Questions on Morality, God's Image, and Molinism vs. Calvinism

KEVIN HARRIS: Dr. Craig, it’s always good to put you on the hot seat and get you to answer some questions. We get a lot of them from people interacting with your work. We have a question here from Canada. David says,

How does the peculiarity of moral supervenience [we’ll explain all of this] factor into the moral argument? Mackie seems to think that it is crucial, but I confess that I don’t understand his own account of it. I don’t understand what makes it so peculiar. Can you help me with this? Thank you for all your amazing work. David in Canada

DR. CRAIG: If I understand David’s question, it has to do with why certain physical situations have the property of moral goodness to them and others have the property of being morally evil. For example, why is a mother’s breastfeeding her infant a morally good state of affairs? Where does that moral property come from? Why does that moral property supervene on the physical situation of a mother breastfeeding her child? And why does the property of moral evil or “badness” supervene on someone’s sticking a knife into someone else’s back? Why does that physical action of sticking a knife into another person have this odd moral property of being evil? I agree with J. L. Mackie, a former professor at Oxford University, that on a naturalistic view it's really hard to understand why these physical states of affairs would have these odd moral properties. It seems to me that this cries out for theism where God will serve as the paradigm of goodness and things will be bad or good insofar as they resemble God's perfectly good nature.

KEVIN HARRIS: You've done some podcasts before. We've discussed supervenience. It's not a word that we use very often. Maybe you can unpack that just a little bit – what do you mean by moral supervenience?

DR. CRAIG: In this context it simply means: Why is it that when you have a physical state of affairs that automatically and inevitably and necessarily a moral state of affairs attaches to it, so to speak. I gave the examples of a woman breastfeeding her baby or someone sticking a knife in someone else's back. Those are purely physical states of affairs. So why would these moral properties attach themselves to these physical states of affairs?

KEVIN HARRIS: This next question is from Vietnam. Fung says,

Dear Dr. Craig, I am deeply thankful for your work and the work of your ministry. It has restored faith to myself and my family, and we can now be confident intellectually about Christianity. While studying your work I sincerely feel a strong desire to do serious training at apologetics and help passing on that knowledge to my community and my country where apologetics is a foreign concept or deemed as unnecessary by church leaders. However, I am confident that apologetics is essential and helpful as many young people that I've met in my community have similar questions like I had and couldn't find the answers. Having said that, I do have one concern. I was a sinful man in the past, and I am afraid that it might undermine the words of God and apologetics activities if people ever find out about my past. I'm unsure if a sinful man like me can ever be able to do apologetics effectively. If you can please share your thoughts on this matter that would be greatly appreciated. I wish you and your family the very best. Fung in Vietnam

DR. CRAIG: I was very touched by this letter from Fung in Vietnam. And I think he can take tremendous encouragement from the apostle Paul who characterized himself as the foremost of sinners because he persecuted the church of God. And yet he said, “God's grace was extended to me.” Paul didn't try to keep his background a secret. He confessed it openly and made it clear – and I would encourage Fung to do the same. Not to try to keep his sinful background a secret, but on the contrary to explain to the glory of God God's tremendous forgiveness and grace even to a terrible sinner such as Fung was. Indeed, you know, I almost could say a little cynically that someone who has a story like this to tell (“I was a wretched, evil sinner, and now I've been saved and I'm in ministry”) could actually be more effective than someone raised in a Christian home all his life and who never had this sort of background. I wouldn't want Fung to get into that kind of manipulative use of his past, but nevertheless I think he can be very confident that if he's honest and open about it and gives God the glory for changing his life he'll find that this will actually make him more effective in the service of the Gospel than he would otherwise have been.

KEVIN HARRIS: This next question is from Christopher in the United States who's a senior pastor of a church and he's interacting with one of the questions of the week on the website. He says,

Dr. Craig, in one of your answers to one of your previous questions you said, “My Old Testament colleagues tell me that the notion of man is God's image in the Ancient Near Eastern context likely refers to a man as God's representative regent on Earth.” Your colleagues are correct. In other words, if we take Genesis 1:26-27 as Moses meant them, God making man as his image refers to his conferring on mankind of a status, a role, by its very nature such an act must have been legal or decretive and therefore entirely unconnected with the physical development of early hominins. Why do you not respond to criticisms by just pointing people to a correct understanding of the image of God?

Unpack that a little bit.

