Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Craig Hazen, director of the master's
degree program in Christian Apologetics at Biola University in Southern California. Although our campus is thousands of miles
away from tonight's debate on the campus of Purdue,
Biola University has become a center point for discussion and engagements on the big
ideas that have really challenged humankind for
centuries-like tonight's big question: Is faith in God Reasonable? I want to thank Biola University's partners
for the live streaming of this event. The first partner is Symposia Christi which
is a coalition of campus ministry groups at Purdue,
and the second is Reasonable Faith - the organization that supports the scholarship, speaking, and
debates of Dr. William Lane Craig. We're joined this evening by 5,000 people
on the Purdue campus and tens of thousands from around the world
who have signed in to watch this important exchange of ideas. One of our goals in bringing this debate to
you live is to help ignite a robust dialogue.
And we want you to be part of the conversation. So fire up Twitter and tweet commentary for
the world. You can also submit questions to the debaters
online to be answered during the live Q&A. Now, once tonight's debate is over there's
a good chance you'll want to see it again or alert others to it so they can watch.
If so, just point them to a site called Open Biola.
But jot down the address for yourself as well because there is
a treasure trove of quality academic content at that site --
and it's all for free. So be sure to check it out. The debaters you will see tonight are both
academic philosophers and are at the top of their game. Answering "no" to the question "is faith in
God reasonable?" will be Dr. Alex Rosenberg who is the R. Taylor Cole
Professor of Philosophy at Duke University and head of the Philosophy Department.
He's a prolific author having written over a dozen books and hundreds of articles.
His latest book is titled "An Atheist's Guide to Reality." On the other side of platform tonight and
answering "yes" to the question "is faith in God reasonable?" will be Dr. William Lane Craig who is a Research Professor
of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.
Dr. Craig is likewise an author of dozens of books and hundreds of articles. And of course Dr. William Lane Craig teaches
courses in my own department -- the master of arts degree program in Christian
Apologetics at Biola, which has been voted the best program of its
kind in the world on several occasions. If you have considered doing graduate work
in this fascinating field of study, we'd be delighted to send you more information.
Just contact us or log on to biola.edu. We've developed one of the finest distance
learning programs available anywhere, so you can earn a master's degree in apologetics
or in the field of science and religion without uprooting or moving.
The degree program is convenient, it's very stimulating, and it's affordable.
And you don't need a background in philosophy or theology to start it --
we'll give you everything you need to get up to speed. We also have a certificate program in apologetics
and educational resources that are available to everyone. Of special interest to viewers of this debate
will be boxed sets of Dr. Craig's previous debates with opponents
like Christopher Hitchens, Frank Zindler, Bart Ehrman, and more.
You might also be interested in the boxed set of study materials called
"On Guard" - a popular guide to Christian thought and philosophy
authored by Dr. Craig and available through Biola University. One last thing.
If you enjoy the ideas and want to introduce them to your church or community,
consider hosting an Apologetics Conference in your area.
Our Apologetics Program at Biola can supply everything you need
to put on an amazing event with benefits for everyone who attends. Well I think you're catching on to the idea
that it's easy for the learning to continue after tonight's debate.
And I hope you take advantage of all of it. Enjoy the debate and we'll see you on Twitter! Mr. Miller: Good evening and welcome!
Come on in and let's have a seat. Thank you for coming.
Given the vastness of the audience that would be watching this debate tonight here and across
the world, you know sometimes and at some places in America
we like to say, "LLLLets get ready to rumblllllle."
It's going to be an exciting night. Welcome to the main event - The Symposium
2013 where the theme is The Foolishness of Faith. The Christian faith is often viewed as foolishness
by those who don't believe it and it is viewed as life preserving and giving
by those who do. The purpose of the symposium annually is to
explore and debate some of the most probing questions about faith,
reason, and life through lectures, panel discussions, and debates
such as this. We welcome those of you attending tonight's
debate here at Elliot Hall of Music at Purdue University
and we welcome those watching this live streaming, some estimated 10,000.
(Audience clapping). Those 10,000 people represent people from
every state in America and as of 10 a.m. this morning from over 60
countries across the world. This is great.
(Audience clapping). We're happy to include translators tonight
so that the deaf community can participate in this for years to come
when we put this on YouTube by the end of the month.
We are thankful for more than 40 sponsors many of which were included on the screen
behind me. As you were entering, perhaps you saw that,
or in the brochures, or on our website at www.symposiachristi.com.
We're also grateful to Purdue's Philosophy Department for sharing the cost of
flying in one of our debaters so that he could speak in their department yesterday. My name is Mr. Corey Miller.
I will be the moderator for tonight's debate and the MC throughout the weekend,
where we've got a fantastic series of talks scheduled for you by a dozen speakers,
maybe 35 talks on issues relevant to tonight's debate.
I'm on staff with Faculty Commons, the Faculty Ministry of Cru.
I direct the Christian Faculty Staff Network here at Purdue.
I'm also a PhD candidate in Philosophical Theology and teach adjunct courses
in Philosophy and Comparative Religions at Indiana University in Kokomo. Our Purdue audience should have a pencil and
paper that you were given on your way in to fill out some basic information including
your vote on who won tonight's debate and you can do that by pencil or completed
online at www.biola.edu/debate. It should go without saying but please wait
until after the debate to decide who won. I know some of us just love our guy that's
going to be up here, but it's more fun this way if you wait until
after the debate. We'll collect these right after the debate
and prior to the question and answer time, so please write legibly if you're writing. We also want to welcome some special dignitaries
who will help formally judge tonight's debate, wait until all of them are announced, and
then please welcome the judges. Judges once I announce you individually please
stand up and greet the audience. First of all John Schultz,
a fifth year PhD student in political science and head of the Purdue Petticrew Debate Forum.
He will head up the judge team and has helped organized and formed this judge team tonight. Sheila Klinker is on her way.
Sheila, she never misses a beat; she'll be here.
Sheila graduated from Purdue and is a member of the Indiana State Senate.
I'm sorry no ... House of Representatives, a Democratic representing ...
that's smooth, the enemy, representing the 27th district since 1982. Ron Alting graduated from Purdue and is a
member of the Indiana State Senate, a Republican representing the 22nd district
serving Tippecanoe County. Aaron Trembath and an alum of Purdue's Entrepreneurship
and Innovation Program. He is the President and CEO of NanoBio Interfacing
Systems and Nano Technology-Based Diagnostics Company in Purdue Research Park.
Before coaching Purdue's speech and debate team, he was pretty successful in debate himself. Professor Fenggang Yang from Purdue University,
a Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Center on Religion and Chinese society.
The professor previously taught philosophy at a university in Beijing, China. Professor Martin Medhurst is a Distinguished
Professor of Rhetoric and Communication and Professor of Political Science at Baylor
University, in Waco, Texas. Clarke Rountree, another professor also flown
in here just recently like Dr. Medhurst. He is Professor and Chair of the Communications
Arts Faculty flown in tonight from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Let's welcome our distinguished guests.
(Audience clapping). A colleague, Paul Gould, and myself
will be editing a book to be published by Routledge
based on the proceedings of tonight's debate which will include the two debaters we'll
announce in a moment, the two Rhetoric professors we just mentioned
and two other philosophers and two physics professors with an equal divide
of Christians and atheist along the lines. The debate tonight will continue under the
forthcoming title Is Faith in God Reasonable, Debates in Philosophy, Science and Rhetoric.
We'll let you know when that comes out through your contact information,
so make sure you give us the basic information. Turning to the corner here,
the famous anti-theist Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain once said,
"Faith is believing something you know ain't true."
I don't know if that has unanimous consent. The most famous of Jewish and Christian philosophers
perhaps of all time, at least in a particular period,
Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas believed that faith is a virtue.
Indeed Aquinas went so far as to say that "Without faith, the virtue of faith, none
of the other virtues are even virtuous." John Calvin, the Protestant Reformer, claimed
that, "It would be the height of absurdity to label
ignorance tempered by humility, faith; for faith consists in the knowledge of God."
For Maimonides, Aquinas and Calvin then, faith is part of a knowledge tradition.
Yet in contemporary times, the Philosopher Norman Malcolm has said that
"In our Western academic philosophy, religious belief is commonly regarded as unreasonable
and is viewed with condescension or even contempt." "It is said that religion is a refuge for
those who, because of weakness of intellect or character,
they're unable to confront the stern realities of the world."
"The objective, mature, strong attitude is to hold beliefs solely on the basis of evidence." To this provocative statement much, can, and
should, and now will be said as we turn toward tonight's
debate over the question, is faith in God reasonable? Our first debater will argue the affirmative
and consequently will go first as is the tradition when taking the affirmative
position. William Lane Craig is Research Professor of
Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California.
He earned a Doctorate in Philosophy at the University of Birmingham England
before taking a Doctorate in Theology from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in
Germany. Prior to his appointment at Talbot, he spent
several years at the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University Louvain, Belgium.
He has authored and edited over 30 books including the Kalam Cosmological Argument,
Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus,
Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, and God, Time and Eternity,
as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology such as
the Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, the British
Journal for Philosophy of Science. He is considered to be one of the foremost
defenders of the Christian faith. His book here, third edition, Reasonable Faith:
Christian Truth and Apologetics matches his website which is reasonablefaith.org.
Please welcome with me Dr. William Lane Craig. (Audience clapping) Dr. Craig: Thank you. Mr. Miller: Our next debater will argue the
negative and consequently will go second. He will have the final word in the debate.
Alex Rosenberg is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy and Department Head at Duke
University with secondary appointments in the Biology
and Political Science departments. He completed his dissertation at the Johns
Hopkins University on a Philosophical Analysis of Microeconomic Laws. In addition to nearly 40 articles or chapters,
he is author of more than a dozen books, some of which had been translated into multiple
languages. Dr. Rosenberg has been a visiting professor
and fellow of the Center for the Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota,
as well as the department ... as well as the University of California Santa Cruz and Oxford
University, and a visiting fellow of the Philosophy Department
at the Research School of Social Science of the Australian National University.
That's a long sentence. (Audience laughing) He has held fellowships from the National
Science Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies,
and a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. In 1993, Dr. Rosenberg received the Lakatos
Award in the Philosophy of Science. In 2006 and in 2007, he held a fellowship
at the National Humanity Center. He was also the Phi Beta Kappa-Romanell Lecturer
for the 2006-2007 year. On one website listing, the world's 50 most
famous atheists in the world, Dr. Rosenberg ranks number 13.
His recent book is The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.
Please welcome with me, Dr. Alex Rosenberg. (Audience clapping) Mr. Miller: The debate rules for tonight ...
the structure of the debate will be as follows: Each speaker will have a 20-minute opening
statement, followed by two 12-minute rebuttals and then
two eight-minute rebuttals. The speakers will then provide a five-minute
closing statement. Now, all the actual debate should take 90
minutes, 45 minutes for each position to make their
case. There will then be a 30- to 45-minute Q&A
period according to which we will take questions from our live audience here at Purdue and
from our live streaming audience across the world perhaps. If either of the debaters goes over their
allotted time, we will give them a 15-second grace period
... we're very graceful ... gracious ... and then promptly ask them to terminate their
time and we will have a modest interaction between the professors in order to get a response
to maybe answers that they give to you. Professor Craig will approach the lectern
first. Dr. Craig ... and then when he begins, the
time begins. Timer, are you ready? Begin. Dr. Craig: Good evening, I'm delighted to
be able to participate in tonight's debate and I count it a real privilege to be discussing
this important issue with Dr. Rosenberg. Tonight, we're interested in discussing some
of the arguments that make belief in God reasonable or unreasonable.
So, in my opening speech, I'm going to present several arguments, which I think make it reasonable
to believe that God exists. In my second speech, I will respond to Dr.
Rosenberg's arguments against the reasonable disbelief in God.
I believe that God's existence best explains a wide range of the data of human experience.
Let me just mention eight. First, God is the best explanation of why
anything at all exists. Suppose you were hiking through the forest
and came upon a ball lying on the ground. You would naturally wonder how it came to
be there. If your hiking buddy said to you, "Just forget
about it, it just exists," inexplicably. You would think either that he was joking
or that he wanted you to just keep moving. No one would take seriously the idea that
the ball just exists without any explanation. Now, notice that merely increasing the size
of the ball even until it becomes coextensive with the universe does nothing to provide
or remove the need for an explanation of its existence. So, what is the explanation of the existence
of the universe? Whereby, the universe, I mean all of space-time
reality, the explanation of the universe can lie only
in a transcendent reality; beyond the universe, beyond space and time,
which is metaphysically necessary in its existence. Now, there's only one way I can think of to
get a contingent universe from a necessarily existing cause,
and that is if the cause is a personal agent who can freely choose to create a contingent
reality. It therefore follows that the best explanation
of the existence of the contingent universe is a transcendent personal being,
which is what everybody means by "God". We can summarize this reasoning as follows: One, every contingent thing has an explanation
of its existence. Two, if the universe has an explanation of
its existence, that explanation is a transcendent personal being.
