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. The Historical Facts about Jesus of Nazareth
8. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
9. Arguments Against Naturalism
10. The Argument from Evil
11. 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.

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. Objective Moral Values and Duties in the World
7. The Historical Facts about Jesus of Nazareth
8. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
9. Arguments Against Naturalism
10. The Argument from Evil
11. 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.

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. 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. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
9. Arguments Against Naturalism
10. The Argument from Evil
11. 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.

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 5)

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. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
9. Arguments Against Naturalism
10. The Argument from Evil
11. 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 intentional states of consciousness.

Intentional States of Consciousness in the World

As Craig says in the debate, “intentionality is the property of being about something or of something,” being a kind of object-directedness of our thoughts. Craig gives the examples of thinking about his summer vacation and thinking of his wife. Craig’s argument in the debate is this:

1. If God did not exist, intentional states of consciousness would not exist.
2. But intentional states of consciousness do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

What Rosenberg did

Rosenberg did pretty much nothing to attack this argument. At least, not in the sense of denying a premise (Craig’s argument may be unsound, but the conclusion does follow from the premises, and for the argument to be unsound there needs to be a false premise). He says a little bit about somewhat indirectly at 1:16:13 to 1:18:26, but he doesn’t directly attack the argument. Rosenberg does say the question of intentionality has nothing interesting to do with theism or atheism, but this is almost disingenuous because Rosenberg himself believes the following equation is true:

Atheism

+

background knowledge

=

intentional states of consciousness do not exist

As such, he does accept the first premise of the argument, even if atheism doesn’t (directly) imply that there are no intentional states of consciousness. It should be noted that Rosenberg thinks it is science that implies the view that intentional states of consciousness do not exist, but Rosenberg also believes science implies atheism. At any rate, Rosenberg does accept the first premise as a result of accepting the above equation (whether he realizes it or not), and I fear he may have given a somewhat misleading impression to the contrary when he said states of intentionality have nothing interesting to do with atheism/theism, because someone might be given the impression that Rosenberg doesn’t accept the first premise when in fact he does. It also seems that if theism were true, it would be more likely that states of intentionality would exist (God would have them if nothing else) than on Rosenberg’s atheistic worldview, especially since an omnipotent God would have the power to create finite minds possessing intentional states. While I believe states of intentionality can also fit into an atheistic worldview, I think Craig is likewise right about states of intentionality fitting into a theistic worldview (at 1:28:38).

This is not to say that the first premise is true or justified; I’m only pointing out that Rosenberg agrees with the first premise and that he might be giving a false impression to the contrary. I should point out that Rosenberg’s particular atheistic worldview is not the only sort of atheistic worldview, and plenty of atheists would disagree with Rosenberg about the truth of the equation and would disagree with premise 1.

What Rosenberg should have done

Rosenberg accepts the first premise of Craig’s argument but denies the second. It is noteworthy that he never attacked the premise of Craig’s argument he believed to be false! He spoke of it and claimed that science supported his views, but he never really went on to make a real argument that science supports the falsity of premise 2. Craig’s argument is sound if both premises are true; if Rosenberg believes premise 1 is justifiably true, wouldn’t it make sense for him to attack the premise he think is false? It would seem so, but then why didn’t he? Perhaps Rosenberg didn’t do so because argument for the falsity of the second premise would take too much time, or perhaps Rosenberg believed (knew?) the audience would not find any of his arguments persuasive even though he personally finds them persuasive. Either way, Rosenberg was in a pretty tough spot if he was to maintain his belief in the first premise.

So what could he have done in that situation? He could have said something like this:

I don’t believe it is atheism per se that implies intentional states don’t exist, but rather our background knowledge, especially science, that implies intentional states don’t exist. But because whether I’m right about what our background knowledge 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 that we don’t have intentional states.

At this point, he could have challenged Craig’s justification for the first premise and continued to hammer Craig’s failed attempts in justifying the first premise throughout the debate. I myself would have immediately gone after premise 1 (I suspect most atheists would). Craig doesn’t give much of an argument for premise 1 apart from asserting with little justification that material objects don’t have material states of consciousness. But that seems a bit question begging, since a typical physicalist (one who believes that physical reality is all there is) would point to brains as a counterexample. True, most material objects don’t have consciousness, but perhaps consciousness is an emergent property of certain bits of matter, similar to how wetness emerges from hydrogen and oxygen at room temperature when neither hydrogen nor oxygen at room temperature have the property of wetness. Rosenberg could have pointed out that some philosophers see consciousness as an emergent property.

