William Lane Craig and Original Sin

Due to the hullabaloo over William Lane Craig's answer to an atheist's question on Christian doctrine relating to original sin, I thought I would share a great blog post from the apologists M and M (Matt and Madeleine Flannagan). I'll share an excerpt from their answer to the question, "Does William Lane Craig not believe in original sin?"

"Apparently, Craig is not only affirming heresy but is a compromiser who is not committed to the truth, who denies that the existence of universal sinfulness and that the need for salvation is an essential Christian belief.

This own goal demonstrates not just an alarming inability for many Christians to read in context but also some overweening ignorance about theology (not to mention an alarming lack of charity for the man who is internationally renowned and respected for publicly defending the faith by lay people and the academy alike.)

Let us take a look at the offending paragraph, William Lane Craig wrote:

As for your two moral objections, the first is an objection to the doctrine of original sin. But once more, that doctrine is not universally affirmed by Christians and is not essential to the Christian faith.

At a glance, sitting by itself in a Facebook status update, in a tweet or out of context on a blog, it may well look like Craig is saying that the doctrine of original sin is not essential to the Christian faith. But now let’s look at it again in context:

As for your two moral objections, the first is an objection to the doctrine of original sin. [Emphasis added]

The “first” what? The first objection that the atheist Luke, who asked the question Craig is answering, set out at the top of the page:

4) God Determines that Adams sin is transmutable down to every single person that will ever exist. (Moral objection 1: The sins of the father are logically not related to the son in any way shape or form)

Right, now back to the paragraph:

As for your two moral objections, the first is an objection to the doctrine of original sin. But once more, that doctrine is not universally affirmed by Christians and is not essential to the Christian faith. So don’t let that be a stumbling block for you. What is essential to Christian faith is that all men are sinners and in need of God’s forgiveness and redemption. I’m sure you’d recognize your own moral shortcomings and failures, Luke. So don’t get hung up on Adam’s sin. It’s your own sin you need to deal with. (As for the doctrine, its viability will depend on the viability of imputation. We often know of cases where one person is held responsible for the actions of another because the one person represents the other or serves as a proxy acting on the other’s behalf. Maybe Adam was our representative before God.)

First Clue:
If Craig meant to convey that the idea that we are all innately sinful and as such need Christ’s salvation, is not essential to the Christian faith then why does he say in the very next line “What is essential to Christian faith is that all men are sinners and in need of God’s forgiveness and redemption”? [Emphasis original] He has just said that all of us are sinful and need Christ’s salvation!

In the line after this he writes, “I’m sure you’d recognize your own moral shortcomings and failures, Luke.” Where does Craig get this surety from that Luke has moral shortcomings and failures?

In case you need more evidence that this is not what Craig meant, then see the next line “So don’t get hung up on Adam’s sin. It’s your own sin you need to deal with.” Again, Craig seems pretty confident that Luke has sinned and needs a solution.

Second clue:
Having realised now that Craig cannot have meant to convey a denial of universal sinfulness or the need for salvation – he said in sentence 4 that this “is essential to Christian faith” – we need to look at what he did say, what he meant.

By employing some helpful techniques I use for analysing difficult legal passages and finding coherent solutions to prima facie statutory ambiguities we see that the vital words are “that doctrine.” What does the “that” in “that doctrine” in the second sentence refer to?

Obviously, many people are reading it as referring to the term “original sin” (and their understanding as to what that term means – more on that from Matt in clue three). Now this is one way of reading it – read only the bold font:

As for your two moral objections, the first is an objection to the doctrine of original sin. But once more, that doctrine is not universally affirmed by Christians and is not essential to the Christian faith. So don’t let that be a stumbling block for you. [Emphasis added]

On this reading, Craig is saying, “The doctrine of original sin [as understood by the outraged readers] is not universally affirmed by Christians.”

But as clue one showed us, this is a rather contradictory way of reading it.

To read the paragraph this way we would have to read Craig as denying that universal sinfulness and the need for salvation are an essential Christian doctrine in the second sentence but then spending sentences 4-7 affirming universal sinfulness and the need for salvation and their place as an essential doctrine within Christianity!

Craig hold two PhD’s and is a world class analytic philosopher known for many things but making overt contradictions in the same paragraph, side by side, is not one of them.

This should tell us something – especially in light of the other possible way of reading the “that doctrine” in context; again read only the bold font:

As for your two moral objections, the first is an objection to the doctrine of original sin.

4) God Determines that Adams sin is transmutable down to every single person that will ever exist. (Moral objection 1: The sins of the father are logically not related to the son in any way shape or form)

But once more, that doctrine is not universally affirmed by Christians and is not essential to the Christian faith. So don’t let that be a stumbling block for you. [Emphasis added]

On this reading Craig is saying “the doctrine of original sin … the sins of the father … is not universally affirmed by Christians.”

Craig starts his paragraph by stating “As for your two moral objections, the first is an objection to…” In doing this he makes it clear what the subject of his paragraph is: it is the first of Luke’s moral objections, Luke’s clause 4). Luke is asking specifically about “the sins of the father”, the idea that “God Determines that Adams sin is transmutable down to every single person that will ever exist.” Craig is answering this specific objection. This means that when Craig then writes, “But once more, that doctrine is not universally affirmed by Christians and is not essential to the Christian faith,” it is clear that by “that doctrine” he does not have in mind the idea that we are not all innately sinful and as such do not need Christ’s salvation – he is talking about something else, the specific doctrine that Luke raised."

The rest of the post can be read by clicking here.

In my opinion, I didn't pick up on any minimalist Christianity implications in Craig's response to Luke. I think Craig was simply showing Luke that one doesn't have to immediately understand original sin to be a Christian.