Abstract
Here I shall examine the appeal of William Lane Craig, which ties in with the contemporary sociological phenomenon of some Christians’ desire to present a rational justification for their beliefs, via a brief social criticism. This apologetic attitude is contrasted with fideists and presuppositionalists; evidentialists are people who largely believe because they think the evidence suggests that they should. Christian fans of William Lane Craig seem to regard as important that their beliefs can be supported with objective evidence, a position that foregrounds the style of evangelism and apologetics practiced by New Theologians like William Lane Craig and his colleagues. This position diminishes the importance of the traditional faith-based belief in the central tenets of Christianity, and shall herein be described as ‘Christian evidentialism’.
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Notes
- 1.
In lieu of a thorough sociological analysis.
- 2.
This must be distinguished from the Christian presuppositionalists who also make use of evidence. For example, Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis appears to make use of evidence, but overtly relegates it as being of lesser value than faith: “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record.” See AiG. “Statement of Faith,” accessed 02/07/2015, https://answersingenesis.org/about/faith.
- 3.
This is similar to the way that some scholars argue for the religiosity of New Atheists. For example, see Cale Hubble, “The Sacred Things of Contemporary Anglophone Atheism: Celebrities, Books and Values,” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 4, no. 1 (2013): 81–112.
- 4.
See Catechism of the Catholic Church 36–38.
- 5.
From Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio 55. Contrast these with Protestant reformer Martin Luther’s misogynist characterisation of reason as “the Devil’s Whore” and his disdain for the great philosopher and scientist Aristotle. See B. A. Gerrish, Grace and Reason: A Study in the Theology of Luther, Reprint ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005), pp. 1–2.
- 6.
Adam Withnall. “Pope Francis declares evolution and Big Bang theory are real and God is not ‘a magician with a magic wand’,” accessed 05/02/2016, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-evolution-and-big-bang-theory-are-right-and-god-isnt-a-magician-with-a-magic-9822514.html.
- 7.
1 Peter 3:15–16.
- 8.
Acts 11:11–12.
- 9.
Acts 11:16–17.
- 10.
Isaiah 1:18.
- 11.
For example, see Weber (PESC).
- 12.
See Joshua Landy and Michael T. Saler, eds., The Re-Enchantment of the World: Secular Magic in a Rational Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009); Cusack (IR); Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). However, Australian census data supplied by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that traditional religion is on the decline, while those of ‘no religion’ are seemingly increasing, whilst also indicating increasing education as a possible cause. See ABS. “Losing my religion?,” accessed 24/07/2016, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features30Nov+2013.
- 13.
Research suggests that many Christians indulge in ‘celebrity worship’, despite the clear prohibition against idolatry in Exodus 34:14. See John Maltby et al., “Thou shalt worship no other gods — unless they are celebrities: the relationship between celebrity worship and religious orientation,” Personality and Individual Differences 32, no. 7 (2002): 1157–1172.
- 14.
William Arnal, Willi Braun, and Russell T. McCutcheon, eds., Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion (Sheffield, UK: Equinox, 2012), p. 34.
- 15.
Ibid., pp. 39–41.
- 16.
Schilbrack (PSR), p. 72. Seemingly a realist, Schilbrack also has responded decisively to attempts to deconstruct the term ‘religion’, as with the likes of Timothy Fitzgerald and William Cavanaugh. See Kevin Schilbrack, “After We Deconstruct ‘Religion,’ Then What? A Case for Critical Realism,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 25, no. 1 (2013): 107–112.
- 17.
Schilbrack (PSR), pp. 76–79. Schilbrack here draws a distinction between “belief in the creedal sense and belief in the taking true sense”.
- 18.
William Arnal, Willi Braun, and Russell T. McCutcheon, eds., Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion (Sheffield, UK: Equinox, 2012), pp. 13–16.
- 19.
Ibid., pp. 6–27.
- 20.
Ibid., p. 114.
- 21.
Ibid., pp. 142–143. See also Aaron W. Hughes, Islam and the Tyranny of Authenticity: An Inquiry into Disciplinary Apologetics and Self-Deception (Sheffield: Equinox, 2015).
