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Factual Faith? Not for Crossan…
I’ll be relying on the following article by William Lane Craig for this post. Please read it before continuing.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5206
[I forgot those articles are only available for members. However, registering there is free--you just provide a name and email address.]
For the time being, I’m going to focus on a small point the article brings up, specifically in the debate between Craig and John Dominic Crossan. As you know from the article, and Craig gives a nice little history of the movement, Dr. Crossan was co-founder of the Jesus Seminar.
Let me first point out how astonishing it is to find scholars–men and women who spend their lives in the highest levels of academia–still assuming naturalism as a basis for their arguments. As Craig notes, naturalism is “philosophically untenable.” Indeed, I’ve heard from one source that some of these scholars–Crossan included–claim to be part of Christianity. That is, they claim to believe in Jesus as their Savior. But on the other hand, they deny the miraculous: they deny the virgin birth, and what’s worse, they deny the RESURRECTION. I’m waiting for a good explanation of how they can claim Christ as Lord and Savior and maintain that He was never raised on that third day…
Anyway, for my main point I’d like to quote the short excerpt of the debate between these two scholars found in Craig’s article:
Craig: This distinction between statements of faith and statements of fact that you make troubles me. I would like to know, for you, what about the statement that ‘God exists’? Is that a statement of faith or fact?
Crossan: It’s a statement of faith for all those who make it.
Craig: So on your view, then, factually speaking, it is not true that God exists.
Crossan: That would not be a nice way to put it. Let me put it this way to you. What I’m saying here is to try to take faith seriously. Understand that Dr. Craig wants to equate faith and fact. There are people in the world who do not believe God exists. I understand that. I happen to think they’re wrong, but that does not make it any less an act of faith. They are making an act of faith in something else. . . .
Craig: But if the existence of God is a statement of faith, not a statement of fact, that means that God’s existence is simply an interpretive construct that a particular human mind, a believer, puts onto the universe. But in and of itself the universe is without such a being as God. That is, that’s simply an interpretation that a believer puts on it. It seems to me that on a level of reality, independent of human consciousness, your worldview is actually atheistic and that religion is simply an interpretive framework that individual people put on the world, but none of these is factually, objectively true. . . .
Crossan: No, I would say what you’re trying to do is imagine the world without us. Now unfortunately, I can’t do that. If you were to ask me (which is just what you did) to abstract from faith how God would be if no human beings existed, that’s like asking, me, ‘Would I be annoyed if I hadn’t been conceived?’ I really don’t know how to answer that question.
Craig: Sure you do!
Crossan: Wait a minute! We only know God as God has revealed God to us; that’s all we could ever know in any religion.
Craig: During the Jurassic age, when there were no human beings, did God exist?
Crossan: Meaningless question.
Craig: But surely that’s not a meaningless question. It’s a factual question. Was there a Being who was the Creator and Sustainer of the universe during that period of time when no human beings existed? It seems to me on your view that you’d have to say, ‘No.’
Crossan: Well, I would probably prefer to say ‘No’ because what you’re doing is trying to put yourself in the position of God and ask, ‘How is God apart from revelation? How is God apart from faith?’ I don’t know if you can do that. You can do it, I suppose, but I don’t know if it really has any point.7
Notice how when Craig supposes, “So on your view, then, factually speaking, it is not true that God exists,” Crossan evades and ignores his point. That is exactly the only choice left, but Crossan would rather slide backwards into pointless jargon as a smokescreen. Or maybe he just doesn’t see the situation clearly.
What we have here is a false dilemma between faith and reason. I might even go so far as to say faith and fact. When Craig asks whether God’s existence is a statement of faith or fact, Crossan does not reply both. That would be the answer for most Christians. We have faith that God is who He says He is, and we know Him to exist as fact. But what does Crossan say?
It’s a statement of faith for all those who make it.
Therefore it is not a statement of fact? Is this his intimation? Either God’s existence is at least fact, or non-existent, or both faith AND fact. What I mean is, God would exist factually regardless of His revelation to us, or He exists and has revealed Himself to us, or He does not exist and any talk of faith is absurd. If He exists only in faith, then He does not really exist. Faith is hope in things unseen, but notice the key word: things. Some-thing. Something which has existence whether we know and understand it or not. Craig rightly describes Crossan’s thinking as a “worldview [which] is actually atheistic [...] religion [being] simply an interpretive framework that individual people put on the world, but none of these is factually, objectively true. . . .” It would seem incredible that a learned individual could hold such a fallacious view, but Crossan only digs the hole deeper:
If you were to ask me (which is just what you did) to abstract from faith how God would be if no human beings existed, that’s like asking, me, ‘Would I be annoyed if I hadn’t been conceived?’ I really don’t know how to answer that question.
