To celebrate the release of William Lane Craig’s latest book, A Reasonable Response, we are giving away 5 copies to randomly chosen commenters to this post. To be considered for the drawing, comment with your favorite quotation from William Lane Craig, and include your email address so we can contact you if you’re chosen. Winners will be chosen on Thursday, September 5th.
This volume collects and categorizes dozens of questions and answers from Craig’s Reasonable Faith website, and provides additional commentary by Joseph E. Gorra of Biola Apologetics/EPS, along with section introductions and appendixes. It’s a must-own volume for any fan of Craig’s work and ministry.
Special thanks to Moody Publishers for providing the books, and especially to Donovan Westbrooks, editorial assistant at Moody.
Quote on!
Notes: 1) If you are having trouble commenting, you may need to register with Disqus, our commenting system. 2) If you receive mail, Moody can ship to you, so where you live does not disqualify you from entering.
Winners Announced!
Using Random.org, the five winners have been chosen! It was great to see all the good quotes and participation. Here are the names and emails. We’ll follow up with the 5 winners to get their mailing addresses and pass them on to Moody Publishers so they can ship the books.
1. Jun Shin
2. David Houston
3. Ben Nasmith
4. Ginrai
5. Ed Blythe
“Whereas easy appeals to mystery prematurely shut off reflection about God, rigorous and earnest effort to understand him is richly rewarded with deeper appreciation of who he is, more confidence in his reality and care, and a more intelligent and profound worship of his person.” – W.L.C.
joelmacinnes@gmail.com
“More often than not, it is what you are rather than what you say that will bring an unbeliever to Christ. This, then, is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is: your life.”
WLC Reasonable Faith
ripzone_guy28@hotmail.com
“God is the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.” Craig v Rosenberg, Purdue University SymposiaChristi Feb 2013.
“I think that the prosperity gospel of health and wealth is
a false doctrine and an abomination. That gospel won’t preach in Darfur, Iraq,
North Korea, or a thousand other places, and if it won’t preach there, it’s not
the true Gospel.”
-William Lane Craig (reasonablefaith.org Q&A 154)
iceknight366@sbcglobal.net
“It’s not about winning arguments, it’s about winning people to
Christ” – William Lane Craig
cobbett.jus@gmail.com
“We are not God’s pets, and man’s end is not happiness in this world, but the knowledge of God, which will ultimately bring true and everlasting human fulfillment.” — William Lane Craig
BrianFreeborn@gmail.com
“We face two tasks in our evangelism, [Malik] told them, “saving the soul and saving the mind”– that is, converting people not only spiritually but intellectually as well–and the church, he warned, is lagging dangerously behind with respect to this second task… Since philosophy is foundational to every discipline of the university, philosophy is the most strategic discipline to be influenced for Christ… it is not just scholars and ministers who will benefit from training in philosophy, but also laypeople who need to be intellecutally engaged if our culture is to be effectively reformed. Our churches are unforturnately overly-populated with people whose minds, as Christians, are going to waste. As Malik observed, they may be spiritually regenerate, but their minds have not been converted; they still think like nonbelievers.” – WLC in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview.
crpruett@umail.iu.edu
“[I]f evolution did occur on this planet it was literally a miracle, and therefore evidence for the existence of God.”-
trubaduren101@gmail.com
“I truly wish with all my heart that universal salvation were true. But to pretend that people are not sinful and in need of salvation would be as cruel and deceptive as pretending that somebody was healthy even though you knew that he had a fatal disease for which you knew the cure.” thrikulam@gmail.com
“The simplest child of God who lives in love is wiser in God’s sight than all the Bertrand Russells the world has seen. If we lack love, then all our knowledge makes us just big, inflated intellectual windbags who are actually ignorant of what matters most.” -William Lane Craig
richmond.dineroscpa@gmail.com
So hard to pick just one quote but here it goes.
