William Lane Craig vs Walter Sinnott-Armstrong: evil, suffering and God’s existence

This is one the top 4 best debates that William Lane Craig has done in my opinion. (The other two are Craig-Millican debate and the first and second Craig-Dacey debates) This one doesn’t seem to get a lot of play on the Internet: there’s no video, transcript or anything. But it is a great debate, and on a problem we are all concerned about: the problem of evil and suffering. One other thing – Sinnott-Armstrong is also a very courteous, respectful and intelligent scholar and he is very good at defending his side. This is a very cordial and engaging debate, and because it was held in front of a church audience, it was targeted to laymen and not academics.

The MP3 file is here.

There is also a book based on this debate, published by Oxford University Press. I was actually able to find a PDF of it online. I should also remind people that you can get the wonderful Craig-Hitchens debate DVD from Amazon.com if you are looking for a debate to watch, or show in your church.

The debaters:

• William Lane Craig
• Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

The format:

• WSA: 15 minutes
• WLC: 15 minutes
• Debaters discussion: 6 minutes
• Moderated discussion: 10 minutes
• Audience Q&A: 18 minutes
• WSA: 5 minutes
• WLC: 5 minutes

SUMMARY:

WSA opening speech:

Evil is incompatible with the concept of God (three features all-powerful, all-god, all-knowing)

God’s additional attributes: eternal, effective and personal (a person)

He will be debating against the Christian God in this debate, specifically

Contention: no being has all of the three features of the concept of God

His argument: is not a deductive argument, but an inductive/probabilistic argument

Examples of pointless, unjustified suffering: a sick child who dies, earthquakes, famines

The inductive argument from evil:

1.  If there were an all-powerful and all-good God, then there would not be any evil in the world unless that evil is logically necessary for some adequately compensating good.
2.  There is evil in the world.
3.  Some of that evil is not logically necessary for some adequately compensating good.
4. Therefore, there can’t be a God who is all-powerful and all-good.

Defining terms:

• Evil: anything that all rational people avoid for themselves, unless they have some adequate reason to want that evil for themselves (e.g. – pain, disability, death)
• Adequate reason: some evils do have an adequate reason, like going to the dentist – you avoid a worse evil by having a filling

God could prevent tooth decay with no pain

God can even change the laws of physics in order to make people not suffer

Responses by Christians:

• Evil as a punishment for sin: but evil is not distributed in accordance with sin, like babies
• Children who suffer will go straight to Heaven: but it would be better to go to Heaven and not suffer
• Free will: this response doesn’t account for natural evil, like disease, earthquakes, lightning
• Character formation theodicy: there are other ways for God to form character, by showing movies
• Character formation theodicy: it’s not fair to let X suffer so that Y will know God
• God allows evil to turn people towards him: God would be an egomaniac to do that
• We are not in a position to know that any particular evil is pointless: if we don’t see a reason then there is no reason
• Inductive evil is minor compared to the evidences for God: arguments for a Creator do not prove that God is good

WLC opening speech:

Summarizing Walter’s argument

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

Gratuitous evil means evil that God has no morally sufficient reason to permit. WSA doesn’t think that all evil is incompatible with God’s existence, just gratuitous evil.

Everyone admits that there are instances of evil and suffering such that we cannot see the morally sufficient reason why God would allow it to occur.

The claim of the atheist is that if they cannot see that there is a moral justification for allowing some instance evil, then there is no moral justification for that instance of evil.

Here are three reasons why we should not expect to know the morally sufficient reasons why God permits apparently pointless evil.

1. the ripple effect: the morally sufficient reason for allowing some instance of evil may only be seen in another place or another time
2. Three Christian doctrines undermine the claim that specific evils really are gratuitous
3. Walter’s own premise 1 allows us to argue for God’s existence, which means that evil is not gratuitous

Christian doctrines from 2.:

• The purpose of life is not happiness, and it is not God’s job to make us happy – we are here to know God. Many evils are gratuitous if we are concerned about being happy, but they are not gratuitous for producing the knowledge of God. What WSA has to show is that God could reduce the amount of suffering in the world while still retaining the same amount of knowledge of God’s existence and character.
• Man is in rebellion, and many of the evils we see are caused by humans misusing their free will to harm others and cause suffering
• For those who accept Christ, suffering is redeemed by eternal life with God, which is a benefit that far outweighs any sufferings and evils we experience in our earthly lives

Arguing for God in 3.

• If God exists, gratuitous does not exist.
• God exists
• Therefore, gratuitous does not exist.

