God will not send us to hellbut we shall send ourselves. Divine Command Theory | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy William Lane Craig | People, Biola University Religion and Morality. But it does not follow from this that all of a person's sins taken together as a whole deserve only a finite punishment. At age 16, while a junior in high school, he first heard the message of the Christian gospel and yielded his life to Christ. The Coherence of Theism - Part 1 - bethinking.org Is it necessarily true? Craig posits that God will judge persons according to the measure of light that he or she has received. Persons who would freely reject God and His love should not be allowed, in effect, to hold a sort of veto power over which worlds God is free to create. I would say no less special than a true beginning of the universe. "coreDisableEcommerceForBookPurchase": false, 13:32). Faith and philosophy, 19(2). No particular religion, it seemed, could make a claim to universal validity; each society seemed to have its own religion suited to its peculiar needs. Notable Christians Open to an Old-universe, Old-earth Perspective J. T. Grieg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 1, 187. Nonetheless, the point remains that salvation is universally accessible for anyone who never hears the Gospel through God's general revelation in nature and conscience. This attitude is pervasive in Western culture today. Richard Dawkins, outspoken atheist and critic of religion, may be losing his nerve. For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone,' says the Lord God. Take the letters of the apostle Paul, for example. There are five Cadbury lectures and they are very engrossing!). Let us call him Walking Bear. But suppose that instead of worshipping the Great Spirit and living in love for his fellow-man, Walking Bear ignores the Great Spirit and creates totems of other spirits and that rather than loving his fellow-man he lives in selfishness and cruelty toward others. What is the difficulty with holding that salvation is available only through Christ? Science and religion scholar Melissa Cain Travis spoke with Craig about his views on Genesis, human origins, and the historical Adam. Does he make good arguments? "useRatesEcommerce": true Thus, in a sense, the biblical God does not send any person to hell. Professor Alexander Vilenkin, one of the three authors of the BordeGuthVilenkin theorem, writes: Victor J. Stenger has referred to the AguirreGratton model[46] for eternal inflation as an exemplar by which others disagree with the BordeGuthVilenkin theorem. European evangelicals condemn the offense but link the freedoms of expression and religion. Therefore, if holding to a view which many others disagree with means youre arrogant and immoral, then the pluralist himself would be convicted of arrogance and immorality. He and his wife Jan have two grown children. But what about in the afterlife? Not only that, but why think that arrogance and immorality are necessary conditions of being a particularist. Scientifically, that would be false, but nobody thinks Jesus is teaching botany. Consider (3). I wanted to be a scientist ever since I was in second grade. Unfortunately these straw-men are taken seriously by many people. The viability of holding a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics? Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. Now the pluralist might admit that given human freedom God cannot guarantee that everyone will be saved. Say to them, "As I live," says the Lord God, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. 2005. A rigorous attempt to answer the problem of the fate of the unevangelized and the challenge of religious pluralism. Philosophy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for those interested in the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. In that case, anybody who never hears the Gospel and is lost would have rejected the Gospel and been lost even if he had heard it. Some people might freely condemn themselves by rejecting God's offer of salvation. If so, then how will I respond? If God is all-powerful, He can create a world in which everybody hears the Gospel and is freely saved. William Lane Craig was principally responsible for giving new life to the argument, due to his The Kalm Cosmological Argument (1979), among other writings. Is it just by chance alone that I have heard this message? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (1993): 623639. Published online by Cambridge University Press: How do you understand the kWh that the power company charges you for? In that case his salvation or damnation seems to be the result of bad luck. Those who do not respond to God's general revelation in nature and conscience and never hear the Gospel would not respond to it if they did hear it. 7 Reasons God Exists. History is a narrative concerning real people and events, and so a mytho-history would be a sort of fusion of the two: a narrative concerning real people and events told in the language of myth in order to ground a cultures identity and institutions in events of the primordial past. What do multiple contact ratings on a relay represent? On the topic of virtual particles, he writes: Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin has stated that even "the absence of space, time and matter" cannot truly be defined as 'nothing' given that the laws of physics are still present, though it would be "as close to nothing as you can get".