Responding to YouTube Critics

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, let’s hear from some friends and some who are not so friendly who have commented on your work. We are going to start with Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis. Before we go to the video clip, let me ask you: If you were to sit down with someone like Ken Ham in private, would you want to convince him that his exegesis on Genesis is wrong, or that his treatment of those who disagree with his view is wrong? In other words, should we be more interested in correcting their exegesis on the age of the Earth and things like that, or correcting their attitude on non-essential matters of the Christian faith?

DR. CRAIG: I think the implication of your question is that the second issue is the more important. I think that these folks are so deeply committed to the Young Earth interpretation that it would be very unlikely that they could be dissuaded of it and that therefore it is probably futile to engage in that kind of a conversation. But we could surely talk with one another as brothers and sisters about how to promote harmony in the body of Christ and a united front to a secular world that rejects the Gospel. So I think it would be that second question that would be the important one.

KEVIN HARRIS: I hope that doesn't sound like a loaded question. Obviously, I think it's the second one. But I was curious about that – and I think you're right – once you have a very strong platform, it's very difficult to deviate from it, and you can only engage certain people like Ken Ham who has over 400,000 subscriptions just on the YouTube podcast (not counting everything else). The only way you're going to engage them is in a public way. Let's go then to the first clip from Ken Ham and see what he says. Here he is.

KEN HAM: Now let's watch a second clip by an apologist in America who's really well known in Christian circles but sadly, well, he compromises God's Word in Genesis like the majority of Christian leaders do. Let's watch the clip.^[1]

INTERVIEWER: How old is the world?

DR. CRAIG: The best estimates today are around 13.7 billion years or so.

INTERVIEWER: Now, this is good. This is a position I can embrace, because there are people who will sit here and say, no, it's six and a half thousand years old. That is not a tenable position?

DR. CRAIG: I don't think it's plausible. The arguments that I give are right in line with mainstream science. I'm not bucking up against mainstream science and presenting these arguments. Rather, I'm going with the flow of what contemporary cosmology and astrophysics supports.

KEN HAM: William Lane Craig is a Christian leader and he impacts a lot of people. He impacts a lot of young people. But you can see here from this video clip he admits outright he's going with the flow of what he calls mainstream science says about the age of the universe. In other words, he's taking what the majority of scientists – secular scientists – are saying (billions of years) and saying that's fact and then going to the Bible. Actually, do you realize what he's really doing? He's taking man's word literally and God's Word allegorically. He should be judging man's word with God's Word, and when you do that you find out that man's word is wrong. And, you know, just because the majority believes something doesn't mean it was right.

KEVIN HARRIS: Well, he's basically said you've abandoned God's Word, in so many words.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I appreciated the irenic spirit in which he spoke. I didn't sense there was an edge in his voice or anger, but it was very calm and irenic. And I agree with him that a majority vote does not determine the truth, but I think that our listeners really need to understand that the context of my remarks here was the kalam cosmological argument. I was not talking about my approach to biblical exegesis; rather, what I wanted to emphasize to that interviewer was that in defending the premise that “the universe began to exist” I was not saying anything different than what the best modern science indicates. So anyone who accepts contemporary cosmology should agree with the key premise of the argument. It was not about your approach to biblical interpretation. It was about the defense of that premise of the kalam cosmological argument. Notice that Ken Ham in his remarks just assumes that the literal interpretation of Genesis is the correct one. That cannot simply be assumed. That needs to be argued for. You see, the Bible comprises many different types of literature. For example, there is apocalyptic literature in the Book of Revelation. There is poetry in the Psalms. There is wisdom literature in the Proverbs. There is epistolary literature in the letters of Paul. There is history in the book of Acts. There is ancient biography in the Gospels. Different types of literature need to be interpreted according to the principles that are appropriate for that kind of literature. Poetry, like the Psalms, is not to be interpreted literalistically – when the psalmist says “let the trees of the wood clap their hands before the Lord,” the psalmist doesn't believe that trees have hands. Similarly, no one reads the Book of Revelation literalistically – the beast and the dragon and the monsters are symbolic representations of nation-states and alliances. So the question is: When you read Genesis 1 according to the literary type to which it belongs, is it to be read literalistically or not? I argue that there are very good indications in the text itself (completely putting aside what science tells us) that this is not meant to be read in a literalistic way as Ken Ham simply assumes.