Four reasons to think that God exists:

• the kalam cosmological argument
• the fine-tuning argument
• the moral argument
• the argument from evil

Filed under: Podcasts, Apologetics, Christian Apologetics, Debate, Evil, Free Will, Heaven, Hell, Natural Evil, Pain, Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Suffering, Theodicy, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, William Lane Craig

William Lane Craig debates Austin Dacey: Does God Exist?

Here is the video and summary of a debate between Christian theist William Lane Craig and Austin Dacey at Purdue University in 2004 about the existence of God.

The debaters:

• William Lane Craig
• Austin Dacey

The video: (2 hours)

The video shows the speakers and powerpoint slides of their arguments. Austin Dacey is one of the top atheist debaters, and I would put him second to Peter Millican alone, with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong in third place. This is the debate to show people who are new to apologetics. The debate with Peter Millican is better for advanced students, and that’s no surprise since he teaches at Oxford University and is familiar with all of Dr. Craig’s work. The Craig-Dacey debate is the one that I give to my co-workers.

By the way, you can get the DVDs and CDs for the first Craig-Dacey debate and the second Craig-Dacey debate and the second Craig-Sinnott-Armstrong debate. The Peter Millican debate is not available on DVD, but the link above (Peter Millican) has the video and my summary.

Dr. Dacey’s 5 arguments below are all good arguments that you find in the academic literature. He is also an effective and engaging speaker, This is a great debate to watch!

SUMMARY of the opening speeches:

Dr. Craig’s opening statement:

Dr. Craig will present six reasons why God exists:

1. (Contingency argument) God is the best explanation of why something exists rather than nothing
2. (Cosmological argument)  God’s existence is implied by the origin of the universe
3. (Fine-tuning argument) The fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life points to a designer of the cosmos
4. (Moral argument) God is the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values and objective moral duties
5. (Miracles argument) The historical facts surrounding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
6. (Religious experience) God’s existence is directly knowable even apart from arguments

Dr. Dacey’s opening argument:

There are two ways to disprove God’s existence, by showing that the concept of God is self-contradictory, or by showing that certain facts about ourselves and the world are incompatible with what we would expect to be true if God did exist. Dr. Dacey will focus on the second kind of argument.

1. The hiddenness of God
2. The success of science in explaining nature without needing a supernatural agency
3. The dependence of mind on physical processes in the brain
4. Naturalistic evolution
5. The existence of gratuitous / pointless evil and suffering

One final point:

One thing that I have to point out is that Dr. Dacey quotes Brian Greene during the debate to counter Dr. Craig’s cosmological argument. Dr. Craig could not respond because he can’t see the context of the quote. However, Dr. Craig had a rematch with Dr. Dacey where was able to read the context of the quote and defuse Dr. Dacey’s objection. This is what he wrote in his August 2005 newsletter after the re-match:

The following week, I was off an another three-day trip, this time to California State University at Fresno. As part of a week of campus outreach the Veritas Forum scheduled a debate on the existence of God between me and Austin Dacey, whom I had debated last spring at Purdue University. In preparation for the rematch I adopted two strategies: (1) Since Dacey had come to the Purdue debate with prepared speeches, I decided to throw him for a loop by offering a different set of arguments for God, so that his canned objections wouldn’t apply. I chose to focus on the cosmological argument, giving four separate arguments for the beginning of the universe, and on the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. (2) I reviewed our previous debate carefully, preparing critiques of his five atheistic arguments. In the process I found that he had seriously misunderstood or misrepresented a statement by a scientist on the Big Bang; so I brought along the book itself in case Dacey quoted this source again. I figured he might change his arguments just as I was doing; but I wanted to be ready in case he used his old arguments again.

[...]The auditorium was packed that night for the debate, and I later learned that there were overflow rooms, too. To my surprise Dr. Dacey gave the very same case he had presented at Purdue; so he really got clobbered on those arguments. Because he wasn’t prepared for my new arguments, he didn’t even respond to two of my arguments for the beginning of the universe, though he did a credible job responding to the others. I was pleased when he attacked the Big Bang by quoting the same scientist as before, because I then held up the book, specified the page number, and proceeded to quote the context to show what the scientist really meant.

If you want to hear Dr. Craig correct Dr. Dacey on the misquote during their second debate, you can click here for the audio.

Filed under: Videos, Agnosticism, Apologetics, Argument, Atheism, Austin Dacey, Brain, Christian Apologetics, Debate, Evidence, Evil, Evolution, Free Will, Heaven, Hell, Hiddenness, Mind, Natural Evil, Naturalism, Pain, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science, Problem of Evil, Progress of Science, Proof, Science, Suffering, Theism, Theodicy, William Lane Craig

William Lane Craig vs Walter Sinnott-Armstrong: evil, suffering and God’s existence

This is one the top 4 best debates that William Lane Craig has done in my opinion. (The other two are Craig-Millican debate and the first and second Craig-Dacey debates) This one doesn’t seem to get a lot of play on the Internet: there’s no video, transcript or anything. But it is a great debate, and on a problem we are all concerned about: the problem of evil and suffering. One other thing – Sinnott-Armstrong is also a very courteous, respectful and intelligent scholar and he is very good at defending his side. This is a very cordial and engaging debate, and because it was held in front of a church audience, it was targeted to laymen and not academics.

