This video has 3 parts, as well as questions and answers in individual clips.
For those who cannot watch the video, you can grab the MP3 file of the lecture, or read this essay by Dr. Craig which covers exactly the same ground as the video. The essay is for Christians already familiar with basic apologetics.
Part 1 of 3:
Part 2 of 3:
Part 2 of 3:
If you want to show this lecture and Q&A to your apologetics group, you can find the DVD here.
You can also read a debate transcript where Dr. Craig puts his ideas to the test, against Dr. Richard Taylor.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
No better way to spend 40 minutes on a Thursday night than listening to WLC – thanks, WK! I like how he extends the conclusions of the moral argument beyond the pure logic to the necessary beneficial effects resulting from a belief in God. Very practical!
It kind of reminds me of how he similarly takes the cosmological argument, shows it to be plausible, and then carries the notion forward (backward?) to what the necessary characteristics are for the First Uncaused Cause, and how these features are wholly compatible with the Biblical Creator.
LikeLike
Well done you! I am glad that you enjoyed that lecture!
LikeLike
Craig assumes that selfishness is wrong and self sacrifice is morally praiseworthy. I tend to think the reverse, so from my perspective he has a major undefended assumption in his argument.
He also assumes that science is amoral, which seems to mean that factual judgments don’t necessarily imply moral judgments. For example, we could observe all of the horrible effects of rape on the victim or the community, but we would still be unjustified in concluding that rape is immoral unless we add the premise that there is an objective moral law giver who says that rape is wrong. I agree that moral judgments cannot be deduced from factual judgments, but I see no problem with inferring the wrongness of rape inductively from the observed effects of rape on the victim and the community. Craig would insist that I need an additional premise about an objective moral law giver who has commanded us not to rape people, but I don’t see this premise as necessary (or even helpful in explaining why rape is wrong).
To sum up, Craig’s defense of the moral argument begs the question against egoism, which is a viable account of morality for the atheist.
LikeLike
Hi William. Thanks very much for posting!
How are the bruises on a woman’s body following rape signs of moral wrongdoing under the view of naturalistic atheism? Didn’t the male member of the species merely assert his dominance over the female member of the species in order to propagate the species, i.e., for the good of the species? And, is not such a conclusion fully consistent with your introductory assertion that you “tend to think” that selfishness is morally right, not wrong?
LikeLike
You seem to be confusing egoism with evolution. The theory of evolution could be false, and egoism would still be true, because egoism does not have any close relationship to evolution. So, the fact that a male rapist asserts his dominance and propagates the species does not count in favor of his actions on egoism. Nor is his action selfish, since there are numerous negative legal, social, and psychological effects that he brings upon himself by committing rape.
LikeLike
“You seem to be confusing egoism with evolution.” Excellent point, William – thank you! Indeed, under the Christian worldview, we would say that evolution is false, but egoism is overwhelmingly true! We would say so Biblically, but also scientifically and culturally empirically.
I was speaking under the atheistic worldview. Are you saying that there are atheists who are not evolutionists, i.e., atheistic creationists? If not, then why are these atheists logically incorrect when they say that there is nothing morally wrong with murdering your wife and then raping her? (https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/an-atheist-explains-the-real-consequences-of-adopting-an-atheistic-worldview/#comment-101449)
True, they are basing this on evolutionary considerations, but if all atheists are evolutionists, why would they be incorrect? Sure, you can come up with an ethical scheme for saying murder and rape are wrong, but that scheme would be subjective and a matter of opinion – even in the atheist community, as these moral nihilists point out. (Please forgive me if I am being daft – I sincerely am trying to follow the reasoning here. Thanks for your patience!)
“Nor is his action selfish, since there are numerous negative legal, social, and psychological effects that he brings upon himself by committing rape.” Not if he gets away with it! Are you really saying that a rapist doesn’t rape for selfish reasons, for his own pleasure? That seems to me to be a scary view to hold, particularly in the God-forbidden case that one of your loved ones was raped.
