The Eric Metaxas Show - William Lane Craig — Reason and Faith

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

Eric sits down with renowned apologist Dr. William Lane Craig to explore humanity’s earliest records and the deep connections between Christian doctrine and philosophy.

Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blobs starring Steve McQueen? The blood-curdling threat of The Blob. Well, way back when, Eric had a small part in that film, but they had to cut his scene because The Blob was supposed to eat him. But he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest.

Eric the Texas! Welcome to Socrates in the studio. I'm in the studio. And I have the privilege today of speaking to someone whom I've never met, but of whom I have long been aware. His name is Dr. William Lane Craig. And I will read the brief bio on the back of his newest book, only because there is so much else that we could be here for half an hour listing his great accomplishments.

He is Emeritus Research Professor of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology in La Marada, California, although he tells me he lives in Atlanta in the Atlanta area. He's a distinguished theologian and philosopher and has authored or edited more than 60 books, including the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, as well as more than 300 articles in professional. publications of philosophy and theology. Dr. Craig, welcome to Socrates in the city. Thank you, Eric. I'm delighted to have the chance to talk with you today. Socrates in the city began 25 years ago, and it's a, you know, it's a simple concept. Socrates, obviously, a philosopher, you know, if not the philosopher, depending on who you speak with.

But he famously said the unexamined life is not worth living. And we thought, what a great idea. Let's examine life. Let's talk about the big questions, what I semi-jokingly call life, God, and other small topics. So because I have this, you know, simple view that if you're searching for the truth, you can find it. And that's part of what we do here. But we rarely are on the nose in talking about God or the existence of God. I often say that we examine questions such as, you know, does God exist?

Can we know whether he exists? But I don't know in all the years of doing Socrates in the city whether we have actually asked that question and or had anybody, well, I'm sure we've had people qualified to answer the question. I could have asked Dr. Peter Craft or any number of people. But we've never gone there, so to speak. But you have practically made a career. of asking and answering that question, whether God exists, how we can know it. So I want to talk to

you about that. I want to tell the audience before I begin that of all the books you have written, I'm holding in my hand the most recent. It is volume one of systematic philosophical theology, prologomena on scripture on faith. Volume 1. I'm not normally intimidated by mere titles, but I am intimidated by the title. I wouldn't dare crack this book unless I felt an obligation to do so, which of course I did since I'm talking to you today. But I want to get to the book, obviously, but I want to ask you more generally some questions about, and we can just have fun going in any direction. but what you seem to deal with, what you've been dealing with for decades,

seems to me to ask the larger question whether we can know that God exists. So there's the question, does God exist? And then there's the other question, can we know whether God exists? Because I remember in my life thinking, perhaps God exists before that I knew, knew that he did. But wondering whether I could know that he existed, if he existed. What led you originally into asking the big questions? These are the ultimate questions of philosophy. It was the fact that as a teenager who did not have a personal relationship with God, I felt deeply the darkness and despair of a life that was doomed to extinction in death. It seemed to me that the prospect of my death put a question mark behind the meaning, value,

and purpose of my life, and I saw no way out. I only learned much later when I went to university that my questions and how I felt was poignantly expressed by the French existentialist philosophers, like Jean-Balzart and Albert Camus, who claimed that life is abys, who claimed that life is abysed. I didn't realize that the sort of despair and meaninglessness that I felt had been previously already articulated with great eloquence and insight by this movement within French philosophy called existentialism. And so when I eventually read those writers in college, I really resonated with what they were saying, because in my pre-Christian days,

I felt deeply that absurdity of life that they as atheists described. And so this, I think, helped to motivate me in my search to find God, to find meaning, value, and purpose in life. The dissatisfaction that some of us feel that Camus and Sart obviously felt with the idea that there is no God and the universe is therefore meaningless, absurd, that dissatisfaction, it seems to me is a clue that God does exist, the very idea that we would be dissatisfied, because it seems to me that if there were no God, why would we expect there to be or care, I guess is the bigger question?

Many people have articulated an argument like that. it's often called the argument from desire. In my own work, I tend to view these considerations as a sort of introduction, or to use the word you mentioned before, prologamon, to actually presenting an apologetic case for Christianity. I think it's a way of awakening in the apathetic unbeliever, a sense of the importance of this question so as to motivate him to begin to seek. I think apathy is a far greater obstacle to believe in God than hostility or atheism is.

