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 lectures on the evidential problem of evil

Dr. Craig delivered morning and afternoon lectures in Denmark on the topic of the problem of evil.

Here is the description:

The problem of innocent suffering–usually called ‘the problem of evil’ by philosophers–is the most important argument against the existence of God. Dr. Craig differentiates between the emotional and intellectual problems of evil in order to help keep our thinking about this controverted subject clear. He further differentiates between internal and external versions of the intellectual problem of evil, arguing that while the former is generally thought to have been resolved, the latter remains a subject of debate. During his morning lecture Dr. Craig will set up the problem and discuss the internal version; during the afternoon lecture he shall address the external version.

Below are videos for the afternoon lecture.

Part 1:

Part 2:

If you like this lecture, you can also check out my favorite lecture on the problem of evil by Doug Geivett. I am still watching the two lectures I posted Monday and today, so they may become my new favorites.

Filed under: Videos, Alvin Plantinga, Bill Aston, Character Formation Theodicy, Deductive Problem of Evil, Doug Geivett, Douglas Geivett, Evil, Free Will Theodicy, Inductive Problem of Evil, Logical Problem of Evil, Natural Law Theodicy, No-See-Um, Noseeum, Noseeum Inference, Philosophy of Religion, Probabilistic Problem of Evil, Problem of Evil, Problem of Suffering, Suffering, Theodicy, William Alston, William Lane Craig, William P. Alson

William Lane Craig lectures on the logical problem of evil

Dr. Craig delivered morning and afternoon lectures in Denmark on the topic of the problem of evil.

Here is the description:

The problem of innocent suffering–usually called ‘the problem of evil’ by philosophers–is the most important argument against the existence of God. Dr. Craig differentiates between the emotional and intellectual problems of evil in order to help keep our thinking about this controverted subject clear. He further differentiates between internal and external versions of the intellectual problem of evil, arguing that while the former is generally thought to have been resolved, the latter remains a subject of debate. During his morning lecture Dr. Craig will set up the problem and discuss the internal version; during the afternoon lecture he shall address the external version.

Below are videos for the morning lecture.

Part 1:

Part 2:

I’ll be posting the afternoon lectures tomorrow. I am watching it now, and I am curious to see how it will stack up against my favorite lecture on the problem of evil by Doug Geivett.

Filed under: Videos, Alvin Plantinga, Bill Aston, Character Formation Theodicy, Deductive Problem of Evil, Doug Geivett, Douglas Geivett, Evil, Free Will Theodicy, Inductive Problem of Evil, Logical Problem of Evil, Natural Law Theodicy, No-See-Um, Noseeum, Noseeum Inference, Philosophy of Religion, Probabilistic Problem of Evil, Problem of Evil, Problem of Suffering, Suffering, Theodicy, William Alston, William Lane Craig, William P. Alson

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

Six reasons why people reject Christianity

Here’s a post on practical evangelism by Christian scholar Don Johnson.

His list of reasons why people often reject Christianity:

1. Christians behaving badly
2. Disappointment with God
3. Weak or absent father
4. Social pressure
5. Cost of discipleship
6. Immorality (especially sexual immorality)

And here’s the detail on #6:

Of all the motivations and reasons for skepticism that I encounter, immorality is easily the most common. In particular, sexual sin seems to be the largest single factor driving disbelief in our culture. Brant Hanson calls sex “The Big But” because he so often hears this from unbelievers: “’I like Jesus, BUT…’ and the ‘but’ is usually followed, one way or the other, with an objection about the Bible and… sex. People think something’s deeply messed-up with a belief system that says two consenting, unmarried adults should refrain from sex.” In other words, people simply do not want to follow the Christian teaching that sexual intercourse should take place only between and man and woman who are married, so they throw the whole religion out.

The easiest way to justify sin is to deny that there is a creator to provide reality with a nature, thereby denying that there is any inherent order and purpose in the universe.

Aldous Huxley admitted that this is a common reason for skepticism:

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently I assumed that it had none and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption…. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless. …

For myself as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was …liberation from … a certain system of morality.  We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom…. There was one admirably simple method in our political and erotic revolt: We could deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever. Similar tactics had been adopted during the eighteenth century and for the same reasons. (Ends and Means, 270-273)

Indeed, similar tactics have been used extensively up to the present day. If you are looking for two great resources that document the extent to which the work of the world’s “great” atheistic thinkers has been “calculated to justify or minimize the shame of their own debauchery,” (Spiegel, 72) I recommend Intellectuals by Paul Johnson and Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior by E. Michael Jones. The bottom line is that these skeptical scholars didn’t reach their conclusions by following the evidence where it led. They didn’t “discover” that the world was meaningless and then proceed to live accordingly. They lived sinful lives (usually involving some type of sexual deviancy) and then produced theories that justified their actions.

This connection between immorality and unsound thought is clearly scriptural. Paul tells the Ephesians that they “must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more” (Eph. 4:17-19) Paul blames futile thinking and a lack of understanding on hard hearts. When we compare this passage with Romans 1, it seems that immorality and bad ideas work together in a vicious cycle that spirals downward. Sin leads to false philosophies which then lead to more sin.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised (Rom. 1:18-25)

So Paul argues that the nature of reality is clear to everyone but people suppress the truth by their wickedness. Rebellious people become fools as they deny the obvious meaning of creation because of their sin. Their foolishness leads them to indulge in more immorality. Thus immorality is very closely linked to skepticism and we need to be aware that sin will almost always be at least an underlying issue in our conversations.

This post is of such high quality and has such practical wisdom in it that I really want everyone reading to click through and read it. I’m sure you’ll really like it. I recognize every one of these types of people in non-Christians that I have known.

Mr. Johnson’s bio seems to suggest that he has a lot of experience as a pastor, but he’s not like many pastors that I’ve known. If all pastors could interact with so many different sources like and weave together an argument like this, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.

Filed under: Commentary, Apologetics, Atheism, Christian Apologetics, Christian Living, Christianity, Disappointment, Discipleship, Ethics, Evil, Faith, Fatherlessness, Hypocrisy, Immorality, Naturalism, Non Belief, Peer Pressure, Postmodernism, Reason, Sexual Immorality, Suffering, Unbelief