Dr William Lane Craig Discusses God's Existence And The Historical Adam (2022-05-25) #

0:00:05 well hello everyone and welcome to
0:00:07 blogging theology today i am delighted
0:00:10 to talk to dr william lane craig you are
0:00:13 most welcome sir
0:00:15 thank you paul
0:00:17 um for those who don't know if there are
0:00:18 any people out there dr craig is an
0:00:20 american analytic philosopher and
0:00:23 christian apologist he is visiting
0:00:25 scholar of philosophy at the talbot
0:00:27 school of theology and professor of
0:00:30 philosophy at houston baptist university
0:00:34 dr craig is probably the most prolific
0:00:36 and well-known defender of a calam
0:00:38 cosmological argument for the existence
0:00:41 of god
0:00:42 this argument was originally formulated
0:00:44 by the famous muslim theologian and
0:00:46 philosopher alcazali who died in a.d 11
0:00:50 11.
0:00:51 but it has acquired a new lease of life
0:00:54 thanks entirely to dr craig's celebrated
0:00:57 and prolific defense of the argument
0:01:01 today dr craig has kindly agreed to
0:01:03 discuss two subjects
0:01:05 firstly he will outline for us the calam
0:01:08 cosmological argument for the existence
0:01:10 of god and look perhaps at some of the
0:01:12 objections that have been advanced
0:01:15 against it
0:01:16 and secondly we will discuss his latest
0:01:19 book on his quest for the historical
0:01:22 adam this is the first human being in
0:01:24 the light of scripture christian
0:01:26 scripture and modern science
0:01:30 so dr craig to start with could you
0:01:33 outline for us the historical origin of
0:01:36 calam cosmological argument and what
0:01:38 form the argument takes
0:01:41 certainly
0:01:42 the argument originated in the attempts
0:01:46 of early
0:01:47 christian commentators on aristotle
0:01:51 to refute aristotle's doctrine of the
0:01:54 eternity of the world aristotle believed
0:01:59 that god and the universe were
0:02:01 co-eternal
0:02:02 and because of their commitment to the
0:02:05 biblical doctrine of creation certain
0:02:07 early christian commentators uh devised
0:02:11 very clever and sophisticated arguments
0:02:14 against the past eternity of the
0:02:16 universe one of the most important of
0:02:18 these was named john philopponus who
0:02:21 died in the 5th century
0:02:23 and this tradition
0:02:25 was absorbed by islam when islam swept
0:02:29 across egypt and alexandria where
0:02:32 philoponus was active and it became the
0:02:37 centerpiece of
0:02:39 uh islamic um
0:02:41 philosophy
0:02:43 uh and natural theology and as you say
0:02:46 it was developed into very sophisticated
0:02:48 forms by someone like alhazali who was
0:02:52 actually the heir to several centuries
0:02:55 of tradition
0:02:56 so it's an argument that has a great
0:02:58 intersectarian appeal it's been
0:03:01 propounded by jews by muslims by
0:03:05 christians both catholic and protestant
0:03:09 as for the formulation of the argument
0:03:11 rosalie's
0:03:13 formulation is perhaps the simplest and
0:03:15 most accessible it goes like this
0:03:17 premise one
0:03:19 is that everything that begins to exist
0:03:23 has a cause of its beginning
0:03:26 premise two is that the universe began
0:03:29 to exist
0:03:31 and from that you can conclude three
0:03:33 therefore the universe has a cause of
0:03:36 its beginning and then you do a
0:03:38 conceptual analysis of what it is to be
0:03:41 a cause of the universe
0:03:43 and several theologically striking
0:03:46 properties of this
0:03:48 uncaused first cause emerge from such an
0:03:52 analysis the argument i think is
0:03:54 successful proves the existence of a
0:03:58 beginning last uncaused
0:04:02 immaterial
0:04:03 changeless
0:04:05 spaceless
0:04:07 timeless
0:04:09 personal
0:04:10 uh creator of the universe who is
0:04:13 unimaginably powerful
0:04:16 well that that's very helpful but
0:04:18 looking at premise one there uh and
0:04:21 they've been i've noticed in in looking
0:04:23 uh into this a little bit of detail that
0:04:25 every statement of the cosmological
0:04:27 argument the kind of generic uh label
0:04:30 for all the variants that we see
0:04:31 including the kalam cosmological
0:04:33 argument that they have been countered
0:04:34 by others and then counter statements
0:04:36 have been made and everything is
0:04:38 contested but one of the i think one of
0:04:40 the more interesting
0:04:42 objections to premise one of your
0:04:45 argument as you formulate it whatever
0:04:47 begins to exist has a cause and a common
0:04:50 objection appeals to the phenomenon of
0:04:53 what's called quantum indeterminacy this
0:04:55 is in physics obviously in quantum
0:04:57 mechanics where at a subatomic level the
0:05:00 causal principle everything that begins
0:05:02 to exist has a cause
0:05:04 appears to break down things apparently
0:05:07 just come out of come into existence out
0:05:10 of nothing almost ex nihilo and there's
0:05:13 a famous founder of this um uh lawrence
0:05:16 krauss the canadian american physicist
0:05:18 and cosmologist in his book which is
0:05:20 entitled a universe from nothing he
0:05:23 actually literally states at least the
0:05:25 title states that something came from
0:05:27 nothing and this would appear to uh a
0:05:30 challenge the the the premise the first
0:05:32 premise of your argument how would you
0:05:34 respond to that
0:05:35 well i think uh there are a number of
0:05:37 ways to respond
0:05:38 in the first place we need to understand
0:05:41 that any physical theory
0:05:43 is comprised of a mathematical core the
0:05:47 equations that are the center of the
0:05:50 theory and then there is a physical
0:05:52 interpretation of that theory
0:05:54 and in fact with respect to quantum
0:05:57 mechanics there are at least 10
0:06:01 different
0:06:02 physical interpretations of the
0:06:04 mathematical core of that theory and
0:06:06 some of these uh theories are fully
0:06:09 deterministic theories so it's simply
0:06:13 not true
0:06:14 that
0:06:15 um
0:06:16 quantum mechanics is a proven counter