And so the first task I think we need to undertake is to awaken in the unbeliever a sense of the human predicament and of the importance of this question. Well, it's interesting you put it that way because I recently watched in preparation for this your debate, I guess it's around 15 years ago, I think, with Christopher Hitchens. And he seems to me, I guess, the differentiation you make between apathy and hostility. I don't know that I would accept that because I sometimes think that they're very related. actually, or they can be related. I mean, there are people who are genuinely apathetic, but apathy, I wonder if some apathy

isn't a choice that we don't want to excite whatever it is that might make us look too hard in a direction, because on some level, we sense that there may be answers that we don't like. I think that the so-called new atheists represented by people, like Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, were anything but apathetic. They were deeply invested in this question. But I'm thinking here more of that person who is your co-worker or friend who just doesn't have any interest in this. He's preoccupied with entertainment, sports, fashions, culture, things of that sort, and never bothers to really think about these deep questions.

And certainly, you couldn't accuse the new atheists of being apathetic in that sense. A major retail chain just canceled a massive order, leaving My Pillow with an overstock of the classic My Pillows, and this is your gain, because for a limited time, my Pillow is offering their entire classic collection at true wholesale prices. Get a standard My Pillow for just 1798. Want more? Upgrade to Queen's size, for only 2298 or king size for 2498. Snag body pillows for 2998 and versatile multi-use pillows for just 998. Give your bet a whole new pillow set only while supplies last. Visit mypillow.com today.

Use promo code Eric or call 800-9783057 to score these amazing deals while they're in stock. Plus, when your order totals $75 or more, you'll receive $100 in free digital gifts, no strings attached. That's right. Premium pillows at unbeatable prices and bonus gifts to top. stop it off. Don't wait, head to mypillow.com today or call 800-9783057. Now. Don't forget to use promo code Eric to grab your standard, My Pillow, for only while supplies last. Called Is Atheism Dead, where I deal with scientific evidence for God, archaeological evidence for the Bible as history, and then other arguments, the argument of, you know, are longing for meaning. And I touch on Sart and Camus.

was stunned to discover, and I write about it, that they eventually both at the end of their lives found faith. Almost no one seems to know that, and I myself couldn't believe it until I did further research. And I thought, it kind of makes sense that if you really look in a dedicated way as they did into the abyss, you're likely to come out the other side. I hope so. Yeah. Well, I want to ask you so many things, but the larger question, because when you talk about apathy, I think the reason many people are apathetic is because they bought the idea that we can't know whether there is a God and that those people who claim to know or God forbid to know God personally, that those people are diluted, but that if you're really a thinking person, and you know that we probably can't know. Yeah. Talk about that a little bit,

the larger question of whether we can know, because I really do think that that's what's behind a lot of apathy. People think, you know, you can read all you want, but at the end of the day, there's no way to know. I think that that really afflicts the younger generation in our culture, who are so overwhelmed by the glut of information available, online on the internet, that they do give up on ever knowing the truth about these matters. They say there are arguments on both sides. The resources are endless. You could watch

videos on YouTube forever, and you'll never come to any resolution. So why even think about it? Just forget about it and get on with your life and enjoy your life as best you can. And so I do think that this sort of information overload can lead to hopelessness of ever finding an answer and therefore apathy about seeking an answer. There's so many arguments for God, and I think that one question is which ones are effective and for whom. I remember before I had come to faith, a dear friend. gave me a copy of mere Christianity, and I'm to this day fascinated by how I was able to read it, and it really meant nothing to me. I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't really particularly

disagreeing with anything, but for some reason it didn't move me. Yes. Different things move different people. Yes. That's so true, isn't it? And perhaps the Spirit of God just had not yet opened your heart to these things. I don't think this is just a human. enterprise, we are dealing here with a spiritual warfare in which the Spirit of God is working upon people's minds and hearts to draw them to him, and people can resist and ignore that convicting of the Holy Spirit. And in that case, reading C.S. Lewis's book or Lee Strobles' case for Christ just might not reach them. I mean, that's again what's so fascinating to me, because I think that even the book that I referenced that I wrote called His Atheism Dead,

I thought to myself, this is open and shut. This is not a good case for God. It's like trying to prove that the earth is not flat. At the end of the day, everybody would have to agree, well, we've settled that. And I think you and I would both agree that the question whether God exists is settled. And yet so many people, and I think of Christopher Hitchens, particularly, somehow it wasn't a lack of IQ. What is it that makes different people,

and he's a great example, so hostile or indifferent to what to you and to me is so clear? I think in Hitchin's case, it was not indifference. It was hatred. I think he was blinded by his hatred for God. He had a caricature of God as being like a North Korean dictator. He would often use that comparison, and he hated God.