Three, the universe is a contingent thing. Four, therefore the universe has an explanation
of its existence. Five, therefore the explanation of the universe
is a transcendent personal being; which is what everybody means by "God". Second, God is the best explanation of the
origin of the universe. We have pretty strong evidence that the universe
is not eternal in the past but had an absolute beginning a finite time ago.
In 2003, Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to prove that any universe
which has on average been in a state of cosmic expansion,
cannot be infinite in the past, but must have a past space time boundary. What makes their proof so powerful is that
it holds regardless of the physical description of the very early universe.
Because we don't yet have a quantum theory of gravity, we can't yet provide a physical
description of the first split second of the universe,
but the Borde-Guth Vilenkin theorem is independent of any physical description of that moment. Their theorem implies that the quantum vacuum
state, which may have characterized the early universe;
cannot be eternal in the past but must have had an absolute beginning.
Even if our universe is just a tiny part of a so-called multiverse composed of many universes,
their theorem requires that the multiverse itself must have had an absolute beginning. Of course, highly speculative scenarios, such
as loop quantum gravity models, string models, and even closed time-like curves
had been proposed to try to avoid this absolute beginning.
These models are fraught with problems, but the bottom line is that none of these models,
even if true,succeed in restoring an eternal past.
Last spring, at a conference in Cambridge celebrating the 70th birthday of Stephen Hawking,
Vilenkin delivered a paper entitled; Did the Universe Have a Beginning?,
which surveyed the current cosmology with respect to that question. He argued and I quote "None of these scenarios
can actually be past-eternal." He concluded, "All the evidence we have says
that the universe had a beginning." But then the inevitable question arises, why
did the universe come into being? What brought the universe into existence?
There must have been a transcendent cause which brought the universe into being. We can summarize our argument thus far as
follows: One, the universe began to exist.
Two, if the universe began to exist, then the universe has a transcendent cause.
Three, therefore the universe has a transcendent cause. By the very nature of the case, that cause
must be a transcendent immaterial being. There are only two possible things that could
fit that description, either an abstract object like a number or
an unembodied mind or consciousness, but abstract objects don't stand in causal
relations. The number seven for example has no effect
on anything. Therefore, the cause of the universe is plausibly
an unembodied mind or person. Thus we are brought not merely to a transcendent
cause of the universe, but to its personal creator. Three, God is the best explanation of the
applicability of mathematics to the physical world.
Philosophers and scientists have puzzled over what physicists Eugene Wigner called "The
uncanny effectiveness of mathematics." How is it that a mathematical theorist like
Peter Higgs, can sit down at his desk and by pouring over mathematical equations,
predict the existence of a fundamental particle which experimentalists 30 years later after
investing millions of dollars and thousands of man hours are finally able to detect.
Mathematics is the language of nature, but how is this to be explained?
If mathematical objects are abstract entities causally isolated from the universe,
then the applicability of mathematics is in the words of philosopher of mathematics Penelope
Maddy, "A happy coincidence." On the other hand,if mathematical objects
are just useful fictions, how is it that nature is written in the language
of these fictions? In his book, Dr. Rosenberg emphasizes that
naturalism doesn't tolerate cosmic coincidences, but the naturalist has no explanation of the
uncanny applicability of mathematics to the physical world. By contrast, the theist has a ready explanation.
When God created the physical universe, he designed it on the mathematical structure
he had in mind. We can summarize this argument as follows:
One, if God did not exist the applicability of mathematics would be a happy coincidence.
Two, the applicability of mathematics is not a happy coincidence.
Three, therefore God exists. Fourth, God is the best explanation of the
fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life. In recent decades, scientists have been stunned
by the discovery that the initial conditions of the big bang
were fine tuned for the existence of intelligent life with a precision and delicacy that literally
defy human comprehension. There are three live explanatory options for
this extraordinary fine tuning; a physical necessity, chance, or design.
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. Could the fine-tuning be due to chance?
The problem with this explanation is 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' phrase, "An unparsimonious extravagance", but it faces an insuperable objection.
By far, most of the observable universes in a world ensemble would be worlds 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's strongly disconfirms the world ensemble hypothesis, so chance is
also not a good explanation. It follows that design is the best explanation
of the fine-tuning of the universe. Thus, the fine-tuning of the universe constitutes
evidence for a cosmic designer. Fifth, God is the best explanation of intentional
states of consciousness in the world. Philosophers are puzzled by states of intentionality.
Intentionality is the property of being about something or of something.
It signifies the object directedness of our thoughts.
For example, I can think about my summer vacation or I can think of my wife. No physical object has this sort of intentionality.
A chair, or a stone, or a glob of tissue like the brain is not about or of something else.
Only mental states or states of consciousness are about other things.
As a materialist, Dr. Rosenberg recognizes this fact and so concludes that on atheism,
there really are no intentional states. Dr. Rosenberg boldly claims that we never
really think about anything, but this seems incredible. Obviously, I am thinking about Dr. Rosenberg's
argument. This seems to me to be a reductio ad absurdum
of atheism. By contrast on theism, because God is a mind,
it's hardly surprising that there should be finite minds.
Thus, intentional states fit comfortably into a theistic world view.
So, we may argue, One, if God did not exist, intentional states
of consciousness would not exist. Two, but intentional states of consciousness
do exist. Three, therefore God exists. Number six, God is the best explanation of
objective moral values and duties in the world. In moral experience, we apprehend moral values
and duties which impose themselves as objectively binding and true.
For example, we all recognize that it's wrong to walk into an elementary school with an
automatic weapon and to shoot little boys and girls and their teachers. On a naturalistic view, however, there's nothing
really wrong with this. Moral values are just a subjective byproduct
of biological evolution and social conditioning. Dr. Rosenberg is brutally honest about the
implications of his atheism. He writes, "There is no such thing as morally
right or wrong. Individual human life is meaningless and without ultimate moral value. We need
to face the fact that nihilism is true". By contrast, the theist grounds objective
moral values in God and our moral duties in his commands.
The theist thus has the explanatory resources which the atheist lacks to ground objective
moral values and duties. Hence we may argue,
One, objective moral values and duties exist. Two, but if God did not exist, objective moral
values and duties would not exist. From which it follows, Three, therefore God
exists. Number seven, God is the best explanation
of the historical facts about Jesus of Nazareth. Historians have reached something of a consensus
that Jesus came on the scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority, the authority to
stand and speak in God's place. He claimed that in himself the Kingdom of
God had come. As visible demonstrations of this fact, he
carried out a ministry of miracle working and exorcisms, but the supreme confirmation
of his claim was his resurrection from the dead. If Jesus did rise from the dead; then it would
seem that we have a divine miracle on our hands, and thus evidence for the existence
of God. I realize that most people probably think
that the resurrection of Jesus is something you just accept by faith or not,
but there are actually three facts recognized by the majority of historians today which
I believe are best explained by the resurrection of Jesus. Fact number one, on the Sunday after his crucifixion,
Jesus' tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.
Two, on separate occasions, different individuals and groups of people saw appearances of Jesus
alive after his death. And three, the original disciples suddenly
came to believe in the resurrection of Jesus despite having every predisposition to the
contrary. The eminent British scholar, N.T. Wright,
near the end of his 800-page study of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection concludes
that the empty tomb and post mortem appearances
of Jesus have been established to such a high degree of historical probability as to be
and I quote "virtually certain" akin to the death of Caesar
Augustus in AD 17 or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. Naturalistic attempts to explain away these
three great facts like the disciples stole the body or Jesus wasn't really dead
have been universally rejected by contemporary scholarship.
The simple fact is that there just is no plausible naturalistic explanation of these facts.
Therefore, it seems to me the Christian is amply justified in believing that Jesus rose
from the dead and was who he claimed to be, but that entails that God exists.
Thus we have a good inductive argument to the existence of God based on the facts concerning
the resurrection of Jesus. Finally, number eight,
God can be personally known and experienced. This isn't really an argument for God's existence,
rather it's the claim that you can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments simply
by personally experiencing Him. Philosophers call beliefs likes this "Properly
basic beliefs." They are based on some other beliefs rather
they're part of the foundations of a person's system of beliefs. Other properly basic beliefs would be belief
in the reality of the past or the existence of the external world.
In the same way, belief in God is for those who seek him a properly basic belief grounded
in our experience of God. If this is so, then there's a danger that
arguments for God could actually distract our attention from God Himself.
The Bible promises, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."
We must not so concentrate on the external proofs that we fail to hear the inner voice
of God speaking to our own hearts. For those who listen, God becomes a personal
reality in their lives. In summary then, we've seen eight respects
in which God provides a better explanation of the world than naturalism.
God is the best explanation of why anything at all exists.
God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
God is the best explanation of the applicability of mathematics to the physical world.
God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness in the world.
God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties in the world.
God is the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus resurrection.
Finally, God can be personally known and experienced. For all of these reasons, I think that belief
in God is eminently reasonable. If Dr. Rosenberg is to persuade this otherwise,
he must first tear down all eight of the reasons that I've presented
and then in their place erect a case of his own to show why belief in God is unreasonable.
Unless and until he does that, I think we should agree that it is reasonable to believe
in God. (Audience clapping). Mr. Miller: Do we have a timer on this side
or is it just ... okay, that ends Dr. Craig's opening statement.
Dr. Rosenberg will now approach his lectern. And, when I say begin then Professor Rosenberg
may begin his 20-minute opening statement. Timer, are you ready?
Dr. Rosenberg you may begin. Dr. Rosenberg: Thanks Corey and thank you
for the invitation. As Yogi Berra of the famous Yankee catcher,
once said, "I appreciate you're making this night necessary."
I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I hope you didn't pay money to come to tonight's
debate because everything that Dr. Craig said ... almost everything actually, he said many
times before in many different debates, almost in the same order, and all of them available
on the internet. So, you know you didn't need to come out in
this really cold night here in West Lafayette to hear these debates again and to hear these
arguments again. In particular, what's remarkable about them
is how impervious they are to the previous discussions and criticism that they've been
exposed to. They're exactly the same as seven or eight
or nine internet presentations of his arguments in the past.
What it leads me to ask is, is Dr. Craig infallible or does he just not listen? Probably, the latter. He probably doesn't
listen to what his interlocutors have suggested. I don't think that he listens because he's
really not interested in getting at the truth. He's interested in scoring debate points.
The two moves that Dr. Craig almost always makes, first, there's the burden of proof
claim. As though we were in a court of law, as though
it was a question of the defending attorney and the prosecuting attorney engaged in an
adversarial procedure. And the other thing that you often hear is,
"All I need to show to win is ..." so for example at the very end of his remarks he
said, "I've got eight arguments and he's got to refute all eight of them or else I win".
You know, philosophy and theology don't proceed by a "court room style" debate.
We're engaged in a cooperative search for the truth, both theists and atheists, not
on adversarial contest for victory. This is the wrong format for a profitable
discussion of faith, or God, or science and reason.
But, let's turn to the substance of the matter. Our topic is whether faith in God is reasonable,
but of course by definition faith is a belief in the absence of evidence.
So, I'm going to give Dr. Craig the benefit of the doubt and accept the change that he
has made in the terms of the debate. It now turns out that what we're arguing about
is whether belief in God is reasonable. The god we're talking about is the god of
the Abrahamic religions; the god of Islam, of Christianity, and Judaism.
It's not the "milk and water" deism of for example the founding fathers, Jefferson, Adams,
Monroe perhaps even George Washington. The god we're talking about has the following
features. If he exists, he's got the three "omni's"
and benevolence. He's got omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence,
and an unqualifiedly goodwill. If these four features are incompatible with
some obvious fact, then of course the atheist's ... the theist's god is non-existent.
Can I ask some water, Corey? So, let's be clear that we're arguing about
theism here. In thinking about theism and in thinking about
science ... thank you Corey ... there's something else that we had better keep in mind.
Dr. Craig is very confident about his take on fundamental physics, on important and controversial
questions about which physicists have not attain consensus. The important thing to bear in mind in thinking
about his take, the sides he chose, and the confidence with which he presents his take,
the important thing to bear in mind is this; 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.
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. I'm going to controvert some of those claims
right now. In particular, many of the arguments that
Dr. Craig gave tonight, and which he has given repeatedly in the past, rest on the first
cause argument; an argument that goes back certainly to St.
