The Evil God debate: William Lane Craig vs Stephen Law

Listeners to the Pod Delusion of about a month ago will have heard Premier Christian Radio host Justin Brierley promoting the Reasonable Faith Tour — a week and a half of debates and lectures throughout the UK by American philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig. Much was made, then and since, of Richard Dawkins' refusal to engage William Lane Craig in a formal debate, though the fuss seems to have had more to do with promoting the tour than real regret at not having the the world's most famous living atheist on the speaking list. Clearly Dawkins could not "win", either in debate or out of it. If he accepted he would be lending his name to a religious event — which would be trumpeted far and wide — and if he declined, his refusal would be (and was) … trumpeted far and wide. Whatever he did would be (and was) used as promotional material for the Reasonable Faith Tour. (Perhaps the three Pauls should invite Richard Dawkins on to the Skepticule Extra podcast. I'm sure I've an empty chair I could put by for him.)

Until recently the promotional hoo-hah was of only peripheral interest to me, as I was heartily sick of listening to Craig's debates, especially after those with Lawrence Krauss and Sam Harris, both of whom have original things to contribute about their respective fields, but whose points Craig roundly ignored. When Polly Toynbee withdrew her name from the tour's speaking list after having initially accepted, I sympathised with what I considered a wise decision. For myself I felt I'd had enough of Craig, and I wasn't interested in attending any of the tour.

When Stephen Law "stepped up to the plate", however, I felt differently. Here was a professional philosopher, known as an atheist and clearly a deep thinker — as his previous appearances on Justin Brierley's radio programme Unbelievable? had demonstrated. Suddenly the prospect of yet another William Lane Craig debate became intriguing, as perhaps this time the Craig steamroller might have something concrete and unyielding in its path.

And that's why I found myself in Westminster Central Hall on Monday 17^th October, for the initial event of William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith Tour — a debate between a Christian and an atheist on the question, "Does God exist?"

I had arrived early to secure a good seat in the magnificent and capacious building, and was in the third row. I made my own estimate of its seating capacity — about 2000 on two levels. I thought it likely that the lower level would be mostly filled, probably to about 900 (a good crowd by any standard, for an event such as this). But as 7:30 approached — and I'd witnessed the separate arrivals of William Lane Craig and Stephen Law — the upper level began to fill up too. Five minutes before the start I estimated about 1800 people were seated in the hall (Justin Brierley has since mentioned an attendance of 1700, so I wasn't far out).

Stephen Law isn't best at the podium — his approach is probably better suited to the discussion or small seminar format. William Lane Craig on the other hand has the big speeches to big audiences down pat — but this is nothing new. Anyone who has seen a few debates by Craig knows what to expect, so I should not have been surprised to hear him launch into three of his tried and tested arguments: the Kalām cosmological argument, the argument from objective moral values, and the argument from the resurrection of Jesus. In terms of presentation Stephen Law is not as slick or as superficially convincing as William Lane Craig, but in terms of philosophical engagement Law can clearly hold his own.

I shall not detail each speech here — this has been extensively done elsewhere*, and the unedited audio of the entire two hours is available for streaming and download at the Unbelievable? website. What follows are mostly my immediate impressions of the evening, jotted down during my return train journey that night, interspersed with retrospective comments.

I expected Law to use his Evil God Challenge — and he did, in my view to solid effect, and Craig's efforts to brush it aside were, in my view, ineffective. As usual Craig spoke first, and as usual he attempted to define the scope of the debate by stating what his opponent must do in order to refute him. The reason he does this is so that when he sums up he can point out anything in his list that his opponent didn't address, and claim victory by default. In this case however, Stephen Law — speaking second — made it clear that he would present one argument only. Then he presented his Evil God Challenge, which I've heard him deliver before but never with such clarity and depth.

The Evil God Challenge goes something like this: the evidential problem of evil is well known — with so much gratuitous suffering in the world, both now and in the past, how could an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God allow it? Theists have developed theories — theodicies — to explain how such a good God could allow so much suffering, so much "evil". Whether you think these theodicies are effective reconciliations of the problem of evil will probably depend on your own perspective.

The effectiveness or otherwise of these theodicies, however, isn't relevant to Stephen Law's Evil God Challenge. Even if theists try to explain suffering by claiming it's an inevitable result of God allowing us free will, or that we cannot know the mind of God and he might have good reasons unknown to us to allow so much suffering, or that suffering is necessary in order to throw goodness into sharp relief — all of these arguments (or theodicies) can be applied in reverse to the idea that the universe was created by an omnipotent, omniscient but omnimalevolent God who is seeking to maximise the amount of suffering in the world. But how can the Evil God exist when there's so much good in the world? The evidential problem of good is just as effective in disproving the existence of an evil God as the evidential problem of evil is in disproving the existence of a good God. The two scenarios aren't necessarily entirely symmetrical, but they're symmetrical enough to maintain that if observation is sufficient to dismiss the Evil God Hypothesis — and most people seem to agree that it is — it's also sufficient to dismiss the Good God Hypothesis.

Craig tried to refute the Evil God Hypothesis — or rather, to shrug it off — by simply defining his God as good. But this is an arbitrary definition that can be just as simply reversed, as Law demonstrated. Law quite rightly called out Craig for resorting to the mystery card — Craig predictably claimed that we cannot know what's in the mind of God — that God might have morally sufficient reasons to allow suffering, reasons of which we're unaware. That's not good enough, as Law pointed out.

During the post-debate discussion Law objected to Craig's claiming he had conceded that the cosmological argument was proof of God's existence because he didn't address it. Craig defended his tactic as legitimate in the debate format, which goes to show that he's not debating in order to get closer to the truth, and it reinforces the widely held impression amongst atheists that Craig is only interested in point-scoring. Law then took the opportunity to answer Craig's cosmological argument with a simple statement that he doesn't know why the universe exists, but that doesn't give theists a free pass to say their God did it.

As Law further explained, just because he doesn't know what, if anything, caused the universe, he is nevertheless justified in ruling out certain hypothetical causes. One such is the Evil God, and by reflection — the essence of the Evil God Challenge — another is the Good God. Law also rebutted Craig's evidence for the resurrection of Jesus by citing corroborated UFO reports, showing just how flawed human cognition can be, even en masse.

I think Law put up a good case against Craig, who is acknowledged as a formidable debating opponent. Craig's success at debating, however, relies less on his arguments, which have multiple flaws — some of which Law highlighted — than on his debating style: speaking first, defining the limits of the topic, and listing what his opponent must do to refute him (regardless of what his opponent might think). Added to which Craig is clearly an accomplished public speaker, even if he's usually saying much the same thing every time.

In the face of such debating prowess Stephen Law stuck to his guns — he had a good argument and refused to be deflected. But he also showed that he's no one-trick pony. He's known for the Evil God Challenge, but he was also able to identify the flaws in Craig's use of the cosmological argument (despite not initially addressing it) and the argument from the resurrection of Jesus.

I had originally decided not to attend this debate because I was fed up with William Lane Craig's monotonous repetition of the same arguments, even though I think the question, "Does God Exist?" is the only question in all of theology worth asking (and of course it's the one question theology itself never properly addresses).

The reluctance of certain atheists to go up against Craig is understandable. Craig takes debating seriously and is in it to win. He doesn't seem to be interested in an exchange of ideas — rather, it's all about scoring points. Stephen Law, however, appeared wise to Craig's technique, requiring him to address the challenge in depth rather than letting him shrug it off. This was especially noticeable in the discussion at the end, when Craig couldn't exploit the restrictions of the debate format.

On the whole I'm glad I changed my mind.

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*Deeper analysis of the debate abounds online. Here are a few samples, beginning with Stephen Law's own notes:
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-criticisms-of-craigs-moral-and.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/opening-speech-craig-debate.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-closing-statement.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/notes-for-responding-to-craigs-possible.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/brief-sketch-of-my-overall-argument-in.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-remaining-notes-from-craig-debate.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/thanks-for-all-feedback-re-wlc-debate.html

A comprehensive graphical analysis:
http://www.thepolemicalmedic.com/2011/10/stephen-law-vs-william-lane-craig-debate-argument-map/

Randal Rauser's typically idiosyncratic (and continuing) view:
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/stephen-law-vs-william-lane-craig-round-one/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/was-stephen-law-guilty-of-a-bait-and-switch/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/stephen-law-vs-william-lane-craig-round-2-craigs-first-rebuttal/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/where-stephen-law-goes-wrong-with-his-evil-god-argument/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/did-a-fairy-kill-stephen-laws-apple-tree/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/stephen-law-vs-william-lane-craig-round-2-laws-first-rebuttal/

Paul Wright's analysis:
http://pw201.livejournal.com/159259.html

A Christian who judged Stephen Law a rare winner in this debate:
http://apologiapad.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/bill-craig-loses-a-debate-and-all-sorts-of-goodies-are-revealed/

Grill the world's foremost Christian apologist — Unbelievable?

Last Saturday's Unbelievable? radio programme was a departure from its regular format — which usually aims to get "...Christians and non-believers talking to each other." In advance of William Lane Craig's visit to the UK in October Justin Brierley had him responding to questions sent in by listeners. Peter May, one of the organisers of the Reasonable Faith Tour, was also on the programme.

I wasn't expecting much from this, as the last time Craig was on Unbelievable? he took the opportunity to bad-mouth Richard Dawkins in an unforgivable manner.

But there were some good questions. I've only heard the show once, but here are some thoughts that occurred to me while listening:

When asked by Justin what he thought of Dawkins' refusal to debate him, Craig said Dawkins might be afraid of being humiliated — as he was in his debate with John Lennox. This seems to me a very odd interpretation of events. Dawkins gave up debating theists one-on-one after his encounter with Lennox because Lennox misrepresented the debate afterwards:

http://youtu.be/24vWUeMnXBg


Small wonder that Dawkins refuses to debate Craig, when Craig himself echoes Lennox in misrepresenting what actually happened. (The whole of Dawkins' talk is available here: http://youtu.be/xbza-UtseE0 — well worth watching.)