“Craig assumes that selfishness is wrong and self sacrifice is morally praiseworthy. I tend to think the reverse, …” Can you ground this statement morally, especially in light of someone else being selfish toward you – and do so without reversing the clear definitions of “selfishness” and “self sacrifice?” I’m pretty certain you can’t ground it objectively, since there are many atheists who would disagree with that statement, but I am interested in hearing even what kind of subjective system of ethics you could establish here. Thanks very much, William!
LikeLike
I am not saying that there are atheists who are not evolutionists (there are some, but not many). I am saying that evolution and egoism are logically distinct concepts.
When someone says that there is nothing wrong with murdering my wife and raping her, he is wrong because of the legal, social, and psychological effects that result from raping someone.
The ethical system I hold to, egoism, is not merely a matter of opinion because it is contained in the very concept of value. The only context in which it makes sense to say that something is valuable to someone is the context of a living thing struggling for survival. What helps the organism survive is objectively good for it, and what hinders its survival is objectively bad for it.
I do not think raping someone is selfish. To be sure, there have to be *motives* for any action, including rape, but this is a truism. The motives that move a rapist to rape do not in fact coincide with his self interest, whatever mental distortions he may go through, and therefore are not selfish.
LikeLike
“I am saying that evolution and egoism are logically distinct concepts.” Yes, I have already agreed with you on this, William. But, if you are also an evolutionist, how have Dawkins, Provine, and Ruse gotten it wrong in the posting above? In other words, how can you ground objective morality as an evolutionist? And, in particular, how can you say that your philosophy of egoism is objectively rational if you are an evolutionist? Is egoism not just a philosophy that a bunch of random particles acting randomly has produced?
“When someone says that there is nothing wrong with murdering my wife and raping her, he is wrong because of the legal, social, and psychological effects that result from raping someone.” Again, you haven’t addressed the possibility that the rapist is not caught.
Furthermore, what if rape and murder were legal? For instance, there was a time when owning black people was legal and when gassing Jews (in Nazi Germany) was legal. Both of those things were quite socially accepted also. Those examples would seem to remove each of the barriers you describe, so was there nothing wrong with owning black people in the 1800’s or gassing Jews in Nazi Germany? Does egoism not fail here?
(Surely you would not conclude that owning black people and gassing Jews is OK? I actually had an atheist tell me just that, regarding the latter, but not the former!) And, if not, what about another atheist’s system of ethics? How can both of you randomly evolved creatures arrive at such different “objective” systems of ethics?
Another example would be abortion, which is clearly the murder of little human beings in the womb – 100% legal. You say: “The only context in which it makes sense to say that something is valuable to someone is the context of a living thing struggling for survival.” Based on this quote, I MUST conclude that you are in that rare (3%) group of atheists who are anti-abortion? You MUST consider how valuable that baby is as she is “struggling for survival” while the abortionist proceeds to dismember her, right? Please tell me that you are not saying that, because the baby is not valuable to the mother, it is OK to abort her or to murder her after she is born?
“The motives that move a rapist to rape do not in fact coincide with his self interest,…” I’m really not sure where to go with this, William, other than to say I am astounded. Perhaps the rapist is raping out of interest for the victim? Is there a female in your life? I would LOVE to hear her reaction to this claim from you. Please videotape it and post it for us. :-)
Is the rapist raping your wife, mother, or daughter based on a self-sacrificial system of ethics? Is he really not doing so merely for his own violent and sexual pleasure – all about his own personal control, power, and humiliation of the victim? Can you give me any other plausible or documented motivations for rape?
Also, is not rape consistent with the animal kingdom? So, once again, if you believe naturalism to be true, why is rape bad – other than some subjective qualifiers you have put into place – qualifiers that, BTW, clearly distinguish humans from animals and which would self-refute your belief in naturalism?
[Objectively ground selfish being “good” and self-sacrifice being “bad.” — not addressed.]
It seems that the philosophy of egoism has no rational demands on an individual to behave objectively moral, only subjectively ethically, based on a largely random and varying system of ethics. How about this one: you are present when a grenade is tossed in a room full of people. What is your objectively moral duty, if any, under egoism and why?
