Why Should I Believe God Exists? | Clemson University - 2019

[Music] well welcome everybody to Clemson University man we've got a packed audience here and I'm absolutely delighted that we've have everybody here I know we've got people from around the Upstate campus ministries some of my colleagues professors and students so delighted to have you here for this interesting discussion and why we should believe that God exists my name is Rick Lucas I'm a faculty member here at Clemson University I work actually right across the street here in PR TM I'm also the faculty advisor for ratio Christy and before I introduce our guests here I would like to just give you just a little quick personal message a few days ago I called the colleague at Harvard University he just started there as a professor and he's a dear friend and so I wanted to call him see how he's doing he started there just a few months ago and so you know I called so how's it going at Harvard he said Rick it's going pretty well we have making a lot of friends so we're having a lot of discussion he so Carl Rick I want to tell you a little bit about that I said yeah well fine tell me what's happening at Harvard he said well the president of Harvard University made an announcement to the faculty based on a survey so they took a survey of all the faculty at Harvard University and what they found out is ninety-three percent of the faculty at Harvard University support donate and vote for one political party so the so the president of the university made announcement to faculty and said well you know based on this survey ladies and gentlemen we've just discovered there's a lot a lot a lot of people that don't agree with us and we need to understand that and so what the president of the university did which I think was brilliant said you know what what I want you to do each faculty member I want you to go and see your colleagues and tell your colleague what is false about what they believe to be true like it's the discussion going doesn't it interesting so I'm a Christian in a academic environment I'm in the minority and so a good to have some interesting discussions and so several years ago I talked to one of my faculty members that he's a atheist he says Rick I know you're a Christian you believe in God and I don't believe that God exists and I said do you mind me asking you this you know why do you not believe that God exists he said well Rick science and human reason I was stunned I was like wow those are exactly the reasons I do believe God exists we're gonna have an interesting discussion this is going to be great and so we did and it was fascinating and so what I like to do is maybe a little bit of Harvard so for my colleagues and professors out there do this for me if you would come to my office you know I'm Matt and PR TM and tell me what is false but what I believe to be objectively true I'd like for you to do that for me now there's a little twist of this you know where are we going to meet will we have lunch that's fine but I got something really cool to offer with this you see before coming into academia I was a golf pro and so we have in PR team we like to have a lot of fun so we had this indoor driving ring in new I mean lab in Newman halls the Pope the Provos isn't here so and we can go hit balls I mean do a field study and we can and I could give you a golf lesson I know there's a lot of professors like to play golf and you know they they want to maybe learn how to play so I can I can help you with that so while we're trying to wrestle through the existential problem and why there is something and you know why is there something instead of nothing you know and we're wrestling with that I can help you with your golf swing now I can't perform miracles but I can help you with your slice and so here's what I discovered I talked golf for a long time and when you help somebody with their golf swing you have a friend for life and if that's all that happens I be absolutely delighted so I have that now for the students out there okay I've been here 18 years and and so it's been a joy of my life to watch that 18 year old grow up in 22 year old and man you're a different human being the growth in your intellect the maturation I mean it's just fantastic and I get to play a small part in that and the other professors will concur it's just an absolute joy to my life but in that obviously I've talked to a lot of students and they have a lot of questions what do I believe I talked to a student a few months ago I believe in nothing and so forth so for the students out there you have those questions I've got a good deal for you too and is there somebody that I'm going to bring up on stage right now that I've gotten to know he's a member of ratio Christian he is really a driving force for why this event has taken place and so he's going to talk a little bit about that so I want everybody if you would give a great hand a round of applause for Nathan Beasley [Applause] let me add my word of welcome thank you so much for being here good evening I'm honored to be your host tonight and to get things started first let me recognize some special people that helped make tonight happen a big thank you to mr. Roger Troutman and then his family and the Sears family who gave their generous donations to make this night happen and thank you Ocean Drive church first Baptists of easily NewSpring church all of you for your support last but certainly not least Thank You mr. berry siddhattha side of the family for your donations your time thought leadership and your and your elbow grease can you give give me a hand [Applause] on behalf of ratio Christy at Clemson thank you for joining us we have a very special program in store for you tonight tonight's production is brought to you by raschi Oh Christy a student apologetics organization that has a local chapter right here in tiger town I hope that you'll join our weekly discussion Monday nights at 5:30 in Hardin Hall we invite people of all beliefs to come investigate historical philosophical and scientific challenges to the Christian faith we exist to discuss the big questions of life and what bigger question is there then why should I believe that God exists well perhaps a more contentious question for this audience is which Clemson quarterback is greater deshaun Watson or Trevor Lawrence we may not all agree about that but here at Clemson University we pride ourselves on our community that has been called often the Clemson family we use this phrase a lot because especially after winning things such as the 2019 college football national championship come on we gather together but you see as soon as the focus moves away from football one will quickly realize that our family is divided on almost every question of Public Policy social organization economy and especially religious questions we have very different beliefs my challenge for you tonight is to consider seriously consider the positions opposing yours no matter where you stand why because at least one of your neighbors believes differently than you do and if you can grow to understand one another's beliefs do you know that our sincere disagreement will be more respectful our interactions more fruitful and these will be very good results I expect that you will see this exact honorable consideration demonstrated by our guest speaker tonight as he addresses respected leading scholars who disagree with him there are several our special guest is none other than dr. William Lane Craig research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology and professor of philosophy at Houston Baptist University at the age of 16 as a junior in high school he first heard the message of the Christian gospel and yielded his life to Christ dr. Craig then pursued his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College and Graduate Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School the University of Birmingham at the University of Munich from 1980 to 86 he taught philosophy of religion at Trinity in the 1987 the Craig's moved to Brussels Belgium were dr. Craig pursued research at the University of Louvain until assuming his position at Talbot in 1994 he has authored or edited over 30 books including the Kalam cosmological argument assessed in the New Testament evidence for historicity of the resurrection of Jesus divine foreknowledge and human freedom theism atheism and baking Big Bang cosmology in God time and the Eternity as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology including the journal of philosophy New Testament studies journal for the Study of the New Testament american philosophical quarterly philosophical studies philosophy and the british journal for philosophy of science and would you believe it in 2016 dr. Craig was named by the best schools magazine as one of the 50 most influential living philosophers without further ado would you help me give a warm welcome to dr. William Lane Craig thank you thank you very much it is a thrill to be here at Clemson University when I accepted this invitation I had no idea that I would be speaking at the home of the national collegiate football champions and so it is a special privilege to be with you tonight I've been asked to talk tonight about the question why should I believe God exists the problem is that that question is ambiguous for example the Bible says anyone who wants to come to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek Him so on one level the reason you should believe God exists is so that you can come to him this is actually the most fundamental reason to believe in God so that you can come to know him on another level though the question might mean what reason is there to believe that God exists well one answer to that question is that God by His Spirit speaks to your heart convicting you and drawing you to himself God has not abandoned us to our own devices to work out by means of our own cleverness and ingenuity whether or not he exists rather he speaks to the heart of every person and it's up to us whether we will respond to his initiatives or whether we will shut our hearts against his love and grace but that's not what the organizers of this event had in mind when they asked me to speak this evening in their invitation they wrote we would like you to give an overview of the best arguments for God's existence as well as why we can be confident that our beliefs entail knowledge and truth as opposed to being merely subjective preferences note that having good arguments for God's existence does not preclude also having a subjective experience they are both perfectly valid ways of knowing but our focus tonight is supposed to be on the arguments now as a professional philosopher I believe that the hypothesis that God exists makes sense of a wide range of the data of human experience so I think there are many good arguments for the existence of God whereby a good argument I mean an argument that makes its conclusion more probable than not a good argument doesn't need to make the conclusion certain or indubitable but simply more probable than its opposite in the time that we have together tonight I want to share four good arguments for God's existence in order to