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MCLEAN, Va – A prominent Christian apologist, well-known for his defense of the bodily resurrection of Jesus and his work focusing on modern physical cosmology for the existence of God, opened an apologetics conference at a D.C-metro area megachurch on Thursday.
Some 1,400 people gathered at McLean Bible Church to listen to 22 of the world’s top apologists defend the faith and instruct listeners on controversial topics ranging from intelligent design to world religions.
Dr. William Lane Craig, a Biola research professor of philosophy, opened the three-day conference entitled, “Loving God With All Your Mind,” with a session questioning if there is sufficient evidence for Christianity.
Craig said that from his experience most people tend to be spiritually apathetic. He pointed to the Bible saying that knowledge of God is promised to those who diligently and sincerely seek Him.
“The knowledge of God is unique in that the knowledge of God is conditioned by moral and spiritual factors,” said Craig. “A spiritually indifferent person can have a perfectly profound knowledge of mathematics, or history, or physics, or Russian literature, or even theology. But a spiritually indifferent person cannot obtain the knowledge of God.”
Craig humorously imitated the arguments of atheists for their disbelief and set out to argue that although there is not enough evidence to “coerce” someone to believe in the Christian faith, there is, however, sufficient evidence to make faith in Christianity rational.
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“In other words, God doesn’t force Himself upon us,” said Craig. “He has given evidence of Himself which is sufficiently clear for those with an open heart and an open mind, but is sufficiently vague so as not to compel people whose hearts are closed.”
The Big Bang was used as evidence of the existence of God. Craig posed the philosophical question “Why did the universe come to exist?” and said that if we suddenly heard a big “bang” sound and asked where it came from, it would be unacceptable to receive “Nothing. It just happened” as an answer.
“What is true of a little bang is also true of the Big Bang as well,” said Craig. “There must have been a cause that brought the universe into being. And by the very nature of the case as the cause of space, time, and all physical realities, this cause would have to be an un-caused, immaterial, changeless, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful being that brought the universe into existence.”
The apologist also cited numerous scientific odds against the necessary conditions for the existence of the universe to support that there must exist an intelligent being that fine-tuned the universe.
Craig concluded, “A loving God would not abandon us to our own devices to work out by our own cleverness and ingenuity whether or not He exists. Rather a loving God would Himself seek us, pursue us, and try to draw us to Himself.”
