Yes, there are also enrichening encounters between Muslims and Christians

William Lane Craig in Denmark

The Christian philosopher William Lane Craig went on a speaking trip to Denmark in March, from the 18th to the 25th, and had an interesting encounter:

We then flew to Copenhagen, where our host was Jesper Christiansen, a Christian businessman who organized my debate with the Danish philosopher Klemens Kappel in 2012. This time I spoke at an evangelistic meeting on "The Existence of God." This meeting was held in a local church in a somewhat run-down neighborhood. What I later learned is that this is a Muslim section of town with many immigrants, and so a sizeable part of the large audience that night was Muslim, as we could readily see from the head coverings worn by the women. I was shocked that they would attend a Christian meeting in a church. But the Lord is doing a good work in this community. One man we met, now an ardent Christian, told me that 2 and 1/2 years ago he was a member of ISIS! During the question-and-answer [period,] we once again had intelligent questions posed by both secularists and Muslims in the audience.

Turns out, there is here still some common ground where Muslims and Christians can meet and discuss even theology. Some Muslims may even know the name "William Lane Craig" because he has almost singlehandedly resuscitated the Kalam Argument, an argument developed in the Muslim world, formulated to prove that the world has a beginning at a finite time in the past.

Let me offer an example. A church service might seem to have gone on forever, but it has to have had a beginning at a finite time in the past, or we would never have gotten to this point in the sermon.

A Maker of Heaven and Earth?

Christianity Today

July 2008

(Image from Christianity Today)

This morning, an online issue of Christianity Today appeared with an article by William Lane Craig, "God Is Not Dead Yet: How current philosophers argue for his existence" (July 2008). In this article, Craig summarizes the current state of philosophical arguments for the existence of God, and he begins by noting the resurgence of "natural philosophy":

The renaissance of Christian philosophy has been accompanied by a resurgence of interest in natural theology, that branch of theology that seeks to prove God's existence apart from divine revelation. The goal of natural theology is to justify a broadly theistic worldview, one that is common among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and deists. While few would call them compelling proofs, all of the traditional arguments for God's existence, not to mention some creative new arguments, find articulate defenders today.

Craig then procedes to explicate, in summary form, current formulations of four traditional arguments for the existence of God:

The cosmological argument.

The teleological argument.

The moral argument.

The ontological argument.

Actually, Craig provides five arguments, for he cites two types of cosmological arguments, the second of which is known as the kalam cosmological argument, a version that Craig notes has "a rich Islamic heritage" -- hence its identity as "kalam," from the Arabic word kalām (علم الكلام) "speech," possibly from some reference to Allah's speech, if we can trust Wikipedia.

Craig provides a simple formulation of this kalam argument:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Craig then states:

Premise (1) certainly seems more plausibly true than its denial. The idea that things can pop into being without a cause is worse than magic. Nonetheless, it's remarkable how many nontheists, under the force of the evidence for premise (2), have denied (1) rather than acquiesce in the argument's conclusion.

I'm no nontheist, but premise (1) befuddles me a bit if I reflect upon it. Craig's remark that "Premise (1) certainly seems more plausibly true than its denial" seems reasonable to me if I begin with an already existing universe, for the principle of causality would exclude things simply popping into existence without a cause.

But suppose that I imagine a lack of anything at all. No God. No universe. Utter absence of any existing thing. In utter absence, even principles do not exist. Therefore, the principle of causality also does not exist. If that principle does not exist, then something could 'pop' into existence uncaused.

No doubt, I've not expressed this point very precisely -- surely not precisely enough for philosophers -- but perhaps the intuition behind my reasoning is clear enough and could be more precisely formulated by any philosophers who might happen to be reading this blog entry. I'd be interested in seeing a very precise formulation of my intuition, along with the refutation . . . if there is one.

Meanwhile, a list of books for further reading on natural theology is provided by Craig in "Recommended Reading: Books on the existence of God" (Christianity Today, July 2008).