(Book: On Guard, by William Lane Craig. Chapter 10: “Is Jesus the Only Way to God?”)
A lot of people think that faith and agnosticism are mutually exclusive, but they’re not really. In fact, certain forms of agnosticism are not only compatible with faith, in some cases they’re downright essential, as William Lane Craig demonstrates for us today.
Craig frames the problem as a set of premises: (1) God is all-powerful and all-loving, and (2) some people never hear the gospel and are lost. To these first two premises, he adds what he calls the “hidden premises” of religious pluralists (i.e. those who deny that Jesus is the only way to God). These premises are (3) God can create a world in which everyone hears the gospel and is saved and (4) He would prefer such a world. At first glance, those don’t seem too unreasonable, but let’s look at the case he tries to build on them.