KEVIN HARRIS: In this next clip, a podcaster named Testify says that you're cool, Bill, except in this one case. Let's see what his objection is.

TESTIFY: In the Gospel of John, Jesus very clearly calls himself God. But can a historical case be made that we do have Jesus' authentic words in the Gospel of John? Well, according to one very prominent Christian apologist, the answer unfortunately is no. I find that to be really problematic. In a recent question on the Reasonable Faith podcast^[2], Dr. William Lane Craig was asked:

Why does Dr. Craig omit John 14 (“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.”) from his writings on the self-understanding and presuppositions of Jesus both in his articles and his books? Joshua in Canada

To which Dr. Craig responded,

The answer is very simple, Joshua. In doing apologetics, you can't just quote Bible verses at the unbeliever because he doesn't accept the Bible. He doesn't believe the New Testament.

So far, so good. Merely reciting Bible verses to unbelievers just isn't going to cut it. But we do have ample evidence for the historical reliability of the Gospel of John. So why not talk about that?

So what you have to do is to appeal to sayings of the historical Jesus for which a good historical case can be made; that these are what scholars call “authentic words” – words that actually reflect what the historical Jesus said. That's why in my work I focus on those sayings of Jesus for which a very good case can be made that these are authentic. I claim that you can show that among the authentic words of the historical Jesus are claims to be the Jewish Messiah, the Son of God in a unique sense, and the divine human Son of Man prophesied by Daniel. But I don't think that you would be able to prove these verses that Joshua mentions from historical grounds.

Normally I'm a huge fan of Dr. William Lane Craig, but I find this comment to be troubling on a couple of different levels. Ignoring the unique sayings in John's Gospel only weakens our argument. The Synoptics provide implicit evidence of Christ's deity but nothing compares to the strong claims that Jesus makes about his own deity in the Gospel of John. By disregarding this we undermine our own case. Also, dismissing John's Gospel sets a dangerous precedent. It suggests insignificance which discourages future apologists from answering objections to its historical accuracy. This lack of challenge allows potential errors to go unchecked.

KEVIN HARRIS: One thing about YouTube is if you have a weird look on your face like I did in that clip it's there forever. That's there from now on! I know it's difficult to listen to every podcast that we've done in over ten years but you've addressed the difference between doing apologetics and doing biblical theology several times.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, that's right. When we do systematic theology we treat the Bible as God's inspired Word and therefore inerrant in all that it teaches. But when you're doing apologetics, it's not all or nothing. You've got to make a historical case for each event or saying in order to use it. In this case we're not dismissing the Gospel of John by any means! I defend many elements historically in the Gospel of John in my work on Jesus' resurrection. We're talking about one single saying of Jesus in John 14. Now, if Testify can make a good historical case for the authenticity of that saying, great! Then we can use it. Ironically, though, it doesn't get us nearly as far as the sayings that I defend. When Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” he doesn't even claim to be God, but simply the way to God. So this verse would not be nearly as powerful as the authentic sayings of Jesus that I defend in my work.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next up is Dr. Richard C. Miller on the MythVision podcast. Richard Miller is a humanistic scholar of Christian origins in the ancient Hellenistic and Roman world. He did graduate study at Princeton Theological Seminary, Yale, and UCLA, completing his PhD in religion in 2013 at Claremont Graduate University School of Religion in L.A. Just in case you want some background on him. Let's see what he has to say on that podcast. Take a look.^[3]

