Fri 4 Jul, 2008
“God Is Not Dead Yet.”
7:24 am Comments (2) Filed under: EvidencesTags: Apologetics, William Lane Craig
This deserves more comment, but now on the 4th is not the time: William Lane Craig’s cover article on the resurgence of apologetics and Christian scholarship, in Christianity Today. Don’t miss it.
Yet another example of the horrible misalignment of “postmodern,” generalizing a whole tradition with two words: relativism and pluralism. I’m so sick and tired of highly acclaimed Evangelical philosophers being so incredibly ignorant of Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, etc. But then the other Evangelicals eat it all up like it’s God-given truth and they swear off these figures, never reading their work to see if it fits the stereotype, never realizing that every Evangelical who writes on so-called postmodernism use the same representative quotes, rely extensively on secondary sources (many of which are inherently antagonistic to so-called postmodernism), and betray the fact that they in fact haven’t read the primary sources. This horrible scholarship is a betrayal of the teacher/student relationship; it is unethical and, to use Moreland’s favorite term to describe so-called postmodernism, cowardly! That is really my biggest problem with it: it is unethical, a betrayal.
Ok, sorry, the above rant comes out from time to time, though I try to do it in less antagonistic (and better defended/articulated) terms. Every time I hear things like Craig is saying I can’t help but see the boldfaced ignorance.
Oh, and let me add that the “God is dead” is not necessarily an atheistic claim. It can also mean one who rejects traditional theism, but accepts some form of theism; its most representative non-atheistic use in the Continental tradition is for those who see the limits of propositional truth, especially as it relates to God (but also to man, as in Levinas). It is a shame that Craig et al. buy into the atheistic appropriation of this phrase, as if it is the only understanding and use of it.