Questions About the Prime Mover, Forgiveness, and Heaven

KEVIN HARRIS: It’s Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig. Thanks for checking in. I’m Kevin Harris. We’re picking up where we left off last time answering questions Dr. Craig has received from all over the world. By the way, you can ask Dr. Craig a question online at ReasonableFaith.org, just read the guidelines before you submit your question. And hopefully you’ve discovered what a great resource the Question of the Week is. It’s hard for Dr. Craig to narrow down one question each week, but it's always interesting. Whenever you can, please support the work of Reasonable Faith financially and prayerfully. You can do that safely and quickly at the website, ReasonableFaith.org. Any sized gift is so appreciated. Now let’s get back to the studio with Dr. Craig.

Next question:

Hello, Professor Craig. I know you have used the kalam cosmological argument in your debates, but you do not use the prime mover argument ever. I email you today because I want to know what you think of the argument. Is it any good? Isn't the premise that what is in motion is put in motion by another as plausible as the premise that what begins to exist has a cause? If you think that the prime mover argument fails then why do you think so? I would love to hear your thoughts, and as far as I can tell from watching you on YouTube or on your website you haven't touched the subject. As such, I do not think that this is a subject that is redundant. So I hope to hear from you as to what merit this argument may have. Thank you for your time. I look forward to reading your reply. Dave, U.S.

DR. CRAIG: What Dave is talking about here is Thomas Aquinas’ “first way” which is sometimes called the prime mover argument. Thomas thinks there are five ways to prove the existence of God, and the first of these is an argument from motion. If Dave is interested in my discussion of this, I did my doctoral dissertation on the cosmological argument, and there is a lengthy discussion of the prime mover argument in the published version called The Cosmological Argument: From Plato to Leibniz. It is now in a reprint edition with Wipf and Stock. So The Cosmological Argument: From Plato to Leibniz includes a discussion of this argument. I don't think that Aquinas’ version of the argument is any good because it's based on an outdated cosmology. When Thomas talks about one thing being moved by another, he doesn't mean movers that are ordered successively in time. He's talking about things that are moving simultaneously with each other like, say, the gears in a watch turning each other. What he is presupposing there is an outdated Aristotelian cosmology of The Spheres. In Aristotle's cosmology, the Earth is at the center of the universe and it is surrounded then by these celestial spheres in which the planets and finally the fixed stars are embedded. The prime mover (or God) exists outside the system of spheres where he is an object of desire for the mover of the outermost concentric sphere – the sphere of fixed stars. And this results in the motion of the spheres and then on down into sublunary motion in our terrestrial world. So this version of the argument is hopelessly antiquated because there doesn't exist this system of simultaneous movers. Now, the question remains whether or not one could convert the argument to a series of successive movers in time going back infinitely, and here contemporary philosophers like Alexander Pruss have argued that it's impossible to have an infinite temporal regress of causes in that way. You will run into all sorts of problems regarding probability. So that version of the argument is still very much alive. But the original version of the argument given by Thomas Aquinas is now obsolete.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question.

Greetings, Dr. Craig. I'm a big fan. I'm about halfway through your book on the atonement. You may cover my question later in the book. In Luke 11 where Jesus gives instructions on how to pray, he tells his disciples to ask God to forgive us our sins for we ourselves also forgive everyone in debt to us. My question is this. If Jews relied on the sacrificial system to atone for their sins, why did he tell them to just ask God to forgive them without any sacrifice or substitution? Thanks in advance. Jason

DR. CRAIG: Well, if you think about it, Jason, a person could not possibly travel to Jerusalem and offer a sacrificial animal every time you lost your temper or looked at a woman lustfully or experienced greed or did something wrong. That would just be impossible. So you would need to turn to God in repentance and ask him to forgive you. But then at regular intervals you would still engage in temple sacrifice, and particularly at the time of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, that was celebrated annually. So I think on a sort of daily basis there was no other recourse than to simply repent and ask God to forgive you.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question.

Hi, Dr. Craig. It was put to me by a Muslim neighbor that Joseph of Arimathea would not have asked for Jesus’ body because he would get into serious trouble. Why would the authorities give Joseph the body of Jesus and not kill him as well? Thanks for any help. Donald, U.K.

DR. CRAIG: What Donald is asking about is the burial narrative of Jesus that we read in the Gospels. In the Gospels, it says that there was this man, Joseph of Arimathea, who after the crucifixion came to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus that he might inter it, and Pilate granted him the corpse. Joseph then placed the body of Jesus in his own personal family tomb. Now, the question that the Muslim neighbor asked: Wouldn't Joseph get into serious trouble for doing this? Why would the Roman authorities give over the body of Jesus to Joseph? Well, at that time the body of crucified victims would be given over to family members if they requested it. This was not out of the ordinary. It would be given over to family members for proper burial. In the case of Joseph, the Markan account says that he was a council member. He was a member of the Jewish High Court – the Sanhedrin – the very Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus to death and delivered him over to the Romans to be crucified on the charge of treason. So a Jewish Sanhedrist was a person of authority and respect in that culture, not someone that Pilate would abuse and someone whom he would treat respectfully. It may have been, for all we know, that Joseph was actually acting as an emissary of the Sanhedrin. You could not leave the bodies of crucified victims on the cross overnight without defiling the land, particularly during Passover. You would not want to defile the land by having these corpses hanging on the cross. So they had to be taken down and interred before Passover broke that evening on Friday night. So it's very credible that this Sanhedrist did go to Pilate, receive the body of Jesus, and place it in a tomb. And so, by far and away, most historical scholars today believe that, in fact, Jesus was interred in a tomb by this man, Joseph of Arimathea, which I find remarkable. We actually know the name of the man who buried Jesus of Nazareth. How incredible is that?

