In response to the most recent wave of doubts regarding the existence of God, the Biola Christian Apologetics department held “An Exclusive Evening with William Lane Craig” Saturday in the café banquet room.
The event began with a private, gourmet dinner, served to select guests who paid $45 to attend. The honorary speaker, William Lane Craig, is a research professor of Philosophy at Talbot and is widely known as the foremost philosophical authority on the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God.
The basics of the Kalam argument are: 1. Whatever 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.
In his presentation, Craig addressed the objections to this argument, which are currently widespread on internet sites, such as YouTube, which reach thousands of people. He said he felt it necessary to answer these objections because most of the world can see them anytime, anywhere at the touch of its fingertips.
“I figured that I had basically dealt with virtually all of the objections that critics might raise,” Craig said. “Alas, however, I discovered that I had been unsuccessful in covering all the bases. For what I’ve come to realize is that some objections are so squirrely, so off the wall, so bad, that I could have never anticipated them.”
Craig admitted to having ignored the popular critiques propagated by the internet, but says he views even these “dumb” questions as positive because he believes that they show a public interest in apologetics.
Craig explained basic rules of logic to show how an argument can be sound or valid, and he informed the audience of different logical fallacies. After educating the audience, he went through the top set of wild objections and showed their every flaw. He ended the evening with a Q&A session that allowed the audience to ask their own questions.
Some members of the audience had their own criticisms of the presentation.
“I felt like I was trying to complete my dissertation without taking English,” said attendee Alyssa Martin. “It was beyond me, I needed the beginning course.”
Others, however, disagreed.
“It was very intellectually stimulating and was a very intimate atmosphere,” said audience member Mark Lockmyer. “It was very interesting, both the objections that were raised and the venue that they came from, such as YouTube and all over the internet.”
Frank Bruff and a friend, who introduced himself as Pastor Comer, drove 300 miles to attend the event and said they were pleased.
“It was worth every minute of it,” said Comer. “He entertains my thoughts. He is an eloquent speaker and it’s obvious he’s a very learned man. He is no average college professor.”
