William Lane Craig

Overview

William Lane Craig (b. 1949) is an American philosopher and Christian apologist, Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and founder of the apologetics ministry Reasonable Faith.¹ He is best known in contemporary philosophy of religion for reviving the medieval Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God² and for defending Molinism, the view that God’s providence over free human choices rests on his middle knowledge of what any libertarian-free creature would do in any possible circumstance, a position built on Craig’s own account of human free will as libertarian rather than compatibilist.³ Craig also rejects the classical doctrine of divine simplicity, a position Reformed classical theists have directly answered.⁴

Life and Ministry

Craig was born August 23, 1949, in Peoria, Illinois.¹ He earned a B.A. in communications from Wheaton College in 1971, followed by two M.A. degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1976, one in philosophy of religion and one in church history, studying under Norman Geisler.¹ He then earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Birmingham in 1977 under John Hick, with a dissertation on the cosmological argument for God’s existence, and a Doctor of Theology from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1984 under Wolfhart Pannenberg, with a dissertation on the historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus during the eighteenth-century deist controversy.¹

Craig taught philosophy of religion at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School from 1980 to 1986, then religious studies at Westmont College before serving as a visiting scholar at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium from 1987 to 1994.¹ Since 1994 he has held a research professorship in philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, also holding a professorship at Houston Christian University from 2014 to 2024, and now serves as professor emeritus at Talbot.¹ He founded Reasonable Faith, an apologetics ministry built around his public debates, writing, and speaking on the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus.¹

Theological Contribution

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

Craig is most identified with reviving the Kalam cosmological argument, first developed by medieval Islamic theologians, as a contemporary argument for God’s existence. Louis Markos credits Craig by name: the medieval Kalam school “formulated what is known as the Kalam cosmological argument, an argument that was revived in the twentieth century by an American Christian apologist named William Lane Craig,” and states the argument in the form Craig gives it:

Major premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. Minor premise: The universe began to exist. Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause.²

Craig argues from the argument’s conclusion to a transcendent, personal cause of the universe’s beginning.

Molinism and Libertarian Freedom

Craig, together with J. P. Moreland, defines human freedom in explicitly libertarian terms, a position that underlies his Molinist account of divine providence. Matthew Barrett’s dissertation on monergism quotes their definition at length as representative of the wider Arminian and Molinist position his own Reformed argument opposes:

Real freedom requires a type of control over one’s actions…such that, given a choice to do A…or B…nothing determines that either choice is made…He is the absolute originator of his own actions…When an agent acts freely, he is a first or unmoved mover; no event causes him to act.³

On this view, God’s providence over such genuinely undetermined choices operates through middle knowledge: God’s knowledge, logically prior to his decree to create, of what every possible free creature would freely do in every possible circumstance, allowing him to providentially order history around creatures’ free choices without causally determining them.

Divine Simplicity

Craig and Moreland reject the classical doctrine of divine simplicity, the teaching that God is not composed of parts and is identical with his own attributes. Samuel G. Parkison’s dissertation names them among the doctrine’s evangelical critics, quoting their judgment that divine simplicity is a “radical doctrine that enjoys no biblical support and even is at odds with the biblical conception of God.”⁴ Parkison groups Craig and Moreland with Ronald Nash and John Feinberg as representative of this contemporary evangelical rejection of simplicity, and argues at length in response that the doctrine follows from Scripture’s own depiction of God’s self-sufficient existence, particularly the divine self-naming in Exodus 3:14-15.⁴

Historical Significance

Craig’s Molinism and libertarian account of free will put him at odds with the Reformed doctrine of providence and with compatibilist accounts of freedom under God’s meticulous sovereignty.³ His rejection of divine simplicity also puts him outside the classical theist tradition that Reformed confessional theology shares with the wider patristic and medieval church, and Reformed theologians have responded directly to both positions.³⁴ Craig’s revival of the Kalam cosmological argument is unaffected by either dispute: it concerns arguments for God’s existence rather than providence or the doctrine of God.²

Related Doctrines

References

Wikipedia, s.v. “William Lane Craig,” accessed September 22, 2026. No library-held source treats Craig’s own biography as its subject; this article’s claims about his philosophical and theological positions are sourced independently of Wikipedia throughout. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Louis Markos, From Aristotle to Christ: How Aristotelian Thought Clarified the Christian Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2024), chap. 4, “Why Things Move and Change.” ↩ ↩² ↩³
J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 270, quoted in Matthew Michael Barrett, “Arminian Synergism in Theological Perspective,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 283-85. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 524, quoted in Samuel G. Parkison, “Irresistible Beauty: Beholding Triune Glory in the Face of Jesus Christ” (PhD diss., Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2021), chap. 2, “The Metaphysics of Divine Beauty,” §”Triune Simplicity,” 88-91. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