Assessing William Lane Craig’s Epistemic Standard and Its Incoherence

The Dominance of Craig’s Epistemic Standard in Christian Groups

William Lane Craig’s epistemic approach, as reflected in his statements such as “Far from raising the bar or the epistemic standard that Christianity must meet to be believed, I lower it”, is notable for its pragmatism: he suggests that the potential benefits of Christianity justify belief even on minimal evidence. This contrasts sharply with the more traditional view in many Christian circles that belief should be grounded in strong, compelling evidence or divine revelation.

Among evangelical apologists and philosophers, Craig’s standard enjoys considerable respect, particularly within academic apologetics communities like those surrounding Reasonable Faith and Biola University. However, it is not representative of the dominant epistemic posture across Christianity as a whole.

• ✓ Mainstream Protestant denominations (e.g., Methodists, Presbyterians) tend to emphasize faith as a gift from God rather than something adopted because of probabilistic calculations.
• ✓ Catholicism traditionally maintains that faith and reason are complementary, with belief requiring both divine grace and rational assent to truths demonstrated by revelation and natural theology (cf. Fides et Ratio). The bar is not “lowered” to minimal evidence in this tradition.
• ✓ Orthodoxy similarly stresses mystery, the experiential knowledge of God through the Church and the sacraments, not the weighing of minimal evidence.
• ✓ Charismatic and Pentecostal groups may prioritize personal experience of the Spirit, not minimal evidential thresholds.

Thus, Craig’s lowering of the epistemic bar is not dominant among Christian groups generally. It reflects a specific strand of pragmatic evidentialist apologetics that resonates with certain evangelicals who engage in philosophical discourse, but it is far from the mainstream stance of global Christianity.

The Intrinsic Epistemic Incoherence of Craig’s Position

Craig proposes that if Christianity has any non-negligible chance of being true, it is worth believing—effectively lowering the standard for rational belief when the alleged rewards are great. But this introduces an epistemic incoherence when scrutinized under basic principles of rational belief.

Consider the following syllogism exposing the flaw:

P1: Rational belief in a proposition should be proportionate to the degree of evidence supporting that proposition.
P2: Craig endorses belief in Christianity even if the probability of its truth is as low as one in a million.
P3: A one-in-a-million chance represents a probability so low that it does not warrant belief proportionate to evidence.
Conclusion: Therefore, Craig’s epistemic standard fails to align rational belief with proportionate evidence, and is incoherent.

Further, this standard is arbitrarily selective:

P1: If one lowers the epistemic bar for one extraordinary claim because of its alleged rewards, one must, to be consistent, lower the bar for all claims with similarly grand promised outcomes.
P2: There exist countless religious and supernatural claims (e.g., Islam, Mormonism, UFO cults) offering comparable or greater promised benefits.
P3: Craig does not advocate believing all such claims.
Conclusion: Therefore, Craig’s position is epistemically incoherent, as it applies its lowered bar selectively without principled reason.

This incoherence stems from the confusion of pragmatic appeal with epistemic warrant. Craig conflates the desirability of a belief’s consequences (eternal life, divine love) with the justification for accepting that belief as true. In rational inquiry, such conflation leads to credulity, not sound reasoning.

Summary

Craig’s epistemic standard, while influential in certain apologetic circles, is not dominant across Christian traditions. It represents a niche tactic aimed at making Christian belief more defensible in light of minimal evidence. Yet this standard undermines itself by detaching belief from evidence and failing to provide a principled reason why Christianity should be privileged over countless other low-probability claims promising great rewards.