Reasonable Faith Podcast

Journalist Jonathan Rauch's Atlantic essay "Let It Be" argued that apatheism, simply not caring whether God exists, is a mark of civilizational progress, making society safer and less prone to religious conflict. Philosopher Paul Copan disagrees, calling it a sign of decline. Kevin and Dr. Craig work through the disagreement: what's actually at stake if the question of God goes unexamined, whether a secular society can sustain objective meaning and purpose without a theistic foundation, and whether the altruism and self-sacrifice inspired by Christian belief have any real secular equivalent. Dr. Craig also revisits his case for the absurdity of life without God, drawing on thinkers from Pascal to Nietzsche, and argues that an atheistic worldview cannot be lived out both consistently and happily. He closes with thoughts on how Christians can awaken genuine curiosity about God in a culture that has simply stopped caring.

A listener writes in with a philosophical challenge to the coherence of Christian doctrine: if God knowingly creates the exact conditions under which people will sin, how can he justly hold them responsible for sinning, and how can Christ's atonement make sense as a remedy for a failure that was effectively built into the system? Dr. Craig traces the problem to a hidden assumption in the question: theological necessitarianism, the idea that circumstances which make sin likely also make it inevitable. He argues that God's providence creates freedom-permitting circumstances, not deterministic ones, citing 1 Corinthians 10:13 on God's promise to supply a way of escape from every temptation. Craig also draws a key distinction between moral perfection, which he grants is impossible for finite creatures, and simply living without sin, using Adam and Eve's pre-fall innocence as an example of the latter without the former. He closes by addressing apostasy directly, denying that God ever places anyone in circumstances they are unable to handle. View the full Question of the Week here!

A clip of Dr. William Lane Craig discussing the eternal generation of the Son went viral a few weeks ago, picked up by Protestia and drawing heresy accusations from across the theological world. In this episode, Kevin puts those criticisms to Dr. Craig directly. Dr. Craig clarifies what he is and isn't claiming: he denies eternal generation is taught in Scripture, but affirms Christ's full deity and the rest of the Nicene Creed. He responds point by point to named critics, including Michael Carlino, Luke Stamps, Jared Moore, Father Ron Ofringa, and Dinesh D'Souza, and explains the distinction between the ontological and economic Trinity that underlies his position. The episode closes on a practical question: how should a Christian who disagrees handle reciting a creed they can't fully affirm. Show notes link: "Is God the Son Begotten in His Divine Nature?" by William Lane Craig https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/christian-doctrines/is-god-the-son-begotten-in-his-divine-nature

A reader follows up on an earlier question about annihilationism, asking Dr. Craig to unpack what it means that Christ was "momentarily separated" from the Father on the cross, given that the Trinity is indivisible. Dr. Craig explains this as a relational rather than ontological separation, then argues that annihilationism actually undermines penal substitutionary atonement, since it becomes very hard to see how Christ bore the punishment we deserved without being annihilated himself.

A reader asks Dr. Craig why God doesn't just grant humanity the beatific vision, the direct vision of God, right now, if it's the strongest possible evidence for His existence. Dr. Craig explains what the beatific vision is and why giving it to us in this life would strip away our freedom to believe, making genuine faith impossible.

A pastor trained at three seminaries and formerly on staff at a Dallas-area megachurch has said he is now an agnostic atheist, citing eight reasons for his deconversion. Dr. William Lane Craig responds to each, from the genetic fallacy and divine hiddenness to the historical Adam and the problem of evil, and points out what's conspicuously missing from the video: any engagement with the positive case for Christianity.

A listener working through Dr. Craig's book In Quest of the Historical Adam raises a pointed question about the model's implications: if Cain's wife came from outside the Adamic line, among the non-human hominins living alongside Adam and Eve, what would that mean for their children? Dr. Craig addresses the theological and biological status of such unions directly, explaining why any offspring would not bear the image of God, and why he holds that Adam and Eve remain the sole progenitors of the human race. He also flags what he considers one of the harder open questions in this area: exactly how the rational soul gets passed down from one generation to the next.

What's it actually like to exist as a disembodied soul in the intermediate state between death and resurrection? A listener writes in with real existential unease about being "unclothed" from the body, and Dr. Craig turns to philosopher H.H. Price's theory that the afterlife might work something like a dream world, where mental images take the place of sense perception and souls communicate with one another telepathically. Dr. Craig walks through how this secular philosophical framework can actually help illuminate a Christian understanding of the intermediate state.

Francis Collins and N.T. Wright recently fielded audience questions after a public conversation, several of which centered on the historicity of Adam and Eve. Collins argues that population genetics rules out a single ancestral couple, and lays out the model he finds most plausible: a couple selected out of an existing population and given something new. Wright suggests Genesis 2–3 might work the way Genesis 12 does, with Adam and Eve chosen out of a larger population the way Abraham and Sarah were chosen out of everyone else. Dr. William Lane Craig addresses both claims, including recent population-genetics research on ancient human bottlenecks, the Apostle Paul's treatment of Adam in Romans 5, and how Collins's view compares to the argument Craig makes in his own book, In Quest of the Historical Adam.

A listener from Morocco argues that beauty is like an emotion and not a property of objects, but says that doesn't make it subjective, since he considers emotions like fear objective too. Dr. William Lane Craig agrees aesthetic properties don't inhere in physical things (a chair isn't beautiful viewed from below; a piece of music's beauty isn't in the notes on a page), but rejects the "emotion in the mind" comparison itself. For Dr. Craig, fear actually is subjective, so equating beauty with it would make beauty subjective too. Instead, he holds aesthetic value is objective the same way moral value is: apprehended, not a property we find in things.