INTERVIEWER: Dr. Miller, you have gone from evangelical-fundamentalist type thinking to where you are today. . . . So apologetics. Geez. This is one of those things that you know what it is but in the academic circles that you roll in they don't even pay attention to this. I see it because I live in a world where I'm trying to filter good, what I call, Ivory Tower scholars that are like the legit top, top, top academics, and bring them down to our world. . . . In that world, we have people who make it their career in life to go to institutions to prove and defend Jesus and Christianity as if it's really true, he really rose from the dead. And there are “scholars” (I'll put in quotations) who make it their job to write books and argue for Jesus. They debate people like Bart Ehrman. They debate people to try and argue that Jesus is real. As an academic who has that past but where you are now, how do scholars see this field of apologetics, if they even see it at all? Tell me about apologetics from the angle of real serious academia.

DR. MILLER: Well, it's largely ignored. I don't know. I mean, when I was at Yale and Princeton and those places, there was no discussion of that there. They wouldn't know who William Lane Craig is. I went to Biola University. I met with James Charlesworth. That's where I did my Master's degree. He said, “Where did you do your prior work?” and I told them “Biola” and he said “Biola what?” He had no idea what that was. That's William Lane Craig's academy there. He had no idea what it was. It's not even on the radar really. They consider that to be public kind of poop-throwing and debate that has . . . it's kind of a circus of spectacle. It's rhetorical and not really meeting any of the standards of rigor that they would find helpful in their circles.

INTERVIEWER: So technically apologetics is kind of a joke to the serious scholars in terms of . . .

DR. MILLER: It's a fundamental violation of our own kind of methodologies. You're starting with the answers before you even know the questions, and that's offensive in every way to the kind of the entire methodological approach of higher academics.

KEVIN HARRIS: I couldn't resist, and I accused him in the comments of that video when I saw it of doing apologetics against apologetics. It just sounds like one big personal attack. What do you think about what he said?

DR. CRAIG: I think that Miller's remarks should be a real wake-up call for Christians because he accurately reflects the attitude of secular academics toward us as evangelicals. It is very true that in his community or subculture “apologetics” is a dirty word. It connotes bias, close-mindedness, dogmatism so that although among Christians apologetics is a traditional respected theological curriculum, for people like Miller it's offensive. Therefore, when I'm introduced on a secular campus, I feel very uncomfortable when the moderator introduces me as a great Christian apologist. He thinks he's paying me a compliment when in fact in the eyes of the listeners this is actually an insult. It's also true what he says that evangelicals are generally not read by these secular scholars. When you go away to do a doctoral degree at a secular university, you suddenly discover that all of your evangelical heroes are very big fish in a very small pond, and that they're largely unheard of outside that little pond. And that these secular scholars don't read books that are published by Zondervan and Moody and Crossway and so forth. That is why Christian scholarship is so important. Both Nicholas Wolterstorff and Robert Adams taught at Yale where Miller says he had never heard of or interacted with Christian scholars. Stephen T. Davis was an eminent professor at Claremont where Miller did his PhD. Christian philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Philip Quinn were elected as presidents of the American Philosophical Association. As for scholars in Miller’s own field, is he unfamiliar with N.T. Wright, Craig Evans, Richard Burridge, Richard Bauckham? These people are universally respected, and he should be familiar with them even if he's not. Baylor University is today a tier-one research university that is a force to be reckoned with. Now, Miller's comments on methodology, I think, are quite naive. Academics who have studied an issue at length and then come to certain conclusions may hold them very passionately and start with their viewpoint and then lay out a case for what they believe. For example, I've recently been studying evolutionary biology and Jerry Coyne from the University of Chicago, for example, wrote a book called Why Evolution is True. Similar books of that ilk will lay out a case for what they already believe is the truth. And they don't need to affect a position of neutrality and pretend that they've come to no conclusions. Rather, they lay out their case fairly and honestly that they find convincing. That's exactly the same thing that can be done by the Christian apologists. I think Miller's remarks on methodology are simply fundamentally mistaken, and his remarks on Christian scholarship, I think, should simply fire us to be a factor in the broader community in our various areas of specialization. I have been inspired in my work by the vision of Charles Malik in his essay, “The Two Tasks” of Christian scholarship.^[4] Malik emphasized that as Christian scholars we have two tasks. One is winning the heart, and the other is winning the mind. It is absolutely vital that Christian scholars begin to take back lost ground at the university and to begin to reclaim it again and make Christianity a viable option for intellectually respectable thinking men and women.