- 22.
Philipse (GAS), pp. xiv-xv.
- 23.
‘Non-realist’ may also be appropriate.
- 24.
This would seem at odds with his work on the ontological argument, though he has admitted that it is not a proof of God. See Plantinga and Sennett (AT), pp. 65–71. Nevertheless, the difficulty in classifying various believers is revealed by the fact that Craig has reasons for believing apart from his evidential arguments, while Plantinga does indeed think that there are good arguments for God’s existence. See Alvin Plantinga, “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments,” in Alvin Plantinga, ed. Deane-Peter Baker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 203–228.
- 25.
Alister McGrath, The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World (London: Rider Books, 2004), pp. 179–181.
- 26.
In other words, those with no beliefs, unjustified beliefs, and justified beliefs.
- 27.
William Clifford seemed to think that basing one’s beliefs on the evidence is not just a good thing to do; it is morally necessary. For more on the famous Clifford-James debate, see Scott F. Aikin, Evidentialism and the Will to Believe (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). Interestingly, Aikin raises the issue that without proper evidence, the believer may be led into idolatry (p. 177), which I expand on a little in my review. See Raphael Lataster, review of Evidentialism and the Will to Believe, by Scott F. Aikin, Sophia 53, no. 4 (2014): 587–588.
- 28.
This classification could be used to temper perceptions about religious critics, such as the New Atheists. By making clear that the focus of their criticisms tend to be violent exclusivists rather than non-cognitivists, for example, New Atheists might find it easier to find common cause with more subdued secularists, and also religious liberals. (Note also that even exclusivists would likely oppose – other – exclusivists, since there are a variety of such religious groups.) I touched on this in my interview with Richard Dawkins, finding him to be less ‘anti-religious’ than is commonly thought. See Raphael Lataster, “A Superscientific Definition of ‘Religion’ and a Clarification of Richard Dawkins’ New Atheism,” Literature & Aesthetics 24, no. 2 (2014): 109–124.
- 29.
Craig (RF), pp. 94–95.
- 30.
Ibid., p. 196. Similarly, see p. 407, where Craig claims that, “More often than not, it is who you are rather than what you say that will bring an unbeliever to Christ. This, then, is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is—your life.” Craig seems to understand that how one presents is an important factor in influencing people.
- 31.
‘R’, personal communication, August 23, 2013.
- 32.
1 Kings 18:36–40.
- 33.
John 4:43–53.
- 34.
John 20:24–29.
- 35.
For example, see John 4:39.
- 36.
Philip Drake and Andy Miah, “The Cultural Politics of Celebrity,” Cultural Politics 6, no. 1 (2010): 49.
- 37.
Chris Rojek, “Celebrity and Religion,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 389–417.
- 38.
While there is a general lack of evidence for the power of prayer in medicine, there is some evidence against it, in the sense that prayer can result in – slightly – less desirable outcomes. For example, see Herbert Benson et al., “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer,” American Heart Journal 151, no. 4 (2006): 934–942. Also, even when I was a Christian, constantly asking God to do his will (see Matthew 6:10 and Luke 22:42), but asking that my faith be strengthened, I wondered about the point of prayer. Why ask a perfect God who will do as he wills anyway, to do his will? Why ask about our needs, which he already knows about, or praise him when he already knows our feelings towards him and should not need the adulation of lesser beings? Cf. David Basinger, “Why Petition an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Wholly Good God?,” Religious Studies 19, no. 1 (1983): 25–41. Note that despite my humble requests, if God exists, he allowed me to lose faith in him, further bolstering the argument from hiddenness.
- 39.
Craig does claim that his resurrection argument has resulted in at least one conversion to Christianity. See Craig (RF), p. 400.
- 40.
1 Corinthians 15:12–17.
- 41.
These quotations come from my own observations and notes, but can also generally be sourced from a transcript provided by Craig’s online ministry. See William Lane Craig and Lawrence Maxwell Krauss. “Debate Transcript - Life, the Universe, and Nothing (II): Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?,” accessed 23/12/2015, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/life-the-universe-and-nothing-why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing.
- 42.
“I participated in eight years of high-school and collegiate debate competition. For me, at that time, it wasn’t a ministry, it was just a sort of sport. It was an intellectual sport. I was no good at athletics, but I could represent my schools by being on the debating team. We debated matters of public policy—for example, that the military-assistance program of the United States should be significantly curtailed, and so forth. I never dreamt that someday I would be debating as a ministry. But after I had finished my doctoral studies and began teaching graduate school, I started getting invitations from campus ministries in Canada to participate in debates with prominent atheist philosophers on subjects like: ‘Does God exist?’ or ‘Humanism vs. Christianity.’ And what I discovered was that whereas a few score might come out and hear me give a lecture, hundreds—even thousands—of students would come out to hear a debate. And so it became very clear to me that debating was really the forum for doing evangelism on the university campus today. And to my delight, I found that my debating days were not over—that, in fact, I got back into debating, but this time as a ministry activity.” See TheBestSchools. “William Lane Craig Interview,” accessed 05/02/2016, http://www.thebestschools.org/blog/2012/02/01/william-lane-craig-interview.
- 43.
See Hershey H. Friedman, Michael J. Santeramo, and Anthony Traina, “Correlates Of Trustworthiness For Celebrities,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 6, no. 4 (1978): 291–299. Also, while his research leans towards more mainstream forms of celebrity, Lawrence Grossberg identifies the affective dimensions of popular culture, such as that ‘fans’ are given a sense of belonging. See Lawrence Grossberg, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1992) and Lawrence Grossberg, Dancing in Spite of Myself: Essays on Popular Culture (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997).
- 44.
It has earlier been implied that scientism and rationalism are the two fundamentals of contemporary atheists. See Christopher Smith and Richard Cimino, “Atheisms Unbound: The Role of the New Media in the Formation of a Secularist Identity,” Secularism and Nonreligion 1, no. 1 (2012): 27.
- 45.
See Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Carol Cosman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) and Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper & Row, 1957).
- 46.
Cf. Carole M. Cusack, “Celebrity, the Popular Media, and Scientology: Making Familiar the Unfamiliar,” in Scientology, ed. James R. Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 390.
- 47.
Matthew M. Martin et al., “Celebrity Worship and Cognitive Flexibility,” North American Journal of Psychology 5, no. 1 (2003): 75–80.
- 48.
See §3.6.
- 49.
I also cheekily had Krauss sign my copy of Craig’s Reasonable Faith.
- 50.
Craig (RF), p. 193.
- 51.
Hector Avalos and William Lane Craig. “Debate Audio - The Resurrection of Jesus: Fact or Fiction?,” accessed 23/12/2015, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/craig-vs-avalos-iowa-state-university.
- 52.
Jaco Gericke, who specialises in philosophy of religion and the Hebrew bible, claims that when it came to a proposed debate between Craig and South African scholars, Gericke – and his proposal concerning Yahweh’s existence – was rejected, in favour of Hebrew bible experts (for a debate on the resurrection) with no philosophical background. Gericke also asserts that Craig’s camp demanded to know what the proposed arguments of his would-be opponents would be, “without returning the favour” (personal communication, December 23, 2016). Perhaps my own philosophical literacy and familiarity with Craig’s case plays some role in his continually refusing to debate with me.
- 53.
Hitchens’ performance could have been affected by the oesophageal cancer that would soon claim his life.
- 54.
Devout Catholic Elizabeth Anscombe’s debate with famed apologist C. S. Lewis serves as a classic example of how a respected figure can be made to seem foolish by a professional philosopher. See Salwa Khoddam, Mark R. Hall, and Jason Fisher, eds., C. S. Lewis and the Inklings: Discovering Hidden Truth (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), pp. 177–179ff. It is also possible that Craig simultaneously impresses and confounds audiences by employing jargon, e.g., “moral epistemology”.
- 55.
Christopher Hitchens and William Lane Craig, Does God Exist? (La Mirada, CA: Biola University, 2009), DVD.
- 56.
Recall Craig’s thoughts on the potential need for atheists to ‘open their hearts’. See Craig (RF), p. 269. Craig is more explicit on this point towards the end of his opening statement in the Hitchens debate, opining that non-believers need to approach the debate with an ‘open heart’ and an ‘open mind’. This shifts the blame on those who happen just not to believe, often because the evidence is lacking.
- 57.
Craig elsewhere accuses some atheists of redefining ‘atheism’, and further attempts to shift the burden of proof, incorrectly asserting that atheists need to argue for God’s non-existence. See Craig (OG), pp. 149–151.
- 58.
He does just this at the start of his first rebuttal, indicating that Hitchens had merely rejected evidence for God and provided no evidence against God’s existence, seemingly portraying agnosticism as somehow inadequate.
- 59.
Recall that Craig feels that he can avoid investigating other miraculous claims because he is so convinced by the Christian miraculous claims, and that he simply assumes that the former are far less significant. See Craig (RF), pp. 277–278.
- 60.
This, despite both debaters actually mentioning deism, which Craig surprisingly declares as being a “type of theism”. In this project, theism and deism are considered to be very different types of supernaturalism. In any case, deism is counter to Craig’s view and would make futile his oeuvre.
- 61.
To Craig’s credit, he also did not wish to focus on genocides committed by atheists, even when prompted by the moderator, since it is “irrelevant”.
- 62.
Amazon.com. “On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision: Paperback – March 1, 2010,” accessed 18/12/2015, http://www.amazon.com/On-Guard-Defending-Reason-Precision/dp/1434764885.
- 63.
Ibid.
- 64.
Amazon.com. “On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision: Customer Reviews, five star, page 1,” accessed 21/12/2015, http://www.amazon.com/On-Guard-Defending-Reason-Precision/product-reviews/1434764885/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_five?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFiveStar&showViewpoints=0.
- 65.
Amazon.com. “On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision: Customer Reviews, five star, page 2,” accessed 21/12/2015, http://www.amazon.com/On-Guard-Defending-Reason-Precision/product-reviews/1434764885/ref=cm_cr_pr_paging_btm_next_2?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFiveStar&showViewpoints=0&filterByStar=addFiveStar&pageNumber=2.
- 66.
While Craig made such comments in the debate with Hitchens, they also appear in his written work. See Craig (RF), pp. 72–74, 175.
- 67.
Alice G. Brand, “Hot Cognition: Emotions and Writing Behavior,” Journal of Advanced Composition 6, no. 1 (1985/1986): 5. Note that different emotions have differing effects on information processing. See Karl Ask and Pär Anders Granhag, “Hot Cognition in Investigative Judgments: The Differential Influence of Anger and Sadness,” Law and Human Behavior 31, no. 6 (2007): 537–551.
- 68.
See Milton Lodge and Charles S. Taber, “The Automaticity of Affect for Political Leaders, Groups, and Issues: An Experimental Test of the Hot Cognition Hypothesis,” Political Psychology 26, no. 3 (2005): 455–482; Amy L. Krain et al., “Distinct neural mechanisms of risk and ambiguity: A meta-analysis of decision-making,” NeuroImage 32, no. 1 (2006): 477–484; Stephan C. J. Huijbregts et al., “Hot and Cool Forms of Inhibitory Control and Externalizing Behavior in Children of Mothers who Smoked during Pregnancy: An Exploratory Study,” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 36, no. 3 (2008): 323–333. For a useful primer on the many problems of human thinking, including discussions on cognitive biases and evolutionary traits, as well as an endorsement of Bayesian analyses, see Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (London: Penguin, 2012).
- 69.
Alice G. Brand, “Hot Cognition: Emotions and Writing Behavior,” Journal of Advanced Composition 6, no. 1 (1985/1986): 5–6.
- 70.
Hot cognition is partly why medical doctors are discouraged from self-diagnosing or treating their loved ones, as per the American Medical Association’s recommendations. See AMA. “Opinion 8.19 - Self-Treatment or Treatment of Immediate Family Members,” accessed 08/02/2016, http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion819.page?.
- 71.
Such imperfection in our thinking, entailing various systems of thought, could also be considered as evidence against God’s existence.
- 72.
It is possible that the ultimate concern of at least some religious people will not be their ‘god’ or ‘religion’, but their family, favourite sports team, or even money. Cf. Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13. For some discussion on democratically-run Futbol Club Barcelona’s being ‘més que un club’ (‘more than a club’), and even sacred or religious, see Emma Kate Ranachan, “Cheering for Barça: FC Barcelona and the shaping of Catalan identity” (Master’s thesis, McGill University, 2008); Jordi Xifra, “Soccer, civil religion, and public relations: Devotional–promotional communication and Barcelona Football Club,” Public Relations Review 34, no. 2 (2008): 192–198.
- 73.
There is evidence to suggest that, “analytic thinking is associated with disbelief in God”. See Anthony Ian Jack et al., “Why Do You Believe in God? Relationships between Religious Belief, Analytic Thinking, Mentalizing and Moral Concern,” PLOS ONE 11, no. 3 (2016): doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149989.
- 74.
Kevin Patrick Tobia, “Does religious belief infect philosophical analysis?,” Religion, Brain & Behavior 6, no. 1 (2016): 56–66. Note that as with De Cruz, there is no substantial discussion about the supernaturalistic alternatives to classical theism. Also of use might be Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts (New York: Mariner Books, 2015).
- 75.
Such bias has long been suspected. For example, see Paul Draper and Ryan Nichols, “Diagnosing Bias in Philosophy of Religion,” The Monist 96, no. 3 (2013): 420–446. Interestingly, psychologists from Canada discovered that, “Those more receptive to bullshit are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.” See Gordon Pennycook et al., “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit,” Judgment and Decision Making 10, no. 6 (2015): 559.
- 76.
William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser, “Status quo bias in decision making,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 1, no. 1 (1988): 7–69; Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, and Richard H. Thaler, “Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 1 (1991): 193–206.
- 77.
Thomas Gilovich, Victoria Husted Medvec, and Serena Chen, “Commission, Omission, and Dissonance Reduction: Coping with Regret in the “Monty Hall” Problem,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 21, no. 2 (1995): 182–190. For more on these phenomena and the earlier mentioned Monty Hall problem, see Andrea Morone and Annamaria Fiore Fiore, “Monty Hall’s Three Doors for Dummies,” in Advances in Decision Making Under Risk and Uncertainty, ed. Mohammed Abdellaoui and John D. Hey (Berlin: Springer, 2010), pp. 151–162; Kim Kaivanto, Eike B. Kroll, and Michael Zabinski, “Bias-Trigger Manipulation and Task-Form Understanding in Monty Hall,” Economics Bulletin 34, no. 1 (2014): 89–98. Beyond Monty Hall, such phenomena might help explain the reluctance of believers to accept that their beliefs are not evidentially justified, and may play a role concerning the vociferous rhetoric over Jesus’ historicity as well.
- 78.
Craig (RF), pp. 47–48.
- 79.
See Ziva Kunda, “The Case for Motivated Reasoning,” Psychological Bulletin 108, no. 3 (1990): 480–498. Recall also the earlier comments on contextual priming in §2.7.
- 80.
Many of these comments contradict the view that religious arguments do not persuade. For an example of this view, see Jennifer Faust, “Can religious arguments persuade?,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 63, no. 1 (2008): 71–86.
- 81.
That is, presumptions based on ultimately limited understandings. One factor in these limitations might be our evolutionary history. For example, humans did not evolve to solve the big questions, but to survive and reproduce. Quantum mechanics serves as an apt example about how commonsensical intuitions can become useless, at the sub-atomic level.
- 82.
‘Fans’ may adopt the perceived values and behaviours of celebrities. See Ellis Cashmore, Celebrity Culture (New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 83.
- 83.
Perhaps this statement can be softened a little, in light of the 2016 US presidential primaries.
- 84.
This is particularly the case if the religion seeks to curtail the rights of others, and also of members.
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Lataster, R. (2018). Craig in the Sociological Context. In: The Case Against Theism. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 26. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90793-2_5
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