Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Creation, Part 19.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

We've been looking at the problem of miracles, and I argued last time that there is no in-principle objection to the

identification of a miracle. So that in the case of any alleged miracle, it's going to be an

in-fact question as to whether it occurred. That is to say, what is the evidence for the

miracle?

And that takes us to Hume's argument, his in-fact argument, that there is no good evidence for the occurrence of a miraculous event in history. Now, whether you think this is true on the

contemporary scene or not is going to depend on how you assess the

evidence for modern miracles. And here I would simply suggest you read Craig Keener's two-volume book

on miracles in the world today in which Keener provides case after case after case of remarkable

miracle stories that he claims meet Hume's

standards for the identification of a miracle. And I've argued, as you know in this class, that in any

case, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is such that it is more probable to believe that

God raised Jesus from the dead on the evidence and the background information than that he did not.

And therefore, I think that Hume's in fact argument simply fails, and that will be a matter of a case-by-case analysis of the evidence for any particular miracle.

So, by way of summary, we've been talking now for several months about the doctrine of creation.

We've examined God's creation of the universe X. Nehalo, his conservation of the world in being, his

concurrence with everything that happens in the world, and we've looked at his ordinary

providence in governing the world, and then most recently at his extraordinary providence,

that is to say, his miraculous actions in the world.

And now we want to turn to an entirely new facet of the doctrine of creation,

...