No Easy Answers

by William Lane Craig

Craig, William Lane

Genres: Prayer

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He and his wife Jan have two grown children.

At the age of sixteen as a junior in high school, he first heard the message of the Christian gospel and yielded his life to Christ. Dr. Craig pursued his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College (B.A. 1971) and graduate studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.A. 1974; M.A. 1975), the University of Birmingham (England) (Ph.D. 1977), and the University of Munich (Germany) (D.Theol. 1984). From 1980-86 he taught Philosophy of Religion at Trinity, during which time he and Jan started their family. In 1987 they moved to Brussels, Belgium, where Dr. Craig pursued research at the University of Louvain until assuming his position at Talbot in 1994.

He has authored or edited over thirty books, including The Kalam Cosmological Argument; Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus; Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom; Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology; and God, Time and Eternity, as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology, including The Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science.

Reviews

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not ultimately persuaded by Craig's argument, but he provides a brilliant and powerful theodicy.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A PROMINENT CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHICAL APOLOGIST DEALS WITH THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

William Lane Craig (b. 1949) is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He is also a prominent philosophical apologist (see his debates with atheists, such as 'God?: A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist' and 'Does God Exist: The Craig-Flew Debate'), and author of books such as 'Reasonable Faith,' 'Hard Questions, Real Answers,' 'The existence of God and the beginning of the universe,' etc.

He has written many books on apologetics in general, but this book focuses more directly on doubt, and the problem of evil. Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"First, recognize that doubt is never a purely intellectual problem. There is a spiritual dimension to the problem that must be recognized."

"doubt is controllable so long as reason does not usurp the magisterial role. So long as reason operates in its ministerial role, the spiritual assurance of our faith cannot be undermined. It is only when we allow reason to usurp the magisterial role and take the place of the Holy Spirit that doubt becomes dangerous."

His philosophical answer to the Problem of Evil is: "God could not have created a world that had so much good as the actual world but had less evil, both in terms of quantity and quality; moreover, God has morally sufficient reasons for the evil that exists."

Here is a more "personal" answer: "Now we may never know why God permits any particular evil in our lives. But why should we know? ... if the Christian story is true, then we don't need to know either. We are simply called upon to trust in God and His goodness no matter what the circumstances. This is not blind faith; there are good reasons to believe in God's existence, and we have the self-authenticating witness of His Spirit as well. We are not called upon to figure out why God has permitted us to suffer some evil; we are called upon to trust Him."

In response to the objection, "Why couldn't God create a world with only persons who would receive Christ?" he replies, "it's possible that there is no such world. It's possible that in every world which God could create, someone would freely reject Christ. Again, God could force them to believe, but then that would be a sort of cosmic rape. Love for God that is not freely given is not truly love."

He also includes occasional brief biographical asides, such as that he initially failed his doctoral exams.

[Kari McDowell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting little book. Kind of alternates between philosophy/theology and a devotional book. The author honestly shares his own perspectives and experiences. I liked the sections on doubt and unanswered prayer in particular.

[Jessica Lowery · Rating 4 out of 5]

His introduction in a plea for Christains to work at being thinkers; and he speaks to some of the anti-intellectualism he notices in some Christian and secular circles.

His book is about doubt, failure, and suffering. For each area, he goes beyond the glib "easy" answers and tries to take the thing seriously and then do his best to provide guidance and logic in each area.

His first chapter is on "Doubt". When doubts arise, says Craig, "recognize that your struggle is not unique...that doubt is never a purely intellectual problem" (p. 31) Rather, there is a spiritual battle for our minds and souls that will affect us in this area. "Second," Craig continues, "when doubts arise keep in mind the proper relationship between faith and reason." (p. 33) There is a great section in here where he discusses Martin Luther's division of reason into 2 catergories: "magisterial" use of reason, and "ministerial" use of reason. The first seeks to be above everything, handing down judgments like a magistrate would. The second uses reason, but submits to and serves God's truth. Craig acknowledges that we may have to live with some unanswered questions; but that one is able to do so victoriously. Third, Craig recommends that we keep in mind the frailty of our own limited intellect. And fourthly, that we pursue our doubts into the ground.

He has a chapter on unanswered prayer which is really quite good. He delves into the different biblical reasons for unanswered prayers, and also sort of refutes the super-spiritual arguments made about unanswered prayer. For example, one night a man was in a hospital dying and people stayed up all night praying that he would make it out of the hospital. When he died the next morning, the pastor said to the grieving people, "well, we asked that God would take him out of this hospital and I guess God answered our prayers." Here is Craig's response to that story: "Well, this sort of rationalization strikes me as basically dishonest. It was clear that the intent of our prayers the night before was that God would heal the man. Rationalizing away a negative answer to prayer is to view God as a great genie from Aladin's lamp who fulfills the technical language of our requests but misses the intents altogether, so that we wind up with something totally different from what we requested. That is not the God of the Bible. Why not be honest and admit that God just did not answer the prayer?" (p.46)


He then has 4 chapters on failure, hell and other forms of suffering which cause people to question God. He calls us to develop a theology of suffering and of failure which may include the fact that we are called to persevere even when we don't have all the answers. He looks to God's view of success and failure as opposed to ours = In 1 Cor. 13, it says that a person may do everything right, may be full of wisdom and power and faith, but if they don't have love it's worthless. Giving love is what God considers success. Furthermore, while many people view suffering in this life as a primary reason to doubt God - it is actually something that shows the fingerprint of God in our souls. Why are we so morally outraged about suffering? Only because we were built in the image of a moral God. And He offers the solution to suffering too. As Craig concludes, "So, paradoxically, even though the problem of evil is the greatest objection to the existence of God, at the end of the day God is the only solution to the problem of evil. If God does not exist, then we are lost without hope in a life filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering." (p.103) He brings up an example (one from Packer) of being in a signal box which resonated exactly with something I thought about in a time of suffering. The signal box is a place up high above the train tracks which sends certain trains forward and stops other trains and makes them wait. He writes, "The Christian who wants to know why God permits every failure in his life is asking, Packer says, to be in God's signal box, and yet, for better or for worse, we just don't have access to it. Therefore, it is pointless to torture ourselves about why God permitted this or that disaster to come into our lives. But, although we don't always discern or comprehend God's providential design, we can still learn from our failures. As Lutzer says, 'It isn't necessary to know why God sent us the misfortune in order to profit from it.'" Craig also uses a quote from Nixon that I really liked, though it was very simple. After Nixon was despised by everyone in the country, he kept plugging ahead and eventually became a respected statesman who was often on shows and quoted in papers. Time did a famous article on Nixon called, "He's back!" and they asked him how he won back the favor of the country. He said, "You're never through when you fail. You're only through when you quit." (p.69)