Sixteenth-century portrait of John Calvin by an unknown artist. From the collection of the Bibliothèque de Genève (Library of Geneva)

In the philosophy of religion, reformed epistemology is a school of thought regarding the epistemology of belief in God put forward by a group of Protestant Christian philosophers, most notably, Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Nicholas Wolterstorff and Michael C. Rea. Central to Reformed epistemology is the idea that belief in God is a "properly basic belief": it doesn't need to be inferred from other truths in order to be reasonable. Since this view represents a continuation of the thinking about the relationship between faith and reason that its founders find in 16th century Reformed theology, particularly in John Calvin's doctrine that God has planted in us a sensus divinitatis,^[1] it has come to be known as Reformed epistemology.

Ideas[link]

Reformed epistemology aims to demonstrate the failure of objections that theistic belief—and in later works of the school, full-blown Christian belief—is unjustified, unreasonable, intellectually sub-par or otherwise epistemically challenged in some way, even where one believes it without supporting argument. By contrast, many modern foundationalists, and evidentialists claim that theistic belief is rational only where one's so believing is inferentially based in propositional and/or physical evidence, and a subset of these think further that no adequate evidence is available.

Reformed epistemology seeks to defend faith as rational by demonstrating that theistic belief can be properly basic — reasonable though it is not held as an inference from other truths. Reformed epistemology grew out of the parity argument presented by Alvin Plantinga in his book God and Other Minds (1967): if believing in other minds is rational though unsupported by argument, so might believing in God be rational, even if similarly unsupported. Plantinga (2000a) would later argue that theistic belief has "warrant". Roughly, in Plantinga's theory of knowledge, warrant is that property of true beliefs that makes them knowledge. What this turns out to be, says Plantinga, is the property of being "produced by cognitive faculties functioning properly (subject to no malfunctioning) in a cognitive environment congenial for those faculties, according to a design plan successfully aimed at truth"^[2] Because there is an epistemically possible model according to which theistic belief is properly basic—i.e. the one on which God has designed our cognitive faculties such as to be disposed to form belief in God—theistic belief is warranted apart from theistic argument. Plantinga contends that this model is likely true if theistic belief is true; and on the other hand, the model is unlikely to be true if theism is false. This connection between the truth-value of theism and its positive epistemic status suggests to some that the goal of showing theistic belief to be externally rational or warranted requires reasons for supposing that theism is true (Sudduth, 2000). It should be noted that though Reformed epistemology denies that theistic arguments are necessary to rational belief in God, many of its adherents see theistic arguments of various sorts as providing that belief with additional warrant.

Faith as addressing issues beyond the scope of rationality[link]

The position that faith addresses issues beyond the scope of rationality holds that faith supplements rationality, because the scope of rational human knowledge is limited. In essence, under this view, faith corresponds to beliefs that, although quite possibly true, cannot yet be fully grasped by our reason.

Proponents^[who?] interpret the following passages of the Bible as teaching this view of faith and reason:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." 1st Corinthians 13:12

Some have argued that strict rationalism to the exclusion of this type of faith erroneously concludes that because rational thought is successful at explaining some things, knowledge that comes from beyond the realm of rational thought is illegitimate. According to this line of reasoning,

Our science-dominated culture has ruled out religious experience as a clue to reality; but on what grounds? Science in the 1600’s was so successful in understanding the physical dimension of reality that people in the 1700’s began to think that the physical may be the only dimension of reality. But success in one area of inquiry does not invalidate other areas. The burden of proof is on those who would exclude a particular kind of experience from being a source of knowledge. [1]

Under this view, faith is not static belief divorced from reason and experience, and is not illegitimate as a source of knowledge. On the contrary, belief by faith starts with the things known by reason, and extends to things that are true, although they cannot be understood, and is therefore legitimate insofar as it answers questions that rational thought is incapable of addressing. As such, beliefs held by this form of faith are seen dynamic and changing as one grows in experience and knowledge; until one's "faith" becomes "sight." This sort of belief is commonly found in mysticism.

The evidentialist objection to theism[link]

Reformed epistemology is to some extent a response to the evidentialist objection to belief in God, which can be formulated as an argument as follows:

1. It is irrational or unacceptable to accept theistic belief without sufficient or appropriate evidence or reason.
2. There is not sufficient/appropriate evidence or reason for theistic belief.
3. Belief in God is irrational.^[3]

The conclusion is not that God does not exist but rather that it is irrational to believe that God does exist.

Theists have responded to this argument in several ways. A few (perhaps Kierkegaard) accept the argument that belief in God is irrational, see that as a virtue, and accept some sort of fideism. Traditionally, many theists have denied the second premise of the argument, and have applied to natural theology to show that there is sufficient evidence for the existence of God using premises that all rational people should to accept.^{[citation needed]} (Perhaps the greatest example of this aspiration is Descartes' proof for the existence of God in his Meditations on First Philosophy.)

Reformed epistemologists, however, deny the first premise — namely, that belief in God is irrational unless supported by sufficient evidence, where evidence is construed as providing propositions from which to infer God's existence. They contend that the requirement is unduly strict, for there are many reasonable beliefs that one may accept without argument (for example, belief in other minds, belief in an external world, and belief in the past). Moreover, many perceptual beliefs are not formed by way of arguments: e.g., one does not formulate an argument, "I'm being appeared to 'treely'; the way one is appeared to is the way things are; therefore: I am seeing a tree." Rather, upon seeing a tree, one simply believes one sees a tree. We might say that the experience epistemically "grounds" the belief without contributing to an argument on the basis of which one accepts it. Such beliefs are properly basic and need no argument to substantiate them. Reformed epistemology therefore rejects as arbitrary the evidentialist requirement of an argument to prove the existence of God, but not the existence of other persons, the truth of propositions about past, or the reality of the external world.

