Disagreeing with Your Teachers

Me and the good doctor!

If you don’t disagree with the people teaching you, you’re already in serious trouble.

Let me explain.

One of my favorite teachers is one of the philosophy professors from my seminary, William Lane Craig. He is awesome. I’ve read a number of his books, including Reasonable Faith and Contending with Christianity’s Critics which focus on a well-reasoned, multifaceted defense of the faith. He is a man of humility and a man of boldness. He is, at once, ferocious and kind. I have watched dozens (of dozens, of dozens) of his debates . . . and he thoroughly wins each and every one of them.

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Dr. Craig amazes me. In fact, I have so much regard for him, I drove three hours in a snowstorm with driving wind to see a talk he gave down in Grand Rapids last week.

And I disagree with him.

Not on everything, of course, but on some weighty things for sure.

For example, Dr. Craig is publishing a series of wonderful children’s books on the attributes of God. So far, I love them all and look forward to reading them to my (future) children and my (present) kids in the church. All of them, that is, except the God is Everywhere book. In it, the anthropomorphized father-bear explains God’s omnipresence in the following way:

“Since God doesn’t have a body, He isn’t really in any place at all.

"When we say God is everywhere, we mean that He knows what is happening everywhere in the whole world and that He is making things happen everywhere in the whole world.”

That is wrong. True, God is spirit and transcendent, but he is also immanent. He is not merely aware of everything that’s happening, but he is also everywhere.

Here’s what a standard systematic theology book would say:

Omnipresence. God is everywhere present at the same time in essence, awareness , and power (Ps 139:7-12). This related to His immensity; His being fills all (1 Kgs 8:27; Jer 23:24).1

(And of course, we affirm that God is both present in and distinct from all of creation.)

I like Craig for philosophy and apologetics. I'm not too keen on his theology here.

Does that mean I don't like William Lane Craig and reject everything? By no means! But what it does mean is that we must always think critically (even when reading authors with a similar worldview) and just have the clarity of mind to be able to say, "I agree with this," or "I don't agree with this," or "I never thought about it like that, let me look into this further."

In fact, I can’t think of any one of my mentors or favorite authors with whom I agree on every last one of their views. But I still am learning from Dr. Craig because on most primary and secondary issues we agree. The tertiary issues are important, but I’m comfortable enough to respectfully disagree when I need to. (And thrilled to host a simulcast Dr. Craig debate showing at the Orchard Church next week!)

And the same is true for you. If you find yourself agreeing all the time with the things any teacher  says, you’re probably not using the wonderful gift of discernment God gave you.

. . . and by the way, that goes for me too. I hope you, and my congregation disagrees with me from time to time . . .

(. . . and I hope those disagreements are only over tertiary issues!)



1Holloman, Henry. Kregel Dictionary of the Bible and Theology. Grand Rapids: Kregel Acedemic & Professional, 2005.