| Dear Friends of Reasonable Faith,
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| Last month I shared with you the exciting news that www.academicinfluence.com had ranked me the 10th most influential philosopher in the world over the last three decades. As if that were not enough, a Facebook friend pointed out to me that if I looked at their ranking of theologians, I’d find that I come in as the 3rd most influential theologian in the world, just behind the Oxford theologian Alister McGrath and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams! This result is especially gratifying because theologians are even more directly influential in our culture than philosophers. Because of the presence of religion in our culture and the institution of the church, whose ministers are trained by theologians in seminary, theologians have a more direct impact on society. Philosophers are significant for their indirect impact: for example, theologians are themselves enormously influenced by philosophers (like Kant and Hegel), not vice versa. So to be ranked in the top ten on both lists is a really thrilling and gratifying development for which we praise the Lord. We share this with you for your encouragement (II Corinthians 5.12).
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Historical Adam Book: At Last!
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| After many months in press, In Quest of the Historical Adam is being released this month! It has been worth waiting for. Eerdmans did a terrific job with the book, and I’ve never seen a handsomer volume. A sensational cover, tons of illustrations, footnotes conveniently at the bottom of each page, beautiful page layout, making it easy to read—so many great features in this book!
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| Already the book is causing a stir in the social media. The Spanish translation of the book is being released simultaneously, so I recorded an interview in Spanish on the book for a podcast with a popular Latin American apologetics ministry Rincon Apologetico, viewed live on-line by nearly 1,000 people. Kevin Harris and I also recorded a Reasonable Faith podcast correcting one pastor’s blog criticizing the book. My interview on the book with Melissa Travis will appear any time now in Christianity Today, and First Things is publishing my article summarizing the contents of the book. I’ve also been contacted by Robert Kuhn of the PBS television program Closer to Truth to schedule an interview on the book. I have other interviews this month on the book with Sean McDowell and with Dr. Jeff of Summit Ministries. Obviously, the historical Adam is a hot topic on which Christians respectfully disagree.
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| Other social media outreaches this past month included a dialogue with television star Scott Clifton on the podcast “Capturing Christianity” on the kalām cosmological argument. We had a very congenial, substantive, and honest exchange on the argument’s first premiss that Whatever begins to exist has a cause. Scott believes that the universe just began from nothing, which I couldn’t believe if I tried. I also gave a video lecture followed by Q&A for a conference in South Africa hosted by our friends with Ratio Christi. I also did a podcast interview in India with an apologetics ministry there, and to close out the month an interview on the kalām cosmological argument with a Muslim podcast Finding Truth coming out of Cairo, Egypt. We had one of the best interviews on the subject I’ve ever had—intelligent, stimulating, and fun! I was even able to share my faith in Jesus Christ.
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Systematic Philosophical Theology
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| My writing on my projected systematic philosophical theology continues to inch steadily forward. I’m working on divine omnipresence, trying to decide whether God exists throughout space or transcends space. The Scriptures typically speak of God in spatial terms, but I was surprised to discover that the scriptural concept of heaven as God’s realm (as opposed to “the heavens” in the sense of the skies or the starry heavens) is meant to underscore, not God’s spatial location, but His transcendence of the world and so could be construed in terms of God’s transcending space.
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| If God does exist in space, He would have to do so in a very special sense: He would have to be wholly present at every place in space. Since God is not made of parts, He can’t be extended throughout space as the universe is, part here and part there. Rather He has to be wholly here and at the same time wholly there. This is a very difficult notion to get your head around, so much of the contemporary philosophical discussion has to do with the way things can be located in space, and the discussion rapidly becomes very technical. I have now written up my section on these different location relations as a basis for assessing how God relates to space.
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Painting Title: St. Thomas Aquinas, c.1480/85 Artist: Sandro Botticelli
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| Traditionally, God has been thought to transcend space, but there is a handful of contemporary scholars who maintain not only that God is in space but that this has actually been the mainstream position in Christian theology since the time of Augustine in the fifth century! So I’ve spent some time reading Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas on this subject and am convinced that these revisionist scholars are quite mistaken. Sure, given scriptural language, classical theologians affirm that God exists everywhere and is present to every place; but the question is what they mean by that. How is God present in every place? What they mean, I think, is that God is, in Thomas Aquinas’ terms, causally connected to everything in space, knows what is happening everywhere in space, and is the ground of being for everything that exists in space, but without being in space Himself. I’m just now wrapping up the historical section of my chapter and will soon turn to some assessment of the question.
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Nothing new that we can disclose about the proposed Academic Center. . . . Negotiations are ongoing, and we’re awaiting some proposals from institutions about how the courses of our Center might be integrated into their degree programs. Thanks for continuing to pray for God’s direction!
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| For Christ and His Kingdom,
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Hi Dr. Craig I just wanted to write you and thank you for your work. It was may of 2018, and I was lying on my floor crying because I was so despondent. Even showering, and brushing my teeth became close to impossible for me. I was completely dead spiritually, and I was ready to end my life. I was an atheist for as long as I can remember, and that night was the first time in my life I sincerely asked God to show me that he's real, and to help me, because I ran out of all my will to live. When I asked, I had a thought powerfully come to me, and it was "I have all these reasons why I don't believe in God, and I need to hear a debate between a Christian and atheist. I need to listen with an open mind and see which position makes the most sense." I went to YouTube and one of your debates popped up, and as I was listening, I was shook. I realized that God really does exist, and that the atheistic worldview was foolishness. It's a moment i'll always remember. I've heard many Christians say that nobody has ever been converted because of apologist arguments, but I am living proof that this isn't true. I'm forever grateful for the way you defend the faith. Thank you.
Jarrid
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