Criticisms[link]

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Although Reformed epistemology has flourished among several theistic philosophers, it has been criticized by theists and non-theists alike. Those of faith have frequently criticized Reformed epistemology for its commitment to negative apologetics, counter-arguments to arguments that faith is not rational, the fact that it offers no reasons for supposing that theism or Christianity is true (so-called positive apologetics), and its claim that any such inferences are unsound.

Criticisms from those critical of (or agnostic toward) faith as rational have included that Reformed epistemology rests on the presupposition that there is religious truth, but does not present any argument to show that there is any (compare Fideism). Another common criticism is that as a tool for discriminating justified from unjustified constituent beliefs, Reformed epistemology falls short; that it springs forth from a presupposition that within each of us resides a doxastic mechanism (i.e. a mechanism for reasoning about beliefs) that generates religious convictions, belief in God, etc., supporting the conclusion that such beliefs are innate, hence properly basic.

Rationalists argue that beliefs held by faith, without evidence, contradict one another. Thus most "faiths," in the sense of "religions," hold that their view is correct and that other religions are false religions. The Bible, for examples, says, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me." Therefore, of the exclusive religions held through faith, either one is correct and all others are wrong, or they are all wrong. Rationalists argue that if, in all cases but one, faith leads to incorrect belief, then it is wrong in that one case to expect faith to lead to correct belief.

The Anglican C. S. Lewis held that the tenets of Christianity were likely precisely because resurrection from the dead, the miracles and the story of Lazarus seemed to defy rationality. However, he described his experience of faith in his book Mere Christianity by distinguishing between two usages of the word. He describes the first as follows:

"Faith seems to be used by Christians in two senses or on two levels ... In the first sense it means simply Belief."^[4]

Several paragraphs later he continues with:

"Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods."^[4]

Another common objection, is known as the "Great Pumpkin Objection". Plantinga (1983) states the objection as follows:

It is tempting to raise the following sort of question. If belief in God can be properly basic, why cannot just any belief be properly basic? Could we not say the same for any bizarre aberration we can think of? What about voodoo or astrology? What about the belief that the Great Pumpkin returns every Halloween? Could I properly take that as basic? Suppose I believe that if I flap my arms with sufficient vigor, I can take off and fly about the room; could I defend myself against the charge of irrationality by claiming this belief is basic? If we say that belief in God is properly basic, will we not be committed to holding that just anything, or nearly anything, can properly be taken as basic, thus throwing wide the gates to irrationalism and superstition? (p. 74)

In short, the Great Pumpkin Objection states that Reformed epistemology is so liberal that it allows belief in any sort of far-fetched entity to be justified as simply foundational or basic. Someone might, for example, take as basic the belief that the Great Pumpkin is all-powerful, just as the Reformed epistemologist takes a similar belief in God as basic. Perhaps the belief is grounded in an experiential belief, such as Plantinga (1993b) describes. Thus, the objection intends to show that there must be something wrong with Reformed epistemology if it allows belief in the Great Pumpkin to be warranted as basic.

Plantinga's answer to this is that the objection simply assumes that the criteria for "proper basicality" propounded by Classical Foundationalism (self-evidence, incorrigibility, and sense-perception) are the only possible criteria for properly basic beliefs. It is as if the Great Pumpkin objector feels that if properly basic beliefs not be arrived at by way of one of these criteria, then it follows that just 'any' belief could then be properly basic, precisely because there are no other criteria. But, Plantinga says it simply doesn't follow from the rejection of Classical Foundationalist criteria, that all possibility for criteria has been exhausted, and this is exactly what the Great Pumpkin objection assumes.

Plantinga takes his counter-argument further, asking how the GP objector "knows" that such criteria are the only criteria. The objector certainly seems to hold it as 'basic' that the Classical Foundationalist criteria are all that is available. Yet, such a claim is neither self-evident, incorrigible, nor evident to the senses. This rebuts the Great Pumpkin objection by demonstrating the Classical Foundationalist position to be internally incoherent, propounding an epistemic position which it itself does not follow.

The justifications for faith as rational are based on semantic and epistemological strategies: 1. Less semantically precise definitions of rationalism that allow for faith to be accommodated as rational:

1.a Broadening of the definition of faith to include faith as a belief that rests on logical proof or material evidence.

1.b Weakening of the definitions of proof, evidence, logic, rational, etc., to allow for a lower standard of proof.

2. Attacking the epistemological underpinnings of rationality by asserting that certain beliefs not supported by reason or evidence are still properly basic because they are intuitive or that we are "naturally inclined" to believe them.

The semantic strategy (number 1) is common to those who hold that faith addresses issues beyond the scope of rationality, whereas the epistemological strategy (number 2) is employed by those who hold that faith underlies rationality.

Other people of faith have adopted the position that faith is implicitly irrational and have embraced the putative irrationality of faith as a demonstration of devotion to one's beliefs and deity. For example, Fideism specifically recommends that one not be rational.

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Alston, William P. (1991). Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Cornell University Press.
• Alston, William P. (1996). "Belief, Acceptance, and Religious Faith". In Faith, Freedom, and Rationality: Philosophy of Religion Today, Jordan & Howard-Snyder (eds.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
• Clark, Kelly James. (1990) Return to Reason. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
• Plantinga, A. & Wolterstorff, N., eds. (1983). Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
• Plantinga, Alvin. (1967). God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God. Cornell University Press.
• Plantinga, Alvin. (1983). "Reason and Belief in God". In Plantinga & Wolterstorff (1983), pp. 16–93.
• Plantinga, Alvin. (1993a). Warrant: the Current Debate. Oxford University Press.
• Plantinga, Alvin. (1993b). Warrant and Proper Function. Oxford University Press.
• Plantinga, Alvin. (2000a). Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford University Press.
• Plantinga, Alvin. (2000b). "Arguments for the Existence of God". In the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Routledge.
• Plantinga, Alvin. (2000c). "Religion and Epistemology". In the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Routledge.
• Sudduth, Michael. (2000). "Reformed Epistemology and Christian Apologetics". <http://academics.smcvt.edu/philosophy/faculty/Sudduth/3_frameset.htm>.
• Wolterstorff, Nicholas. "How Calvin Fathered a Renaissance in Christian Philosophy". Lecture at Calvin College.
• Wolterstorff, Nicholas. (1976). Reason within the Bounds of Religion. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
• Wolterstorff, Nicholas. (2001). Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology. New York: Cambridge University Press.

