William Lane Craig, Evil and God as Thomas Hardy
One article by William Lane Craig can be read here http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/menmoved.html and is about how God managed to get a Bible written.
William Lane Craig seems to have a very strange view of God’s objectives when creating a universe.
It is just an incredible product of a human brain. Something that nobody could have written , unless they sincerely believed that what they were writing made sense.
According to Craig, one of God’s objectives was to have a Bible written, presumably God also felt it had to be in Hebrew and Greek.
I quote Craig ' Because God knew the relevant counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, He was able to decree a world containing just those circumstances and persons such that the authors of Scripture would freely compose their respective writings, which God intended to be His gracious Word to us. In the providence of God, the Bible is thus both the Word of God and the word of man.'
Before anything was ever created, God decided what would go in the Bible. That's providence for you.
God wanted a story of Adam and Eve rebelling, so God knew the only way to get that in the Bible was to create a world where Adam and Eve would rebel.
Pointless God creating a world where nobody rebelled, for there would not have been his gracious Word to us.
Similarly, before God had ever created Egyptians, God wanted a Bible which recorded how He had all the first-born of Egypt killed.
And God also wanted the slavery of the Israelites in his book, so God knew that, whatever happened, he had to create a world where the Israelites would be enslaved – or else his book would never get written.
But God faced a problem. There were worlds where Adam and Eve did not rebel, worlds where Pharoah let the Israelites go, and worlds where the Israelites were never enslaved in the first place.
So God felt constrained not to create those worlds.
If he did not create a world with evil in it, then no evil could be recorded in his Bible, and one of God’s main objectives was to have the Bible written.
This is God as Thomas Hardy. Thomas Hardy wanted rather gloomy books, so he made sure the characters in his books met adversity at almost every turn.
This really is Craig’s view, just read the article - 'By arranging for the authors of Scripture to be in the appropriate circumstances, God can achieve a Scripture which is a product of human authors and also is His Word.'
God wanted a Bible with descriptions of evils in it, so he had to create a world with evil in it. A world with earthquakes, floods and plagues is a word with what Craig calls 'appropriate circumstances' for God.
But why would God, before the creation of anything, have an objective of wanting a Bible with descriptions of evil events in it?
Did God really want salvation for mankind so badly, that he felt forced to create a world where people fell, so that he could then save them , with the Bible for which he providentially arranged circumstances such that, for example, somebody would write 'Happy is he who takes your children and dashes them against the rocks.'
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William Lane Craig seems to have a very strange view of God’s objectives when creating a universe.
It is just an incredible product of a human brain. Something that nobody could have written , unless they sincerely believed that what they were writing made sense.
According to Craig, one of God’s objectives was to have a Bible written, presumably God also felt it had to be in Hebrew and Greek.
I quote Craig ' Because God knew the relevant counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, He was able to decree a world containing just those circumstances and persons such that the authors of Scripture would freely compose their respective writings, which God intended to be His gracious Word to us. In the providence of God, the Bible is thus both the Word of God and the word of man.'
Before anything was ever created, God decided what would go in the Bible. That's providence for you.
God wanted a story of Adam and Eve rebelling, so God knew the only way to get that in the Bible was to create a world where Adam and Eve would rebel.
Pointless God creating a world where nobody rebelled, for there would not have been his gracious Word to us.
Similarly, before God had ever created Egyptians, God wanted a Bible which recorded how He had all the first-born of Egypt killed.
And God also wanted the slavery of the Israelites in his book, so God knew that, whatever happened, he had to create a world where the Israelites would be enslaved – or else his book would never get written.
But God faced a problem. There were worlds where Adam and Eve did not rebel, worlds where Pharoah let the Israelites go, and worlds where the Israelites were never enslaved in the first place.
So God felt constrained not to create those worlds.
If he did not create a world with evil in it, then no evil could be recorded in his Bible, and one of God’s main objectives was to have the Bible written.
This is God as Thomas Hardy. Thomas Hardy wanted rather gloomy books, so he made sure the characters in his books met adversity at almost every turn.
This really is Craig’s view, just read the article - 'By arranging for the authors of Scripture to be in the appropriate circumstances, God can achieve a Scripture which is a product of human authors and also is His Word.'
God wanted a Bible with descriptions of evils in it, so he had to create a world with evil in it. A world with earthquakes, floods and plagues is a word with what Craig calls 'appropriate circumstances' for God.
But why would God, before the creation of anything, have an objective of wanting a Bible with descriptions of evil events in it?
Did God really want salvation for mankind so badly, that he felt forced to create a world where people fell, so that he could then save them , with the Bible for which he providentially arranged circumstances such that, for example, somebody would write 'Happy is he who takes your children and dashes them against the rocks.'
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posted by Steven Carr at 1:13 PM
4 Comments:
That is exactly Craig's view.
God wanted a world where some people would not believe in him.
' God prefers certain worlds in which some persons fail to receive Christ and are damned to certain worlds in which all receive Christ and are saved.'
This is one example of the ridiculous lengths that Craig is forced to go in order to defend Christianity. It's absolutely laughable to me, now that I'm on the other side of the fence.
Are you denying that Craig believes that God wanted some people to go to hell, so that God's chosen could be saved?
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/middle2.html
'It is up to God whether we find ourselves in a world in which we are predestined, but it is up to us whether we are predestined in the world in which we find ourselves.'
Craig claims there is a world where I freely choose salvation, and a world where I do not freely choose salvation.
Craig also claims 'it is up to God' which of those worlds is created.
Despite Craig stating outright that it is up to God whether people are saved or not, he still contrives to blame the damned for not being in a world that God deliberately chose not to create.
As for Craig's logic that he uses to defend his position, my blog has shown that Craig's doctrine of Molinism is quite correct, but that it does not help him justify his position.
Would you like to refute my proof that Craig's Molinism is correct?
http://stevencarrwork.blogspot.com/2005/11/william-lane-craig-molinism-and.html
Don quite forgets to produce any rational arguments.
How can he, when Craig himself claims God wanted a Bible with descriptions of evil in it, so arranged circumstancs where he knew people would write about evil.
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