Tag Archives: Philosophy of Religion

Commentary

Can people be good if God doesn’t exist?

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First, a post by Luke Nix defining the term objective morality.

Excerpt:

Let us examine a more recent debate: William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris. One of the words that was not clearly defined and accepted by both participants was “objective”. Sam Harris clarified that he was only arguing for a “universal” morality (one that only exists as long as conscious minds exist- he’s referring to humans), while Craig was arguing for morality that exists regardless of whether or not conscious minds exist- he’s also referring to humans. The fact that they were each using different definitions of “objective” caused much confusion for those who did not pick up on the distinction or its significance for the debate (even though Craig pointed out both in his first rebuttal).

Objective morality is binding on us whether we like it or not. An objective moral standard lays out what is right or wrong for us independently of how we feel about that standard. What could ground such a moral standard?

From the Apologetics Guy blog, a simple post explaining the main issue in the debate over morality.

Excerpt:

“Can’t people be good without God?” I mean, couldn’t an atheist do some really good things without God? I guess if we mean “doing the right thing while not believing in God,” then sure. An atheist could do the right thing. For example, they could honestly report their income to the government, be faithful their spouse and so forth. And why not? But maybe the better question is, “Why?” Why even care about being moral?

Think about it like this: If God’s not real, there’s no moral law giver and no such things as objective moral commands. If that’s true, then why not say, “I’ll do the right thing when it makes me feel good or gives me an advantage, and I’ll do the wrong thing when it makes me feel good or gives me an advantage.” Or why not say, “I hereby declare from this day forward that it’s always right to steal.”

If there’s no God and no objective moral standard, there’s no moral difference between abusing someone or taking care of them. Basically, good and evil are reduced to preference. All you could say is, “I don’t like terrorism,” or “I’m not into slavery.” “Human trafficking isn’t my thing.”  But who can really live like this?

If there is no designer of the universe, then there is no design for the universe. If there is no design for the universe, then there is no way that anything ought to be. If there is no way anything ought to be, then there is no way humans ought to be. Any statement about what we “ought” to do in an accidental universe is just someone opinion – you can accept it if you like it, but it’s not real.

Here’s another post by Micah from the Student Apologetics Alliance about the most common objective to the moral argument from objective morality to a moral lawgiver.

Excerpt:

First and foremost though, I want to start off with some background information…namely the Euthyphro Dilemma. This famous dilemma is named after Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro. The dilemma here is thus, “Is something good because God commands it? Or, does God command it because that thing is good?” Either way, one runs into problems. If something is good because God commands it, then God could command anything–like rape or murder–and that would be good, and Christians certainly don’t want to advocate that. On the other hand, does God command something because it’s good? If so, then aren’t we appealing to an independent standard of goodness? Is it that God is looking at some moral standard and says, “Oh, I see, that’s a good thing. I’ll command people to do this then…”? We would then have something that sets itself above God, and in fact, this standard would seem to exist even in God’s absence.

Now, the response I and a lot of other Christian thinkers have offer is that there is a third option: namely that something is good because God is good. God is the standard for morality to which all others measure up to. God being good and being moral is essential to His nature. What this implies is that God’s commands are not arbitrary at all, but rather expressions of His nature. What this also implies is that God does not obey moral laws, but rather He is goodness itself. God being good is as natural and essential as humanness is natural to Plato. What this also implies is that without God, we would not have objective moral values and duties incumbent upon us as humans. Sure, we could subjectively make up our own rules, but they wouldn’t be objective or binding. We would not be able to truthfully say, in the absence of God, that rape is objectively wrong regardless if some believe it’s right.

What I’m NOT saying here is that a person needs to believe in God in order for him or her to recognize moral values and vices. One does not need to believe in God in order to know that rape is wrong, but that’s not the argument here. The argument being offered is that without God Himself, objective morality would not exist–morality would not be grounded. The difference lies between two domains: epistemology (how we come to know things; we can come to know certain moral truths without reference to God) and ontology (the nature of being and existing; that such moral truths would need to be grounded in God’s nature in order for them to be binding on everyone).

It’s very important that we all understand what the moral argument is about. It’s about the means of existing of moral value and moral duties. Are they real? Do they really exist somewhere? Or are they just our personal preferences – like clothing fashions and culinary conventions?

Events

Preview of the William Lane Craig vs Lawrence Krauss debate

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UPDATE: I have now posted a preview of the William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris debate!

UPDATE: The video and audio from the Krauss-Craig debate are linked in this post.

I’ve put together some relevant resources to prepare you for tonight’s BIG debate (and to get tweeted by Brian Auten of Apologetics 315, I hope!)