External links[link]

• Religious Epistemology by Kelly James Clark in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP).
• The Epistemology of Religion: Reformed Epistemology - by Peter Forrest, Jul 10, 2006.
• Reformed Epistemology and Christian Apologetics by Michael Sudduth. Saint Michael's College. April 2000
• Voodoo Epistemology by Keith DeRose. (A critical assessment of Plantinga's response to the "Great Pumpkin Objection.")
• Why Alston's Mystical Doxastic Practice Is Subjective by Richard Gale, originally published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LIV, No. 4, December 1994.
• Reformed Epistemology Bibliography & time line compiled and categorized by Michael Sudduth.
• Reforming Reformed Epistemology (PDF) Duncan Pritchard. University of Stirling, Scotland.
• Are Christian Beliefs Properly Basic? by Keith DeRose. (A critical examination of Alvin Plantinga's provocative claim that Christian beliefs can be justified even without any evidence for them.)
• Articles on Christian Epistemology - from solagratia.org.

Philosophy portal

William Lane Craig

Born	(1949-08-23) August 23, 1949 (age 62)[1] East Peoria, Illinois[citation needed]
Era	21st-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy
Main interests	Philosophy of religion, natural theology, philosophy of time, Christian apologetics
Influenced by Alvin Plantinga, Francis Schaeffer, Edward John Carnell, Stuart Hackett, John Hick, Wolfhart Pannenberg
Influenced J. P. Moreland, Francis Beckwith
Website	reasonablefaith.org

William Lane Craig (born August 23, 1949)^[1] is an American analytic philosopher, philosophical theologian, and Christian apologist.^[2] He is known for his work in the philosophy of religion, philosophy of time, and the defense of Christian theism.^[3] One of his most notable contributions to the philosophy of religion is his defense of the Kalām cosmological argument, which is the most widely discussed argument for the existence of God in contemporary Western philosophy.^[2][4] In theology, he has also defended Molinism and the belief that God is, since Creation, subject to time.^[2][5][6]

Craig has authored or edited over 30 books, including The Kalām Cosmological Argument (1979), The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz (1980), Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (with Quentin Smith, 1993), Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (with J.P. Moreland, 2003) and Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (3d edition, 2008).

Academic background[link]

Craig received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Wheaton College, Illinois, in 1971 and two summa cum laude master's degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, in 1975, in philosophy of religion and ecclesiastical history.^[1] He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy under John Hick at the University of Birmingham, England in 1977 and a Th.D. under Wolfhart Pannenberg at the University of Munich in 1984.^[7]

From 1980 to 1986 he was an assistant professor of philosophy at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He briefly held the position of associate professor of religious studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, from 1986 to 1987. From 1987 to 1994 Craig pursued further research at the University of Louvain, Belgium. Since 1996 he has held the position of research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University in La Mirada, California.^[7]

Work[link]

Philosophy of religion[link]

Craig's primary contribution to philosophy of religion is his revival of the Kalām cosmological argument. In The Kalam Cosmological Argument, he formulates the argument in the following manner:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.^[8]

He defends the second premise by arguing that actual infinities and the formation of an actual infinite through continual addition are metaphysically impossible. Although he recognizes that axiomatized infinite set theory is logically consistent he maintains that the existence of actual infinities in the real world would lead to absurdities. For example, David Hilbert's famous "Hilbert's Hotel" thought experiment demonstrates how a fully occupied hotel would still be able to accommodate an infinite number of guests. Craig modifies the thought experiment by introducing operations such as subtraction and shows that subtracting identical quantities from identical quantities would have non-identical remainders.^[9] Since we have no evidence of such things in the actual world, Craig maintains that actual infinities are, for all intents and purposes, metaphysically impossible. Craig also argues that the thermodynamic properties of the universe and its expansion provide more evidence in support of premise two.^[10]

Craig also develops an a posteriori argument against actual infinities which rests on the A-theory of time. He gives Bertrand Russell's example of Tristam Shandy, who writes his autobiography so slowly that it takes him one year to write down the events of one day. A similar temporal sequence would have occurred in an eternal universe. No matter how long it takes, an eternal universe would still not be 'actually infinite' and must have begun to exist.