0:06:18 example to the principle that every
0:06:22 event or everything that begins to exist
0:06:24 has a cause
0:06:26 secondly
0:06:27 the premise is formulated in such a way
0:06:30 as to allow for there to be on caused
0:06:33 events it the premise is not every event
0:06:36 has a cause but everything that begins
0:06:39 to exist has a cause that is to say
0:06:42 things can't come into being
0:06:46 without some sort of causal
0:06:48 antecedents but that's perfectly
0:06:51 uh consistent with saying that the time
0:06:54 of uh the decay of a radioactive isotope
0:06:57 for example is indeterminate um
0:07:00 what the
0:07:01 premise excludes is that things
0:07:04 substances can come into being out of
0:07:06 nothing
0:07:07 and that leads me to lawrence krauss's
0:07:10 uh
0:07:11 deliberate misuse of science in this
0:07:13 regard
0:07:14 krause knows
0:07:17 that the word nothing as he uses it is
0:07:20 being used equivocally he does not mean
0:07:23 non-being or not anything what krause is
0:07:28 talking about is either the quantum
0:07:31 vacuum or quantum mechanical fields
0:07:35 which are quite definitely
0:07:38 something
0:07:39 so his models do not in any way suggest
0:07:43 that it's plausible
0:07:45 that the universe could come into being
0:07:47 from literally nothing that is to say
0:07:50 non-being indeed when you think about it
0:07:52 paul
0:07:53 there is no physics of non-being
0:07:56 physics only applies
0:07:59 the moment the universe begins to exist
0:08:01 so it's
0:08:03 impossible for there to be a physical
0:08:05 explanation
0:08:06 of how the universe could originate from
0:08:08 nothing that's a meta physical question
0:08:11 perhaps the the title i don't know maybe
0:08:13 the publisher uh rather than himself uh
0:08:15 who knows thought of the the title of
0:08:17 the book a universe from nothing but
0:08:18 nothing doesn't really mean nothing
0:08:20 because there is a cons you spoke of a
0:08:22 quantum field which is something
0:08:24 i don't know if it has mass or not but
0:08:25 presumably there's energy that there's
0:08:28 probability waves whatever there's
0:08:30 something going on there which is not
0:08:32 nothing so exactly so your your premise
0:08:35 then premise one would would seem
0:08:38 therefore to
0:08:39 to not be defeated
0:08:42 exactly so long as we understand that
0:08:44 premise one
0:08:46 expresses a metaphysical principle
0:08:49 uh i think that it's quite secure
0:08:52 and that there is no good reason to
0:08:54 doubt its truth
0:08:55 um
0:08:57 another objection which is what one i i
0:08:58 think has some uh some plausibility uh
0:09:02 unlike perhaps clausius krause's one is
0:09:05 your characterization your conclusion
0:09:07 rather this is not a premise there's a
0:09:08 conclusion
0:09:09 that uh therefore
0:09:12 ergo an uncaused personal creator of the
0:09:14 universe exists
0:09:16 um
0:09:17 now i don't quite get
0:09:19 the it seemed a little bit like a
0:09:21 non-sequitur
0:09:22 i i okay i grant that you've established
0:09:25 that there is an uncaused cause
0:09:27 unnecessary being perhaps i see that
0:09:29 from the contingency of the universe but
0:09:31 to describe this god in with all the
0:09:34 adjectives that you attribute to it or
0:09:36 him uh shall we say
0:09:38 is still quite a way i think from the
0:09:40 god of classical theism let alone the
0:09:43 god of the abrahamic faith the god of
0:09:45 abraham of isaac
0:09:47 and and so on uh there seems to be quite
0:09:50 a gap um a metaphysical gap or that you
0:09:53 haven't quite
0:09:54 justified in any detailed way
0:09:57 um could you elaborate why why you think
0:10:00 therefore uh the god of abraham to give
0:10:02 begin
0:10:04 actually i have elaborated this in quite
0:10:06 a detailed way
0:10:08 in my published work but this tends to
0:10:10 be ignored
0:10:12 by people who are just responding
0:10:15 on youtube videos i go through each of
0:10:18 those properties that i mentioned
0:10:20 timeless spaceless uncaused immaterial
0:10:24 enormously powerful
0:10:26 and give
0:10:27 philosophical arguments as to why
0:10:30 this first uncaused cause must have that
0:10:32 property in particular and this is very
0:10:35 important
0:10:36 i give three independent arguments as to
0:10:40 why this cause must be personal so that
0:10:43 we're brought not merely to some sort of
0:10:45 an impersonal first principle but to a
0:10:48 personal creator of the universe and so
0:10:51 i would refer
0:10:52 our listeners today to my book
0:10:55 reasonable faith
0:10:57 look at the chapter on the arguments for
0:10:59 god's existence and you'll find these
0:11:01 laid out
0:11:02 now in making the transition to the god
0:11:05 of the abrahamic religions
0:11:08 there i think the argument doesn't take
0:11:10 you that far the argument gives you a
0:11:12 kind of generic theism
0:11:15 that is common to all of the world's
0:11:17 great monotheistic faiths including
0:11:20 deism deism would be perfectly
0:11:22 consistent with the argument to move to
0:11:25 the abrahamic faiths i think we have to
0:11:28 look at the person of jesus of nazareth
0:11:31 and ask ourself who was
0:11:34 jesus of nazareth because he claimed to
0:11:36 be
0:11:37 the exclusive and decisive revelation of
0:11:41 the god of the universe
0:11:43 and so it will be on that basis i think
0:11:46 that we will determine whether or not
0:11:48 deism or judaism or
0:11:51 islam or
0:11:52 christianity
0:11:54 is true and as you know as a christian
0:11:56 philosopher i'm persuaded that uh
0:11:59 christianity gives us the best account
0:12:02 of who the historical person jesus of
0:12:04 nazareth was
0:12:06 yeah and that is of course as a separate
0:12:08 argument from the cosmological argument
0:12:10 which is to do uh with the existence of
0:12:12 uncaused cause the the arguments for uh
0:12:15 and against the uh
0:12:17 who jesus was an historical person are a
0:12:20 separate set of considerations and have
0:12:21 been investigated by biblical
