Dr William Craig – Historical New Reformation Debate (transcript)

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All images are from the debate DVD available at AntWoord.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  (1Co 15:17)

This podcast is available for download at Reasonable Faith. [Scroll down the page to find Reasonable Faith podcast] 

Kevin Kevin Harris:  Welcome to our podcast. This is Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig. I am Kevin Harris. Dr Craig, you have just returned from South Africa. Very important, some say that this debate in SA was historically significant. Why might that be the case? 

Dr. Craig:  Well, this was a wonderful debate to participate in, because of the nature of the debate. It was a four man debate against two very radical SA theologians who are pioneering a movement called the New Reformation in SA, which is very similar to the old Jesus Seminar here in the United States and these two theologians think that Christianity, as it is traditionally understood, is now outmoded. These two men are not even theists. They don’t even believe that there is a personal God who is distinct from the world and who has made the world. 

Kevin Harris:  But they still want a reformation of Christianity? 

Dr. Craig:  Right. They are theologians. They teach theology at the University of South Africa. And the SA church, coming out of a kind of Dutch Reformed tradition, is very pietistic, from what we have been told and very ill equipped to meet the challenges posed by the so-called New Reformation. So the people organizing the debate wanted someone to come in there who could debate these men and really expose the folly and the pretentiousness of their position. And so they wanted to have it on the resurrection of Jesus. And I said, well, if we are going to have a four-man debate, I would like to be partnered with Michael Licona. Mike Licona did his doctorate on the resurrection at the University of Pretoria. So, in a sense, this was coming home for Mike. This is his alma mater and Mike is a very good debater. He has got good techniques and he and I often talk. We both live in the same area. So they agreed to bring both of us over for this debate. And so it was Mike Licona and me against Prof. Spangenberg and Prof. Wolmarans. And it was on the resurrection, but even coming up with a topic, was difficult, Kevin, because these two gentlemen are post-modernists. Their view is a kind of incoherent or inconsistent mishmash of scientific modernism with post-modern subjectivism, denial of truth and objectivity of canons of logic and rationality. They deny for example that texts have any objective meaning. So they refused to debate the question “did Jesus rise from the dead” or “was the resurrection a historical event”, because they said even to pose the question presupposes that there are objective answers to the question, that there is objective truth and that these texts do have some sort of meaning they don’t even agreed to that. 

Kevin Harris:  Wow! 

Dr. Craig:  So we went back and forth, back and forth, trying to find a proposition that we could agree to debate on. And what we finally arrived at was “How should we understand the texts of the New Testament about the resurrection?” “How should we understand the texts of the New Testament about the resurrection?” And they reluctantly agreed to debate that with us. And so in the debate I opened. I was the opening speaker and for our two contentions that we defended were that the texts of the New Testament teach that the resurrection of Jesus was a literal, historical event. A literal, physical event. And then the second contention was that there is no good reason to deny this traditional understanding of the texts. So in my opening speech I defended the first contention, that the texts of the New Testament teach that the resurrection of Jesus is a literal, historical event. And I pointed out Paul’s dispositions on the resurrection in 1 Cor 15, the sermons in the Acts of the Apostles, which treat the resurrection on a par with the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, an event verified by witnesses. And then the whole empty tomb tradition in the Gospels which point to the objectivity of this as a real, physical event in history. And I talked a little bit about the Jewish reclamation of Jesus, because in preparing for the debate, I found that Prof. Wolmarans appeals to pagan mythology as the origin of the early belief in Jesus’ resurrection. He takes this view that is popularized on the Internet, that has been invalidated by scholars for a hundred years, that the belief in the resurrection is based upon pagan mythology. 

Kevin Harris:  That it was borrowed from pagan myths. 

Dr. Craig:  Yes, particularly from the myths about Dionysus or Bacchus, the God of wine and revelry and frenzy. 

Kevin Harris:  Osiris. 

Dr. Craig:  Yes, though his favorite is Dionysus. So I thought I need to explain to the audience, first and foremost, the Jewish reclamation of Jesus, that Biblical scholars have come to discover that the proper interpretive context for understanding Jesus of Nazareth is first century, Palestinian Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. All the disciples were Jews and it is against that background that we are to understand the records of Jesus. And I pointed out then that this has resulted in an increased credibility being accorded to the resurrection narratives, to the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances of Jesus and the very origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection and that therefor, properly understood, these narratives are presenting themselves as records of a literal, historical event. And then I just alluded to the second contention, that there is no good reason to deny this and pointed out that Wolmarans and Spangenberg are both atheists and, off course, if you are an atheist, you won’t believe in the resurrection and I said that it is quite legitimate. But what is not legitimate for the atheist to do, is to twist the meaning of the texts to make it accord then with your worldview and that, what you need to do, as an honest atheist, is to just say that Christianity is false, rather than use some kind of theological, double-talk to say it is really true, even though the events did not occur. And then I pointed out, to close, that really there is no good reason to deny that theism is true. These men are hopelessly out of touch, Kevin, with where natural theology is. And I had with me a copy of The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and I held it up and explained what it is and said look, anybody who thinks that theism is somehow out of date or obsolete, just is not in touch with current philosophy of religion and this book is just a palpable example of it. 

