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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.

Polemics

Is the definition of atheism “a lack of belief in God”?

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First, let’s see check with the Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.

Stanford University is one of the top 5 universities in the United States, so that’s a solid definition. To be an atheist is to be a person who makes the claim that, as a matter of FACT, there is no intelligent agent who created the universe. Atheists think that there is no God, and theists think that there is a God. Both claims are objective claims about the way the world is out there, and so both sides must furnish forth arguments and evidence as to how they are able to know what they are each claiming.

Philosopher William Lane Craig has some thoughts on atheism, atheists and lacking belief in God in this reply to a questioner.

Question:

In my discussions with atheists, they  are using the term that they “lack belief in God”. They claim that this is different from not believing in God or from saying that God does not exist. I’m not sure how to respond to this. It seems to me that its a silly word-play and is logically the same as saying that you do not believe in God.
What would be a good response to this?
Thank you for your time,

Steven

And here is Dr. Craig’s full response:

Your atheist friends are right that there is an important logical difference between believing that there is no God and not believing that there is a God.  Compare my saying, “I believe that there is no gold on Mars” with my saying “I do not believe that there is gold on Mars.”   If I have no opinion on the matter, then I do not believe that there is gold on Mars, and I do not believe that there is no gold on Mars.  There’s a difference between saying, “I do not believe (p)” and “I believe (not-p).”   Logically where you place the negation makes a world of difference.

But where your atheist friends err is in claiming that atheism involves only not believing that there is a God rather than believing that there is no God.

There’s a history behind this.  Certain atheists in the mid-twentieth century were promoting the so-called “presumption of atheism.” At face value, this would appear to be the claim that in the absence of evidence for the existence of God, we should presume that God does not exist.  Atheism is a sort of default position, and the theist bears a special burden of proof with regard to his belief that God exists.

So understood, such an alleged presumption is clearly mistaken.  For the assertion that “There is no God” is just as much a claim to knowledge as is the assertion that “There is a God.”  Therefore, the former assertion requires justification just as the latter does.  It is the agnostic who makes no knowledge claim at all with respect to God’s existence.  He confesses that he doesn’t know whether there is a God or whether there is no God.

But when you look more closely at how protagonists of the presumption of atheism used the term “atheist,” you discover that they were defining the word in a non-standard way, synonymous with “non-theist.”  So understood the term would encompass agnostics and traditional atheists, along with those who think the question meaningless (verificationists).  As Antony Flew confesses,

the word ‘atheist’ has in the present context to be construed in an unusual way.  Nowadays it is normally taken to mean someone who explicitly denies the existence . . . of God . . . But here it has to be understood not positively but negatively, with the originally Greek prefix ‘a-’ being read in this same way in ‘atheist’ as it customarily is in . . . words as ‘amoral’ . . . . In this interpretation an atheist becomes not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God, but someone who is simply not a theist. (A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, ed. Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaferro [Oxford:  Blackwell, 1997], s.v. “The Presumption of Atheism,” by Antony Flew)

Such a re-definition of the word “atheist” trivializes the claim of the presumption of atheism, for on this definition, atheism ceases to be a view.  It is merely a psychological state which is shared by people who hold various views or no view at all.  On this re-definition, even babies, who hold no opinion at all on the matter, count as atheists!  In fact, our cat Muff counts as an atheist on this definition, since she has (to my knowledge) no belief in God.

One would still require justification in order to know either that God exists or that He does not exist, which is the question we’re really interested in.

So why, you might wonder, would atheists be anxious to so trivialize their position?  Here I agree with you that a deceptive game is being played by many atheists.  If atheism is taken to be a view, namely the view that there is no God, then atheists must shoulder their share of the burden of proof to support this view.  But many atheists admit freely that they cannot sustain such a burden of proof.  So they try to shirk their epistemic responsibility by re-defining atheism so that it is no longer a view but just a psychological condition which as such makes no assertions.  They are really closet agnostics who want to claim the mantle of atheism without shouldering its responsibilities.

This is disingenuous and still leaves us asking, “So is there a God or not?”

So there you have it. We are interested in what both sides know and what reasons and evidence they have to justify their claim to know. We are interested in talking to people who make claims about objective reality, not about themselves, and who then go on to give reasons and evidence to support their claims about objective reality. There are atheists out there that do make an objective claim that God does not exist, and then support that claim with arguments and evidence. Those are good atheists, and we should engage in rational conversations with them. But clearly there are some atheists who are not like that. How should we deal with these “subjective atheists”?

Dealing with subjective atheists

How should theists respond to people who just want to talk about their psychological state? Well, my advice is to avoid them. They are approaching religion irrationally and non-cognitively – like the person who enters a physics class and says “I lack a belief in the gravitational force!”.  When you engage in serious discussions with people about God’s existence, you only care about what people know and what they can show to be true. We don’t care about a person’s psychology.

News

What can we learn about communist leaders from the record of history?

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Now that we have atheistic communists in the majority of the House, Senate and White House, it might be a good idea to take a look at what atheistic communist leaders have done in history. First, let’s see how the atheistic worldview of communist leaders affected religious people.

Here is what Josef Stalin did during his rule of Russia in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Library of Congress offers this in their “Soviet Archives exhibit”:

The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed.

The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited. By 1939 only about 500 of over 50,000 churches remained open.

What’s the attitude of Democrat candidates to Bible-believing Christians? My read is that they think that Christian values need to be suppressed by the government lest they offend Democrat voters, who seem to be very easily offended these days. You can already see their animus towards Christians in their Equality Act, which eradicates conscience rights in order to protect (some) LGBT people from feeling offended.

The Ukraine Famine

Take a look at this UK Daily Mail article about Josef Stalin.

Excerpt:

Now, 75 years after one of the great forgotten crimes of modern times, Stalin’s man-made famine of 1932/3, the former Soviet republic of Ukraine is asking the world to classify it as a genocide.

The Ukrainians call it the Holodomor – the Hunger.

Millions starved as Soviet troops and secret policemen raided their villages, stole the harvest and all the food in villagers’ homes.

They dropped dead in the streets, lay dying and rotting in their houses, and some women became so desperate for food that they ate their own children.

If they managed to fend off starvation, they were deported and shot in their hundreds of thousands.

So terrible was the famine that Igor Yukhnovsky, director of the Institute of National Memory, the Ukrainian institution researching the Holodomor, believes as many as nine million may have died.

[…]Between four and five million died in Ukraine, a million died in Kazakhstan and another million in the north Caucasus and the Volga.

By 1933, 5.7 million households – somewhere between ten million and 15 million people – had vanished. They had been deported, shot or died of starvation.

The Holodomor is just one of the atrocities committed by Soviet Union communists. You may also have heard that they operated a system of labor camps for dissidents that killed millions more. The total number of people killed by Stalin is estimated at 20 to 40 million.

Stalin actually wasn’t very good at mass murder compared to another communist, Mao Zedong.

Can you name the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century? No, it wasn’t Hitler or Stalin. It was Mao Zedong.

According to the authoritative “Black Book of Communism,” an estimated 65 million Chinese died as a result of Mao’s repeated, merciless attempts to create a new “socialist” China. Anyone who got in his way was done away with — by execution, imprisonment or forced famine.

For Mao, the No. 1 enemy was the intellectual. The so-called Great Helmsman reveled in his blood-letting, boasting, “What’s so unusual about Emperor Shih Huang of the China Dynasty? He had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars.” Mao was referring to a major “accomplishment” of the Great Cultural Revolution, which from 1966-1976 transformed China into a great House of Fear.

The most inhumane example of Mao’s contempt for human life came when he ordered the collectivization of China’s agriculture under the ironic slogan, the “Great Leap Forward.” A deadly combination of lies about grain production, disastrous farming methods (profitable tea plantations, for example, were turned into rice fields), and misdistribution of food produced the worse famine in human history.

Deaths from hunger reached more than 50 percent in some Chinese villages. The total number of dead from 1959 to 1961 was between 30 million and 40 million — the population of California.

[…]Mao kept expanding the laogai, a system of 1,000 forced labor camps throughout China. Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in labor camps, has estimated that from the 1950s through the 1980s, 50 million Chinese passed through the Chinese version of the Soviet gulag. Twenty million died as a result of the primitive living conditions and 14-hour work days.

Whenever I bring up the historical record of communism to Democrats, they always tell me that their leaders have good intentions. But the communist leaders of the past aren’t any different from the communist leaders of today. Communist leaders all start out with noble ambitions of wanting to help the poor. The problem is that they don’t know anything about economics, so whatever they try doesn’t work. Communist policies like nationalizing private industries, printing money, purging wealthy people, imposing tariffs, and imposing price controls cause enormous poverty. And then they need someone to blame for their failure to produce the results they promise.

If we were serious about helping the poor, then we would elect leaders who had experience lifting the poor out of poverty. A business leader or a governor of a state. It’s not a popularity contest. We need to choose someone who has already had success at helping the poor. And the best way to help the poor is by helping them to find work so they can earn their own success and chart their own course. After all it’s not words that affect our lives. Or the feelings we have about words we like. What affects our lives is policies that produce results. Intentions and rhetoric don’t matter, ultimately.