DR. CRAIG: I don't understand Pastor Christopher's last statement: Why do you not respond to criticisms by just pointing people to a correct understanding of the image of God? In the question of the week he refers to, what I say is that even this functional interpretation of the image of God implies certain things about the ontology of human beings because in order to function as God's co-regent on Earth you have to have properties of personal agency like self-consciousness, rationality, moral agency, and freedom of the will. Therefore a functional view of the image of God itself presupposes an ontological basis for that function. I think I was quite right in saying that in the previous question of the week. This question of the week, however, was written prior to my work on the historical Adam. As I explained in my book In Quest of the Historical Adam I have come to see that, contrary to Pastor Christopher's assertion, it is incorrect to think that the image of God is functional. Look at the section of the book where I explore Richard Middleton's comparison of the functional interpretation, the substantival interpretation and the relational interpretation of the image of God, and I think I show very convincingly on the basis of Ancient Near Eastern texts that what is commonly taken to be a functional interpretation of the image of God is not in fact that at all. It is rather what I call an incarnational interpretation of the image of God. That is to say, in the Ancient Near East the Pharaoh or an occult idol (a statue in a temple) was regarded as the incarnation or embodiment of a god and in that sense was the image of that god. That is clearly not what Genesis 1:26-27 has in mind. Man is not an incarnation or embodiment of God. God is transcendent and man does not embody or incarnate God in this world. So I think that this functional interpretation is quite incorrect and is based upon a misunderstanding of these Ancient Near Eastern texts.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question is from Oman.

Dr. Craig, does being an anti-realist about numbers lead to being an anti-realist about external reality? Dr. Craig, you endorse anti-Platonism when it comes to mathematics, but one thing I struggle to come to terms with under fictionalism is how you can have physical quantities of things like three apples or seven chairs. Quantities are very much physical but we use numbers to describe them. Isn't a similar problem with distance and space and dimensions? How would an anti-Platonist reconcile fictionalism with respect to numbers and mathematics while maintaining that an objective external physical reality filled with numerous stuff exists?

That's from Tariq in Oman.

DR. CRAIG: I would say in response to Tariq that when we say there are three apples on the table, do we think that in addition to the three apples there is another object, namely the number three? I find that fantastic. I don't believe it. It seems to me that there are three objects there, namely the three apples, and that the use of the number three to describe how many there are isn't to postulate some additional ontological object, namely the number three. Fortunately, logically we can express that there are three apples on the table without even referring to the number three. What we would do is say something like this. There is some object x, some object y, and some object z, such that x is an apple on the table, y is an apple on the table, z is an apple on the table, and for any other object j if j is an apple on the table then either j is x or j is y or j is z. Now, I have just expressed the proposition that there are three apples on the table, but I did so without using any reference whatsoever to the number three. So I don't think that when we use numbers to quantify objects in the world we are necessarily committed to the reality of numbers as actual mind-independent objects.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question is from Singapore. Victor says,

Hi Dr. Craig, your ministry has been such a blessing to me. Thank you for being such a servant of God and serving him with your brilliant mind and gifts. I have a question regarding Molinism. I watched some of your lectures and you seem to always put emphasis on knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom must be logically posterior to the divine decree, for if it is logically prior to the divine decree it would make God the author of sin.

DR. CRAIG: Can I interrupt right there? Victor has got it exactly reversed, and I think it's important to get this on the table right away. The Molinist’s claim is that these counterfactuals of freedom like “If I were rich, I would buy a Mercedes-Benz” are true logically prior to God's decree to create a world. The Reformed theologian like James White says that, no, these counterfactuals are true only posterior to the divine decree. It is God who decrees the truth value of those propositions. So the question is: Are these counterfactuals about how people would freely choose in various circumstances true prior to God's creative decree and choice of a world or are they true only subsequent to God's decree and choice of a world? So that's the setup.

KEVIN HARRIS: He says,

My question is: Does it even matter if it's logically prior or posterior? Why can't God carry out the divine decree and then by accessing the knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom intervene in human affairs thereby putting them in certain circumstances where God's ultimate plan will come to pass? I have trouble seeing why this knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom must be logically prior to divine decree. It seems to me whether logically prior or posterior it doesn't matter. Can you explain this part a little bit more? Thank you and God bless you.

DR. CRAIG: Sure. I think this is easy to understand. If prior to his decree to create a world God has no knowledge at all of how people would freely act in various circumstances then that makes the divine decree blind. It means that God has no idea what's going to result from the divine decree if people have genuine human freedom. God would be utterly shocked so to speak posterior to the divine decree to discover all of the things that people would do in various circumstances. So it means that things aren't under his control. They're really quite out of control because God had no idea of what he was decreeing. The decree would be blind unless you say (with the Reformed theologian) that God determines the truth value of these counterfactuals. When he decrees to create a world he decrees this is how the people would decide and act in these various circumstances. My argument is that then makes God the author of all of the evil and sinful acts that people do in the world because it is God who determines how they would choose in those circumstances. So that means it is God who determined that if Judas were one of the twelve disciples he would betray Christ for thirty pieces of silver, or that if Peter were confronted in the courtyard of the high priest by the servant maid that he would deny Christ three times. It's God who determines that, and that makes God the author of evil and the author of sin.