“The Bible says all men are without excuse. Even though who are given no good reason to believe and may persuasive reasons to disbelieve have no excuse, because the ultimate reason that do not believe is that they have deliberately rejected God’s Holy Spirit.” – Dr. William Lane Craig
eddie.army83@gmail.com
“Nobody is a postmodernist when it comes to reading the labels on a medicine bottle versus a box of rat poison. If you’ve got a headache, you’d better believe that texts have objective meaning!” (William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 2008, p. 18)
marylouisedecker@gmail.com
“The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on
the basis of the witness of the holy spirit, in my heart”
bdwilson1000@yahoo.com
“Back in the ‘40s and ‘50s it was widely believed among philosophers that
talk about God was meaningless–literal gibberish. To say ‘God loves
you and created you to know Him’ is as meaningful as saying, ‘Twas
brillig and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.’ Complete
nonsense!”
– W.L.C.
realgodjesus@gmail.com
‘God is under no obligation whatsoever to extend my life for another second. If He wanted to strike me dead right now, that’s His prerogative.
What that implies is that God has the right to take the lives of the Canaanites when He sees fit. How long they live and when they die is up to Him.’
stevencarrwork@hotmail.com
I don’t know about *favorite*, but here’s a good one: “The point is this: If God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends life has meaning. But this is, of course, entirely inconsistent — for without God, man and the universe are without any real significance.” — WLC, On Guard
‘God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God.’
stevencarrwork@hotmail.com
“Man,” writes Loren Eisley, “is the cosmic Orphan.” He is the only creature in the universe who asks, Why? Other animals have instincts to guide them, but man has learned to ask questions. “Who am I?” he asks. “Why am I here? Where am I going?”
‘ ‘Paradoxically, being a Nazi may have been the best thing that happened to Heinrich, since it led to his salvation.’
stevencarrwork@hotmail.com
“I don’t think you understand what ‘fine-tuning’ means !”
(William Lane Craig to Lawrence Krauss)
benoitcote@gmail.com
“Where’s the bathroom?” Honestly he did ask me that. Unfortunately I don’t think that will win it for me, but it was nice to have a personal quote. anitaokie@live.com
When people see this—our love for one another and our unity through love—then they will in turn be drawn by this to Christ and will respond to the gospel’s offer of salvation. More often than not, it is what you are rather than what you say that will bring an unbeliever to Christ. This, then, is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is: your life.
—William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994), 301–302.
lisacli@regent.edu
“…on atheism you need to believe that all time, space, matter and energy burst into existence a finite time ago from nothing, by nothing and for nothing! This is
worse than magic; at least with magic you have a magician and a hat!”
zann96-chocoholic@yahoo.com.sg
Ahhh I don’t know any quotes, but my husband is a huge fan – I will go read one of his books now so I can post a quote. He would love this and he will be super proud that I read a book to get him another one 🙂
kandhedwards@gmail.com
“It’s no longer enough to teach our children Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics.” – William Lane Craig
sam@rpbc.org
“The man who claims to have no need of Philosophy is the one most apt to be fooled by it” (William Lane Craig). jonathan-silveira@hotmail.com
If evolution is true, then it would have been literally a miracle and thus, evidence for the existence of God
uruha_eien@yahoo.com
“So many in our day seem to have been distracted from what was, is and always will be the true priority for every human being — that is, learning to know God in Christ.” William Lane Criag
zslivinforgod@gmail.com
Unfortunately, our churches have also largely dropped the ball in this area. It’s insufficient for youth groups and Sunday school classes to focus on entertainment and simpering devotional thoughts. We’ve got to train our kids for war. We dare not send them out to public high school and university armed with rubber swords and plastic armor. The time for playing games is past. – William Lane Craig
“It’s no longer enough to teach our children Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics.” WLC
email: jphyman@me.com
“If there is no God, then man and the universe are doomed. Like prisoners condemned to death, we await our unavoidable execution. There is no God, and there is no immortality. And what is the consequence of this? It means that life itself is absurd. It means that the life we have is without ultimate significance, value, or purpose.”
