Friday, May 31, 2013

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 9)

My series on the February 2013 debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg:
  1. The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
  2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument
  3. The Applicability of Mathematics to the Physical World
  4. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life
  5. Intentional States of Consciousness in the World
  6. Objective Moral Values and Duties in the World
  7. The Historical Facts about Jesus of Nazareth
  8. Arguments Against Naturalism
  9. Wrap-Up

Introduction

In February 2013 atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg debated Christian philosopher William Lane Craig over whether faith in God is reasonable (debate begins at around 17:14). I’ve mentioned before the reason why William Lane Craig wins debates, and since this debate is a good example of how not to debate William Lane Craig, I have been going through some of what Rosenberg did wrong and how he could have done a lot better. In this entry I’ll address Craig’s various arguments against naturalism.

Arguments Against Naturalism

In his first rebuttal phase, Craig goes on what at first appears to be a long series of red herrings: arguments against naturalism. At around 1:01:04 Craig describes “epistemological naturalism” as saying “science is the only source of knowledge” and “metaphysical naturalism” as saying “only physical things exist.” At around 1:04:28 onward, he advances these arguments against metaphysical naturalism:

Frist, the argument from intentionality:

  1. If naturalism is true, I cannot think about anything.
  2. I am thinking about naturalism.
  3. Therefore, naturalism is not true.

Second, the argument from meaning:

  1. If naturalism is true, no sentence has any meaning.
  2. Premise (1) has meaning.
  3. Therefore, naturalism is not true.

Third, the argument from truth:

  1. If naturalism is true, then there are no true sentences.
  2. Premise (1) is true.
  3. Therefore, naturalism is not true.

Fourth, the argument from moral praise and blame.

  1. If naturalism is true, I am not morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for any of my actions.
  2. I am morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for some of my actions.
  3. Therefore, naturalism is not true.

Fifth, the argument from freedom (which appeals to the alleged existence of free will):

  1. If naturalism is true, I do not do anything freely.
  2. I am free to agree or disagree with premise (1).
  3. Therefore, naturalism is not true.

Sixth, the argument from purpose:

  1. If naturalism is true, I do not plan to do anything.
  2. I planned to come to tonight’s debate.
  3. Therefore, naturalism is not true.

Seventh, the argument from enduring (which involves one being the same person for more than a moment, thus allowing one to be blameworthy for past actions):

  1. If naturalism is rue, I do not endure for two moments of time.
  2. I’ve been sitting here for more than a minute.
  3. Therefore, naturalism is not true.

Eighth, the argument from personal existence:

  1. If naturalism is true, then I do not exist.
  2. I do exist!
  3. Therefore, naturalism is not true.

In most of these arguments, it’s the first premise that is really questionable, so what is Craig’s support for the first premises? The claim that Rosenberg agrees with them!

Rosenberg’s Response

It may well be true that Rosenberg’s skepticism of theism is rooted in scientism or naturalism, as Craig claims around 1:04:42, but all this is irrelevant to the actual reasonableness of theism. Even assuming that Craig hasn’t (even if inadvertently) built straw men of Rosenberg, surely things like “sentences have no meaning” aren’t shared by most atheists.

Thankfully, in his rebuttal Rosenberg does try to separate the issue of naturalism and atheism in 1:13:02 to 1:18:25, where he says atheism and the other claims follow from science, rather than the set of claims following from atheism per se, but he wasted several minutes doing so instead of a much shorter response like, “While those other strange claims of mine are interesting topics in their own right, they are not the subject of tonight’s debate. Tonight I’m arguing that theism is false, not that naturalism is true.”

At first blush, Craig’s arguments against naturalism seem like a string of red herrings (certainly I thought so at first). How is all Craig’s talk against naturalism relevant to the debate? Craig might have suspected this concern because he explicitly answers this question at 1:30:25.

