[asa] William Lane Craig in Auckland

Last night I attended a lecture by William Lane Craig at the Bible
College of New Zealand in Auckland. His title was "A critical response
to Richard Dawkins". He spent 15 minutes or so discussing Dawkin's
central argument as presented on pages 157-158 of "The God Delusion" and
then spent about 90 minutes taking questions from the audience. He
pointed out that Dawkins' main conclusion, that God almost certainly
does not exist, does not logically follow in any way from the list of
six statements ( "premises"?) listed immediately above in his book, and
that items 3, 4, 5, and 6 can all be challenged.
The questions from the audience were mainly about apologetics. Craig
said that he saw as a positive sign that a secular philosophy department
(at the Victoria University of Wellington) had organized a seminar on
Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom and had invited people like himself
to attend. Ken Mickleson (like myself an ASA member) asked a question
about the interpretation of Genesis. Craig replied that Christians
should not insist on a particular interpretation of Genesis that
required an age of 6000 years for the earth. He gave a plug at one stage
for Hugh Ross and Reasons to Believe. I asked him whether he held the
view that methodological naturalism inevitably led to metaphysical
naturalism, and as backgound I mentioned that he was listed as a Fellow
of the Discovery Institute and that some of his fellow Fellows did hold
that view. His answer was that he did not hold that view. He said that
even Phillip Johnson, in his book Darwin on Trial, conceded that
evolution was a satisfactory explanation at the methodological level.
This was news to me -- I need to check.
I got the impression that Craig disengages himself from the political
activities of the US Intelligent Design movement and that he has an
irenic attitude towards theistic evolutionists -- in distinct contrast
to William Dembski ! I found myself in agreement with much of what he
had to say.
Don

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Received on Mon Jun 16 19:40:05 2008