Craig's Epistemic Rule-of-Thumb: What the Man is Really Saying

Readers of our blog will be familiar with Craig's blog These Infinite Spaces. Craig rarely tackles subjects which rate high on the importance scale - unless of course you find cage wrestling on par with theological considerations – however, of late, he has composed several threads laying out his opinion (and I do stress, opinion!) on creation, the Bible and science. I won't bother going over old ground again; I just want to underscore his most basic presupposition. It requires mention because, unfortunately, it is lost, buried among all the distracting and evasive non-factual material that prevails on his threads on this combined subject.

Craig's latest disconcertingly muddleheaded comment is that “It's foolish for the Bible to be used as a cosmological textbook.” I have no desire to debate either the soundness of his claim or take issue with the appropriateness of his choice of words in this statement. Others can take up the challenge, if they so choose. What I wish to analyse is his fundamental epistemology and demonstrate how inconsistently he applies it. Furthermore, has Craig adopted a truly Christian epistemology or has he opted for an atheist one?

I seem to recall that it was Alvin Plantinga who called some beliefs properly basic. That is, there are propositions which are immediately justified and are in no further need of epistemic support or the inclusion of further beliefs: they just are. Craig, as does just about every heretic within the Sydney Anglican Diocese, asserts the proposition that the Bible isn't a cosmological textbook as though this were an instance of a properly basic belief. But is it really?

Quite clearly it isn't, because, as it stands, it is neither meaningful nor self-validating and lacks any trace of justification, inferential or explicit, notwithstanding Craig's obvious self-belief that it does possesses all these qualities. Consequently, mirroring his wholesale disdain for epistemic warrant, one is free to dismiss Craig's proposition without committing a logical faux pas.

Hidden beneath Craig's foundational belief is a more deeply rooted one, namely, 'Science Rules OK!' Without this additional supporting belief his actual articulated one makes absolutely no sense. Additionally, its particular quality needs to be understood against a universal proposition. In Craig's case it's that science is the filtering tool for all biblical statements. Without a universal Craig would be accused of, as he has been, special pleading. Craig, I've intimated, claims ex cathedra, “Heck, science is allowed to be the final arbiter on these parts of the Bible but not those.” This, you would hope, no rational man could honestly live with – but Craig, apparently, “can”.

The real point of my criticism of Craig's profoundly irresponsible epistemology is that, consistently applied, it destroys the Gospel. If science, so-called, truly is the final truth arbiter or the tool by which biblical propositions are decided to be figurative or not, then Lazarus and Christ didn't rise from the dead. Science has shown that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics rules and dead men cannot overcome entropic termination. Every day millions are seen to die and none has rise from the dead.

Of course, Craig could rightly object that God can overrule the 2nd Law. We would agree God can. However, if Craig can special plead God out of this dilemma, why then does Craig not allow God to do the same when it comes to the creation of the earth? Why does Craig not permit God to create in 6 real days, as Scripture unambiguously records he has done, but prefers to align himself with what basically amounts to a deeply offensive, non-supernatural and atheist worldview?

One thing is certain, Craig is consistently inconsistent when it comes to instances of applying his own epistemic rule-of-thumb to biblical matters.

Sydney Anglicans Gather Up Crumbs of Sin Under Adam and Abram's Table

Not long back I wrote about Abram, Sarai, Isaac and Ishmael. There is more to be said and I address it now.

To begin I cite Genesis 3:1 and use for all citations the New International Version of the Bible.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The word crafty (ārûm) in its uses in Proverbs & Job suggests wisdom and ingenuity.

Here then was the wisest of the wild animals pitted against the woman in the garden and attempting to supplant faithfulness to the Word of God for the 'prize' of man's own wisdom - a wisdom to match that of God. Man had all the good for living provided through the Word of God. However, accepting the wisdom of the serpent was to result in curse.

The questions of the serpent were calculated to imply that God was withholding knowledge from man. It was the woman (Eve) who engaged in the conversation but it is reasonably deduced that man (Adam) was nearby and aware of the dialogue.

Here then, man came to a mind that there was something more in what God had said than the straightforward message conveyed by God. To the mind of man it seemed better to take advice from the creation and look for something 'behind' the Word of God.

The sad irony is that man already had wisdom for living, having been created in the image of God. The pursuit of wisdom by man's own means was an act of unfaithfulness which brought separation from God, thus death.

Consider now the much later scene in history when a conversation occurs between the man of promise - Abram - and his wife - Sarai. Two promises of descendants had been made by the LORD God to Abram before, as recorded in Genesis 15:4 - Then the word of the LORD came to him "This man [a servant in Abram's household] will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir."

It was clear now to Abram that he would father the child through whom the great promise would be delivered.

This leads us to the later conversation between Abram and Sarai which is recorded in Genesis 16:1-4

¹Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; ² so she said to Abram, "The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. ³ So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.  He slept with Hagar and she conceived.

Note parallels in this incident with the incident in the garden recorded in Genesis 3:

16:2a (so she said [Sarai] to)

3:2 (The woman said to)

16:2b (Abram agreed to what Sarai said)

3:17 (you listened to your wife)

16:3a (Sarai ... took)

3:6a (she took some)

16:3b (and [she] gave her to her husband)

3:6b (she also gave to her husband)

The author wants us to observe these similarities in the incidents and there are more, including the declaration of curses.

Each situation arose when the characters were left to their faith for a time by the LORD. He had spoken and it remained for the characters to trust in Him despite their desired timing or deemed benefit from acting by themselves.

Instead of waiting faithfully for the Word of God to be fulfilled, Sarai trusted in the wisdom of the world through a custom of a maidservant being offered to the head of the household (tablets from Ur and Nuzi confirm the custom) for production of an heir. Notwithstanding Sarai's plan was an attempt at the fulfilment of God's promise of blessing it was, nonetheless, a revisiting of the sin of the woman in the garden as was the passive accepting of this world derived wisdom by the man in each situation.

Each attempt to achieve the mind of God was a disaster. Each attempt was nothing more than mingling worldly wisdom with the pure Word of God. It must therefore lead to failure.

Now move forward to the late 20th Century and the Sydney Anglican Diocese under influence of the errant Theistic Evolution belief of Archbishop Peter Jensen -a belief taking root in Moore Theological College since the term of Peter Jensen as Principal.

It is not a promise but a statement of fact by God recorded in Exodus 20:11:

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Make no mistake, there is no way you can draw out a Theistic Evolution or Gap Theory model of origins from that statement of God without doing serious harm to the syntax, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics of language.

The Genesis 1 account of creation is just as decisive. Yet the wisdom of man emerging within the Sydney Anglican Diocese concerning the creation account is that the author of Genesis 1 hides a hidden message through employment of literary devices, further, that God used a literary device in the Exodus rendering of the creation account. Such a school of thought throws the door wide open for all manner of interpretations of the creation account and Theistic Evolution is on the rise.

Here then you have the heretics of Sydney Anglican Diocese pursuing the same act of contempt via unfaithfulness to the Word of God displayed by Adam & Eve and Abram & Sarai. Further, the Archbishop's role is repetition of the insipid abrogation of headship by Adam and Abram to the spirit of the age. Such a course has resulted in disaster in the past and will do so again.

Neil