Craig has also contributed to the problem of divine foreknowledge (the compatibility of God's omniscience with human freedom). He analyzes current discussions of time travel, retrocausality, special relativity, and Newcomb's Paradox and brings them to bear on theological fatalism (most often supported by strongly Augustinian theologies, particularly Calvinism).^[11] Rejecting fatalism^[12] he defends the middle knowledge view (also known as Molinism).^[13] According to this solution, prior to actualizing a possible world, God knows everything that does or will happen as well as how free creatures would act if placed in any particular circumstance. Craig considers that this also provides the answer to the question of how God foreknows future contingents.^[14]

Philosophy of time[link]

Craig is a presentist and defends the A-series of time. He rejects J. M. E. McTaggart's famous argument against it, describing it as "an engaging and recalcitrant brain teaser that no one takes seriously," but also argues against hybrid A-B theorists because they are all refuted by McTaggart's paradox.^[15] He argues that McTaggart's objection does not succeed as it employs an incoherent combination of a B-theoretical ontology with A-theoretical temporal becoming.^[16] According to Craig, if one adopts a neo-Lorentzian interpretation of special relativity, the A-theory can be reconciled with the theory of relativity.^[17]

In terms of God's relationship to time, Craig argues that God must exist in time if he is to be regarded as a causal agent. He rejects the view that God could exist timelessly with creation as he did sans creation on the grounds that nothing outside time could have temporal interactions with the world. Critics such as Paul Helm maintain that Craig’s objections against divine timelessness is itself incoherent because "There can be no temporal 'and then' for a timelessly eternal God."^[18] Craig responds to this charge by arguing that God's timeless and temporal phases are not related to each other as "earlier" and "later."^[19]

Apologetics[link]

Craig has written a number of works of Christian apologetics.^[20] Fellow Evangelical apologist Robert M. Bowman, Jr. (writing with Kenneth D. Boa) described his Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics as "one of the best recent textbook introductions to the subject of apologetics."^[21] Catholic Cardinal Avery Dulles has described Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (with J.P. Moreland, 2003) as "monumental," but pointed out that Catholics will not necessarily agree with it.^[20]

Craig's work as a New Testament historian focuses on a defense of central Christian doctrines, specifically Jesus' resurrection from the dead.^[20] In books such as The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus, he reviews the historical debate and provides a critical analysis of David Hume's arguments against testimony of miracles, examines New Testament material dealing with the resurrection, and concludes that the resurrection is the most plausible explanation of the historical data.^[22][23] Craig uses the Shroud of Turin as part of his case.^[20]

Other views[link]

Craig is a critic of metaphysical naturalism^[24] and New Atheism^[25] as well as a defender of Reformed epistemology.^[26] He believes that scripture does not condemn homosexuals per se but does prohibit all homosexual acts, which he considers as “sacrilegious” as well as “self-destructive” to the same degree as heroin addiction or chain smoking whether engaged in by a homosexual or a heterosexual person.^[27] Craig maintains that the theory of evolution is compatible with Christianity.^{[28][page needed]} Although he does not fully endorse intelligent design,^[29] he thinks it may be a viable alternative to evolution.^[30] He is a fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture^[31] and a fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design (ISCID).^[32]

Debates[link]

Craig has publicly debated atheists Richard Carrier, Robert M. Price, Sam Harris, Antony Flew,^[33][34] A. C. Grayling,^[35] Lawrence Krauss,^[36][37] Victor Stenger,^[38] Peter Atkins,^[39] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong,^[40] and Christopher Hitchens,^[41] as well as liberal theologian Gerd Lüdemann,^[42] and prominent Muslims such as Shabir Ally and Jawal Badawi.^[43] Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins has refused a rigorous debate with Craig (accusing him of self-promotion and of being an “apologist for genocide"),^[44] although Dawkins participated in a six-person discussion which included Craig.^[45]

The debates with Antony Flew, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and Gerd Lüdemann have been published in book form.^{[40][42][46][47]}

Bibliography[link]

• The Kalām Cosmological Argument. London: MacMillan. 1979. ISBN 1-57910-438-X / ISBN 978-1-57910-438-2
• The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz. London: MacMillan. 1980. ISBN 1-57910-787-7 / ISBN 978-1-57910-787-1
• The Son Rises: Historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Chicago: Moody Press. 1981. ISBN 978-1-57910-464-1 / ISBN 978-1-57910-464-1
• Apologetics: An Introduction. Chicago: Moody Press. 1984. ISBN 0-8024-0405-7
• The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus during the Deist Controversy. Toronto: Edwin Mellen. 1985. ISBN 0-88946-811-7
• The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse. 1987. ISBN 1-57910-316-2 / ISBN 978-1-57910-316-3
• The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez. Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1988. ISBN 90-04-08516-5 / ISBN 978-90-04-08516-9
• Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection. Ann Arbor: Servant. 1988. ISBN 0-89283-384-X / ISBN 978-0-89283-384-9
• Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus. Toronto: Edwin Mellen Press. 1989. ISBN 0889466165/ ISBN 978-0-88946-616-6
• Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom: The Coherence of Theism I: Omniscience. Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1990. ISBN 90-04-09250-1 / ISBN 978-90-04-09250-1
• No Easy Answers. Chicago: Moody Press. 1990. ISBN 0-8024-2283-7 / ISBN 978-0-8024-2283-5
• Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (with Quentin Smith). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993. ISBN 978-0-19-826383-8
• The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 0-7923-6634-4 / ISBN 978-0-7923-6634-8
• Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate Between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan. Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse. 1998.
• God, Are You There?. Atlanta: RZIM. 1999. ISBN 1-930107-00-5 / ISBN 978-1-930107-00-7
• The Tenseless Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2000. ISBN 978-0-7923-6635-5 / ISBN 978-0-7923-6635-5
• God, Time and Eternity. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2001. ISBN 978-1-58134-241-3 / ISBN 978-1-58134-241-3
• Time and The Metaphysics of Relativity. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2001. ISBN 0-7923-6668-9
• Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time. Wheaton: Crossway. 2001. ISBN 978-1-58134-241-3 / ISBN 978-1-58134-241-3
• What Does God Know? Atlanta: RZIM. 2002. ISBN 978-1-930107-05-2
• Hard Questions, Real Answers. Wheaton: Crossway Books. 2003. ISBN 978-1-58134-487-5 / ISBN 978-1-58134-487-5
• God?: A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist(with Walter Sinnot-Armstrong). New York: Oxford University Press. 2003.
• Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (with J.P. Moreland). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. 2003.
• Creation out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration (with Paul Copan). Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse. 2004. ISBN 0-8010-2733-0
• Reasonable Faith. Wheaton: Crossway. 1994. rev. 3rd ed. 2008. ISBN 0-89107-764-2 / ISBN 978-0-89107-764-0
• Einstein, relativity and absolute simultaneity. London New York: Routledge. 2008. ISBN 0-415-59166-X. 
• On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook. 2010. ISBN 1-4347-6488-5 / ISBN 978-1-4347-6488-1