LikeLike
I’ve already explained how I ground objective morality while also believing in evolution. There is no context in which it makes sense to talk about something being objectively valuable except the context of a living thing struggling for survival. You will note that my grounding for objective morality works no matter how we got here, so it isn’t connected conceptually with the theory of evolution.
You ask how egoism can be rational if I am just a bunch of randomly acting particles. I agree that intentionality and consciousness are serious problems for reductive materialism, which is why I am not a reductive materialism. I am a dualist.
A rapist who is not caught has still done something wrong because he has violated a moral principle. Human beings are not smart enough to calculate all of the consequences of any given concrete action, so we have to come up with abstract principles that will guide us correctly most of the time. Someone who violates a moral principle can be condemned because they are acting irrationally and contrary to their self interest.
You ask about a society where rape and murder were legal, a society where owning blacks was legal, and a society where gassing Jews was legal. Morality dictates leaving such a society if possible and not participating in the evil practices that it condones. The reason is that a society that permits things like this has no respect for individual rights, and it is not safe in principle to live in a society where your life is up for grabs.
If another atheist disagrees with me about morality, then I can say that he is wrong because I can justify my conclusions about morality rationally. I am not a materialist or a determinist, and I do not think that all conclusions are equally churned out by unthinking machines. I have thought about my conclusions rationally and in a disciplined fashion, considering all the evidence, and that makes them more likely to be true.
I am in favor of legalizing abortion. A fetus does not have rights.
You ask how a rapist can be acting in a self sacrificial manner when he rapes someone. The answer is that he is doing harm to his self interest, which is the definition of self sacrifice. Self sacrifice does not mean that you are acting in someone else’s interest, it just means that you are acting against your own interests. Rape may be motivated by a distorted conception of self interest, but the moral standard is not a rapist’s distorted idea of his self interest, but what is actually in his self interest.
You ask a strange question about whether rape is moral because it occurs in the animal kingdom. I don’t have the faintest idea why you think that follows from my worldview. My moral standard has nothing to do with the animal kingdom. Again, egoism and evolution are separate concepts.
I did address grounding selfishness being good and self sacrifice being bad. That was the whole point of my post (and this one).
If a grenade is tossed into a room full of people, then everyone in the room is in a lifeboat scenario. A lifeboat scenario is a scenario where long term survival is impossible. There are no moral obligations in a lifeboat scenario except to get out of the situation as quickly as possible. A man is not obligated to throw himself on a grenade (which is a barbaric thing to say that anyone is ever obligated to do), nor is he obligated to flee.
LikeLike
You say “There is no context in which it makes sense to talk about something being objectively valuable except the context of a living thing struggling for survival.” and later “A fetus does not have rights.” But a fetus IS a living thing struggling for survival – medically, scientifically, and logically. Do you see a contradiction here. Do you even know what a fetus is? Is she a fish fetus or a human fetus?
Also, who says that a fetus does not have rights? Man’s law? The same law that said that blacks had no rights and Jews had no rights or a better man’s law, which cannot be objectively grounded without God? It appears that you ARE living in a society in which “Morality dictates leaving such a society if possible and not participating in the evil practices that it condones.”
Bottom line is that you have defined “objectively valuable” as something “struggling for survival” and then you have excluded a fetus who is clearly “struggling for survival” from being considered to be valuable. You have refuted yourself in that posting. Your version of egoism is therefore not consistent. Back to the drawing board.
You say “A rapist who is not caught has still done something wrong because he has violated a moral principle.” Who determines that a rapist has violated a moral principle? You? Dawkins? The ever-changing man-made law? Egoism doesn’t seem to work here.
But, I sincerely thank you for coming into the WK Zone – it took a lot of courage to do so. BTW, was that being selfish on your part or did you come into here as a matter of self-sacrifice to see our lost souls converted to the superior worldview of egoism? :-) Oh wait, if it is a good thing, then you selfishly came in her for our benefit, right? I feel like I’m in the Escher print “Relativity!” :-)
Finally, what do you think of the guy who jumps on the grenade to save your sorry ass? Just having fun, William, calm down. :-) (I would jump on the grenade for you, William, but only by the Grace of God! I guess that would be selfish of me under egoism. Oh ya, selfish is good, self-sacrifice is bad. I am SO confused by this! So, it would be self-sacrificial of me, but that would be bad. For me anyway, but not for you! It would be good for you, because you could continue to “struggle for survival” thanks to me. :-)) Is it fair to say that egoism is a worldview where the commonly understood moral implications of “selfishness” and “self-sacrifice” are merely inverted to mean the opposite of what they truly mean?
