Dear Friends of Reasonable Faith,
As we enter into the blessed Advent season, we hope that the ongoing pandemic will not dampen your appreciation of this joyous season, during which we celebrate the Lord’s birth. Whatever our circumstances, may our hearts be filled with gratitude for “His indescribable gift” (II Corinthians 9.15)!
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This past month, though still sequestered safely at home, I continued to participate in events on social media. Normally in November I travel to the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological/Philosophical Societies and the annual conventions of the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature to participate in these professional meetings. But due to the pandemic, none of these conferences was held in person this year but rather were held online. This was something of a new experience for me. On November 17 I participated in an EPS panel on my work on divine aseity and on the atonement. Rich Davis of Tyndale University in Toronto and Scott Smith of Biola University presented papers on my work, followed by my response to them both, and concluding with Q&A with the online audience. Two days later I was a member of a panel responding to Joshua Swamidass’ book The Genealogical Adam and Eve. In my presentation I explained why I find my hypothesis of an ancient genealogical Adam more plausible, both biblically and scientifically, than Josh’s hypothesis of a very recent genealogical Adam (about 10,000 years ago). Josh then responded graciously to all the panelists, followed by an animated discussion amongst ourselves and with the online audience. In between these two meetings I had a Zoom call with our Reasonable Faith Chapter Directors scattered around the world to take their questions. It is so encouraging to see how the Lord is using them in various countries to evangelize and disciple others!
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After Thanksgiving came the virtual conferences of the AAR/SBL in which I also took part. This time I was the moderator of two sessions. The first was again on Joshua Swamidass’ book, with a different collection of panelists (who were much calmer, I must say, than when I was involved!). Then the next day I moderated a panel discussion with Andrew Loke of Hong Kong Baptist University on his book on the kalām cosmological argument, God and Ultimate Origins. Andrew has been called “the William Lane Craig of Asia”! It struck me that the panelists in the session were in Singapore, Boston, and Scotland, a miracle of modern technology! I had never run an online session before these two, but I quickly learned the ropes, and each session moved briskly and gave each participant equal opportunity to share. Later that afternoon I did an interview via Skype with Sean McDowell that was intentionally non-academic but rather intensely personal. It was a lot of fun and gave me a chance to share many practical lessons that Jan and I have learned over the years.
And, of course, we continued to podcast my Defenders class from my home office all last month.
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Having completed the first chapter “On Sacred Scripture” of my projected systematic philosophical theology, I am now studying for the chapter on “Faith and Reason.” Things always seem to turn out to be unexpectedly interesting once you scratch beneath the surface! It’s shaping up that two central questions will occupy me in this chapter: (1) what is the nature of faith? And (2) how is faith to be rationally justified?
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As you might expect, each area opens up further questions. With respect to the nature of faith, my thinking is still embryonic, but I expect to differentiate between propositional faith and personal faith. Propositional faith is having faith that something is true, e.g., that God exists or that Jesus rose from the dead. Personal faith is trust in a person, e.g., I trust my dentist to care properly for my teeth. Since personal faith is trust in a person, it is not as such true or false, as is propositional faith. Nonetheless personal faith seems to entail propositional faith to some extent, e.g., you can’t trust in God unless you have faith that He exists. Now one question that has unexpectedly arisen is whether propositional faith involves belief. Several philosophical theologians argue that propositional faith does not entail believing the proposition but just accepting it or assuming it or some such notion. For example, a mother whose son is missing in Iraq might have faith that her son will come home even though deep down she does not really believe that he will come home. This attempt to sever faith from belief surprised me because I’ve always assumed that if you have faith that p, where p is some proposition, then you believe (however weakly) that p. So in dealing with this question, I want to make a further distinction between secular faith and saving faith. Saving faith is what is necessary and sufficient for salvation; secular faith is everything else. I anticipate arguing that even if there are examples of secular faith that do not entail belief, nevertheless Christian faith, which is saving faith, does involve certain beliefs, e.g., that God exists (Hebrews 11.6) and that God raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 10.9-10).
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With respect to the rational justification of Christian faith, I’ve already written a bit on religious epistemology, defending the view that we can know the great truths of the Gospel through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, even in the absence of arguments and evidence. This view is called Reformed Epistemology. But philosophers writing in this area have now helpfully distinguished between Reformed Epistemology (the view that rational belief can be grounded by the witness of the Holy Spirit apart from arguments and evidence) and proper functionalism (the theory of justification which has undergirded Reformed Epistemology). Current epistemologists have noted that the thesis of Reformed Epistemology is independent of proper functionalism and is consistent with any number of other theories of justification. That makes my job easier, for the Scriptures do not teach proper functionalism, so that I can leave it aside. But I’m convinced that the Scriptures do teach that the great truths of the Gospel can be known via the Holy Spirit’s witness. Such beliefs are called properly basic beliefs. So I think I’ll distinguish between proper functionalism and proper basicality and focus on the articulation and defense of the latter.
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But for the present I’ve had to interrupt my reading for my systematic philosophical theology to work on another project: my response to Prof. Peter van Inwagen’s opening statement in our projected joint book Are There Numbers? Van Inwagen is an ardent Platonist and so disagrees with my view that God is the only uncreated being, or the sole ultimate reality. Peter is a brilliant metaphysician with a prodigious intellect, and his nearly 50-page, single-spaced opening statement is incredibly dense and carefully argued. So responding to it is a slow and painstaking—though, I must say, enjoyable!—task. I hope to finish next week. Then we’ll exchange responses and write final replies.
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As I close, let me remind you once more of our annual Matching Grant campaign, which runs through December 31. Your gift to Reasonable Faith will be matched by select donors and so doubled in value! We hope that you can take advantage of this opportunity.
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Jan joins with me in wishing you all a meaningful and happy Christmas, whether with family or safely alone at home!
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For Christ and His Kingdom,
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FEATURED TESTIMONIAL
I wanted to say thank you so much for your ministry of evangelism through apologetics. Many days in the Middle East I will listen to your podcasts for encouragement, grow in understanding how to respond appropriately and lovingly to questions from others, and critically think about my own relationship with Christ. Reasonable Faith is the best resource I have on the mission field and I recommend it to all of the other leaders and ministers I am with. Sometimes on Saturdays some of us will gather together to watch one of your debates or talks and it is so helpful and encouraging to us. Thank you Dr. Craig from my heart of hearts, I speak so often of you with others and share your work whenever I can. My dad and I always love reveling at how brilliant you are and that we are so thankful for you. I hope to stay in touch over the coming years and I will keep you updated on everything.
- Michael
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