Dr. Craig on Religious Diversity
Irish Farmer of Exposing Atheism responded to this Blog entry of mine where I said:William Lane Craig explains geographical religious diversity by arguing, in his own words, “it is possible that God has created a world having an optimal balance between saved and lost and that God has so providentially ordered the world that those who fail to hear the gospel and be saved would not have freely responded affirmatively to it even if they had heard it.” Craig argues that if this scenario is even “possible,” “it proves that it is entirely consistent to affirm that God is all-powerful and all-loving and yet that some people never hear the gospel and are lost.” Notice him retreating to what is merely “possible?” He’s trying to explain the evidence of global religious diversity away. The probability that not one of the billions of people who have not heard the gospel would respond if they did hear the gospel can probably be calculated, if missionaries kept records of their efforts. To claim what he does against the overwhelming evidence of missionary efforts belies the facts. Contrary to Craig, when we look at the billions of people who have never been given a chance to be “saved” because of “when and where they were born,” his scenario seems extremely implausible, to say the least.
Skeptics in the comments section are eating him up alive. Check it out.
12 comments:
This reminds me of a discussion I had about evolution back in my Bible believing days. The man who had led me to Christ said that God created Adam and Eve in adult form thereby giving them the appearance of age. He had read an article suggesting that perhaps God had created the earth with the appearance of age even though it was less than 10,000 years old. I am happy to report that this man found this explanation less than intellectually satisfying.
Craig, on the other hand, seems to believe in a God who enjoys messing with our heads.
vinny- this is actually an old argument, going back at least to Phillip Gosse's book Omphalos, published in 1857, two years before the Origin of Species.
But if the Earth was created with the built-in appearance of age, how do we know when it was created? Perhaps two minutes ago...
it proves that it is entirely consistent to affirm that God is all-powerful and all-loving and yet that some people never hear the gospel and are lost
I don't know how he can say "all-loving" when he admits that "God has created a world having an optimal balance between saved and lost". I'm assuming that "lost" is a bad thing, not something an all-loving creator would wish on his creations. Thus, if God intentionally creates lost souls then he can't be all-loving. I'll still grant him all-powerful though. But that doesn't make him any less of an a-hole in my book.
Bruce,
To which the apologist replies (either now or after a bit more tap dancing), "And just who are you to question God's infinite wisdom and justice?"
I've been puzzled by that optimal balance between saved and lost. But I think I'm getting a handle on it.
The optimal balance would be achieved if there were enough lost for the saved to have somebody to talk about.
But I foresee schism. One group will say that every two saved should have more than two lost to talk about. Others will point out that it is much more fun if every five or ten saved have only one lost to talk about. After all, on earth ganging up is half the fun. Yet a third group might say that it is more satisfying for whole nations to be lost, so that other nations can look down on them.
I really don't know which would be best, but from a purely utilitarian point of view, option two provides the lest torment for the smallest number.
Hmmm... paul, I'm not sure about your math. You must also take into account that the saved will be spending a lot of time, not just talking about the damned, but also watching them on their hellevision sets. This skews the equation, I think- but in which direction, I'm not sure...
Hey, I'm glad I'm getting disrespect from absolutely every atheist on this issue.
I'll admit that I was doing pretty poor at first. But I also didn't lay the argument out very well, so at best you can claim they destroyed a weak form of the argument I was espousing.
At this point, however, I've elaborated on the argument properly. I won't claim that I've gotten the upper hand, but I find the recent comments I've gotten to be either less-than-compelling, or they demonstrate misunderstandings of what I've said.
Fascinating to see the range of critical comments Dr. Craig, leaves up, while John silently deletes anything that might be embarrissing.
A "measure of the men" so to speak?
Andrew- it's probably just my mistake, but I don't see any comments at all on Craig's articles at his site. How do you comment there? I'd like to thank him.
I read Craig's article on the "problem" of religious diversity, and I learned something: a new word- "salvific"! I couldn't have made up a better word myself!
Andrew, whenever you comment you can read right there the reason why so many of yours are deleted.
irishfarmer is an idiot who doesn't understand the issues at hand. He probably hasn't even taken the time to read my book.
"John W. Locust"? Haha, Loftus is apparently in some poor anonymous guy's head 24/7!
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