Thomas Aquinas and probably to Aristotle. It rests on, of course, the principle of sufficient
reason; the principle that everything that exists must have a cause. The remarkable thing about this argument and
the Principle of Sufficient Reason as it's called on which address is that the principle
is plainly false. It's refuted trillions of times every second
throughout the universe. It's refuted in this room and I'll give you
a pretty full explanation of why. Take two Uranium 238 atoms, okay, that are
absolutely indistinguishable. In a given moment, these two indistinguishable
atoms, atoms of exactly the same mass and energy state have the following difference.
One produces an alpha particle spontaneously and the other doesn't.
There is no cause whatsoever for that difference. That's what quantum mechanics tells us.
Suddenly one emits an alpha particle and the other doesn't.
There's no cause or whatever for that difference between them. Now, you might think that that's not a very
important fact of nature but one mole, one Avogadro's number of Uranium 238 molecules,
emits three million alpha particles a second. Every helium atom on this planet is one of
those alpha particles. The smoke detectors that operate all through
this auditorium to protect us from fires, those operate because of the indeterminate,
unexplained, completely spontaneous appearance of an alpha particle out of a uranium atom
in these systems. 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. Right, it's not a principle accepted in physics.
You can't argue from it, forward for ... from its intuitive attractiveness.
Let's consider the fine-tuning argument, another of the claims about science that Dr. Craig
makes. This is the argument that the charge on the
electron, the gravitational constant, the mass of the electron, Planck's constant, the
Hubble constant, the cosmic density parameter that they're all so beautifully arranged to
make human life actual that there must have been some purpose or design that brought them
into being in order to do that. That's the best explanation. To begin with, this is terrible carbon chauvinism.
If these constants had been slightly different, maybe there would be intelligent life in the
universe that's germanium-based or silicon-based. Look at the periodic table of the elements.
Look at the atoms around carbon in the periodic table.
Ask yourself whether, if some of these constants had been slightly different whether there
might not be intelligent creatures in the universe that are differently composed from
us. More important, physics ruled out the kind
of teleology, the kind of purpose of thinking that Dr. Craig invokes here, 400 years ago.
If it's one thing that physics is not going to go back to and turn around and accept in
its search for the fundamental nature of reality, it's the invocation of purposes. There are of course in physical theory at
least two different ways in which the particular way in which the constants of our part of
the universe could have come in to existence, while they're being in a definitely large
number of other combinations of constants, making up other inaccessible regions either
of this universe or of other universes. The inflationary period soon after the big
bang produced regions of space by completely quantum mechanical indeterministic symmetry
breaking which are inaccessible to us; which are beyond our horizon, our event horizon.
There are possibly indefinitely many of these. For all we know, there may be life or there
may not be life in them. Then of course string theory and end theory
tell us that there are minimally 10 to the 500th different kinds of possible universes
or actual universes bubbling up out of the quantum foam of the eternally existing, multi-universe. I'm not going to take sides on these varying
theories, but I defy Professor Craig to argue from authority that it is impossible for something
to have been created from nothing. The symmetry breaking which is characteristic
of the cascade of events that occurred in our universe and which produces our universe
in addition to the indefinitely many other universes bubbling up out of the quantum foam
of the multiverse. That symmetry breaking is another example
of the violation of the principle of sufficient reason on which Dr. Craig's stakes so many
of his arguments. Let's turn to something much more accessible,
objective values. Now, Dr. Craig's argument that only God can
underwrite objective values was refuted by Plato in 390 B.C., in an argument that he
gives in the first and simplest of his dialogues the Euthyphro. I'm very tempted to say to Dr. Craig, "What
part of 'No Euthyphro' don't you understand?" The question that Plato raises in the Euthyphro
goes like this, "Take your favorite moral norm; gay marriage is forbidden, or FGM is
required, or thou shall not kill. Take your favorite moral norm.
Ask yourself this question. Is it morally right because God chose it or
did God choose it because it's morally right?" We all know the answer to this question.
The answer to this question is God chose it because it's morally right.
What that means of course is the moral rightness of thou shall not kill is entirely independent
fact from God's choosing it, it's because he recognizes the moral rightness of "Thou
shall not kill" that he imposed it on us. That means that the mere fact that it's God
who imposed it on us, doesn't explain the nature of objective value. It's that further fact that he was wise enough
and smart enough to detect about "Thou shall not kill" that made it the morally right value
for us. Okay and this is the point that Socrates makes
to Euthyphro in the first and simplest of the dialogues.
And it is a problem that theological ethics has wrestled with ever since.
The only option in responding to this argument is the divine command theory; a theory that
has had its exponents all the way back to William of Ockham. The trouble with divine command theory is
that in order to articulate that theory, in order to defend it, in order to make it sound
plausible; you have to already commit yourself to there being some normative fact, some moral
fact about the moral rules that make them right independent of God's saying, "You do
it or you go to hell". There's a rightness about moral norms that
cannot be exhausted by the mere fact that it was handed down on a mountain by Moses
from God. Natural selection is a theory of course about
how we came to be moral, why we're moral about what the ecological conditions are that made
us moral. It explains our morality, but it doesn't necessarily
explain away our morality. That requires something else.
The suggestion that without God, the naturalist, the Darwinian has no basis on which to underwrite
his normative commitment that again is bluff. And in fact, it's the person who claims that
it's God that gave normative morality to us, that explains its normative rightness is the
person who has regrettably to use the expression that Dr. Craig so invokes the burden of proof
of explaining. What is it about God that makes for the moral
rightness of the ethical norms that he imposes on us? There are of course any numbers of alternative
ethical theories that underwrite the objectivity of ethics; among them, utilitarianism and
social contract theory, and ideal observer theory, and Hume's theory of the sympathies
and the Kantian theory of the categorical imperative.
And the real problem for Dr. Craig is he needs to refute each of these normative theories
in order to show that there's no other basis for ethics than God.
The resources that he would use to cast doubt on these theories also cast out on the divine
command theory. So, let's turn to the argument from the New
Testament. I am sort of gob-smacked as a philosopher
that he should persist in propounding this preposterous argument.
Ask yourself the following question, in 1827 Joseph Smith got 11 people to certify that
they observe the golden tablets which he, an illiterate person, was able to translate
from reformed Egyptian and convey the Book of Mormon to the Mormon ...
to the Latter Day Saints. Do we believe on the basis of those 11 certificates
that are only about 160 years old that the Book of Mormon is the revealed word of God?
The Koran tells us that Muhammad ascended to heaven from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome
of the Rock in Jerusalem on the 26th of February 621.
And there are millions and millions of Muslims all over the world who are committed to that
great truth. Do you think we in this room should believe
it? Right. Scientology that claims eight million adherents
throughout the world, Scientology tells us that 75 million years ago somebody named Xenu
brought billions of people to earth on spaceships that looked like DC8s.
And who are we to believe that there are 55,000 people in the United States or eight million
people around the world who really believe this too? Is there any reason why we should
accept the certification of L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology
that this actually happened? No, of course not. How many of you are familiar with the statues
of Madonna taken out from their churches once a year which shed tears? Of course as scientist
we know exactly what the physical properties are of these statues and how the rapid and
sudden change of temperature between the inside and the outside of the cathedral produces
condensation, which the devout believed to be tears, but that's no reason for us to believe
it. Think about this, 53 of the first 62 DNA exonerations
of people who turned out to be innocent of charges of capital crimes in the United States,
53 of these people were committed, convicted on eye witness testimony.
We know from cognitive social science how unreliable eye witness testimony is today.
Why should we suppose the eye witness testimony from 33 A.D.
is any more reliable? This as an argument for God's existence seems
to me to be bizarre. Of course the killer argument for...
against God's existence is the argument from evil.
It's enough to show that theism is unreasonable and it of course is the principle reason for
apostasy from the Christian faith and the Jewish faith and Islam, all through the centuries. And the argument is simple and terrible and
it goes like this: One, if the theist God exists, he's 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, but as we know it's obvious that there's plenty
of suffering in the world both man-made and natural suffering. If there's a god then he is either not omnipotent,
or not benevolent, or not either omnipotent or benevolent and theism is false.
The problem of evil is theism's problem from hell.
I want to say one last thing about the problem of evil and about the potential responses
that Dr. Craig will make and that he has made in the past.
And I need to make something about my own personal history clear here. There are a lot of responses to the problem
of evil that I find morally offensive. I find them morally offensive for a certain
reason. I'm the child of holocaust survivors.
All of my family, except my parents, were killed by the Nazis, including two half brothers
of mine. Okay? I will not take kindly, okay, to a suggestion
that Dr. Craig has made repeatedly in debate for or like this, that the innocent children
who died in the holocaust including, or died in the hands of Israeli ...
of the children ... of the soldiers of Israel in Canaan; that
these innocent children like my half brothers were more fortunate, more luckier because
they ascended to heaven directly than the SS soldiers who killed them and lived very
nice, very comfortable, very long lives in West Germany after World War II. I'm not going to take kindly to that kind
of exculpation of theism. In particular, Dr. Craig has said before,
and said in one sentence at least tonight; that nobody has ever shown the incompatibility
of theism and suffering that it's part of divine plan that's beyond our cognizance.
Well, the argument that I sketched, the argument from the evil is a logical deduction which
shows the incompatibility of an omnipotent and benevolent creature with suffering on
this planet. And it's not enough to "fob it off" on the
mystery of God's plan or on the mere logical compatibility of these two views.
Now, I've got to stop and in the reply I'm going to want to take up the two new arguments
that Dr. Craig introduced; the argument from mathematics and the argument from intentionality,
but I think I put enough on the table for him to rejoin.
Thank you. (Audience clapping) Dr. Miller: All right Dr. Craig will now begin
his 12-minute rebuttal. Timer, go ahead and begin when he begins to
speak. Dr. Craig: I noticed that in Dr. Rosenberg's
opening speech, he didn't really present many arguments against the reasonableness of belief
in God. He gestured in the direction of the problem
of evil, but he didn't really develop it. The problem is that argument is based upon
controversial premises such as that if God is all powerful, he can just create any world
that He wants and that If God is all good, he would want to create a world without evil.
And neither one of those is necessarily true and that is why among philosophers even atheists,
the logical version of the problem of evil is widely rejected. So, what Dr. Rosenberg needs to show, is that
it is impossible that God could have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the suffering
in the world and until he does that he hasn't even begun to offer a problem of evil that
disproves theism. Rather when you read Dr. Rosenberg's work,
what you discover is that his skepticism about God's existence is really rooted in his scientism
or naturalism, which make it unreasonable to believe in God. But here I think it's absolutely crucial that
we distinguish between two types of naturalism that Dr. Rosenberg tends to blur together,
epistemological naturalism which says that science is the only source of knowledge and
metaphysical naturalism, which says that only physical things exist.
Let me say a word about each one of these. First, with respect to epistemological naturalism,
I want to make two points. First, it's a false theory of knowledge for
two reasons. First, it's overly restrictive.
There are truths that cannot be proven by natural science and the success of natural
science in discovering truths about the physical world does nothing to show that it's the only
source of knowledge and truth. Secondly, it's self refuting.
The statement, natural science is the only source of knowledge, is not itself a scientific
statement. Therefore it cannot be true.
For these two reasons, epistemological naturalism is a false theory of knowledge that is widely
rejected by philosophers but leave that point aside.
The really important point for tonight's debate is the second. That epistemological naturalism does not imply
metaphysical naturalism. A case in point would be Willard Quine, the
most famous epistemological naturalist of the 20th century.
Quine showed himself to be commendably open to the reality of non-physical entities.
He wrote, "If I saw indirect explanatory benefit in positing, possibilia, spirits, a Creator,
I would joyfully accord them scientific status too on a par with such avowedly scientific
posits as quarks and black holes." And in fact, Quine was as good as his word,
for he did posit the existence of immaterial, non-physical objects namely mathematical objects
like sets. Quine's case shows that the epistemological
naturalist need not be a metaphysical naturalist; but secondly my arguments for the existence
of God. Many of my arguments do just what Quine said.
They show on the basis of scientific evidence the explanatory benefit of positing God.
And so, they are acceptable to the epistemological naturalist. The epistemological naturalist can and I think
should be a theist. The real issue in the debate tonight is not
epistemological but metaphysical naturalism. Dr. Rosenberg hasn't given us any reason to
think that metaphysical naturalism is true. So, what can we say about metaphysical naturalism?
Again I want to make two points. First, my arguments for the existence of God
showed that metaphysical naturalism is not true.
There is a personal transcendent reality beyond the physical universe; but secondly I think
that metaphysical naturalism is so contrary to reason and experience as to be absurd.
And in the following arguments, the first premise in every case is taken from Dr. Rosenberg's
own book, so first the argument from intentionality. According to Dr. Rosenberg if naturalism is
true; I cannot think about anything, that's because there are no intentional states, but
two, I am thinking about naturalism from which it follows three, therefore naturalism is
not true. So, if you think that you ever think about
anything you should conclude that naturalism is false. Second, the argument from meaning.