The MP3 file is here.

There is also a book based on this debate, published by Oxford University Press. I was actually able to find a PDF of it online. I should also remind people that you can get the wonderful Craig-Hitchens debate DVD from Amazon.com if you are looking for a debate to watch, or show in your church.

The debaters:

• William Lane Craig
• Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

The format:

• WSA: 15 minutes
• WLC: 15 minutes
• Debaters discussion: 6 minutes
• Moderated discussion: 10 minutes
• Audience Q&A: 18 minutes
• WSA: 5 minutes
• WLC: 5 minutes

SUMMARY:

WSA opening speech:

Evil is incompatible with the concept of God (three features all-powerful, all-god, all-knowing)

God’s additional attributes: eternal, effective and personal (a person)

He will be debating against the Christian God in this debate, specifically

Contention: no being has all of the three features of the concept of God

His argument: is not a deductive argument, but an inductive/probabilistic argument

Examples of pointless, unjustified suffering: a sick child who dies, earthquakes, famines

The inductive argument from evil:

1.  If there were an all-powerful and all-good God, then there would not be any evil in the world unless that evil is logically necessary for some adequately compensating good.
2.  There is evil in the world.
3.  Some of that evil is not logically necessary for some adequately compensating good.
4. Therefore, there can’t be a God who is all-powerful and all-good.

Defining terms:

• Evil: anything that all rational people avoid for themselves, unless they have some adequate reason to want that evil for themselves (e.g. – pain, disability, death)
• Adequate reason: some evils do have an adequate reason, like going to the dentist – you avoid a worse evil by having a filling

God could prevent tooth decay with no pain

God can even change the laws of physics in order to make people not suffer

Responses by Christians:

• Evil as a punishment for sin: but evil is not distributed in accordance with sin, like babies
• Children who suffer will go straight to Heaven: but it would be better to go to Heaven and not suffer
• Free will: this response doesn’t account for natural evil, like disease, earthquakes, lightning
• Character formation theodicy: there are other ways for God to form character, by showing movies
• Character formation theodicy: it’s not fair to let X suffer so that Y will know God
• God allows evil to turn people towards him: God would be an egomaniac to do that
• We are not in a position to know that any particular evil is pointless: if we don’t see a reason then there is no reason
• Inductive evil is minor compared to the evidences for God: arguments for a Creator do not prove that God is good

WLC opening speech:

Summarizing Walter’s argument

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

Gratuitous evil means evil that God has no morally sufficient reason to permit. WSA doesn’t think that all evil is incompatible with God’s existence, just gratuitous evil.

Everyone admits that there are instances of evil and suffering such that we cannot see the morally sufficient reason why God would allow it to occur.

The claim of the atheist is that if they cannot see that there is a moral justification for allowing some instance evil, then there is no moral justification for that instance of evil.

Here are three reasons why we should not expect to know the morally sufficient reasons why God permits apparently pointless evil.

1. the ripple effect: the morally sufficient reason for allowing some instance of evil may only be seen in another place or another time
2. Three Christian doctrines undermine the claim that specific evils really are gratuitous
3. Walter’s own premise 1 allows us to argue for God’s existence, which means that evil is not gratuitous

Christian doctrines from 2.:

• The purpose of life is not happiness, and it is not God’s job to make us happy – we are here to know God. Many evils are gratuitous if we are concerned about being happy, but they are not gratuitous for producing the knowledge of God. What WSA has to show is that God could reduce the amount of suffering in the world while still retaining the same amount of knowledge of God’s existence and character.
• Man is in rebellion, and many of the evils we see are caused by humans misusing their free will to harm others and cause suffering
• For those who accept Christ, suffering is redeemed by eternal life with God, which is a benefit that far outweighs any sufferings and evils we experience in our earthly lives

Arguing for God in 3.

• If God exists, gratuitous does not exist.
• God exists
• Therefore, gratuitous does not exist.

Four reasons to think that God exists:

• the kalam cosmological argument
• the fine-tuning argument
• the moral argument
• the argument from evil

Filed under: Podcasts, Apologetics, Christian Apologetics, Debate, Evil, Free Will, Heaven, Hell, Natural Evil, Pain, Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Suffering, Theodicy, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, William Lane Craig

Clay Jones: why does God allow suffering?

