William Lane Craig Says Abortion Doesn’t Harm Babies + Confers ‘A Great Good’ Upon Them
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.
O’Connor brings up the comparison to abortion:
“Take the issue of abortion for example. Now you might think that it’s immoral to have an abortion because God has commanded that you shouldn’t take innocent life, you know, in the absence of some specific Divine command. But a lot of the time in this discussion people do talk in language which points to how this is this is bad for the child. You know, you’re taking away the life of a child, you’re committing some wrong towards the child. This position that you’re advocating here would seem to remove the ability to do that. You can still say that abortion is wrong if you like, but you can’t say that it in any way harms the child. In fact it seems like you’re committed to the view that it confers a great good upon the child when a parent has an abortion.
To which Craig rejoins:
Yes, absolutely. I mean what it would do, it would rob the child of the goods of this finite life that he would have enjoyed had he lived 50, 60 years or so. But in place of that, it gives him an eternal life of incomprehensible joy and and happiness which far outbalances the loss of those finite goods.
So the reason that abortion is wrong is not because it’s bad for the victims. The reason it’s wrong is because it transgresses a divine command. It’s homicide and God has commanded us not to commit homicide in the absence of some overriding moral justification like a policeman or a soldier who needs to take life in order to save life.
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Planned Parenthood is the best evangelism effort ever. In fact, we should be forcefully aborting every child we can get our hands on if we really love our neighbors. I mean, why give them any chance of rebelling against God and spending eternity in hell?
God, please have mercy on us and stamp out this stupidity amongst your people.
Goodness. By this same logic, murdering a Christian at any age does them good and not harm, for the Christian is simply ushered into the glorious perfection of heaven. While I see Craig’s point, this leads to the astonishing view that only non-Christians can be murder victims, having suffered any kind of genuine loss.
Craig doesn’t have a point. He has made a completely unscriptural assumption that an “age of accountability” exists, and then he shows how stupid and reckless such flights of fancy are by carrying that thought to its logical end – something that most adherents of such sentimentalism are unwilling to do.
We are truly living in the end times, the Great Apostasy is in full swing!
Who are you trying to convince? Us, or yourself?
6th COMMANDMENT.
Craig is not sharing God’s word. His “interpretation” is heresy. He can believe anything he shouldn’t tarnish Christianity with his sinful thoughts.
Sounds like the views of an apostate. I used to have some respect for this guy, but not now.
Craig entirely misses the point. These were genetic hybrids (Nephilim) contaminated by the seed of the Serpent. They weren’t human. The satanic plan to prevent the coming Savior. It failed.
Intellectualism does this to people. It backs them into weird positions like this, as they lose sight of common sense, and of compassion, and they ascribe horrible things to God’s character.
Yes. I used to like this man but I can’t believe he said that.
Get behind me Satan
Honestly, I think Craig is right and this headline is misleading. Craig affirms that abortion is evil andshould be eliminated. His point is simply that unborn children who die go to heaven in the same way a newborn baby who dies goes to heaven. In that respect, anyone who dies and goes to heaven is benefite (as Paul noted, “to die is gain”). Craig could have made his point more clearly and used some more precise language, but the point is valid. This headline implies that he’s approving of abortion which is not accurate at all
At this point I trust James Lindsey more than I do WLC
And yes, Lindsey is an enemy to the Faith