According to Dr. Rosenberg if naturalism is true, no sentence has any meaning.
He says that all the book... sentences in his own book are in fact meaningless,
but premise two, premise one has meaning. We all understood it.
Therefore it follows that three, naturalism is not true. Third, argument from truth.
According to Dr. Rosenberg if naturalism is true; there are no true sentences and that's
because they're all meaningless, but two, premise one is true, that's what the naturalist
believes and asserts, from which it follows three, therefore naturalism is not true. Fourth the argument from moral praise and
blame. According to Dr. Rosenberg if naturalism is
true, then I am not morally praise worthy or blame worthy for any of my actions, because
as I said on his view, objective moral values and duties do not exist, but two, I am morally
praise worthy and blame worthy for at least some of my actions.
If you think that you've ever done something truly wrong or truly good, then you should
conclude that three, therefore naturalism is not true. Fifth, the argument from freedom.
According to Dr. Rosenberg if naturalism is true, I do not do anything freely, everything
is determined; but two, I can freely agree or disagree with premise one, from which it
follows three, therefore naturalism is not true. Sixth, the argument from purpose.
According to Dr. Rosenberg if naturalism is true, I do not plan to do anything; but two,
I planned to come to tonight's debate, that's why I'm here, from which it follows three,
therefore naturalism is not true. Seventh, the argument from enduring.
According to Dr. Rosenberg if naturalism is true, I do not endure for two moments of time
but, two, I have been sitting here for more than a minute.
If you think that you're the same person who walked into the room tonight then you should
agree that three, therefore naturalism is not true. Finally, the argument from personal existence.
This is perhaps the "coup de gras" against naturalism.
According to Dr. Rosenberg, if naturalism is true, I do not exist.
He says, there are no selves, there are no persons, no first person perspectives; but
two, I do exist. I know this, as certainly as I know anything
from which it follows, therefore that naturalism is not true. In a word, metaphysical naturalism is "absurd".
Notice that my argument is not that it is "unappealing" rather it is that metaphysical
naturalism flies in the face of reason and experience and is therefore untenable.
So, in sum, epistemological naturalism is consistent with theism and metaphysical naturalism
is absurd. Let's now return to those arguments that I
offered for God's existence and see how Dr. Rosenberg responded to some of them. He didn't respond to the first argument why
anything exists rather than nothing. As for the origin of the universe, he says,
"But not everything has a cause. In quantum mechanics, virtual particles come
to be without a cause." Notice that he misstates the first premise, which is that the universe
began to exist. Then the second, if the universe began to
exist, the universe has a transcendent cause, that's because the universe can't come into
being out of nothing and virtual particles don't come out of nothing.
They come out of the quantum vacuum which is a sea of roiling energy. Moreover in quantum mechanics, it's not clear
that these entities are in fact uncaused. There are deterministic interpretations of
quantum mechanics according to which the behavior of these particles is fully determined.
Finally number three, I would say in response to this, that on the origin of the universe,
you have to believe the entire universe could come into being from non-being in order for
it to come to exist without a cause. I think that takes more faith than belief
in the existence of God. He didn't reply to the argument about the
applicability of mathematics in the world. As for the fine-tuning argument, he simply
appealed here once again to the multiverse hypothesis, but I refuted that in my opening
speech. If we were just a random member of a multiversal
world ensemble; then we ought to be having totally different observations than the ones
that we in fact have. Therefore that's why physicist like Roger
Penrose, have concluded that multiverse hypotheses are impotent to explain the fine-tuning of
the universe. He says perhaps you could have another basis
for life, like silicon. What he doesn't appreciate is that in the
absence of fine-tuning there wouldn't even be matter, there wouldn't even be chemistry,
much less stars and planets where life might evolve.
I don't think he really understands the extent of the fine-tuning of the universe and the
catastrophic consequences that would ensue if it were not finely-tuned. Intentional states of consciousness, he did
not respond to. As for objective moral values, in his book,
he admits that naturalism faces an even worse problem than the Euthyphro dilemma.
For the theist, the Euthyphro dilemma is easy to solve, namely you craft a third alternative
that God himself is the good and that his commands are necessary expressions of his
moral nature. So, they are neither arbitrary nor is the
good something external to God, but on Dr. Rosenberg's view there is no basis for moral
value or moral objectivity and that's why he is a moral nihilist who doesn't think that
anything is truly right or wrong. As for the resurrection of Jesus, he just
doesn't understand, I think, the credibility of the New Testament documents in this regard.
You can't compare them to Joseph Smith which were probably lies or to Muhammad's ascension
which is probably a legend, because in this case we are dealing with early eye witness
testimony that is not the result of conspiracy or lie.
These people sincerely believed what they said and that's why most historians accept
those three facts. Therefore the naturalist has got to come up
with some alternative explanation. You can't indict eye witness testimony in
general and then use that against a specific faith.
You have to show in the specific case of the gospels that this testimony is unreliable
and that is not the opinion of the majority of historians who investigated these documents. So, for all of these reasons, I think his
metaphysical naturalism is wholly unreasonable, whereas theism by contrast, I think is eminently
reasonable and plausible. (Audience clapping) Dr. Miller: All right, as soon as Dr. Rosenberg
begins, he has his 12-minute rebuttal. Timer, begin when he begins. Dr. Rosenberg: Gee, what a lot to cover.
So, I guess the way to begin is to say I wrote this book, The Atheist's Guide to Reality.
I actually didn't want to call it The Atheist's Guide to Reality, I wanted to call it something
else, but my editor said you'll sell a lot more books and even get yourself invited for
a debate like this if you title a book like this. Of course, the important thing to remember
about that book, The Atheist's Guide to Reality, is the structure of its argument; which was,
science has a number of important implications. In fact, first couple pages of my book I identify
14 of these implications. And most of them sound really bizarro; just
the way Professor Craig suggested in his remarks. The real issue is that among these 14 implications
of science that I argued ... I'll follow in my book ...
one of them is atheism and the others are that set of doctrines that Dr. Craig described
as absurd. None of them is supposed to follow from atheism.
None of the things that he says are manifestly false and that I've argued for in my book
follow from atheism. Therefore of course the modus tollens argument
as we call it in logic, that Professor Craig is trying to advance, is based on a complete
misrepresentation of what it says in that book. What it says in that book is that all of these
alleged absurdities along with atheism follow from the truth of science.
Now, you can reject all of these "alleged absurdities", but if I'm right about the logical
structure of my arguments, you got to reject science.
And I don't think Dr. Craig wants to reject science; because he's building God on his
interpretation of what science is supposed to show. The only thing you can do of course is, as
many of my philosophical colleagues are want to do, is reject the argument that I'm out...about
what science shows regarding these issues like free will, and the nature of the self,
and the grounds of morality, and of the purposelessness of the universe.
That's an interesting and important set of issues in philosophy and their issues in the
philosophy of science about the relationship between science and the agenda of the persistent
questions of philosophy. They are not questions about the relationship
between atheism and these persistent questions. And it's simply a Kalo mistake to suppose
that you could refute atheism by controverting these controversial doctrines that I argue
for in philosophy. We didn't come here tonight to debate metaphysical
naturalism or epistemological naturalism. We came here to debate whether the belief
in God, faith in God or as I've insisted we ought to substitute belief in God is reasonable
or not. And that question has practically nothing
to do with whether the strange theses that I argue for in this book are right or not.
I would cherish the opportunity to discuss the details of these arguments with Professor
Craig. Let's just take one example, the problem of
intentionality. The problem of intentionality is a really
hard problem to understand in philosophy. Dr. Craig mentioned a couple of times that
it's the ... intentionality is the fact that our thoughts
appear to be about stuff like I'm thinking about Craig now, and I'm thinking about the
timer that says I got eight and a half minutes to finish my rebuttal.
I'm thinking about stuff ... how is that possible, how is it possible for
one chunk of matter, my brain, to be about intrinsically about another chunk of matter. Dr. Craig or the sign announces eight minutes,
that is a profound mystery in philosophy with which philosophers have been trying to wrestle
certainly since Descartes and I think since Plato made the point in the Meno, one of his
other dialogues. How is it possible for one chunk of matter,
the brain, to be intrinsically about, directed at, pointing at, another chunk of matter? You may think that's not a problem, that's
not very difficult; but if you start reading Descartes, and you read Leibniz; and you read
the philosophers in the tradition of Western philosophy, you'll see that it's a huge problem.
Okay? It's a problem for science, for neuroscience. How is it that the wet stuff in the brain
can do this? Okay? There are two answers to this question.
One is Descartes' answer of dualism. There is a mind and it's independent of the
brain. It's a totally different spiritual substance.
Theists love this argument for obvious reasons. If there's a spiritual substance in us, a
soul, a person, a self, independent of our brain, well then of course if it's not physical,
it's indestructible and it's well on its way to immortality, which is just what the Christian
religion wants us to believe, okay, that's dualism.
Okay? Most scientists aren't dualist, there's the
odd exception, Eccles and even some philosophers like Descartes or Popper, but most scientists;
most neuroscientists think that cognition is a brain process.
The problem is to explain how the brain process, one chunk of matter, can have this property
of aboutness. That question has nothing to do ...
nothing interesting to do with atheism or theism. Let's take the matter of numbers, okay.
Dr. Craig says, it's a miracle or it's a wild coincidence that mathematics is applicable
to science, on my view. Well, he hasn't reckoned with the remarkable
number of alternative mathematical objects that mathematics have conjured up, have thought
about, have theorized about, or about the remarkable range of possible mathematical
functions relating these objects, okay. The fact is that we know that there are indefinitely
many mathematical objects and indefinitely many functions relating these mathematical
objects. And it's a sheer argument from ignorance to
suggest that the number is so small; the number that apply to the world of this vast range,
is so small that it demands divine authority to make it come out that way.
Just the geometries alone, the non-Euclidean geometries alone, there are indefinitely many
of them. And it happens that in the small one of them
appears to apply on this planet and in larger spaces another applies, but any one of an
indefinitely large number could perfectly well apply in the universe.
The suggestion that it's some mystery that could only be explained by God's good graciousness
to the physicists just seems to me, bizarre again, just something that "beggars the imagination". So, I guess the last thing I want to talk
about is Dr. Craig's brief rejoinder that ...
that I somehow need or that he can get away with showing or with asserting that there's
no logical incompatibility between God's being omnipotent and benevolent and the existence
of suffering. Now, Christian philosophers have been worried
about this problem from hell at least since the greatest of them, Leibniz, okay.
They have done handsprings and twisted themselves up in knots to try to find some explanation,
because logically speaking if God is omniscient, and God is omnipotent, and God is truly benevolent
has a totally good will and would never will anything but for the best, then the existence
of suffering on our planet, human suffering, and natural suffering of other animals for
example, is something that needs desperately to be explained. And we've had over the course of 400 to 500
years of wrestling with this problem, the free will defense and the mystery-mongering,
it's God's will defense. And nobody has managed to provide a satisfactory
explanation and I insist that the problem is logical.
Dr. Craig needs to tell us exactly how an omnipotent God and entirely benevolent God
had to have the holocaust in order to produce the good outcome whatever it might be that
he intends for our ultimate providence. Couldn't he have just gotten away with World
War I, or the Great Leap Forward, or the 30 years war which killed untold millions, or
the bubonic plague that killed 40% of the population of Europe? Did he have to have
every one of those in order to produce the kind of beneficent outcome which it is divine
providence to expect? I just don't see it. I cannot understand it.
I find it offensive and I find it perplexing. And in all honesty, if Dr. Craig could provide
me with any kind of a logical, coherent account that could reconcile the evident fact of the
horrors of human and infrahuman life on this planet over the last 3.5 billion years, with
the existence of a benevolent, omnipotent agent, then I will turn Christian.
Thank you. (Audience clapping) Dr. Miller: Okay, we now begin our eight-minute
rebuttals. Dr. Craig anytime you're ready.
Timer, begin when he starts speaking. Dr. Craig: I am really excited about that
last statement (audience laughing) that Dr. Rosenberg made (audience clapping).
Honestly, Dr. Rosenberg if you were to read the work of people like Alvin Plantinga, Peter
van Inwagen, and others on this problem with evil, you would know that hardly anyone today
defends the logical version of the problem of evil; because the atheist simply hasn't
been able to shoulder the burden of proof required to put it through. Listen to what Paul Draper who is an agnostic
philosopher here in the Department of Purdue says.
He says, "Logical arguments from evil are a dying (dead) breed".
For all we know, even an omnipotent and omniscient being, might be forced to allow evil for the
sake of obtaining some important good. Our knowledge of goods and evils and the logical
relations they have to each other is much too limited to prove that this could not be
the case." In particular the atheist assumes that if
God is all powerful, He can create just any world that he wants and that's not necessarily
true. If God wills to create free creatures then
he can't guarantee they'll always do what is right.