make these arguments easy to understand I'm going to be showing some animated videos that we've developed at reasonable faith these and many others are all available on our website reasonable faith dot-org number one then God makes sense of why anything at all exists this is the most fundamental question of philosophy why is there something rather than nothing why does anything at all exists the great German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz came to the conclusion that the answer to this question is to be found not in the universe of contingent things but in God God exists necessarily and is the explanation of why anything else exists our first video explains Leibniz reasoning we live in an amazing universe have you ever wondered why it exists why does anything at all exist Gottfried Leibniz wrote the first question which should rightly be asked is why is there something rather than nothing he came to the conclusion that the explanation is found in God but is this reasonable everything that exists has an explanation of its existence if the universe has an explanation of its existence that explanation is God the universe exists from these it follows logically that the explanation of the universe's existence is God the logic of this argument is airtight if the three premises are true the conclusion is unavoidable but are they more plausibly true than false the third premise is undeniable for anyone seeking truth but what about the first premise why not say the universe is just there and that's all now explanation needed end of discussion well imagine you and a friend are hiking in the woods and come across a shiny sphere lying on the ground you would naturally wonder how it came to be there and you'd think it's hard if your friend said there's no reason or explanation for it stop wandering it just is and if the ball were larger it would still require an explanation in fact if the ball were the size of the universe the change in its size wouldn't remove the need for an explanation indeed curiosity about the existence of the universe seems scientific and intuitive someone might say if everything that exists needs an explanation what about God doesn't he need an explanation and if God doesn't need an explanation and why does the universe need an explanation to address this lightness makes a key distinction between things that exist necessarily and things that exist contingently things that exist necessarily exist by necessity of their own nature it's impossible for them not to exist many mathematicians think that abstract objects like numbers and sets exist like this they're not caused to exist by something else they just exist by necessity of their own nature things that exist contingently are caused to exist by something else most of the things we're familiar with exist contingently they don't have to exist they only exist because something else caused them to exist if your parents had never met you wouldn't exist there's no reason to think the world around us had to exist if the universe had developed differently there might have been no stars or planets it's logically possible that the whole universe might not have existed it doesn't exist necessarily it exists contingently if the universe might not have existed why does it exist the only adequate explanation for the existence of a contingent universe is that its existence rest on a non-contingent being something that cannot not exist because of the necessity of its own nature it would exist no matter what so everything that exists has an explanation of its existence either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause but what about our second premise is it reasonable to call the explanation of the universe God well what is the universe it's all of space-time reality including all matter and energy it follows that if the universe has a cause of its existence that cause cannot be part of the universe it must be non-physical and immaterial beyond space and time the list of entities that could possibly fit this description is fairly short and abstract objects cannot cause anything Leibniz says contingency arguments shows that the explanation for the existence of the universe can be found only in the existence of God or if you prefer not to use the term God you may simply call him the extremely powerful uncaused necessarily existing non-contingent non-physical immaterial eternal being who created the entire universe and everything in it [Music] here once more are the premises of Leibniz argument one everything that exists has an explanation of its existence either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause two if the universe has an explanation of its existence that explanation is God three the universe exists for therefore the explanation of the existence of the universe is God according to premise 1 there are two kinds of things things which exist by a necessity of their own nature and things which are produced by some external cause let me explain this a bit more things which exist by a necessity of their own nature exists necessarily it is impossible for them not to exist philosophers call such things metaphysically necessary beings examples many mathematicians think that numbers sets and other mathematical entities exist in this way by contrast things that are caused to exist by something else don't exist by a necessity of their own nature they exist because something else has produced them if their causes were removed then they would not exist examples familiar physical objects like people planets and galaxies belong in this category so when lighting it says that everything that exists has an explanation of its existence that explanation may be found either in the necessity of its own nature or in some external cause so what is the explanation of the existence of the universe whereby the universe I mean all of physical reality it can only be found in an external cause which transcends the universe since it's not part of the universe of contingent things this cause must exist by a necessity of its own nature so if the universe has an explanation of its existence there must be a metaphysically necessary immaterial being beyond space and time now there are only two candidates that could possibly fit that description either an abstract object like a number or an unembodied mind or consciousness but abstract objects can't cause anything that's part of what it means to be abstract the number seven for example has no effect upon anything so it follows logically that the cause of the universe must be a transcendent mind which is exactly what God is I hope you grasp the power of Leibniz argument if successful it proves the existence of a metaphysically necessary uncaused timeless spaceless immaterial personal cause of the universe this is truly mind-blowing number two God makes sense of the origin of the universe have you ever asked yourself where the universe came from typically atheists have said that the universe is just eternal and that's all but is that plausible the next video explains how the scientific evidence for the origin of the universe points beyond the universe to its transcendent creator [Music] does God exist or is the material universe all that is or ever was or ever will be one approach to answering this question is the cosmological argument it goes like this whatever begins to exist has a cause the universe began to exist therefore the universe has a cause is the first premise true let's consider believing that something can pop into existence without a cause is more of a stretch than believing in magic at least with magic you've got a hat and a magician and if something can come into being from nothing then why don't we see this happening all the time no everyday experience and scientific evidence confirm our first premise if something begins to exist it must have a cause but what about our second premise that the universe begins or has it always existed atheists are typically said that the universe has been here forever the universe is just there and that's all first let's consider the second law of thermodynamics it tells us the universe is slowly running out of usable energy and that's the point if the universe had been here forever it would have run out of usable energy by now the second law points us to a universe that has a definite beginning this is further confirmed by a series of remarkable scientific discoveries in 1915 Albert Einstein presented his general theory of relativity this allowed us for the first time to talk meaningfully about the past history of the universe next Alexander Friedmann and George Lemaitre each working with Einstein's equations predict that the universe is expanding then in 1929 Edwin Hubble measured the redshift and light from distant galaxies this empirical evidence confirmed not only that the universe is expanding but that it sprang into being from a single point in the finite past it was a monumental discovery almost beyond comprehension however not everyone is fond of a finite universe so it wasn't long before alternative models popped into existence but one by one these models fail to stand the test of time more recently three leading cosmologists Arvind borde Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin proved that any universe which has on average been expanding throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning this even applies to the multiverse if there is such a thing this means that scientists can no longer hide behind a past eternal universe there is no escape they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning any adequate model must have a beginning just like the standard model it's quite plausible then that both premises of the argument are true this means that the conclusion is also true the universe has a cause and since the universe can't cause itself its cause must be beyond the space-time universe it must be spaceless timeless immaterial uncaused and unimaginably powerful much like God the cosmological argument shows that in fact it is quite reasonable to believe that God does exist here once more are the three simple premises of this argument one whatever begins to exist has a cause - the universe began to exist 3 therefore the universe has a cause one of the most startling developments of modern science is that we now have pretty strong evidence that the universe is not eternal in the past but had an absolute beginning about 14 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event known as the Big Bang as explained in the video in 2003 Arvind borde Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin were able to prove that in a universe which is on average in a state of cosmic expansion throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a beginning and that goes for multiverse scenarios too in 2012 the Lincoln showed that models do not meet this one condition still fail for other reasons to avert the beginning of the universe the Lincoln concluded and I quote none of these scenarios can actually be passed eternal all the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning end quote in the fall of 2015 velentin strengthened that conclusion he wrote we have no viable