so, after listening to a bunch of debates and hearing him highly regarded by some of the theists here I picked up "reasonable faith" by WLC...I figured I would start a thread and post comments/questions about the book as they come up for me...

Background: I'm an agnostic atheist, raised reformed jew but havent done anything religious since my bar mitzvah 13 years ago...ive read dawkins, harris, hitchen blah blah as well as the bible, some cs lewis blah blah blah

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Im about 50 pages into the book, most of which was intro and some background on a few apologetic philosophers (aquinas, augustine, plantinga etc)

First real issue came in a section called "How do I know Christianity is True", subsection "holy spirit for unbelievers"

WLC states that the feeling of being touched by the holy spirit provides objective knowledge of the truth of christianity and is self-authenticating. He says that argument and reason should only be a secondary source of knowing that christianity is true, but that its better to have both reason and holy spirit behind you...

He states
p47 (third edition)

Comments on this? It seems very insulting to me, since I have had no experience of the Spirit and dont consider myself a person that "loves darkness rather than light"...

He goes on to say: He then states that some might object by stating that non Christians have feelings of being touched by god/spirit/nature etc, why are they wrong, but Christians right?

WLC response
really?

more objections: doesn't the fact that other people claim similar certaintly being wrong, make it possible that the christian is wrong as well?

WLC:
1. the claims of those non christians may not be entirely spurious, but could be just those people having an experience of god as a moral law giver, or father figure type...

2. you can't assume that the experience of the true Holy Spirit is a result of human cognitive faculty. The experience of a christian receiving the holy spirit is different than the feelings buddhists or hindus get when they feel the spirit...

He concludes the section by stating
p50

So far this seems very weak to me...Comments on the book or passages I included?

Do people have interest in a continuing log of my reading of the book?

I don't have many comments, though I'm interested to hear more.

One question I'd like to ask him is what a non-believer is supposed to do who hasn't had this self-authenticating experience. If he bases faith on that (as I do, I guess) then there's no reason for the atheist to make any effort, that I can see. He can just wait for the experience to arrive and then he'll know for sure it's the Christian God and it's real. I suspect Craig would reject this conclusion.

yeah, i was thinking the same thing being that i've never had, i dont think, the experience he is talking about...

but since i haven't finished the book i dont know if this is addressed as the book progresses...maybe NR/Jib/Concerto can address this?

I think Jibninjas would reject it - I'm pretty sure he doesn't think personal experience provides good grounds for belief, though I may be wrong about that. I'm very sure he's said it's nothing to do with his theism though.

"Reasonable Faith" = "I believe in God because a divine spirit entered me and thus 'self-authenticated' my beliefs, and tough **** that you happen to be a darkness loving doomed creature that he won't enter." Yeah, that's reasonable enough for most, I guess.

How does a Christian that claims to feel the holy spirit know that it is confirming all of their beliefs? What would they say to someone claiming to feel the holy spirit but was speaking out against other Christian beliefs?

How does a Christian know that the holy spirit isn't real, but some or much of their other beliefs are incorrect?

Ya i'd like to hear more too.

I agree with what hes saying, in order to accept the gift of the holy spirit you need to have an open mind and come to God with your whole heart. I didnt feel the holy spirit until i hit my rock botton and genuinely asked God for help. I had asked before, but not really with my whole heart. I was moreso asking because I was curious.

As for the argument of how do people know which religion is correct and why cant other religions feel this supernatual presence. I cant speak for everyone, but I know that when i asked for help I asked Jesus Christ and was set free from my problems at the time, so thats who im rolling with.

i dont really see how this is possible to do in an honest fashion...if i dont believe that god exists how can i ask god for help with my whole heart? Seems that god would have to come to me and give me the feeling of the holy spirit, its not something that can come a non believer through searching...

Book would more aptly be titled Arrogant Faith. Craig is decent at explicating the arguments of various religious philosophers and their "proofs" of God's existence, but he has never really gotten past Aquinas in terms of his defense for God, especially the Christian God, and his arguments are pretty easily eviscerated by Hume et al.

The notion of "self-authenticating belief" is remarkably similar to the psychological notion of a self-reinforcing delusion.

Craig's biggest problem is not logical (he is a pretty skilled logician and quite good at making arguments based on the premises he starts from), but epistemic. He has absolutely no defense of his knowledge of the specifics of God's nature other than this internalized "self-authentication," which has no independent frame of reference.

In any case, I would like to know how Craig distinguishes the self-authentication of the Christian "Holy Spirit" versus the self-authentication one might expect of, say, Brahman.

I guess you need to ask Him with your whole heart if he is real then. He wont do anything until someone seeks him.

shrug, i guess to me that would just be me talking to myself since i dont believe that god exists...

could be, but i dont see why that should stop someone from trying. Not trying to press my beliefs on you, just sayin.

I am definitely interested in hearing more. I think this is a great idea.

I would have to agree with you, sounds very insulting. I don't like "lines" like this. I think that there can be very good reasons that someone might reject christianity that does not include "loving darkness". And there are certainly a **** ton of people that do believe in God/christianity that seem to me to "love darkness". So this just does not seem to me to be a good qualifier.

For me the problem is that an experience like this is purely subjective. So let's say up have an experience that strongly leads you to believe X. Another person says they have an experience that leads them to believe -X. The fact is, you don't know what the other persons experience was. So from the point of the person having the experience they need to qualify the experience that they had, and if they find it to be sufficient they should not worry about the other persons experience invalidating theirs.

From the point of view of the outsider (like myself) everyone's "experience" looks the same. Like some dude saying they had an experience. So I am forced to categorize them all as ******** basically as I am incapable of distinguishing the good from the bad. Now I am not saying to those people "your experience is BS because I cannot tell the difference between yours and Johns", but don't expect me to be convinced.

As Bunny has mentioned, I am not a fan of the "experience" argument. And personally, it would have to be one hell of a ****ing experience to convince me of something. And honestly, speaking to many christians of their experiences it doesn't sound like anything that would persuade me. But maybe that's just because it cannot be properly described.

FWIW, if I were you I would not do it either. If someone sold me to ask Ganesha to give me a sign I would probably tell them to **** off.

I don't find this line of reasoning to be any good. If God knows that a sign would sway me (assuming that I didn't believe in God) then he should give me a sign. This also comes too close to the No True Scotsman for me. The conversation ends up,

believer: If you are really sincere and are open then ask God for a sign, he'll give it to you.

unbeliever: I did that already, it didn't work.

believer: Then you weren't sincere enough.

unbeliever: Well how do I know when I am sincere?

believer: hmmm.......when it works?

You know why the Indian rain dance always worked? Because they didn't stop until it rained.

FTR, I have asked God for a sign hundreds of times, and he is supposed to like me more, you know not being a dirty atheist and all, and got nothing. IMO, if God does in fact dole out "experiences" then I don't think he gives them to everyone who "really wants it bad enough".

Reason is never "self-authenticating." In fact, rational structures that are self-authenticating are guilty of the fallacy of circular reasoning.

The self-authenticating experience, if legitimate, must be extra-rational or otherwise non-rational.

Obviously for those of us who haven't had such an experience (and some very powerful spiritual experiences lack this "self-authenticating" property, assuming it exists) have no reason to accept its existence, or to give credence to one claim of such experience (the evangelical Christian claim, for example) over another.

I'm pretty much with Jib on this. And going a step further, if I were on the fence about Christianity, Craig's reasoning would likely push me away. According to his reasoning, I've already rejected God (even without being consciously aware of doing so), and if I were considering a renewal of my search for faith that idea would dissuade me.

I think that I would agree with this as well. The push of this concept of the "presence of the Holy Spirit" and similar experiences really turned me off to the Christian culture. It gave me this feeling of "if you were a real Christian you would feel this"

I don't know it's clear yet that that is his view. He may think you haven't been given the chance to accept God yet but that you will before it's too late - I would guess this would be especially true for someone brought up a mormon or other 'non-authenticating' religion. It's why I'd be interested to hear what Craig thinks a non-believer should do if they havent had this self-authenticating experience (hopefully thirddan will report back if Craig addresses it).

Fundamentally and simplistically (I haven't read it in a while), this section of the book is not an argument. Craig isn't saying "I am enlightened by the Holy Spirit and that's why I believe and THEREFORE you should believe". He's speaking to Christians and contrasting the Spirit and rational argument as it pertains to the individual, and he's explaining to non-Christians that argumentation alone isn't enough to make someone a Christian.

There's a lot more to it in that section but that's the basic idea and I think he's absolutely correct.

I always kinda assumed that there would be a lot more to the book. I cannot believe that he spends too much time on this as he always presents this a a reason that some might believe, not an argument as to why one should believe.

Also, so is this book basically a more more elaborated version of his debate arguments?

man i hate WLC....

gotta respect him for being one of the most skilled con men in the history of the human race

he is a con man, and that is why i dislike him, so many people fall for his ********...

fyp

fixed his post too.