It's logically impossible to make someone freely do something.
So, God's being all-powerful doesn't mean He can do the logically impossible. So, the atheist would have to prove there's
a world of free creatures which God could create which has as much good as this world
but without as much evil. How could he possibly prove that, that's pure
speculation? What about the other premise that if God is all good, then He would create
a world without evil. Well, the problem here is that we're assuming
that God's purpose is just to make us happy in this life, but on the Christian view, that's
false. The purpose of life is not worldly happiness
as such but rather the knowledge of God. There may be many evils that occur in this
lifetime that are utterly pointless with respect to producing worldly happiness but they may
not be pointless with respect to producing a knowledge of God and salvation and eternal
life. It's possibly ...
it's possible that only in the world that is suffused with natural and moral evil that
the optimal number of people would come to know God freely, find salvation and eternal
life. So, the atheist would have to prove that there's
another possible world that has this much knowledge of God and His salvation in, but
which is produced with less evils. How could he possibly prove that? It's pure
conjecture. It's impossible to prove those things; and
that's why the logical version of the problem of evil has been widely abandoned.
Peter van Inwagen, Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame, says, "It used to be held that
evil was incompatible with the existence of God, that no possible world contained both
God and evil. So far as I am able to tell this thesis is
no longer defended." So, Dr. Rosenberg, I want to invite you to
think about becoming a theist tonight, because the main obstacle that you presented is need
not be an obstacle for you anymore. What about the positive arguments that I offered
for God's existence? The first one is why anything at all exists? There's been no response
in tonight's debate to this first argument. You can't just say the universe exists without
an explanation, if it's contingent. If it is contingent, as Dr. Rosenberg states
in his book, there could have been nothing, so why is there something rather than nothing?
The theist has an explanation but the atheist by its own admission has no explanation.
What about the problem of the origin of the universe? I showed that it's to no avail to appeal to
quantum mechanics, because in quantum mechanics things don't come into being from non-being,
from nothing, they come out of the energy in the vacuum; but for the universe to come
into being, it would have to come from literally nothing, because the beginning of the universe
is the beginning of all matter and energy and space and time. Again theism has an explanation for how the
universe came into being, but atheism is impotent in this regard.
The applicability of mathematics, all Dr. Rosenberg could say is there are various alternative
mathematics like non-Euclidean geometries. That doesn't go one-inch toward explaining
why our physical universe is structured on this incredibly complex mathematical structure
and foundation. Again the theist has an easy explanation.
God constructed the universe on this mathematical structure.
The naturalist is at a lost to explain it. What about the fine-tuning of the universe?
I explained the disasters results that would ensue if the universe were not fine-tuned.
I also explained why you can't dismiss this problem by the multiverse hypothesis; and
there has been no response to that. Intentional states of consciousness, Dr. Rosenberg
says, "How can one chunk of matter be about another one?" I agree with him on this.
It can't and that leads him to deny that we ever think about anything.
It leads me rather to say but I do think about things, therefore there must be minds.
And minds fit nicely into a theistic world view, because God is the ultimate mind and
so the presence of finite minds in this world is nothing mysterious.
It fits into a theistic world in a way that it doesn't fit into an atheistic world. As for objective moral values, it's the same
situation, Dr. Rosenberg rightly understands that if atheism is true, if metaphysical naturalism
is true, there are no objective moral values and duties.
He and I actually agree on a great deal, but what I would say is obviously it is wrong
to do certain things. Therefore it follows that there must be a
foundation for moral values beyond the physical world in God, a transcendent personal being. The resurrection of Jesus, again you can't
discuss this responsibly without getting your fingers dirty and looking at those documents.
You can't attack other documents like Joseph Smith and Muhammad and use those to impugn
the credibility of the gospel sources. The fact is that the majority of New Testament
historians, who have investigated these documents, have concluded to those three facts that I
mentioned. Remember N.T.
Wright says, they're as firmly established as the fall of Jerusalem in A.D.
70, but the naturalist has no explanation. Finally, God can be personally known and experienced.
Why can't God be a properly basic belief for me, grounded in my experience of God? I don't
see why not. Finally, what about metaphysical naturalism?
How is this relevant in tonight's debate? He 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; 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 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? Ours must be a theistic world.
If his only obstacle is the logical problem of evil; then that obstacle has now been removed.
Dr. Rosenberg should find himself free to embrace, joyfully, the existence of God as
the answer to these deep questions. (Audience clapping). Dr. Miller: Professor Rosenberg may now begin
his eight-minute rebuttal. Timer. Dr. Rosenberg: So, just as, of course, Dr.
Craig is repeating himself. I guess I don't have much recourse but to
repeat myself, because just as he suggests that I haven't answered one or another of
his points, he similarly hasn't answered any number of mine.
But, that's the problem with this kind of a debate and this kind of a format, it doesn't
work. It doesn't work because what I would like
to be able to do is ask William Lane Craig a question and listen to his answer and formulate
a reply, and listen to his answer, and then give a view, and listen to his question; which
is the way in which philosophical dialogue proceeds and which enables us at least to
find out where the crucial issues are between us and how we could mutually agree to adjudicate
these matters. So now, I really need to know why he's so
committed to the principle of sufficient reason which underwrites a good half of the arguments
from science which he advances for us. I made the point that the principles of sufficient
reason is false, it's not just that it's not known to be true; it's that it's just plain
out flat false and disconfirmed all over the galaxy, all over the universe, all over the
multiverse; indefinitely many times in an infinitesimally small units of time. And I don't understand why he insists that
it's just intuitively obvious, it's just ... "What could be more obvious that from nothing,
nothing can come, that if something exists there had to be a prior entity of some sort
which brought it about?" We know that alpha particles come into existence for no reason
at all, every moment in this room. Why should we assume that the universe is
any different? Why should we assume that purely quantum mechanical fluctuations symmetry breaking,
which we understand is the explanation for why there's matter in the universe and not
anti-matter. Why this process which produces the characteristic
features of our universe and does so without there being a cause for it happening one way
or the other, why the symmetry gets broken one way or the other.
Could it be the nature of reality as far back as we can possibly dig in cosmology? Let's talk about the argument from evil.
I keep hearing these quotes. He's even invoking my best friend, Peter van
Inwagen, asserting that nobody anymore believes that the argument from evil is a problem for
theism. Not ...
where I come from ... where I come from that's the first thing that
we worry about, how can you reconcile theism and evil.
Now, you can reconcile God and evil if you reduce his power from omnipotence or you reduce
his benevolence to only, "he's pretty good" or "he's good most of the time". Even a philosopher like Peter van Inwagen,
who I think is probably the best metaphysician working in our field today, even he, can't
go any further than in his book The Problem of Evil, his Gifford Lectures in 2004.
Even he can't go any further than saying that he thinks that the argument from evil is not
decisive; that it doesn't absolutely and completely destroy theism.
It's not as he says a successful argument. The reasons that he gives, I would be embarrassed
to lay before you; because they have to do with an argument called the Sorites an argument
that has been known since the time of the Greeks.
And that is the sort of argument that gives philosophy a bad name among more well-grounded,
less theoretical people. Professor Craig invoked the free will defense
that God gave us free will. And because he gave us free will, he gave
us the power to do evil and the evil is done by us as a result of our exercise of free
will. Well, I have three things to say about this.
The first is he didn't need ... he could have given us freewill without giving
us the holocaust or the bubonic plague. He could have done it with...
given us freewill, without giving us all the horrors of the history of our species. The second thing is he made some people, apparently,
and gave them free will and they caused no suffering at all, whether it's small children
or the saints of the Catholic Church or whoever your favorite person without sin, may be.
The third thing is this; let's think about the following very simple thought experiment.
Supposed I give you all an arithmetic test. You all have free will.
You can all choose. I give you an arithmetic test.
It's a hundred questions and they're all of the form three plus five equals, or 16 divided
by two equals, or the square of four equals. I offer you a thousand dollars for each right
answer and excruciating pain for each wrong answer.
Right? You all have freewill. How many of you are going to give me any wrong
answers? None of you. You're all going to have a thousand ...
$10,000 at the end of a 10 question arithmetic test.
You all had free will. You all chose freely.
And you always gave me the right answer. Why couldn't God have arranged the universe
and us, so that we all have free will and temptation was never presented to us? Or when
it was presented to us, we always chose rightly. Why couldn't God have arranged matters that
way, given us freewill and so arranged matters that in our exercise of freewill we never
chose evil, we never chose the outcome that produced suffering from anybody? That seems
to me a logical coherent possibility and it's enough to show that the problem of evil remains
with us. New Testament scholarship.
You know, I have great respect for New Testament scholars and for the higher criticism and
for the deep scholars of the Christian religion, who study the New Testament.
Some of them have told us that 75% of it was forged and all of us tell us that it was written
by people who were illiterate. And most of them recognize that the writings
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John could not have dated from any earlier than 30 or 40 or 50
years after Jesus lived. Of course, the Aramaic in which they were
written, was completely lost and all the extant New Testaments are in Greek. And therefore the opportunity for misrepresentation,
or mistranscription, or other kinds of mistakes was huge and indeed has been documented by
scholarship over the last 200 years, but most of all why should we accept the credibility
of Christian scholars writing about Christian documents? No more than we should accept the
scholarship of Islamic scholars writing about Islamic documents, or scientologist's writing
about Scientology. (Audience clapping) Dr. Miller: Dr. Craig will now begin his closing
statement. He has five minutes. Dr. Craig: Well, I want to thank Dr. Rosenberg
for a very stimulating debate this evening. I hope that you've enjoyed it as much as I
have. In my closing statement, I'd like to draw
together some of the threads of this debate and see if we can come to some conclusions.
In tonight's debate, I presented eight reasons why it's reasonable to believe in God and
eight reasons why metaphysical naturalism is unreasonable in fact absurd. Dr. Rosenberg has presented only one argument
for atheism tonight and that is the problem of evil.
And it was very clear in his last speech that he hasn't understood it.
He says, why couldn't God have created people with free will so that they always chose to
do the right thing? This has been dealt with by theist's dealing with the problem of evil.
And the reason is because the wrong subjunctive conditionals of freedom might be true for
God to actualize such a world. There are possible worlds which are not feasible
for God to actualize, because if he were to create the creatures in certain circumstances
and leave them free they would go wrong. As far as we know, for all we know in any
world of free creatures in which there is this much good in the world, there would also
be this much evil. It may not be feasible for God to actualize
a world having this much good without this much evil. That doesn't mean the holocaust is necessary,
no not at all, but it would mean that in a world in which say, the holocaust didn't occur,
other events would have occur that would have been comparably evil.
So, what Dr. Rosenberg again would have to show or that the atheist would have to show
is that there's no ... he would have to show that God has the ability
to create another world, another possible world of free creatures that would involve
this much knowledge of God and eternal salvation as in the actual world, but without as much
suffering. And there's no way that the atheist could
prove that, it's utter speculation and that's why the argument is regarded today as bankrupt. Now, with respect to the arguments for metaphysical
naturalism. I think what Dr. Rosenberg has done for us
is he has described brilliantly what an atheistic world would be like.
It is a world in which there is no meaning, no truth, no thoughts about anything, no moral
values, no enduring selves and no first person perspectives.
His only mistake lies in thinking that that world is our world, but it manifestly is not,
our world is not Dr. Rosenberg's world. Our world is a world in which we do exist.
We do have thoughts about things in which there is therefore meaning, truth, and value.
Dr. Rosenberg admits that theism provides a better explanation of such a world than
does atheism. And since our world is evidently such a world,
it follows, I think that it is reasonable to believe in God. In addition to that, I presented eight arguments
for belief in God. He, in his last speech, said, "Why are you
so committed to the principle of sufficient reason?" Because a very modest version of
that is plausibly true; namely that if a contingent thing exists, there's a reason or an explanation
to why it exists rather than not. Given that principle which is very plausible
and modest, you need an explanation for why the universe exists. This is especially evident if the universe
came into being at some point in the finite past.
It can't just come from non-being. I won't repeat what I said about the applicability
of mathematics, intentional states of consciousness, objective moral values, the resurrection of
Jesus, the sources we have for the resurrection of Jesus go back to within five years of the
event. And they were not written in Aramaic.
He is just incorrect. They were written in Greek.
We have the New Testament in the original language in which it was written and the text
is 99.8% authentic and pure. So, doubts on that head are simply groundless. The one thing that we haven't talked about
tonight is my eighth point that God can be personally known and experienced.
And I want to close by saying this, I myself wasn't raised in a believing home, although
it was a good and loving home; but when I was in high school as a junior, I met a Christian
who sat in front of me in German class, who shared with me her faith about God's love. I had never heard of this before.