What an evasion. Do human beings determine the character and existence of their Creator? I wonder what Paul would say. . . So Crossan can’t seem to separate God from faith and revelation. He seems to ask, What is God without regard to our faith or understanding of Him? Well, there’s a simple answer.
He’s God.
We only know God as God has revealed God to us; that’s all we could ever know in any religion.
Well then let’s step outside religion and consider what we know about God. We can determine several things about the God of this universe before even opening the Bible (assuming, as we do here, that the Bible is the inspired word of God). For one, we can work through the Moral Argument to show that God is the author of Morality. We know from the Teleological Argument that God is a personal God, whether He was simply curious enough to create life or whether He is, as the Bible describes Him, a loving and compassionate God who deeply cares for His creatures. And we know that God is eternal–that is, beyond time–because only such an entity could create spacetime as we know it. Look! Three facts about God, no faith required, and we never touched religion. Indeed, I believe the Apostle Paul was of the opinion that we should know several things about God regardless of religious context:
1:20 Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.
Romans 1:20 RSV
So unless “the things that have been made” are what Crossan has in mind for God’s revelation, I’ll have to disagree with him. If that’s exactly what he meant, then I’ll retract that statement and give him my full approval (whatever that’s worth). But I don’t think it is, given the remaining dialogue.
Craig asks a valid question:
During the Jurassic age, when there were no human beings, did God exist?
Say you’re an agnostic, since at this point I have no idea what Crossan considers himself. What would you say? You don’t necessarily believe in God, but you’re open to the possibility of His existence. Ok, so if it’s possible He exists now, wouldn’t you think it would be possible He existed before this current point in time? How about before anyone had a concept of Him (since, you know, He must have existed before the universe)? You would, being a rational thinker, say something like, “Well, if He exists now, He must have existed before now.” Well, I have serious doubts about the mental facilities of Biblical scholarship:
Crossan: Meaningless question.
I had to pause when I read that. I wonder if Dr. Craig expected such a blatant refusal to accommodate logic into a debate. . .
Craig: But surely that’s not a meaningless question. It’s a factual question. Was there a Being who was the Creator and Sustainer of the universe during that period of time when no human beings existed? It seems to me on your view that you’d have to say, ‘No.’
Come on, Crossan. Here’s your last chance to salvage our faith in your reasoning abilities. Just say, “Yes, Bill, I believe God was around back then. I believe He’s around now, so He must have been around back then regardless that there were no humans.”
Oh, no. . . He didn’t. . .
Well, I would probably prefer to say ‘No’ because what you’re doing is trying to put yourself in the position of God and ask, ‘How is God apart from revelation? How is God apart from faith?’ I don’t know if you can do that. You can do it, I suppose, but I don’t know if it really has any point.
“Yes” was the correct answer. . .
Let’s answer his rhetorical questions. How is God apart from revelation? Well, He’s still God. We might not know Him as God–we might never believe in Him and worship Him, but He’s still God.
Crossan gets stuck on the concept of God; he supposes that we only can conceive God through religious revelation (he says as much, doesn’t he?). I think the man needs to read some Anselm, Plantinga, Geisler, and oh yeah–Paul’s Letter to the Romans. The two points of this article I want you to come away with are these: first, faith is either faith in something factual (whether we can observe the fact or not) or it is false faith; and secondly, we can know about God from His creation. Denying either point leads you to the same conclusions as Crossan and his Seminar.
I should quote the rest of that section of Romans:
1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 1:19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 1:20 Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; 1:21 for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. 1:22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. 1:24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 1:25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen. 1:26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 1:27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. 1:29 They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, 1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 1:31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 1:32 Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.
Romans 1:18-32 RSV
Claiming to be wise, they became fools. . .
Do not be guilty of suppressing the truth.
(If you would like to learn some more about the Jesus Seminar, please visit the following links. I’m sure I’ll post more on them at some future point.)
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t017.html#whatisit
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t016.html