Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview
by J. P. Moreland, William Lane Craig
List Price:
Our Price: $27.22
You Save: $17.78 (40%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $11.97 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: J. P. Moreland, William Lane CraigEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-03-31
ISBN: 0830826947
Number of pages: 672
Publisher: IVP Academic
Book Reviews of Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview
Book Review: 3 stars
Summary: 5 Stars
On the positive side, this book is very comprehensive, with excellent sections on logic (helpful for debate/polemics) and the realism vs. anti-realism debate [342-345] in particular. The vocabulary lists also help for retention of information. The chapter summaries are quite concise and yet packed full of information. Moreover, the diagrams of e.g. various dilemmas are illuminating. I deem William Lane Craig the single best defender of Molinism and the belief that God is atemporal sans creation and temporal since creation. Craig and Moreland brilliantly prove with reason that Unitarianism is not possible, since God is perfectly loving being. [594-595] Their chapters on ethics and theories of ethics (deontologism, utilitarianism) are essential reading.
However, this book, written from a Baptist perspective, has several major flaws. Craig wrongly rejects Thomistic Anti-Social Trinitarianism, based on a misunderstanding of St. Thomas's model. Thus, the eternal generation of the Son and eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son are rejected, which is heresy: "For although creedally affirmed, the doctrine of the generation of the Son (and the procession of the Spirit) is a relic of Logos Christology which finds virtually no warrant in the Biblical text and introduces a subordinationism into the Godhead which anyone who affirms the full deity of Christ ought to find very troubling." [594] On the contrary, read Aquinas and Jn 15:26, among many other verses.
"... it can be safely said that on no reasonable understanding of person can a person be equated with a relation. Relations do not cause things, know truths or love people in the way the Bible says God does. Moreover, to think that the intentional objects of God's knowing himself and loving himself constitute in any sense really distinct persons is wholly implausible. Even if God the Father were a person and not a mere relation, there is no reason, even in Aquinas's own metaphysical system, why the Father as understood and loved by himself would be different persons. The distinction involved here is merely that between oneself as subject ("I") and object ("me"). There is no reason to think that the individual designated by "I," "me" and "myself" constitutes a plurality of persons in God's case than in any human being's case. Anti-social Trinitarianism seems to reduce to classical Modalism." [586-587]
An orthodox model of the Trinity must not diminish the divinity of the persons. It must state that the Father is fully God, the Son is Fully God, and the Holy Spirit is fully God. At the same time, it must deny that each of the persons is a "part" of God or 1/3 of God. It must not say that the persons are divine because of their participation in the Trinity; rather, the persons participate in the Trinity but they are intrinsically fully divine. In other words, the persons, having the same essence, are necessarily infinitely divine in themselves. Thomistic Anti Social Trinitarianism meets all of these requirements.
God's name means "I Am Who Am," which perfectly represents the personal and eternal Divine Essence. Personhood consists of three factors: Being, Intelligence, and Will.
The personal Divine Essence is "Being," and is one omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc.
Intelligence and Will imply opposing relations that are truly distinct in their terms. Within the term knowledge, Intelligence logically implies "knower" and "known" as opposite terms.
This Personal "Being," because it is omniscient and knowledge is known by the mode of the Knower, knows the infinite Divine Essence infinitely. This perfect Knowledge is distinct from the Divine Essence simply "Being" because It follows from the Divine Essence Knowing, which is logically "subsequent" to it Being ("one can't know what is not"). The Divine Essence "Being" fully and perfectly, and the Divine Essence "Known" fully and perfectly are the Father and the Son, respectively. Since the notion of the Divine Essence implies Being, and the Divine Essence Known is perfect due to Omniscience, the Divine Essence Known has a reality eternally distinct from the Divine Essence Being by virtue of the opposite terms of "knower" and "known", even though the Divine Essence is not divided in any way.