rdpdrz@gmail.com
“If there is no God, then man and the universe are doomed. Like prisoners condemned to death, we await our unavoidable execution. There is no God, and there is no immortality. And what is the consequence of this? It means that life itself is absurd. It means that the life we have is without ultimate significance, value, or purpose.”
rdpdrz@gmail.com
My favorite quote is actually about WLC, rather than by him:
“Dr. Craig, the one Christian apologist who seems to have put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists.”
– Notorious Neo-Atheist Sam Harris, http://youtu.be/yqaHXKLRKzg?t=27m40s
Favorite quote of WLC:
“If there is no God, then man and the universe are doomed. Like
prisoners condemned to death, we await our unavoidable execution. There
is no God, and there is no immortality. And what is the consequence of
this? It means that life itself is absurd. It means that the life we
have is without ultimate significance, value, or purpose.”
― William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (p. 72)
Runner ups:
“It’s no longer enough to teach our children Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics.”
― William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith
“Certainty is an unrealistic and unattainable ideal…”
-William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview
(p. 58) & Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics Page 58.
email address: yaakovaryeh@gmail.com
“…the very concept of tolerance entails that one does not agree with that which one tolerates. The Christian is committed to both truth and tolerance, for he believes in Him who said not only, ‘I am the Truth,’ but also, ‘Love your enemies.'”
-Hard Questions, Real Answers pg. 11
somethingemailish@gmail.com
“If the gospel is to be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women today, then it’s vital that we as Christians try to shape American culture in such a way that Christian belief cannot be dismissed as mere superstition. This is
where Christian apologetics comes in. If Christians could be trained to provide solid evidence for what they believe and good answers to unbelievers’ questions and objections, then the perception of Christians would slowly change. Christians would be seen as thoughtful people to be taken seriously rather than as emotional fanatics or buffoons. The gospel would be a real alternative for people to embrace.” (On Guard, p. 18)
“…on
atheism you need to believe that all time, space, matter and energy burst into
existence a finite time ago from nothing, by nothing and for nothing! This is
worse than magic; at least with magic you have a magician and a hat!”
HIrealtor@gmail.com
More often than not, it is what you are rather than what you say that will bring an unbeliever to Christ. This, then, is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is: your life. ~William Craig Lane friesandgravy@yahoo.com
“If Christians could be trained to to provide solid evidence for what
they believe and good answers to unbelievers’ questions and objections,
then the perception of Christians would slowly change. Christians would
be seen as thoughtful people to be taken seriously rather than as
emotional fanatics of buffoons. The gospel would be a real alternative
for people to embrace.”
gail.drennan@gmail.com
My favorite quote relates quite well to this new release:
“The key to victory in the Christian life is not having all your questions answered; the key is learning how to live with unanswered questions.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-fDyPU3wlQ)
skylarmcmanus@gmail.com
Never forget finally that our goal is ultimately to win people not arguments. Don’t let presenting arguments distract you from our primary goal of sharing the Gospel. – William Craig Lane (krishnam dot vizag at gmail dot com)
Scientifically speaking, it’s far more probable
for a life-prohibiting universe to exist than a life-sustaining one.
Life is balanced on a razor’s edge
[Responding to an atheist during Q&A:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C64tuvmZwgc%5D “It’s impossible to prove something does not exist. That’s silly. Of course you can prove something does not exist. We can prove, for example, that there are no living Tyrannosaurus Rex on the face of the earth. We can prove that there are no Muslims in the US Senate. Or, as Dr. Shook says, if you can show that something is a self-contradiction…there are no married bachelors. This is an atheist line that you hear on the popular level all the time, but the sophisticated atheists don’t take, because it is easy to prove that things don’t exist.”
rurias3@gmail.com
“The
idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth, I think, that is
perpetuated by youth ministers and seminarians. In fact, to live in a
post modern culture is an impossibility. It would be utterly unlivable.
