An Ongoing Interview: "What Was it Like Studying Under William Lane Craig?"
I'll post an interesting question and my answer from time to time. Here's one from Eric:
Eric, when I went to TEDS Bill Craig wasn't that well known. In fact I didn't go there to study with him at all. I just wanted to further my education at an evangelical school. I was intending on majoring under Stuart C. Hackett, who was well known, until I had a disagreement with him over his neo-Kantian epistemological dualism. Being disappointed with him I started taking classes with his former student Bill. Bill's classes were all modeled after the European method of group discussion, and I liked it. He didn't lecture much. He handed out questions for us to answer as we read selections from books and we discussed them in class. Then we each wrote term papers, and in some classes we presented them, and that was it. I don't have a lot of notes because, as I said, he didn't lecture and there were no tests and few handouts.
I liked Bill. And he liked me. At one point after having discussed a debate he had and offering some suggestions how he should've responded, he actually caught up with me down the hall and said, "Hey, John, good suggestions. I don't want to lose you." I consider him a friend. I am amazed at what he has become. When I studied with him I had no idea. None of us did.
Oh, Eric, one more thing for now. Having been a student of James D. Strauss I was not thrilled with Bill's apologetics. It was in an era where natural theology was thought to have been dismissed and Bill was a Thomist, along with another of his former professors, Norm Geisler. While I liked his Kalam argument and his argument on behalf of the resurrection, I did not think they were effective as an apologetic. I was a Straussite. The evidences for the resurrection could not serve to bring people to faith, for evidentialism with regard to historical knowledge was dead. You either start with God or you'll never get to God. We must focus on the big picture, I thought. Only God can make sense of reality. And all truth was God's truth so every discipline of intellectual learning would need a grounding in God. And I did not think Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology worked. It was a non-sequitur to move from the belief in other minds to the belief in God, I thought. And I even took a class with Bill called "Plantinga's Thought." Later I adopted reformed epistemology. Of course, now I deny it.
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I think it would be fascinating to read about your time studying under William Lane Craig: what your relationship was like, what you thought of him as a teacher, what the most important things you learned from him were, what some of your most memorable interactions with him were, etc.John W. Loftus said...
Eric, when I went to TEDS Bill Craig wasn't that well known. In fact I didn't go there to study with him at all. I just wanted to further my education at an evangelical school. I was intending on majoring under Stuart C. Hackett, who was well known, until I had a disagreement with him over his neo-Kantian epistemological dualism. Being disappointed with him I started taking classes with his former student Bill. Bill's classes were all modeled after the European method of group discussion, and I liked it. He didn't lecture much. He handed out questions for us to answer as we read selections from books and we discussed them in class. Then we each wrote term papers, and in some classes we presented them, and that was it. I don't have a lot of notes because, as I said, he didn't lecture and there were no tests and few handouts.
I liked Bill. And he liked me. At one point after having discussed a debate he had and offering some suggestions how he should've responded, he actually caught up with me down the hall and said, "Hey, John, good suggestions. I don't want to lose you." I consider him a friend. I am amazed at what he has become. When I studied with him I had no idea. None of us did.
Oh, Eric, one more thing for now. Having been a student of James D. Strauss I was not thrilled with Bill's apologetics. It was in an era where natural theology was thought to have been dismissed and Bill was a Thomist, along with another of his former professors, Norm Geisler. While I liked his Kalam argument and his argument on behalf of the resurrection, I did not think they were effective as an apologetic. I was a Straussite. The evidences for the resurrection could not serve to bring people to faith, for evidentialism with regard to historical knowledge was dead. You either start with God or you'll never get to God. We must focus on the big picture, I thought. Only God can make sense of reality. And all truth was God's truth so every discipline of intellectual learning would need a grounding in God. And I did not think Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology worked. It was a non-sequitur to move from the belief in other minds to the belief in God, I thought. And I even took a class with Bill called "Plantinga's Thought." Later I adopted reformed epistemology. Of course, now I deny it.
Link.
2 comments:
Interesting thoughts in your last paragraph. One of my favorite quotes, just one I encountered from a random poster on Richard Dawkins' forums, is, "Theology is the only intellectual endeavor that is immune to progress, because it is the only one that requires us to start with an immutable conclusion."
"It was a non-sequitur to move from the belief in other minds to the belief in God, I thought."
It certainly is, as Plantinga would agree!
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