models of an eternal universe the board Guth the Lankin theorem gives reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed the board Guth Vilenkin theorem proves the classical space-time under single very general condition cannot be extended to past infinity but must reach a boundary at some time in the finite past now either there was something on the other side of that boundary or not if not then that boundary just is the beginning of the universe if there was something on the other side then it will be a region described by the yet to be discovered theory of quantum gravity in that case Vilenkin says it will be the beginning of the universe either way the universe began to exist since something cannot come into being from nothing the absolute beginning of the universe implies the existence of a beginningless uncaused timeless spaceless changeless immaterial enormous ly powerful creator of the universe number 3 God makes sense of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life in recent decades scientists have been stunned by the discovery that the existence of intelligent life depends upon a complex and delicate balance of initial conditions simply given in the Big Bang itself scientists once believed that whatever the initial conditions of the universe might have been eventually intelligent life might evolve somewhere but we now know that our existence is balanced on a Razors Edge the existence of intelligent life anywhere in the cosmos depends upon a conspiracy of initial conditions which must be fine-tuned to a degree that is literally incomprehensible and incalculable the following video explains how this remarkable fine-tuning points to a personal signer of the universe from galaxies and stars down to atoms and subatomic particles the very structure of our universe is determined by these numbers these are the fundamental constants and quantities of the universe scientists have come to the shocking realization that each of these numbers has been carefully dialed into an astonishingly precise value a value that falls within an exceedingly narrow life-permitting range if any one of these numbers were altered by even a hairsbreadth no physical interactive life of any kind could exist anywhere there'd be no stars no life no planets no chemistry consider gravity for example the force of gravity is determined by the gravitational constant if this constant buried by just one in ten to the sixtieth parts none of us will exist to understand how exceedingly narrow this life from any range is imagine a dial divided into 10 to the 60th increments to get a handle on how many tiny points on the dial this is compare it to the number of cells in your body or the number of seconds that have ticked by since time began if the gravitational constant had been out of tune by just one of these infinitesimally small increments the universe would either have expanded and thinned out so rapidly that no stars could form and life couldn't exist or it would have collapsed back on itself with the same result no stars no planets and no life or consider the expansion rate of the universe this is driven by the cosmological constant a change in its value by a mere one part in 10 to the 120th parts would cause the universe to expand too rapidly or too slowly in either case the universe would again be life prohibiting or another example of fine-tuning if the mass and energy of the early universe were not evenly distributed to an incomprehensible precision of one part in 10 to the 10 to the 120 third the universe would be hostile to life of any kind the fact is our universe permits physical interactive life only because these and many other numbers have been independently and exquisitely balanced on a Razors Edge where ever physicists look they see examples of fine-tuning [Music] the remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life if anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has he's hiding his head in the sand these special features are surprising and unlikely what is the best explanation for this astounding phenomenon there are three live options the fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity chance or design which of these options is the most plausible according to this alternative the universe must be life permitting the precise values of these constants and quantities could not be otherwise but is this plausible is a life prohibiting universe impossible far from it it's not only possible it's far more likely than a life-permitting universe the constants and quantities are not determined by the laws of nature there's no reason or evidence suggests that fine-tuning is necessary how about chance did we just get really really really really lucky know the probabilities involved are so ridiculously remote as to put the fine-tuning well beyond the reach of chance so in an effort to keep this option alive some have gone beyond empirical science and opted for a more speculative approach known as the multiverse they imagined a universe generator that cranks out such a vast number of universes that odds are life permitting universes will eventually pop out however there's no scientific evidence for the existence of this multiverse it cannot be detected observed measured or proved and the universe generator itself would require an enormous amount of fine-tuning furthermore small patches of order are far more probable than big ones so the most probable observable universe would be a small one inhabited by a single simple observer but what we actually observe is the very thing that we should least expect a vast spectacularly complex highly ordered universe inhabited by billions of other observers so even if the multiverse existed which is a moot point it wouldn't do anything to explain the fine-tuning given the implausible 'ti of physical necessity or chance the best explanation for why the universe is fine-tuned for life may very well be it was designed that way [Music] a common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect monkeyed with physics and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature the numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question there is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe the impression of design is overwhelming the heavens declare the glory of God the skies proclaim the work of his hands day after day they pour forth speech night after night they reveal knowledge the examples of fine tuning in the video are all accurate up-to-date and well established the question we face then is what is the best explanation of the cosmic fine-tuning there are three live options in the contemporary literature on fine-tuning physical necessity chance or design so our argument can be formulated in three simple steps one the fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity chance or design - it is not due to physical necessity or chance 3 therefore it is due to design as the video explains the only serious alternative to design is the multiverse chance hypothesis there are multiple problems with this hypothesis but let me highlight one of the most important if our universe were just a random member of a multiverse then we ought to be observing a much different universe than we do roger penrose of oxford university has explained this objection forcefully he calculates that the odds of our universes initial low entropy conditions existing by chance alone are one chance out of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123 by contrast the odds of our solar systems suddenly forming by the random collision of particles is one chance out of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 60 this number says Penrose is utter chickenfeed in comparison with 10 to the 10 to the hundred and 23rd what that means is that it is far more probable that we should be observing an orderly reach no larger than our solar system since a universe like that is unfathomably more probable than a fine-tuned universe like ours in fact the most probable observable universe is one which consists of a single brain which pops into existence by a random fluctuation with illusory perceptions of the external world so if you accept the multiverse explanation you're obliged to believe that you are all that exists and that this auditorium your body other people and everything you perceive in the world are just illusions of your brain no sane person believed such a thing on a theism therefore it is highly improbable that there exists a randomly ordered multiverse with the failure of the multiverse hypothesis the alternative of chance collapses neither physical necessity nor chance provides a good explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe it follows logically that the best explanation is design number four God makes sense of objective moral values and duties in the world the following video makes this argument very clear can you be good without God let's find out absolutely astounding there you have it undeniable proof that you can be good without believing in God but wait the question isn't can you be good without believing in God the question is can you be good without God see here's the problem if there is no God what basis remains for objective good or bad right or wrong if God does not exist objective moral values do not exist and here's why without some objective reference point we have no way of saying that something is really up or down God's nature provides an objective reference point for moral values it's the standard against which all actions and decisions are measured but if there's no God there's no objective reference point or we are left with is one person's viewpoint which is no more valid than anyone else's viewpoint this kind of morality is subjective not objective it's like a preference for strawberry ice cream the preference is in the subject not the object so it doesn't apply to other people in the same way subjective morality applies only to the subject it's not valid or binding for anyone else so in a world without God there can be no evil and no good nothing but blind pitiless indifference God has expressed his moral nature to us as commands these provide the basis for moral duties for example God's essential attribute of love is expressed in his command to love your neighbor as yourself this command provides a foundation upon which we can affirm the object of goodness generosity self-sacrifice and equality and we can condemn as objectively evil greed abuse and discrimination this raises a problem is something good just because God wills it or does God will something because it is good the answer is neither one rather God will something because he is good God is the standard of moral values just as a live musical performance is the standard for a high-fidelity recording the more a recording sounds like the original the better it is likewise the more closely a moral action conforms to God's nature the better it is but if atheism is true there is no ultimate standard so there can be no moral obligations or duties who or what lays such duties upon us no one remember for the Atheist humans are just accidents of nature highly evolved animals but animals have no moral obligations to one another