# Must Listen to Dividing Line on Robert Price - 3/23/2010



## Semper Fidelis (Mar 25, 2010)

One of the more interesting Dividing Line's was Tuesday's program. James played a presentation by Robert Price in a debate with William Lane Craig. What was so interesting is that you hear the entire presentation from Robert Price and James offered no response to his presentation or the answers he gave to those in attendance.

Today on the Dividing Line

Frankly, I think that Robert Price nailed some basic errors in Craig's Evidentialist approach and that it uncovered presuppositions all over the place. It was a thoroughgoing deconstruction of any ability to sustain a defense of Christianity while holding to a modernist view. It destroyed the idea that you can try to give Evidences for a position only to have a person ultimately place their trust on the basis of an emotional or non-Evidential basis. His presentation reinforced to me that there is no "neutral ground" for Christianity on the basis of autonomous human reason.

I appreciated the fact that James didn't try to interact with it as it has caused me to reflect on the real ground of faith and that, ultimately, regeneration is required for general and special revelation to be perspicuous to the receiver.


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## toddpedlar (Mar 25, 2010)

I've just bought George Swinnock's works, and am looking forward to reading the next-to-last treatise in the set - "The door of salvation opened by the key of regeneration" - wherein Swinnock takes on the issue you point out at the last.


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## awretchsavedbygrace (Mar 25, 2010)

Rich, do you know where I can get the audio of the entire debate between Dr.Craig and Dr. Price. Btw, I thought Dr.Price's introduction was more of a rebuttal, but it was strong.


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## Tim (Mar 26, 2010)

Yes, it was an interesting show. I think I wasn't able to recognize some of the things you guys pointed out, so I appreciate the comments in this thread.


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## sastark (Mar 26, 2010)

As a side note: Last semester, I took Historical Theology from Dr. Robert Price...but not THAT Robert Price. The Dr. Price who taught Historical Theology at Talbot was a reformed-minded evangelical (and all around nice guy). The first day of class, he put up a picture of himself next to a picture of the other Robert Price and said "I'm not him!"

Now, whenever I see the name Robert Price, the first person I think of is my HT professor and remember that he had to distinguish himself from this other man.

I'm so glad my name isn't Doug Wilson (or Steve Schlissel, or Francis Ayala...)--that'd be a lot of 'splainin' to do every time I met someone!


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## Marrow Man (Mar 26, 2010)

Seth, I have the first/last name as a prof at Wheaton who is an annihiliationist. Though he is not well known, I do try to avoid that association as well!

I listened to the DL program while traveling back and forth b/t home and the hospital this week. I think Rich's points are spot on. Though these were the only portions of the debate that were played, they showed the inherent weaknesses of a strictly evidentialist (and modernistic) approach to apologetics. OTOH, judging by the audience questions, Craig did manage to answer some of Price's objections (to which Price avoided or offered up red herrings), so it was not as Craig did not have an answer. But it amounts to "my evidences are better than yours" and I'm not sure how convincing that is.


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 26, 2010)

I didn't mean to imply that his arguments are airtight but you can see a consistent skepticism that is able to see through some of the inconsistencies in Craig's approach. As Price points out, Craig wants you to accept evidence strictly on an "objective" basis with a minimal agreed upon historical content from the Gospel but admits that, ultimately, once you get to the point of belief you won't be accepting the truth claims of Christianity on an evidential but an ultimately "I just know this it true in my heart" basis.

Furthermore, Price has a point about scholarship. He notes the brilliance of some Greek scholarship that he sees as amounting to no more than preserving the faith. This he views as beneath his intellectual efforts. His "searching" mind would never be content with a faith once for all delivered to the Saints. I was thinking to myself: "Yes, that is foolishness to the world." In other words, much of my energy is devoted to uncovering that which has been revealed by God and received by His Church for centuries but constantly needs to be re-confessed and the Church needs to be re-formed as she drifts from orthodoxy. The challenge in each generation isn't to figure out how to be "cutting edge" but to challenge where the culture is and figure out how we sift out where we've been influenced by our culture and to be transformed by the renewing of our minds by a God whose Word never changes.

To Price this is boring to preserve. He sees himself as honest and inquiring and no matter how much I appealed to the infinite, unchanging God He would only see that as a carefully preserved myth like any other. From his standpoint, there is no substantive difference between a blind cultist who believes the Israelites were related to Native Americans and Biblical Christianity. They both make ultimate claims on the nature of history that he cannot stomach and finds too stifling.


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