0:12:23 scholarship the last two thousand years
0:12:25 and uh but many historians have
0:12:27 concluded that jesus himself didn't
0:12:28 think he was god for example but that
0:12:30 that that's a a separate uh issue from
0:12:33 this uh that this argument is
0:12:35 after i finished my
0:12:37 doctoral work on the kalam cosmological
0:12:40 argument at the university of birmingham
0:12:42 under john hick we moved to germany and
0:12:45 i did my doctoral work in theology
0:12:48 under wallhack pollenbach on this very
0:12:51 question of the historicity of the
0:12:53 resurrection of jesus so those two
0:12:56 bodies of work complement
0:12:59 each other in making
0:13:01 a full-orbed case for the christian
0:13:04 faith i think i think someone might say
0:13:06 that your your your arguments you per
0:13:09 pound for the cosmological uh argument
0:13:11 the clan cosmological argument are are
0:13:13 very good that they are
0:13:15 they are highly respected um generate a
0:13:18 great deal of interest and have a lot of
0:13:19 plausibility rigorous philosophy i think
0:13:22 the argument for the historical jesus
0:13:24 believed that he was god for example and
0:13:26 this is a separate issue we're not
0:13:28 discussing us today on are not are not
0:13:30 beliefs that are widely held by
0:13:32 uh historical historical jesus for
0:13:35 example ep saunders and and others
0:13:38 you said we weren't going to discuss it
0:13:40 but you just said something there that i
0:13:42 need to respond to
0:13:44 one of the surprising things that came
0:13:47 out of this study at the university of
0:13:49 munich
0:13:50 was the realization that the central
0:13:52 historical facts that undergird the
0:13:55 inference to jesus resurrection
0:13:57 are in fact agreed upon
0:14:00 by the wide majority of new testament
0:14:04 critics today and these would be
0:14:07 the honorable burial of jesus by joseph
0:14:09 of arimathea in a tomb
0:14:12 the discovery of the empty tomb by a
0:14:14 group of jesus women followers on the
0:14:16 first day of the week after his
0:14:18 crucifixion
0:14:19 the
0:14:20 post-mortem appearances of jesus to
0:14:22 various individuals and groups and then
0:14:25 finally number four um the
0:14:29 very origin
0:14:31 of the disciples belief
0:14:33 that god raised jesus from the dead
0:14:35 despite every predisposition to the
0:14:37 contrary so i think the historical facts
0:14:40 are
0:14:41 pretty
0:14:42 firmly established the question is
0:14:45 what's the best explanation of those and
0:14:47 there you're quite right in saying that
0:14:49 a good many scholars will say well
0:14:51 that's not for us as historians
0:14:55 to speak to that that's a different
0:14:57 question and so they will remain
0:14:59 agnostic about it
0:15:01 i wasn't referring to the resurrection
0:15:03 at all i i was talking about christology
0:15:05 the understanding who the person and
0:15:06 nature of jesus and my impression i i
0:15:09 could be wrong and the reason i mention
0:15:11 this is to the the the riga the
0:15:13 philosophical rigor of the other climb
0:15:14 argument that as you articulated is very
0:15:16 strong i think but yeah
0:15:19 to couple that uh
0:15:20 as if they had equal um uh probative um
0:15:24 strength with a a claim that jesus uh
0:15:28 claimed to be god
0:15:29 i'm not talking about the resurrection
0:15:30 god it is something i don't find in in
0:15:33 his in mainstream historical research at
0:15:35 all in fact the consensus as i
0:15:38 understand it is that jesus understood
0:15:40 himself to be a prophet an
0:15:42 eschatological problem that seems to be
0:15:43 the overwhelming consensus of scotland
0:15:45 rather than uh the second person of the
0:15:47 trinity and so on the argument about the
0:15:49 resurrection is a separate issue to do
0:15:50 with an historical event which
0:15:52 the historical critical method as you
0:15:54 know better than i is not really able to
0:15:56 address because how do you address a
0:15:58 supernatural uh you may think there are
0:16:00 very good arguments for it by the way
0:16:02 but but but the the point i'm making is
0:16:05 uh your initial claim
0:16:07 that jesus uh thought he was god or was
0:16:10 god uh uh the god that that the
0:16:13 cosmological argument points to and i i
0:16:16 think one argument is much stronger than
0:16:18 the other uh in terms of the academic
0:16:21 work that i've looked at well i would
0:16:23 invite readers again to read what i've
0:16:26 written on this
0:16:27 this
0:16:28 i published my doctoral work that was
0:16:30 done at munich i think it's rigorous
0:16:33 and i don't claim that jesus
0:16:35 claimed to be god what i argue is that
0:16:38 jesus claimed to be
0:16:40 the jewish messiah
0:16:41 the son of god in a unique sense and
0:16:45 the
0:16:46 son of man prophesied by the prophet
0:16:49 daniel
0:16:51 and that these
0:16:52 radical personal claims were ratified by
0:16:56 god's raising him from the dead so that
0:16:58 we have good reason to believe
0:17:00 that jesus is in fact god's decisive
0:17:04 revelation to us uh in human history
0:17:07 yeah they claim that he was uh believed
0:17:09 himself to be a messiah or seen as a
0:17:11 mascara figure is is is is more uh
0:17:13 widely accepted by historians than the
0:17:15 characters
0:17:17 of god or believes himself to be god i
0:17:19 think it's that claim that i
0:17:21 i i i was surprised to see you uh
0:17:23 putting on the same level as your the
0:17:25 very strong uh those were your words
0:17:28 paul i didn't say that
0:17:30 um said was that we have good reason to
0:17:33 believe that jesus is
0:17:35 the decisive revelation of god
0:17:38 to us and i think that's on the basis of
0:17:41 the personal claims i mentioned and then
0:17:43 god's raising him from the dead um
0:17:47 and i i i think that this excludes
0:17:50 looking at jesus as merely a human
0:17:52 prophet
0:17:54 in my opinion
0:17:55 we're always not here to debate that but
0:17:57 i thank you for your clarification of
0:17:59 exactly what you you do believe that's
0:18:01 extremely useful uh on the subject of
0:18:03 very useful things i i have looked at
0:18:05 the uh the stanford encyclopedia of
0:18:06 philosophy the online uh article on the
0:18:10 cosmological argument because there
0:18:12 isn't a thing called the cosmological
0:18:14 argument i've discovered is actually
0:18:15 that's more like a type of argument and
0:18:17 there are many discrete variants uh or
0:18:20 instantiations or manifestations of this
0:18:23 uh
0:18:24 argument of this type anyway the stamped
0:18:26 encyclopedia philosophy online has a
0:18:28 very useful article i think uh
0:18:30 discussion of how the argument developed
0:18:32 from plato and aristotle through
0:18:34 alcazali who we mentioned hume of course
0:18:37 and kant had a great deal to write about
0:18:38 it up to the lively contemporary debate
0:18:41 to which dr craig has made such a
0:18:43 seminal uh contribution so i i do i
0:18:46 don't know what you recommend that or
0:18:47 not but i thought it was a a very very
0:18:49 uh helpful article and you just googled
0:18:51 the stanford video philosophy so and he
0:18:53 mentioned you many times across so um
0:18:56 well thank you very past moving on to
0:18:58 the uh our second subject for discussion
0:19:01 and this is your latest book uh
0:19:03 published just last year um entitled um
0:19:06 i like the title actually in
0:19:08 question in quest of the historical adam
0:19:11 a biblical and scientific expert the
0:19:13 reason i like it is because obviously
0:19:15 you're referring um to the the classic
0:19:18 in the question of the historical jesus
0:19:20 and you're exactly very good paul i'm
0:19:22 glad you picked out on that that that is
0:19:25 a a an interesting um
0:19:27 reference there to to that and i like i
0:19:29 like that anyway in in this book which i
0:19:31 confess i i have not read but um so
0:19:34 apologies for that um where you set out
0:19:36 i'm told you set out to answer the
0:19:38 questions about adam now this is the
0:19:40 first human being of course through a
0:19:43 detailed biblical and scientific
0:19:45 investigation so i think a really
0:19:48 important place to begin our discussion
0:19:50 is to understand the scriptural basis of
0:19:53 this and um obviously adam has referred
0:19:55 to the beginning of the bible in a book
0:19:57 called genesis the first book of the
0:19:58 bible in the beginning god created the
0:20:00 heavens and the earth and he created
0:20:01 adam and eve this is found in genesis 1
0:20:04 to 11. they're usually treated as a a a
0:20:07 a discrete uh section like that by
0:20:09 scholars so according to biblical
0:20:11 scholar what kind of literature is it
0:20:13 what kind of genre is genesis chapters 1
0:20:16 to 11
0:20:17 this is the critical question for the
0:20:20 interpretation of these passages
0:20:23 and i argue in the book
0:20:25 that
0:20:27 these chapters exhibit
0:20:30 family resemblances
0:20:32 belonging to
0:20:34 ancient near eastern and contemporary
0:20:37 myths
0:20:38 especially these narratives try to
0:20:41 ground
0:20:42 the realities and the values
0:20:45 of the contemporary author in his
0:20:47 society
0:20:49 in events of the deep primordial past
0:20:52 this is called etiology and the this
0:20:55 motif of etiology permeates
0:20:59 these first 11 chapters of genesis and
0:21:02 yet at the same time these stories also
0:21:05 are structured
0:21:06 along a kind of backbone
0:21:09 of genealogies listing historical
0:21:12 persons
0:21:14 and their descendants which terminate in
0:21:17 indisputably uh historical persons like
0:21:21 abraham
0:21:22 and so
0:21:23 i accept the genre analysis
0:21:26 uh called mytho history
0:21:29 uh
0:21:30 that is to say these are
0:21:32 stories about events and people
0:21:35 that really happened really lived
0:21:38 but it is told in the figurative and
0:21:42 colorful and imaginative language of
0:21:44 myth
0:21:46 um well that's very teasing very teasing
0:21:48 indeed
0:21:50 just like one thing i might disagree
0:21:52 with you on that about the indisputable
0:21:54 historicity of abraham
0:21:56 one of the things that shocked me when i
0:21:57 went to university and i was asked to
0:21:59 write an essay on exeter exodus of
0:22:01 israel from egypt and by moses when i
0:22:04 was told very clearly by my professors
0:22:06 the most the existence of moses was far
0:22:09 from being an accepted historical
0:22:11 reality and moses were much later than
0:22:14 abraham um i think people like abraham
0:22:16 and moses are usually seen now this
0:22:18 there are some have been developments
0:22:19 recently where some prominent uh experts
0:22:22 in the field are now talking about the
0:22:24 evidence for moses existing and i i on
0:22:26 faith believe that abraham existed of
0:22:28 course but i'm not sure it's an
0:22:30 historically established figure in
0:22:32 history yeah
0:22:33 abraham
0:22:34 that's that's a very fair comment and i
0:22:36 think
0:22:37 um
0:22:38 if i were to rephrase what i just said
0:22:41 i would say that the genealogies um
0:22:44 terminate in persons who are
0:22:47 indisputably presented as historical
0:22:50 characters
0:22:52 as opposed to say mythical figures uh
0:22:56 abraham and and his descendants are not
0:22:59 presented
0:23:00 as
0:23:01 mythological figures but as real
0:23:04 historical persons who give rise to
0:23:07 uh the nation of israel so i i accept
0:23:10 your your correction uh in in that well
0:23:14 that's very gracious but i i just want
0:23:15 to also clarify what elements then of
0:23:18 the genesis story of adam and eve of
0:23:20 course and there are two creation
0:23:21 narratives but presumably you're
0:23:23 alluding to the second creation story
0:23:24 rather than the first one for your
0:23:26 detailed understand
0:23:28 how much of that is myth and how much of
0:23:29 that is history and more importantly how
0:23:31 how on earth does one make that that
0:23:33 decision how does one hermeneutically
0:23:35 engage the text and says well this