There is only one God -- only ONE "Divine Essence Known" -- because there is only one Intelligence of the Divine Essence. The Son doesn't "know" another Son into Being, because the Son's Intelligence is the Father's Intelligence, and Intelligence proceeds from Being.
There is one omnipotent Divine will, and the Holy Spirit proceeds as the Divine Essence "Being" willing Itself, (Will follows from both "Being" and "Knowledge", because one cannot will what one does not know. In the Divine Essence (Father) Knowing Itself (Son), It Wills Itself to Itself out of Love (Holy Spirit). The Holy Spirit is truly distinct from the Father and the Son; this follows from the opposite terms "willer" and "willed." This model, without minimizing the Father's absolute "monarchy," allows for the filioque clause, since the Will follows from the Knowledge, and indeed proceeds in a certain manner from it since what is Known first is also Willed. The Willed Divine Essence proceeds in one act from the Being and Knowledge, but principally from the Being as the "source" of the Divine Will.
In the Divine Name, "I" indicates Personhood, which necessarily implies Being, Intellect, and Will, and "Am Who Am" implies eternal and immutable Being. Thus we can conclude that there are Three and only Three Persons from the Three aspects of Personhood, and these Persons share the One Essence while being really distinguished by relation. The Father does not "proceed" from the Divine Essence as He IS the Divine Essence principally, with the other two Persons eternally proceeding from the fact of Being, though lacking nothing of the Divine Essence as they are the Divine Essence perfectly Known and Willed, respectively.
The first part of their critique is based on a misunderstanding of how a relation is a person, and on a failure to grasp the significance of an omniscient, omnipotent, infinite Being "knowing" and "loving" Himself.
A relation is a Person in the Trinity not because relations are persons per se, but because distinctions between opposite relations is the only "division" that can at once lead to real distinction but at the same time not divide the Divine Essence. "Known" and "knower" are opposite relations in the term "knowing", so in the case of the Divine Essence being perfectly known and perfectly knower there arises two Persons that are the Divine Essence, as "known" and "knower" always remain distinct relations, one arising from the other.
Calling any Person of the Trinity is a "mere" relation is misrepresents the meaning of relation in this context. We don't say the Father is "merely a relation;" we say that the Father is distinguished as a Person by relation. When Aquinas says "relation is the same as person in the Trinity," he did not mean to equate relation with Person in any absolute way; rather, he wanted to show that where there is a real relation within the Godhead, there is necessarily a Person.
So Aquinas was not a Modalist; Craig and Moreland didn't understand the significance of "absolute being" knowing "absolute being" perfectly and absolutely, as well as Aquinas' point that "a thing known exists in the intellect according to the mode of the knower." In the case of the Divine Intellect this is perfect and absolute knowledge: the Divine Essence known by the Divine Intellect exists perfectly and absolutely, distinguished only by virtue of it being "known" rather than "simply being" as the knower is, and the same applies to the Divine Essence "willed".
Craig says, "... the Son's intellect and act of understanding just are the Father's intellect and act of understanding; the Son's understanding himself is identical with the Father's understanding himself. The Son seems but a name given to the Father's me." [587]
However, there is a difference between the Divine knowing Itself and me knowing myself. I am not my own being, nor is my essence absolute being. When I know myself, I'm incapable of absolutely perfect knowledge for a number of reasons, and even if I were I am not absolute being, but rather potential being made actual by God (I lack the divine attribute Aseity). Hence, even understanding myself perfectly would not necessitate a new "Intellectual" me, but would rather be a perfect potential me. This is the same as how God knew all things before He Created anything, and also how we are said to be "made through the Word" (Divine Intellect), as God literally "knows" us into being when He shares His Being with us. It is only by virtue of the absolute Being of the Divine Essence that knowing or willing it perfectly (as only God can do) puts forth a new Person of the Divine Essence.