God bless you, William, for putting up with all of this! Have you considered switching to Christianity? What do you think of WLC’s presentation of same in his debate with Hitchens in 2009? Was that a compelling argument for the existence of a God who has the necessary characteristics of the Christian God? http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=william+lane+craig+vs+christopher+hitchens+2009&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=B574BE82EEC91A5A5739B574BE82EEC91A5A5739
Anyway, we would LOVE to have you over on our side, William! If for no other reason than to have someone else who is willing to jump on the grenades. :-)
LikeLike
Your argument that I have contradicted myself by saying both that life is the foundation for value and that a fetus does not have rights betrays a serious misunderstanding of my position. I am not saying that everything alive has intrinsic value – value is always value to someone in particular, so intrinsic value does not exist. Rather, I am saying that, to each thing alive, its own life is the standard of value for it. So, while aborting a fetus is an evil to the fetus, it is good for the mother and for society, so there is nothing wrong with the mother’s having an abortion in principle (although individual cases of abortion can be wrong depending on the mother’s exact context and the implications for her self interest).
The fact that a fetus does not have rights is not arbitrarily decided by society. A fetus does not have rights because it cannot reason or respond to incentives. The two main reasons to give people rights are (1) that people will work harder and come up with more discoveries and inventions if they have a guarantee of being able to keep their profits and (2) that strictly observed rights provide a safeguard against the gradual expansion of government power that threatens any free society. Neither of these goals are hindered by permitting abortion, but they would be hindered by giving the government the ability to force a child on a woman who got pregnant accidentally.
You ask who decides what the moral principles are. The answer, in morality as in any other science, is that no one decides – we look at the evidence. In this case, the evidence is our life experience and knowledge of history, law and psychology, which testify overwhelmingly that rape is not a good policy to live by.
You ask why I am here. The answer is that I enjoy talking about philosophy and practicing presenting my philosophical views in a compelling manner. There is nothing self sacrificial about that.
The concepts of selfishness and self sacrifice are not inverted under egoism. Selfishness just means acting in your self interest, and self sacrifice just means acting against your self interest. It is true that selfishness is associated with hurting other people in the popular mind, but this is an inversion devised by altruists, not the genuine meaning of selfishness.
LikeLike
>>When someone says that there is nothing wrong with murdering my wife and raping her, he is wrong because of the legal, social, and psychological effects that result from raping someone.
If these are what make the act wrong, then wrongness is subjective since legal, social, and psychological effects are subjective and varying. Legal and social norms are just collective opinion. Psychological effects are not entirely opinion (although one’s opinion or set of beliefs can effect one’s psychology), but are partly opinion and are partly, under atheism, just an arbitrary product of the laws of nature and chance.
>>egoism, is not merely a matter of opinion because it is contained in the very concept of value. The only context in which it makes sense to say that something is valuable to someone is the context of a living thing struggling for survival.
It’s not clear what you mean here. It makes sense to say that a piece of art is valuable. The piece of art isn’t a living thing struggling for survival. Perhaps you are thinking of the other angle: the person valuing the art. In this case, the person’s valuing the art has nothing obviously to do with a struggle for survival. So I can’t make sense out of your claim here.
>>The motives that move a rapist to rape do not in fact coincide with his self interest, whatever mental distortions he may go through, and therefore are not selfish.
Whether any particular act of rape is in the self interest of the rapist will depend upon several consequences which may or may not obtain. Suppose a rapist wants a quick release of sexual tension and to pass his genes onto the next generation. A man rapes a woman who happens to be a Christian. The man ends up getting away with the rape because he’s cunning and the circumstances were in his favor on this occasion. Furthermore, because the woman he raped is a Christian, she doesn’t abort the baby that is a product of the rape. So the man achieved all his goals. How is that possibly not in his self-interest in your scheme?