0:23:37 element the eating of the of the the the
0:23:40 fruit
0:23:41 uh is myth i don't know what you believe
0:23:43 on this but say it is but the fall
0:23:45 itself is history because the fall
0:23:47 itself of adam and eve is a prerequisite
0:23:50 it's a really absolute um foundation for
0:23:53 christian soteriology uh obviously as
0:23:56 presents in the new testament that you
0:23:58 have a fall and then you have the second
0:23:59 adam the second adam yes with him jesus
0:24:02 i mean um so you've got to have that but
0:24:06 are you saying that these details of the
0:24:07 fruit and the tree and the serpent and
0:24:10 whatnot are not historical and myth is
0:24:13 that your argument or yes that is my my
0:24:15 position i would say that these are
0:24:18 mythic images
0:24:20 in which the story of the fall is told
0:24:24 so that while there was an adam and eve
0:24:27 who did commit some sort of sin
0:24:30 against god i think this is told in the
0:24:33 dramatic imagery of a tree of good and
0:24:36 evil and then a tree of life and a
0:24:39 talking snake who seems to be a symbol
0:24:42 of evil and so forth uh and i suggest a
0:24:45 number of ways in which one can discern
0:24:48 which portions of the narrative are
0:24:52 meant to be understood figuratively and
0:24:55 which are not
0:24:57 three my question how how do you make
0:24:59 that hermeneutical move how do you
0:25:01 discern what is and what isn't so that
0:25:03 was really my question well one way
0:25:05 would be
0:25:06 when
0:25:07 the narratives relate things that are
0:25:10 explicitly contradictory to what the
0:25:12 author of the pentateuch believes and a
0:25:16 great example of this
0:25:18 would be that in chapter one
0:25:20 he presents this image or picture of god
0:25:24 as a transcendent
0:25:26 creator of the universe in the beginning
0:25:29 god created the heavens and the earth so
0:25:32 we have here this transcendent god who
0:25:35 creates all of the universe but in
0:25:38 chapters two and three and the stories
0:25:40 of adam and eve you have these very
0:25:44 anthropomorphic descriptions of god
0:25:47 as a sort of finite humanoid
0:25:50 a deity who is walking in the garden who
0:25:53 forms adam out of the dust of the ground
0:25:56 who does
0:25:56 surgery on adam and takes out a rib and
0:25:59 makes a woman who is walking in the
0:26:02 garden in the cool of the day calling
0:26:04 out to adam and this is clearly
0:26:06 incompatible with what the pentateuch
0:26:09 author himself
0:26:10 believes about god and so i think gives
0:26:13 us indication that these
0:26:15 descriptions should be understood as
0:26:17 anthropomorphic
0:26:19 uh imagery
0:26:21 essentially john calvin i remember
0:26:23 rightly the uh the reformation uh
0:26:25 scholar and pastor and so on uh if i
0:26:27 remember at least in english
0:26:29 remarking on this kind of language in
0:26:31 the second the two creation accounts
0:26:33 people may not know this in genesis it's
0:26:35 not like there's just one account of god
0:26:37 creating adam and eve there are two
0:26:39 accounts
0:26:40 and some scholars would say that they
0:26:41 are mutually contradictory and you seem
0:26:43 to be implying that they are
0:26:44 contradictory so you prefer one the
0:26:47 earlier rather than not the
0:26:48 chronologically early i mean chapter one
0:26:51 rather than chapter two um but
0:26:54 calvin seemed to be suggests that god
0:26:56 uses language he lisps uh to his
0:27:00 children he uses languages that
0:27:02 people can understand not sophisticated
0:27:05 intellectuals but
0:27:07 so-called ordinary people can relate to
0:27:09 this and this was the purpose in using
0:27:11 this language which um is not to be
0:27:14 taken i i think he's implying but he
0:27:16 didn't say this not to be taken with you
0:27:18 know scientific precision perhaps
0:27:21 yes i that's exactly right this is the
0:27:23 so-called accommodation
0:27:25 theory of inspiration
0:27:27 uh and it that has to be true when you
0:27:30 think about it even in revealing himself
0:27:34 in hebrew or greek
0:27:37 god is already accommodating himself
0:27:40 to the limits of human language
0:27:43 and it's not at all surprising
0:27:45 that god would further accommodate
0:27:48 himself in
0:27:49 um
0:27:50 making things so simple that
0:27:53 everyone can understand them and not
0:27:54 just
0:27:55 philosophers or modern physicists
0:27:59 yeah i think that's as a huge huge
0:28:01 really uh but of course the the the
0:28:04 standard academic uh uh understanding of
0:28:06 the pentateuch which you uh mentioned is
0:28:08 the so-called documentary hypothesis
0:28:10 that in fact we we're actually seeing
0:28:12 at least four um separate distinct
0:28:15 authors jepd now i know this has come
0:28:17 under some criticism and there have been
0:28:19 some refinements of it but nevertheless
0:28:21 the fundamentals still seem to be intact
0:28:23 in old testament studies the idea that
0:28:25 that moses is definitely not the author
0:28:27 of of genesis or pentateuch at all the
0:28:30 first five books of moses i mean he
0:28:32 didn't actually write them indeed
0:28:33 nowhere in the book does it claim that
0:28:35 he did write them and uh so
0:28:38 it the point i'm getting at here is not
0:28:40 just to mention that the authorship
0:28:42 question is quite interesting uh that
0:28:44 moses didn't write any of this anyway it
0:28:46 would seem according to most scholars
0:28:48 today but that this second creation
0:28:50 account is written by someone other than
0:28:52 the first creation account and so it's
0:28:55 not surprising we had two different
0:28:56 people with different outlooks and
0:28:58 understandings of creation and god
0:29:00 himself one very transcendent
0:29:03 uh of a very uh
0:29:05 very uh attractive to philosophers and
0:29:08 the second very anthropomorphic as you
0:29:10 say where god is portrayed in a humanoid
0:29:13 figure who gets involved in the you know
0:29:16 asking what where are you adam are you
0:29:18 sort of asking in the call of the day