Molinism is untenable and Craig and Moreland fail to adequately answer all the problems of middle knowledge [522-523] (e.g. the grounding objection [523-524]), despite mentioning several of them. Though the book defends the general concept of everlasting damnation, one must consult St. Thomas for a solid defense of the various pains of Hell.
The Molinist doctrine of scientia media (middle knowledge) is unacceptable because of its implications for God and man, as demonstrated by Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange.
Because the determination of the will is outside divine causality, God is not the first and most universal cause. God is Pure Act, but middle knowledge makes God's intelligence passive because it is measured by the determination of our free will, which it needs to discover and wait upon. Prayer would be needed much less because men would not need to ask of God that we may accept grace. God's goodness would be diminished because by physical motion He would be the author of an evil work just as much as of a good work. Because God would not be able to incline toward good, His omnipotence and supreme dominion over our wills would be limited. Liberty would be eliminated because there would be a determinism of circumstances whereby God infallibly foresees how the liberty would act in such circumstances.
Men would not need to give as many thanks because the determination toward good, the key to salvation, would render thanksgiving superfluous. Hope would be warped because when we should rely only on the hope of grace, middle knowledge would have us also rely upon our liberty which can always make grace efficacious.
Over and against Molinist objections to Robert Adams's "Anti-Molinist Argument," in Molinism there is a vicious circle in which if creature P freely does action A in circumstances C, a true CCF (creaturely counterfactual) F* both is and is not explanatorily prior to P's choosing and acting as he does in C.
Craig and Moreland suggest that DDI (doctrine of divine immutability) as traditionally understood is incoherent, because God must undergo intrinsic change; again, this is heresy. They state, "We have argued that in virtue of His real, causal relation to the temporal world, God must minimally undergo extrinsic change and therefore be temporal--at least since the moment of creation. Moreover, God's knowledge of tensed facts, implied by His omniscience, requires that since the moment of creation He undergoes intrinsic change as well, since He knows what is happening now in the universe. Thus God is not immutable in a strong sense." [527] However, if God's cognitive state with respect to what time it is changed, it would not follow that He is not intrinsically immutable, since knowing the correct time is not an intrinsic state of God's. Craig and Moreland erroneously believe that the doctrine that God does not intrinsically change implies an incoherent concept of immobility.
Moreover, does God even change extrinsically? God, being atemporal (not temporally limited), technically exists neither at t or later at t*, and so there are never two times such that different things are true of Him at different times. Everything that is ever true of Him is true of Him timelessly, but for something to extrinsically change different things must be true of it at different times.
Craig represents the coming into existence of the world being as an A-series temporal event for God, and he believes that it is possible that God exists in a timelessly eternal fashion and then enters time upon creating a temporal universe. However, this is incoherent, because there can be no temporal "and then" for a timelessly eternal God. Even if the universe is created in time, and even if a timelessly eternal God eternally creates the universe by willing a temporal succession of events without changing His will, He is related to each of these in a timeless way.
Their rejection of St. Thomas's thesis about God's relation to the world is based on a misunderstanding. Finally, Craig and Moreland hold to a heterodox view of God and time, erring in their belief that God is not fully atemporal in the sense of everlasting timelessness. For God, who exists timelessly, the temporal order is a B-series, all times being equally present to His mind. From an Eternalist perspective, God creates the universe as a temporally ordered B-series, according to which every event in that universe is, tenselessly, either before, after, or simultaneous with every other event in the universe. However, God is in no temporal relation to this B-series, not even in the tenseless relation that, according to the B-theory, any event in the universe is to any other event in it. Paul Helm points out that thinking of time as a B-series helps us to better understand creation by a timeless God because we can think about the temporal series from a standpoint that is indifferent to any point within it. Each event is tenselessly related to each other. For example, the Panic of 1819 has a fixed and tenseless but nonetheless temporal relation with the Great Depression of the 20th century. As for the problem of a timeless Being knowing temporal indexicals, maybe there are divine atemporal indexicals of which we are unaware that are mutually exclusive to the temporal indexicals of which we are aware. This is in accordance with God's omniscience because He does not have to know the logically unknowable.