It simply won’t do to say that it’s not in his self-interest because *generally* rapists don’t turn out so lucky. That’s like saying a person who wins the lotto didn’t benefit from purchasing his lottery ticket because lottery ticket purchases generally don’t win the lotto. While it may be true that purchasing lotto tickets generally isn’t beneficial to the purchaser, it’s clearly false to think that’s an universal maxim.
LikeLike
Thanks, Rem! And to add to your comments, it is always in the rapist’s short-term interests. Rape is always a selfish act in the short run – before the rapist is caught, if he is caught. That is because he has obtained his expression of power, control, and humiliation over his victim immediately upon the completion of a successful rape, possibly sooner. The later consequences may or may not obtain.
LikeLike
“may or may not obtain” = listen to you, Mr. Philosopher.
LikeLike
OMG. Did I channel WLC there?!? Or is that someone else’s phrase? Perhaps Hitchens? :-)
LikeLike
P.S. For clarification, in my responses to you’ve I’ve been taking some of your claims for granted for sake of argument. So when I say things like “Whether any particular act of rape is in the self interest of the rapist will depend upon several consequences which may or may not obtain.” I don’t think this actually true. Rather, this is true given what you’ve said in the comments section here (e.g. where you said “badness refers to all the practical consequences of an action”)… Just want to clarify that so I don’t sound like a psycho.
LikeLike
One can infer that rape (or other crimes) are bad for society and should be illegal from science and logic. But you can’t get from “bad” to “wrong” without a moral lawgiver. There’s a difference between bad and wrong.
One way to justify making certain things illegal is to show that they violate inalienable rights. This is the justification for most of our laws and it isn’t directly based on God or religion. Behaviors that violate the inalienable rights of others should be illegal. However, inalienable rights can only exist if humans are the product of a Creator. There is no way for nature to bestow real inalienable rights on human beings. If there are such things as inalienable rights (and I think, as did our Founding Fathers, that they are “self-evident”), then there must be a Creator.
LikeLike
But, Lindsay: I thought our country was founded by atheists like Bill Maher?!? :-)
LikeLike
There aren’t any god given “inalienable rights”. Right after we say life, liberty, property, the pursuit of happiness, etc. we set about codifying all the ways that we could take those away – war, insurrection, eminent domain, etc. There are instead reasonings and principles that the vast majority believe in and would fight and die for if violated – that is the foundation of all “rights”.
LikeLike
If badness refers to all the practical consequences of an action, why should we care about anything other than badness? You seem to think that there is some additional quality which you call wrongness which requires a lawgiver, but by that definition I see neither reason to think that wrongness exists nor reason to care whether or not an action is wrong.
You suggest that rights cannot exist if there is no God. This is a complex issue, but briefly, rights are justified under egoism because (a) people will work harder and come up with more inventions and discoveries if they have a guarantee of being able to keep their profits, and (b) making sure the government stays strictly away from violating the rights of its citizens helps protect us against the gradual expansion of government power that threatens any free country. It is very much in our self interest to give each other rights.
LikeLike
>>If badness refers to all the practical consequences of an action, why should we care about anything other than badness?
Because that’s inadequate to capture what we naturally think we’re referring to when we say an action is wrong. When we say an action is wrong, we think we are saying something about the act itself and not something about the consequences which may or may not follow. So your theory fails to account for moral language.
>>…rights are justified under egoism because…
This assumes that a person cares about the things you list. For instance, communist cultic societies like North Korea don’t think they need those things. Putin and much of Russia doesn’t care about being viewed as morally enlightened by Western nations.
So you said, regarding theistic morality, that you see no reason “to care whether or not an action is wrong.” But you’ve given us no reason to care about your own moral system. At this point you could just shrug your shoulders and assert that people in many several different societies do happen to care about the things you care about.
But then your claim to have given us “a viable account of morality for the atheist” turns out to be a bluff or else a misunderstanding of the moral argument as Craig has presented it on numerous occasions… for the question isn’t whether we can make up some system of means to ends achievement and then burden it with moral terminology, but whether we can account for the objectivity of moral facts.
