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

Today, the Doctrine of Man, Part 21.

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

Welcome to Defenders.

I hope you had a good week.

Last Sunday, we had folks joining us from Africa, Asia, Latin America,

as well as Europe and North America. And so we're glad that you've taken time to be with us today.

Today we want to come to some evaluation about the nature of sin. Recall Romans chapter 5 verses 12 to 16. Paul writes,

therefore, as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all

men because all men sinned.

Sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam.

It's generally agreed that in verse 13, Paul interrupts his train of thought with a possible

objection, namely, even if people lied and stole and murdered

and so on prior to the giving of the Mosaic law, how could such acts count as sin since they had not been

forbidden? Such an objection seems to arise from Paul's own theology,

for he had just said in Romans 4.15, where there is no law, there is no transgression. This objection is a profound one which still occupies Christian

ethicists today. It comes up, for example, in my debate with Eric Wielenberg on God and

morality. You see, on a typical divine command theory of ethics, moral values are rooted

in God's nature and our moral duties in his commands. The question arises then concerning acts which are objectively evil, since they are contrary to the

divine nature, but which are not morally wrong, because God has not forbidden them to certain

people at various times and places in history. Such acts are morally

...