when a cat kills a mouse it hasn't done anything morally wrong the cat's just being a cat if God doesn't exist we should view human behavior in the same way no action should be considered morally right or wrong but the problem is good and bad right and wrong do exist just as our Sense experience convinces us that the physical world is objectively real our moral experience convinces us that moral values are objectively real every time you say hey that's not fair that's wrong that's an injustice you affirm your belief in the existence of objective morals we're well aware that child abuse racial discrimination and terrorism are wrong for everybody always is this just a personal preference or opinion No the man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says two plus two equals five what old surmounts to them is a moral argument for the existence of God if God does not exist objective moral values and duties do not exist but objective moral values and duties do exist therefore God exists atheism fails to provide a foundation for the moral reality every one of us experiences every day in fact the existence of objective morality points us directly to the existence of God [Music] here again this argument can be very simply formulated 1 if God does not exist objective moral values and duties do not exist to objective moral values and duties do exist 3 therefore God exists perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind about the moral argument is not to confuse moral ontology with moral epistemology now what do I mean by that moral ontology has to do with the objective reality of moral values and duties moral epistemology has to do with how we come to know moral values and duties the moral argument has nothing to say about moral epistemology it is entirely about moral ontology it makes no claim about how we come to know objective moral values and duties it is all about the grounding of objective moral values and duties in reality so epistemological objections about how we come to know our moral duties or values are irrelevant from the two premises it follows logically that God exists the moral argument complements the cosmological and fine-tuning argument by telling us about the moral nature of the creator and designer of the universe it gives us a personal necessarily existent being who is not only perfectly good but whose very nature is the standard of goodness and whose commands constitute our moral duties there are many other arguments for God's existence which we don't have time to discuss this evening but on our website reasonable faith org you can find videos explaining some of these as well the arguments presented here tonight constitute a powerful cumulative case for the existence of God together they yield a metaphysically necessary uncaused transcendent immaterial personal creator and designer of the universe who is the paradigm and source of absolute moral goodness and love and that not only makes a huge difference for mankind in general but it can also make a personal life-changing difference for you as well dr. Craig let's let's go over here and have a little bit of discussion you've given us four very powerful reasons to believe that God exists for powerful lines of evidence I have to say don't we also have to consider that there are many people that do not accept because it's God and I think that they have very good reasons to believe the way that they do why don't we consider some of those in some in some video interviews let's perhaps first consider Lawrence Krauss comments one of the most amazing realizations of the 20th century was that quantum mechanics combined with relativity allows something to come from nothing in fact nothing is unstable religion and theology and to some extent philosophy have contributed almost nothing to our fundamental understanding of the universe because questions such as what is something and what is nothing are really scientific questions not philosophical ones when we applied quantum mechanics to gravity the truly remarkable thing is that even space itself can be created from nothing by quantum mechanical effects there's been a revolution in cosmology in the last 25 years we now understand that the dominant energy in the universe resides in empty space and that's changed everything and in fact it helps point unambiguously to the possibility that the universe arose from nothing it turns out the universe we live in is perhaps the worst of all possible universes for the long-term future of life in the far future the universe become cold dark and empty and life will and nothing will once again reign supreme Lawrence Krauss has remarks in the clip are relevant to the first two arguments that I shared tonight he would answer Leibniz his question why is there something rather than nothing and objected the first premise of the cosmological argument that everything that begins to exist has a cause by saying that quantum physics can explain how the universe came into being from nothing unfortunately professor Krauss has made some very fundamental grammatical and logical mistakes the word nothing is a term of universal negation it is a quantifier expression meaning not anything there is a whole series of these negative Universal quantifiers in English for example nobody means not anybody nowhere means not anywhere none means not one never means not ever so these quantifier expressions because they're pronouns can be used as the grammatical subject of a sentence rather than as a quantifier expression but when you use it that way as a referring term to something in fact you're misunderstanding the grammar of the sentence by taking nothing as a referring term rather than as a negative quantifier you can generate all sorts of humorous situations for example if you say I saw nobody in the hall the wiseacre says yeah he's been hanging around there a lot lately or if you said I had nothing for lunch today he says really how did it taste or if you say we went nowhere for Christmas he says well why did you go there you can make jokes using misusing these quantifier expressions as singular terms of reference and these jokes are as old as literature itself in Homer's Odyssey he tells the story of how Odysseus is captured by the Cyclops and Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his name is nobody and one night Odysseus puts out the Cyclops eye and the other Cyclops is here I'm screaming and they say what's going on what's the matter and the Cyclops says nobody is killing me nobody is killing me and they say well nobody's hurting you then there's nothing we can do about it just be quiet and go back to sleep to repeat the use of these quantifier expressions as referring terms is a joke now in light of this how remarkable is it that professor Krauss his native tongue is English uses the word nothing as a referring term to what is clearly something for example he says things like this nothing is unstable nothing weighs something there are different kinds of nothing nothing is almost everything this is simply a misuse of language in fact what Kraus is actually talking about is the quantum mechanical vacuum or quantum mechanical fields which are physical realities governed by physical laws they are most emphatically not nothing and cannot be extended infinitely into the past let me read to you the response from his review of Krauss's book a universe from nothing by david alberta a very eminent philosopher of science in the New York Times Sunday Review of Books this is what albert had to say according to relativistic quantum field theories particles are to be understood as specific arrangements of the fields certain arrangements of the fields for instance correspond to there being 14 particles in the universe and certain other arrangements correspond to there being no particles at all and these last arrangements are referred to in the jargon of quantum field theories for obvious reasons as vacuum states he goes on Krauss seems to be thinking that these vacuum states amount to the relativistic quantum field theory cold version of there not being any physical stuff at all but that's just not right relativistic quantum field theory Kovach UMES dates are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff the fact that some arrangements of these fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some do not is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers correspond to the existence of a fist and some don't and the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence over time as these fields rearrange themselves is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists pop in and out of existence over time as my fingers rearrange themselves and none of these poppings amounts to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing Albert concludes Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are abs lutely right starting to see that the way that we use language is very important to clear communication and each one is exactly and that is why by the way the trash talk of certain physicists like Kraus or biologists like Richard Dawkins with regard to philosophy is so misconceived because one of the benefits of good philosophy is conceptual analysis so that we aren't misled by language in the way that Professor Krauss has been so evidently misled thank you for that clarification well let's let's consider at least one more comment do you believe in not me yeah so I'm the the more I look at the universe just the less convinced I am that there is something benevolent going on so if you if if your concept of a creator is someone who's all powerful and all good that's not an uncommon pairing of powers that you might describe to a creator all powerful and all good and I look at disasters that afflict earth and life on Earth volcanoes hurricanes tornadoes earthquakes disease pestilence congenital birth defects you look at this list of ways that life is made miserable on earth by natural causes and I just ask how do you deal with that so philosophers rose up and said if there is a God God is either not all-powerful or not all good I have no problems if as we probe the origins of things we bump up into the bearded man if that shows up we're good to go okay not a problem there's just no evidence of it and this is why religions are called faiths collectively because you believe something in the absence of evidence that's what it is that's why it's called faith otherwise we would call all religions evidence but we don't for exactly that reason so I'm given what everyone describes to be the properties that would be expressed by an all-powerful being in the gods that they worship I look for that in the universe and I don't find it so I I remain unconvinced but if you got some good evidence bring it bring bring it bring it okay and so I don't I don't lead with that information because what I believe should be irrelevant to anyone it's not about me it's about the real world all right I found this clip to be very reasonable and thoughtful on departed on the part of deGrasse Tyson he basically explains that there are two things that prevent him believing in God first is the philosophical problem of evil particularly natural evil