William Lane Craig lecturing to university students
Here’s the lecture, which was given in 2004 at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
This lecture might be a little advanced for beginners, but if you stretch your mind first, you shouldn’t tear anything. (Note: standard disclaimers apply if you do tear something!)
The description of the video states:
This is quite simply one of the best lectures William Lane Craig (a philosopher of science) has given. Craig explores the origins of the universe. He argues for a beginning of the universe, while refuting scientific models like the Steady State Theory, the Oscillating Theory, Quantum Vacuum Fluctuation Model, Chaotic Inflationary Theory, Quantum Gravity Theory, String Theory, M-Theory and Cyclic Ekpyrotic Theory.
A Templeton Foundation lecture at the University of Colorado, Boulder, laying out the case from contemporary cosmology for the beginning of the universe and its theological implications. Includes a lengthy Q & A period which features previous critics and debate opponents of Dr. Craig who were in attendance, including Michael Tooley, Victor Stenger, and Arnold Guminski.
Craig has previously debated famous atheists Stenger and Tooley previously. And they both asked him questions in the Q&A time of this lecture. Imagine – having laid out your entire case to two people who have debated you before and who know your arguments well. What did they ask Craig, and how did he respond?
The scientific evidence
The Big Bang cosmology that Dr. Craig presents is the standard model for how the universe came into being. It is a theory based on six lines of experimental evidence.
Scientific evidence:
Einstein’s theory of general relativity (GTR)
the red-shifting of light from distant galaxies implies an expanding universe
the cosmic background radiation (which also disproves the oscillating model of the universe)
the second law of thermodynamics applied to star formation theory
hydrogen-helium abundance predictions
radioactive element abundance predictions
It’s probably a good idea to be familiar with these if you are presenting this argument, because experimental science is a reliable way of knowing about reality.
Published research paper
This lecture by Dr. Craig is based on a research paper published in an astrophysics journal, and was delivered to an audience of students and faculty, including atheist physicist Victor Stenger and prominent atheist philosopher Michael Tooley, at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Both cosmology and philosophy trace their roots to the wonder felt by the ancient Greeks as they contemplated the universe. The ultimate question remains why the universe exists rather than nothing. This question led Leibniz to postulate the existence of a metaphysically necessary being, which he identified as God. Leibniz’s critics, however, disputed this identification, claiming that the space-time universe itself may be the metaphysically necessary being. The discovery during this century that the universe began to exist, however, calls into question the universe’s status as metaphysically necessary, since any necessary being must be eternal in its existence. Although various cosmogonic models claiming to avert the beginning of the universe predicted by the standard model have been and continue to be offered, no model involving an eternal universe has proved as plausible as the standard model. Unless we are to assert that the universe simply sprang into being uncaused out of nothing, we are thus led to Leibniz’s conclusion. Several objections to inferring a supernatural cause of the origin of the universe are considered and found to be unsound.
I thought that I would go over an opening statement from a previous debate featuring Christopher Hitchens to find out what atheists are like in debates. I used his opening speech from his debate with Frank Turek. The audio from that debate is here, at Brian Auten’s Apologetics 315 site.
Now the important thing to remember about a generic debate on whether GOD EXISTS is that there should be no mention of any particular God, such as the Christian God, and no mention of the history of any particular religion. All arguments that assume specific theological or moral doctrines or specific religious history are irrelevant to a debate on generic theism.
The question being debated is: does a God who created and designed the universe, who has all the traditional properties of God, such as omniscience, omnipotence, omni-benevolence, etc. exist? That is the question being debated in a “Does God Exist?” debate.
Frank Turek’s case for theism:
Frank Turek made 4 relevant arguments for theism, each of which alone would support his conclusion, that God exists:
the origin of time, space, matter and energy out of nothing
the fine-tuning of the physical constants to support the minimum requirements for life of any kind
the origin of the biological information in the first self-replicating organism
objective, prescriptive moral rules need to be grounded by the designer of the universe
And he also listed 4 features of the universe that are more consistent with theism than atheism (= materialism).
non-material minds that allow rationality that would be impossible on materialism/determinism
the mathematical structure of the universe and its intelligibility to the scientific method
free will, which is required for moral responsibility and moral choices, requires a non-material mind/soul
our first person experience of consciousness is best explained by a non-material mind/soul
Hitchens’ case against theism
To counter, Hitchens has to argue against God using arguments in one of two forms:
The concept of God is logically self-contradictory
An objective feature of the world is inconsistent with the attributes of God
The claim that God does not exist is a claim to know something about God, namely, that he does not exist. This claim requires the speaker to bear a burden of proof. In a debate on “Does God Exist?”, Hitchens must deny that God exists. Let me be clear: Hitchens must defeat the arguments for the claim that God exists, and then defend the claim that God does not exist, and support that claim using arguments and evidence.