I began to read the New Testament, and as I did I was captivated by the person of Jesus
of Nazareth. Well, I went through a period of six months
of soul searching, at the end of which, I just came to the end my rope and gave my life
to Christ. I experienced an inner spiritual rebirth that
I've walked with day-by-day, year-by-year now for over 40 years. A spiritual reality, that I believe you can
find as well if you will seek Him with an open mind and an open heart.
So as I close tonight, I would encourage you, if you're seeking for God, do what I did.
Pick up the New Testament, begin to read, and ask yourself, "Could this really be the
truth? Could there be a God who loves me and cares for me? Who gave himself for me?" I
believe it could change your life; just as it changed mine.
(Audience clapping) Dr. Miller: Professor Rosenberg will now give
his five-minute concluding statement. Dr. Rosenberg: So, here's another positive
argument for atheism. It's sort of so obvious that I hadn't thought
I should introduce it and I certainly didn't think I was going to have time, but this back
and forth has gone on so long that I've got this last chance and I'm going to use it. So, why is it that God is a hypothesis that
science has so little use for? You may recall when the King of France, Louis the XIV approached
Laplace the Great 18th century physicist and said what is the role of God in your system.
The answer was, "I have no need of that hypothesis". Of course the reason that science has no need
of the hypothesis, is that God makes no contribution to the predictive power of any part of any
of the sciences. For that reason, there's no basis on which
to invoke God either for explanatory or any other purposes in science.
Therefore science has no more need for and indeed a considerable reason to deny the existence
of God than it has to accept the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus.
The absence of a role for God in the predictive and explanatory content of science is quite
apart from the problem of evil, the principle reason why 95% of the members of the National
Academy of Science in the United States are atheists; and why science can provide not
only no good basis for theism, but an excellent argument against it. Indeed, if we think back to the invocation
of Willard Van Orman Quine, the Great American Philosopher by Professor Craig, we'll recall
that he pointed out that Quine adopts abstract objects, the objects of mathematics as existing
even though they are abstract, even though they're not concrete, even though they're
not physical items in the world. Why? Because they were indispensible to their
predictive power of science; and because they're indispensible, Quine had no good argument
against them and said that science not only had no good argument against them, but in
fact it had a good argument for their existence because of the contribution they made to enabling
us to predict detailed experiments meter readings, right, of scientific experiments, which is
the "litmus test of reasonability" among science ...
scientists. And to invoke the objects of mathematics,
as a part of an argument for the existence of God, fails to reflect this indispensible
fact about the reasons that scientists are committed to do.
If God could do as much for science as the number two, physicists would be much more
receptive to his existence. So, let me end this debate with a little advice
from an atheist. Dr. Craig has ended by making a personal statement
about the importance of Jesus Christ to his own character and well being, his own spiritual
state. Believe if you want to, have faith in Jesus
Christ if you need to, but do not make yourself vulnerable to reason and evidence, do not
demand that your belief be reasonable. You will be threatened with the loss of your
faith. You may well lose your faith. Those who have lost their faith in God are
generally those who have felt the need for good reasons, for evidence, for argument,
better that you should take as your slogan credo quia absurdum "I believe because it
is absurd." That's a far sure basis. It's not an epistemologically respectable
one, but it's a psychologically far firmer basis to believe in the existence of God. You cannot accept that faith is reasonable,
but that doesn't stop you from believing. Of course, those friends of mine who are devout
Christians, of whom I count a number of people that Professor Craig mentioned tonight, and
even Professor Craig with whom I'm sure I will have a friendly exchange after this debate
is over, (audience laughing) even Professor Craig I'm sure will tell you that that is,
in many ways, the firmest basis for commitment to Jesus, faith and not reason.
Thank you. Dr. Miller: Well, this concludes the debate
portion of tonight's event. Please give our debaters a hand for very spirited
debate. (Audience clapping) Now they're hugging; now we're friends. Dr. Rosenberg: So, I said to Bill, "Now you
know how the presidential candidates feel right after their debate".
(Laughing). Dr. Miller: It will go on in the form of a
book Is Faith in God Reasonable. For our next aspect of tonight's event we
begin the question and answer period for our live ...
we have three different elements of this. Let me explain this.
For our live Purdue audience, if you've got a probing question, please approach the microphones
at the front. If I can have our microphone bouncers, they
are evil microphone bouncers stand. If you've got a question for Professor Craig,
line up here. If you've got a question for Professor Rosenberg,
please line up over here. Ensure that the questions are well thought
out, are concise, and you will not be giving a lecture yourself.
Then as soon as you asked your question, unless there is a followup from the debater asking
you to clarify, then please have a sit. I will ask the debaters to limit their responses
to two minutes and then they may exchange words over those responses briefly.
After the ... while the Q&A is going on, let me ask the
judges to write up their conclusions and you as the audience, please fill out those comment
cards we gave to you, those response cards, now is the time to decide who you think won
the debate. After the Q&A terminates, we will announce
all voting results, our judges, our Purdue audience, and all who respond online so please
pass your cards as soon as you get that filled out like within the next 15 seconds, past
it to the inside isles. And volunteers, now is the time for you to
come forward with buckets and begin collecting in a couple of seconds those cards. For our 10,000 plus listening to this online
and around the world, you can vote, you can submit a question.
If you're in front of a computer you'll see the vote link above the player and the submit
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do it now. If you are viewing with a group, visit www.biola.edu/debate
from your Smart Phone to submit a question and a runner will bring me questions submitted
from the website for our debaters. Now, let's begin the debate.
We will take a question beginning over on this side from someone for Dr. Craig, do it
again over here for Dr. Rosenberg, once more for Dr. Craig, once more for Dr. Rosenberg
and then we will take one online from somewhere across our web. So, if I can have it a little bit quiet please
in the audience, please fill out those forms but maintain relative quiet so that we can
continue with this next session. All right, first question for Dr. Craig, go
ahead. Speaker 1: In your published works, you've
talked about something that's conspicuously missing from this debate; the relation between
reason and faith. For example, in Reasonable Faith you point
out that when faith is in conflict with the evidence and argument, it's the latter rather
than the former that should be disregarded. On the face of it, that seems like to mount
nothing less than an endorsement of confirmation bias.
It should go without saying, that an open-armed embrace of conservation...confirmation bias
is nothing reasonable at all. However, you, in other areas have expounded
upon this and taking what might be considered a personal epistemological code and to something
of a normative claim. The example I have in mind is when you're
asked about, "How Christians should respond to their doubts?" You gave the same answer
but with an explanation and that's a kicker. You posited that... Dr. Miller: Can you be concise and just ask
your question? Speaker 1: I'm trying to get to it.
What you effectively did... skipping ahead because the moderator ...
was posit instead of the possibility of the Cartesian demon...
the actuality of the Cartesian demon... So as you pointed out Hume...
that Descartes didn't take the radical skepticism far enough and introspection, you don't get
a unified entity having these perceptions, you only get the perceptions.
On your framework, how do you and, since it was a normative claim, all other Christians
escape this downward spiral of radical skepticism? Dr. Miller: Go ahead and have a seat thanks
for the question. Dr. Craig: In tonight's debate I took the
word faith to mean the same thing as believe. Faith in God, believe in God.
Let us say believe that God exists, but you're quite right in saying there's another understanding
of faith that is more than just propositional belief.
It would be the idea of trusting in someone, committing one's life to someone.
And I would say that, that kind of faith would be subsequent to propositional belief.
You first believe that God exists, and then you can believe in God, and put your faith
in him. Now in the chapter that you were speaking
of in Reasonable Faith, when I'm speaking of faith there, I am talking about...
how do we know the propositional truths of the Christian faith like that God exists or
that God loves me and so forth. What I was suggesting there is that in addition
to external arguments and evidence, there is also this immediate testimony of God himself
to one that gives you in a properly basic way, a knowledge of God's existence and the
great truths of the gospel. That was my eighth point in tonight's debate
that God can be personally known and experienced. And I said this isn't an argument rather it's
suggesting that just as we have properly basic beliefs like the belief in the reality of
the external world, or the reality, the past, so belief in God could be a properly basic
belief grounded in the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.
So, this isn't some kind of fideism or leap in the dark sort of thing it's saying that,
God himself can give a person a knowledge of his existence that is independent of argument
and evidence. And this is a view that's widely defended
today especially by Alvin Plantinga and his book Warranted Christian Belief.
And I think he shown that there aren't any philosophical objections to this point of
view. It's a perfectly coherent religious epistemology. Dr. Miller: All right, question for Dr. Rosenberg.
Go ahead. Speaker 2: Dr. Rosenberg, having taught chemistry
for 40 years and having a degree from a major big ten university in chemistry.
I'm very interested if you could go a little bit into more detail why the decay of Uranium
238 violates any of the principles that Dr. Craig gave for the existence of God? (Audience
clapping) Dr. Rosenberg: Thanks, it's a nice question
because it gives me a chance to put this case before everybody a little more clearly.
So, you've got two uranium atoms, same number of neutrons, same number of protons, same
number of electrons; all of them at the same quantum states and quantum energy levels.
And they're not merely as identical as two peas in a pod.
They're much more identical than that in all of their physical properties. At a certain moment, one of them emits and
the other does not emit an alpha particle, that is to say, the nucleus of a helium atom.
The difference between these two atoms is that one of them emitted and the other didn't.
Now if every event has to have a cause, if everything that comes into existence has to
have a cause of it's coming into existence; then there's got to be some difference between
the two atoms in virtue of which one of them emitted an alpha particle and the other didn't;
but quantum mechanics tells us and all the experimental evidence which confirms it to
12 decimal places tells us there is no difference, end of story. There is an event without a cause.
There is no causally relevant difference between the two molecules in virtue of which one emitted
an alpha particle and the other didn't. Dr. Craig: Well, that's not the end of the
story. There are at least 10 different physical interpretations
of quantum mechanics. Some of these are fully deterministic and
nobody knows which one of this is true. Victor Stenger who is atheistic physicist
says this in his book. He says, "Other viable interpretations of
quantum mechanics remain with no consensus on which, if any of them is the correct one." So, He says, "We have to remain open to the
possibility that causes may someday be found for such phenomena." There are deterministic
interpretations of quantum mechanics that may well be correct.
In any event, my argument never appealed to the premise that every event has a cause.
It was deliberately formulated in such a way as to allow for quantum indeterminacy. Without prejudicing the issue, my argument
is that if the universe began to exist, had an absolute beginning then the universe has
a transcendent cause. And quantum mechanics is simply irrelevant
to that, because we're talking about an absolute beginning of space and time, matter and energy.
There's nothing in physics that would explain how being comes from non-being. Dr. Rosenberg: I need to make a short response
to that with your permission. This is not an issue about the interpretation
of quantum mechanics. I happen to think that among the interpretations
of quantum mechanics, the deterministic ... some of the deterministic ones are more plausible
than others. This is a matter of experimental physics.
This is a matter of a fact about the nature of reality. And it also seems to me clear that, in so
far as we have here, good evidence that things can happen with no cause at all, it follows
that therefore the universe can come into existence with no cause at all.
And indeed, that's what the best guesses of contemporary physical theorists is. Dr. Miller: Alright, for Dr. Craig. Speaker 3: I would like to ask you about your
use of the existence of "objective morality" as an argument.
Because, there are differences due to society or religious beliefs that lead to people having
different moralities such as like the practice of Sharia Law or the death penalty.
So, how can ... if God gave us, like as humanity objective
morality, then why do we have such conflicting views of morality and what is right and wrong? Dr. Craig: The question you're raising is
not a question about moral ontology, that is to say, the reality or the foundation of
moral values. Your question is about moral epistemology
and that is how do we come to know moral values and duties? It's no part of my case to say
that moral questions are always easy. Certainly there are areas of gray where good
people will disagree and will differ. It's not always easy to discern what is right
or what is wrong in certain situations. But, what I am saying is that we do have in
moral experience, a very clear grasp of cases where there are clearly objective moral values
and objective duties or obligations and prohibitions. And so, by no means, am I suggesting that
all of these cases are clear, all you need is a few really, any and you've got to then
explain what is the ontological foundation in reality for these moral values. Dr. Miller: No sorry, no follow-up questions.
Thank you. All right, for Dr. Rosenberg. Speaker 4: Yes doctor, so with a lot of debates
such as this, the question becomes an argument of looking at the same evidence and coming
up with different conclusions. As a result of this, people become I supposed
heated in this debates, and so there is certain level of arrogance on both sides. This is more of a question to both of you.
How is it that you deal with this sort of issue where you a lot of the arguments made
by you ... and I'm an atheist so I'm with you on a lot
of them ... a lot of them posit a sort of attack on the
other viewpoint. As a result, the other person becomes very
defensive and attacks your view point. How is it that both of you help address and
calm that issue? Dr. Rosenberg: I have no idea.
