Cosner, Price, and Carter: Swamidass and Craig the Compromisers

That video WLC and I did continues to make its rounds: William Lane Craig Ends His Search for Adam and Eve. Lita Cosner, Paul Price (@PDPrice) and Robert Carter write this article.

Instead, he has begun commenting on wider areas of science and theology, and the more he has had to say, the worse things seem to have gotten. This was highlighted in his recently released YouTube video series on the doctrine of man. These were filmed during his weekly Sunday school lessons given at a church not far from CMIā€™s US office.2 Additional insights can be gleaned from other recent presentations, for example an interview Craig gave to Remnant Radio and a video he did with Joshua Swamidass3, all from the Reasonable Faith YouTube Channel.

As one listens to Craig, one cannot help but feel empathy and compassion for the man. He is clearly deeply disturbed by his own conclusions, and he would prefer to hold to the straightforward, literal, biblical creationist position! This is in stark contrast to the flippant attitude displayed by Swamidass.8 Craig agonizes over these matters because he has come to the realization that they are not a side issue. He knows the very deity of Christ is at stake when we question the validity of Genesis.

He even says that he feels like a child who has just been told there is no Santa Claus. There are many extremely telling and honest confessions that Craig makes in the interview we cited above, to our genuine surprise. Yet, at the end, he still states, ā€œFlood geology is just hopeless.ā€ He doesnā€™t explain why he came to that conclusion, and he ignores all those who believe otherwise. We genuinely wish he would give creation science a second look.

Craig wants to believe the Bible but cannot, because he has placed secular ā€˜scienceā€™ on a pedestal higher than the Bible itself. Craig states that, ā€œ ā€¦ interpolating into the history of this planet things that the Bible would seem to exclude,ā€ is a bad thing! In his interview, Swamidass sharply rebukes him immediately by saying, ā€œIsnā€™t that what youā€™re doing with the Old Earth?ā€ Craig can only reply sheepishly, ā€œGood point.ā€

It is a mystery to us why Craig, Swamidass, and others are willing to believe ā€˜impossible thingsā€™ in the New Testament but refuse to apply similar thoughts to Genesis. The only consistent defense of Scripture starts with a strong stance on biblical inerrancy, beginning from the very first verse. Please pray for Drs Craig and Swamidass, that they would reconsider their compromise and become better defenders of biblical Christianity.

I have to say, there is quite a lot to discuss here, quite a bit of confusion on their end.

They do raise one scientific point. What are the thoughts of scientists on this?

But by associating Adam (and Eve) with Heidelberg man, he inadvertently raises all sorts of problems. For example, Heidelberg man is thought, by many evolutionists, to be an ancestor to the Neanderthals of Europe. He was not involved in the African bottleneck that supposedly led to the evolution of Homo sapiens several hundred thousand (imaginary) years ago. He is not thought to be the ancestor to the main people group(s) that contributed to modern man and is not the ancestor to sub-Saharan Africans. If Adam is not ancestral to humans alive on earth today, we fall right back into outdated arguments from prior centuries that were used to justify slavery and the fallacious thought that Europeans were superior to the other ā€˜racesā€™. Associating Heidelberg man with Adam comes with a lot of baggage. Craig should have known this.

It is a mystery to us why Craig, Swamidass, and others are willing to believe ā€˜impossible thingsā€™ in the New Testament but refuse to apply similar thoughts to Genesis. The only consistent defense of Scripture starts with a strong stance on biblical inerrancy, beginning from the very first verse. Please pray for Drs Craig and Swamidass, that they would reconsider their compromise and become better defenders of biblical Christianity.

I look forward to dialogue with them. Iā€™ve asked to respond to their review of the GAE, and they declined. Perhaps they will let us reply to this.

Either way, it is great to see Creation.com and AIG start engaging with us. I expect this to grow more over the next couple weeks, especially with the Sapientia series on the horizon. Iā€™m looking forward to Marcus Rossā€™ review.

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Curious about a few things:

Does he?

I note that you repeat that paragraph, incidentally.

That seems simple enough. The impossible things in the New Testament are not the sort that would leave evidence behind that survived to the present. After this remove, there is no way to find evidence for or against the resurrection. But a worldwide flood, a 6000-year-old planet, and such? Plenty of evidence.

And of course they ignore the one Genesis miracle that @swamidass promotes, the de novo creation of Adam and Eve.

Is that true? H. heidelbergensis is also a name for ā€œarchaic H. sapiensā€, and I do believe some of those are found in Africa. So if thereā€™s any sense in assigning ancestors or calling what may be paraphyletic a species, then I donā€™t think we could rule out a universal ancestor on that account.*

*Caveat: humans are not birds, so my expertise is limited.

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He does not, as he recently clarified here: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/the-historical-adam-whats-at-stake/

Yes, and also a book showing how a literal reading of Genesis is possible, yet they say Iā€™m ā€œflippantā€ about a literal reading? That is pretty bold quote mining there.

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You are correct. Quite widespread in Africa actually.

H. heidelbergensis Is proposed to be the LCA of us and Neanderthals. That puts us in the direct line of descent.

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So even that scientific point was nonsense? :confused: I was hoping to learn something.

Yes. They evolved in Africa. Then a population moved into Europe. That population gave rise to the Neandys and the population in Africa gave rise to us. Thatā€™s the current thinking any way.

Is this a reference to GAE? It does lend itself to a literalistic reading of Genesis 2 and 3, but not to Genesis 1 (6 creation days) as far as I can tell.

Peace,
Chris

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A literal reading of Genesis 1 is already pretty well known, and the outline of it is sketched in a few places.