Update: I’ll post a slight correction on my presentation of Craig’s views below, but leave my partial misreading as it stands as a reminder to myself to watch/read slower. I don’t think it changes the bulk of my critique in any case.
William Lane Craig caused a stir with his comments in the above video, seeming to dismiss the doctrine of eternal generation, or the eternal begottenness of the Son, as affirmed by Nicaea. To be clear, he says he doesn’t reject it, but he doesn’t affirm it as such, given his rejection of what he takes to be its basis (the Logos theology of the early apologists like Justin Martyr, or Origen, and others) and the fact that the term monogenes should not be translated “only-begotten”, but rather, “unique.” You can watch the comments for more.
A few comments are in order here.
On the matter itself, two notes. First, here is a good conversation I had with Scott Swain on the doctrine as it is presented in Scripture and the Creed:
Next, I’ll just quote my own little footnote on the matter in my forthcoming book (because I want you to buy it!):
On the translation of monogenes as “only-begotten” see the argument of Charles Lee Irons, “A Lexical Defense of the Johannine ‘Only Begotten,’” in Retrieving Eternal Generation, ed. Fred Sanders and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 98–116. Against, see Keener, Gospel of John, 1:412–16.
Even if one takes the common translation of “one and only; only one of its kind or class,” something like the “only-begotten” is implied. As Marianne Mey Thompson notes, “When used to describe a relationship to a father, monogenes refers to the only offspring of that father. As the unique Son (monogenes huios), Jesus is thus contrasted to the many children of God (tekna theou; vv. 12–13).” John, 33–34.
The relation of a father to a son or a child is that of begetting—what else is implied in the uniqueness of the Sonship of the Word than a unique or singular mode of begetting? Its eternality is clear from the attributes possessed by the Word in the rest of the prologue. In which case, one can see a further sense of Jesus’ holiness which will become important later on—he is holy in his generation, insofar as it is utterly set apart and unique from every other generation. On the dogmatic exposition of the doctrine, see John Webster, God without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology, vol. 1, God and the Works of God (London: T&T Clark, 2016), chap. 3, “Eternal Generation,” 29–42.
Nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s just to say even if you go with the “uniqueness” reading of monogenes, given the context of the prologue and the various metaphysical claims therein, you are still clearly in the ballpark of talking about an eternal relationship of Sonship and Fatherhood, which is exactly what the doctrine of Eternal Generation names. I know Craig isn’t interested in rejecting the Trinity, but you are left wondering what language is suited to speaking of that eternal relationship of Sonship from the Second person of the Trinity to the Father without recourse to something like it. Beyond that, see the collection of essays edited by Fred Sanders and Scott Swain and especially D.A. Carson’s essay that gives Augustine an assist on the exegesis of John 5. (Also, I think John Collins has some careful lexical work coming out on this question I look forward to reading as well).
Second, I don’t know why people are surprised. This is not the only weird, possibly heretical thing Craig has said about Christology. He has been a “Neo-Appollinarian” for quite some time. It is, unfortunately, of a piece with his revisionist posture towards several load-bearing doctrines in the doctrine of God (simplicity), Christology, etc. I have benefited from Craig’s work in apologetics and even some in systematics (his book on Penal Substitution does excellent work drawing on the philosophy of law and punishment). All the same, I don’t think he is a reliable source on these issues.
I am reminded of a couple of related articles I will just quote a bit.
First, there is Gray Sutanto’s review of Craig’s first volume of his philosophical systematic theology. Gray is gracious, but he makes some methodological points on the volume that are applicable across the whole of his work:
Craig rightly argues that many contemporary systematic theologians ignore ongoing discussions in analytic philosophy or the philosophy of religion, which are a treasure trove of resources for theological work. This book helps correct that error by engaging with many of the latest sources in the philosophy of religion, analytic philosophy, and analytic theology.
At the same time, Craig commits the opposite error by neglecting most contemporary works in systematic and historical theology because, to his mind, they don’t sufficiently take into account the philosophical issues or literature that arise from or address Christian doctrine. To be fair, Craig acknowledges this gap in the preface, writing, “I am not greatly acquainted with the works of systematic theology. This is embarrassing and represents a shortcoming on my part” (xvii).