(Audience laughing). I suppose, as I said at the beginning, that
I don't think that debate format the eristic context of prosecutorial and defense attorneys
in a adversarial relationship is the right venue under which to purse philosophical and
theological inquiry. In fact, I'm very confident that it isn't. I have spent a lot of time in my life with
Peter van Inwagen. And we have often argued about issues like
this ... discussed issues like this, tried to find
out ... to identify where are differences are and
how we might adjudicate them. It's a difficult process; it's a process that's
been going on in philosophy and rational theology for at least 2,400 years in the West.
It certainly hasn't attained consensus, but at its best it's not controversialist. It's unfortunate that some fora because they
make for entertainment or sell books and CDs and stuff like that, emerge in which such
debates sharpen controversies, but they are not the ideal indeed, they're not even satisfactory
venues for pursuing these questions. Dr. Craig: I'm glad for the question, because
I think while we may be passionate about our arguments and point of view, I think it's
extremely important that these kinds of debates be conducted with civility, and charity, and
honesty. I think you try to represent your opponent's
point of view fairly, you prepare by reading his work carefully, and pointing out the areas
of disagreement, but you do so in a way that is gentlemanly and civil without personal
attacks upon character. I think that these kinds of forums are very
valuable that doesn't mean they're the only kind of forum.
Obviously he and I both publish in professional journals, we read papers at professional conferences,
publish books, but most of you students will never read a professional philosophy journal
or attend a professional conference. These debates are important as a way of getting
this information disseminated to a wider public in a way that is passionate and firm, but
it's civil and it's an academic exchange; these are as old as the Middle Ages.
Back in the Middle Ages they used to have what they call Quaestionis Disputatis, "Disputed
Questions" of theology. We're continuing a long tradition, I think of having a good solid academic debate
over these issues and I hope that people would be stimulated by what said tonight to go out
and look further and read, and investigate, and think harder about these, maybe take some
classes in philosophy, or theology, or New Testament studies about these matters.
I'm firmly committed to the value of these kinds of forum on university campuses. I'm glad Dr. Rosenberg despite his scruples
agreed to participate tonight. (Audience clapping) Dr. Miller: Given that we have a ton of questions
here and we've got probably twice as many people watching live stream.
In fairness, I'm going to ask one of each of our debaters from within the United States
and then one with outside of the United States. So, first of all, Dr. Craig from Anthony in
Newburyport, Massachusetts: With respect to the fine-tuning of the theological argument,
aren't you presupposing atheism since God could have made the universal without needing
to have it fine-tuned? Dr. Craig: The fine-tuning argument doesn't
presuppose anything about how God could have done it in the sense that he could have created
a world say of just spirit beings without any physical beings at all; but fine-tuning
simply means that the fundamental constants and quantities in the universe that are necessary
for life, fall into an extraordinarily narrow range of values; an infinitesimal range almost.
Such that if these values were to be altered by even a hair's breadth or less rather, the
balance would be upset and life could not exist in a universe governed by these laws.
And so, that's all the debate is about. It's not about whether God could have created
other universes with other laws of nature that weren't fine-tuned.
It's about whether or not ... or what is the best explanation for the fine-tuning
of the universe that characterizes this univ... the universe we live in.
And, I think that the best explanation is intelligent design.
Physical necessity, and chance just won't offer plausible accounts of this fact. Dr. Miller: Okay, one for Dr. Rosenberg and
this one I had to take this. This is kind of funny because of this Purdue
audience this is from IU. They are actually watching with a Christian
Ministry and a non-theist campus group together. So, Dr. Rosenberg, and there's no name on
this, it's the whole group they all decided unanimously apparently ...
how can the most basic moral values be universal if they are determined by natural selection? Dr. Rosenberg: That's a question for evolutionary
anthropology. That is, it's the question ...
assume that there are set of moral norms, behaviors and values, that are universal that
are... that obtain in every culture, how could that
happen? Well, first of all, the explanandum, the proposition describing what is to be explained
of course is false. And therefore it's difficult to satisfy the
request for an explanation. It's not the case that there are universal
moral values. The moral values differ in...
on our earth and have overtime owing to important ecological differences between the communities
that have emerged at various times and various places on our planet but now let's just slightly
change the question to ... in so far as there is a commonality among
all human groups in regard to the moral norms that they adopt, how could this have emerged
as a result of a process of blind variation and natural selection? So for example, human cooperation, the commitment
to fairness and to equality, to reciprocity, these are almost all universal.
There's only a very small number of societies which spurn such moral norms.
And why should they have emerged? It's a remarkable fact of recent work by evolutionary game theorists
and evolutionary anthropologists and others that it turns out that cooperation, a commitment
to fairness and to equality and to reciprocity, turn out for creatures like us who found ourselves
at the bottom of the food chain on the African savanna 200,000 years ago; to be absolutely
required for our survival. In fact, it's because we glommed on by pure
blind variation, a natural selection to this set of norms of cooperation that we manage
to climb up the food chain so that within a 100,000 years; we were at the top of the
food chain everywhere on the planet. Our own persistence over that subsequent hundred
thousand year period; and our expansion out of Africa is largely due to the natural selection
for those almost universal norms of cooperation. And it's a wonderful thing about us. Dr. Craig: I would just say I think the question
isn't the universality of these norms but their objectivity. Dr. Miller: Okay. (Audience laughing) Dr. Miller: Dr. Craig, this is from Tibor
in Town Zilina Slovakia ... Slovakia.
If the Christian faith is from a realm beyond or above reason, like Pauline, peace surpassing
understanding...? Dr. Craig: It's from Slovakia? Could you say that again? I didn't catch it. Dr. Miller: If the Christian ...
if the Christian faith is from a realm "beyond or above reason," like Pauline "Peace surpassing
understanding," then how can we even anchor such a topic as the reasonableness of believing
in God? Dr. Craig: God, I would say is beyond human
comprehension in the sense that we cannot grasp fully God's greatness and majesty.
He is not able to be comprehended in that universal sense, but that doesn't in anyway
imply that we get no elements of truth about God. I would say that in fact, God is the ultimate
rational being. He is the ultimate rational mind and we as
finite minds, made in His image, are able to know a great deal of truth and a great
deal about Him even if such knowledge is not exhaustive. Dr. Miller: Tibori you can go to sleep now
because it's late there. (Audience laughing) Okay, Dr. Rosenberg, from Sarah in Seoul,
South Korea: "You said God chose it, whatever "it" may be, because it was "morally right."
Where does the standard for morally right and wrong comes from and what is the logical
basis for this order? Dr. Rosenberg: Well, I don't have the slightest
idea, but what I do know is that God's command cannot be such a basis.
Assume God exists, assume He commanded us to obey certain moral norms.
The question becomes are those the right moral norms simply because He commanded them, holding
the threat of hell to our heads or did He command them in his wisdom and goodness because
they are the moral right ones? The answer that we all agreed to is the latter
that he chose them for us because there are the morally right ones and it can't be rocket
science what makes them morally right; it's not like interpretation of quantum mechanics.
We all know what makes the morally right values morally right.
It's not merely the fact that God chose them. He chose them because they were the moral
right ones. And therefore you cannot argue for God's existence
from the existence of morally right norms, but what the origin, what the basis of moral
objectivity is, is not a question to which I have at this time a satisfactory answer.
Of course as I ... and it pains to point out, that's not a material
question in this discussion. Dr. Craig: I think this is one of the most
powerful arguments for the existence of God and rooting moral values and duties in God
can take either two forms. Dr. Rosenberg alluded to one form which is
called volunteerism, which is what Ockham held and that is that God just makes up moral
duties and responsibilities for. They're based in His will, but that's not
the majority mainstream Christian position. Volunteerism is not the usual way divine command
morality works. The majority position would be that God Himself
is what Plato called the good. God himself is the paradigm of goodness.
His commands are reflections of his own character, so it's not that God commands things because
they're right independently of Him, that there's some good outside of God to which he is subservient,
rather God is the good and His commandments are reflections of that good character toward
us. And so, they're not arbitrary but neither
are they based on something independent of God.
I think this gives a very credible foundation for moral obligation and prohibition as well
as moral value which the atheist cannot provide. Dr. Rosenberg: And I think it's just the ...
"the assertion that God is good because God is good" without adding any content to found,
to ground, to substantiate the claim. So, God...
God's goodness cannot consist in his obeying his own moral norms because God could not
disobey them. It makes no sense to say that his goodness
consist in his obeying his own moral norms, not to mention that in the Old and New Testament,
he doesn't do it very often, but that's another matter. The real problem is if you assert that it's
God's goodness in which the foundation of the moral norms consists, then you have to
go on and say unless you think it's like quantum mechanics, what is that goodness consists
in. If you simply say, "It's God's goodness because
he is good", that's not an answer to the question. We need some content to the claim that his
goodness grounds the objectivity, the rightness; the correctness of the moral norms, and merely
saying, "He's good" over and over again doesn't do it.
This is the open question argument in meta-ethics and it dogs divine command theory just as
fully as it dogs as it daunts utilitarianism, or Kant, or social contract theory, or ideal
observer ethics. Dr. Craig: Yes, I don't think that that's
an insuperable problem. God by his very nature is the greatest conceivable
being. He is a being that is worthy of worship and
only a being which is perfect goodness can be worthy of worship, and the greatest conceivable
being would not simply be good by conforming to some other standard.
He would be the paradigm of goodness. He would be like the old meter bar in Paris,
which defined what a meter was not by conforming to some abstract length, but by being the
paradigm of what a meter is. It makes no sense to ask, "Why is the meter
bar a meter long?" It is the paradigm for what that is. Similarly God, I would say, as the greatest
conceivable being, a being worthy of worship is the good and this is defined in terms that
of the character quality city has like compassion, fairness, love, justice, and so forth.
It's not a contentless claim. (Audience clapping) Dr. Miller: Okay, I f I could have someone
bring up to me the results from the three voting aspects.
We will continue to take questions for another 10 minutes here while they bring that up and
I will share with the audience the conclusions of the people. Over here for Dr. Craig. Speaker 5: Yes Dr. Craig, I just want to know
how would you respond to Dr. Rosenberg's argument in his concluding statement that science can
operate without having to account for God? Dr. Craig: That science what? Speaker 5: That science can operate without
having to account for God or taking account for God? Dr. Rosenberg: Yes, that God makes no predictive
contribution. That God makes no predictive contribution. Speaker 5: Yes, that's my question. Dr. Craig: Yeah, I read his interview in the
campus newspaper this morning trying to get some clues to what he might say this evening.
And I saw this argument about predictability and here's what my thoughts on this are.
Predictability is just one way to test for the truth of a scientific theory.
And it's not always useful. Some theories for example are empirically
equivalent in their predictions. For example I mentioned 10 different physical
interpretations of quantum mechanics which are all empirically equivalent.
There are three different interpretations of special relativity which are all empirically
equivalent and yet they're different, there in in each one is a legitimate scientific
theory even though they can't be assessed based on predictability. Other factors then can come into play, things
like simplicity, plausibility, degree of 'ad hocness', explanatory power.
These are other theoretical virtues besides predictability that we can use in testing
a hypothesis. Predictability is especially difficult to
apply when you're dealing with a free agent rather than with impersonal mechanistic causes,
and particularly in God's case, how could you predict what God would do? You could predict
perhaps if a universe exists then it would be fine-tuned for our existence or that if
God created a universe, it would likely have objective moral values and duties. I think you could make that kind of prediction,
but how could you predict as a free agent whether or not God would create a universe
at all? So, instead, I don't think what you do is look for predictability.
You follow Quine's prescription. Remember Quine said, if you could show the
indirect explanatory benefit of positing things like a creator, then I would joyfully accord
them scientific status along with these other entities like quarks and black holes. And so, I would say that the...
theism has explanatory power to offer us. For example fine-tuning is more probable on
theism than on naturalism. States of intentionality are more probable
on theism than on naturalism or atheism. Objective moral values and duties are more
probable on theism than on naturalism. The resurrection of Jesus is more probable
on theism than on naturalism. So, in all of these ways, I think theism is
an explanatorily beneficial hypothesis that explains a wide range of the data of the human
experience which atheism cannot explain. Speaker 5: Sounds pretty ad hoc to me.
(Laughs). Dr. Miller: For Dr. Rosenberg. Speaker 6: In your closing argument, you're
saying that science is the only way to be reasonable.
Wouldn't that make history and personal experiences unreasonable because they're not repeatable
and also everyone in this room because we're not repeatable scientifically? Dr. Rosenberg: I don't know what it means
to say. "We are not repeatable scientifically".
