Recently my newest book, A New Kind of Apologist, was released. One of the unique chapters, written by my friend Mark Mittelberg, is about how to motivate people in the church to care about apologetics. Enjoy the selections below in which Mark focuses on equipping church leaders and motivating church members ...
... When I was younger, I would try to get rid of doubts by closing my eyes (really really tightly) and concentrate (really really hard) on pushing out the doubtful thoughts. And when I (inevitably) started thinking about my doubts again, I’d simply try again (really try this time!) to expel those doubts. But you can’t push doubts out of your mind any easier than you can push other thoughts out of your mind by valiantly trying ...
A spiritually-minded friend of my wife and me recently made this comment: “I struggle with the idea of praying according to the will of God. Since I know that some things are clearly according to God’s will, why can’t I just pray directly about those things and know for certain that they’re going to happen? But that’s not the way it works with my prayers. For example, I know that God doesn’t want Christians to get divorced. But I’ve sometimes prayed that God would preserve a struggling marriage that still ended up in divorce ...
Dear Dr. Craig, The Moral Argument seems to have a flaw. Premise 1 has a semantic problem. 1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. What if we can imagine a supernatural, God-like entity, that is in some important respect distinct from God as such, which could also ground objective moral values? Perhaps omnibenevolent, but not omnipresent, say? ...
This week’s conference, “Israel and the Church: A Troubled Past and Glorious Future,” hosted by Biola and Chosen People Ministries, provided yet another opportunity for me to think “big picture.” As most of us, I suppose, the cares of daily tasks—emails, news cycles, family, work-ministry, church-ministry—I can get so buried in the daily that I lose the plan! By plan I mean the narrative that God has written for the world. A narrative that first rescues a fallen creation and then restores it to the flourishing fullness God made it for ...
This semester I am part of a professors’ reading group about the relationship of economics and Christian theology. We are reading several books and discussing relevant issues regarding a theology of work, stewardship, and economics. Obviously every author and participant has a unique perspective about different topics, but in our group we all come from a position of privilege, especially as we talk about poverty and ways to help those who are less fortunate. We have a tendency to talk about the poor as “they,” as people different from us and not necessarily as peers who can also teach us and lead us into better paths as we immerse in their circumstances and perspectives ...
The new year is always a time of reflection. Many people make resolutions to lose weight, exercise, continue education, and a host of other plans. Whether or not you make resolutions, the new year is a good time to reflect on your life and ministry ...
... Learning Management Systems (LMS) continue to make video conference sessions more user friendly with clear, strong connections conducive to conversations without video or audio delays. Many LMSs have this feature built into them, thus eliminating the need to use a program outside of the learning platform that instructors and students would have to download and install separately on their computers ...
Hello, my name is Lana, and I took a course at Purdue called "Metaphysics." I saw you at your debate with Alex Rosenberg. Anyways, And I'm glad I took the course, but I didn't take nominalism, or as you dub it, anti-realism, very seriously. I came out of it being a very strict platonist, but then I re read the gospel of John and I realized I was in huge trouble, I came to all the same conclusions about platonism as you did, I was a platonist, until now. So I floundered about wondering what the truth could be. I didn't take divine conceptualism very seriously at first because it was introduced to me initially by Berkleyianists, and I really do loathe idealism. I don't think it's compatible with Christianity. But I gave it another look and realized divine conceptualism can work with a worldview rejecting Berkley and his type. I don't remember the course too well so if I make a mistake that's why, and maybe I don't understand the same jargon but you did answer my question somewhere out there, I need some guidance ...
In my recent book The Fate of the Apostles, I examine the claim that the apostles died as martyrs for their faith. One apostle who often gets overlooked is James, the brother of Jesus. While James wasn’t one of the Twelve, there is good reason to believe he was not a believer of Jesus during his public ministry (Mark 3:20-35; John 7:5), he saw the risen Jesus (1 Cor. 15:7), and became the key leader in the Jerusalem church (Gal. 2:9; Acts 21:17-26) ...
Since the release of The Passion, faith-based films have been coming out from Hollywood at an increased rate. On the one hand, faith-based films are often cheesy and unrealistic. On the other hand, many lose the spirit of the original story and are utterly inaccurate (Noah, anyone?) With a bit of hesitancy, my wife and I went to see Risen last night. All things considered, we were both pleasantly surprised! ...
... Collaborative learning focuses on both content and the process of learning. C.S. Lewis stated, “It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can” (Lewis, 1958). Participation, dialogue, and reciprocity are key elements necessary for students to sense and know they are included in something greater than themselves. Meaningful dialogue in a variety of formats inspires critical thinking and reflection, combats mental inertia, and fosters transformation. Students may come curious, but they leave inspired ...
Dr. Craig, Thank you for your diligent work for the kingdom of God. I hope you understand and appreciate how your work has impacted the faith of countless people across the world. My question has to do with the concept of God in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. I am sure that you are aware of the current controversy over the "same God" comments of the professor at Wheaton College. As you can imagine this has caused a firestorm of debate between theologians, pastors and preachers. I understand from your work that you would say that while Muslims and Christians might worship the same God historically (the God of Abraham and Moses), their concept of God is fundamentally different (please correct me if I misunderstood your view). This refutes the "same God" idea because at the very core we worship a very different God even if the religions share a common background ...
