In the last twenty years, many individuals claim to have visited heaven or hell and have written vivid accounts of what they purport to have seen. What should we make of these stories? Should they form a basis for our faith? Might they supplement or enhance the convictions that we already have? How do we evaluate such claims and what is their practical use even if true?

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. Dr. Craig, I recently listened to your Podcast from the Defenders class on God's concurrence (Defenders 2, Doctrine of Creation: Part 8). At the outset, you explained that God is the cause of everything because he concurs in it. As an attorney, this made an abundant amount of sense to me. In the law (particularly in tort), an omission (or failure to act) can be the cause of something in the same way that an affirmative act can. Of course, we would only impose liability where the omission is accompanied by some legal duty to act, but that inquiry is wholly separate from the causation inquiry ...

Las noticias a nuestro alrededor pueden ser bastante desalentadoras. Por alguna razón las noticias que se publican y tienen promoción tienden a ser las negativas y las que reflejan algún conflicto social. Para los medios de comunicación y para la sociedad en general las buenas noticias parecieran no ser atractivas y solamente las negativas pueden salir de la sombra de lo cotidiano para llamar nuestra atención. Desgraciadamente, el estar rodeados de malas noticias origina un ambiente negativo en el que la vida pareciera una maraña de conflictos que crece cada vez más y a la que no se le encuentra solución por ningún lado. Si a esta situación le agregamos los actos de terrorismo de grupos radicales que se escudan en la religión para cometer atentados deleznables contra inocentes y las posturas tan radicales de políticos y grupos sociales que impiden una sana conversación para resolver sus diferencias, es fácil caer en la desesperanza y la impotencia.

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig: ... my question today refers to Lee Strobel book "The Case for a Creator". There was one part in the book where Strobel asked you "why does it have to be One Creator?" And you responded by saying "my opinion, Ockham's Razor would shave away any additional Creators." So my question today is in 3 questions: Define what is Ockham's Razor? How does this (scientific) principle or theory eliminate the need for extra gods? How does Ockham's Razor prove the existence of One God? ...

A few months ago I wrote about José Bowen’s seminar and his book, Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2012). I shared that his main thrust was for teachers to use technology to deliver content outside of class sessions, and shift the use of class time to processing that information, promoting critical thinking and the application of knowledge to real life situations. There are three ideas from Bowen’s work that I think have the potential of deepening the impact of our teaching in the church. Over the next few months I’ll be writing a brief blog on each of the three ideas, beginning with ways of using technology to get students into the content of the Bible lesson/study before you meet, preparing them for a more active and deeper learning experience together.

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig: ... I have a few questions for you which I am hoping you can answer to help strengthen my arguments for Christianity. I have a friend who is a Panentheist; she believes that God literally is the universe and exists apart from the universe at the same time. She claims that God is eternal and there is no reason to believe that the universe began. She also believes that God can be both material and immaterial at the same time and she uses Christ as an example for this point. Finally, she believes that God is not a cause apart from nature, but literally is the force of nature (e.g. Genesis 1 - Elohim "becoming" light and so forth, teachings of Hasidic Judaism, Isaiah 6:3, Gods omniscience, being in all places at once); therefore she also believes that God does not hand down judgment to humanity but instead warns us of the inevitable results due to particular actions (e.g. Genesis 4) ...

I was raised in a church world in which “culture war” was a favorite metaphor of how the church relates to the nonchurch. We were God’s courageous moral infantry doing battle against those cunning cultists, those hateful homosexuals, those lying liberals, and those devilish Darwinists. If we listen with tuned ears to Christian radio, Christian literature, Christian blogs, and Christian conversations, it becomes clear: We Christians love the language of war. Over the last 30 years it has become our dominant metaphor for relating to culture; it saturates our vocabulary, shapes our politics, and soaks our worldview. But is culture war helpful? Is it biblical? Should we be jarheads for Jesus?

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. Hello Dr. Craig I'm writing from Sweden so I hope you can understand the meaning of my questions even if it is not in perfectly good english. I should start by saying that I am a non-Christian ... Some months ago I started thinking about life, in a way that I had not done before. I started asking myself the big questions. What is the meaning of my life? What is the reason we are here? What makes me important? Sadly I couldn't find the answers to these questions and the more I thought about them, the harder it became to live my day to day life ... Is the only reason to live life as a Christian to tell others about God? Is that the meaning of life? And finally, why why why should people who believe in God but lives here on earth under terrible circumstances (poverty, depression, sickness, war) still continue there lives here? Wouldn't it be better to just die and go to heaven?