Hitchens makes 2 basic claims:
There are no good reasons to believe that theism is true
There are good reasons to believe atheism is true
So far so good. But what are his good reasons for atheism?
I personally don’t like Christianity, therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: I personally don’t like Catholicism getting rid of limbo
– Premise: I personally don’t like Hell
– Premise: I personally don’t like some episodes in church history
– Conclusion: God doesn’t exist
The plurality of religions means that no religious claims can be correct, therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: There are lots of religions
– Premise: The religions all disagree in their truth claims about the external world
– Conclusion: No religion’s claims can be correct, therefore God doesn’t exist
I believe in one less God than you, therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: You disbelieve in every God I do, except one
– Conclusion: God doesn’t exist
Religious people are stupid and evil, therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: Religious people are ignorant
– Premise: Religious people are fearful
– Premise: Religious people are servile
– Premise: Religious people are masochistic
– Conclusion: God doesn’t exist
Evolution explains how life progressed from single cell to today’s bio-diversity, therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: Modern theists like Turek believe in Paley’s argument, and argued it in this debate
– Premise: Paley’s argument was refuted by evolution
– Conclusion: God doesn’t exist
God wouldn’t have made the universe this way, therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: If God exists, then he would have made the universe my way
– Premise: The heat death of the universe wasn’t done my way
– Premise: The extinction of species wasn’t done my way
– Premise: The size of the universe wasn’t done my way
– Premise: The amount of open space wasn’t done my way
– Premise: The large number of stars wasn’t done my way
– Premise: The age of the universe wasn’t done my way
– Conclusion: God doesn’t exist
Religion makes people do things that I don’t like, therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: Some religions do suicide bombing
– Premise: Some religions do child abuse
– Premise: Some religions do genital mutilation
– Conclusion: God doesn’t exist
If you speak a sentence, I can repeat the same words as you said, therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: Anything that you say is good, I can say is good too
– Premise: Anything that you say is bad, I can say is bad too
– Conclusion: God doesn’t exist
Atheists are morally superior to religious people, therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: I act in a way that is consistent with my personal, arbitrary moral preferences
– Premise: You don’t act in a way that is consistent with my personal, arbitrary moral preferences
– Conclusion: God doesn’t exist
If I believe in God, I would have to submit to an authority
– Premise: If I believe in God, then I can’t do whatever I want
– Premise: But I want to do whatever I want
– Conclusion: God doesn’t exist
I don’t like certain Christian doctrines, therefore arguments for God from science fail and therefore God doesn’t exist
– Premise: I don’t like the atonement
– Premise: I don’t like the virgin birth
– Premise: I don’t like the incarnation
– Premise: I don’t like original sin
– Premise: I don’t like the resurrection
– Conclusion: Arguments that are built on recent discoveries from the progress of science like the big bang, fine-tuning, origin of life, etc. are incorrect, and therefore God doesn’t exist
Andwering Hitchens’ case
The form of all of these arguments is logically invalid. The conclusions do not follow from the premises using the laws of logic, such as modus ponens and modus tollens.
Hitchens cannot complain about morality because he has no foundation for objective moral facts. What he is really expressing is that he personally does not like such-and-such a state of affairs, based on his own arbitrary personal preferences, and the arbitrary social customs that evolved in the place and time that he finds himself in. On atheism, “morality” is just describing what people do – either individually or as groups living in different times and places. There is no objective right and wrong, and no objective way we ought to be. All statements are subjective. They describe what the speaker personally likes and dislikes. Just like taste in foods or taste in dress – which varies by individually, and is influenced by time and place ARBITRARILY.
Specific comments about each argument:
Argument 1 tries to disprove God by arguing from Hitchens’ personal preferences about specific Christian doctrines. Christian doctrines are irrelevant to a debate about generic theism. And there is no reason why God should be bound by the personal, subjective preferences of one man. In fact, the concept of God entails that his unchanging nature is the standard of good and evil. So, this argument doesn’t disprove God, it’s just a statement of personal, subjective preference.
Argument 2: Just because there are different truth claims made by different groups, doesn’t mean no one is correct. Mormons believe that matter existed eternally, and Jews believe it was created out of nothing. The big bang theory shows that the Mormons are wrong and the Jews are right.
Argument 3: First of all, the debate is a about a generic Creator and Designer, not any particular religious conception of God. So the argument is irrelevant. Moreover, Christians reject Zeus, for example, because Zeus is supposed to exist in time and space, and therefore could not be the cause of the beginning of time and space.
Argument 4: This is just the ad hominem fallacy. Hitchens is attacking the character of the theist, but that doesn’t show theism is false.
