First, Craig nowhere said or implied that he favors blind faith to reason. The faith isn't blind at all. . . . In our paradigm, reason and faith are two aspects of one thing: the divine will. They are two ways to the same truth.
Without using these exact terms, Craig stated as clearly as possible that he prefers blind faith to reason. What else could it possibly mean to claim that reason must “submit and serve the gospel” or that when a conflict arises between one’s faith (which Craig describes as the witness of the Holy Spirit) and reasoned argument, “the former must take precedence over the latter?” To set one against the other presupposes that they are mutually exclusive concepts.
Second, no special pleading is occurring. He was never playing by the rules of naturalism.
I would agree that he isn’t playing by the rules of naturalism. He isn’t playing by any rules. That’s the problem.
You think it is special pleading because you see it as an apologetical game. Apologetics are posterior to the faith. Fundamentally, we're not playing a game, we're not trying to win an argument.
I respectfully disagree. The root of apologetics is “apologia,” meaning “speaking in defense.” Paul employed this term in his trial speech to Festus and Agrippa in Acts 26:2, referring to his “defense” and employed a related term in Philippians 1:7, to reference “defending the gospel.”
Modern apologists like to portray their discipline as something equivalent to science. It is, however, anything but. Science begins with a very limited set of necessary or self-attesting assumptions and builds testable models based upon observable evidence and logic. If these models pass the tests, they are provisionally accepted as accurate representations of reality, allowing extrapolations to be made and more elaborate models to be built around them. If the models fail the testing, they are rejected and abandoned. Science builds sequentially only upon models that work, and follows wherever those working models lead.
No claim in science is privileged. All remain one test away from falsification. Any test that falsifies a widely accepted theory will be heralded among the scientific community because it necessarily leads to more knowledge and understanding. Science is not concerned with protecting
claims. It is concerned with protecting the integrity of the
methods used to separate true claims from false ones.
Apologetics, by contrast, is a discipline entirely dedicated to
supporting and defending a specific set of claims about the nature of the universe. The very word apologetics belies the true nature of the discipline, for it is entirely concerned with
defense. It is the antithesis of science, and indeed of any legitimate academic discipline, as such disciplines are devoted to finding truth, wherever that path may lead and whatever that journey reveals. Science is about open-ended inquiry. Apologetics is about defending a position arrived at before inquiry began. There is nothing open-ended about it.
Apologists begin with a conclusion, which they take to be personally self-evident, and then devise ways to shield that conclusion against any attack. They work backwards to mold the evidence and arguments to the conclusion, to which they are firmly anchored. The apologist is not allowed the luxury of questioning the conclusion, for it is his job simply to defend it. Imagine a knight tasked with defending the castle of the lord that employs him and has provided for the knight’s family his entire life. The knight doesn’t ever consider whether the cause of his lord’s attackers is just. He simply does whatever it takes to fend them off.
Apologists are defense lawyers for God, but God is not like the typical client. Lawyers are tasked with coming up with the best arguments for their clients’ positions. But if the evidence, as it develops, fails to support those arguments, or the opposing attorney otherwise undermines them, the attorney can always go to her client and discuss reassessing their position. The lawyer and her client can concede certain arguments, settle claims on previously unacceptable terms, or take other actions to adapt to the new situation. But apologists don’t have such options, for God doesn’t compromise or reassess. Accordingly, they must proceed full steam ahead, because to retreat would be unthinkable.
One must recognize the difference between
reasoning to a conclusion, which is a valid approach, and
rationalizing from a conclusion, which is not. The former is what scientists do. The latter is what apologists do. Rather than clearly defining a concept of God, making predictions based upon that conception, and then testing observations to see how well they fit those predictions, apologists take the world we see and craft ever-changing vague conceptions of God around it, relying heavily upon cheats, such as logical fallacies, to fill in the gaps. Apologetics incentivizes and virtually requires such intellectual dishonesty. Logical fallacies allow the apologist to apparently save face without actually winning the argument or even moving the ball. Apologists use logical fallacies like magicians use smoke and mirrors.
Devout apologists can easily justify playing fast and loose with the rules of argumentation and debate because they believe they are fighting the good fight. In a battle for souls on God’s behalf, shouldn’t every weapon be at one’s disposal, even pious deception? The apologist must maintain steadfast in his convictions and absolutely certain of his conclusions, because just as a tiny chip can progressively spider across a windshield, so too can a hint of doubt crack the faith of believers until it is thoroughly shattered. It is this disaster against which the apologist stands guard.
All of this demonstrates that apologists have strong incentives toward intellectual dishonesty. That does not necessarily mean they are all guilty of it, but like a stack of hundred dollar bills sitting on the table before them, the motive is always there. My experience suggests that this motive often gets the best of them. I have yet to read the work of any apologist that is not filled with fallacious reasoning, for which there can be only two explanations – incompetence or dishonesty. The fact that they are typically able to adopt correct reasoning when it supports their positions suggests the latter.
Apologists are not skeptics, doubters, or seekers. They are deeply — personally, socially, and sometimes professionally — vested in defending a set of assumptions that, to anyone standing outside their insular belief system, look ridiculous. As biblical scholar Robert Price has said, “To understand apologetics is to refute it.”