The season of Advent is one in which the Church anticipates, prepares for, and celebrates the coming of Jesus Christ into our midst. As I thought about waiting expectantly for the presence of Jesus, I started wondering what exactly I am waiting for. What is it I expect from his coming? Am I waiting for him to come and fix my circumstances or get me out of a tight place? Do I just want him to ease my suffering and pain, to bring comfort and solace?

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. Dear, Dr. Craig, My daughter died a little over a month ago. She would of been three January 18th.I loved her more then anything. She was born with a rare neurological disease. My question is... How could an all loving God, who loves his children and who has such great "power" would allow this to happen. How come everything that happens good to a believer confirms faith and the bad is considered a test or a cliquiest " God is mysterious" explanation. If he is so great and so good, then why he take my daughter from me?! ...

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. "... You might say that there are objective moral values and they need to be followed regardless of the fact that they do affect our salvation or not. Bible and Jesus also teach us to do good deeds. I agree with these assertions but the question still lingers for a person like me and many others (people who are primarily concerned with the bottom line result) that why do we have to take moral commandments/values so seriously when ultimately they are not going to count in our 'scoring sheet' in the hereafter. Of course there are objective moral values and Bible & Jesus Christ teach us to be good human beings. But Bible/Jesus Christ teach us lot of good things and no Christian can claim to fully adhere to these teachings. This is what evangelical Christianity teaches us that whatever good we do, we cannot merit God's salvation which is an unmerited gift and comes with faith alone ..."

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig: I'm taking a philosophy class at a local community collage. I wrote a paper on the fine-tuning argument presented by Robin Collins. The fine tuning is improbable given atheism. Here we have all of the number for fine tuning for life given by Collins. But my professor raised an objection that I have never heard before, namely what is the probability of God? His objection is that if have a probability for the fine tuning we need a probability to compare it to. Since we don't have a clear one, why should we conclude that God is more likely than atheistic fine tuning? If you could help me understand this I would greatly appreciate it. I can understand that it seems like a very reasonable thing to think God is not as unlikely as the fine tuning but is there a strong philosophical argument or case to be made here?

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig: While taking an anthropology course at San Jose State University about 10 years ago, the instructor took a poll on the first day of class asking students if that we were there because: 1) God created the world that we know including humans in their present form. 2) God guiding evolution to present times. 3) Evolution without God via chance and natural selection. The instructor ended the survey by saying that by the end of the course he would convince the class that #3 is, in fact, the truth. One of the examples that he used was the argument involving vestigial limbs and body parts. He pointed to humans resembling tadpoles with tails in the embryo state, whales with hip joints, dogs with toes high on their legs that are useless, genetic trail showing that a horse's hoof is really the middle toe that continued to grow longer than the others, etc. I would love to hear Dr. Craig's answer to such evidence. I have been strengthened by your ministry and I will continue to support it. Please feel free to paraphrase my question to correct any grammatical errors.

Merry Christmas! Today, November 18, is Jesus' birthday, according to a few ancient sources. A few years ago, I came across an interesting article about the date of Jesus' birth by Paul Meier, a prominent New Testament scholar. Here is a summary: We celebrate Jesus' birthday on December 25, but it is quite unlikely that he was born on that day. That date was picked out in the fourth century, possibly as a replacement celebration for the winter solstice or other pagan holidays. Paul Meier suggests a birthday in November. This is based on two pieces of data....

Hace unos días tuve el privilegio de participar en el IV Congreso sobre la Reforma Protestante Española que tuvo lugar en la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad Complutense en Madrid, España. Este importante congreso internacional tuvo como tema principal la Reforma en Hispano América. Entre los participantes se encontraban profesores, historiadores y eruditos para dialogar acerca de la influencia del protestantismo en América Latina y su relación con la reforma española. Aunque el número de participantes no eran tan numeroso, el significado de esta reunión y los temas tratados son de suma importancia y son relevantes para nuestros días. Me gustaría compartir en este espacio algunas reflexiones sobre el pasado y el presente basadas principalmente en los temas tratados en este congreso.