And therefore, he really had no interest at all in exploring the arguments for and against God. His mind was made up and shut. And so in that debate you reference, I found that Hitchens was utterly incapable of carrying on an intelligent dialogue about these issues, because he had never read anything about them. He'd not thought about them. And so in one sense, it was a very poor debate because my opponent simply wasn't equipped to wrestle with these issues.

There was a nasty, a nastiness, a hostility that seemed nasty in many of his encounters on these subjects, that he seemed to be seething. with contempt for anyone who should believe what we believe. And that's, of course, interesting. Well, so the question whether we can know, you and I would say we can know, and we could say that we know.

But, again, we have to question, what is it that moves someone? I think you can have all the perfect arguments, and some people aren't. They're not going to care. So there's obviously a mystery there. But you are a philosopher. And so you deal with on the one hand, really philosophical arguments for the existence of God. I mean, I know that Quinas and others have done the same thing.

I always found those the least compelling. I don't know why. But I never really, I remember as an undergrad. graduate hearing, you know, some of that. And for some reason, it didn't move me. I think maybe what I'm asking is about the experiential, because you've talked about that. I forget what you call it, but the idea that, well, just that we can know God apart from argument. Yes. I think that's true. Although I have defended arguments for the existence of God, you'll notice that in many of my debates, my final point will be that we can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments by having a

personal experience, a relationship with him. But I reserve that to last because I first want to have earned the right to share that personal dimension by showing that there is, objective external arguments and evidence for the existence of God. And so I'm not an evidentialist in the sense that I think that belief in God, apart from argument, is irrational. Not at all. I think that there is an interior way of knowing that God exists on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit, and that that is perfectly rational. It's part of the deliverances of reason itself, and that these are not mutually exclusive with having these sort of external arguments as well. You referenced in one of the conversations or interviews, I think it was on this book

with Sean McDowell a few months ago, you referenced a renaissance in Christian philosophy. that many philosophers have come to faith. Can you speculate on why you think that has happened in recent decades? Yes, I think that the most important philosophical event of the late 20th century was the collapse of so-called verificationism, which dominated philosophy and university culture through the, the mid-century. Verificationism was the view that only statements which can be empirically verified are meaningful. And if a statement cannot be empirically verified, then it is meaningless. And on the basis

of this verification principle of meaning, these philosophers discarded metaphysics, ethics, religion, not as false, but as meaningless. They're literally nonsense. And what happened is that it was realized by philosophers themselves that verificationism was self-referentially incoherent, that is to say it was self-refuting, and therefore it collapsed during the second half of the 20th century. And this allowed metaphysics to reappear and to make an entrance once again into philosophical discussion. But what happened was that along with traditional metaphysics came a renaissance of philosophy of

religion, where philosophers began to talk about God and his nature as much. meaningful, important questions. The result of this was a Renaissance of Christian philosophy in the latter half of the 20th century and that is ongoing today in Anglo-American philosophy. So it's tremendously encouraging. And the difference between philosophy as it was back in the 1930s and 40s, and the way it is today is just like, night and day. That's extraordinary, I have to say, obviously good news. Your new book is called

systematic philosophical theology, prologomena on scripture, on faith. First of all, for me and our audience, can you define for us, because most of us, I'm guessing, but most of us listening and I are not philosophers or theologians. So what is, first of all, what is systematic theology? When somebody says so-and-so has written as, Wayne Grudham has written a systematic theology, what is that? Systematic theology is an attempt to articulate a view of God and the world that is logically coherent, plausible, and rooted in. in divine revelation. And so it is a human reflection and articulation and formulation of the basic doctrines of the Christian worldview. You mean an updated version of it? In other words,

why would somebody need to do that in the last century? That is a very good point. Every generation needs to think of these questions anew in light of contemporary challenges and advances in secular disciplines. That is one of the differences between systematic theology and biblical theology. Biblical theology is based upon these ancient texts that are basically unchanged. But systematic theology will seek an integrative Christian world and life view that takes account of what we learn about, for example, the history and origin of the universe, the origin of life and humankind on this planet, relationships between mind and body, and so on and so forth. And so every generation does need...

to reflect on these questions anew and try to articulate a view of the Christian world and life view that is in conversation with these developments. And so then what's the difference between a systematic theology and what you have written, or at least the first volume, is a systematic philosophical theology? What is that? This is different. I mentioned already this renaissance in Christian philosophy that has taken place over the last generation. And what these philosophers are doing are using the tools of philosophical analysis

and applying them to Christian doctrines. So, to give some illustrations, the Bible teaches that God is eternal. He never began to exist. He will never cease to exist. But that doesn't answer the question. Is God eternal in the sense that he is timeless? Is he outside time?

