rationalskepticism.org

quas wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:No further evidence perhaps.
Or no scientistic, empirical, God-under-a-microscope type evidence perhaps.
But I simply dont think that it can be properly said of someone like him that he has no need for evidence.

William Lane Craig is the master of double-speak. His website and his most famous book is titled "Reasonable Faith", suggests that he holds reason in high regard. But in his very book, he claims he has no need for reason. "We can know the truth, whether we have rational arguments or not." On public debates against atheists, he will claim that he is very much rational and evidence-based, but when pressed on, he will admit that he has no need for evidence, as he has already known the truth.

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith wrote:Not every disciple needed to see the holes in Jesus' hands. It is possible to get to a point where you say...OK I think I have enough evidence now to make a decision. And the weight of evidence persuades on balance.

Which way the balance swings to depends on whether or not you have a priori accepted God.

"Even though we are given no good reason to believe, and many persuasive reasons to disbelieve, even then the disbeliever has no excuse. Because the ultimate reason he does not believe is that he has rejected deliberately God's holy spirit."

We can know the truth, whether we have rational arguments or not. Thats not controversial. Thats not double-speak.
Thats a plain reality. It's quite possible for rational arguments to produce false conclusions. It's quite possible for empirical evidence to point to something which later turns out not to be true.

One thing I would like to say about Mr Craig is that although his name comes up OFTEN in this forum and he is a proponent of religious views with which I happen to strongly agree, it is only by happenstance that I find myself defending the fact that he holds those views. I would defend anyone whose view I shared who was being attacked for holding those same views.

He is a big target for atheists but that doesn’t mean that every Christian in here who, (because we share a common doctrine,) happens to agree with WLC - as against the counter-apologist, is part of some WLC fan club.

He certainly doesn’t need any help defending his position against ideological attacks from atheists. He can do that by himself. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he cringed at some of the amateur, folk-style AvT apologists like me and secretly wished his name wasn’t ever mentioned by ppl like us lest we be mistaken as part of something exactly like a fan club.

I assert that the only situation in which a person (like WLC) would claim, as you suggest, that they had no need for evidence would be one in which they ALREADY rationally thought they had sufficient persuasive evidence.

William Lane Craig isn't unique among Christians in this regard. Nor does he claim to be.

There's been billions of Christians who have said exactly that - I have all the evidence I need and nothing you can say or scream or do or threaten to do - no trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will separate me from the love of Christ. (See Romans 8)

I think the problem is with the atheist who is frustrated at their own inability to persuade - their inability to refute.