Additionally, it seems that there are no essentially tensed facts. D.H. Mellor said that even if some tensed sentences cannot be translated into tenseless sentences, the truth conditions of any tensed sentence can be explained without tensed facts. For example, one might say, "Thank goodness that's over" after a painful event, but this is not explained by the pastness of the event; rather, one believes that the event is past, and the event occurs before now. Tenseless facts can explain all this and can also be used to explain the logical relations between tensed sentences (e.g. one sentence implies another but is inconsistent with another, etc.). Ordinary tenseless facts are sufficient for accounting for the truth of tensed talk; Ockham's Razor shows that therefore, there are no essentially tensed facts.
For more thorough answers to the arguments of proponents of the A-theory (dynamic theory) of time, in addition to impeccable arguments for the B-theory (static view) of time, L. Nathan Oaklander's superb collection of essays <The Ontology of Time> (Prometheus Books, 2004) is imperative reading!
Conclusion: Buy it as a reference for knowing the strongest arguments in favor of respective controversial positions (which happen to be wrong), and as a polemical tool and overview of myriad philosophical issues like ontology, cosmology, eschatology, epistemology, etc.
Revised by WRH, 1/3/2007
Summary of Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview
Winner of a 2004 ECPA Gold Medallion Award! Winner of an Award of Excellence in the 2003 Chicago Book Clinic!- What is real?
- What is truth?
- What can we know?
- What should we believe?
- What should we do and why?
- Is there a God?
- Can we know him?
- Do Christian doctrines make sense?
- Can we believe in God in the face of evil?
Theology Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Theology Books
Praying the Names of Jesus: A Daily Guideby Ann Spangler
Zondervan; Published: 2006-09-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.89
Price in other shops:
Case for Christ, Theby Lee Strobel
Zondervan; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $18.31
Price in other shops:
What's So Amazing About Grace?by Philip Yancey
Zondervan; Published: 2002-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
The Jesus I Never Knewby Philip Yancey
Zondervan; Published: 2002-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
Who's Afraid of the Old Testament God?by Alden Thompson
Zondervan; Published: 1989-09; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
Upanisads (Oxford World's Classics)Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1998-11-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.58
Price in other shops:
St. Augustine Confessions (Oxford World's Classics)by Saint Augustine
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1998-06-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops:
Christ the Lord: A Crisis in the Life of Godby Miles Jack
Arrow/Children S (a Division of Random House; Published: 2003-03; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
The Mind of the Makerby Dorothy L. Sayers
HarperOne; Published: 1987-09-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.39
Price in other shops:
Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospelby Luke Timothy Johnson
HarperOne; Published: 2000-01-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Blackwell Companion to Natural TheologyWiley-Blackwell; Published: 2012-02-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $39.18
Price in other shops:
Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictionsby Gregory Koukl
Zondervan; Published: 2009-02-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.81
Price in other shops:
Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament Godby Paul Copan
Baker Books; Published: 2011-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.05
Price in other shops:
Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Moralityby David Baggett, Jerry L. Walls
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2011-04-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $21.40
Price in other shops:
The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classicsby C. S. Lewis
Harper Collins Publishers; HarperOne; Published: 2007-02-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.03
Price in other shops:
Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soulby J. P. Moreland, Dallas Willard
NavPress; Published: 1997-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops:
Philosophy for Dummiesby Tom Morris
IDG Books; Published: 1999-09-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.49
Price in other shops:
Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faithby Douglas Groothuis
IVP Academic; Published: 2011-07-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $26.12
Price in other shops:
On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precisionby William Lane Craig
David C. Cook; Published: 2010-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.80
Price in other shops:
Reasonable Faith (3rd Edition): Christian Truth and Apologeticsby William Lane Craig
Crossway Books; Published: 2008-06-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.75
Price in other shops: