https://www.epsociety.org/blog/2008/07/reply-to-schneiders-review-of-my.asp

The written reply is different from his audio blog but the main points from the audio are highlighted in his written response. Nathan if you haven’t received any response from Craig yet you’re best shot is to post a reply at the EPS blog.

Dr. Craig’s blog is set up so that anyone can post something automatically without it having to go through moderation. Just go there and try and post again what you said above (or I’ll just do it for you) or better yet send him your reply to one of his emails. I don’t think he really checks his blog that much (since he only has responded on it once as far as I know) so something more direct is probably preferred if you want a response. I guarantee though, Dr. Craig is not the type who is only interested in getting the last word. It would be interesting to see a back and forth dialouge between you and him. Cheers

Matt,
Many thanks for your thoughtful reply. I do contest the claim that I “fail to realize that this is an article in a popular-level magazine, expecting more nuance from Craig on the arguments for God’s existence than is reasonable.” I repeatedly discuss Craig’s remarks in light of the fact that they are in Christianity Today, a popular magazine with a specific audience, including many people who are learning about these issues for the first time in any detail. The main concern of the first part of my response is that he is misrepresenting the debate to these people, not that he isn’t writing a treatise when he’s only trying to write an article. I even note in my piece, “Admittedly, Craig has limited space in the magazine format and cannot be expected to cover everything. He can, however, steer clear of libel against intellectually-fulfilled atheists.”

That said, I am in 100% agreement that the more interesting side of the discussion was with Barth, etc. As I’ve already confessed elsewhere, I think I got a little carried away tangoing with the apologists in the first part of the article and lost sight of the big picture.

To me, in fact, the difference between the God of the philosophers and the God of the Bible is less a reason to dismiss natural theology completely as a reason to explore why people find it so compelling. I am in the process of writing a book on the subject.

It certainly isn’t my interest to disparage natural theology in general—that wasn’t why I brought up Barth (nor was it, as Dr. Craig seems to think, to compare him to Hitler). The intention, rather, was to show that, as times and circumstances change, the terms under which theological debates occur can be radically different. Here I meant to add to, not to subtract from, Craig’s interesting reflections on natural theology in culture.

This all reminds me of a time when I was hiking in the Sierras for three weeks, with no contact with civilization whatsoever. I brought a Bible along. A few days into the trip, I tried reading it and couldn’t believe how irrelevant it felt—what was the point of all the kings and prophets and poetry and so forth when I was surrounded by the Glory and the Silence already? It is odd how, even though the Gods of nature, philosophy, and the Bible (or even different books of the Bible) are so different, they find their way to a similar place in people’s hearts.

I appreciate your taking the time to consider my piece, Dr. Craig. You make some important points, most of which were pretty much captured in Tom Gilson’s piece (which he links to above, as well as my response).

Let me reiterate though: I think I made clear in the passage you read that I had no intention of aligning your project with Nazism. By this point in the article, I am past critiquing your article, and instead I turn to reflect on it more broadly. Drawing attention to Barth, I merely mean to show readers another, distant but related discussion about natural theology in a very different context, revealing some of the reasons why theologians in the past have given pause to it. I am no Barthian, and nowhere in the article do I endorse Barth, other than to point out his undeniable stature among 20th-century theologians.

The purpose of this point is to suggest how religious ideas, even the most abstract proofs, fit somehow in political contexts.

I am interested in your distinction between “knowing” and “showing” – and of course you are not the first to make it. I don’t deny your distinction on principle, but I am fascinated by the permutations of it in practice. Can the two be kept apart for long? Perhaps among philosophers. But modern culture seems, in strange ways, to place the indwelling Holy Spirit in movements of technology and science. First the intricacy of nature becomes a way of showing God exists, but then there are Christian raft tours of the Grand Canyon where the showing becomes a spiritual experience – undeniably a sensation of knowing. And then I think of Pastor Haggard’s World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs, where one can’t help but think that the very servers bringing in prayer requests have become tentacles of the Holy Spirit. When something like Big Bang theory becomes a statement [i]about[/i] God, practicing it inevitably comes to feel like being [i]with[/i] God.

I wonder, for instance, how you place your arguments in your own spirituality. Are they plainly a duty to be carried out (of course in the gladness of serving God), or are they, in themselves, a devotional end?

Update: Dr. Craig’s site has yet to post my comment. Apparently conversation is not the point. Dr. Craig gets the last word.

Update on the update: The comment is now up, thanks to ChristianJR4. It seems there was some kind of technical problem before. I certainly apologize (again?!) for unfair accusations against Dr. Craig!

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5887

Congratulations on being recognized by such a prominent Christian apologist. ??