(OPINION) In a recent discussion with Atheist Alex O’Connor, Christian apologist William Lane Craig’s suggested that abortion is not bad for the babies, but rather confers a great good upon them.
Frequently viewed as evangelicalism’s foremost Christian apologist, William Lane Craig’s name is most often associated with his ministry organization Reasonable Faith, the name of his most famous book and also weekly podcast.
We last covered him after he made a number of startling claims about the origin of Adam and the nature of the bible, in our posts:
During a discussion about whether or not it was loving for God to command the killing of the Canaanite clans who were living in the land (Deut. 7.1-2; 20.16-18) and in particular their babies, Craig offers that it was loving and just to do so.
So the burden here would be to show that in issuing this command God does something that contradicts his perfectly just and loving nature, and my argument is that that’s very difficult to show because he doesn’t wrong anyone I think in this, in particular.
The difficult case here is the children and what I would say is first that God has the right to take anyone’s life whenever he wants to. Unfortunately, children die all the time in infancy and so if God wants to end the life of these Canaanite children early, prematurely that’s his prerogative.
But then secondly on my theology, these children go immediately to heaven. They go to be with God and therefore come to know a life that is more glorious and more happy than anything conceivable and certainly far better than if they had been allowed to live and be raised in such a corrupt and evil environment as they were in.
So it was actually a tremendous blessing to these children for them to be killed and go to heaven and be with God.”
Alex O’Connor responds to this with skepticism, offering that such a view is morally repugnant and revolting and runs against our intuitions, which Craig challenges him on.
Well does it Alex? I mean I think it runs against our naturalistic worldview where one doesn’t believe in an afterlife. But on a theistic worldview if these children go to a life more glorious and happy than they can imagine, then it is a great blessing. It’s just that modern man doesn’t believe that. (READ MORE)
