Tag Archives: William Lane Craig

Polemics

Objective moral values and the Euthyphro dilemma

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Here’s a post on this objection to objective morality from Reformed Seth.

Excerpt:

What is another response from unbelievers? It’s called the Euthyphro Dilemma (named after a character in of Plato’s dialogues). The dilemma is: Is something good because God wills it? Or does God will something because it is good? This is a popular objection to the moral argument for God’s existence. If you say something is good because God wills it, then that good becomes arbitrary. God could have willed that cheating is good or that hatred is good, etc. That doesn’t work does it? If you say that God wills something because it is good, then that good becomes independent of God, which makes moral values and duties exist independently of God, which contradicts premise 1.

How does Craig answer the Euthyphro dilemma? He says that “we don’t need to refute either of the two horns of the dilemma because the dilemma is a false one: There’s a third alternative, namely, God wills something because He is good…I mean God’s own nature is the standard of goodness, and His commandments to us are expressions of His nature. In short, our moral duties are determined by the commands of a just and loving God.”

So according to Craig, moral values and duties don’t exist independently of God because God’s own character/nature defines what is good and those morals flow out of God’s nature. When the atheist asks, “If God were to command spouse abuse, would we be obligated to abuse our spouses?” he’s asking a question akin to “If there were married bachelors, who would the bachelor be married to?” There is no answer because the question is absurd.

Craig assures us that the Euthyphro dilemma presents us with a false choice, and we shouldn’t be tricked by it. “The morally good/bad is determined by God’s nature, and the morally right/wrong is determined by His will. God wills something because He is good, and something is right because God wills it.”

That response splits the horns of the dilemma.

Glenn Peoples has a paper and a podcast

I noticed that Glenn Peoples is good at responding to the Euthyphro dilemma. Glenn wrote an article (PDF here) that appeared in a Cambridge peer-reviewed journal. And he even did a podcast in case you don’t want to read stuffy articles.

Here’s the blurb about the paper:

Plato’s Euthyphro is widely thought to contain a knock down argument against theologically grounded ethics – widely thought, that is, outside of the field of philosophy of religion. The so-called Euthyphro dilemma is said to show that moral rightness cannot possibly consist in what God wills, but much of its success lies in the way the author was able to paint Euthyphro as the loser. Had Euthyphro been better informed and quicker on his feet, he would have won hands down – as he does in this revised version of the Euthyphro dialogue. A bit of philosophical fun – with a point. (Published inThink: Philosophy for Everyone 9:25 (2010).

Disclaimer: I believe in a soul, and Hell, and that the trinity is very important for being a Christian. Glenn thinks that humans don’t have non-material souls, that people who reject Christ are annihilated after death and are not punished eternally, and that belief in the Trinity is not required in order to be saved.

William Lane Craig debates are fun

If you want to see the Euthyphro dilemma debated in front of a university audience then you can listen to the Craig-Antony debate here. (MP3)

That debate is being turned into a book as well.

UPDATE: Seth linked to a William Lane Craig podcast on Euthyphro.

Commentary

William Lane Craig asks John Dominic Crossan: do you believe in God?

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The answer is NO, Crossan does not believe in God.

And here is the proof from William Lane Craig. (H/T Glenn Peoples)

This exchange with Crossan occurred in their debate entitled “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?”.

The MP3 file of that debate is here.

Now look over this post about theological liberals, from philosopher Glenn Peoples.

Excerpt:

Secondly there’s a palpable dishonesty at work here too. If you’re going to present ideas, it’s helpful to name them. But if you name them, you need to be conscious of the fact that some names are already taken, and already have meaning. Some of these names are covered by copyright (such as Coca Cola), so you wouldn’t be able to use those, but others aren’t. When you identify as a Christian theologian and say “I believe that God exists and that Jesus rose from the dead,” you’re using terminology and also theological phrases and concepts that have recognisable meaning. In a Christian context there’s an existing understanding of what those concepts are and what those terms mean. God is the being who created the Universe, and Jesus rose from the dead by coming back to life and exiting his tomb. That’s what Christians have always meant when they say those things. But how honest is it to say “I’m a Christian, God exists, and Jesus rose from the dead” when what you actually mean is “I have a healthy respect for the teachings of a man who was no saviour, I believe that there is such a thing as goodness, and Jesus’ teachings still have some relevance for today”? Surely the respectable thing to say is “Look, Christianity is false, there’s no God, but we can still gleam a thing or two from what Jesus said.”

And more:

I have no doubt that for people who – for whatever reason – have an emotional or wistful connection to chapels, ecclesiastical robes and moving liturgy but who cannot stomach the perceived balderdash about inconvenient things like God, liberal (or “progressive”) Christianity is perceived as more intellectually respectable and credible. But those on the outside are a little more discerning and quite frankly aren’t this easily duped. However wrong they might be, they are not uniformly stupid. The genuinely honest and self respecting thing would be to stop receiving the church salary or pension, stop using its land, buildings and resources, admit that you reject Christianity outright and be done with it. Do something a little less duplicitous with your life. Start your own religion if you must, but face the fact that a more respectable version of religion is not what you have created.

That’s an excellent assessment of theological liberalism.I would have liked it even more if Glenn had talked about Crossan’s other pre-supposition – of religious pluralism – which requires that nothing in Christianity be exclusive such that people in other religions would be mistaken in their view of God and face whatever consequences that entails.

By the way, if you like that kind of frankness, I really recommend getting hold of the Greer-Heard forums with John Dominic Crossan (2005), Bart Ehrman (2008) and Paul F. Knitter (2009) – three apostates who are strongly questioned by the other respondents to the debate. Especially by the philosophers, Paul Copan and Doug Geivett. That is one excellent thing about philosophers. While historians and theologians see to me to often what to cloud things over, philosophers (analytical philosophers anyway), seem to want to clear things up.

I do not yet have the 2010 MP3s yet, but will buy them this weekend. Greer-Heard does a great job on these MP3 recordings – $15 for an entire forum with respondents. You learn a ton, but it is definitely intermediate level material.

Disclaimer: I don’t agree with Glenn on some things – I believe in non-material souls and I believe in Hell, and he seems to be more for material body only and annihilationism. But he keeps writing these amazing posts, so I keep linking.

News

Video of the Geivett/Craig vs. Dawkins/Shermer debate from Mexico

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Here is the full debate in English if you missed it.

Doug Geivett wrote a blog post about the recent 3-on-3 debate in Mexico on “Does the universe have a purpose?”.

Usually, a debate question features one side taking the affirmative and the other side taking the negative. Here, the question for debate was “Does the universe have a purpose?”It was obvious from the correspondence I received from the debate organizers that I was to team with two individuals who agreed in taking the affirmative, and that the other three would take the negative—that is, they would deny that the universe has a purpose.

Speakers:

The three of us on the affirmative side—William Lane Craig, David Wolpe, and Doug Geivett—all believe that whether the universe has a purpose depends on whether or not God exists. So we could argue that the universe does have a purpose if God exists, even if time did not allow for detailed arguments that God in fact exists. It would be up to the others—Matt Ridley, Michael Shermer, and Richard Dawkins—to argue that the universe does not have a purpose. Presumably, they would have to include arguments that God does not exist, since that would be crucial to their claim that the universe does not have a purpose. Or, they might argue that even if God exists, the universe does not have a purpose.

Format:

Each of the six of us was allotted exactly six minutes for initial arguments. We were timed and stopped at six minutes. Strict enforcement of time limits is characteristic of debates, but not always understood by observers. I’ve noticed that some who’ve commented on the debate at various blogs have remarked that the moderator should not have interrupted debaters when they were about to make an important point. (The debate was part of a larger conference program.)

And here is a quote to make you click through and read all of Doug’s post:

Richard Dawkins is hero to many atheists today. So his participation and relation to the other two atheists deserves special notice. You’ll find that Dawkins made numerous assertions and almost no arguments. If you disagree, you should be able to reconstruct his arguments by identifying individual premises and specific conclusions. So far, those who have praised Dawkins’s performance in the debate, all of whom have been atheists themselves, have not attempted this reconstruction. I urge them to try. I will gladly address carefully reconstructed arguments in the comments section of this post. Dawkins called religious belief “pathetic” and accused Bill Craig of making an emotional argument. As I stated in my brief closing statement, it was Dawkins, more than anyone else, who made an “emotional argument.” First, he gave no arguments against the existence of God. Second, he offered no rebuttals of the arguments we presented, and third, he dismissed religious belief as pathetic without argument. If I’m wrong about any of this, I would be happy to see evidence of my error and respond to whatever arguments he did present.

I actually am not really paying much attention to this debate since I watched a little and it looked like a music video with a crazy moderator. The speakers made opening speeches of ONLY SIX MINUTES! I can’t watch a debate with speeches that short. You can’t say anything good in six minutes! But I have to post the video in case you guys are interested in it. I think what is worth your time is Doug Geivett’s summary of the debate. Doug is one of my three favorite philosophers, the others being Paul Copan and William Lane Craig.