No body is a postmodernist when it comes to reading the labels on a
bottle of aspirin or a bottle of rat poison. If you’ve got a head ache
you’s better believe that texts have objective meaning.”
email – timsp1@hotmail.com
“Where am I coming from? I believe that the Christian Gospel of God’s
redeeming love is the greatest news ever announced, the only hope for a
sick and dying world. I do not believe for a second that what I do
creates division and anger. I find that many people are already angry
quite independent of me, and an appeal to sweet reason to settle these
important questions promotes constructive dialogue among persons of good
will. If some people react to my arguments angrily and hatefully, that
is their problem, not mine. As for concern about creating division, this
becomes all too easily an excuse for mass-think and conformity.
Christians are called not to conform to this world but to have the
courage to stand up and be different. I am far more concerned about a
church which is cowed by secularists into silence and cultural
acquiescence than I am fearful of being divisive by standing up for the
truth of the Gospel. I consider it to be a tremendous privilege to be
alive and working at this time of a renaissance of Christian philosophy.
It provides real hope of cultural change for the better as its
influence filters down to popular culture in coming generations.” – William Lane Craig
stephen.d.wicklund [at] gmail.com
You can give no greater apologetic than how you live your life – William Lane Craig
“The Bible says all men are without excuse. Even those who are given no good reason to believe and many persuasive reasons to disbelieve have no excuse, because the ultimate reason they do not believe is that they have deliberately rejected God’s Holy Spirit.”
whitaker019@gmail.com
“Catching the apple doesn’t overturn the law of gravity or the formulation of a
new law. It’s merely an intervention of a person with freewill who
overrides the natural causes operative in that particular circumstance.
And that is, essentially, is what God does when he causes a miracle to
occur.”
rmkeen@ymail.com
“Faith is trust or commitment to what you think is true.”
fridrich.martin@gmail.com
“It is up to God whether we find ourselves in a world in
which we are predestined, but it is up to us whether we are predestined
in the world in which we find ourselves.” William Lane Craig
Ben.Nasmith@gmail.com
“Divine command theory is not morally nihilistic, since it grounds objective moral values in God as the paradigm and source of moral goodness. God’s having no moral duties does not imply that He can do just anything; rather His actions must be consistent with His own nature.”
This speaks to me of the truth and reality of God.
brgeem@gmail.com
“As a matter of fact, there aren’t many arguments against God’s existence. The atheist’s main complaint is that there isn’t any evidence FOR God’s existence. But if you’ve mastered the four arguments we’ve just run through, that complaint won’t apply to you.” – page 147 of On Guard by William Lane Craig
rolandtheraider@gmail.com
“To claim that something can come into being from nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you’ve got the magician, not to mention the hat!” – WLC
dhous009 @ gmail.com
“The idea that we live in a post-modern culture is a myth. In fact a post-modern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. Nobody is a post-modernist when it comes to reading the labels on a medicine bottle versus a box of rat poison! You better believe that texts have objective meaning!” – William Lane Craig
lukecuth@gmail.com
“…if it were really the truth [the Gospel] —
really the truth—then I could do nothing less than spend my entire life
spreading this wonderful message among mankind.” -William Lane Craig, OnGuard.
Hello.
I fear there might be a danger of idolatry here, or at least of an exaggerated enthusiasm. I understand that people only reading Evangelical will find WLC formidable.
But those of us hearing both sides of the ongoing debate won’t fail to realize WLC is as biased as his anti-theistic opponents.
And as I presented here http://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/william-lane-craig-and-divine-genocides/ his belief in Biblical inerrancy lead him to teach blasphemous things about God.
I don’t want to be overly negative for I think he is also in many respects a great and rigorous scholar and some of his arguments and reasoning have been quite useful for my faith.