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question.

Dear Dr. Craig, I've been struggling with my role as an apologist. I've been able to get my hands on some of the best apologetic books available. A lot of people at my work are atheists, and it just seems that there's always a question I'm not prepared for. This could range from asking questions like, “Why does there need to be a God?” Questions regarding the moral argument. That one has always made me pull my hair out as it always seemed to just go in circles. Or three: How evolution is the better answer rather than God. Some days with all the books I have it feels like I'm on top of the world; yet other days it just feels like I haven't learned a thing and I feel useless. I really need some advice on how to keep my skills and apologetics sharp as it just feels like there's always a new question I don't know how to answer. Any advice at all would be appreciated as I want to witness to people like my dad who is an atheist. Thank you for everything. Michael

DR. CRAIG: I want to say to Michael that his experience is a very common experience among those of us who engage in apologetics. He simply needs to be patient with himself – keep learning, keep reading, taking notes. When you get a question you can't answer, don't just give up and despair, but go home, think about it, read about it, talk to other people, and learn from that experience. The experience of failure in trying to answer questions or give evidence for Christianity can be very motivating in helping you to improve. And over time you will get better and better at it. I find that I have already heard 95% or more of the objections out there when I talk to a non-believer about Christianity. It tends to be very repetitive. I think that if you'll master the arguments, for example, in On Guard or Reasonable Faith you will be very well-equipped to deal with about 95% of the people that you run into.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question.

Dear Dr. Craig, I know this is a silly question but surely others wonder about it if I am. Won't there be a huge line to see Jesus in heaven when we get there? Like waiting to see a celebrity, will we have to draw a ticket and wait years to see him face to face? Or maybe he'll just do arena tours [. . .] Scott

That is an interesting question.

DR. CRAIG: It really is. I've wondered about this, too. How are you going to see Jesus in heaven? I think we really just have no idea. It's going to be so far beyond us that we haven't conceived it. But I would say this one thing that might be helpful. When you think that our time in heaven is potentially infinite, that means that over time you will have infinite time to spend with Jesus of Nazareth. No matter how many people are there, each one will have an infinity of time to spend with him.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question says,

Hello, Dr. Craig. I recently came across the argument that God could not have raised Jesus from the dead because it would be logically incoherent. This person claimed that God bringing someone back from the dead would be equivalent to God making 2+2=5. I conceded I did not think that God could ever make 2+2=5, similar to how I don't think God could ever make a rock too big for him to lift and so on. However, I am now left wondering if the resurrection would fall under the logically incoherent category since I believe it would require God changing the laws of nature similar to making 2+2=5. I'm sure that there's a good answer to this predicament, but I cannot think of one, and any insight would be greatly appreciated. Stokes

DR. CRAIG: Stokes, the laws of nature are not logically necessary, and therefore creating a universe with different laws of nature or doing something that would change the laws of nature is not like making 2+2=5. The error of this person's thinking is to think of physical laws as being logically necessary statements, and that's simply not true. They are contingent statements that could have been different. The universe could have been governed by a different set of laws of nature than the ones that it does. And when God does a miracle he doesn't really violate a law of nature anyway. He just does something that doesn't lie within the causal capacity of nature. He doesn't change the laws of nature any more than the law of gravity is violated when I pick up an object and hold it up in the air. There's a cause that is operative that will do something that the laws of nature themselves can't do in the absence of that cause.

KEVIN HARRIS: One more question today, and this person is originally from India but now living in South Korea.

Greetings, Dr. Craig. I'm immensely blessed by your ministry. I praise God for you and your work. I have this question. I've had it for a while. I am originally from India. I believe in Jesus Christ and accepted him as Savior and Lord. I’m daily seeking to know Christ and live my Christian life looking unto Jesus, the author, sustainer, and perfector of my faith. I am wary of polytheism, and something in me stops me from fully embracing the Trinity. In spite of all the fine explanations, it feels like the vestige of Hindu polytheism. I hear pastors pray in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It feels like tri-theism in practice. If I believe in Christ alone and am unable to fully understand Trinity, is that sufficient for salvation? Thank you very much for your spiritual guidance. Ganana

DR. CRAIG: In answer to the direct question, I don't think you need to fully understand the Trinity in order to be saved. But I think you do need to believe in the full deity of Christ – that Christ is God – and so that immediately will force you to confront the issue. If the Father is God and Christ is God and then the Holy Spirit is God, are there three Gods? So you're going to be plunged into this question, I think, inevitably if you believe in the deity of Christ. I would just encourage Ganana to study more the doctrine of the Trinity. For example, in my book with J. P. Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, I have a chapter on the Trinity, and this is in Korean so he could get it there. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. What I argue is that God is a tri-personal being. He is a single, immaterial substance (or soul) that has three centers of consciousness, three spheres of consciousness, whom we call Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So although there are three persons (or spheres of consciousness), there is only one substance. There is one being – this immaterial, spiritual soul (or substance). I think that makes perfectly good sense of the doctrine of the Trinity. It is not tri-theistic. There is one being, but it is tri-personal.^[1]