This week's question: "...In watching your debates, I came across your debate with Sean Carroll. What an outstanding performance by the both of you. I think it might be the best debate available on your site. But Carroll made a point in passing that bothers me, and I wonder if you might not flesh it out more for me. It is: How are the teleological argument, and, for that matter, the cosmological argument, not God of the gaps? It seems the argument really is "we don't know how this fine-tuning could occur without God, so it must be God." Or, "we don't know how something came from nothing, so it must be God." I admit, as I think it through, why can't the atheist simply tack on "yet." This does seem like an Ancient Greek saying "we don't know how lightning exists, so it must be Zeus." The correct answer then was simply to tack on a "yet" after "we don't know how lightning exists." I'm certain I'm missing something, but I do find this troubling from an intellectual standpoint."

Whether shock-and-awe biblical archeology, “lost” gospels found just in time for the Easter documentary season, or conclusive proof that the Nephilim of Genesis 6 were actually ancient aliens, the ol’ World Wide Web abounds with juicy rumors. While no one is talking about the big “John the Baptist Skull” story (because I just made that up 10 minutes ago), Facebook has recently been “abuzz” with an article published by the website, World News Daily Report, entitled “Newly-Found Document Holds Eyewitness Account of Jesus Performing Miracle.” This is the same website, incidentally, that broke the story, “Rancher Shoots Down UFO Near Area 51.” Despite the site’s self-identification as a “political satire web publication,” the article was posted and passed around social media hundreds of thousands of times. As a historian focused on the Roman Mediterranean, I’ll comfortably go on the record stating that this story is a pure and fantastic invention. Rather than debunking this particular Jesus rumor, however, I’d like to address a larger question facing many modern followers of Jesus: How should we respond when confronted with such “breaking news”? How might we advise those we disciple on these kinds of intriguing and quick-to-go-viral claims?

As indicated in a previous post, Talbot School of Theology will be well represented this year at the Evangelical Theological Society's national meeting [need link here]. For those unable to attend (most of you, I assume!), here is a video clip that touches upon some key ideas that I will be sharing in my plenary address. The interviewer is Dr. Jason Cusick, a pastor at Journey of Faith Church in Manhattan Beach, CA. The clip was shown in a church service as part of a series on the church and the family.

Dear Dr. Craig, I was listening to an older podcast of yours wherein you stated that one can affirm states of affairs without needing to affirm the truth-status of the proposition used in the affirmation of any state. However, if we deny the reality of truth-status' (in an effort to avoid making propositions or "truth" a real, existing thing), then how can one say that any proposition is self-refuting? ...

Kyle Strobel (assistant professor at Talbot's Institute of Spirtual Formation) and Jamin Goggin ('03, M.A. '08) recently released Beloved Dust: Drawing Close to God by Discovering the Truth About Yourself. We wanted to learn more about this book, so we put together some questions that Kyle graciously answered.

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. " Greetings Dr. Craig ... It seems to me that the fact that life exists anywhere at all is miraculous. Your syllogism defending the fine-tuning argument is great but I would like to hear what you would personally say to Dr. Tyson ..."

Every year Bible scholars from around the world gather for a series of conferences about the Bible and related topics. This year the conferences are being held in San Diego, making it convenient for many Biola faculty to attend the conferences, present papers, see friends, and wander the book tables. The following list (thanks to David Roberts for compiling it) includes the presentation titles by those associated with Biola. As you can read, our professors are engaged in research in many different and interesting areas!

This series of posts presents several of my active assignments from the required freshman class Biblical Interpretation and Spiritual Formation. This one has the students examine their use of time and money, and usually students are surprised at the results. Here are the instructions ...

This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. Q. ... Perhaps I haven't been looking hard enough but I have not been able to find any such support for the existence of or the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit plays such a prominent role in Christian theology and worldview -- but how can someone believe in it other than blind faith? I find this especially troubling when statements like "The early church fathers were guided by the Holy Spirit." It just seems impossible to verify or dispute leading to a grey area where Christians are no longer convinced by the evidence but believing blindly ...

I often think about home in a specific way. For a long time, home has been a safe place to come back to at the end of the day. It has been a place to establish a comfortable niche in the world as a respite, a literal financial investment in emotional well being. Home has been about rest and nurture, as it can be a place of ministry to family and friends. It also has been a place to launch out into kingdom ministry more broadly.