Reasonable Faith Podcast

Twenty years after The God Delusion fueled the rise of the New Atheism, Dr. Craig argues that Richard Dawkins’ central case against God doesn’t follow from its own premises. Must a cosmic designer be more complex than the universe? Is God just a “sky daddy”? What does Douglas Adams’ puddle have to do with fine-tuning? Plus, the surprising stories of people who came to faith through Dawkins’ book.

A listener is troubled by the impression that atheists and materialists have already answered every argument for Christianity, and wonders how belief in God is still possible. Dr. Craig responds by drawing a simple but important distinction, and reflects on why so many people feel overwhelmed by the volume of skeptical material online.

Dr. Craig answers more listener questions from around the world. If Christ paid for the sins of the lost, is hell a double punishment? Was Jesus really separated from the Father on the cross? Is God’s justice only retributive? Could downloading our consciousness offer a kind of digital immortality?

A listener asks Dr. Craig to imagine a possible world filled with free persons, love, moral agency, and a genuine relationship with God, but with none of the cancer, war, animal suffering, or death we see in our own. If a world like that is logically possible, what greater good could justify God choosing a world like ours instead? Dr. Craig takes up this possible-worlds objection and considers whether it really undercuts his view that God permits suffering for the sake of bringing people freely to know Him.

Dr. Craig answers listener questions from around the world. If Christ paid for every sin, why would anyone still face judgment? Could God have made the universe and simply moved on? What should we make of a skeptical historian who says the disciples must have seen something? Plus: when science and Scripture seem to collide, which gives way? Why did God allow Mark’s snake-handling passage into our Bibles? And will the wicked exist forever?