{"id":4805,"date":"2013-07-02T16:46:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-02T20:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=4805"},"modified":"2013-11-19T21:51:20","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T02:51:20","slug":"william-lane-craig-in-the-chronicle-of-higher-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/william-lane-craig-in-the-chronicle-of-higher-education\/","title":{"rendered":"William Lane Craig in the Chronicle of Higher Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"master-debater\"<\/a>Here<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n

On the whole, a well done piece.<\/strong> Craig is indeed a fearsome debater,<\/a> and a bold and insightful scholar. His devotion to apologetics makes him a bit uncool among professional philosophers. But I would guess that his work is probably read by more average people – Christians, atheists, Muslims, and who-knows-what – than any living philosopher. The reason is that it has many good qualities, being typically clear, packed with arguments, and dealing with incredibly important matters, like the existence of God, or moral realism, human nature, free will, or the meaning of life.<\/p>\n

I offer a brief comment and clarification<\/strong> on this bit of the Chronicle<\/em> piece:<\/p>\n

His inquiries have even led him into minor unorthodoxies<\/strong>, including a disagreement with the Nicene Creed on the details of the Trinity<\/strong>. Yet these serve as exceptions that prove the rule: His investigations might thus seem all the more rigorous, together with his commitment to the bulk of old-time religion. Just following his curiosity has made Craig an ever-abler defender of the faith. (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bill will tell you that he’s simply a defender of the historic Christian belief in the Trinity. However, he defends it as understood in his new-fangled “social” way, which scholars have called “Trinity monotheism<\/a>.” (Also see this summary<\/a>, and this recent paper<\/a>, pp. 5-8 for critical discussion of Craig’s theory.) He won’t tell you it’s new-fangled, though it is.<\/p>\n

About the “unorthodoxies,” I assume<\/em> the author has in mind Craig’s view that the traditional doctrines of eternal generation<\/strong> of the Son by the Father, and of the eternal procession<\/strong> of the Holy Spirit from either Father only, or from Father and Son, have no basis in the New Testament, rightly understood. (See here<\/a>.) Being Protestant, his attitude is that the old catholic creeds are to be accepted only and because they truly summarize the teaching of the Bible.<\/p>\n

“Details”? “Minor<\/strong>“? Many Catholic and Orthodox Christians would disagree strongly. Of course, those traditional generation and procession claims don’t appear in Biola’s doctrinal statement<\/a>. But yes, the author the Chronicle<\/em> piece is right that<\/strong> judged by the traditional understanding of the “Nicene” Creed (i.e. this one), his view is unorthodox.<\/p>\n

(It is also possible that the author had in mind this brief exchange<\/a>; BTW it is Rea, not Rae.)<\/p>\n

Back to generation and procession: How dare he?<\/strong> Well, he’s right that the ancient “fathers” simply misread<\/strong> the gospels, reading into them issues from then-current disputes. Really, they don’t teach the eternal generation and procession doctrines. The relevant words (begotten, proceeds) just don’t mean to the gospel writers what they meant to feuding 2nd-5th c. catholic bishops. Many scholars, of many theological persuasions, have concluded this (e.g. this earlier evangelical scholar<\/a>.).<\/p>\n

Craig is also, in my view correctly, worried about this<\/strong>. If the Son and Spirit exist because the Father eternally emanates them, he’s the cause or source of them, and they depend on him for their existence and deity, and it seems to follow that he would be greater than<\/em> them. But then, it would be false, as trinitarian traditions have it, that the Three are equally divine. The Father, but not the Son or Spirit, would exist and be divine independently of and uncaused by anything else. As the aforementioned scholar put it,<\/p>\n

…I can easily admit that it is philosophical<\/em>, to suppose that God, who has existed from eternity, may<\/em> have acted from eternity. There can be no objection to this. But is it philosophical<\/em>, first to lay down the position, that it is an essential <\/em>characteristic of God to be independent <\/em>and self existent,\u00a0<\/em>and then to say that an emanated, derived, generated being<\/em> is or can be really God, in this high and only true sense? (p. 154<\/a>, original emphases)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Having basically defended Craig thus far, I end on the negative note<\/strong> that his view, despite his intentions, is inconsistent with<\/a> the New Testament, which assumes and asserts the identity<\/a> of the Father and the one God – which is inconsistent with Craig’s Trinity theory. Although he would like to have both full historic catholic orthodoxy and best fit with the New Testament, it seems he can’t have either one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here. On the whole, a well done piece. Craig is indeed a fearsome debater, and a bold and insightful scholar. His devotion to apologetics makes him a bit uncool among professional philosophers. But I would guess that his work is probably read by more average people – Christians, atheists, Muslims, and who-knows-what – than any… Read More »William Lane Craig in the Chronicle of Higher Education<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,21,4,8,10,38,47,9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-bible","category-heresy-orthodoxy","category-linkage","category-logic","category-monotheism","category-papers","category-philosophy","category-theories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5201,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4805\/revisions\/5201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}