#808 Questions from a Non-Believer

Dr. craig’s response

Thanks for your heartfelt question, Julie! Would that every husband had such a loving, supportive wife! We had a wonderful time visiting The Story, which, for those who don’t know of it, is a dynamic church in Houston, Texas.

I’m mortified that your husband should have thought that the video clip from my debate with Lewis Wolpert and some of my remarks were “laughing/snide.” You’ll recall that Wolpert’s reply to the kalām cosmological argument was that the cause of the origin of the universe is a computer. I thought that in the debate I bent over backwards to treat this absurd hypothesis (which no cosmologist or philosopher would accept) respectfully, and in answer to my objections, you’ll recall that Wolpert just kept qualifying what he meant by “a computer” until his claim had died the death of a thousand qualifications. It really was one of the funniest moments in debates I’ve had, and it’s too bad that your husband fails to see the humor in it. I don’t know what remarks of mine gave offense, but I have always tried to interact with my opponents charitably and to treat their objections seriously.

Now as to your questions, I think you misunderstood my claim about the revival of Christian philosophy over the last generation. I was not making a demographic claim about the percentage of the population that subscribes to atheism (though that is very small). Rather I was describing the incredible renaissance of Christian philosophy in our day and the increasing number of top philosophers who are Christians. For articles on this see “Modernizing the Case for God,” Time (7 April 1980), pp. 65-66 and, by an atheist philosopher, Quentin Smith, “The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism,” Philo 4/2 (2001). I did an article on this in HCU’s magazine “The Resurrection of Theism,” The City (Winter, 2015), pp. 80-89. 

Again, serious misunderstanding is evident in your remark, “Perhaps it is presumptuous or simply a personal narrative to say ONLY Christians have joy and without Christ we have darkness and should be labeled as personal experience versus fact.” It would be not only presumptuous but patently false to make such an assertion. Therefore I took pains in my interview to formulate my claim carefully, namely, that it is virtually impossible to live consistently and happily on an atheist worldview. If the atheist lives consistently with his worldview, then he will be profoundly unhappy; on the other hand if he lives happily, then it is only because he lives inconsistently with his worldview. The basis for this claim is that if God does not exist (that is, if atheism is true), then there is no ultimate and objective meaning, value, or purpose to life. This is not a peculiarly Christian claim, but a claim that many atheists themselves have made. But no one can live as though his life were ultimately meaningless, valueless, and purposeless. I wouldn’t think to deny that your husband lives happily; but I do not think he lives consistently with the implications of an atheist worldview. I do not think he has seriously come to grips with what atheism truly implies.

Again, there is serious misunderstanding concerning the alleged claim that “ALL atheists can agree on five principles.” I’m confident, Julie, that if you watch the video of the interview you will discover that I never made such a claim.  Rather what you are thinking of are the five facts I mentioned about the fate of Jesus of Nazareth that are agreed to by the wide majority of New Testament historians today, whether Christian or non-Christian: (1) Jesus’ death by Roman crucifixion, (2) his interment in a tomb, (3) the discovery that that tomb was empty, (4) the post-mortem appearances of Jesus to various individuals and groups, and (5) the transformation in the lives of the first disciples following Jesus’ death. Now clearly, I’m not making a claim here about what most atheists believe. Most atheists, like most people, know very little about the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. Again, it would be not only presumptuous but palpably false to claim that most atheists believe in the post-mortem appearances of Jesus. Rather the claim is about what most experts believe, professional New Testament historians who have published on this subject. Strikingly, the percentage who believe that after Jesus’ death various individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive is virtually 100%. Those who deny that Jesus rose from the dead will either try to explain these appearances as hallucinations or else admit that they have no good explanation of them.

With respect to the evidence for a Creator and Designer of the universe, I suggest you begin by looking at the short, animated videos on our webpage, particularly ##3, 5, and 6. Then for more detail you may consult my books On Guard or at a more advanced level Reasonable Faith. The latter has plenty of footnotes to the relevant scientific literature. You are quite right that one of the premises is that Whatever begins to exist has a cause. But the credibility of that premiss does not depend on “the baseline assumption that God exists.” Rather that premiss, taken together with the other premises of the argument, implies that God exists.

I’m sorry if my answer to your tender question seems so defensive, but, honestly, I think that you have misunderstood me and that your husband is, as a result, tilting at straw men. For me, the takeaway is a renewed realization of how seriously people can misunderstand what one is saying and of the importance of being as clear as one can.