Posted: May 07, 2012 6:37 pm
Shrunk wrote:JHendrix wrote:This is the quote from Craig I was looking for:The person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/200 ... ml?start=5
Unreal. I was convinced you had quoted that out of context or that Craig was speaking ironically or as a devil's advocate, or something. But looking at the entire article, I can only conclude that this statement's meaning is exactly as read. He really does believe that society has taken a wrong turn in adopting the values of "the Enlightenment", "modernism", and "scientific naturalism", and that his job is simply to make Chrisitian apologetics seem to conform to these values so that people are more receptive to the witness of the Holy Spirit. But he doesn't actually believe that reason and rationality are actually capable of revealing truth. It's just useful to pretend he does.
I didn't want to seem like it was out of context, but after reading the context enough times to make sure it was "OK", I came to the exact same conclusion.
Here is the whole context:
A robust natural theology may well be necessary for the gospel to be effectively heard in Western society today. In general, Western culture is deeply post-Christian. It is the product of the Enlightenment, which introduced into European culture the leaven of secularism that has by now permeated Western society. While most of the original Enlightenment thinkers were themselves theists, the majority of Western intellectuals today no longer considers theological knowledge to be possible. The person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic.