Why William Lane Craig Wins Debates

Fort those who don’t know, Dr. William Lane Craig is a renowned Christian apologist and fairly well known philosopher of religion (among philosophers of religion at least). Dr. Craig has gained notoriety in the world of internet atheism for his debates with atheists and almost always winning those debates. So why does he win them?

Craig wins because his opponents present an inadequate case for atheism. Yes, there are some exceptions, but consider the debates between various atheists and Craig, e.g. the William Lane Craig versus Christopher Hitchens debate (it starts at around 13 minutes; and while it is an admittedly extreme example of an atheist presenting an inferior intellectual case for atheism, it illustrates the point well especially since Hitchens was such a huge influence in the New Atheist movement). Some will credit Dr. Craig’s large proportion of debate victories to some vaguely described debating skills, but the truth is that Craig usually wins because atheists fail to do atheism the intellectual justice it deserves. Indeed it happens so often I’m surprised more atheists don’t see this. And while there are exceptions, all too often I’ve seen internet atheists do a poor job arguing for atheism (there are abundant examples on YouTube). Hence this blog: I want to do my part to show how formidable an opponent atheism is to theistic belief, e.g. my blog entry introducing the argument from evil.