However, he qualifies this confession by noting, “To the extent that I am familiar with the works of systematic theologians, I have not found them particularly profitable when it comes to philosophical theology, the focus of this work. This reduces the necessity of and motivation for interacting with them” (xvii).
….the limited engagement with contemporary discussions in systematic and historical theology is a notable weakness. Even if these works don’t focus directly on philosophical theology, what they say shows the logic of a rule of faith passed down from generation to generation.
Gray continues to note some gaps and the dated nature of some of his research. You can read on here.
The other essay that comes to mind is Christopher Cleveland’s analysis of why the Trinity Debates from about a decade ago, were inevitable. Essentially, there has been a generational vibe shift in sensibilities, methods, and the relationship to dogmatic history that has emerged between one set of theologians to the next. You had an older generation of Evangelicals who were trained to fight liberals, but shared many theological and historical instincts:
Because of this clash between the conservatives and the liberals within theological institutions of the time, there emerged an entire group of evangelical scholars who were trained in seminaries or in other related fields but were not trained in a way that cultivated in them an appreciation for the task of traditional dogmatics. Whether for reasons of neglect in their theological training under more critical theologians or because of their purposeful avoidance of dogmatics in favor of Biblical studies, a generation of evangelical scholars arose who had no serious acquaintance with the classical categories of theology developed in Patristic, Medieval, and Reformed orthodox thought. Nor did they have allegiance to those categories. What mattered in the fight against liberalism, in the minds of so many, was the Bible, not theology.
But that moment was passing. At the same time, folks like Colin Gunton and John Webster were re-engaging the tradition. Historians of doctrine like Richard Muller, Carl Trueman, etc. were rehabbing the Post-Reformation orthodox tradition. Retrieval theologies began to emerge, resourcement theologies, and so on began to reshape the culture of theology as a whole, and our access to the tradition began to expand.
Because of this, there has emerged a set of scholars who are now able to critique novel evangelical ideas that arise in the Reformed/evangelical world by comparing them to the classical categories of Christian theology. This, I believe, is the reason for the current clash, and why I think that it was inevitable. There are increasing numbers of scholars who are capable of critiquing the relatively novel evangelical formulations through comparison with the Christian tradition. Those who have had their training based upon the novel evangelical approach to theology are incredulous that anyone would criticize their mentors. Such explicit or implicit appeals to individual authorities fail to be compelling to those trained in traditional dogmatic thought.
I think Craig clearly represents that older generation with the added instincts of an analytic philosopher of religion. While many analytic theologians nowadays are quite careful with the historical sources and represent some of the instincts of that second generation (Tom McCall, Oliver Crisp, Chris Woznicki, Jordan Wessling, and few others come to mind), there does tend to be a greater skepticism about traditioned reason at work within the discipline.
I don’t have much to say beyond this, except that for all the gratitude my younger self has toward Craig (and still does), I can’t help feeling tired of this kind of thing. At the end of the day, Scriptural and historical arguments must be made and remade every generation just because the truth of the Gospel must be re-articuated and preached anew. But we really don’t need to re-invent this wheel. It’s been rolling along quite well for a couple of millennia now.
Correction: Okay, so above I moved a bit hastily with respect to Craig’s argument regarding monogenes. As a couple of commenters have pointed out, it is actually a bit ambiguous whether he rejects monogenes as meaning “only-begotten.” In this piece, he seems to contemplate it as an option, but argues that if it does mean that lexically, materially, it still would not signal the Son’s begottenness as to his divine nature. Instead, it would only refer to his historical begottenness as to his human nature. And he suggests that NT scholarship is fairly decided on this point. I think this is still bad as a reading of what’s going on in John 1:14, for the reasons I gave in the footnote above. Also, the other exegetical bases that teach the doctrine independently of the word are still there, in which case his narrow exegetical reference to that term is still historically limited, and all the methodological issues I flagged are in play.
I am still quite shocked that he claims that eternal generation posits any moment in eternity (so to speak) could have been where the Father was without the Son. That seemed like an extremely m poor read and/or understanding of eternal generation.
It is very insider but I still find this an interesting sociological phenomenon. Craig gets where he does bc of his particular commitments which really aren’t shared anymore. An interesting moment in time.