When was the last time you considered the mentally ill or, even much less, ministry to the mentally ill? I have been remembering a good friend. He was my best friend during my freshman year in college. Our rooms were in the same suite in our dorm. We shared a bathroom. We took the same classes. We sat next to one another in chapel because my last name followed his alphabetically. We were on the basketball team. As point guard, I fed him the ball, and, as shooting guard, he made the shot. What a team we were! He introduced me to my wife. We double-dated numerous times. He was the best man in my wedding. We vacationed together as families through the years. We saw one another on at least a yearly basis, our friendship always picking up like we had just seen one another the week before. We shared something special ...
... Character formation begins with a proper understanding of the heart and soul. The heart is often misrepresented in American culture, for the heart has much more to do with how we live than what we might be led to believe. Perhaps the closest we can come to this idea is when we speak of doing something “whole-heartedly.” In Proverbs 4:23, believers are warned: “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life” (HCSB). Mentioned nearly one thousand times in God’s word, it is clear that the heart is important to God. Three components make up the human heart: mind, emotion, and will (Coe, 2011). The mind, the thinking function of the heart, is where our thoughts are received, processed, and formed. Emotions are tied to thoughts as we have feelings about all thoughts. The will is an expression of what we actually do (or do not do) with our thoughts. Components of the heart—mind, emotion, and will—are often examined separately but were created to function together. They make up who we are. Our lives are our hearts in motion because the heart is the control center of the soul ...
Dear Dr Craig, In your work on abstract objects, you have mentioned that there could exist necessary beings which exist "ab alio", that is, dependent for their existence on other necessary beings. My question is this: Let's suppose for the argument's sake that such ab alio necessary beings exist, is their existence an exception (or somehow relevant) to the premise of the teleological argument according to which everything which exists exist in virtue of a necessity of its own nature or in virtue of an external cause? ...
This year we are studying 1 Corinthians at Oceanside Christian Fellowship. I preached the message on 6:12-20, with the above title. I began by explaining Paul’s foundational principles in verse 12: (1) not all things are helpful, and (2) I will not be dominated by anything. The rest of the sermon outlined the “Five Good Reasons” (subtitle, above) as follows ...
More than a generation ago, Don Richardson popularized the idea that Christians who share Christ across cultures might encounter—and even ought to look for—“redemptive analogies” in those cultures. The idea was that God has pre-placed customs or stories into cultures that prepare people to respond to the gospel ...
Dear Dr Craig, I have noticed of late that Richard Dawkins often states that Neo-Darwinism is non-random. Dawkins recently repeated this line in an interview on a Scandinavian talk show Skavlan when asked, "What is the most common misconception about Evolution?" His response was, "That it is a theory of random chance. It obviously can't be theory of random chance. If it was a theory of random chance it couldn't possibly explain why all animals and plants are so beautifully ... well designed." He goes on to say that, "[W]hat Darwin did was to discover the only known alternative to random chance which is natural selection". A few years ago he made similar comments on an Australian television show Q&A where he said, "There's random genetic variation and non-random survival and non-random reproduction". He goes on to say that, "that is quintessentially non-random" ...
Each age has its particular hazards. Each age encourages certain vices and devalues certain virtues. Because we are immersed in our age, these hazards are often invisible to us. We simply cannot see the effects of certain cultural ideas and practices on our characters ...
I am 15 years old. But I have been drawn to philosophy and logic for their huge ability of proving immaterial things. For example, 1+1=2, this is a completely logical answer and what is nice about it, there are no other possibilities. Of course that doesn’t apply for all logical conclusions but it follows. I understood the kalam cosmological argument, the evolution theory, the big bang, and a lot of other logical and scientific arguments and theories. That is because I never wanted to believe in anything which I can’t prove for myself 100%. I even reached a moment where I thought everything is possible, surely nothing can be proved 100%. However, at that time, mathematics came and explained a lot to me. As I mentioned before 1+1=2, that is an example of an absolute answer. In other words, proven 100%. From here I started wondering about many other scenarios in real life. From all of these information I thought about from the environment around me I reached a system of thought which I always follow ...
In The Fate of the Apostles, I argue that the willingness of the apostles to die for their faith provides convincing evidence that we can trust their testimony. However, as critics have pointed out, this rightly assumes that the apostles had a resurrection faith. If the apostles believed for some other reason, then their willingness to suffer and face martyrdom would be inconsequential to the truth of Christianity. So, how do we know the apostles had a resurrection faith?
he willingness of the apostles to die for their faith is one of the most commonly cited arguments for the historicity of the resurrection. And yet in my research and experience, it is one of the most widely misunderstood. It is important we neither overstate nor understate the significance of this point. In my book The Fate of the Apostles, I carefully state the argument this way ...
Hi Dr. Craig, I'd like to thank you and your team for all the work you do. It's amazing to see how God has gifted individuals to articulated and present His truth in academically rigorous environments. In the past few years, especially since getting into grad school, I've come to appreciate your work and your approach more. I've been debating on when, or how, to ask you the question on my mind. Most likely due to my own discomfort with the subject. In the past year I've had the pleasure of catching up with a friend of mine who has tragically turned his back on the faith. On multiple occasions we conversed about his philosophical misgivings about Christianity and any other faith claiming absolute morals. He expressed his distrust in absolutes derived from the ever-evolving medium of language. He now considers himself a moral relativist who has principles and takes moral stances. Maybe something akin to Harris. This leads me to a version of a question raised in conversation: How can absolute truth be communicated through the medium of language? ...
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