#795 Interpreting People Correctly
August 07, 2022The atheist websites and atheists on the Christian/atheist debate websites are pumping out in meme form the following quotation, supposedly from you, Dr. Craig: "The person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic." Several quotation sites have you saying this and one, azquotes, says it is from your 23 July 2012 podcast. So far as I can see RF podcasts are only available back to 2013 so I haven't been able to find an original quotation. Did you say this, and if so what is the context of your statement? From reading your works or hearing you speak, I seem to recall you usually saying just the opposite. Please comment. (Also, could you make the original podcast available again?)
Dennis
United States
Dr. craig’s response
A
This is so laughable that it would not be worth responding to, if it were not becoming an Internet meme. The quotation is my description of the modernist, Enlightenment attitude toward religious belief that is characteristic of the majority of Western intellectuals today, an attitude that I decry.
Here is the context from the article “God Is Not Dead Yet,” Christianity Today 52/7 (July 2008), p. 27 https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/god-is-not-dead-yet:
“A robust natural theology may well be necessary for the gospel to be effectively heard in Western society today. In general, Western culture is deeply post-Christian. It is the product of the Enlightenment, which introduced into European culture the leaven of secularism that has by now permeated Western society. While most of the original Enlightenment thinkers were themselves theists, the majority of Western intellectuals today no longer considers theological knowledge to be possible. The person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end it will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic.”
In our “Reasonable Faith” podcast exactly ten years ago Kevin Harris and I dispelled the misunderstanding based on taking the sentence out of the context of this passage. Here is the link to that podcast: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/does-reason-lead-to-atheism-or-theism.
Now, perhaps, those guilty of perpetuating such a misunderstanding can get serious and deal with the arguments I presented in the article quoted.
- William Lane Craig