Friday, August 9, 2013

Lawrence Krauss - Please stop peddling myths about Christianity

The City Bible Forum organised three debates between Professor Lawrence Krauss and 
Dr William Lane Craig. I attended the first debate (7th of August 2013) in Brisbane. The first debate was titled "Has Science Buried God". Actually I wouldn't really described it as a debate as Professor Krauss basically took on the attitude that any non-athetists present in the Brisbane City Hall that night was wasting his time. If I understood him correctly, he thought all religions are myths and that the answer is in the rationalism of science. Hopefully someone would correct my description of Professor Krauss but that is the best I can do from my recollection. 

Dr Craig in his reply to Professory Krauss' tirade made the observation that Professor Krauss was basically attacking the religion straw man. That straw man is the God of the gaps (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps). Another word the whole argument about religions being myths is that some people uses "god" as explanation of the gaps we have in our scientific understanding of nature. But that is not the God of our Bible! Our God transcends His creation. Another word God is independent of His creation. God is not there to fill in gaps in our understanding of creation. If the tools of science e.g. observations, experiments are all bound up in our universe then they can only tell us about our universe. They can only tell us about creation and not the Creator. Science can certainly disprove pagan beliefs where the object of worship are man-made idols but they are merely our straw man. Science can shoot as many arrows it likes against our straw man but it does not nullify the existence of the one true God. I found Dr. Craig description  three reasons why science and theology can cooperate very helpful. (There are three more but Craig only had time for the first three). They are:
  1. Theology furnishes the framework in which science can flourish.
  2. Science can verify or falsify theological claims (e.g. straw man)
  3. Science need theology to answer the why question (can't tell us about the Creator).
I think of the most difficult parts of being a Christian apologist must be trying to stand up for God's reputation from atheist like Professor Krauss. It is not that God's reputation needs rescuing. The problem is that when Professor Krauss use half truth to question God's goodness then God is no longer loving but a vengeful god. Professor Krauss uses Dr Craig's own explanation of  Old Testament genocide to condemn Christianity.
I didn't understand why Dr Craig did not cut through Professor Krauss' deception by simply asking whether Professor Krauss understand the centrality of Christ in the salvation history? Why do we need the New Testament and Jesus if the Old Testament was sufficient to save? I felt all those young people who sided with Professor Krauss in condemning Christianity needed to hear that.

If you were at the debate, tell me what you think?

1 comment:

Quine said...

I have written a blog piece about this first "discussion" here.