0:29:19 you know um
0:29:21 a very very different portrayal so what
0:29:23 would another way of looking at this be
0:29:25 to say we're we're looking at a
0:29:26 scripture which is not entirely
0:29:29 harmonious and consistent because of its
0:29:31 multiple authorship by different people
0:29:33 with different views of god the eloise
0:29:36 the priestly the yahwest the
0:29:38 deuteronomist i mean these are these the
0:29:39 technical terms for the four documentary
0:29:42 authors of documentary hypothesis
0:29:45 would you become uh
0:29:46 i have a nice discussion in the book
0:29:49 about the sources behind genesis 1 to 11
0:29:52 in terms of both source criticism
0:29:55 and form criticism
0:29:57 and fortunately with genesis 1 to 11
0:30:00 which is the center of our attention
0:30:02 only the j
0:30:04 source and the p source come into view
0:30:08 the other two don't even play a role in
0:30:11 genesis 1 to 11 and so can be left aside
0:30:14 and
0:30:16 there's no
0:30:17 reason
0:30:18 or or argument or evidence that these
0:30:21 are in fact written documents rather
0:30:24 than oral traditions
0:30:26 which were then collected uh and put
0:30:29 into the final form by the pentateucal
0:30:31 author
0:30:32 and so
0:30:34 i think the final authorship of the book
0:30:36 is in one sense really irrelevant what's
0:30:39 important is
0:30:40 this
0:30:41 pre-literary tradition
0:30:44 that gets taken up
0:30:46 and put together and i think you're
0:30:48 absolutely right that it's very clear
0:30:50 even to the english reader that in
0:30:53 genesis 1
0:30:54 you have a different tradition
0:30:57 than what you have in genesis 2
0:30:59 and that the pentateucal author
0:31:02 juxtaposes these without very much
0:31:06 concern about ironing out any sort of
0:31:09 inconsistencies
0:31:10 uh between the two and i think again
0:31:13 that is characteristic of myth
0:31:16 the authors of myth are not
0:31:18 terribly bothered by
0:31:20 logical
0:31:21 inconsistencies or fantastic elements um
0:31:26 because that's not the main point that
0:31:27 they're trying to make the only thing i
0:31:29 would add here though paul is i would
0:31:32 follow uh the commentator klaus vestimon
0:31:36 in saying that what we have in genesis 2
0:31:39 is not a second creation
0:31:41 account
0:31:42 genesis 2 contains nothing about the
0:31:44 creation of the heavens the sun and the
0:31:47 moon and the stars
0:31:49 rather it's a it's a story about the
0:31:51 origin of humanity
0:31:54 and as such it resembles other ancient
0:31:56 near eastern mesopotamian
0:31:59 about humanity and how it came to be so
0:32:02 i think in genesis 1 you do have a
0:32:05 creation story
0:32:07 and then in genesis 2 the focus
0:32:09 radically narrows
0:32:12 down to the earth and you have a story
0:32:15 about the origin of humanity yeah no i
0:32:17 think that that's that's fair comment um
0:32:20 that moving changing gear slightly now
0:32:22 we looked at the genre question which is
0:32:24 actually a fascinating area of of study
0:32:26 according to biblical scholarship
0:32:28 um
0:32:29 you you assert and and i i understand
0:32:32 why you do that adam was an historical
0:32:33 individual he reappears in the new
0:32:35 testament of course uh he's mentioned on
0:32:37 the lips of jesus in the uh in the
0:32:39 gospels uh mentioned by paul and so on
0:32:42 so you know
0:32:44 we are constrained to accept his
0:32:45 historicity if we're to take this uh
0:32:48 this scripture with great seriousness
0:32:50 but the question is um when did he live
0:32:54 uh and and and this this kind of goes
0:32:56 into the whole issue of contemporary
0:32:57 scientific accounts of human evolution
0:32:59 so we're looking at when did he live uh
0:33:01 and we we're going now into archaeology
0:33:04 we're going into genetics or whatever it
0:33:06 is you propose we use as a way of
0:33:08 determining the age of the human race
0:33:11 that we as contemporary people are
0:33:13 physically descended from we're sons of
0:33:15 adam literally i i think so can you just
0:33:18 explain how you connect this up with yes
0:33:22 we lived and and the contemporary
0:33:24 scientific accounts of human evolution
0:33:27 yes the question of when
0:33:30 humanity originated on this planet is a
0:33:32 scientific question not a biblical
0:33:35 question
0:33:36 and i think we can first set up some
0:33:38 very broad parameters
0:33:41 i i think that when you get to the
0:33:43 beautiful cave paintings
0:33:46 for example in france at trovay and
0:33:48 lasco
0:33:50 these are clearly the products of human
0:33:52 artists they are
0:33:54 beautiful breathtaking uh images so that
0:33:57 at least by this time
0:34:00 humanity is already there
0:34:03 on the other hand if you push far back
0:34:05 into the past i think when you get to
0:34:07 homo erectus a million years or so ago
0:34:11 then you're dealing with hominins who
0:34:13 have a brain
0:34:15 case that is too small to support
0:34:18 modern human consciousness
0:34:20 so that sometime in this window between
0:34:23 homo erectus and these
0:34:26 beautiful cave paintings humanity
0:34:28 originated now what i try to do in the
0:34:30 book is to close that window
0:34:33 more tightly to determine the time at
0:34:36 which um
0:34:38 adam and eve existed
0:34:40 and what i point out is that we are
0:34:43 looking for
0:34:45 people like us
0:34:47 in the past when did people like us
0:34:50 first make their appearance and that
0:34:53 will involve not simply anatomical
0:34:56 similarity to us
0:34:57 but more importantly
0:34:59 cognitive behaviors
0:35:02 that we exhibit
0:35:04 and
0:35:05 the
0:35:06 anthropologists sally mcbrearty and
0:35:08 allison brooks list four of these modern
0:35:11 cognitive behaviors
0:35:13 including things like planning depth
0:35:16 abstract thinking
0:35:18 technological innovation and symbolic
0:35:22 thinking now
0:35:24 obviously those are
0:35:26 intangible we we can't detect them
0:35:30 there's a wonderful criteria but how on
