Book Review: A Reasonable Response
A Reasonable Response by William Lane Craig and Joseph Gorra, is a compilation of Dr. Craig's most insightful and instructive Q&A exchanges. The book is meant to be a "celebration and an example of the practice and ministry of answering questions." [1] The questions are organized in six broad categories: (a) Knowing and Believing What Is Real, (b) God, (c) Origins and the Meaning of Life, (d) the Afterlife and Evil, (e) Jesus Christ and Being His Disciple and (f) Issues of Christian Practice.
In addition to the actual Q&A exchanges, Joseph Gorra gives extra `insights' to aid the reader in understanding Craig's suppositions and approaches. He also provides a preface before each category that includes expectations, contextual comments, learning objectives, and additional resources.
Even though the reader may find it tempting to dive immediately into one of the question/answer topics, do not do it. The Introduction, "A Meditation on the Practice and Ministry of Answering Questions," is worth the price of the book. It offers a splendid view of the forest before your journey into the trees. And more than that, Gorra challenges the reader to consider why you are compelled to investigate the trees in the first place.
Introduction
What is the secret to a fruitful ministry of answering questions? Gorra points out that those who can answer a question well have first wrestled with the question themselves and are able to help others come to know the answer. This practice of inquiring helps us cultivate the virtue of humility because question-asking creatures are more likely to understand the reality that there is much more to know. William Lane Craig has modeled this virtue in his ministry of answering questions. Gorra challenges those who have this ministry not to fall into the habit of living as if their scholarship is for the academy and close themselves off from the world. His antidote for the `know it all' is to develop Christian virtues. Gorra refers the reader to JP Moreland's five groups of virtues from Love Your God with All Your Mind [2] and their importance in developing a Christian mind. If you have not already read Moreland's book, you might as well put it at the top of your reading list. You will add many more to your list as you work through each category of questions with their recommended resources.
Is question-asking inherent to human nature? Gorra asserts it is one of the aspects of being made in the image of God. In other words, we are designed to be curious, to reason and discover reality. This makes sense from my experience. I have always thought the best part of a speaker event was the Q&A session afterward. I suspect this is also true for others because the university students at our Ratio Christi [3] events seem to never tire of asking questions during Q&A time. In fact, I depend on this `curiosity' aspect of humanity in our Ratio Christi meetings. One of our goals for our skeptical atheist friends is to challenge them to question certain aspects of their worldview that do not correspond to reality. The Holy Spirit can then use a nagging question that needs an answer to bring a skeptic closer to Ultimate Reality, God Himself. Gorra sets the tone for the Q&A sections of the book with this thought, "Apologetics is not a sport: a kind of intellectual Ping-Pong. It is intentional answering for the sake of growth." [4]
Questions and Answers
The reader may choose to read individual Q&A exchanges out of order, but the sections are arranged logically and they build on one another. Most people will no doubt be helped by the content of Dr. Craig's responses. That being said, I was surprised at how often I was impacted by how he answered the questions. To show what I mean, I have chosen to summarize three Q&A exchanges as examples of the content (what) and the tone (how) of Craig's answers.
1) Is it arbitrary to adopt God's nature as the Good? [5]
The questioner objects to Divine Command Theory. His trouble centers on his presupposition that God's moral qualities are contingent properties, which could be different in different possible worlds. Craig's response corrects the questioner's assumption and emphasizes that God's moral qualities are an essential part of His nature. There is no possible world in which God is not kind, impartial, gracious, and loving. Further, Craig defines the concept of God as the greatest conceivable being: a necessary, metaphysically ultimate being, one that is worthy of worship. On this view, "it is greater to be the Good than merely to reflect it." Therefore, taking God to be the ultimate explanatory stopping point is plausible and certainly not arbitrary.
The following phrases from this response reflect Dr. Craig's tone and his ability to get to the heart of the objection:
* Nice to hear from you!
* This question is, I think, mis-phrased...
* The important question is...
* Again, I think the wording of the question might be improved...
* What is of interest is what I should do under the envisioned circumstances.
* After stating the questioner's understanding of Craig's view, Craig says: But this isn't the model I defend!
