beliefs are truly central to Christianity then even if one still claims to be a Christian after discarding them, he is at best only nominally Christian. That is to say, Christian in name only; not truly Christian. Now if he merely gives up some non-central beliefs – say he gives up belief in the rapture – then I guess I just don't think of that as deconstruction. It might be helpful to make a differentiation here between deconstruction and revision. I think certainly our Christian belief system can be in revision as we come to better understand both biblical teaching and the philosophical issues involved.

KEVIN HARRIS: Brandon talks more about that in the next clip. Let's check it out.

AUDIO OF DR. CRAIG: “Feelings are very deceptive and misleading.”

BRANDON: The Bible tells us this itself. The heart is deceitful above all else. People accuse atheists of this a lot. They'll say, “Hey, you deconverted because you're hurt. You deconverted because you're mad at God. You’re deconverted because you felt X or Y.” As if Christians don't convert for emotional reasons. The vast majority of evangelism is playing off of emotion. I don't play music during my videos. I don't have any altar calls. I don't have any group chanting or singing or worshiping. I don't whisper into the mic to draw you in. It is Christians who utilize emotion and feeling to bring people to the truth.

KEVIN HARRIS: He's bringing up emotional manipulation. I'm sure you've heard the complaint that altar calls can be emotionally manipulative.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I don't think here that Brandon really denies that Christians sometimes deconvert because of emotional reasons. He just says that people also convert to Christianity for emotional reasons as well. And of course that's true. My point is simply that because something makes you feel better, it doesn't mean that it's true. And on that we agree. But I would like to add one extra comment here, and that is I think he's confusing doing philosophy with doing persuasive speaking. Evangelism, or preaching, is a species of persuasive speaking, and no less a philosopher than Aristotle wrote a book on rhetoric. In Aristotle's analysis there are three elements that go into any speaking situation – what he called the logos (or the intellectual content of the speech), secondly the ethos (that's the personal character of the speaker), and then thirdly is the pathos (which is the speaker's connection – his emotional connection – with his audience). In an effective, persuasive speech, all three elements will be involved. If you do not have that logos component – that intellectual content – then for Aristotle you're just a sophist. The ancient Greek sophists had great techniques but they didn't have good intellectual content. On the other hand, if you just appeal to people intellectually then you are not going to be a good speaker. If you have bad ethos – if you're a person of questionable character – then people are going to be reluctant to trust you. If you're just like a thinking machine then you are not going to be very persuasive to people. So in a rhetorical situation in which one is involved in persuasive speaking, all three of these elements should be involved and are quite legitimately involved. In fact, as we'll see later in these clips, Brandon himself begins to display a bit of emotion. He raises his voice for emphasis to drive his point home. Even he isn't immune from this.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. Let's stop right there. We're going to continue with part two next time. Thank you very much for your prayerful and financial support of Reasonable Faith. You can give online when you go to ReasonableFaith.org. We’ll see you next time.^[1]