Rosenberg could also have argued that at best intentional states of consciousness is an argument against the view that we are purely physical beings, and not so much an argument for theism (he did this to some degree, but he could have made the point clearer, perhaps by pointing out the existence of atheists who believe our minds have a nonphysical component). He could also have said we don’t really have any good reason to think that our nonphysical minds wouldn’t exist without an all-good, omnipotent, and omniscient deity. If we let magic into our worldview, why not favor the hypothesis of certain bits of matter being arranged in a certain way (as the human brain) creating a nonphysical mind instead of a magical deity creating nonphysical minds whenever the brain is formed? The developed human brain creating a nonphysical mind seems simpler than a magical deity creating nonphysical minds whenever it sees developed human brains. Rosenberg could have put forth this alternative hypothesis—even if he doesn’t believe himself—in playing devil’s advocate to further undermine the convincing force of Craig’s argument.

Though to be fair to Rosenberg, any attack on the truth or justification of the first premise would be problematic if wanted to maintain that atheism plus background knowledge implies that intentional states of consciousness don’t exist, because then he would still believe that Craig’s first premise is true and justified, even if the justification Rosenberg has isn’t quite the same as Craig’s. Craig was pretty quick to suggest or insinuate that Rosenberg agreed with the first premise (at 1:28:38) at which point Craig notes that intentional states fit into a theistic worldview in a way that it doesn’t fit in with atheism. Unfortunately, at least when it comes to Rosenberg’s atheistic worldview, he is right. Thus in my humble opinion, Rosenberg should have just given up on the “atheism + background information” equation I mentioned so that he could make a strong and honest attack on the first premise, since it would be a bit awkward to publically argue for the conclusion’s falsity by attacking a premise you yourself believe to be true and justified. Rosenberg probably wouldn’t like giving up on the first premise, but for good or ill it would be the best way to attack Craig’s argument. After all, the argument succeeds if all the premises are justifiably true, and attacking a premise while granting it is justifiably true has limited value in showing the argument to be unsound.

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 4)

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. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
9. Arguments Against Naturalism
10. The Argument from Evil
11. 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 around17:14). 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 fine-tuning argument.

The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life

Craig’s fine-tuning argument in the debate goes as follows:

1. The fine-tuning is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

What Rosenberg did

Rosenberg gives his rebuttal to this at around 45:34. Rosenberg says it would be “carbon chauvinism” (at around 46:05) to think that life couldn’t have evolved under different constants and quantities; perhaps different elements, such as germanium or silicon, could have done the job. While stuff like silicon-based life is popular in science fiction, there is reason to believe it is merely science fiction. To quote Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in page 157 their book The Grand Design

Though one might imagine “living” organisms such as intelligent computers produced from other elements, such as silicon, it is doubtful that life could have spontaneously evolved in the absence of carbon. The reasons for that of technical but have to do with the unique manner in which carbon bonds with other elements.

Craig didn’t respond this way in the debate (though he has in the past noted that silicon-based life wouldn’t work), but he took a different approach this time. Craig claimed is that not even matter or chemistry would have existed without certain fine-tuned conditions (1:10:10). Rosenberg had no reply to this.

One of Rosenberg’s rebuttals is the possibility (around 46:57) of the world ensemble explanation being true, where there are many universes with randomly varying constants and quantities to the point where it is probable that at least one of them would permit life. But in his opening statement (i.e. the first time he got up to speak) Craig says that

the odds of a life-permitting universe governed by our laws of nature are just so infinitesimal that they cannot be reasonably faced. Therefore the proponents of chance have been forced to postulate the existence of a world ensemble of other universes, preferably infinite in number and randomly ordered, so that life-permitting universes would appear by chance somewhere in the ensemble. Not only is this hypothesis to borrow Richard Dawkins’s phrase “An unparsimonious extravagance,” but it faces an insuperable objection. By far, most of the observable universes in a world ensemble would be a world in which a single brain fluctuates into existence out of the vacuum and observes its otherwise empty world. Thus if our world were just a random member of a world ensemble, we ought to be having observations like that. Since we don’t, that strongly disconfirms the world ensemble hypothesis, so chance is also not a good explanation.

Craig said this before Rosenberg gave his world ensemble response, and he had no rebuttal at all to what Craig said here.

What Rosenberg should have done

Craig says:

Physical necessity is not, however, a plausible explanation because the finely-tuned constants and quantities are independent of the laws of nature. Therefore, they are not physically necessary.

Suppose it’s true that there is no physical necessity that we are at this moment aware of that controls the constants and quantities being what they are. How does this show that there isn’t any such physical necessity? Since we are far more intimately aware of physical necessities and have no experience with magical deities, why shouldn’t we posit a hitherto unknown variety of physical necessity and favor this explanation over a hitherto unknown magical deity designing the universe? Rosenberg could have brought up this objection, but instead he raised an objection that Craig already addressed.

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 3)

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. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
9. Arguments Against Naturalism
10. The Argument from Evil
11. 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 applicability of mathematics to the physical world.

The Applicability of Mathematics to the Physical World

Craig’s argument in the debate goes like this:

1. If God did not exist, the applicability of mathematics to the physical world would be a happy coincidence.
2. The applicability of mathematics is not a happy coincidence.
3. Therefore, God exists.

What Rosenberg did

He talks about this at 1:18:26 and seems to dispute premise 1, noting that there are indefinitely many mathematical objects and indefinitely many mathematical functions relating these objects. He says it’s an argument from ignorance that this range of functions and objects that is so small so as to require divine authority to make it come out that way. I think what he was saying here is that the range of mathematics is so vast and the objects and functions that usefully apply to our world is so small, that it’s not really much of a coincidence that mathematics would apply to our world (though I think he could have made this point more clearly).

What Rosenberg should have done

One way to respond is to attack is premise 2. Why on earth should we believe that it is not a happy coincidence? Happy coincidences happen all the time! It was only though chance events that brought about my own existence, for example. Am I to assume that every alleged happy coincidence is really a product of God or some other designing intelligence? Why can’t fortunate events of chance happen? At least, why think that isn’t the case here given how often happy coincidences occur?

Craig says that in Rosenberg’s book, Rosenberg says that naturalism does not tolerate cosmic coincidences. He doesn’t really have much of an argument beyond this for premise 2. This is a very bad argument, in part because there doesn’t seem to be any reason to believe Rosenberg is right here (assuming Craig did not quote him out of context). Rosenberg should have retracted or qualified his statement and said something like, “Happy coincidences happen all the time, and Craig has given us no reason to believe a happy coincidence isn’t what happened here.” Another reason Craig’s argument is a poor one is because this isn’t a theism versus naturalism debate but a theism versus atheism one. Atheism and naturalism aren’t the same thing. Rosenberg should have pointed this out too.

Craig also asserts that on naturalism there is no explanation for the “uncanny” applicability of mathematics to the physical world. Again, naturalism isn’t the same thing as atheism, but another question needs to be raised: why think it is that “uncanny” in the first place? It seems that having a physical reality describable by some sort of mathematics would apply for any consistently operating physical reality. We could think of such a universe like a computer program that has a set of rules for how the universe consistently operates and to predict what would happen. Programs of course rely on binary code in conjunction with certain mathematical operations on said binary code, and so any consistently operating physical reality would inevitably be describable by some sort of mathematics. So the applicability of math to physical reality isn’t nearly as remarkable as Craig seems to think. This is another point Rosenberg could have made but didn’t.

In fairness, Rosenberg did seem to try to mitigate the “happy coincidences” claim (in the way that I described), but the point could have been argued more clearly and much more effectively, e.g. noting that some sort of mathematics would apply for any consistently operating physical reality.

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 2)

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. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
9. Arguments Against Naturalism
10. The Argument from Evil
11. Wrap-Up

Introduction

In part 1 of the series I showed the Leibnizian cosmological argument William Lane Craig, how Rosenberg responded, and how Rosenberg should have responded. In this entry of the series I’ll over the kalam cosmological argument in the debate.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

The kalam cosmological argument (KCA) Craig gave in the debate went as follows:

1. The universe began to exist.
2. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a transcendent cause.
3. Therefore, the universe has a transcendent cause.

What Rosenberg did

In the debate (42:22) he notes that

there are 2,000 members of the National Academy of Sciences. The most important body of the most distinguished scientists in the United States of which four are faculty here at Purdue and two...the two Nobel Prize winners in chemistry of course are both members of the National Academy of Science. Of these 2,000 people, 95% of them are atheists. And the percentage for the physicists is even higher. What do these people know about physics that Dr. Craig doesn’t know? Is it a coincidence that this number of the members of the National Academy of Science are unbelievers? I think it isn't, and I think it requires us to take with a certain lack of confidence, the claims that Dr. Craig makes about science.

