I'm Puzzled By This Video On Doubt

Faith & Science Conversation
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Hi Randy,
I watched the Randal Rauser video and listened the the Craig Podcast episode referenced in the Peaceful Science blog you cited with interest.

I understand that there is great sensitivity to these questions from people who have been told by certain (well-meaning) Christians in the face of questions and doubt to “just have faith.” I have even heard people tell me that their parents have told them “not to question.” I agree that such responses are unhelpful, and can also be quite harmful in the face of real genuine questions. I strongly disagree with such sentiments. Rather, I believe that God wants us to take our questions seriously and that God wants us use the intelligent human minds that God gave us to think critically and rationally about what we believe and why we believe certain things.

One of my favorite Bible verses is Isaiah 1:18

“Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord,
“Though your sins are as scarlet,
They will be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They will be like wool.

In my opinion, and from what I have previously read and heard spoken and taught by William Lane Craig, Rauser seems to be taking Craig’s words out of context and could be misrepresenting Craigs views.

As you yourself have noticed, Craig takes reasoning and scholarship seriously, which is why he has spent his career focused on apologetics and providing reasons for belief in God.

As I understood the video of Craig and what Craig says in his podcast, Craig understands that we have different ways of knowing. Craig obviously takes doubt at face value, which is why he had done so much work in the area of apologetics and has spent much time debating atheists. From what I can tell, Craig is affirming the fact that we have different ways of knowing and that those various ways of knowing can all strengthen our faith. One way of knowing is through using reasoned arguments, anther way of knowing that can be encouraging to us and our faith would be the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Unfortunately, that second way of knowing is only at the disposal of born again or believing Christians, but not available to nonbelievers). Craig is not criticizing people who struggle with doubt, rather he is looking to provide encouragement to doubters to ensure them that God can help them deal with their questions. Even in the face of unanswered questions, we can reflect on our personal experiences with the Holy Spirit as a way of helping us through our periods of doubt. Obviously, Craig wants people to think and reason through their faith, which is why he himself has articulated rational arguments for the Christian faith. At the same time, Craig also wants to provide hope and encouragement that God can provide us with the knowledge of Himself through the Holy Spirit, even in the midst of our periods of doubt.

Since there are good reasons to believe, we can rest assured that God can handle our questions. We can take our questions to God and God can provide us answers and assurance of our faith. I have done this myself and have found those times doubt followed by hearing from God to ultimately deepen my faith. So I think God uses our doubts to draw us closer to Him.

God does not judge us for doubting (and Craig does not claim otherwise). A clear example of such lack of judgement is how Jesus responded to the disciple Thomas’ doubts: Jesus gave Thomas the experience Thomas needed to believe in Jesus.

John 20:24-29

24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

26 After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus *came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then He *said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” 28 Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus *said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

Craig himself has had his own struggles with questions, and takes them head on, as I learned while watching this recent video of him talking about his search for Adam and Eve. See the angst that he expresses starting at minute 38 in that video. I admire Craig’s ability to wrestle with these difficult questions.

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Thanks.for your excellent and detailed (and kind) response, @MOls. Michelle. I think you’ve done well. One element that I regret is that my title seemed to single out Dr Craig too much. I have therefore changed the title not to reflect his name (as long as it’s ok with the moderators). I apologize to Dr Craig and others for putting it that way.
I am going to have to read more (and likely purchase his book in addition to listening to all of the podcast that was transcribed, as well as your good link to Dr Swamidass’ interview.).
However, if you look up the Wikipedia on Reformed epistemology, it reviews different types, with similar critiques Reformed epistemology - Wikipedia. Van Til, who worked on presuppositional apologetics, adhered to this. Rauser actually is in some degree in favor of this sort, and his master’s thesis was on reformed epistemology. He posted another video on that, which I’ll review and post later. So, as my initial exposure to this sort of thinking was with Dr Craig, I addressed it with that video; but I’m piecing some of the actual roots together, and it seems to stem from a deeper root. I should have addressed it in that form, and I’ll try to do that as I’m understanding it better.

I would agree that most of the Bible can be used to refute the idea of God blaming us for honest doubt–especially the Psalms :).

Thanks.

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I’ve been on vacation this week, and have been able to do some more listening. I learned that Dr Rauser actually does favor Reformed epistemology. His main difference with William Lane Craig is that our internal witness can be undermined (as Plantenga says). Now, Dr Craig says in his podcast that he agrees with Plantenga; but I’m not sure that’s quite accurate, as he says that the hard evidence is from inside, not from outside. If one Christian has to inform another about the evidence of an internal witness, then it seems that this occurrence alone is a good argument against Reformed epistemology. I am also buying the Audible version of “Reasonable Faith,” and will perhaps bring more thoughts.

Dr Craig alludes to Romans 1:20,

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

I question this application.