* Your analogy presupposes...
* I think what this objection is really getting at is the claim that it's somehow arbitrary to adopt God's nature as the Good.
2) Is God's existence evident to every sincere seeker? [6]
The questioner objects to the claim that God will be evident to every sincere seeker because he knows people who have "sincerely sought God, but couldn't find Him." Dr. Craig responds by explaining why he believes that sincere seekers will come to know God. We have good reasons to believe that Jesus is the revelation of God (read Reasonable Faith) and Jesus makes the claim in Matthew 7:7-8 that those who seek will find. Dr. Craig clarifies that seeking is more than merely an intellectual inquiry, but is rather a genuine soul searching. The problem is that we are in no position to judge a person's sincerity. The truth is that people have an incredible capacity for rationalization and self-deception with regard to their own evaluation of their sincerity about seeking God.
The following phrases/footnotes from this response are helpful in learning `how' to answer questions:
* A true seeker will persist...Don't give up! Keep searching, and you will find God.
* This is not to say that every non-Christian who claims to have sought God is lying. Self-deception is possible.
* Dr. Craig offers four resources [7] to emphasize the need for further understanding of the human capacity for self-deception.
* As for your examples, the last two are just silly...
* By contrast, the first two examples deserve to be taken very seriously.
* Now, I realize that my saying these things makes atheists see red! But that is no argument, and they need to ask themselves...
3) How do you deal with doubts? [8]
The questioner is tortured with unanswered questions and would like to feel more secure in his beliefs. Dr. Craig's response points him to a secure belief, while continuing to search out answers to his questions. The proper ground of our knowing the truths of the gospel to be true is the inner work of the Holy Spirit. Argument and evidence play an essential role in our showing Christianity to be true. Dr. Craig recommends Plantinga's book Warranted Christian Belief [9] as a good resource. For you to experience this kind of knowing it is imperative that you are a regenerate Christian. If you have not been born anew of the Holy Spirit, then you lack His witness within you. Is your faith just an intellectual belief or is God a living reality in your life? If you are a regenerate Christian, then cultivate the spiritual disciplines, namely prayer, confession, Bible study, worship, baptism, the Lord's Supper, and evangelism. Craig concludes by encouraging him to have a `question bag' filled with unresolved difficulties. Take out one question at a time and pursue the answer diligently. Remember, you can live confidently even while having unanswered questions because the grounding of your faith is the Spirit's witness. This is the key to preventing unanswered questions from becoming destructive doubts.
The following phrases from this response are helpful when dealing with someone who is suffering with many questions and doubts.
* I admire your courage and your honesty...
* Be assured that many great men and women of God have traveled that same path before you and have not lost faith.
* To speak personally...(Dr. Craig shared is life story)
* Why are you reading those infidel websites anyway?
* Doubt is not just a matter of academic debate; it involves a battle for your very soul. Satan can use doubt to immobilize you.
* One will always have unanswered questions.
* I don't know the answer to your question of whether your doubts will suddenly come to an end.
Questioning a particular Response [10]
I disagree with Dr. Craig regarding the Q&A entitled "On Evolutionary Theory and Theism." He claims that there would be no debate between evolutionists and theists if both sides would clarify their terms, namely "undirected," "purposeless," and "random." He asserts that most evolutionists (citing Francisco Ayala and Daryl Domning) are not using these terms to represent the philosophy of naturalism in their view of evolution, but only to describe the scientific mechanism. Craig goes on to say if they were referring to naturalism, "...then evolutionary theory would be enormously presumptuous, since science is just not in a position to say with any justification that there is no divinely intended direction or goal of the evolutionary process." [11] Yet, this is precisely the point of most debates on the subject.
First of all, I think Richard Dawkins, Douglas Futuyma, Gaylord Simpson, Stephen Jay Gould, Kenneth Miller, and other prominent evolutionary biologists (except Ayala and Domning) will heartily disagree with Craig's assessment. Their definition of evolution includes the terms "undirected" and "purposeless" in the philosophical sense. [12] And yes it is "enormously presumptuous." After all, we are obliged to represent evolutionary biologists as they represent themselves and I do not think Dr. Craig has represented the predominant view of evolution, which assumes it is undirected and purposeless.