Kevin Harris:  And that book is available at Reasonablefaith.org. 

Dr. Craig:  It sure is. So, that was how I closed my speech then and we anticipated then that Spangenberg would get up and give some sort of reasons for why this traditional understanding of the texts is wrong. And that Mike Licona then would respond to Spangenberg in his speech. So my speech was prepared, but Mike’s speech was extemporaneous and would simply be a response to whatever objections Spangenberg would bring up to this traditional understanding of the texts. So that was the strategy we developed for the debate. 

Kevin Harris:  Now, how did Mike respond? 

Dr. Craig:  Well, what happened was that Spangenberg got up and he did not say anything of relevance to this traditional understanding of the text. We thought that he would get up and say modern science has invalidated this ancient worldview or that post-modernism shows that texts don’t have any objective meaning. He did not do any of that. Instead, all he did was get up and describe the different narratives in the four Gospels and how they differ from each other. And then he began to attack the doctrine of original sin and the doctrine of the Trinity. And he said nothing about the resurrection! 

Kevin Harris:  Or what the New Testament says about the resurrection. 

Dr. Craig:  Right. Right. I mean, he did not even conclude on the basis of these different narratives that they are hopelessly contradictory and that therefore, the three facts that I defended could not be true. I mean, he did not even draw that inference. So … 

Kevin Harris:  But he did try to say, was it one of his points, well, the resurrection narrative look like they are contradictory, so they cannot be true. Did he try …? 

Dr. Craig:  No! He did not draw that inference. All he did was just review the resurrection narratives and point out, for example, that Mark does not narrate any appearances, but just ends with the women’s discovery of the empty tomb, where some of the other Gospels have appearances. But whereas Matthew relates an appearance in Galilee, and so does John, Luke does not relate any appearances in Galilee, but has the disciples stay in Jerusalem, where they see Jesus. And so he just pointed out those differences, but he did not even then draw the inference that I thought he would draw, was that therefor the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances are not in fact historical, which would have been an overreach. And maybe, maybe he had enough insight as a historian to know that that would be an overreach and so he did not draw that conclusion. But he just left it there. He just described the differences and then turned to attacking the doctrine of original sin and the doctrine of the Trinity. So poor Mike Licona has to get up and he has nothing to refute! So Mike basically, after describing how it was great to be coming home to the University of Pretoria and then characterizing for the audience what a red herring is. How it is a smelly fish that you drag across the path of the bloodhounds to get them to go off track and follow some other track rather than go after their quarry. After describing what a red herring is, Mike just said all that Prof. Spangenberg did, was bring up red herrings in his opening speech and while those issues are important and worth discussing in some other context, they are not the subject of tonight’s debate, so I am not going to say anything about them. And instead Mike then responded to some of the arguments that Spangenberg had given in his published work, which we had prepared briefs on, but had not even bothered to bring up in the debate. And so that was the way it kind of went the whole evening, was that they would not even engage with the arguments. The had almost nothing to say. Now Wolmarans was a little different. If I may be permitted to describe what he did. 

Kevin Harris:  Go for it. 

Dr. Craig:  He was going to bring up the mythology stuff, but again, even his presentation was weak, because he did not actually give any of the parallels between Christ and these pagan deities, so that there really was not even anything there to respond to. Instead he just asserted that the Gospels were mythological. And I was prepared for this in my rebuttal and I explained that the vast majority of New Testament historians believe that the literally genre which is closest to the Gospels is the genre of ancient biography. And that therefor the Gospels are not of the genre of mythology, but rather, they are of the genre of ancient biography which did have a historical interest and that is why the Gospels relate stories about people that actually lived like John the Baptist, Joseph Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate, whom you can read about in the Jewish historian Josephus. They talk about events that really happened and about places that really existed, that have been archaeologically excavated. These are not of the genre of mythology. These are ancient biography, which have a historical interest and have been confirmed, in many cases, by other ancient historians and archaeology. And I said therefor, what has led Prof. Wolmarans to think of the Gospels as mythology, is his philosophical naturalism. It is because he thinks that anything that relates to a supernatural event must be mythological that he classifies the Gospels as myths. So his ascribing the Gospels to the genre of mythology is not based upon a careful comparative literally analysis of the Gospels. It is based upon the philosophical presupposition of naturalism. So, here you have a good illustration of how philosophical presupposition has led this person into a disastrous misdiagnosis of the literally genre of a piece of writing out of a philosophical prejudice. Well, he again had nothing to say in response to … 

Kevin Harris:  And that is what you meant when you said, well, that as an atheist, we would expect you not to believe in the resurrection and so on, because on an atheistic, naturalistic worldview, supernatural things don’t happen, therefor the resurrection did not happen. 