The Big Bang and the Fine-Tuning

First, since Lawrence Krauss is a physicist, I expect that there will be some disagreement about the the kalam cosmological argument and the cosmic fine-tuning argument. To prepare yourself for the cosmological argument, you should print out this peer-reviewed article written by Craig. To prepare yourself for the fine-tuning argument, you should read this paper by Robin Collins.

And then you can watch this 10-part lecture delivered by William Lane Craig at the University of Colorado, Boulder. It is entitled “Beyond the Big Bang”.

Beyond the Big Bang

Here’s part 1:

The full playlist is here.

If you watch the full lecture, you’ll notice that Craig takes a question from famous atheist Victor Stenger. Stenger is a physicist whom Craig had debated before the lecture on the existence of God at the University of Hawaii. You can watch their entire debate on Youtube, and I’ve linked it below.

William Lane Craig vs. Victor Stenger

Here’s part 1:

The full playlist is here.

Keep in mind that Craig recently debated arch-naturalist Francisco Ayala (link goes to Youtube playlist), so he will be fully prepared to debate philosophy of science, should that come up. I don’t recommend watching the entire debate, because Ayala is difficult to understand.

The moral argument

The owner of the Persistent Questions Exchange blog informed me that Krauss has actually spoken out on morality and science in the past, so we may see some sparks flying on the moral argument. It may therefore be worthwhile for you to review Craig’s recent comments on Sam Harris’ theory on scientific foundations for morality. I think that Krauss may say something similar. (Also note that Harris will be debating Craig on April 7, 2011 at the University of Notre Dame).

You should either read Craig’s paper on the moral argument OR watch a lecture he recently delivered at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Here’s part 1:

The full playlist is here.

If you want to see the moral argument played out in a couple of debates, you could watch the William Lane Craig vs. Paul Kurtz debate on Youtube. Yes, that’s the same Paul Kurtz who wrote the “Humanist Manifesto”. Or you could watch the more recent William Lane Craig vs. Louise Anthony debate on Youtube, if you’ve already seen the Kurtz debate.

So, I think that’s where the clash is going to be tonight – on those three arguments.

Extra credit

Brian Auten maintains the William Lane Craig Audio Debate Feed here, in case you get through all of these and would like to see how well Bill Craig performs against other famous challengers, like Marcus Borg, Lewis Wolpert, Arif Ahmed, Bart Ehman, John Shelby Spong, Gerd Ludemann, John Dominic Crossan, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, etc.

Polemics

Why does God allow people to experience evil and suffering?

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I just wanted to draw your attention to this 4 page essay by Joe Manzari, which is the best darn summary of the state of the art on the problems of evil and suffering I have seen. The problem of evil is an objection to the existence of God based on the presence of evil or suffering in the world. The arguments basically infer that if God is all-good and all-powerful, then there should not be any evil or suffering.

There are two kinds of problem of evil.

The Logical/Deductive Problem of Evil:

The first kind is called “the deductive problem of evil” or “the logical problem of evil”. An exampel of evil would be Saddam Hussein murdering some journalist who told the truth about him. This version of the problem of evil tries to introduce a logical contradiction between the attributes of God and the presence of evil, like this:

(1) God exists.
(2) God is omnipotent.
(3) God is omniscient.
(4) God is omni-benevolent.
(5) Evil exists.
(6) A good being always eliminates evil as far as it can.
(7) There are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do.

In order to avoid a contradiction, we need to explain how there could still be evil, since the conclusion of this argument is that there should not be any evil!So how are we going to get out of this mess? The solution is to attack premises 6 and 7.

Premise 6 is false because in order to eliminate human evil, you would have to eliminate free will. But eliminating free will is worse than allowing it, because good things like love are impossible without free will.

It is in response to this proposition that the Free Will Theodicy of G. W. Leibniz applies. God, valuing man’s freedom, decided to provide him with a will that was free to choose good over evil, rather than constraining his will, allowing him to choose only good.

Premise 7 is false because there are limits on what an omnipotent being can do. God cannot perform contradictory things, because contradictory things are impossible. God cannot make a married bachelor. Similarly, God cannot force free creatures to do his will.

In the same manner that God cannot create a square circle, he cannot make someone freely choose to do something. Thus, if God grants people genuine freedom, then it is impossible for him to determine what they will do. All that God can do is create the circumstances in which a person can make free choices and then stand back and let them make the choices.

One last point. In order to solve the problem of natural evil for this argument, you can point out that free will requires predictable and regular natural laws in order to make free will meaningful. Natural laws mean that individuals can predict what will happen when they act, allowing for moral responsibility. More on that next time.