0:35:31 earth do you connect that with the
0:35:33 archaeological yes well
0:35:35 so rarely and brooks say is that we have
0:35:38 to look for what they call
0:35:40 archaeological signatures right of these
0:35:43 modern cognitive behaviors and so they
0:35:46 list around two dozen
0:35:48 of these archaeological signatures
0:35:51 that give evidence for
0:35:54 symbolic thinking or
0:35:57 technological innovativeness or planning
0:36:00 for the future
0:36:01 and it is stunning how
0:36:04 deep
0:36:05 into the past these archaeological
0:36:08 signatures go on the basis of these i
0:36:11 argue
0:36:12 that
0:36:13 humanity did not originate
0:36:16 with homo sapiens
0:36:18 that in fact neanderthals
0:36:20 and their descendants denisovans were
0:36:23 equally human
0:36:25 with homo sapiens that they also
0:36:27 exhibited these modern cognitive
0:36:28 behaviors
0:36:30 and therefore the origin of humanity
0:36:32 must go back even further
0:36:35 to at least
0:36:36 the last common ancestor
0:36:39 of homo sapiens and neanderthals and
0:36:42 this is the so-called homo
0:36:43 heidelbergensis
0:36:45 or heidelberg man who had a brain
0:36:49 there was some guy called heidelberg who
0:36:52 was
0:36:53 he a german guy who discovered this was
0:36:54 he i i don't know
0:36:57 well it's named after the city of
0:36:59 heidelberg
0:37:00 where a jaw
0:37:02 of this
0:37:04 hominin was first
0:37:06 found um
0:37:09 and then since then it's been found in
0:37:12 various places around the world
0:37:14 uh and so
0:37:16 this suggests
0:37:18 that humanity originated somewhere
0:37:21 around 750 000 years ago
0:37:25 we don't know exactly where
0:37:27 perhaps in the middle east perhaps in
0:37:29 africa
0:37:30 but then from then it spread into africa
0:37:34 where it evolved into homo sapiens and
0:37:37 into europe where it evolved into
0:37:39 neanderthals and denisovans so that we
0:37:42 all are part of this common human family
0:37:46 yeah so this is very interesting you
0:37:47 said something so i haven't read the
0:37:48 book i i confess i have ordered it by
0:37:50 the way it's arriving tomorrow after the
0:37:52 interview not before but hey that's
0:37:53 that's the way it is um
0:37:55 unfortunately what you just said there i
0:37:57 wasn't expecting you to say this you
0:37:59 said that it looks as if humanity had
0:38:01 their origin in the middle east not in
0:38:04 africa because the prevailing popular
0:38:06 perception it may not be based on the
0:38:08 latest research of course is that we all
0:38:10 came out of africa but you're saying the
0:38:12 middle east and then went into africa
0:38:13 that i was very surprised to hear that
0:38:15 yeah
0:38:16 that that is an option uh
0:38:19 the famous out of africa migration
0:38:22 is talking about the migration of homo
0:38:25 sapiens out of africa into europe and
0:38:28 the middle east but that's far too late
0:38:32 i've already pushed the origin of
0:38:34 humanity back
0:38:36 to the last common ancestor of
0:38:38 neanderthals and homo sapiens
0:38:40 and that
0:38:42 could have been in the middle east it
0:38:44 could have been elsewhere and then these
0:38:47 homo heidelbergensis
0:38:49 migrated to these other areas where
0:38:52 geographically isolated from one another
0:38:54 they evolved into these different human
0:38:56 species right that the the my kind of
0:38:59 next question is gonna bring in the
0:39:00 quran here as a muslim but i'll just
0:39:02 mention this but in the quran um
0:39:05 it talks about
0:39:07 adam being a special creation of god
0:39:09 okay and this is like non-negotiable
0:39:11 really for for many people i've spoken
0:39:14 to um you know you can believe in
0:39:16 evolution you can believe a macro
0:39:17 evolution of other species but the red
0:39:20 line the line in the sand is adam is a
0:39:22 special creation of god because he is
0:39:24 spoken of in those terms
0:39:26 interestingly in the in the genesis
0:39:29 account we have a similar kind of story
0:39:31 where adam is also a special creation
0:39:34 and by what i mean by that i mean a
0:39:36 supernatural miraculous creation by god
0:39:38 ex nihilo perhaps on the analogy and the
0:39:41 quran itself gives this analogy of jesus
0:39:44 jesus being born of a virgin his
0:39:46 conception is holy without male input
0:39:50 shall we say right
0:39:51 it's a miraculous thing so
0:39:53 scientifically of course that that can't
0:39:55 be accounted for but that's okay because
0:39:56 it's a miracle
0:39:58 uh in the same way the creation of adam
0:40:00 is also analogously and the analogy is
0:40:02 drawn in the cross uh uh with adam so my
0:40:05 question really to you is where do you
0:40:07 fit into do you identify with this
0:40:09 spectrum of used do you posit an adam
0:40:12 who is supernaturally created by god as
0:40:14 it says in genesis or do you have a more
0:40:17 a different understanding of the
0:40:18 trajectory of the evolution of hominid
0:40:21 forms that became
0:40:23 something else
0:40:24 my book leaves this an open question
0:40:27 the
0:40:28 question that i'm interested in is when
0:40:32 did humanity originate on this planet uh
0:40:35 not how
0:40:36 so in the book i assume
0:40:39 for the sake of argument the standard
0:40:41 evolutionary account and try to show how
0:40:45 the existence of a historical adam and
0:40:47 eve as a founding pair of the human race
0:40:51 is consistent with what we know from
0:40:55 uh modern
0:40:56 paleoanthropology and evolutionary
0:40:59 theory but if someone wants to say well
0:41:02 these original
0:41:04 members of homo heidelbergensis were
0:41:06 created
0:41:08 out of the dust of the earth
0:41:09 miraculously by god uh he's certainly
0:41:12 open
0:41:13 uh to believe that um
0:41:16 my my theory doesn't um take a position
0:41:20 on that okay that's for you you're
0:41:22 agnostic on that for that that's fine it
0:41:24 just seems to me that the the biblical
0:41:25 scriptures require that or at least
0:41:27 state that uh in pretty ambiguous terms
0:41:32 um i would say paul that that's only
