Book Review: The Only Wise God

Review Introduction

This reviewer has long been fascinated with the debate about God's knowledge of the future and man's free will. William Lane Craig has done much theological and philosophical research into the attributes of God and the nature of time. He condensed his research into a relatively short and concise presentation that focuses specifically on how to reconcile the scriptural claims that God knows what every person will do, yet every person is free to do something else. The book is "The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom'. It is only 154 pages and is broken down into two parts with 12 bite-sized chapters.

Book Introduction

William Lane Craig prepares the reader for his presentation by distinguishing between determinism and fatalism. He recognizes that in the attempt to reconcile God's knowledge of future events with man's free will, many have decided to give up the pursuit and appeal to theological mystery- the idea that its not something we can know now, but will know when we get to heaven. He looks at the proper and improper use of mystery in Christianity and concludes that this debate does not need to end in an appeal to mystery.

Using Visions to Prove Christianity True

A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked what I thought about a Christian using a vision that they had as a piece of evidence to persuade someone else of the truth of Christianity. My initial reaction was to reject them completely on the basis of being subjective. But I started thinking about it a bit more, and this is what I came up with to provide to her. 

Explanations of Visions
My first inclination is to say that no one should believe anything based on a vision alone (regardless of who experiences it). According to the Christian worldview, there are three different unique sources that could cause visions (two for sure).

Its All In Your Head
The first explanation that is compatible with all worldviews is completely naturalistic- a mental state of affairs that causes the person to experience something as vivid as real life. This can be affirmed  regardless of which worldview one adheres to. There is no guarantee that the content of such natural visions accurately reflects reality- especially from any non-theistic worldview- see Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. If the person who had the vision is a Christian and the person they are trying to convince is a naturalist, the naturalist is perfectly justified in rejecting the witness of the vision. The Christian would need to provide some supporting evidence.

In these states, the vision produced could support any claim about reality, or it could reject any claim about reality. Both possibilities make sense from this perspective. Since this explanation is compatible with all worldviews, anyone can explain a vision by appealing to the it- whether the content of the vision affirms or denies a specific worldview.

Dangers of Requiring Complete Knowledge

The Lack of Knowledge
A while back I wrote a post regarding our lack of complete knowledge and how, rather than being a bad thing, it is actually a good thing. I've also written regarding the fact that our knowledge will never be complete, which is something that we must get used to and be comfortable with.

This is true regardless of which worldview that one holds. However, many people act as if they require complete knowledge and understanding of a worldview before they decide to accept it as true. They argue that since they do not want to blindly accept a worldview that may be false, they must not accept a worldview unless they have certainty that it does not contain any falsehoods. On the surface, this is being quite careful. But we must remember that while we are investigating one worldview, we are holding another- that we are not investigating (maybe we haven't ever, maybe we have in the past). I have heard it commonly put that "the skeptic must be skeptical of his skepticism" to avoid being dishonest. Even skepticism must be investigated and justified, though.