[42]. These arent really the problem. Paul explains that Gods power and deity are made known through the created order around us, so that men are without excuse (1.20), and that God has written His moral law upon all men's hearts, so that they are morally responsible before Him (2.15). Rather it is to say that the benefits of Christ's atoning death could be applied to people without their conscious knowledge of Christ. Second, it made Christianity's claim to be the only way of salvation seem narrow and cruel. Im not using the word myth in the popular sense of a falsehood, but rather in the folklorists sense of a traditional, sacred narrative explaining how the world and humanity came to be in their present form. My opinion of the philosophy department has just considerably improved, so thanks. The offer of Romans 2.7 "to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life" is a bona fide offer of salvation. How does this compare to other highly-active people in recorded history? Here God literally pleads with people to turn back from their self-destructive course of action and be saved. Can you have ChatGPT 4 "explain" how it generated an answer? If you had been born in ancient Greece, you would probably have believed that the sun orbits the Earth. Suppose Ive done all I can to discover the religious truth about reality and Im convinced that Christianity is true and so I humbly embrace Christian faith as an undeserved gift of God. We should not, therefore, think of hell primarily as punishment for the array of sins of finite consequence which we have committed, but as the just penalty for a sin of infinite consequence, namely the rejection of God Himself. The question is, what are those hidden premises? But now suppose that if only the missionaries had arrived, then Walking Bear would have believed the Gospel and been saved! So God speaks through the prophet Ezekiel: 'Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?,' says the Lord God, 'And not rather that he should turn from his way and live? Even if all Christian particularists were arrogant and immoral, that would do nothing to prove that their view is false. Answer: It may not be feasible for God to create such a world. How strong is the Kalam Cosmological argument? Why? Evolution Theology. Previously, I had thought that physical mortality was the result of the Fall. This is not to say that people can be saved apart from Christ. It looks like the category of athiesm can be pretty broad. Rev. This particularistic doctrine was just as scandalous in the polytheistic world of the Roman Empire as in contemporary Western culture. So the question is, are these assumptions necessarily true? Does Christianity make God out to be cruel and unloving? 1971) and graduate studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.A. In a critique of Craig's book The Kalam Cosmological Argument, published in 1979, Michael Martin states:[55], Martin also claims that Craig has not justified his claim of creation "ex nihilo", pointing out that the universe may have been created from pre-existing material in a timeless or eternal state. William Lane Craig does a masterful job in his section on Natural Theology. What is telling us about Paul in Acts 9:1? Premise one: "Whatever begins to exist has a cause. . But then certain very difficult questions arise: (i) Why did God not bring the Gospel to people who He knew would accept it if they heard it, even though they reject the light of general revelation that they do have? William Lane Craig is a visiting scholar in philosophy at Talbot School of Theology.He lives in Atlanta, Ga., with his wife Jan and their two teenage children Charity and John. I think you need to focus this a bit more. For years, Craig has argued that Christians can make space for the best science, including evolutionary science. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview Does he make good arguments? If God were to create any more people, then at least one of them would have freely rejected His grace and been lost. Therefore, my judgement of you on the basis of nature and conscience is neither unfair nor unloving.. So there are little grounds for optimism about there being many, if any at all, who will actually be saved through their response to general revelation alone. So long as God gives sufficient grace for salvation to all persons He creates, God seems no less loving for preferring a more populous world, even though that implies that some people would freely resist His every effort to save them and be damned. Suppose, then, that God has so providentially ordered the world that all persons who never hear the Gospel are precisely such people. This is trying to invalidate a position by criticizing the way a person came to hold that position. ( Although some philosophers have corectly pointed out that his argument is really Cosmological in nature because it presupposes that something . [59] Philosopher Yuri Balashov has criticised Craig's attempt to reconcile the A-theory with special relativity by relying on a neoLorentzian interpretation' of Special Relativity. William Lane Craig. Now, these are different from supernatural or miraculous elements, which concern events God brings about directly. Now, of course, nobody commits an infinite number of sins in the earthly life. philosophy-of-religion Share Improve this question Follow They would have naturally died even if they had not fallen. Great God, It's the Great God Debate - Notre Dame Magazine [47] In private correspondence with Stenger, Vilenkin remarked how the AguirreGratton model attempts to evade a beginning by reversing the "arrow of time" at t=0, but that: "This makes the moment t=0 rather special. From one man He made every nation of men , that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. Thus, on his own analysis his pluralism is merely the product of his being born in late twentieth century Western society and is therefore false or unjustified. What is the Christian particularist supposed to say in answer to these questions? Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. Kants claim there are only three kinds of proof for the existence of God. . "[48], At the "State of the Universe" conference at Cambridge University in January 2012, Vilenkin discussed problems with various theories that would claim to avoid the need for a cosmological beginning, alleging the untenability of eternal inflation, cyclic and cosmic egg models, eventually concluding: "All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning. Rather God judges them on the basis of light of God's general revelation in nature and conscience that they do have. In such a case Walking Bear would be justly condemned before God on the basis of his failure to respond to God's general revelation in nature and conscience. In these lectures you get better grasp of Craig's philosophical acumen and range of knowledge than in his debates---it is truly astonishing how much this fellow knows. In their broad sweep they seek to introduce readers to the principal subdisciplines of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics and . 2.4). The philosopher and theologian ventures a new hypothesis on Genesis, human origins, and the historical Adam. Morriston W (2002). But perhaps the problem is perhaps supposed to be that a loving God would not send people to hell because they were uninformed or misinformed about Christ. > William Lane Craig (ed.) But I do defend the view that in order to have a human being you need to have the infusion of a rational soul into some preexisting hominin form. In our own day, the influx into Western nations of immigrants from former colonies and the advances in telecommunications which have served to shrink the world to a global village have heightened our awareness of the religious diversity of mankind. But we can push the argument a notch further. The metaphysical impossibility of an actually infinite series of past events by citing, The impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition, referencing, A first state of the material world cannot have a material explanation and must originate, Even if positing a plurality of causes prior to the origin of the universe, the causal chain must terminate in a cause which is absolutely first and, This page was last edited on 29 June 2023, at 12:58. The sovereign God has so ordered human history that as the Gospel spreads out from first century Palestine, He places people in its path who would believe it if they heard it. For example, the Book of Revelation contains both apocalyptic literature about the end times but also epistolary literatureletters to the various churches of Asia Minor. . Graham Smith, Arguing about the Kalam Cosmological Argument, Philo, 5(1), 2002: 3461. But if the pluralist is claiming that (1) and (2) are implicitly contradictory, he must be assuming some hidden premises that would serve to bring out this contradiction and make it explicit. Many Christians fear that a nonliteral understanding of the early chapters of Genesis is incompatible with the doctrine of inerrancy. In His love and mercy, God ensures that no one who would believe the Gospel if he heard it is born at a time and place in history where he fails to hear it. Anscombe, '"Whatever has a beginning of existence must have a cause": Hume's argument exposed', Analysis XXXIV (1974), 150. William Lane Craig is a Professor of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. At least the cause of many face palms. What criticisms are you referencing? He concludes that subatomic physics is not a proven exception to the first premise.[37]. He writes: "To finish the series at a certain point, and to elevate one member of the series to the dignity of an uncaused first cause, is to set at naught the very law of causation on which the whole argument proceeds. Quantity Add to cart Dr. Craig's 30-hour survey course at Biola's Talbot School of Theology, covering such areas as Religious Epistemology, Natural Theology, Coherence of Theism, and Christian Doctrine. For why will you die?"' The Journey of an Electromagnetic Wave Exiting a Router, How do I get rid of password restrictions in passwd, Continuous Variant of the Chinese Remainder Theorem. Should we be troubled by the idea of a single book of Scripture containing two significantly different literary genres? (iii) Why did God not bring the Gospel to people who He knew would accept it if they heard it, even though they reject the light of general revelation that they do have? Early Christians were therefore often subjected to severe persecution, torture, and death because of their refusal to embrace a pluralistic approach to religions. It is the burden of the opening chapters of his letter to the Romans to show that this desolate condition is the general situation of mankind. He is an evangelical Christian, having committed his life to Christ while an undergraduate at Wheaton College.
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