See also[link]

Biography portal

• List of American philosophers

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: William Lane Craig

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: William Lane Craig

• Reasonable Faith William Lane Craig's personal website
• Faculty webpage
• Comprehensive Debate list
• Interviews from the program Closer to Truth
• Works by or about William Lane Craig in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Audio files at bethinking.org

William Lane

William Lane (6 September 1861 – 26 August 1917) was a journalist, advocate of Australian labour politics and a utopian.^[1]

Early life[link]

Lane was born in Bristol, England, eldest son of James Lane, from Ireland a Protestant Master Gardener, and his English wife Caroline, née Hall.^[1] When Lane was born his father was earning a miserable wage, but later his circumstances improved and he became an employer. The boy was educated at Bristol Grammar School and showed ability, but he was sent early to work as an office boy. Lane's mother died when he was 14 years of age, and at age 16 he migrated to Canada, then to the United States, where he worked first as a printer, then as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press (1881), there meeting his future wife Ann MacGuire. In 1885 they migrated to Brisbane, Australia, where Lane immediately got work as a feature writer for the weekly newspaper Queensland Figaro, then as a columnist for the newspapers Brisbane Courier and Evening Telegraph, using a number of pseudonyms ("Lucinda Sharpe", which some consider to be the work of Annie Lane, William Wilcher and "Sketcher").

A life-long abstainer from alcohol, in 1886 he created an Australia-wide sensation by spending a night in the Brisbane lock-up disguised as a drunk, and subsequently reporting the conditions of the cells as "Henry Harris". Lane's father was a drunk who impoverished the family.^[1]

With the growth of the 7-2 labour movement, "Sketcher"'s columns, especially his "Labour Notes" in the Evening Telegraph, increasingly promoted labourist philosophy, and Lane himself attended meetings supporting all manner of popular causes, speaking with his "American twang" against repressive laws and practices and Chinese immigrants.

After becoming the de facto editor of the Courier, Lane departed during November 1887 to found the weekly The Boomerang, "a live newspaper, racy, of the soil", in which pro-worker themes and lurid racism were brought to a fever-pitch by both "Sketcher" and "Lucinda Sharpe". He became a powerful supporter of Emma Miller and Women's suffrage. A strong proponent of Henry George's Single Tax Movement, Lane became increasingly committed to a radically alternative society, and ended his relationship with the Boomerang due to its private ownership.

In May 1890 he began the community-funded Brisbane weekly The Worker, the rhetoric of which became increasingly threatening towards the employers, the government, and the British Empire itself. The defeat of the 1891 Australian shearers' strike convinced Lane that there would be no real social change without a completely new society, and The Worker became increasingly devoted to his New Australia utopian idea.

The Workingman's Paradise, an allegorical novel written in sympathy with the shearers involved in the 1891 Shearer's Strike, was published under his pseudonym John Miller in early 1892. In the novel Lane articulated the belief that anarchism is the noblest social philosophy of all. Through the novel's philosopher and main protagonist he relates his belief that society may have to experience a period of State socialism to achieve the ideal of Communist anarchism. Mary Gilmore, later a celebrated Australian writer, said in one of her letters "the whole book is true and of historical value as Lane transcribed our conversations as well as those of others".

New Australia Colony[link]

Contriving a division among Australian labour activists between the permanently disaffected and those who later formed the Australian Labor Party, Lane refused the Queensland Government's offer of a grant of land on which to create a utopian settlement, and began an Australia-wide campaign for the creation of a new society elsewhere on the globe, peopled by rugged and sober Australian bushmen and their proud wives.

Eventually Paraguay was decided upon, and Lane and his family and several hundred acolytes from New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia departed Mort Bay in Sydney in the ship Royal Tar on 1 July 1893.

New Australia soon had its crisis, brought on by the issues of inter-racial relationships (Lane singled out the Guarani as racially taboo) and alcohol. Lane's dictatorial manner soon alienated many in the community, and by the time the second boat-load of utopians arrived from Adelaide a year later, Lane had left with a core of devotees to form a new colony nearby named 7-2.

Eventually Lane became disillusioned with the process, and returned to Australia in 1899.

Later life[link]

Lane then went with his family to New Zealand. After initial melancholia, he soon refound his old verve as a pseudonymous feature-writer from 1900 for the newspaper New Zealand Herald ("Tohunga"), only this time as ultra-conservative and pro-Empire. He had strong racial antipathy toward East Asians, and during World War I he developed extreme anti-German sentiments. He died on 26 August 1917 in Auckland, New Zealand, having been editor of the Herald from 1913 to 1917, much admired, having lost one son Charles at a cricket match in Cosme in Paraguay, and another Donald on the first day of the ANZAC landings (25 April 1915) on the beaches of Gallipoli.

References[link]

This article cites its sources but does not provide page references. You can help to improve it by introducing citations that are more precise.

• Gavin Souter's account of Lane and New Australia in his A Peculiar People
• Peter Bruce's thesis (Univ Sydney) The Journalistic Career of William Lane.
• Larry Petrie (1859-1901) - Australian Revolutionist? by Bob James
• Whitehead, Anne (1997) Paradise Mislaid — in Search of the Australian Tribe of Paraguay University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia
• Serle, Percival (1949). "Lane, William". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogL.html#lane1. Retrieved 7 September 2009. 

