Dear Friends of Reasonable Faith,
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Incredibly, Ukrainian forces have won the Battle for Kiev, and we have witnessed unbelievable displays of valor by the beleaguered defenders of Mariupol. Now the Ukrainian people are facing a new Russian onslaught in the east. Will Western leaders give them the help they need to withstand it? If Putin’s forces are repulsed in the east, it’s not at all unlikely that he will resort to tactical nuclear weapons. It would then be hard to see how US forces could avoid becoming involved. The future is uncertain and fraught with danger. Pray for our political and military leaders that they will not be intimidated by Putin’s threats, while they walk the tightrope of making wise responses.
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The ministry highlight of the month of April was the conference on the historical Adam sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. The background of this conference lay in my desire to put together a “four views” book on the historical Adam which would feature not only my view but conflicting views of three other scholars. I wanted to have a representative of the “recent genealogical Adam” view, so we secured Andrew Loke of the University of Hong Kong to defend that position. I also wanted a representative of a “liberal” or “progressive” view that denies the existence of a historical Adam, so I got Kenton Sparks of Eastern University in Pennsylvania. Finding someone to represent the “young earth creationist” view was harder. The first two persons I invited were so paranoid that they feared this was a set-up, so they refused to participate. But I was adamant that we had to have the young earth view represented. We were finally able to get Marcus Ross, a professor of geology at Liberty University, on board. Ken Keathley, a theologian at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary who has been long engaged in these discussions, agreed to serve as the editor of the book, which will be published by Broadman & Holman. It was Ken who then organized the conference as a sort of working panel in preparation for the eventual book.
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We began by exchanging our prospective chapters. That really brought some surprises! For example, I thought that Sparks would treat Genesis 1-11 as pure myth, having no historical value and so requiring no commitment to the historical Adam. What a surprise to discover that Sparks takes Genesis even more literally than Ross, the young earth creationist! Sparks believes, like Ross, that the Genesis creation stories were intended to be read literally. The difference between them is that Ross thinks that they are literally true, whereas Sparks thinks that they are literally false! The fact that Sparks is more of a literalist than Ross is evident from the fact that Sparks thinks that Genesis teaches that there is a literal, hard dome over the earth in which the sun, moon, and stars are embedded, whereas I’m confident that Ross does not.
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 | "Noah and His Ark"
Charles Willson Peale (after Charles Catton), 1819.
Courtesy of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
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| Equally curious is the fact that Ross not only agrees that Neanderthals and Denisovans were fully human, but he thinks that even earlier Homo species were also human. In fact, he speculates that Noah was Homo erectus! He says that after disembarking from the ark Homo erectus spread throughout the earth and developed into the other human species. In other words, the young earther on the panel believes in human evolution to a greater extent than I do! Of, course, the difference is that he thinks that all this happened in about 400 years between the end of the Flood and the call of Abraham. So the book’s contributors took some rather unexpected positions!
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Alas, however, as the Scottish poet Robert Burns put it, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.” The very eve of the conference I was absolutely hammered with what turned out to be coronavirus along with pneumonia! So I had no choice but to cancel my participation in the conference at the last minute. When Jan and I reported to the local clinic, they sent me directly to the emergency room at the hospital for admission. My oxygen levels in my blood were too low to permit the treatment for COVID-19 that they wanted to administer. So I had to be admitted to the hospital for five days in order to get the oxygen levels up. In the end it was really the pneumonia, not the coronavirus, that proved to be the principal challenge. Today is my first day back home, and Jan is taking good care of me on the way to a full recuperation.
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During April prior to falling ill, I continued to teach my weekly Defenders class and to record a new batch of podcasts with Kevin Harris. I also did an interview for a podcast out of Romania with our Reasonable Faith European chapter directors as well as an interview out of Norway in connection with the release of On Guard in Norwegian. Finally, I did an interview with a very popular podcast called “Got Questions?” We talked about my current work on the doctrine of the Trinity, especially about the biblical basis for affirming the deity of Christ. It was a heartfelt and uplifting discussion!
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Systematic Philosophical Theology
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This last month I finished writing the section on the biblical basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. What I wanted to show is that the Bible affirms that (1) there is exactly one God and (2) there are exactly three persons who are God. The most important fact to show is that the New Testament affirms that Christ is God. Although there are many, many ways to show this, I decided to take the most straightforward route and show that in several places the New Testament says that Christ is God.
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This is truly remarkable because in that day the word “God” was usually understood to refer to God the Father. New Testament Christians obviously didn’t want to affirm that Christ is the Father, so they had to find other ways of expressing his deity than calling him God. So, for example, they picked up the name of God Kyrios (= Lord) in the Greek Old Testament and called Jesus “Lord” and cited Old Testament passages referring to God and applied them to Jesus (e.g., Romans 10.9-13)!
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On a few occasions, though, New Testament writers seem to lose all restraint and come right out and say that Jesus is God. Here are those passages:
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from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 9.5)
we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. (Titus 2.13)
through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. (II Peter 1.1)
But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” (Hebrews 1.8)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
(John 1.1)
No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known. (John 1.18)
Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20.28)
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. (I John 5.20)
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As you can imagine, many people have tried to dispute the force of these passages. For example, some have said that the phrase “our God and Savior Jesus Christ” in Titus 2.13 and II Peter 1.1 actually refers to two persons, the Father and the Son. But this interpretation is ruled out by a principle of Greek grammar known as Sharp’s Canon, which requires that a conjunction governed by a single definite article (as this is) is a unit having a single referent. Again in Romans 9.5 and I John 5.20, the nearest antecedent to the pronouns translated “who” and “he” is “Christ” (“Messiah”). There are no grounds for linking them to a most distant antecedent. Hebrews 1.8 is a quotation from Psalm 45.7 in the Greek Old Testament addressed to God Himself and, in combination with Hebrews 1.10 addresses the Son as both “God” and “Lord.” When we get to the passages in John’s Gospel, these are virtually universally acknowledged to refer to Christ as God.
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In each of the above examples the wide majority of biblical scholars agree that Christ is referred to as God.
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The remaining question, then, is whether in calling Christ “God” the New Testament writers mean this in the fullest sense. That question is convincingly answered by the New Testament’s advocating worship of Christ. Scholars have shown that although titles like “God” can be used hyperbolically of exalted men or major angels, these sorts of beings are never the object of worship in Judaism. Fiercely monotheistic, Jews reserved worship for God alone. Thus, the worship of Jesus, such as we have in Matthew 14. 22-33 or Revelation 4-5 proves that Christ was regarded as being as fully God as the Father was.
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So if the Father is God and the Son is God, and there is only one God, doesn’t it follow that the Father is the Son? Ah, that is a question for the philosophical theologian! Stay tuned!
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Thank you to all of you who expressed your heartfelt concern for me during my hospital stay and for your many prayers! We so appreciate your loving concern for us both.
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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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