and then the second one is the claim that there's no evidence for God now I think we can immediately dismiss that second claim on the basis of the good arguments that we've seen this evening and dr. Tyson offers no refutation or response to any of these arguments I do want to correct one thing though that he said he said the faith is believing something in the absence of evidence this is a caricature of faith that is offered by the unbeliever this is not the believers definition of faith faith is trusting in what we have good reason to think is true faith is trusting in what we have good reason to think is true and so the question is do we have good evidence for God if we do then then we face the question am I going to put my trust in him now with respect to the natural problem of evil the version that dr. Tyson raises is called the logical version of the problem of evil and we have a video on this at our website reasonable faith org the claim here by the Atheist is that there's some sort of logical contradiction between the propositions God is all-powerful and all good and natural evil exists these are logically incompatible with each other he claims now the difficulty is that there's no explicit contradiction between those two propositions one is not the negation of the other so if the Atheist is claiming that they are implicitly contradictory he must be making some hidden assumptions that would serve to bring out the contradiction and make it explicit the problem is no atheist has ever been able to identify what those plausibly true assumptions are in fact I think we can show that these two propositions are logically compatible with each other all we need to do is come up with a third proposition which is consistent with the first and entails the second and here's an example God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the natural evil in the world if that's even possibly true then it shows that the existence of an Allgood all-knowing God with the natural evil in the world is perfectly consistent now you might say well what are some of those morally sufficient reasons well we can just guess at them for example perhaps only in a world suffused with natural evil would the optimum number of persons freely come to know God and so find eternal life now is that true who knows but as long as it's even possibly true it shows that there is no logical incompatibility between God's being all good and all-powerful and the natural evil in the world and so I'm very pleased to say tonight Nathan that it is almost universal agreed among philosophers today both theists and atheists that the logical version of the problem of evil has been resolved and that should be good news for Neil deGrasse Tyson will have to see what he says when he watches this video [Laughter] well I'm sure you're not surprised that there are more people who disagree with you let's hear some more comments good I think most physicists those who accept that there is a problem resort to something that that they call the anthropic principle which I think's rather elegant although many physicists hate it we could only be living in the kind of universe which is capable of giving rise to us so the fact that we are observing anything at all means that we are in that kind of universe now some physicists stop there and say end of story because we are here we in a sense create the necessity for the laws of physics that that make it possible for us to be here I agree with those who don't find that totally totally satisfying the philosopher John Leslie expresses his dissatisfaction with it by imagining a man facing a firing squad and there are 10 men in the firing squad they all aim their rifles at him the rifles will go off and he finds himself still alive and so he says to himself well obviously I simply wrote the rifles all missed because otherwise I wouldn't be here but that leaves unexplained why the rifles all missed you still feel you need an explanation for why they were missed and a version of the anthropic principle does answer that and that's the one that I think many physicists including the present astronomer royal Martin Rees favours there are I gather and physicists here may correct me independent reasons to believe that the universe in which we are is only one of billions of universes if they describe it as a foam a bubble foam of universes and we're just in one bubble and all the different bubbles in the foam have different fundamental constants in different laws and the great majority of them have their knobs tuned into different places and do not give rise to the conditions where evolution becomes possible there's only a small minority of these universes in which the conditions the fundamental constants make evolution possible and now the anthropic principle comes in we have to be in one of that minority of universes so it's a kind of Darwinism Darwinian selection of universes there's a one physicist called Lee Smolin who makes it very much more explicitly Darwinian he actually thinks that universes give birth to daughter universes he suggests in black holes so that there's a kind of family tree of universes and each universe can trace its pedigree backwards through its mother universe its grandmother universe and so on and at the moment of birth which he considers to be a black hole the laws and constants of physics in the in the daughter universe are slightly tweaked versions of the mother universes laws and constants now the qualities that make for a successful universe success in the Darwinian sense of giving birth to baby universes are qualities like lasting long enough to form galaxies and stars and therefore black holes because you need black holes to make the to get to give birth to baby universes and those are the very same qualities that you need in order to give rise to the conditions for life so smell in even thinks of a kind of natural selection and an actual evolutionary progression towards universes that get better and better at building baby universes and coincidentally get better and better at making the conditions for for evolution thus modern theory is not widely accepted by other physicists but the weaker version of the anthropic principle favoured by Martin Rees tea astronomer ole and many others is strongly favored by many physicists this is a wonderful clip on the fine tuning argument that I shared this evening and you notice in this clip that Dawkins admits that on the basis of John Wesley's firing squad illustration that the anthropic principle in and of itself is impotent to explain away the fine-tuning rather it must be conjoined with this metaphysical hypothesis of a multiverse of randomly ordered worlds now one of the problems with the multiverse hypothesis is how to explain its existence why does this multiverse exist and Dawkins in order to explain it appeals to Lee Smolin's evolutionary cosmology which he admits is not widely accepted now that's an understatement I'm not aware of any cosmologists that embraces smolens speculative scenario but what Dawkins doesn't realize is that Smolin scenario actually backfires on the opponent of the design argument for the universes which will be most proficient in producing black holes will be universes which produce primordial black holes prior to star formation so that smullins evolutionary cosmology would actually tend to weed out universes that produce stars galaxies planets and hence life and so the scenario would actually make the fine-tuning problem worse and not better and moreover you notice that Dawkins had nothing to say I think he's not even where of Roger Penrose --is objection to the multiverse hypothesis that was shared in the video we'll have to say the multiverse is sounding a lot more complicated the more we learn about it let's hear at least one more comment my first interest in this particular question about the accurate preservation of the Gospels started out when I was a student at Moody Bible Institute at Moody Bible Institute I believed as did my professors that the Bible is without error in the autographs in other words the originals of the New Testament did not have mistakes in them even if subsequent copies of the New Testament may have mistakes in them the problem is we don't have the originals of the New Testament what we have are thousands of copies of the New Testament that were made in most cases centuries later we don't have the originals we have copies made centuries later these copies that remained centuries later contain numerous mistakes thousands of mistakes tens of thousands of mistakes hundreds of thousands of mistakes this was a problem for me at Moody Bible Institute and I decided that I wanted to learn more about the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament I went to Princeton Theological Seminary to study with the foremost scholar in the field Bruce Metzger I devoted years of my life to this study this has been the core of my research for the past thirty years at some point I came to the realization that my belief in the inerrancy of the autographs didn't make sense if God inspired the Bible without error why haven't he preserved the Bible without error I couldn't think of a good answer then and I still can't think of a good answer now even though I think I've heard every answer ever proposed I couldn't any longer believe that God had inspired the originals because I was sure he had not preserved the original let me tell you now what I think about this entire situation which is that the that we cannot know whether the Gospels have been preserved accurately through the ages and I'm going to try and illustrate with you by explaining how it worked take the Gospel of Mark whenever Mark was written say was written in the year 65 or in the year 70 in the city of Rome say I don't know where it was made whoever wrote mark put it in circulation and somebody copied the Gospel of Mark then somebody copied that copy and somebody copied the copy of the copy then somebody copied the copy of the copy of the copy of the copy and we don't have any of those copies everybody who copied the text made mistakes our first surviving copy of Mark probably dates to around the Year 220 ad that is a hundred and fifty years after Mark was first produced our first complete copy of mark comes from the Year 350 about 280 years after mark we have lots of copies from later times from thousands of years of a thousand years after mark we get lots of copies when you compare all of these copies with one another they all differ from one another okay when you see Bart Ehrman you understand that he was once a fundamentalist preacher and he gets into that preaching mode his argument here is that the New Testament documents cannot be in arrant because we no longer have the original autographs all we have are copies of copies of copies that are filled with thousands and thousands of mistakes now this is extremely misleading Nathan the New Testament is the best attested book in ancient history both in terms of the number of manuscripts and in terms of the nearness of those manuscripts to the date of the original textual scholars by comparing these thousands of manuscripts with each other are able to reconstruct the text of the original autographs to about 99% certainty there are about a hundred thirty-eight thousand words in the New Testament and only 1400 of those words remain uncertain as to their reading and those words are utter trivialities they are things like in first John chapter 1 the author says we write this that our joy may be full but some manuscripts say we write this that your joy may be full is it our or your it doesn't matter nothing hangs upon that kind of trivial uncertainty so only about 1% of the New Testament concerns words that are uncertain and those are complete trivialities and that's why when I learned Greek in college I can pick up my Greek New Testament and when I read it I know that 99% of the words that I am reading are the original words penned by Luke or by Paul or by John that's how well textual scholars have been able to reconstruct the original text and Bart Ehrman knows this he is a textual scholar he knows this and so his fellow New Testament scholars have differentiated between two Bart Ehrman's their scholarly Bart who knows this and then there's popular Bart who deliberately misleads laypeople by writing controversial and sensationalist books that are bestsellers but he knows the difference between the two this was very evident on a Lutheran radio program that I heard in 2008 when Herman was interviewed and the after describing all these copyists errors that we saw on the clip the interviewer says to Ehrman well what do you think the New Testament originally said an urban said I don't know what you mean I don't understand you and the interviewer said well what do you think these New Testament documents originally said an urban said well they said pretty much what the text says today and the interviews that but you said there were all these copyist mistakes and herman said yeah but we've been able to reconstruct the text so he knows this but for the sake of sensationalism and honestly or dishonestly misleading unsuspecting and innocent laypeople you get this kind of misrepresentation well how important it is to listen to the scholar is both on stage and in their written work that's why I'm taking away very good well I think we have time for one more comment let's consider good this last one I think there's a few obvious things to point out one is that you we clearly don't get our morality out of our holy books because when you go into the holy books they are bursting with cruelty maybe the Old Testament the New Testament the Quran these are profoundly cruel and morally ambiguous books at best I mean the you know the ten commandments the first four commandments have nothing to do with morality they have to do with with theological offenses you know don't take any other gods before me don't take God's name in vain no graven images etc don't work on the Sabbath what are you supposed to do when people break those Commandments you're supposed to kill them and this is unbelievably immoral and yet and what we're not doing that now not because the the book itself is so wise I mean to take a more relevant example slavery miss slavery is clearly endorsed in the Bible it's endorsed in the Old Testament it's endorsed in the New Testament we all agree that slavery is wrong we conquered that ground morally through some very hard-fought conversations and also Wars religion was a very little help in that I made their worries it's true that abolitionists were cherry-picking Scripture trying to find ways to to justify their project but their project wasn't coming from Scripture because Scripture is clear it supports slavery there was there's the evil of slavery is not recognized in the Bible and it is it is certainly not repudiated in the Bible and so the the slaveholders of the South were on the winning side of that theological argument and and it religion was an impediment to making that that moral progress again the fact even if it were not an impediment even if it were extremely useful that would not be a reason to believe that any of our books were dictated by an omniscient being okay the basic argument from Sam Harris here is that our morality is not derived from the Bible because the Bible sanctions various immoralities like slavery now there are a number of confusions in his statements first he fails to distinguish between what is immoral and what is illegal I think that it is immoral for example to blaspheme against God but it's not illegal that's because we do not live in a theocracy as ancient Israel did so of course our laws don't mirror those of ancient Israel which was a theocratic society secondly it's not true that the breaking of the commandments that Harris mentioned were all capital crimes in ancient Israel every Israelite knew that he didn't love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength but forgiveness was available through the Levitical sacrifices and sincere repentance thirdly it's false that ancient Israel practice slavery as we understand that term our understanding of slavery is shaped by the experience of the American South but that's not what ancient Israel practiced what was practiced in ancient Israel is more accurately described as indents servanthood that is to say in those days there was obviously no government safety net to help people who fell on hard times there was no aid to families with dependent children there was no Medicare there was no food stamps so how could you provide for these persons well indentured servant hood was a sort of anti-poverty program in ancient Israel if a man fell on hard times couldn't pay his debts he could keep his family together by selling himself to someone as an indentured servant and then working off his debts until he had to be released and could go back into normal free society and Israel had the law moreover that every 7 years everyone had to be released from indentured servant hood even if their debts had not been fully paid off so in fact this was actually a kind of voluntary indentured servant hood that served as an anti-poverty program it was not like slavery in the American South and you know Nathan in some ways it was a better system than what we've got today because rather than create a dependency class of second and third generation welfare recipients that breaks up the nuclear family the Israelite system allowed a man to retain his dignity while he worked off his debt and kept his family together until such time as he could be out on his own again so in some respects at least it was really a better system I think and if you're interested in this subject take a look at Paul Coppens book is God a moral monster his two chapters on slavery in that book our eye openers and very helpful finally one last comment on Harris Harris himself has no basis for morality the intrinsic value of human beings is rooted in the biblical doctrine that man is created in the image of God and therefore endowed with intrinsic moral value and inherent human rights but on Harris's naturalistic view human beings are no more valuable than rats so in fact it's Harris that faces the real problem here of grounding morality in a naturalistic worldview and you can have a look at the debate that I had with Sam Harris on the University at the University of Notre Dame on the question is the foundation of morality natural or supernatural in fact you notice I think about it I've debated every one of these guys in the videos except Neil deGrasse Tyson who refuses to do so but you can go on YouTube and look at the debates with Kraus Dawkins and Harris and see how they fare when their arguments are subjected to critical scrutiny I have to say it is so clarifying to understand the historical facts yeah which illuminate the reality and how surprising that doc that dr. Harris's comments actually turn about when he is so strong in his moral indignation yes yeah it actually supports the reality that God exists yeah Wow well we've all heard a lot from dr. Craig and his comments here but we want to open it up to you the audience who has made it out to the theater tonight if you would if you have a question that you'd like to ask dr. Craig you'll have a unique unique opportunity if you'll line up in this aisle here to the stage right and there's a mic set up please line up at the line and you'll also see an X marked on the ground if you would position yourself near the mic and speak slowly and clearly so the dr. Craig can hear you and address your question thanks right uh sure would go ahead and cue the first question good evening it is a quite an honor to be able to be in the presence of someone who's been so defensible in the name of the Lord but on you it seems tonight we've talked a lot about the cause of things why we believe in such things and just from my personal experience the cause for a lot of atheists views can sometimes almost be pre-existing from experiences and in their lives yeah so they use almost scientific reasoning to really overview the underlying fact that a lot of their experiences with Christianity were not healthy experiences so what are your kind of takes on a lot of those experiences I try not to psychoanalyze my atheist interlocutors as a philosopher I'm called upon to assess the arguments that they give and not to cycle at analogue analyze them as persons but I must say sometimes the anger and the vitriol that comes from them does make me suspect that there are deep-seated emotional issues here more than just rejection of an argument or evidence and so after sharing the argument with the person I will sometimes say you know I'd like to know why are you so angry did you have a negative experience as a as a child or something that turned you against God and kind of in a sense begin to do a little pastoral counseling rather than philosophical argument but the important thing in doing philosophy is to try to detach the arguments from the person so that you're not attacking or criticizing the person but just the argument as it seems a lot of time a the--it's atheist like you do too Chris as a lot of your experiences with professor Krauss oh you've seen those Australian debate very attacking your character which I mean just because of your beliefs not even because of the person that you are but just because of the beliefs that you believe in that's that was yeah that was a difficult experience I have never sustained such personal venomous attack as from Lawrence Krauss but as a Christian and as someone who's just trying to grow up in the in the society we live in it's nice to see someone who can take those criticisms and attacks and just deflect them in such a humble in such a kind way so you're very kind sir thank you thank you all right thank you yeah come on the next questioner thank you for coming dr. Craig I really appreciate it my question concerns the issue of natural evil that you brought up in response to one of those objections and my basic question is I would object to your response by saying you proposed this this third proposition that you know God can justify natural evil if there's some morally sufficient reason to justify it so for example making a world in which people can know him but if God is all-powerful then he could fulfill this morally sufficient reason for example having people know him through any mean he could create any universe without natural evil that that would fulfill this morally sufficient reason because my definition he is all-powerful God's being all-powerful doesn't mean that he has the ability to do logically impossible things and it's logically impossible to make someone do something freely so given human freedom we don't know that there is a world that's feasible for God in which he could bring as many people to eternal life and salvation freely as this world or world suffused with natural evil and suffering the atheist would have to prove that there's a possible world that God could have actualized of free creatures in which more persons are greater percentage of persons would freely come to find salvation and eternal life but without an equivalent amount of suffering and that's pure speculation nobody knows such a thing so I think that the Atheist argument just lays a burden of proof so heavy on the Atheist shoulders that no one can sustain it that that seems to me like you're just limiting the definition of all-powerful at that point well there's a limitation I don't think so this is the general understanding of omnipotence is that it's the ability to do whatever is logically possible for an agent to do it doesn't mean God can do logical and possibilities why is it logically impossible to create a universe in which you can make free agents willingly believe in you while not suffering natural evils why is that because it's logically impossible to make someone freely do something why can you create why can't you create a universe rather my verb is was you're asking why couldn't God create a universe of free creatures in which just as many people come to know him in his salvation but with less natural evil in it and I'm saying that we have no idea whether such a world is feasible for God or not given human freedom there are possible worlds like that but they may not be actual eyes --as bellari Zabaleen persons wouldn't cooperate they wouldn't do what God would want them to do so the burden of proof lies upon the Atheist check to show that there is a feasible world like that available to God and there's simply no way to prove that now let me come back on your earlier point suppose you do say that omnipotence means the ability to do the logically impossible then the problem of evil immediately evaporates because God can bring it about that he is all-powerful all good and the natural evil exists even though that's logically impossible no problem all right thank you thank you for your question let's make sure we have time for other questions yeah hey dr. Clegg I'm an atheist so babban was simple a question thanks for Carly yeah do you believe in the separation of state and judge yes yes I believe both in the Establishment Clause of the Constitution that the the state should not make any establishment of religion but then also in the freedom of exercise clause that the state should not inhibit the free exercise of religion so I think both of these guarantees in the bill of rights are to be ardently defended me to my question is if you believe in the government being separate from the church so therefore the government's you know no tie to the church at all do you think therefore because your question that therefore a question has to one the state in order for it to be more could it be a Muslim or agnostic or atheist oh no I don't think in fact if I may speak well no I guess I said becomes from God a then you had to tie yourself let me just say this I think that many of angelical Christians came of age politically during the Carter administration's many people voted for Jimmy Carter because he said he was a Southern Baptist born-again Christian and so the Christians came out and voted for Carter and then I think for most of those voters he turned out to be a huge disappointment and what those voters I think came to realize as a more sophisticated approach is that you don't elect someone because of his religious beliefs or because he he holds is a Christian you elect him because of his policies that you support and that's what the left I think has difficulty understanding about the evangelicals who support Trump they deplore the man's character and narcissism and anti-christian behavior but they agree with a lot of his policies and so they just swallow hard and ignore his character while supporting those policies so I don't think at all that we should vote for Christians or try to get them into office because that's just no guarantee that that person is going to adopt the right policies right just I guess this is thank you thank you sigh we need to draw more questions yes thank you hi thank you for coming here earlier we talked about the moral argument and I just kind of wanted to play the devil's advocate for a second because there's something I'm this is an argument I've heard before I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I believe that it's possible for is not possible for humans to not be moral without God I think you know wait wait what say that again I'm sorry my Bible uses a double negative day but um I'm not sure I think it is it might be possible for humans to be more off out religion we got soda why yeah that's what the video says the question isn't can you be good without believing in God yeah remember the Atheist who rescues the little kitten you can be good without believing in God the issue in the video is can you be good if there is no God and hence therefore there is no good and no evil no right and no wrong right but like I think that we can all agree that what separates humans from other animals is that we are so poor yes and we know and we are aware of what other people are just like us and they also suffer and they also feel pain and I think that just from a purely logical standpoint causing someone else pain and suffering is not good because we were not themselves I feel like just on that just basic humanitarianism or humanism kind of can work on its own is that I might be I might be saying something yeah no no I thought that is what a lot of people believe but it seems to me that that kind of humanism has an arbitrary and premature explanatory stopping point it's arbitrary because there's just no reason on an atheistic or naturalistic worldview to think that human beings have intrinsic moral worth or duties to obey who or what lays these moral duties upon them I can't see any ground for it on a naturalistic view and I think it's premature because we can always ask well why are human beings intrinsically good or why shouldn't I inflict pain upon my fellow human beings animals do this all the time to one another if you look at the animal kingdom actions like rape or actions that look like rig go on all the time in the animal kingdom so why is this wrong for Homo sapiens to engage in you might say well because it harms someone else why is it wrong to harm another member of your species it seems to me that that is a premature explanatory stopping point you need to get to I think God as the locus and paradigm of moral value and duties yeah but what I was saying is that because this is another since you like with let's say like I'm think it's common in the animal kingdom floats say like let's say a wolf kills another wolf's mate and then purify the gene pool he kills the previous Bulls Cubs yeah the wolf doesn't understand that those other the creatures that he killed there's other sentient beings he doesn't understand that they also suffer pain his keys an animal humans I think are different and I feel like that's I think there's I think there's a big difference between those two well I do too but that's because I believe in the existence of God which grounds and explains that difference but on a naturalistic view man has just got a more evolved relatively advanced nervous system but as Richard Dawkins says in his book they're just animated chunks of matter like the other things and I just don't see any reason to think that humanism is a non arbitrary and non premature explanatory ultimate all right thank you all right thank you sure thank you dr. Craig from come for coming my question is with regards to the Kalam cosmological argument there are two theories of time the a theory and the B theory and I understand that some people try to get out of the Kalam argument by appealing to the B theory because like on the B theory the all moments in time are kind of like events on a movie reel yeah they're all equally real but the film reel itself could be eternally existent so they would say the second premise is only true with respect like a ruler has a beginning it has a first inch on it but the ruler didn't come into being now how would you respond to someone who tried to use the B theory this I I don't accept the B theory but I don't really I don't really know what to say if someone tried to appeal to other than just expressing my own personal incredulity yes this is a point that I've made myself this isn't something discovered by objectors in my work on the Kalam cosmological argument I raise the issue of these two different theories of time and I think that some of the Kalam arguments are dependent upon the a theory of time which sees time as something that is dynamic temporal becoming is objective and real the past and the future do not exist in any sense I think you can still run the Kalam cosmological argument on a B theory of time but it's just all the more obvious if the a theory is true it it becomes almost undeniable on the a theory but even on the B theory of time suppose that we have a movie reel with different frames in it and these all these frames are equally real and on one of the frames suddenly a horse appears in that frame where before in the prior frame was just your empty living room even B theorists will say there has to be a cause which would explain why the horse exists in that frame whereas he didn't exist in the previous frame so I think that the the argument can still go through given that static B theory of time but my own persuasion like you is that that theory of time is false and that the better theory is the a theory and so I have done my philosophical duty on this issue I have written two books on this subject one called the tense listeria time a critical examination and another the tensed theory of time a critical examination and in these two books I look at all of the arguments both for and against the a theory of time and the B theory of time respectively and defend the superiority of the a theory on a popular level these are summarized in my little book time and eternity which is a more popular level treatment of these issues but I'm ready to go to the mat so to speak for the a theory of time which I think makes the Kalam argument all the more persuasive ok thank you mm-hmm I think an audience question which demonstrates the knowledge of the philosophy of time should be commended yeah yeah obviously he's already done some reading dr. Craig thank you so much for coming tonight I just had a question about your work on God and abstract objects oh so in your published work obviously you've defended the view that abstract objects like numbers don't actually exist and so on you've also defended view