Lovely greetings from Europe.
Lothars Sohn – Lothar’s son
http://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com
“Happiness is an elusive thing and will never be found when pursued directly; but it springs into being as one pursues the knowledge of God and as his righteousness is realized in us…”.-WLC-
jss003@gmail.com
So, by “randomly chosen commenter,” do you mean where the choice is undirected, or that the choice will be made without regard to whether the choice benefits or hurts the commenter?
“Logical and mathematical truths cannot be proved by science. Science presupposes logic and math. So, that, to try to prove them by science would be arguing in a circle.” – William Lane Craig discussing science with Peter Atkins.
mark @ hereiblog.com
“[O]ral tradition works quite differently. What matters is that the central idea is conveyed, often in some key words and climaxing in some saying which is repeated verbatim; but the surrounding details are fluid and incidental to the story.
Probably the closest example to this in our non-oral, Western culture is the telling of a joke. It’s important that you get the structure and punch line right, but the rest is incidental.”
booklegger@facebook.com
“In high school and college Christian teenagers are intellectually assaulted with every manner of non-Christian worldview coupled with an overwhelming relativism. If parents are not intellectually engaged with their faith and do not have sound arguments for Christian theism and good answers to their children’s questions, then we are in real danger of losing our youth. It’s no longer enough to teach our children simply Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics. It’s hard to understand how people today can risk parenthood without having studied apologetics.” -WLC, Reasonable Faith
dashworthjr2000@yahoo.com
Scientifically speaking, it’s far more probable for a life-prohibiting universe to exist than a life-sustaining one. Life is balanced on a razor’s edge. – WLC
Warriorofthelightministry@Gmail.com
So many in our day seem to have been distracted from what was, is and always will be the true priority for every human being — that is, learning to know God in Christ.
~WLC
“But two fallacious arguments put together don’t make a sound argument, right?…Yes, I do deny that science can account for everything…Let me list five: logical and mathematical truths cannot be proven by science. Science presupposes logic and math so that to try and prove them by science would be arguing in a circle; metaphysical truths..; ethical beliefs about statements of value…; aesthetic judgments…; and finally, most remarkably, science cannot be justified by the scientific method. Science is permeated with unprovable assumptions”- First debate with Peter Atkins, 1998. The look on Atkins’ face when Craig finishes is absolutely priceless (see Youtube video of the debate).
“If there is no God, then man and the universe are doomed. Like prisoners condemned to death, we await our unavoidable execution. There is no God, and there is no immortality. And what is the consequence of this? It means that life itself is absurd. It means that the life we have is without ultimate significance, value, or purpose.” ― William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith
jason@purrfurred.com
“The Christian religion, [Pascal] claims, teaches two truths: that there is a God who men are capable of knowing, and that there is an element of corruption in men that renders them unworthy of God. Knowledge of God without knowledge of man’s wretchedness begets pride, and knowledge of man’s wretchedness without knowledge of God begets despair, but knowledge of Jesus Christ furnishes man knowledge of both simultaneously.” – William Lane Craig
cleaverbrandon@yahoo.com
“Like a missionary called to reach some obscure people group, the Christian apologist is burdened to reach that minority of persons who will respond to rational argument and evidence.” — WLC, Reasonable Faith ichthus77@hotmail.com
“The Bible says all men are without excuse. Even those who are given no good reason to believe and many persuasive reasons to disbelieve have no excuse, because the ultimate reason they do not believe is that they have deliberately rejected God’s Holy Spirit.”
email: fundamentofirme@live.com
Wow, I’d love to receive a copy of WLC book. i live in Switzerland. Will that be possible?
Yes! 🙂 All you need to do is reply with your favorite William Lane Craig quote, and your email 🙂
“More often than not, it is what you are rather than what you say that will bring an unbeliever to Christ. This, then, is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is: your life”-William Lane Craig.
kitwalker05@gmail.com