Dr. Craig:  Right. 

Kevin Harris:  So that’s what you meant by that, but here is an examination of these texts as the topic of debate and … 

Dr. Craig:  Right! The topic in the debate was what do the texts teach or what do they say … how should we understand them, rather. And it was funny. Wolmarans in his response, he said: I am not saying that we should understand them as mythology, just that we could. To which I said: but off course you could, but then you would be wrong! 

Kevin Harris:  You could read them as a cookbook, if you want. 

Dr. Craig:  Right! 

Kevin Harris:  How to make lasagna. 

Dr. Craig:  You could do anything you want, in terms of what you could do, but the debate topic for that evening was how should we understand them. And the proper literally diagnosis of these texts would be that these are not of the genre of mythology. Rather they are ancient biographies of Jesus. And then I gave some historical evidence for the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances and so forth. And in his final speech, poor Wolmarans just went into this long story about parents whose little boy died. And they had ordered a birthday cake for the little boy. And so when he died, they did not go to the bakery to pick it up. And the baker was angry with the parents, because they did not come on time and so he was left with this cake on his hands. And then eventually the parents did go to the baker and they explained their son had died. And so they together, I don’t know if they ate the cake or something. But I mean, it went on and on and on and nobody saw the point of this anecdote. I mean, it was just kind of out there! We all were sitting there, scratching our heads, thinking what does this have to do with anything? 

Kevin Harris:  Do you understand it at all now? 

Dr. Craig:  No! No, I still don’t know what point it related. But you know, it was so typical of liberal theology. Kevin, I am convinced, and I am not being provocative here, but I am convinced that liberal theology is profoundly anti-intellectual. They claim that it is these Bible believing fundamentalists who are the people that are opponents of the intellect. I don’t think that is at all true. I think liberal theology is deeply anti-intellectual, because on an intellectual level they have no good reasons for believing what they do. It is all based upon sentimentality and mysticism. 

Kevin Harris:  Wow! 

Dr. Craig:  And when you ask them give me some arguments for your position, they are utterly inept! Nor can they refute the arguments for the position on the other side. I saw this with Bishop Spong in my debate with him. [Debate: The Great Resurrection Debate (DVD Recording)] It was evident in the debate with Marcus Borg. [Craig vs. Borg: Did Jesus Rise Physically from the Dead? (DVD Recording)] It is all based upon sentimentality and mysticism. 

Kevin Harris:  Yeah. It is almost, it is not important whether you get to the truth or what the facts are and so on. Is it profound? 

Dr. Craig: [Unclear] … my spiritual needs. Spangenberg, after Mike Licona’s speech, got up to give his rebuttal and I have never seen anybody so angry in a debate before. He really lost it, Kevin. And he began to rail against Christianity for its role in apartheid in South Africa and talked about how orthodox Christianity is dangerous and harmful. And it was just a diatribe against the abuses that Christianity has been put to in South Africa in supporting apartheid and discrimination. It had no relevance whatsoever to the historicity of the resurrection or the teaching of these New Testament narratives. It was all an attempt to just push the hot buttons of the audience, knowing that their opposition to apartheid would somehow translate into an opposition to orthodox Christianity. It was, it was really manipulative. 

Kevin Harris:  Reminds me, kind of have some elements of the Silverman debate that you did with Dr Silverman. He took the opportunity to list his litany of sacred cows of his issues, his hot buttons, and he wanted to take advantage of the platform to get those out and, well, so much for the debate topic: I have got to get my pet peeves out and take this opportunity to do it. 

Dr. Craig:  Yeah, a lot of lowbrow atheists do this too, who are not capable of arguing on a philosophical level about theism and atheism. They use it as an excuse for talking about social and political issues. I cannot tell you how many times in debates, especially in Europe, my opponent has brought up George Bush and the war in Iraq! And for them this is the decisive refutation of the resurrections of Jesus, that George Bush is a Christian and he started the war in Iraq. 

Kevin Harris:  So God must not exist. 

Dr. Craig:  Yeah, so God does not exist. [End of transcript.] 

The long awaited and professional DVD production of the debate on the resurrection of Jesus (with William Lane Craig, Mike Licona, Sakkie Spangenberg and Hansie Wolmarans) at the University of Pretoria on 12 May, is ready for ordering. 

Since there are also other DVDs and CDs available (Faith and Reason 2010) for ordering, please request the catalogue from antwoorde@yahoo.com to be able to place your order.