External links[link]

• Workingman's Paradise at Project Gutenberg
• Workingman's Paradise, Pdf at University of Sydney

Louis Berkhof (1873 – 1957) was a Reformed systematic theologian whose written works have been influential in seminaries and Bible colleges in the United States and Canada and with individual Christians in general throughout the 20th century.

Personal life[link]

Berkhof was born in 1873 in Emmen, Drenthe, in the Netherlands and moved with his family to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1882.

About the time he graduated from the seminary he married Reka Dijkhuis. They had four children before her death in 1928. He then married Dena Heyns-Joldersma who had two daughters.^[1]

Education and career[link]

In 1900, he graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids after which he was appointed pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church in Allendale Charter Township, Michigan. Two years later he attended Princeton Theological Seminary where he earned his B.D. in two years. He returned to Grand Rapids to pastor Oakdale Park Church.

In 1906, he joined the faculty of Calvin Theological Seminary and taught there for almost four decades. For the first 20 years he taught Biblical Studies until in 1926 he moved into the systematic theology department. He became president of the seminary in 1931 and continued in that office until he retired in 1944.^[2]

Publications[link]

Berkhof wrote twenty-two books during his career.^[1]

His main works are his Systematic Theology (1932, revised 1938) which was supplemented with an Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology (1932, which is included in the 1996 Eerdman's edition of Systematic Theology) and a separate volume entitled History of Christian Doctrines (1937).

He wrote a more concise version of his Systematic Theology for high school and college students entitled Manual of Christian Doctrine, and later wrote the even more concise Summary of Christian Doctrine.

He also delivered Princeton Theological Seminary's Stone Lectures in 1951. These were published as The Kingdom of God.

In addition to this, he worked on many papers for the Christian Reformed Church as well as collections of sermons.^[2]

Legacy[link]

Berkhof was not known for being original or speculative but for being very good at organizing and explaining basic theological ideas following in the tradition of John Calvin, Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck.

Theologian Wayne Grudem has called Berkhof's Systematic Theology "a great treasure-house of information and analysis... probably the most useful one-volume systematic theology available from any theological perspective."^[3]

Berkhof's writings continue to serve as systematic presentations of Reformed theology. They are organized for use in seminaries and religious education as well as individual reference, though his systematics works are demanding reads.^[4]

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} Berkhof, Louis
2. ^ ^{a b} Louis Berkhof
3. ^ Grudem, Systematic Theology, Zondervan, 1994, pg. 1225
4. ^ A General Bibliography for Systematic Theology « THE VERITAS PROJECT

External links[link]

• Outline of Berkhof's Systematic Theology
• Calvin Theological Seminary's biography
• Additional Biographical information

Ray Comfort
October 2010
Born	New Zealand
Ethnicity	Jewish (mother's side)[1]
Occupation	Christian Evangelist, Author, Television host
Known for	The Way of the Master, Living Waters Publications, Christian Evangelism
Religion	Evangelical Christianity
Website
Living Waters

Ray Comfort (born 5 December 1949) is a New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist.^[2] Comfort started Living Waters Publications and The Way of the Master in Bellflower, California and has written a number of books.

Early life and career[link]

Comfort was born to a Jewish mother and a father who he described as "a Gentile [who] was open to the things of God".^[3] According to Comfort's autobiography, his parents put "Methodist" on his birth certificate because his mother feared the possibility of "another Hitler", but he was given no religious instruction as a child.^[3] After finishing high school at 17, he worked in a bank, and began a successful business when he was 20. He became increasingly religious, and at 22 began seven years training at a local church, after which he was ordained as a full-time pastor. He then spent three and a half years pastoring in Christchurch, New Zealand, and 12 years preaching open-air in the city's Speaker's Corner.^[4] Beyond this, he has no formal training or theological degree.^[5] In his mid-20s, he began receiving invitations to speak internationally. In 1989, he accepted an invitation to join the pastoral staff at the non-denominational Calvary Chapel in Southern California.^[4] Ray Comfort nonetheless identifies himself as a Jew.^[1]

[edit] The Way of the Master ministry

Comfort says that evangelism is the main reason the Christian Church exists and that many of the evangelistic methods used over the last century have produced false conversions to Christianity. Comfort often uses the Ten Commandments to speak about sin before presenting the gospel of Jesus. In the mid-1980s he formulated two sermons entitled "Hell's Best Kept Secret"^[6] and "True and False Conversions."

Comfort speaks professionally at churches and evangelism seminars, and preaches in Huntington Beach, California. As well as co-hosting the former The Way of the Master Radio with Kirk Cameron, he is co-host of The Way of the Master Television Show, and the "Creationism Examiner" on The Examiner.^{[citation needed]}

Comfort and Cameron were also involved in rewriting parts of the film, Left Behind II: Tribulation Force.^{[citation needed]}

Debates[link]

Comfort, seated behind Kirk Cameron, at a debate on the existence of God at Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan, 5 May 2007

On 13 April 2001, Comfort appeared at the 27th National Convention of American Atheists in Orlando, Florida, where he debated Ron Barrier, the National Spokesperson for American Atheists.^[7] Comfort later stated that "they laughed at my humor, and although there was unified mockery at some of the things that I said, I was able to go through the Ten Commandments, the fact of Judgment Day, the "reality of Hell", the Cross, and the necessity of repentance, and no one stopped me."^[7]

On 5 May 2007, Comfort and Cameron participated in a televised debate with Brian Sapient and Kelly O'Connor of the Rational Response Squad, at Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan. The debate focused on the existence of God, which Comfort claimed he could prove scientifically without relying on faith or the Bible. Nightline correspondent Martin Bashir moderated the event.^[8] During the debate, Cameron and Comfort repeatedly referenced the Ten Commandments and denounced the theory of evolution.^[9]