He [Rosenberg] says these bizarre consequences that he affirms don’t follow from atheism, they follow from scientism; but my argument was that scientism or epistemological naturalism doesn’t imply metaphysical naturalism

First, Craig gets Rosenberg’s claim wrong; Rosenberg claimed they followed from science not scientism (scientism is, roughly, the view that science is the best or only source of knowledge; it’s more or less synonymous with what Craig calls “epistemological naturalism”). Moving on:

Remember the case of W.V.O. Quine, “but if God does not exist, then I think metaphysical naturalism is true.” Metaphysical naturalism doesn’t follow from epistemological naturalism, but it does follow from atheism. The most plausible form of atheism is I think metaphysical naturalism, but there are all those absurd consequences that result from that that I described. He [Rosenberg] bites the bullet and affirms these bizarre consequences. Why not stand back and say, “No, this is crazy; this is not the world we live in”?

So Craig’s set of arguments against naturalism is not a complete red herring because Craig’s reasoning seems to be like this:

  1. If atheism is true, then metaphysical naturalism is true.
  2. Metaphysical naturalism is not true.
  3. Therefore, atheism is not true.

Craig would need to justify premise (1) though and he didn’t quite do that in the debate. Moreover, the support Craig gives for premise (2) is Rosenberg’s own claims about what science implies. Granted, it stands to reason that if Rosenberg believes science implies it, then Rosenberg similarly believes that naturalism + background information (including science) = those far-out claims being true. Still, that support for the first premise seems awfully weak. Why? To echo a bit from what I said about Craig’s argument from intentional states of consciousness in the world, Rosenberg could have said something like:

I don’t believe it is naturalism per se that implies things like sentences not having genuine meaning, but rather our background knowledge, especially science, that implies such claims. But because whether I’m right about what science implies about this is not the subject of tonight’s debate, and because I could be wrong about what our background knowledge implies, I’ll play devil’s advocate here so you can better judge for yourselves whether we’re justified in thinking that atheism plus background knowledge implies things like sentences not really having meaning.

At which point, Rosenberg could have challenged Craig’s justification for the first premises and continued to hammer Craig’s failed attempts in justifying the first premises throughout the debate, if he chose to address Craig’s argument from naturalism at all. If he did not want to do that, he could have said this:

It should be remembered that tonight I’m arguing that theism is false, not that naturalism is true. Craig seems to think that naturalism is the most plausible alternative to atheism, but that won’t matter if atheism plus our background knowledge does not imply the apparently absurd consequences he thinks they do. So for Craig’s arguments to be relevant, Craig would need to show that atheism plus our background knowledge implies those consequences. I don’t believe it’s atheism or naturalism per se that implies things like sentences not having genuine meaning, but rather our background knowledge, especially science, that implies such claims. But because whether I’m right about what science implies about this is not the subject of tonight’s debate, and because I could be wrong about what our background knowledge implies, I’ll play devil’s advocate here so you can better judge for yourselves whether we’re justified in thinking that atheism plus background knowledge implies things like sentences not really having meaning.

At which point, Rosenberg could have pointed out that Craig didn’t really given any justification for the idea that atheism plus background knowledge implies those consequences, and it would have been Craig who wasted a bunch of time (it took a bit of time arguing for all those arguments against naturalism), not Rosenberg.

Again I’d like to stress the importance of thinking analytically, especially when debating an analytic philosopher theist like Craig. Craig, for all his faults, typically presents arguments in which the conclusion follows from the premises when he presents deductive arguments. Notice that while all of Craig’s arguments against naturalism may be unsound, they at least have the decency to be valid in the sense that the conclusion follows logically and necessarily from the premises. At that point, the question becomes whether the premises are true and justified. If a theist presents a valid argument, the onus is on him to justify the premises. If a theist has failed to adequately justify an important premise in a debate, it’s the atheist’s duty to point it out.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 8)

My series on the February 2013 debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg:
  1. The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
  2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument
  3. The Applicability of Mathematics to the Physical World
  4. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life
  5. Intentional States of Consciousness in the World
  6. Objective Moral Values and Duties in the World
  7. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
  8. The Argument from Evil
  9. Wrap-Up

Introduction

In February 2013 atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg debated Christian philosopher William Lane Craig over whether faith in God is reasonable (debate begins at around 17:14). I’ve mentioned before the reason why William Lane Craig wins debates, and since this debate is a good example of how not to debate William Lane Craig, I have been going through some of what Rosenberg did wrong and how he could have done a lot better. One happy benefit from this is that in so doing I’ll also be refuting William Lane Craig’s arguments. In this entry I’ll address Craig’s claim that God can be personally known and experienced.

God can be Personally Known and Experienced

At around 35:08, Craig claims that God can be personally known and experienced. By Craig’s own admission, this isn’t really an argument for God’s existence so much as a claim that God can known to exist wholly apart from evidence and arguments. In philosophy lingo, beliefs that one is justified in believing apart from evidence and arguments are called properly basic beliefs. One might think that belief in the reality of the past is a properly basic belief. Craig (as with many other Christian philosophers, e.g. Alvin Plantinga) holds to the view that belief in God is properly basic.

What Rosenberg did

Rosenberg didn’t address this at any point in the entire debate.

What Rosenberg should have done

I suppose it’s debatable whether Rosenberg should have ignored this, since as I said (and even by Craig’s own admission!) it’s not really an argument. That said I think it’s good to address the claim anyway. Is the existence of God a properly basic belief? On some conceptions of theism, a person can experience the presence of God and so can be rational in believing in his existence apart from evidence and arguments. I think such a theist would be rational in accepting theism if this conception of theism were true. But of course whether God exists is the very topic under discussion. So this claim (as Craig said, it’s not really an argument) that God can be personally known and experienced can be refuted simply by refuting theism. And for that, the argument from evil serves us nicely.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 7)

My series on the February 2013 debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg:
  1. The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
  2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument
  3. The Applicability of Mathematics to the Physical World
  4. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life
  5. Intentional States of Consciousness in the World
  6. The Historical Facts about Jesus of Nazareth
  7. Arguments Against Naturalism
  8. The Argument from Evil
  9. Wrap-Up

Introduction

In February 2013 atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg debated Christian philosopher William Lane Craig over whether faith in God is reasonable (debate begins at around 17:14). I’ve mentioned before the reason why William Lane Craig wins debates, and since this debate is a good example of how not to debate William Lane Craig, I have been going through some of what Rosenberg did wrong and how he could have done a lot better. One happy benefit from this is that in so doing I’ll also be refuting William Lane Craig’s arguments. In this entry I’ll address Craig’s argument from the resurrection of Jesus..

The Historical Facts about Jesus of Nazareth

Craig’s argument, which begins at 32:13:

  1. There are three established facts about Jesus:
    • the empty tomb,
    • the post-mortem appearances, and
    • the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection.
  2. The hypothesis, “God raised Jesus from the dead” is the best explanation of these facts.
  3. The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” entails that God exists.
  4. Therefore, God exists.

Craig believes the above argument is a good inductive argument for God’s existence.

What Rosenberg did

Rosenberg begins his rebuttal at around 53:10. He talks about Mormonism, Islam, and Scientology, noting how we don’t believe those religions. Unfortunately he doesn’t quite attack any premise of Craig’s inductive argument. Charitably, we could interpret Rosenberg as saying something like, “Just as we disbelieve those religious claims, so we should believe the claims of the New Testament.” But since (so Craig claims) most historians accept the three facts of Jesus of Nazareth whereas they presumably do not accept the claims of Mormonism, Islam, and Scientology that we reject, there is a kind of asymmetry here that Rosenberg needs to pry apart.

Rosenberg also notes how eyewitness testimony can be unreliable. While it can be, this is the sort of claim that can prove too much; pretty much all of ancient history taught in universities is based on nothing less than eyewitness testimony. Yet it seems a bit harsh that we should get rid of all beliefs of ancient history that depend upon that sort of thing, else we’d scarcely have any ancient history to teach at all. As Craig points out in the debate, Rosenberg needs to give specific reasons not to trust the eyewitness testimony in the case of the Resurrection, not simply give a general claim about the unreliability of eyewitness testimony (actually, as I’ll show later, Rosenberg could also have pointed out a couple holes in Craig’s opening statement regarding the resurrection argument).

Rosenberg, claims (at around 1:39:05 onward) that all scholars tell us the New Testament was written by illiterate people. Writing ancient Greek documents would indeed be impressive if the authors couldn’t read, but it seems unlikely (and it seems similarly unlikely that New Testament scholars would believe such a thing!). Rosenberg may have bungled his words here and meant to have communicated that some Christians were illiterate even if the authors of the documents were not, but this point seems irrelevant to the truth of those documents and he should have used a relevant argument instead.

At around 1:39:26, he says that the original manuscripts were written in Aramaic, thereby showing his ignorance of New Testament scholarship (they were actually originally written in Greek). Rosenberg also claims the opportunity for mistranslation, mis-transcription, and other mistakes is huge and has been documented by scholarship in the last 200 years (in actuality, scholars believe that our reconstruction of the New Testament from extant manuscripts matches extremely close to the originals—one is much better off attacking the veracity of the originals themselves), and thus displays an further lack of preparation for the debate.

What Rosenberg should have done

When one watches Craig’s opening statement, the way to attack Craig’s claims seems kind of obvious once one realizes certain facts. Craig never offers any source for his claim that most New Testament historians accept his three claims. Even ignoring that, there would be the somewhat obvious concern that about whether most of these New Testament historians who accept the three claims are already Christians. And apart from Craig’s questionable appeal to authority (and he also appeals to the opinion of the religiously motivated Christian scholar N.T. Wright), he doesn’t offer any reason to believe that these three claims are true! It’s as if these holes in Craig’s resurrection argument entirely escaped Rosenberg’s notice (considering his bizarre attack on eyewitness testimony in general) and Rosenberg could have followed Craig’s opening statement with something like this:

Craig bases his resurrection argument upon three claims that he says most New Testament historians accept. But what’s Craig’s source that most New Testament historians accept these three claims? A scientific survey or anecdotal evidence? We are not told. Moreover, it’s not even clear whether most New Testament historians accepting these three claims should be grounds for the non-Christian to accept them, because what if the reason the New Testament scholars accept those claims is because they’re already Christians? Craig might believe there are good reasons for a secular historian to accept his three claims, but what are they? Craig hasn’t told us that either. And of course, saying we should accept these three claims because the Bible says these claims are true would be question begging; such reasoning wouldn’t be accepted by someone who wasn’t already a Christian. So all things considered, Craig has not given adequate evidence to believe the resurrection occurred, because he hasn’t given us adequate grounds to accept his three claims and he hasn’t even given us any grounds for thinking the majority of New Testament historians accept his three claims.

The above rebuttal contains these two important objections: (1) Craig hasn’t justified his claim that most New Testament historians accept his three claims; (2) Craig hasn’t given any reasons a secular historian would accept these three claims. Notice how serious these problems are for Craig’s resurrection argument. Yet, incredibly, instead of pointing out these gaping holes in Craig’s opening statement, Rosenberg attacks eyewitness testimony in general! It’s almost as if Rosenberg didn’t notice how Craig actually presented his resurrection argument. (To his credit, Rosenberg at least asks at around 1:39:48, possibly referring to Craig’s use of Christian scholar N.T. Wright, “why should we accept the credibility of Christian scholars writing about Christian documents?”)

When debating theists who are analytic philosophers like William Lane Craig, it behooves atheist debaters to themselves think analytically. There were important and specific claims Craig didn’t justify. Rosenberg should have clearly identified those specific claims and pointed out that Craig didn’t justify those specific claims (as I did in my “Craig bases his resurrection argument upon three claims...” paragraph above). This direct approach against Craig’s resurrection argument would worked much better than, for example, attacking the reliability of eyewitness testimony in general or talking about how we don’t accept the claims of scientology, because otherwise the real holes in Craig’s argument don’t get exposed.

