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William Lane Craig debates Daniel Came: Does God exist?

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Dr. Craig's opening speech summary slide
Dr. Craig’s opening speech summary slide

The video of the debate was posted by ReasonableFaith.org – Dr. Craig’s organization. This debate occurred in March 2017 at the University of Dublin, in Ireland.

The video: (91 minutes)

My non-snarky summary is below.

Dr. Craig’s opening speech

Two claims:

1. There are good reasons to think that theism is true.
2. There are not comparably good reasons to think that atheism is true.

Five reasons for God’s existence:

1. The beginning of the universe
– actual infinite past is mathematically impossible
– BGV theorem: any universe that is on balance expanding in its history (like ours) cannot be past eternal

2. Fine-tuning of cosmic quantities and constants
– slight changes to quantities and constants prevent a universe from supporting complex embodied life
– the multiverse response of atheists conflicts with observations, e.g. the Boltzmann Brains problem

3. Objective moral values
– God’s existence is required to ground objective moral values and duties

4. Minimal facts case for the resurrection of Jesus
– there are good reasons to accept the most widely accepted facts about the historical Jesus (empty tomb, appearances, early widespread belief in the resurrection)
– the best explanation of these minimal facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead

5. Experience God directly
– in the absence of any defeaters to belief in God, a person can experience God directly

Dr. Daniel Came’s opening speech

1. The hiddenness of God
– if God wants a personal relationship with us, and a relationship with God would be the greatest good for us
– God ought to reveal himself to us, but he does not  reveal himself to many people, the “non-resistant non-believers”

2. The inductive problem of evil
– many evil events occur that are pointless – there is no morally sufficient reason why God would allow them to occur
– examples: animal suffering, children born with disease, tsunamis
– the theistic response to this is that humans are not in a position to know whether there are morally sufficient reasons, due to our limitations of knowing the consequences
– but this ripple effect defense has 4 possible outcomes, 3 of which don’t do the job of justifying

Dr. Craig’s first rebuttal

1. The hiddenness of God
– God’s goal is not to make his existence known, but to draw them into a love relationship
– it’s speculative that overt displays of God’s existence would draw people to him in a love relationship, they might resent his bullying
– atheist would have to prove that God could draw more people into a love relationship with him by revealing himself more overtly

2. The inductive problem of evil
– as humans, we are not in a position to know for certain that any apparently pointless evil really is pointless
– William Alston article: 6 limitations of human knowing make it impossible to judge that an evil is actually “pointless”
– Dr. Came says that there are 4 possibilities for the ripple effects, and since 3 are bad, it’s likely that there are not morally sufficient reasons for a apparently pointless evil
– it is logically fallacious to assert probability conclusions without knowing the probabilities of those 4 options
– there is actually an argument from evil: since the problem of evil requires an objective standard of good and evil by which to measure, and God is the only possible ground of objective morality, then pressing the problem of evil actually requires the atheist to assume God, in order to ground this objective moral standard

Dr. Came’s first rebuttal

3. Objective moral values
– there are naturalistic theories of moral realism where objective moral duties and objective moral values exist in a naturalistic universe
– I’m not saying that any of them are correct, but there are many theories about object morality in a naturalistic universe

There are naturalistic theories for all of the 5 arguments that Dr. Craig presented. It is Dr. Craig’s responsibility to present those naturalistic theories and prove that they are not as good as his explanations. I’m not going to defend (or even name!) a single naturalistic theory for any of these 5 arguments by Dr. Craig.

Dr. Craig’s explanations for the 5 evidences he gave can’t be admitted, because we have to know how God did something in naturalistic terms before we can know that God did it supernaturally. Explanations are only valid if they are naturalistic.

1. The beginning of the universe
– naturalism explains how the universe expands after it came into being, so that explains how it came into being
– the God explanation, that God created the universe out of nothing, is not admissible, because it is not naturalistic
– how does God, as an unembodied mind interact with the physical world?
– the only agency that we know about is human agents, and we have bodies, so how could God perform actions without having a body?

The theistic hypothesis does not make any predictions, but naturalism makes lots of testable predictions. God could do anything, so he is not constrained and is therefore untestable. We can’t infer God as an explanation in principle because we can’t predict what is more probable if God exists than if he does not.

2. Fine-tuning of cosmic quantities and constants
– the university was not set up to make embodied intelligence plausible, because the vast majority of the universe is hostile to life
– there are models of the multiverse that escape the Boltzmann Brains problem that Dr. Craig raised

Dr. Craig’s second rebuttal

Some of Dr. Craig’s arguments are deductive (e.g. – the beginning of the universe, objective moral values), so that the conclusion follows from the premises if the premises are true. The resurrection passes the standard tests for historical explanations.