Argument 5: This argument can be granted for the sake of argument, even though it’s debatable. The point is that it is irrelevant, since it doesn’t refute any of Turek’s actual scientific arguments like the big bang, the fine-tuning of the physical constants, the origin of information in the simplest living cell.
Argument 6: Again, there is no reason to think that God should be bound by Hitchens’ personal opinion of how God should operate.
Argument 7: This is the ad hominem fallacy again. The good behavior of religious believers is not a premise in any of Turek’s FOUR arguments for theism. Therefore, Hitchens’ point is irrelevant to the debate.
Argument 8: The fact that the atheist can parrot moral claims is not the issue. Being able to speak English words is not what grounds objective, prescriptive morality. The issue is the ontology of moral rules, the requirement of free will in order to have moral responsibility and moral choices, ultimate significance of moral actions, and the rationality of self-sacrificial moral actions.
Argument 9: This is just the ad hominem fallacy again.
Argument 10: This is not argument so much as it reveals that the real reason Hitchens is an atheist is emotional. One might even say infantile.
Argument 11: Again, these specific Christian doctrines are irrelevant to a debate about generic theism. And Hitchen’s subjective, personal preferences about Christian doctrine certainly do not undermine the objective scientific support for the premises in Turek’s 3 scientific arguments.
So Frank Turek talked about facts in the external world, and Christopher Hitchens mistakenly thought that his opinions and preferences about what he would do if he were God were interesting to us. They might be interesting to his psychiatrist, but they are not interesting to us.
Fine-tuning of the strong nuclear force and the fine structure constant
Here is an article from The New Atlantis written by cosmologist Luke Barnes about one specific example of cosmic fine-tuning. (H/T Uncommon Descent via J. Warner Wallace tweet)
Excerpt:
Today, our deepest understanding of the laws of nature is summarized in a set of equations. Using these equations, we can make very precise calculations of the most elementary physical phenomena, calculations that are confirmed by experimental evidence. But to make these predictions, we have to plug in some numbers that cannot themselves be calculated but are derived from measurements of some of the most basic features of the physical universe. These numbers specify such crucial quantities as the masses of fundamental particles and the strengths of their mutual interactions. After extensive experiments under all manner of conditions, physicists have found that these numbers appear not to change in different times and places, so they are called the fundamental constants of nature.
These constants represent the edge of our knowledge. Richard Feynman called one of them — the fine-structure constant, which characterizes the amount of electromagnetic force between charged elementary particles like electrons — “one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man.”
[…]A universe that has just small tweaks in the fundamental constants might not have any of the chemical bonds that give us molecules, so say farewell to DNA, and also to rocks, water, and planets. Other tweaks could make the formation of stars or even atoms impossible. And with some values for the physical constants, the universe would have flickered out of existence in a fraction of a second. That the constants are all arranged in what is, mathematically speaking, the very improbable combination that makes our grand, complex, life-bearing universe possible is what physicists mean when they talk about the “fine-tuning” of the universe for life.
Atheists, both rank-and-file and expert, almost universally misunderstand the fine-tuning argument. They imagine that if the constants and quantities specified at the origin of the universe were different, then humans would just have green skin, or maybe forehead ridges, or pointy ears. Atheists tend to get their view of science from science fiction in novels or television or movies, and they base their worldview off of fantasies, since this is less thinking and feels better than letting the scientific evidence influence their worldview.
So what does the scientific evidence actually show?
Barnes explains:
The strong nuclear force, for example, is the glue that holds protons and neutrons together in the nuclei of atoms. If, in a hypothetical universe, it is too weak, then nuclei are not stable and the periodic table disappears again. If it is too strong, then the intense heat of the early universe could convert all hydrogen into helium — meaning that there could be no water, and that 99.97 percent of the 24 million carbon compounds we have discovered would be impossible, too. And, as the chart to the right shows, the forces, like the masses, must be in the right balance. If the electromagnetic force, which is responsible for the attraction and repulsion of charged particles, is too strong or too weak compared to the strong nuclear force, anything from stars to chemical compounds would be impossible.
Stars are particularly finicky when it comes to fundamental constants. If the masses of the fundamental particles are not extremely small, then stars burn out very quickly. Stars in our universe also have the remarkable ability to produce both carbon and oxygen, two of the most important elements to biology. But, a change of just a few percent in the up and down quarks’ masses, or in the forces that hold atoms together, is enough to upset this ability — stars would make either carbon or oxygen, but not both.
It’s very important that theists are well-equipped to explain how individual cases of fine-tuning work. We need to know what you lose if you alter these constants and quantities even slightly. You can read about some more examples in this previous post.
WINTERY KNIGHT 