KEVIN HARRIS: Take up an offering and give an invitation – we can go home after that! That's so true. But let's look at one more video clip. This is a clip from Ruslan KD. He's a Christian apologist and musician who is interacting with the Joe Rogan interview with Stephen Meyer that took place not too long ago. So let's check that out.^[5]

DR. MEYER: You have one of the best formats in all of talk anything because you have these long-form discussions. But I think even this format will not lend itself to being able to wrestle the question of the historical reliability of  . .

JOE ROGAN: Right. I don't think we're going to wrestle it. I just want to know why you . . .

RUSLAN KD: Rogan is so conversational at times, but then he'll be like, “Yeah, but why do you believe this stuff?” “Well, I think the historicity to the resurrection of Jesus and the claims that he rose. . .” “And Bigfoot? Why do you believe?” This is so hilarious.

DR. MEYER: There are three great scholars who have addressed the question of whether or not – actually four. One is Wolfhart Pannenberg, a great German theologian and historian. One is William Lane Craig.

RUSLAN KD: You guys know there's a petition to get William Lane Craig on Joe Rogan. I would love to see a three-hour conversation with William Lane Craig and Joe Rogan on this kind of stuff.

DR. MEYER: One is N. T. Wright with his magisterial tome, The Resurrection of the Son of God. And the other is Gary Habermas. There are numerous questions that come up in evaluating all this different type of historical testimony regarding that seminal event, if true, in human history. I've done a deep dive on that stuff, and I'm convinced that the resurrection of Jesus Christ happened as a real event in history.

JOE ROGAN: Because people said it did.

DR. MEYER: Because of the various forms of testimony that we have. The historical evidence we have coming down to us to this day. Now, I may be wrong in that. I'm not, as a scholar, arguing about that myself.

JOE ROGAN: But it's your personal belief.

DR. MEYER: It is my personal belief, and I would tell you I have reasons to believe that are well considered and they are reasons not of subjective experience or subjective experience alone, but reasons that are derived from having examined very detailed historical analyses of the relevant data.

KEVIN HARRIS: Some of us have heard about that petition – to have you on that show. Joe Rogan has the number one podcast in the country with 11 million viewers on each episode. I don't think the resurrection has ever come up on that podcast, so it's a good thing.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. Well, it was very encouraging to be listed by Steve Meyer with those august scholars whom he mentioned, particularly Wolfhart Pannenberg who was my doctoral mentor at the University of Munich in doing my own study of Jesus’ resurrection. And whether Joe Rogan would want to have me on his podcast is up to him. What he's interested in. But I sure appreciate the enthusiasm from folks like the interviewer here.

KEVIN HARRIS: As Reasonable Faith continues to grow in popularity, the number of objections and criticisms will probably increase. You've been doing some short response videos on YouTube in addition to all the other things that you're doing. Tell us about that, and can we expect to see more?

DR. CRAIG: As you know, I don't really follow these sorts of things. I would never see these clips if it weren't for you selecting them for topics to podcasts. So when you or Michael Lepien makes me aware of one of these things, I'm happy to provide a comment on it. We will, I'm sure, see more of these sorts of critiques and making more of these short response videos to them. So, yeah, keep your eyes out.

KEVIN HARRIS: All over the world people are interacting with Reasonable Faith, and you can partner with us prayerfully and financially. Any gift that you give is so appreciated and such a blessing. Go to ReasonableFaith.org. You can give online there, and tap into the many resources Reasonable Faith has just for you. ReasonableFaith.org.^[6]