0:41:35 true if you read these narratives in a
0:41:38 literalistic way
0:41:39 but if i'm right that this is mytho
0:41:42 history and not to be read literally
0:41:44 i think it's quite consistent
0:41:47 with the
0:41:48 creation story in genesis 2 where god
0:41:51 forms adam out of the dust of the earth
0:41:54 and breathes into his nostrils the
0:41:55 breath of life
0:41:57 then this is a figurative image for god
0:42:00 taking a pre-human hominin
0:42:03 and elevating it to the status of full
0:42:06 humanity
0:42:09 infusing a rational soul into this form
0:42:13 right so if there was uh an account of
0:42:15 the supernatural dimension in what
0:42:17 you've just said it would be the as you
0:42:19 put it the infusion of a supernatural
0:42:20 soul into yes and there may have been a
0:42:23 biological
0:42:25 there might have been a biological
0:42:27 miracle involved as well maybe a
0:42:29 systemic genetic
0:42:31 mutation that would uh enable this
0:42:34 hominin to support
0:42:36 the capacities of a rational soul but
0:42:39 yes as as a dualist
0:42:41 uh who thinks that we're more than just
0:42:44 bags of chemicals on bones that we have
0:42:46 souls that would definitely be a
0:42:48 supernatural element the infusion of a
0:42:51 rational soul right so you're a
0:42:53 christian obviously you're a dualist uh
0:42:55 i'm i'm also i'm an idealist
0:42:57 philosophically speaking so it's very
0:42:58 similar to that there has to be some uh
0:43:01 top-down um input if you like as well as
0:43:03 a bottom-up input in terms of
0:43:06 the the the end product if we use that
0:43:08 crude language
0:43:09 you'd accept that obviously yes
0:43:11 yeah okay fair enough um well i think um
0:43:14 that that i i've come to the at the end
0:43:16 of my uh questions and you've been very
0:43:18 generous in in
0:43:19 hearing my questions and my pushback on
0:43:21 one or two points it's a very kind of
0:43:23 you and
0:43:25 you are a prolific author i i was uh
0:43:27 very impressed to see that very very
0:43:29 long list of books i wouldn't begin to
0:43:30 recite the litany of works you've done
0:43:33 but do you have a dare i ask do you have
0:43:35 any further projects in mind or or is
0:43:37 this exhausted your
0:43:41 i have not exhausted my resources
0:43:45 i have now embarked
0:43:48 upon
0:43:49 my greatest project which is to write a
0:43:52 multi-volume systematic philosophical
0:43:55 theology i'm anticipating that this will
0:43:58 take about 10 years to complete
0:44:01 i have finished the first volume which
0:44:04 is on doctrine of scripture doctrine of
0:44:06 faith and doctrine of god
0:44:08 and i am now commencing the second
0:44:11 volume and currently working on the
0:44:13 doctrine of the trinity which i think
0:44:15 you would find very interesting
0:44:18 so
0:44:19 i am having a great deal of fun doing
0:44:22 this it is tremendous challenge but i'm
0:44:24 learning
0:44:25 so much every week
0:44:28 deepening my understanding of
0:44:31 philosophical theology and
0:44:33 therefore
0:44:34 really really enjoying this great
0:44:36 project well that's i i'm glad i asked
0:44:39 because that's an extraordinary piece of
0:44:40 news so you're very much in the
0:44:41 tradition of thomas aquinas his summers
0:44:43 you know the summer theologica and the
0:44:44 summer gentiles john calvin and in his
0:44:48 great uh work as well and you're kind of
0:44:50 in this tradition of systematic
0:44:51 theologians even or systematic
0:44:53 philosophers yeah
0:44:55 so this is the the the summer of william
0:44:58 lane craig
0:45:00 in history
0:45:02 okay now um
0:45:03 people by the way can uh explore dr
0:45:06 craig's library of writings videos and
0:45:08 podcasts on his website
0:45:11 which is called
0:45:13 reasonableface.org
0:45:14 reasonablefaith.org where i think
0:45:16 there's this huge library and of course
0:45:17 you have a youtube channel or two i
0:45:19 think and
0:45:21 um you found all over the place actually
0:45:24 so but um i i do just mention again the
0:45:26 stanford encyclopedia philosophy online
0:45:28 article on the cosmological i was i just
0:45:30 found it so so helpful in really
0:45:32 clarifying the the history and the the
0:45:35 debates of this i think it's a
0:45:38 perennially it perennially interesting
0:45:40 argument and i think it will work yeah
0:45:43 and um credit to you
0:45:45 for keeping this very much uh in the
0:45:47 public uh mind uh and um it's been i
0:45:51 think i think your presentation of it
0:45:52 has been
0:45:53 the the most published and argued about
0:45:55 presentation of the argument uh in in
0:45:58 recent decades it's been very very
0:46:00 well argued about
0:46:03 um is there anything in in conclusion uh
0:46:06 by the way you'd like to say about
0:46:07 either these subjects uh to our viewers
0:46:09 before we close
0:46:12 well only that if there are some of our
0:46:14 listeners who are not yet uh believers i
0:46:17 want to encourage them to
0:46:19 look at the evidence because i believe
0:46:22 that um
0:46:24 the
0:46:25 best
0:46:26 uh and most plausible um view of
0:46:30 reality is christian theism and i would
0:46:33 simply
0:46:34 encourage them to look at the evidence
0:46:36 and arguments with an open mind and an
0:46:38 open heart
0:46:40 okay that's fair enough yeah i certainly
0:46:41 would encourage people to look at all
0:46:43 the evidence with an open mind and open
0:46:45 heart whatever conclusions they reach
0:46:46 well thank you very much uh dr william
0:46:48 lane craig for your time and your
0:46:50 expertise and your good humor and um i'm
0:46:53 very much looking forward to reading
0:46:54 your book on the quest for the
0:46:55 historical adam i'm sure there's going
0:46:57 to be much
0:46:58 of interest in that and yours and your
0:47:00 forthcoming summer as i'm now going to
0:47:02 call it
0:47:05 because that's what it is it sounds like
0:47:06 so uh thank you very much
0:47:08 well thank you paul and the lord bless
0:47:10 you
0:47:11 on youtube until next time