1. The beginning of the universe
– the whole point of the argument is that there is no naturalistic explanation for an ultimate beginning of the universe

2. Fine-tuning of cosmic quantities and constants
– the whole point of the argument is that there is no naturalistic explanation for a design of the universe to support life
– he has to prove that intelligences has to be attached to bodies
– human beings are non-physical minds united to physical bodies
– naturalistic attempts to explain mental operations fail
– the arguments prove that unembodied minds exist
– the vast expanse of the universe is required in order to form the galaxies, stars and heavy elements needed for complex life
– why expect that the entire universe should be small, or that life would be everywhere?
– a non-fine-tuned world is more likely in the multiverse, and in a multiverse, we are more likely to have a Boltzmann brain world than a world with complex, embodied life
– Dr. Came has not advanced any naturalistic explanation for the fine-tuning

3. Objective moral values
– non-theistic ethical theories cannot account for the ontological foundations of objective moral values and duties
– atheistic theories of moral realism simply assume objective moral values out of thin air
– it is especially hard to find any basis for objective moral duties in the absence of God

Dr. Came’s second rebuttal

5. Religious experience
– Dr. Craig should not bring up religious experience in a debate where arguments and evidence are central
– people who have dreams, hallucinations and psychotic delusions could appeal to religious experience
– religious experience is by no means universal, and it is possible to doubt it

3. Objective moral values
– there are lots of atheists who hold to objective moral values
– Dr. Craig has to explain how God grounds objective moral values and duties
– Dr. Craig has to explain why atheist moral realist theories don’t work to ground objective moral values and duties

1. The beginning of the universe
– Dr. Craig claims that something can’t come from nothing, that’s not an argument
– there are numerous models that don’t require an absolute beginning of the universe
– Dr. Craig cites the BGV theorem, but Guth (one of the authors) says that only the inflation has a beginning, not the whole universe

Dr. Craig’s conclusion

1. The beginning of the universe
– on theism, there is an efficient cause, but no material cause, for the origin of the universe
– on atheism, there is neither an efficient cause nor a material cause, for the origin of the universe: that’s worse!
– if he thinks that there are models of the universe that don’t require a beginning, then let him name a viable eternal model of the universe
– he never refuted the mathematical argues against an infinite past

2. Fine-tuning of cosmic quantities and constants
– nothing to refute

3. Objective moral values
– God is a better ground for morality than humans, because he is ultimate, and not contingent and arbitrary
– God is a being who is worthy of worship, and therefore command his creatures with moral duties

4. Minimal facts case for the resurrection of Jesus
– nothing to refute

5. Religious experience
– only justified because there are no defeaters to it

1. The hiddenness of God
– atheist has to show that if God’s existence were more obvious, that it would result in more people being drawn to him

2. The inductive problem of evil
– Dr. Came’s argument was logically fallacious, and makes errors in probability theory

Dr. Came’s conclusion

Sometimes, people can’t prove something, but lack of evidence is a justification for doubting it, e.g. – werewolves.

If none of Craig’s arguments work, then it follows that it is not rational to believe that God exists, and it is rational to believe that God does not exist.

Atheists shouldn’t have a burden of proof for what they know, only theists have a burden of proof for what they know.

My thoughts

One quick point. If life were common everywhere then atheists would infer that God wasn’t involved in it. Period. “Life is everywhere, so it’s common, why do we need a designer?” they’d say. I agree with Dr. Came about denouncing religious experience in a formal debate. I don’t like when Dr. Craig brings this up, but I see why he does it – he’s an evangelist, and that’s a good thing, too. I just worry about how it looks to atheists, although it’s good for sincere seekers. I’m not the one on the stage, though, Dr. Craig is.

I think the point about more overt revealing by God would annoy people and make them turn away. Think of how gay people respond to the suggestion that there is anything wrong with them, with rage, vandalism, threats, coercion, attempts to get you to lose your job and business, and using government as a weapon to fine and imprison you. It’s really obvious to me that more God does not mean more love of God. For those who don’t want God, the hiddenness is respect for their choice to put pleasure above the search for truth. (I mean the gay activists – I have great sympathy for people who struggle with same-sex unwanted attractions because they were impacted by a failed bond with their parent of the same sex as they are).

Whenever I meet people like Dr. Came, I always urge them to keep investigating and pursuing truth, because they will find it if they are sincerely seeking after God. Some atheists do sincerely seek God, but I don’t know any who haven’t found him. I’m not sure if that’s because those atheists who claim to be non-resistant and rational are in fact resistant and non-rational, or what the real reason is. If you believe the Bible, all unbelief is non-rational and resistant (see Romans 1). Regarding the werewolves, we don’t have any good arguments for werewolves, we do have good arguments for God. Dr. Came didn’t refute the arguments that Craig raised, nor did his own arguments for atheism work. And there are many, many more arguments (origin of life, Cambrian explosion, habitability-discoverability, molecular machines) that Craig did not raise, too.

News

Secular left feminist Sarah Stankorb explains why women leave Christianity

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I sometimes read articles from mainstream conservative pastors and theologians. One of these is the famous Doug Wilson who blogs at Blog and Mablog. Well, recently he was attacked by a secular left feminist named Sarah Stankorb. I looked over her recent articles, and a pattern emerged about what she – and the women she writes about – think that Christianity is about.

Here’s an article entitled “These Evangelical Women Are Abandoning Trump and Their Churches”.

She talks about a woman named Katie Loveland, who leaves her church for the following reasons:

  1. If a church allows a man to act like a fool towards women, then Christianity is false.
  2. If a church allows a man who has passed a background check and holds a concealed carry permit to be armed so he can protect church members from attacks like this one, then Christianity is false.
  3. If Christians support a politician who has a pro-life record of demonstrated achievements over a politician who promises to remove all state and local restrictions on abortion from conception to birth, then Christianity is false.

And another woman named Elaina Ramsey, and her reasons for rejecting Christianity:

  1. If Christianity requires you to disagree with your gay and queer friends, then Christianity is false.
  2. If Christians refuse to marry you because you’ve been raped, then Christianity is false.
  3. If the Bible records (and condemns) the rape of Bathsheba by David, then Christianity is false.
  4. If Christianity teaches that murdering humans is wrong, and science says that the unborn are human, then Christianity is false.

And more about another woman named Deirdre Sugiuchi, and her reasons for rejecting Christianity:

  1. If your father claims to be a Christian and spanks you, then Christianity is false.
  2. If you are sent to an abusive Christian reform school for being rebellious, then Christianity is false.
  3. If Christianity feels anti-gay, anti-black or anti-woman, then Christianity is false.
  4. If the United States opposes Al Qaeda for carrying out the 9/11 attack, then Christianity is false.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

It turns out that a lot of emotion-based people claimed to be Christians and were accepted as “Christian”, without any rational basis for believing it. And later on, when Christianity made them feel bad about being reckless and irresponsible, or when it loses them non-Christian friends, then they abandoned it. It’s not that they discovered that Christianity is illogical. It’s not that they discovered evidence to falsify Christian truth claims. Their stated reasons for leaving Christianity are entirely subjective. And none of the reasons do the work of falsifying core Christian truth claims, such as God’s existence, the inspiration of the Bible, or the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.

Just to review, here are some of the reasons why authentic Christians believe in Christian theism:

  • scientific evidence for the origin of the universe
  • scientific evidence for cosmic fine-tuning
  • scientific evidence for the origin of life
  • scientific evidence for habitability
  • scientific evidence for sudden origin of body plans
  • scientific evidence for molecular machines
  • scientific evidence for irreducible complexity
  • the argument from consciousness
  • the argument from objective morality
  • the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus

These arguments – and many more like them – are defended by scholars in books published by top academic presses. But I see no evidence that emotion-based ex-Christians have ever read such books. Why would they? They aren’t interested in forming their worldview based on objective reality. They aren’t interested in constructing a life plan where their desire for happiness comes second to following Jesus.

People who abandon Christianity because of feelings or experiences have not “left Christianity”. They just stopped faking being Christians. They were never actually Christian in the first place. To be a Christian in the first place, you have to know that Christianity is true. People who accept the arguments for Christianity listed above have just as many disappointments with God, bad experiences with Christians, and bad experiences with churches as people who were guided by their emotions and experiences. 

In fact, I personally know women who grew up fatherless, or had defective parents, or other setbacks. They got themselves into a lot of trouble with churches and immoral men, and yet today, not only are they solid Christians, but they actually take the lead in gospel enterprises, such as apologetics. Why? Because for them, the objective truth of Christianity was more important than their subjective feelings and experiences.

The differences between Christians and non-Christians is that Christians overlook bad feelings, shame and rejection, because we know facts don’t care about our feelings. For real Christians, the normal Christian life requires bad feelings, disappointments, bad experiences and rejection by non-Christians. We actually read the Bible, and so we expect bad things to happen to us.

Note: if you are relying on someone to act in a Christian way – say, as a marriage partner – then you’d better find out what kind of “Christian” they are, by asking them how they arrived at their beliefs. Do not marry a fake Christian who just reads romance novels and fiction. A person can’t determine the truth of Christianity by focusing on career, travel, entertainment, promiscuity, etc.

News

Steven Crowder discusses Ayesha Curry’s “Call Her Daddy” interview

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Steph Curry is an NBA player who has earned over a billion dollars in salary. Unfortunately, he made a terrible choice of wife. His wife, Ayesha Curry, recently went on the far-left feminist “Call Her Daddy” podcast, and essentially complained about the life that he provides for her. I just thought it was the most interesting thing to see how modern young women think of men who provide.

Her bio is here, it seems like she has no earned degrees or private sectory work experience beyond being an entertainer. And I’m pretty sure that any success she has at that is going to be due to her husband’s fame!

Here’s the video:

So, I think Ayesha’s interview shows a major reason why marriage to a modern young woman is a terrible deal for a successful Christian man. Why? Because everything that Christian men do that is awesome and difficult seems to be seen as an entitlement by modern young women. It doesn’t get you any consideration as a man that you are good at these things especially when women are getting helped along in school and at work to earn the same as a man, sometimes with much less effort. Whereas the previous generation would give a man respect and gratitude for slogging through STEM degrees, waking up early, saving money, remaining chaste and sober, etc., modern young women tend to dismiss it all. In addition, modern women are overwhelmingly leftist, and see a man’s moral and spiritual leadership as liabilities. So those skills actually count against a man.

And I know why, too. I once was dating a woman who had an unused degree in business administration. She graduated in 5 years, but she never ever used the degree for business administration. In fact, she turned down jobs that I found her in FT100 companies that were for business administration. She just wanted to do easy jobs, have huge gaps in her resume, and have fun. But the interesting part is that when I showed her the preparations that I had made to be a good provider – graduate degree, 6-figure portfolio, provisional patent, publications, etc. – she was dismissive and disrespectful. And I’ll never forget what she said about my investment portfolio. She said “I hope that you’ll consider my advice when you’re buying and selling securities, because I learned a lot about that in school”. She was 20K in debt and had been carrying that debt unpaid for 7 years after graduation. Never bought a stock or an option or a mutual fund in her life. Her money was being spent on fun, thrills and travel! That’s what this Ayesha interview reminded me of.

So, I think it’s just something for young men to think about. When you are deciding whether to date and get married, you have to think about whether the hard things that you have done are going to get you any respect and gratitude. Especially if you have some sort of plan for your family! Over the course of dating during my 20s and 30s, I had a non-stop line of Christian women with student loan debt and low-earning easy jobs telling me how they didn’t know how to cook, didn’t want to clean, didn’t want to homeschool the kids, didn’t want to have more than 2 kids, didn’t want to do campus ministry, didn’t want to learn science or economics, and so on. They just felt entitled to everything that I would provide, but they weren’t willing to do anything that I wanted the marriage to achieve for the Boss. They were quite confident that marriage was about making the woman happy, not God. Men are just “servant leaders”. Their achievements in the real world don’t qualify them to lead.

And the worst part of this was the responses of pastors, parents, and Christian leaders. Instead of reining in the entitlement of young Christian women, they would instead say things like “you need to lower your standards” and “why don’t you let your 30-year-old girlfriend go to EUROPE for a couple of years, and just wait for her to come back”. I’m sure that these Christian parents, pastors and leaders thought that they were whipping men into shape, but the end result is that men just decline the bad deal that’s being offered to them. We can do ministry and early retirement instead. And that’s better for the Boss than a marriage that is just going to be led by a woman’s feelings.

Country breakfast

Anyway, Crowder did mention something called “country breakfast” and I looked it up, and here’s what it is:

Now, Ayesha didn’t cook this. This Christian grandmother of 15 grandkids makes it. It looks amazing! American breakfast is one of my 3 favorite foods. (I also love Indian food and Thai food). But do you think that any modern young woman can cook something like that? That’s ground sausage in the top left, and STEAK STRIPS at 7 o’clock. Two kinds of potatoes and two kinds of eggs and two kinds of cheese and two kinds of pig!

It’s no wonder that men 100 years ago were chasing traditional women for marriage. But you can’t get anything like that today! Today, you’re more likely to have your pick of aging feminists who have nothing to offer. That’s not a good deal for a man. We have other things that we can do that will be better for the Boss.