So much for Craig’s opening statement. What about later? In his first rebuttal to Rosenberg, Craig claimed (at around 1:11:17 onward) that we’re dealing with “early eyewitness testimony” but doesn’t specify how we know this apart from the insinuation that we know it from the Gospels (which is good if you’re already a Christian, but otherwise...). Later at around 1:44:20, he says that the sources we have for the resurrection of Jesus go back within five years of the event, and he gives no argument or evidence for this claim. Rosenberg should have called Craig on out all this.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 6)

My series on the February 2013 debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg:
  1. The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
  2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument
  3. The Applicability of Mathematics to the Physical World
  4. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life
  5. Objective Moral Values and Duties in the World
  6. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
  7. Arguments Against Naturalism
  8. The Argument from Evil
  9. Wrap-Up

Introduction

In February 2013 atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg debated Christian philosopher William Lane Craig over whether faith in God is reasonable (debate begins at around 17:14). I’ve mentioned before the reason why William Lane Craig wins debates, and since this debate is a good example of how not to debate William Lane Craig, I have been going through some of what Rosenberg did wrong and how he could have done a lot better. One happy benefit from this is that in so doing I’ll also be refuting William Lane Craig’s arguments. In this entry I’ll address Craig’s moral argument for God.

Objective Moral Values and Duties in the World

In the debate Craig gives the following argument:

  1. Objective moral values and duties exist.
  2. But if God did not exist, then objective moral values and duties would not exist.
  3. Therefore, God exists.

What Rosenberg did

Around 48:49, Rosenberg starts his rebuttal against the moral argument. Rosenberg brings up Euthyphro dilemma, which doesn’t attack either premise of the moral argument Craig actually gave. The Euthyphro objection is an argument against the idea that only God can underwrite human values, but no premise of the argument assumes this. The Euthyphro objection doesn’t refute premise 2 here, since even Rosenberg agrees with premise 2 (he believes atheism + background knowledge = objective moral values and duties probably don’t exist). Remarkably, Rosenberg doesn’t attack either premise of the argument at all. That’s right, Rosenberg never disputes any premise of the argument in the entire debate.

Craig doesn’t call him out on this, perhaps because he believes that God does underwrite objective morality and to save time he thought he’d kill two birds with stone and simply attack the Euthyphro dilemma (thereby defending the moral argument and his belief that God grounds morality) by presenting a third alternative to the dilemma (1:10:39). Still, Craig does point out that Rosenberg agrees with him on premise 2 at 1:29:14 and re-affirms premise 1, and notes that the conclusion follows from premises 1 and 2. Rosenberg had no response to this.

One problem with Rosenberg’s Euthyphro objection, other than the fact that it doesn’t attack Craig’s argument, is that Craig has repeatedly given a third alternative in his writings and talks. One might argue that Craig’s third alternative is unsatisfactory in some way, but the point is that Rosenberg was completely unprepared for Craig’s rebuttal. If you are going to use the Euthyphro dilemma against Craig in a debate, you should at least be prepared for the “third alternative” response.

Craig’s moral argument is deductively valid (the conclusion follows from the premises) even if it is unsound (where soundness = validity + true premises), which makes Rosenberg’s main failure with the argument worth repeating: Rosenberg never disputes a premise of the moral argument in the entire debate. This is almost unconscionable once one realizes that a false premise is the only way Craig’s moral argument could fail to be sound.

What Rosenberg should have done

Even if Rosenberg agrees with premise 2, he could have attacked the justification Craig gave for premise 2. Craig claimed that walking into an elementary school and shooting boys, girls, and teachers is morally wrong before asserting, “on a naturalistic worldview, there’s nothing really wrong with this.” Two things: (1) naturalism does not equal atheism; (2) naturalism by itself doesn’t say either way whether moral wrongness exists. I attacked premise 2 (and premise 1) already in my series on the moral argument and William Lane Craig. Craig presented a deductively valid moral argument for God; it should be common sense that the way to refute a deductively valid argument for God is to attack the premises, but apparently it isn’t, not even to a philosopher of Rosenberg’s caliber.