LikeLike
As far as I can tell, your claim that my argument fails to account for moral language is just a different way of saying that you disagree with my argument. Maybe *you* think of the morality of an action as independent from its consequences, but most philosophers would disagree (except all-out deontologists).
I agree with your claim that there is no reason to value life in the sense that life is the ultimate value from which all other rational values must follow. The decision to live is made on the basis of motives (enjoying your career, spending time with your children, etc.) and not on the basis of coercive reasons. This doesn’t make it irrational, just non-rational, and for anyone who does not make this fundamental choice, the only consistent action is to commit suicide.
LikeLike
William,
>>”As far as I can tell, your claim that my argument fails to account for moral language is just a different way of saying that you disagree with my argument.”
No. That your system fails to account for moral language means your system fails as a moral system. When people say “It’s wrong to rape women for fun” they take themselves to be saying something about the action of rape and not something about consequences of rape which may not in fact be consequences at all. If your theory can’t account for that, that’s a weakness in your theory. Any philosopher would recognize that a good philosophical theory will try to account for ordinary discourse at the relevant points. Otherwise it’s a like a scientist telling us he’ll give us a theory of magnetism and instead of accounting for the relevant forces of attraction he really just tells us that by “magnetism” he intends to refer to heat and then he gives us a theory of kinetic energy.
>>I agree with your claim that there is no reason to value life in the sense that life is the ultimate value from which all other rational values must follow.
No. You’ve mischaracterized my claim again. Remember you claimed *rights* could exist if there was no God and you read into the word “rights” Western values of capitalism (keeping one’s profits, broadly) and their being inalienable. You’ve given us no reason to think these two things are best characterized as “valuing life” and if you want to now switch to talking about “valuing life” be my guest, but you’re just going to step into another pile of mud.
LikeLike
RE: Dr. Craig’s Objective Morality Argument
1. Logic Fallacies
–1.1. Circular Reasoning
By defining objective morality as an all-good consciousness outside of humanity, he is basically using a definition for God to describe objective morality. He evades the possibility of a less than perfect foundation by simply saying that in order to be God and worthy of worship, it has to be good – and that something is automatically good if God says so.
–1.2. Appeal to emotion
Often Dr. Craig tends to use this argument thusly: we all know that objective morality exists, and therefore they must come from some foundation and that foundation is God. He then goes on to profile the horrors which would become ok upon a subjective morality.
—-1.2.1. We all know that objective morality exists
No, we don’t. If two people have differing opinions on what the moral thing to do is, can those moral opinions come from the same foundation? How should those differences be reconciled?
—-1.2.2. Implications
Dr. Craig (generally) maintains in his other debates that argument by implication is not proper reasoning, yet he somehow never applies that rationale to this element of his argument. If, without God, we are left with a subjective morality and that concept is unappealing, that does not mean that objective morality exists.
2. Evidence for a foundation of morality
–2.1. No evidence for theistic foundation of morality
—-2.1.1. Biblically
By reducing the objective morality of the bible to 2 Commandments (love god, and the golden rule) – he is throwing out more than 600 other commandments in the bible (including the ones about killing stubborn children, shrimp-eaters, gays, people that work on Saturday, people that wear tassels or polyester, get tattoos, etc., etc.). Moreover, the Golden Rule was used in religion thousands of years before Christianity, and existed outside religion altogether in philosophies like Confucianism.
—-2.1.2. More generally
If you put the most pious people in secluded rooms each with a list of given moral dilemmas, and ask them what the moral thing to do is – they will come to different conclusions using differing justifications; thus establishing that humans cannot perceive what the objectively moral action is. Therefore, either objective morality does not exist at all, or when we die, there’s a God who judges us based on an objective morality that we cannot discern.
Dr. Craig generally offers killing, rape, torture, child abuse as objectively bad. However, when applied to reality the complexity reemerges – can we morally kill Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, mass-murderers, or should we turn to them our other cheek? How about aborting an ectopic pregnancy that will almost certainly kill the mother? Or, assisting someone who has a terminal illness and is in constant pain with ending their own life? Killing in self-defense or in defense of loved ones? If a man rapes a little girl then goes to prison and learns that turn-about is fair play… should we feel that the second rape was exactly as grievous as the first? What constitutes torture and how far can a person (or government) go in the pursuit of preventing mass terrorism? The word “child-abuse” already presumes the pejorative word abuse, but real situations (e.g. how many hours can a child of a given age work on a farm before it is considered abuse?), show that these are far from objectively settled matters.
–2.2. Evidence for evolution of morality
I believe Dr. Craig generally concedes this point, but I’ll touch on it a little. The only attributes necessary to derive the golden-rule are empathy and fairness, which are exhibited by several extant species. Dr. Craig also gives the example of baboon altruism which would generally be regarded as an even higher-level ethic than simple reciprocity. Our morals are what would be expected of a species that required cooperation with some members and competition with others.
3. Absence of free-will on theism
–3.1. “ought implies can”
Dr. Craig argues that without free-will there is no moral responsibility, however, introducing God does not solve this problem. In fact, God actually precludes free-will. If God knew all of the actions that would take place in a given universe and nevertheless created it thusly, the result is a predestined universe where only God made a choice (whether to make this universe, or not.) Everyone is therefore acting according to the plan of God rather than through free-agency.
–3.2. Speciesism
The same speciesism is assumed by Dr. Craig’s fine-tuning argument which presumes that the universe was carefully crafted for humans rather than Neanderthals or some future or alien species, or even that the universe may be a byproduct of some other process that “God” does (if pollution could ask the question, “where did I come from”, would it think it was our intention to create it?), etc.
In conclusion, Dr. Craig is right to say that objective moral values do not exist as he defines them, but God offers no resolution. And, while he (and others) may not like the implications of morality being ultimately subjective, that does not mean that it isn’t the truth.
LikeLike
Hi JD. Thanks for putting so much thought into your reply! I just wanted to ask a question or two about one of your sections, namely 2.1.2, in which you say (regarding morality) “when applied to reality the complexity reemerges.”
In the case of what Hitler did to the Jews, are you saying that this is a complex moral situation? Are there extenuating circumstances under which the actions of the Nazis in this regard could have been moral, in your view? Does the fact that some people thought they were moral (the Nazis themselves, in particular) and others thought they were immoral mean to you that the actions of the Nazis are relative in terms of morality? I need to understand where the complexity reemerges in this case.
Another example would be torturing children for pleasure. Is there an extenuating circumstance in which this would be moral, under any view? This man apparently thought so: https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/gay-man-gets-40-year-sentence-for-molesting-boy-he-adopted-from-russia/ Once again, where is the “complexity” here?
It seems to me that you are assuming some level of objective morality when you are arriving at the conditions for your extenuating circumstances in your examples. Or not? Do I understand your position correctly on this point?
Thanks much, JD!
LikeLike
Hey JD, thought I would ask some more questions about your insightful post. Under your section 2.1.1, you seem to imply that “killing stubborn children” might not be a moral position, at least under your view. But aren’t you appealing to an objective morality in doing so? Have you never had teenagers? :-) Also, if the Golden Rule is / was used outside of religion or in other religions, does that not make a good argument for its objectivity, or what we, as Christians, call the “law written on our hearts?”
At the beginning of section 2.1.2, you say that because people differ in what they think are right and wrong, this establishes “that humans cannot perceive what the objectively moral action is.” Does it? Or could it merely mean that some humans are better at and some humans are worse at perceiving objective morality in a given situation?
In section 3.1, how does God’s foreknowledge imply His predestination of His creatures? Many deists believe in foreknowledge without predestination. And why couldn’t God create a universe in which He knew how His creatures would act, yet still give them free will to carry out the very acts that He knows will occur? If you are merely saying that God made a choice in creating the universe and calling this choice (to create or not) the predestination of the creation of the universe, well, that is kind of obvious, right?
It seems to me that the fact that humans disagree on objective morality does not mean that objective morality does not exist. It might just mean that some humans are better (but not perfect!) at perceiving objective morality than others. Perhaps the better ones are the ones who attempt to find out what a universe Creator holds as objective morals, and not what a non-personal process, like Darwinism, implies for morals?
LikeLike