Second, Dr. Craig mentions that God could have put certain laws and initial conditions in place to ensure that crucial mutations led to evolutionary transitions to create biological complexity. However, Stephen Meyer and Douglas Axe have demonstrated that the chemistry of DNA is not governed by a chemical law that influences the DNA sequence. Therefore, a hands-on designer would be necessary to guide the mutations in such a way as to generate new functional genetic sequences. [13]
Having said this, I agree with Dr. Craig that theists and scientists should correct naturalists who assert that the evolutionary process is "not oriented toward any goal." To model Dr. Craig's tone of answering questions, I would suggest that the more important question to ask when conversing with an evolutionary biologist about evolution and theism is, "Do you presuppose the philosophy of naturalism in your view of Neo-Darwinian evolution?" Clarifying assumptions and terms should lead the way in any discussion.
Appendices [14]
Gorra offers suggestions for using the book in a small group setting in Appendix 1. Appendix 2 encourages question-asking and answer-seeking as a way of life in the family and in the church. If you are struggling to get an apologetics ministry started in your church, this is a must read. Gorra gives nine models for apologetics in the local church, complete with advice on how to avoid common mistakes. Appendix 3 gives a framework for civility in the context of real disagreements in online discussions. Gorra gives ten factors that should represent our conversations. The fifth one stands out: What does it mean to be open-minded? It involves the ability to transcend a default standpoint in order to take seriously a distinct standpoint. In other words, hold your standpoint more like a hypothesis and another standpoint also as a hypothesis to be tested, and not merely tested for the sake of being assessed but to be understood. [15] In addition, Gorra offers twenty general recommendations toward more civil online engagement. If you are frustrated with the lack of civil discourse in our culture, you will definitely benefit from this last appendix.
Take-aways
This book has a wealth of information for those who have or desire to have a ministry of answering questions. I leave you with three take-aways:
1) When answering a question, remember to commend the questioner, minimize the hurdles, pinpoint presuppositions, clarify their objections, pose a more interesting question about the topic, show excitement about the topic, respect disagreements among scholars, and try to give more than one view if possible.
2) When crafting an argument, remember to make the intellectual price tag of their worldview as high as you can so the objector will find it very distasteful to compromise his intellectual integrity. Offer a valid argument based on premises he knows to be true with a conclusion he simply does not want to accept! [16]
3) Purchase Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig. This book is listed most often as a resource in almost every subject category. I own it and refer to it often.
[1] See A Reasonable Response, page 15.
[2] J. P. Moreland, Love Your God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul, revised and updated (Colorado Springs, CO; NavPress, 2012), 121-27.
[3] For more information about Ratio Christi, go to [...].
[4] See A Reasonable Response, page 42.
[5] See A Reasonable Response, pages 95-99.
[6] See A Reasonable Response, pages 131-135.
[7] Resources on this topic: I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life, by Gregg A. Ten Elshof; The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief by James S. Spiegel; The Logic of the Heart: Augustine, Pascal, and the Rationality of Faith by James R. Peters; Desperately Wicked: Philosophy, Christianity and the Human Heart by Patrick Downey.
[8] See A Reasonable Response, pages 311-319.
[9] Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford University Press, 2003).
[10] See A Reasonable Response, pages 218-241.
[11] See A Reasonable Response, page 239.
[12] See claims in the following resources: Richard Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker, 6; Gaylord Simpson in The Meaning of Evolution, 344; Stephen Jay Gould in Ever Since Darwin, 33, 147, 267; Douglas Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, 5; Kenneth Miller in Finding Darwin's God, 291.
[13] See "Teleological Evolution: The Difference it Doesn't Make" by Stephen Meyer, excerpted from Darwinism Defeated? The Johnson-Lamoureux Debate over Biological Origins, January 1, 1999.
[14] See A Reasonable Response, pages 365-413.
[15] See A Reasonable Response, page 401.
[16] See A Reasonable Response, page 156.
Julie Miller is the Chapter Director and chaplain of Ratio Christi at Rutgers University. She holds an MA in Christian Apologetics from Biola University.
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