William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 10)

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. In this entry I’ll address Craig’s various arguments against naturalism. In this entry I’ll address Rosenberg’s argument from evil and Craig’s responses.

The Argument from Evil

What Rosenberg did

At some points in the debate Rosenberg seems to be making a logical problem of evil (where there is alleged to be a logical contradiction between God and evil). At 56:29 or so before he points out the obvious existence of suffering, he says that

if the theist[’s] God exists, he is omnipotent and benevolent. A benevolent creature eliminates suffering to the extent that the benevolent creature can. Therefore if there’s a God and he's omnipotent and benevolent, he eliminates all suffering.

This argument is a bit clumsy as it stands. For one thing, the conclusion, “Therefore if there’s a God and he's omnipotent and benevolent, he eliminates all suffering,” doesn’t quite follow from the previous statements, and needs to be cleaned up a bit. We can phrase Rosenberg’s argument more charitably and rigorously though like this:

1. If God exists, he is omnipotent and benevolent.
2. Any omnipotent being would have the power to eliminate all suffering.
3. Any benevolent being would eliminate all suffering to the extent it is able to.
4. Therefore, if God exists he would eliminate all suffering (from 1-3) and there would be no suffering.
5. There is suffering.
6. Therefore, God does not exist.(from 4 and 5).

The argument is deductively valid, i.e. the conclusion logically and necessarily from the premises. But it has long been realized in philosophy of religion that line 3 is false. Suppose for example a friend is stranded on the road and suffering of thirst. I am benevolent and have the ability to eliminate his suffering but, being ignorant of my friend’s condition, do not help him. We could change line 3 to “Any benevolent being would eliminate all suffering it knows about to the extent it is able to,” but that isn’t quite true either. Suppose two of my friends are stranded and I’m the only one capable of helping them. Alice will die if I don’t immediately take her to the hospital, and Bob will suffer some mild aches if I don’t give him aspirin. I take the first friend to the hospital, thereby not eliminating the suffering of Bob, even though eliminating the suffering of Bob is within my ability, albeit at the risk of preventing the greater good of helping Alice.

All this may seem trivial, but rigorous thinking matters not only in science but also in philosophy. Theists have long maintained that God is not omnipotent in the sense that he can do literally anything; God cannot do the logically impossible. (If the atheist insists that God can do even the logically impossible, then the logical problem of evil poses little problem for theism, since such a God is capable of creating the logical contradiction.) Many theists have argued that, as in the case of Alice and Bob, God cannot eliminate the suffering without also eliminating a greater good. This may well be implausible, but the bare logical possibility of this is enough to defeat the logical problem of evil, and as such Rosenberg should have given a better argument from evil.

To illustrate why the logical possibility of a greater good defeats the logical problem of evil, consider a scenario I’ll call Bill the Idiot Theist. Let’s label the sum total of suffering that does exist, has ever existed in this world, and will exist Φ. Bill the Idiot Theist thinks Φ suffering makes the angels in heaven smile, and that “Φ suffering making angels smile” is a great good, a much better good than eliminating any of the suffering in the world. So on this view, God cannot eliminate any of the suffering that exists without also eliminating the greater good of “Φ suffering making angels smile.” This is the theodicy that Bill the Idiot Theist believes. Bill’s idiotic theodicy is terrible, but it’s not self-contradictory, and so a perfectly good God allowing evil isn’t a logical contradiction even if it is highly implausible. As such, the logical problem of evil doesn’t work.

What Rosenberg should have done

It should first be remembered that a belief doesn’t have to be logically impossible to be ridiculous and highly implausible. What Rosenberg should have done is say that while it is not logically impossible that a perfectly good God would allow the evil we see, it is highly implausible that he would.

So one would be better off pointing to the obviously low probability that a perfectly good, omniscient, and omnipotent God would do nothing as he watched child cancer victims succumb to horrible deaths, even if God behaving that way isn’t strictly self-contradictory. If the theist puts forth a terrible theodicy (as in the case of Bill the Idiot Theist), the atheist can point out how terrible it is without saying it is self-contradictory. Rosenberg should have used the evidential argument from evil (the idea that the existence of evil and suffering is evidence against theism), as I did in my own argument from evil. It’s quick, simple, and pretty devastating.

In fairness to Rosenberg, I should point out that it isn’t entirely clear in the debate whether Rosenberg was presenting an evidential argument from evil, a logical problem of evil, or both. At certain times he seems to be presenting an evidential argument from evil, and at other times he seems to argue for the logical problem of evil. At around 58:43 he characterizes his argument from evil as a

logical deduction which shows the incompatibility of an omnipotent and benevolent creature with suffering on this planet.

This kind of suggests he’s talking about the logical problem of evil, but within a minute after this he says that it’s not enough to fob it off on “the mere logical compatibility” of God and suffering, thereby also suggesting he’s talking about an evidential argument from evil. Craig seems to interpret Rosenberg as presenting the logical problem of evil (0:59:59 to 1:00:47) and Rosenberg doesn’t clearly gainsay Craig on that point anywhere in the debate. Indeed, Rosenberg seems to suggest fairly explicitly that his argument is about the logical incompatibility of God and evil at around 1:20:03-1:21:43, where he also insists that the problem of evil is a logical one, seemingly contradicting what he said earlier about it not being enough to demonstrate the “mere logical compatibility” of God and suffering.

And the confusion gets worse. When Craig responds on how even atheist philosophers have abandoned the logical problem of evil, in Rosenberg’s next round he acts as if he and Craig were talking about a more generic problem of evil all along (1:34:47) rather than the logical problem of evil specifically; e.g. he portrays Craig as asserting that “invoking my best friend, Peter van Inwagen, asserting that nobody anymore believes” that the argument from evil is a problem for theism, even though Craig’s quotes from philosophers that Rosenberg alludes to in this response were clearly about the logical problem of evil specifically, not the argument from evil in general. While near the end he seems to be talking about a more generic problem of evil and rightfully points out that God (if he existed) could have given us free will without giving us the bubonic plague (1:36:46-1:36:52), the fact remains Rosenberg seems to have made a confused mess of things, and so if nothing else Rosenberg should have been clearer about presenting his own position and been more careful to remember what was said in the previous rounds. He also shouldn’t have given an initial version of the argument from evil that was so flawed.

Craig also argues (at around 1:25:14 onward) that it’s possible that only in a world “suffused with natural and moral evil that the optimal number of people would come to know God freely, find salvation and eternal life.” I’ve addressed William Lane Craig’s “suffused with suffering” claim before, and I think Rosenberg should have given a response something along what I wrote there.

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. 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. 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.

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.