Randal Rauser discusses how. RC Sproul used Romans 1:20 when he addressed a group of atheists, and after coming to an end, he said,

I’m giving you arguments for the existence of God, but I feel like I’m carrying coals to Newcastle, because I have to tell you that I do not have to prove to you that God exists, because I think you already know it. Your problem is not that you do not know that God exists; your problem is that you despise the God whom you know exists. Your problem is not intellectual–it is moral; you hate God.

Rauser points out that, besides shutting down conversation by insulting his hearers, reading Romans 1:20 this way implies that anyone who fails at any time is sinfully repressing God’s obvious existence in nature. This excludes autistic people who have difficulty with abstract perceptions, holy people like Mother Theresa who doubt, and potentially others.

To me, God does not appear to use the Reformed epistemology to attract people to the faith or retain them.
Doesn’t the question then rise–when will God make things just? It appears that we can only rely on justice coming out in the wash–because God would not blame us for belief that we can’t help.

Thanks.
I’d appreciate your thoughts and critiques.

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The problem with Van Til’s presuppositional approach is that it exaggerates the “noetic effects of sin” on the mind (i.e. “their thinking became futile…”). In his system, every thought of an unbeliever is tainted by sin. “Total depravity” prevents them from objectively weighing the evidence for Christian belief, so traditional apologetics using historical evidence or philosophical arguments are doomed to fail.

Here’s a good short article on Presuppositional Apologetics by John Frame. TL/DR: It’s a circular form of argument.

That’s using “hard evidence” in the opposite way that most people understand the term. Hard evidence is objective; internal evidence is subjective.

I don’t follow you here.

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Thanks for your clear thoughts. Sorry I was not.
I get the impression that in order to justify our impression of God and also of Romans 1:20, we very understandably make a claim which the Bible never makes: that God assures us of His truth all the time. If that were true, why would we even require to tell the gospel by word of mouth? (Rom 1:20 refers to general knowledge, not Christian, anyway I think).

Things really don’t seem fair in regards to truth. Where we are born, our mental abilities, and many other factors all decide whether we believe or keep our belief. It seems we can rely on God to be ultimately just as He knows our frame…He remembers that we are dust.

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Yes, I believe that to be true

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The conversation due to this interview is very interesting, so I apologize if I’m not keeping on point. @Randy, it is also my impression that this passage is about general knowledge, but I wonder if you or anyone has a deeper understanding of what it is communicating? I’ve heard it used quite often by Christians to declare (and usually scoff) that nonbelievers are responsible for seeing the Truth of God just by looking at how beautiful and powerful creation is. And something like, “how is it possible not to look outside and believe in God?” I agree this brings up the question of why we would need to speak the gospel (which implies relationship, which is clearly important to God). Some thoughts are:

  1. Considering my amateur interest in cultural anthropology, to my mind it seems that those who assume looking at nature is enough to believe in God is related to the privileges we do have in our wealth and comfort, and thus quite a Western society-centric interpretation. Some people don’t have to leave their homes to know of a humanitarian crisis in their lives, and as far as I know, no people group has come to this conclusion of saving faith in God, and instead create their own distinct religions.
  2. Romans 1:19, right before Paul says God’s invisible qualities are clearly seen, says, “since what may be known about God is plain to them, BECAUSE GOD has made it plain to them.” Is this passage referring only to those that God has opened the eyes of, those seed scattered among different terrain and ultimately respond differently to the knowledge of God due their hearts?
    And 3. Could this passage be encouraging us to take seriously what the body of scientific evidence says about nature, how it was created, and that we find MORE of God’s character digging into the different scientific disciplines? (Such as fossils can show us God’s abundance, 13+ billion years before His image bearers arrive show God’s patience, etc.)

There seems to be so much opportunity for awe and wonder in discovery, and therefore much room for doubt when that is not being pursued.

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I want to echo that I appreciate Dr Craig’s vulnerability and humility here. Thank you for that video. . I enjoyed thoroughly the interaction he had with Dr Swamidass. You could tell that coming from different viewpoints, they nevertheless enjoyed and learned from each other. I am in the process of listening to “Reasonable Faith” and am finding that it is a call away from anti intellectualism. I am looking forward to it. I will try to post a book review on it sometime. I am sure he will teach me a lot.

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What do you mean by this phrase?

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Sorry; I was unclear. He starts like Mark Noll in “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” in warning that fundamentalism alone will forget to worship God with our minds, and that anti intellectualism tends to result in marginalization of the faith. I have only started the book yesterday,but it is great so far.

On the eve of the Fundamentalist Controversy, the great Princeton theologian J. Gresham Machen solemnly warned, False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the Gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation to be controlled by ideas which prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion.1 Unfortunately, Machen’s warning went unheeded, and biblical Christianity retreated into the intellectual closet of Fundamentalism. Anti-intellectualism and second-rate scholarship became the norm.

I don’t mean that to sound negative; I mean that to be appreciative. It looks like a good book. Noll was terrific. The video was great too. Thanks.

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Sounds great. Thanks for sharing!

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I appreciate your thoughts here. Yes, it does near that sort of deep thinking.

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