Everybody in this room has a large number of properties in common but they're all shared
and that have scientific explanations. Everybody in this room differs from everyone
else in a variety of different respects and those differences are also open to increasingly
the subject of scientific explanations with substantial, additional, predictive content
that certify their improvement over previous scientific explanations. As for personal experience in history, as
we all know and this happens to be my principal career interest as a philosopher, the philosophy
of social sciences. As we all know, there are grave difficulties
involved in applying the methods of the natural sciences, of the empirical sciences to human
questions. In many respects, these are submitting of
imaginative, interesting and powerful solutions as we speak. If I'm right, and no one will know if I'm
right about this well after all of us in this room are dead.
If I'm right, eventually the sciences broadly understood.
Will provide as predictably powerful and therefore as explanatorily credible accounts of the
nature and character and trajectory of individual human lives as they now provide for the planets,
but of course I could be wrong. It's an empirical question. Speaker 6: Thank you. Dr. Craig: This is the question of epistemological
naturalism that I raised in my second speech. Remember I said, "The one reason that's regard
of this a false theory of knowledge is because it's overly restrictive".
In particular, Dr. Rosenberg is very harsh in his book on the humanities in terms of
the humanities not really being a source of knowledge at all, including history. And this has led many of the reviewers of
Dr. Rosenberg's book to be very critical with regard to this narrow scientism that he propounds.
For example, Michael Ruse who is an agnostic philosopher of science says this, "I think
Rosenberg's insensitivity to history blinds him to the fact that science does not ask
certain questions and so it is no surprise that it does not give answers." "I'm not at all sure that the theists' answers
are correct, but they are not shown to be incorrect by modern science.
Science is limited in scope and by its very nature is destined forever to be limited."
So, science may be the best way of getting at knowledge of the physical world the way
it operates, but there are many other fields of knowledge that also are sources of truth
and knowledge about the world including mathematics, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, history and
so forth. Dr. Rosenberg: All I can say is we weren't
debating this book; which is not widely available. (Laughs).
We were debating the reasonableness of the belief in God's existence. Dr. Craig: Could I ask you a question, Dr.
Rosenberg? Given the debate question tonight, is faith in God reasonable? I thought and
anticipated that you would say much more about your defensive scientism because it seems
to me that that's the principle reason that you are skeptical about the existence of God. And so, I'm curious why didn't you make this
more of an issue in tonight's debate? That would show God and faith in God to be unreasonable
if scientism or epistemological naturalism were true or metaphysical naturalism, I'm
sorry, I meant to say. Dr. Rosenberg: I wrote this book because I
was relatively disenchanted with the tide of works by Hitchens, and Dawkins, and Harris.
Here I exclude Dan Dennett, who's book the Breaking the Spell is quite in order ...
a different order of magnitude. I was rather tired of books hammering another
nail into the coffin of theism. I'm much more eager to put before a public
that might be interested in the real implications of science for the perennial questions of
philosophy for what a radio humorist named Garrison Keillor calls the persistent questions
that bother that guy in the 14th floor of the Acme Building in St.
Paul, Minnesota, the guy that was excluded from referring to by my editor because he
said nobody ever heard of Garrison Keillor. (Audience laughing). I was interested in exploring what the consequences
of science were for these fundamental questions of philosophy that keep us up at night.
Right? What I said at the beginning of this book is science gives us the best argument
for atheism and it's so good that I don't have to rehearse it in this book.
I want to go on and talk about all the other things that those of us who are atheists because
we believe that science describes the nature of reality, ought to believe. Now, I don't think that in a discussion about
atheism, the further consequences of science which I claim to obtain are relevant or material.
And I certainly know, and I'm sure you will agree with me, that those who reject these
conclusions can do so by saying they don't follow from science.
Of course I take it that on your own view either these conclusions do follow from science
and therefore my book is vindicated as an account of how science deals with the perennial
questions that keep us all up at night, or else you've committed a flagrant logical fallacy
of affirming the consequent. Dr. Craig: No, what I said was it doesn't
follow from epistemological naturalism, but I do agree with you that your conclusions
follow from metaphysical naturalism and that ... Dr. Rosenberg: No, my argument is not they
follow from metaphysical naturalism. My argument is they follow from the substantive
claims of the sciences, physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience ... Dr. Craig: Yes, I disagree ... Dr. Rosenberg: It's not philosophy that I
am deducing these consequences from. It's science and of course we can argue about
that. Dr. Craig: Yes, I disagree with that part,
but where I agreed with you in contrast to the Dawkins and the Hitchens and Dennett and
others, where I agreed with you was that if only physical things exist, if physics fixes
all the facts as you put it, then it seems to me you're right, there isn't any intentional
states and there aren't any meaning to sentences, there is no truth. Dr. Rosenberg: Yes, could I get you to write
a blurb for the back of my book? Dr. Craig: Somebody ...
somebody on Facebook said, why have a debate between Craig and Rosenberg, they both agree
on the consequences of denying God and so he thought it would be pointless, but I mean
it drives you back to the question, well is there a God? It's metaphysical naturalism. Dr. Rosenberg: Maybe there's a chance for
my book to be in the Christian bookstores after all? Dr. Craig: Yes.
(Laughing). (Audience clapping). Dr. Miller: On that note, let's (laughing)
two more questions here. I'm going to go right back to you Dr. Rosenberg
and then will take one from this side because this is an interesting ... Dr. Rosenberg: You know Corey I've been asking
you to call me Alex all day (laughs). Dr. Miller: But you also wanted me to call
you Dr. Rosenberg and that Rosenberg like in a football game.
(Laughing). Okay, Alex (Laughing).
Gabriel Sotto from Costa Rica: Let's assume that God does not exist and you were right,
then what is your explanation for the existence of evil if there is no evil and good? Dr. Rosenberg: Of course my explanation ...
the explanation that I offer in this book not to put too fine a point on it, isn't an
explanation of evil because that would commit me to a normative theory which I am unprepared
to endorse, but I have an explanation for suffering, for the pain and misery of human
existence and of other biological systems. And regrettably, it has to do with the nature
of matter and the nature of the struggle for survival and the competition among physical
systems including biological systems and animals and us for survival; and the fact that nature
has so organized living matter as to provide it with signals when it's doing something
that's dangerous for its persistence and its well-being by giving it pain.
Right? Now, I don't think it's a great mystery why
physical systems... why biological system should feel ...
have sensations in particular sensations of pain and discomfort.
Those are signals that nature is providing or they are the byproducts of signals that
nature is providing about the threats to one's well-being.
That's about the best I think we can do by way of explaining, "Why there is suffering?"
Okay? Giving a scientific and empirical, a factual explanation for why there is suffering
as opposed to theological explanation for why there is suffering. Dr. Miller: Dr. Craig do you care to respond
to that or just ... Dr. Craig: No comment. Dr. Miller: Let's take one last question on
this side to Dr. Craig. Speaker 7: Yes my question is for Dr. Craig.
The Bible says that Jesus loves us, wants a relationship with us and wants us to believe
in Him. He even showed himself to disbelievers like
you mentioned to people such as Thomas after he was crucified to help them believe.
My question is why does Jesus not continue to physically reveal himself to people particularly
unbelievers to show them that He is real? Dr. Craig: Yes.
Obviously God could make his existence or Christ's existence more evident than he has.
He could have the stars spell out "God exists" in the sky or he could have every atom inscribed
with the label "made by God". Clearly, God could make his existence a lot
more obvious, but I think what the point you were making is the salient one.
God isn't interested in just getting people to believe that he exists to add one more
piece of furniture to their ontology of the universe. He wants to bring people into a loving, saving
relationship with himself. I think that God in his providence knows how
to so order the world so as to bring the maximal or optimal number of people freely into relationship
with himself. He knows that it isn't necessary or profitable
to have Jesus of Nazareth appear miraculously to every single person in his lifetime in
order to provide sufficient grace for salvation to everybody. In fact, it's possible that in a world in
which God's existence was as plain as the nose on your face in which Jesus was constantly
appearing in people's bedrooms, that they would get rather annoyed at the effrontery
of this intruder, popping into their houses all the time uninvited, and wouldn't lead
at all to a deeper faith or love in Him. So, I think that we can trust God's wisdom
in providentially ordering the world in such a way that people are given adequate but not
coercive evidence for his existence and the question then for us is how will we respond
to that. It's not an adequate response to complain
that you want more evidence. You need to look at the evidence that you
do have and to make a decision on that basis, but I don't think that...
there's any reason here to think that God would do what you suggest, it may be that
that would do nothing in terms of bringing a greater number of people into a saving relationship
with Himself. (Audience clapping). Dr. Miller: Give one last question for Dr.
Rosenberg and then we will give you the results of the vote and close out. Speaker 8: Dr. Rosenberg, I wonder if you
might help me to understand how your view is not incoherent.
Do you really claim in your book that sentences have no meaning or truth value; even the sentences
in your own book? How is that not incoherent and self-refuting? At least the sentences
you've made tonight surely you think are true, but if even you don't think that your position
is true, why should we? Dr. Rosenberg: Two paragraphs from the last
page of the chapter of my book entitled The Brain Does Everything without Thinking about
Anything at All. Of course this is at the end of a long chapter
in which I've talked about neuroscience, Nobel Prize Winning Research by Erick Kandel, the
wonderful IBM computer Watson that beats us at Jeopardy and about the best semantic and
Philosophical Theories of Intentionality. Pardon me for reading.
"Introspection is screaming that thought has to be about stuff and philosophers and you
are muttering, denying it is crazy worse than self-contradictory, it's incoherent.
According to you Rosenberg neither spoken sentences nor silent ones in thought express
statements, they aren't about anything that goes for every sentence in this book, it's
not about anything. Why are we bothering to read it?" It's not
as if I haven't figured it out that this is an issue that is raised by science and in
this chapter. Now, I'll read you the last paragraph, "Look,
if I am going to get scientism into your skull I have to use the only tools we've got for
moving information from one head to another: noises, ink-marks, pixels.
Treat the illusions that go with them like the optical illusions of the previous chaptr."
A chapter in which I said don't trust consciousness, because it's mainly mistaken.
"This book isn't conveying statements. It's rearranging neural circuits, removing
inaccurate disinformation and replacing it with accurate information.
Treat it as correcting maps instead of erasing sentences." Now, there is a big business in
philosophy about the nature of semantics and about the how intentionality's realized. I ain't so stupid as to contradict myself
in the puerile way that you're suggesting, okay? What you got to do is read the book
to figure out the answer and send me an email and I'll send you a really long and hard paper
called the Eliminativism Without Tears, which I have written to try to give a detailed account
of why it is that we can still make sense to one another in spite of the fact that neuroscience
shows that intentionality is just an overlay like so much of the rest of our common sense
views about reality; including the belief that Europe is still standing because things
just fall directly to the ground. (Audience clapping) Dr. Miller: Very good.
Well, let me go ahead and read these tallies and close us out.
It's not a scientific result here, but we've got three interesting results nonetheless
from across section of audiences, our formal judge team, our Purdue audience, and across
the web nationally and internationally. So, for the formal judging, in a four to two
decision our judging panel has identified Dr. Craig is the winner of this evening's
debate. (Audience clapping).
For the local result from Purdue, we have no vote at all 112 and on by far most people
did not vote, half didn't vote, it appears they didn't even write cards.
Sheesh! Dr. Rosenberg has 303 and Dr. Craig 1,390.
(Audience clapping). Online vote, it appears that Dr. Craig has
734 and Dr. Rosenberg 59. (Audience clapping). So, for whatever its worth, so let's go ahead
and close this out. These gentlemen are very enlightening people,
fun to hang out with, and they're going to stick around for another half an hour to answer
questions that people perhaps come up and talk with them. As someone who loves ...
this may sound morbid ... but loves to visit cemeteries; I do it every
time I go to a new town for historical imagination, I've mentioned this many times before and
I'm still eager to find this, if someone knows of this cemetery with a tomb stone with a
particular epitaph on it, I will pay money. It reads this way, "Pause, stranger, when
you pass me by: As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you will be, so prepare for death and follow me." And somebody came by philosophic, probably
a skeptic or something like that and wrote, "To follow you, I'm not content until I know
which way you went." (Laughing). (Audience clapping) We do thank you for coming and watching the
live stream tonight. We hope it was beneficial, generating more
light than heat, look next to the book, and to YouTube no doubt it provides something
to reflect upon and think about which of the three dozen talks you'll attend tomorrow;
see www.symposiachristi.com for details. Drop your pencils on the way out and someone
will give you a detailed list of tomorrow's events.
Good night. Thank you.
TIL that HTML entities don't work in a post title!
Sorry—I meant to say, "Over 2½ hours long, so get comfortable!"
I watched it on the live stream. Rosenberg did a good job and anticipated much of what Craig was going to do. Craig phoned it in.