Or does it mean he's eternal in the sense that he is infinite throughout all time, beginninglessly and endlessly? That's a philosophical question that cannot be answered by citing biblical texts. Or again, clearly, the God of the Bible is not completely. composed of separable parts. There's no danger that God might literally disintegrate and fall apart. But many theologians down through history have argued that God is simple, in a more radical sense, that God literally doesn't even have any properties, because that would introduce complexity into God's being. And so that again is a question that can't be answered, just

biblically, that's a philosophical question. Or to give one last example, the Bible says that God is omnipresent. But does that mean that he transcends space, that he's not in space at all, or does that mean that he is in space, but he's everywhere in space? And if he is, how is that to be conceived? Surely God is not spread throughout space like a thin gas with part of it. him here and part of him there. So this would be, these would be examples of philosophical questions where philosophers used their philosophical analytical tools to think about these doctrines that the Bible delivers to us and then tries to formulate a coherent theology on that basis. The first volume of this projected work deals with, principally with,

Scripture. Why did you choose to start there? First of all, how many volumes are you projecting, and how many volumes are you projecting, and then why did you start in the first one with Scripture? I'm projecting five volumes total, and I start with Scripture because it seems to me that that is foundational for everything that follows. You must consider first what does authoritative, revelation have to say about these questions before you begin to think philosophically about them. And so in the first volume, I deal with the question of what revelation is and whether God has revealed himself, and what does the Bible teach about itself? I think that scripture contains within itself a doctrine of scripture. It teaches about itself. It teaches about itself.

And so I try to lay that out with a view toward having a credible theory of divine inspiration and authority. That's a big one. The idea that Christians say the Bible is inspired by God, yet written by human beings. And at some point in one of your interviews, you said that, brings up the classical question, the classic question of divine sovereignty versus human freedom. Can you talk about that? Because that's so fascinating. There are so many people that I think wonder, how can you think that the Bible was written by God, it was written by people, obviously, by many authors? So talk about that. Yes. Let's contrast the biblical doctrine of inspiration with the Islamic doctrine of the inspiration.

of the Quran. Muslims believe that the Quran was dictated word by word to Muhammad. And so it is inspired by Allah. It is his words. And Muhammad had no part in it whatsoever other than being a stenographer. It's a dictation. That is not the Christian view of inspiration. Christians recognize that the different authors of Scripture have different backgrounds. Their different personalities shine through in their works, and they bring to these writings their own emotions and feelings that get expressed in their works. And so these are clearly not mere dictations. These are human products as well as being inspired.

by God. And so the difficult philosophical question that arises here is how can you have a coherent doctrine of biblical inspiration that affirms that the Bible is both the word of God and equally the word of man. And that's what I tried to lay out in volume one. What do you call that? There was a term... It's a Molinist theory of divine inspirer. that is to say it is inspired by the work of a 16th century Jesuit theologian named Luis Molina, and Molina developed a theory of divine knowledge that he called middle knowledge. He believed that God has not only knowledge of everything that could happen and everything that will happen, but also he had a knowledge in between those two that he called middle knowledge,

which is God's knowledge of everything that would happen under any given set of circumstances. And so, for example, God knew what you would have done with Jesus if you had been the procurator of Judea in the first century and the chief priests and scribes brought Jesus of Nazareth before you to be tried. what would you have done? God knows the answer to that question, Molina says. And so I exploit this doctrine of middle knowledge to articulate a theory of inspiration that allows us to say that these words are freely composed by human authors, and yet they are at the same time God's words to us. That's an amazing concept, and I know that you've said that,

you know, God knew what Paul would write under certain circumstances. And for that reason, chose Paul to write that stuff, but didn't cause Paul to write it, but chose Paul because he knew Paul would write it. I mean, it's fascinating and logical, and I've never thought of that before. you do talk about the doctrine of inerrancy. Yes. Say a little bit about that, because I think that there are people who are challenged by that idea

that the Bible is inerrant. It's every word is the word of God. Talk about that. Yes. I think that the doctrine of inerrancy must be determined by looking at the scriptures themselves and seeing what an inerrant scripture would look like. And when you do, I do not think that we should have a brittle, inflexible doctrine of inerrancy.