From apologist Clay Jones. (H/T Apologetics 315)

Excerpt:

Since I teach on why God allows evil, I often talk about Job. I have learned that many Christians have missed a major lesson of that book, if not the major lesson. Although many rightly conclude from Job that we should be humble when it comes to why God allows this or that suffering, there is something else amazing found in the book’s beginning.

In the first chapter we learn that Job is the wealthiest man in the world, renowned, and that he worships God.

But then we are told of a great contest in Heaven.

One day the angels presented themselves before the Lord and Satan came along with them and the Lord asked Satan:

“Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” (Job 1:8-11)

Here Satan contends that Job only serves God because God has given Job everything Job wants and that If God didn’t give Job what he wanted then Job would rebel.

Well, the Lord tells Satan that Satan can destroy all the things Job enjoys. Soon disaster kills his family, marauders steal his possessions, Satan afflicts him with boils, and Job’s wife tells him to “curse God and die.”

And here’s the question I ask my students: “what was the only thing that Job had to do to humiliate Satan in front of God and all God’s servants?”

Read the whole thing to get the answer.

Filed under: Commentary, Evil, Natural Evil, Philosophy of Religion, Problem of Evil, Satan, Suffering, Theodicy

Featured blog: Muddling Toward Maturity

I just discovered this blog “Muddling Toward Maturity“. The blog links to a lot of interesting stories I haven’t seen anywhere else!

Here are a couple:

A review of Mark Levin’s new book “Liberty and Tyranny” by Andrew C. McCarthy in the New Criterion

Excerpt from the review:

[Levin] is especially trenchant on the animating role of faith in the American founding, and, consequently, its place atop the statist hit-list. The Framers understood “that liberty and religious liberty are inseparable.” But Christianity, unapologetically, was and is America’s dominant religion and it is undeniable that Judeo-Christian values heavily influenced our founding law. The point of religious liberty was to forfend the establishment of a theocracy of the type Tocqueville discerned in the Islamic world, where the Qur’an imposed not merely religious tenets but control over every aspect of life. The Supreme Court’s fabrication of a “wall of separation” in its 1947 Everson decision (authored by one-time Klansman Hugo Black, the first justice appointed by FDR), installing official hostility to religion, was “a wretched betrayal of America’s founding.” As a result, “American courts sit today as supreme secular councils, which, like Islam’s supreme religious councils, dictate all manner of approved behavior respecting religion.”

A strong proponent of constitutional originalism, Levin particularly laments FDR’s “Second Bill of Rights,” the initiative Obama has thrown into high gear. These “positive rights”—economic and social welfare benefits, not rights but redistributions—are “tyranny’s disguise”: the statist’s “false promises of utopianism … to justify all trespasses on the individual’s private property.” Like freedom of conscience, property is part of liberty’s irreducible core, and is thus exalted in our founding law. So, like religion, it is forever in the statist’s cross-hairs as he seeks to micromanage every vestige of autonomy from employment to healthcare to the type of cars we drive.

Deep thinking on big ideas. That’s what we can expect from Mark Levin. And I love it when Jewish people are supportive Christians! My favorite three radio shows are Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and Mark Levin. All three are Jewish!

Now the next link is special to me, because I have a copy of the book Rare Earth in my overhead shelf at work. It’s written by atheist Peter Ward and agnostic Donald Brownlee, and it documents all the characteristics that are needed to create a habitable planet. The book kicks butt.

Why We Need Earthquakes by Dinesh D’Souza, writing in Christianity Today.

Excerpt from the article:

Ward and Brownlee ask: Why do natural disasters such as earthquakes, seaquakes, and tsunamis occur? All three are the consequence of plate tectonics, the giant plates that move under the surface of the earth and the ocean floor. Apparently our planet is unique in having plate tectonics. Ward and Brownlee show that without this geological feature, there would be no large mountain ranges or continents.

While natural disasters occasionally wreak havoc, our planet needs plate tectonics to produce the biodiversity that enables complex life to flourish on earth. Without plate tectonics, earth’s land would be submerged to a depth of several thousand feet. Fish might survive in such an environment, but not humans.

Plate tectonics also help regulate the earth’s climate, preventing the onset of scorching or freezing temperatures that would make mammalian life impossible. In sum, plate tectonics are a necessary prerequisite to human survival on the only planet known to sustain life.

Muddling Toward Maturity also links to some other similar articles, that go into more detail.

Check them out!

Filed under: Commentary, Biodiversity, Climate, Constitution, Earthquakes, Federalism, Habitability, Liberty and Tyranny, Mark Levin, Natural Evil, Plate Tectonics, Positive Rights, Rare Earth, Religious Liberty, Theodicy