Inductive/Probabilistic Problem of Evil

There is a second version of the problem of evil, though, which is more dangerous than the first. This is the one you see being argued in debates, whereas the first version is not used because it has been defused as seen above. Here is the second one:

(1) If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist.
(2) Gratuitous evil exists.
(3) Therefore, God does not exist.

This argument tries to argue that while God may have some reason for allowing free will, there are other evils in the world that are not the result of human action that God has no reason for permitting. Theists usually like to argue that God has morally-sufficient reasons for allowing some evil in the world, in order to for the character of humans through suffering and endurance. But what about gratuitous evil, which doesn’t have any point?

Consider the case of a fawn running in the forest, who falls and breaks his leg. Ouch! Then a forest fire starts and the poor fawn suffocates to death in the smoke. Why would God allow this poor small animal suffer like that? And notice that there is no morally sufficient reason for allowing it, because no human knows about this and so no human’s character or relationship with God is impacted by it.

The solution to this problem is to deny premise 2. (You can also deny 1 if you want). The problem with premise 2 is that the atheist is claiming to know that some instance of evil really is gratuitous. But since they are making the claim to know, they have to be able to show that God’s permission of that evil achieves nothing. But how do they know 2 is true?

The problem with 2 is that the atheist is not in a position to know that the permission of some evil X really doesn’t achieve anything. This is because the atheist cannot look forward into the future, or see into other places, in order to know for certain that there is no morally sufficient reason for allowing God’s allowing evil X to occur. But since the atheist argues based on premise 2, he must be able to show that is more probable than not.

Manzari’s article also argues why apparently gratuitous evil is less problematic for Christians in particular, because of certain Christian doctrines. He lists four doctrines that make the apparently gratuitous evil we observer more compatible with an all-good, all-powerful God.

  1. The chief purpose of life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God.
    Some of the things that we experience may wreck our feelings of contentment, but we need to remember that God may be permitting those troubles in order to remind us not to get too comfortable with life on earth, and to think ahead to the after-life. And remember, even Jesus learned endurance through suffering. His suffering was not pointless and neither is ours.
  2. Mankind is in a state of rebellion against God and God’s purposes.
    Given that we humans seem to be on a dead run away from God, trying to keep our autonomy by knowing as little about him as possible. We should not be surprised that people would also reject his moral demands on them, which results in some of the evil we see.
  3. God’s purpose is not restricted to this life but spills over beyond the grave into eternity.
    Sometimes it seems as if our sufferings really are catastrophic, but when you realize that you are offered eternal life without any suffering after you die, the sufferings of this life are a lot less upsetting than they would be if this life was all we had.
  4. The knowledge of God is an incommensurable good.
    This one is the biggest for me. Knowing God and knowing his actual character by studying the historical Jesus is a wonderful counterbalance for all the problems and sufferings of this life. A little bit of historical study reveals that Jesus was not spared the worst kind of suffering in his life, making it is a lot easier for us to bear with whatever God allows us to face.

In section 3, Manzari shows how you can also argue against this version of the problem by supplying evidence for God, such as from the big bang, the fine-tuning, the origin of life, the origin of free will, the origin of the first living organism, the origin of the mind, the sudden emergence of phyla in the fossil record, molecular machines, irreducible complexity, the resurrection miracle, and the objective morality argument.

The argument goes like this:

(1) If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist.
(2) God exists.
(3) Therefore, gratuitous evil does not exist.

Just support 2 with some evidence, and you win, especially when they can’t support their claim to know that gratuitous evil exists.

The Argument for God from Evil

In the paper, Manzari actually makes an argument for God from evil. That’s right. Far from disproving God, the presence of evil (a departure from the way things out to be), actually affirms God’s existence. How?

(1) If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.
(2) Evil exists.
(3) Therefore, objective moral values do exist.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

That’s right. If evil exists in any sense such that it is not a personal or cultural preference, then objective morality exists. If objective morality exists, then there is an objective moral lawgiver. Game over. If the atheist backtracks and says that the existence of evil is just his opinion or his cultural preference, then this standard does not apply to God, and you win again. Game over again. More on this argument for God’s existence from evil here.

So, although the problems of evil look pretty tough, they are actually easy. The toughest part of evil and suffering is the emotional problem. I could tell you stories about what I’ve been through… but then, that’s why the arguments matter. You can hold your position under tremendous fire when you have the arguments and evidence to ground you.

For more on the problem of evil, listen to this lecture by Douglas Geivett, professor of philosophy at Biola University. Then you must listen to this debate here between William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. Another debate transcript is here, with William Lane Craig and Kai Nielsen. Here’s a book debate between William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, published by Oxford University Press, 2004.