Unfortunately what the survey really shows is these scientists disagree with Craig on a philosophical claim (whether atheism is true), and it doesn’t say what scientific claim, if any, these scientists think Craig is mistaken about.

Yes, Craig uses science in his arguments, but the survey doesn’t tell us whether the atheist scientists disagree with the scientific or the philosophical aspects of the arguments, and it’s quite possible for scientists to agree with the scientific claims but disagree about the theological implications of said science. For example, one of Craig’s arguments in this debate is arguing for theism from the applicability of mathematics to the physical world. No sane physicist would disagree with Craig about the scientific claim here (i.e. the applicability of mathematics to the physical world; mathematics clearly is applicable in physics) even if they would disagree with the theological implications of the mathematical order present in physical reality.

Or to use an example more applicable to the KCA, in pages 176-177 of Many Worlds in One Alexander Vilenkin stated quite emphatically the scientific case for the beginning of the universe is strong (in which case he would agree with Craig’s scientific claim that the universe has a beginning), but nonetheless says that this beginning being a proof of God’s existence is “far too simplistic” and gives further comments that suggest he would disagree with Craig about the theological implications of the universe beginning to exist.

So merely pointing out that a bunch of scientists are atheists wouldn’t quite refute the scientific claims Craig made here. If however Rosenberg said something like this (and there were statistics to back this up):

The most important body of the most distinguished scientists in the United States is the National Academy of Science, of which there are over 2,000 members. Over 95% of the physicists there believe that there is insufficient scientific evidence for a beginning of the universe.

The big difference here is that we have scientists in a relevant field disagreeing with Craig about a scientific matter (whether the scientific evidence favors a beginning of the universe) rather than merely a philosophical one (whether God exists). This would be a great rebuttal to Craig’s KCA, but unfortunately he didn’t make it (though to be fair to Rosenberg, perhaps such statistics weren’t available).

Now Rosenberg does try to controvert Craig’s KCA premise 2 with the uranium-238 atom thing, but as I explained earlier, this just doesn’t work. One should also note that the “anything that begins to exist” claim includes material causes as well as efficient causes. (The material cause is the stuff from which something is made out of and the efficient cause is the one that produces an effect; e.g. when Michelangelo created the marble statue David, Michelangelo is the efficient cause and the marble is the material cause). Since the alpha particle is stuff from the uranium-238 atom, the alpha particle clearly has a material cause even if it could be said to have no efficient cause (though by my lights there is an efficient cause, albeit an indeterministic one). There may be no cause for the different results of the two physically identical uranium-238 atoms, where one emits an alpha particle and the other doesn’t, but the alpha particle itself still has a cause. From around 45:11:

For Dr. Craig to insist on the arguments that rest on the claim that every event had a cause, that had to have brought it into being, is just bluff.

Craig however has made it clear in his writings and his talks that this is precisely what the first premise of the KCA does not claim. A brief Google search of the Reasonable Faith website (William Lane Craig’s main Christian apologetics website) for “every event has cause” reveals William Lane Craig saying things like, “Notice that I might add that this premise doesn’t say that every event has a cause” and Craig clearing up someone else’s apparent confusion that the first premise of the KCA commits us to believing that every event has a cause. Indeed, both of these pages were the top two results of the Google search I did. Rosenberg should have researched better than he did.

What Rosenberg should have done

Craig claims that the scientific evidence favors his view that the universe had a beginning, but as I mentioned in my rebutttal of the kalam cosmological argument, the notion that the universe began to exist is something that scientists dispute, and I noted that physicist Sean Carrol believes the universe probably did not have a beginning. Disputing the scientific grounds of Craig’s claim was one way Rosenberg could have gone.

Suppose though we grant for sake of argument that according to the sort of physics we are familiar with, the universe has a finite past. If we all knew this to be true, I would then agree with Craig that the cause of the universe would have to be something that works at least somewhat differently than the laws of physics we are familiar with. But then why does it have to be a magical deity? Why couldn’t it be some other sort of physical reality, especially when positing another sort of physical thing as the cause is far less extravagant than a magical deity? There is simply no good reason to favor a “transcendent, personal cause” (i.e. a supernatural deity that uses magic to create the universe) over a physical reality that operates according to natural physical laws, even if as a timeless physical reality the physics it uses is somewhat different from what we humans in time have experience with.