Rather, 1st Timothy 316 says that all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching and correction. So I take it that the Bible is truthful in everything that it intends to teach. But things that are in the Bible that are not part of the teaching of Scripture, I don't think we need to say are inerrant or true. So to just give an example, take the so-called imprecatory Psalms, where the psalmist says, do I not hate them that hate, you, and he praised that God would dash the heads of their babies against the rocks and destroy them. These are hateful, vicious psalms that are difficult to reconcile with the teaching of Jesus of

Nazareth. But I would say that what these imprecatory Psalms are meant to teach us is not that this is how we ought to pray, but rather that we can come. to God with full transparency and honesty with all of our warts and defects and pour out our anger to him and our bitterness and our complaints, and that God will listen to us, that we can be honest with God. I think that's what the teaching of the imprecatory Psalms is, and I would say that that message or teaching is true. And therefore, in the that sense, inerrant. So that would be one example of where it's not the literal words or meaning of the text that is the teaching of the text, but it's the point of the text. Let me

give just one other example. Jesus, in predicting the end times, says something very interesting. He says, the moon will not give its light. Now, we know that the moon doesn't, is not a luminous body. It just reflects sunlight. But probably in the first century, of course people believe that the moon is shining. They thought the moon is a luminous object that gives off light. And so Jesus says the sun will not, or the moon will not give its light. Is that an error in scripture?

Well, I don't think so because the intent of the passage is not to teach astronomy. It's to teach a spiritual lesson, and that lesson is true and inerrant. And so we shouldn't press the text for these kinds of things that fall outside the intent of what it means to teach. Well, when theologians and Aristotelians were insisting that the Bible said X, Galileo said it said, Y, they were both reading the same Bible, but they were interpreting it differently. And turns out the Aristotelians were wrong. So it is interesting, though, how what we're really talking about is the interpretation of Scripture.

We can all say this is what the Scripture says, but some people insist on a certain kind of reading. And obviously you're saying we have to be careful. Yes, that's exactly right. Do you get into, I mean, we can all agree, or maybe. maybe many of us can agree what the scripture says. But then the question, as I was just saying, is what about it? I mean, if the scripture talks about Adam and Eve being created by God and so on and so forth and the world being created in six days, some people would insist that that means clearly,

oh, it's six 24 hour periods. Other people would say, no, it doesn't mean that. Do you talk about that or you take a position. I will talk about that. That is in volume three on Doctrine of Creation, where I have a lengthy discussion of the creation of the world and then also the creation of man on earth. And this interacts not only with the biblical text in each case, but what the best of contemporary science has to tell us about

the origin of the earth and the origin of life and biological complexity and humanity. So it's a terribly interesting issue. And again, the question here will be, Eric, as we've said, what does the Bible mean to teach about these things? Does the Bible mean to teach that the world was created in six consecutive 24-hour days? Well, I don't think it means to teach that, and I think that there are indications in the text itself that that is not the correct interpretation, wholly apart from modern science. When I do my biblical work here, I bracket modern science and say, let's ignore that for the time being, and let's just look at the text and see what does the text intend to teach. And as I say, I do not think that it

intends to teach six consecutive 24-hour-day creation. And if that is, if I'm right about this, that then opens the door for a meaningful dialogue with contemporary astronomy, geology, and biology. Well, it is fascinating how so many people, I was just referencing the dispute with Galileo, how people will take scripture and say it must be interpreted this way. And if you don't agree with this, you're disagreeing with scripture itself. And the young earth creationists have often done that. They've said the scripture is clear. And if you don't agree with this interpretation, you're actually disagreeing with the scripture.

Yes, that's exactly right. And then accusations of heresy are hurled and betraying Christianity. and so forth. And what is wanting here is a decaled, careful exegesis of the Hebrew text, according to the genre of literature that it belongs to. A major retail chain just canceled a massive order leaving My Pillar with an overstock of the classic My Pills, and this is your gain, because for a limited time, my Pills are offering their entire classic collection at true wholesale prices. Get a standard my pillow for just 1798.

Want more upgrade to queen size for only 2298 or king size for 2498? Snag body pillows for 2998 and versatile multi-use pillows for just 998. Give your bet a whole new pillow set only while supplies last. Visit mypillow.com today. Use promo code Eric or call 800 97830577 to score these amazing deals while they're in stock. Plus when your order totals $75 or more, you'll receive $100 in free digital. GIFT's no strings attached. That's right. Premium pillows at unbeatable prices and bonus gifts to top it off. Don't wait. Head to MyPillow.com today or call 800-978 3057 now. Don't forget to use

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