KEVIN HARRIS: These questions have been coming in for several months but now we have some that are just now coming in due to your exchange with James White. Let's look at two or three real quick here. This says,

Greetings Dr. Craig. I just listened to your debate with James White on Unbelievable. I enjoyed the interaction between you two and learned a lot about some of the nuances of Molinism. My question stems from Dr. White's insistence on truthmaker maximalism. If I understand Molinism correctly from what Dr. White was saying that counterfactuals have no truth foundation then can a Molinist affirm this statement: all truth comes from God? Thank you so much for your ministry and gift to the church. Tom in the United States.

DR. CRAIG: My response to Tom would be: what do you mean by “all truth comes from God?” That statement is ambiguous. If you mean that God determines unilaterally the truth value of every proposition then, no, I do not think that the Molinist will affirm that statement. The Molinist will say that God does not determine how creatures would freely choose in the various circumstances in which they find themselves. That would be a major difference between the Molinist and the Calvinist. The Molinist would not say that God determines the truth value of these counterfactual propositions about how people would freely choose under certain circumstances.

KEVIN HARRIS: That was from Tom in the United States. This is from Tom in the United Kingdom. This is the second question that has called this exchange with Dr. White a “debate” and you pointed out recently it really wasn't a debate.

DR. CRAIG: No, no. It was just an interview program in which we had a conversation in response to questions. It wasn't a formal debate.

KEVIN HARRIS: He says,

Hello Dr. Craig. I've watched with much interest your recent debate with Dr. James White on the problem of evil. I was disappointed to not get a clear position from Dr. White on the core question that was put to him several times. How, on Calvinism, can God not be held accountable for the creaturely moral evil he unilaterally determines? At times Dr. White seemed to at least implicitly bite the bullet and accept this particular outworking of Calvinism. At others he would appeal to creaturely freedom rightly stating that God occasionally restrains or encourages through hardening creaturely moral evil, conveniently omitting that God is the one supposedly having determined it in the first place. That's making the whole biblical view of the human condition some sort of cosmic pantomime. I was however wondering what your own thoughts would be on this specific point particularly given that Molinism also seems to have to answer the same charge albeit with regards to natural rather than moral evil. Which biblical arguments would make this distinction tenable? Considering that God works all things according to the council of his will (Ephesians 1) which verses would you appeal to in order to qualify the “all things” and exclude it from certain kinds of evil but perhaps not others?

DR. CRAIG: As I pointed out in the dialogue that we had, I think that Molinism and Calvinism do an equally good job of explaining the natural evil in the world – things like suffering from earthquakes or disease or infirmity. It's with respect to the moral evil – the sinful choices of man – that I think the difference emerges most clearly. Here I would simply appeal to the many verses in the Scripture that indicate that it is not God's will that people should sin and do evil. One verse that I did not quote that I wish I had in the interview is from James 1 when James says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is led astray by his own desires” (James 1:13-14). So God doesn't tempt people to do evil, much less determine people to do evil. Specifically, the Scriptures also say that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance. He desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. So if God were unilaterally determining everything there should be universal salvation. Hell should be empty, but sadly that's not the case. The difference is that human beings have the capacity to resist God's perfect will and therefore to bring evil into the world.

KEVIN HARRIS: Final question says,

Hi Dr. Craig. I watched your discussion with Dr. James White over Molinism-Calvinism and have a question about your response to the grounding objection. If counterfactual truths do not require an origin in existing creatures, do these truths exist independent from God or within him? That is goodness and beauty are characteristics of God and have their being in him as opposed to Platonic ideals existing outside of God. In a similar way, do these counterfactual truths of creaturely freedom exist as true knowledge within God? Austin in the United States

DR. CRAIG: I would refer Austin back to our earlier question today about Platonism with respect to numbers. And just as I don't think that numbers are mind-independent existing objects, neither do I think that propositions are mind-independent existing objects. So I do not think that there are these propositions that exist independently from God. Now, you could say if you wanted to that they exist within God as Austin seems to want to say. That would be what I call conceptualism where you replace propositions as abstract objects with thoughts of God which are either true or false. So God could have thoughts like, “If Peter were in the circumstances he was in, he would deny Christ three times.” It could be the divine thought that has the truth value “true” rather than “false.” But I myself prefer anti-realism. I think conceptualism is just fine, and it is the mainstream Christian position, but I’m skeptical of the arguments for realism about propositions and numbers and properties and other such things. I just don’t see any reason to think that they exist at all.

KEVIN HARRIS: Good questions today, Bill!

DR. CRAIG: Yes!

KEVIN HARRIS: Thank you for your answers. We’ll see you on the next podcast.^[1]