In February 2009, Comfort challenged Richard Dawkins to a debate, offering to donate $10,000 to him.^[10] Dawkins, who had previously stated a general policy not to debate with creationists,^[11] said he would agree to do it if Comfort made a $100,000 donation to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science non-profit organisation. Comfort raised his offer to $20,000, which according to PZ Myers was not enough.^[10]

Tracts and books[link]

Ray Comfort with Kirk Cameron in 2008

According to Comfort, he has designed dozens of gospel tracts since the 1970s, and sells millions of Living Waters tracts each year.^[12] Comfort has also authored The Way of The Master, God Doesn't Believe in Atheists, How to Know God Exists and Evolution: the Fairy Tale for Grownups. His 2009 book, You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think, is Comfort's first book published by WND Books,^[13] Comfort went on a promotional tour to promote the book, which Amazon.com ranked No. 1 in the atheism and apologetics categories, No. 2 in spirituality and No. 6 in Christianity when it debuted in February 2009.^[14][15] On 22 September 2009, Comfort released his latest book, Nothing Created Everything.^{[citation needed]}

In November 2009, Comfort released an edited version of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, with a 50-page foreword detailing creationist arguments against the theory of evolution.^[16] Stan Guffey, a biologist at the University of Tennessee, has alleged that most of Comfort's section on Darwin's life was plagiarised from his work.^[17][18] The book was given away for free at selected schools around the United States.^[19]

According to Comfort's website, "Nothing has been removed from Darwin's original work",^[20] but Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, noted that Comfort deleted four chapters by Darwin that described the evidence for evolution, adding that two of the omitted chapters, Chapters 11 and 12, showcase biogeography, some of Darwin's strongest evidence for evolution.^[21] She wrote that Comfort's foreword is "a hopeless mess of long-ago-refuted creationist arguments, teeming with misinformation about the science of evolution, populated by legions of strawmen, and exhibiting what can be charitably described as muddled thinking."

On his website, Comfort said that the four chapters were chosen at random to be omitted in order to make the book small enough to be affordable as a giveaway, with the absent chapters available for download, and that the missing chapters were included in the second edition, which had a smaller text size that made printing the entire book as a giveaway affordable. The second edition still lacks Darwin's preface and glossary of terms.^[22][23] The National Center for Science Education arranged a campaign at colleges across the US to distribute an analysis of the Comfort introduction, a one page flier and "the NCSE Safety Bookmark" in the shape of a banana, a reference to Comfort's use of a banana in one of his arguments for the existence of God.^[16][24]

In October 2010, The New Zealand Herald reported that elderly people received "appointment cards" by Comfort's California-based publishing company, Living Waters, asking them to fill out information regarding the date and time of their deaths, and advising them to contact evangelists in order to avoid hell. Recipients of these cards expressed anger and horror over receiving them, and contacted police over the matter, with one of them commenting, "It's disgusting. It was quite spooky. I just couldn't comprehend why anyone would ask you to predict the date of your death." Living Waters spokesperson Lisa Law stated that the cards were a way of raising awareness of human mortality in order to spark discussion about Jesus, though she stated that anyone could order them from their website, and did not know who sent them.^[25]

Film[link]

In 2011, Comfort wrote and produced a 33-minute documentary film called "180: Changing the Heart of a Nation". The film gained some attention online, and was heavily criticised by the Anti-Defamation League and mainstream media because it compared abortion rights to the Holocaust.^[26][27]

Filmography[link]

• The Secrets of Nostradamus Exposed (1995) (writer, producer)
• True Fiction (1999) (writer)
• The Way of the Master (13 episodes, 2003) (writer, producer, self)
• The Way of the Master (13 episodes, 2005) (writer, producer, self)
• The Way of the Master (13 episodes, 2008) (writer, producer, self)
• 180: Changing the Heart of a Nation (2011) (writer, producer, self)

Publications[link]

Ray Comfort open-air preaching at a Great News Network evangelism boot camp in 2004