that objective moral values and duties do exist yes so obviously both are material things so my question is isn't it being inconsistent in affirming that objective moral values and duties do exist but also denying that object that abstract objects don't it deny that artifact objects don't exist it would be inconsistent only if one were a plate honest about moral values and duties if you thought like Plato that justice just exists as an ideal form or that virtue or goodness or loyalty just exists but that's not the view the view that I'm defending meshes hand-in-glove with my aunty realism about Platonism because it grounds moral values in a concrete object in God himself and so this view is anti plate inist in that the objectivity of moral values and duties is grounded in God and his commands not in some sort of a platonic realm thank you hmm hey dr. cred thank you for coming tonight sure we're gonna do this mic up a little bit there we go right there so it's been great I love your work so I have a question and it's related to the objective values that you talked about that humans have I don't I wanted to ask you about like the inherent value that we have it's also kind of relating to some current cultural issues New York just passed a bill allowing abortions up to birth mm-hm and a lot of you Angelico's at least most that I know have you know rightly expressed like this is wrong one thing that I I struggle with this is we we really only have value in about like preborn children when they're like older and like more developed so you can you give us maybe maybe talking about the image of God or some way to help us like value preborn children not only when they're very developed but also like when they're you know consumed and how we can hold that value all the time yes the the question here is is the developing fetus a potential person or is it rather a person with potential and I would take the latter view I would say that this little fetus the embryo the fertilized egg that is now a human being in the earliest stages of its development is a person with enormous potential and if that is not interrupted by accident or artificial destruction of its life it will grow into a full adult member of its species what makes it a person is not the body it's the soul human beings have a rational soul in virtue of which we are in God's image and therefore have inherent human Worth and dignity so it is in virtue of being in sold creatures that these little ones I think having trinsic human value and that therefore its homicide to destroy them thanks a lot hi dr. Craig thank you for coming to South Carolina my question is in regard to the fourth argument that you presented with objective moral values and duties yes and specifically to the second premise of that argument where it says that objective moral values and duties do exist I've always I've thought about that argument before and it seems to me that objectivity there is being conflated with universality and that we're saying that just because everybody believes something doesn't necessarily make it that that thing actually is true that you're very perceptive to see that distinction so is it the case then I mean cuz in obviously in Nazi Germany everybody would have believed that Jews were evil and terrible but that doesn't actually mean that Jews were evil and terrible right so is it the case that just because everybody believes that you know rape or murder is wrong does that really make it wrong or that just mean that everybody believes that it just means everybody believes that you're quite right you should not equate objectivity with universality had the Nazis won World War two and succeeded in brainwashing or exterminating everybody who disagreed with them maybe everyone would have thought the Holocaust was good but that would not make it objectively good there there can be societies like Nazi Germany or Afrikaner South Africa which are so morally corrupted that they perpetuate atrocities thinking that these are good so remember I said the argument isn't about moral epistemology there's no claim here that our moral intuitions are infallible or indefeasible on the contrary moral growth means that we can come to perceive moral values and duties more clearly than perhaps we used to I know in my own life my attitude toward certain things has changed as I've grown older and I think I have a better perception on certain activities that in terms of their moral worth or their rightness or wrongness than I did as a young man okay thank you mm-hmm dr. Craig we had questions submitted by ticket holders people here tonight okay I want to ask you one of these questions I'll keep the questionnaire anonymous initials CB how do you go from arguments like the ones you've used tonight that support the idea that the universe was created by a god-like being to show that his creator is in fact the God of the Bible in other words how do you go from the general theism that might be supported by some of these arguments right to specifically believe in the God of the Bible and if there are such arguments to make that that progression are those arguments not more important to emphasize well that latter question should be directed toward the organizers of this event not to me they invited me to speak I do I do accept that question okay they invited me to speak on why should I believe God exists and I do think that's the more fundamental question once you believe that God exists then the question arises well has this God revealed himself to us in some way that we can know him more fully or has he remained aloof and distant from the world that he has made and I think that's where you make the transition from a kind of generic theism to specifically Christian theism and the way that transition would be made I've already hinted at you've got to look at the person of Jesus of Nazareth Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be the revelation of God he claimed that in himself the kingdom of God had broken into human history and that in his person we could see God and his love for us and so the question will be I think who do you think Jesus of Nazareth is and this was a subject of my doctoral work in theology in the University of Munich where I looked at the historical credibility of Jesus resurrection and I have to say I was stunned to discover that the majority of New Testament historians who have written on this subject today believe that after Jesus was crucified his corpse was interred in a tomb by a man named Joseph of Arimathea that there after his tomb was discovered empty on the first day of the week after his crucifixion by a group of female disciples thirdly that there after various individuals and groups of people saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death and forth that the original disciple suddenly and sincerely came to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead despite every predisposition to the contrary now those facts are agreed upon by the wide majority of scholars who have written on the historical Jesus and on the fate of the historical Jesus so the question is well what's the best explanation of those facts and down through history various counter explanations have been offered than the resurrection things like the conspiracy hypothesis the apparent death hypothesis the displaced body hypothesis the hallucination hypothesis and none of these has commended itself to contemporary scholarship as a good plausible explanation of those four facts and so I'm persuaded that the best explanation of those facts is the one that the original eyewitnesses gave that God raised Jesus from the dead and if that is a historical fact what that means is that God has unequivocally and publicly confirmed the allegedly blasphemous claims for which Jesus of Nazareth was crucified thereby showing that he was who he claimed to be and that's why I'm a Christian rather than a Muslim or a Jew or just a deus because of Jesus and the evidence for his resurrection as you've already hinted it sounds like we have more worthwhile discussion to bring you back for thank you thank you I think the audience agrees all right we have time for one last audience question please come up to the front hello thank you so much for coming tonight I just wanted to ask how can you reconcile because in the Old Testament God calls himself a jealous God and he has committed such atrocities as like killing individual people or having his nation of Israel kill other people so how is that reconciled with the all good god I've dealt with this in my column on our website called question of the week where I take a question every week from readers and I believe it was question number 16 and then I revisited again question number something like 324 where I I deal with this question and I would commend those to you in a nutshell when God says it he's jealous what it means is that God will not permit worship to be given to any false god or deity other than himself and the reason for that is plain as the embodiment of goodness itself as the paradigm of goodness worship should only be directed toward God to worship some finite lesser thing is evil because worship and adoration should only be directed toward the supreme good the paradigm of goodness which is what God is and so that's what it means to say that God is a jealous God he will not allow people to worship false gods rather than him that is sin that is evil to do that and I think that's quite correct now in these cases in the Old Testament you can mention these judgments were always upon people for their sin God was visit judgment upon them these were not arbitrary acts of cruelty or viciousness these were judgments for sins so for example when the people of Israel went down into Egypt God consigned them to slavery in Egypt for 400 years he allowed them to languish there for 400 years because he said the iniquity of the Amalekites the people who were living in the promised land he said the iniquity of the Amalekites is not yet complete they were not yet ripe for judgment but when those people became so reprobate so evil in their sin practicing things like child sacrifice and all sorts of sexually deviant practices like bestiality and so forth then God brought Israel out of Egypt and he used the armies of Egypt to bring judgment upon the tribes in Canaan judgment which I think was in fact merited and deserved just as hundreds of years later he would use the armies of Babylon to judge his own people Israel for their sin when Israel was carried off into exile so these judgments are simply manifestations of the holiness of God and his intolerance of evil thank you so much mm-hmm thank you to our questioners for such impressive and thoughtful questions well this is the conclusion of our event tonight thank you so much everyone for making it out thank you dr. gray you

Channel: ReasonableFaithOrg

Views: 36,403

Keywords: William Lane Craig, God, Jesus, Christ, Theism, Atheism, Apologetics, Christianity, Philosophy, Theology, Existence of God, Salvation, Belief, Faith, Science, History, Clemson Univeristy, Ratio Christi

Id: mZywM7NalhE

Length: 118min 35sec (7115 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2019