• My Friends are Dying. (1977) ISBN 1-878859-07-2
• More Than Just Comfort – An Answer To Cancer (~1979^[28] )
• Words of Comfort Living Waters (1983) ISBN 1-878859-06-4
• Poured Out for a Thirsty World. Living Waters (1986) ISBN 0-908751-03-6
• In Search of New Jawbones: Aggressive Evangelism. Living Waters (1986) ISBN 0-908751-00-1
• Springboards for Budding Preachers Inspiring Illustrations, Stimulating Thoughts, Quotes and Aids for Street Preaching and Personal Witnessing. Living Waters (1987) ISBN 0-908751-13-3
• You've Got to Be Choking. Living Waters (1990) ISBN 1-878859-00-5
• Russia Will Attack Israel: a "for the Thinking Mind" Publication. Living Waters (1991) ISBN 1-878859-05-6
• The Key to Heaven Whitaker House, New Kensington, PA (1993) ISBN 0-88368-477-2
• The Devil's Nightmare. Whitaker House (1993) ISBN 0-88368-284-2
• The Undertaker's Nightmare. Living Waters (1994) ISBN 1-878859-21-8
• Militant Evangelism. Living Waters (1994) ISBN 1-878859-08-0
• Comfort, the Feeble-Minded: Consolation for People Who Do Dumb Things: an Autobiography. Living Waters (1995) ISBN 1-878859-16-1
• Everyday Evangelism: Witnessing That Works. Huntington House Publishers (1995) ISBN 1-56384-091-X
• The Secrets of Nostradamus Exposed. Living Waters (1996) ISBN 1-878859-18-8
• Bride of Heaven, Pride of Hell. Bridge-Logos Publishers (1997) ISBN 0-88270-733-7
• 101 Things Kids Can Do to Annoy Their Parents Bridge-Logos Publishers (1998) ISBN 0-88270-759-0
• The Power of Darkness. Living Waters (1999) ISBN 1-878859-22-6
• How to Win Souls and Influence People. Bridge-Logos Publishers (October 1999) ISBN 0-88270-788-4
• God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life. Living Waters (2000) ISBN 1-878859-25-0
• Evidence Bible-Romans: Irrefutable Evidence for the Thinking Mind. Bridge-Logos Publishers (2000) ISBN 0-88270-855-4
• Evidence Bible: Irrefutable Evidence for the Thinking Mind. Bridge-Logos Publishers (2000) ISBN 0-88270-816-3
• The Mystery (2000)
• The Untearable Bible: for the Terrible Twos. Bridge-Logos Publishers (2001) ISBN 0-88270-884-8
• Revival's Golden Key: Unlocking the Door to Revival. Bridge-Logos Publishers (October 2001) ISBN 0-88270-891-0
• God Doesn't Believe in Atheists (1993, 2001) ISBN 0-88270-922-4
• Who is the Lord of the Ring?. Bridge-Logos Publishers (2002) ISBN 0-88270-892-9
• End Time Believer's Bible. Bridge-Logos Publishers (December 2002) ISBN 0-88270-932-1
• Miracle in the Making: the Incredible Story of the Making of Left Behind II: Tribulation Force. Bridge-Logos Publishers (2003) ISBN 0-88270-931-3
• Evidence Bible-OE-KJV Easy Reading, Comfortable. Bridge-Logos Publishers (2003) ISBN 0-88270-955-0
• Out of the Comfort Zone: The Authorized Autobiography. Bridge-Logos Publishers (May 2004) ISBN 0-88270-943-7
• 101 Things Husbands Do to Annoy Their Wives (2004)
• The School of Biblical Evangelism Textbook (2004)
• Scientific Facts in the Bible: 100 Reasons to Believe the Bible is Supernatural in Origin. Bridge-Logos Publishers (15 October 2001) ISBN 0-88270-879-1
• Hell's Best Kept Secret. Whitaker House (December 1989, updated 2004) ISBN 0-88368-206-0
• What Hollywood Believes: An Intimate Look at the Faith of the Famous. Genesis Pub. (25 August 2004) ISBN 0-9749300-1-6
• Behind the Scenes: the Way of the Master. Genesis Pub Group, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, US (2005) ISBN 0-9749300-2-4
• How to Bring Your Children to Christ ... and Keep Them There (2005) ISBN 978-0974930046
• What Did Jesus Do? A Call to Return to the Biblical Gospel (2005) ISBN 978-0974930039
• Overcoming Panic Attacks. Bridge-Logos Publishers (11 July 2005) ISBN 0-88270-014-6
• Spurgeon Gold: Pure. Refined. (compiled by Comfort) (2005) ISBN 0-88270-646-2
• The Way of the Master Minute: a One-Minute, One Year Devotional for the Busy Christian. Bridge-Logos Publishers (2006) ISBN 0-88270-161-4
• Whitefield Gold: Pure. Refined. (compiled by Comfort) (2006)
• How to Live Forever ... Without Being Religious (2006), a version of the Gospel of John with Comfort's commentary.
• The Way of The Master (2006)
• The Way of the Master Minute. (co-author Kirk Cameron) Bridge-Logos Publishers (8 April 2006) ISBN 0-88270-220-3
  • The 2004 version itself was a revised and updated version of Revival's Golden Key, which itself was a revision of God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life.
• The Way of the Master. Genesis Publishing Group (2006) (previously 2004 by Tyndale House)
• Springboards for Budding Preachers (2006), a transcript of Comfort open-air preaching with his son-in-law Emeal "EZ" Zwayne.
• Intelligent Design vs. Evolution – Letters to an Atheist (2006), a collection of correspondence between Comfort and James D. Franz, an American atheist.
• Intelligent Design Versus Evolution: Amazing Evolution Discovery. Living Waters (2007) ISBN 1-878859-37-4
• Scratch & Sniff (Creation for Kids). Bridge-Logos Publishers (2007) ISBN 0-88270-328-5
• What Your Nose Shows (Creation for Kids). Bridge-Logos Publishers (2007) ISBN 0-88270-326-9
• 101 Annoying Things about Other Drivers. New Leaf Publishing Group (2007) ISBN 0-89221-668-9
• 101 Annoying Things About Air Travel. New Leaf Publishing Group (2007) ISBN 0-88368-477-2
• Hollywood Be Thy Name. Bridge-Logos Publishers (1 July 2007) ISBN 0-88270-394-3
• Overcoming Insomnia: Practical Help for Those Who Suffer from Sleep Deprivation. Bridge-Logos Publishers (2007) ISBN 0-88270-334-X
• 101 of the Dumbest Things People Have Done. Bridge-Logos Publishers (2008) ISBN 0-88270-555-5
• How to Know God Exists: Scientific Proof of God (2008)
• Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grownups (2008)
• World Religions in a Nutshell: A Compact Guide to Reaching Those of Other Faith (2008)
• Comfort Food: Delectable Devotions to Satisfy the Soul Bridge-Logos Publishers (2008) ISBN 0-88270-528-8
• The Atheist Bible (HCSB) (2009)
• The Charles Darwin Bible (HCSB) (2009)
• You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think WND Books (12 February 2009) ISBN 1-935071-06-8
• Nothing Created Everything: The Scientific Impossibility of Atheistic Evolution (September 2009, WND Books).

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ray Comfort

• LivingWaters.com – Official website
• Atheist Central – Ray Comfort's Blog
• The Way of the Master – Website for his ministry with Kirk Cameron
• Ray Comfort at the Internet Movie Database