Concerning Polly Toynbee's withdrawal from debating with him, Craig suggested that atheists seem to have got together and agreed to boycott "this type of event". It seems more likely that they got together and agreed not to debate William Lane Craig, as they know he's not interested in dialogue, only point-scoring.

Then Craig answered some listener questions. After some preliminary exposition of the Kalām Cosmological Argument he attempted to rebut Justin Schieber's excellent point about temporal causality — that one can't really say anything about cause and effect when time doesn't exist — and in doing so produced a real howler. He resorted to "simultaneity", claiming that intentions can be simultaneous with actions and therefore not temporal. But "simultaneous" means "at the same time". In what way is simultaneity non-temporal?

Fine-tuning was next up, and as usual Craig, like other theists, simply takes fine-tuning as a given. But look at the size of the universe. No, really, look at its SIZE.

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is."¹

Intelligent life (that stuff the universe is supposedly fine-tuned to support) is as far as we know an infinitesimally insignificant part of the universe. One could characterise intelligent life as a "homeopathically tiny" concentration in the unfathomably vast cosmos. Statistically speaking, therefore, there is no intelligent life at all in the universe. How can the nominal non-existence of any such thing be described as the result of "fine tuning"?

A. C. Grayling's comment that he'd sooner debate the existence of leprechauns and fairies than the existence of God was described by Craig as "condescending". This is symptomatic of the false importance theists ascribe to their wacky beliefs. They complain they're not being taken seriously, yet cannot provide any reason why they should be. We have, of course, heard this before. During a debate in 2009 Richard Harries objected to Richard Dawkins' similar characterisation:

"You can't let Richard get away with that. That's a ridiculous remark. You cannot confuse the God of classical theism, which has animated the whole of western philosophy, with a leprechaun."²

But like Craig, Harries provided no sound reason not to.

Another question was about the moral argument for God, and as expected Craig trotted out his usual claim that it's logically impossible for God to be immoral because it's part of God's nature to be moral. But he merely asserts that this is so. The only justification for such an assertion is that God is defined to be moral. This isn't really a justification, it's nothing more than an arbitrary definition.

And this man is supposedly the world's foremost Christian apologist.

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1. Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy — the original radio scripts. London 1985, Pan Books.
2. Lord Richard Harries, during a debate at Wellington College, Crowthorne, on the motion "Atheism is the New Fundamentalism", November 2009.

17th October — Stephen Law vs William Lane Craig

Polly Toynbee, president of the British Humanist Association, was due to debate William Lane Craig, to kick off his October tour of the UK. She pulled out once she realised what kind of thing a debate with Craig is, and philosopher Stephen Law has stepped in to take her place.

I had decided not to attend the debate, as I was getting pretty sick of Craig's debating style. He does these things not in an effort to explore the arguments, but to "win". We saw this with two recent debates, first with Lawrence Krauss, and then with Sam Harris. Both Krauss and Harris have interesting and original things to say about their particular areas of concern, cosmology and morality respectively. But Craig isn't concerned with learning from either of them. Perhaps though, Krauss and Harris learned something from Craig — but it would not have been anything about the evidence for God, or the moral necessity of God. They may, however, have learned how to score superficial debating points — not that either of them would have been interested in doing such a thing.

So I decided, as noted above, that I was done with Craig and his "Reasonable Faith Tour".

I have, however, reconsidered. Previously I decided not to attend a conversation between Sam Harris and Giles Fraser (regular readers will know how much Fraser irritates me), but later regretted my decision, because when I changed my mind I discovered all tickets were sold.

To forestall potentially similar regrets I do now have a ticket for the Craig vs Law debate at Westminster Central Hall at 7:30 pm on Monday 17th October. Partly this is because I'm currently reading Stephen Law's new book, Believing Bullshit, and partly because of all those put up against Craig on this tour and elsewhere, Stephen Law seems likely to be the most capable of tackling Craig on his own terms. Perusal of his blog indicates he's not taking the debate lightly (he is, at least, getting plenty of advice).

Naturally you can expect a full report.

Darwin, Humanism and Science

On June 6th the British Humanist Association is hosting a one-day conference at Conway Hall in London on evolution - its teaching in schools, and the conflict between evolution and creationism. Until recently I would have been surprised to see a whole day devoted to this topic, as I wasn't aware that in Britain we had much of a problem with creationism. Then I discovered a creation museum within ten miles of where I live.

When I realised I could attend this event without taking time off work I decided that in view of my recent visit to said creation museum I really ought to go. It's now sold out, but fortunately I was in time to get a ticket. I hope to be reporting on the event here.

The programme, in brief, is as follows.

Welcome from Polly Toynbee, president of the BHA

‘Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution’
Professor Richard Dawkins

Teaching of evolution in European schools
Professor Charles Susanne, Free University of Brussels, Belgium

Insidious Creationism: the intellectual abuse of children through creationist books, comics and literature
James Williams, University of Sussex, England

Lost in education: on the cognitive biases that impede our acceptance of evolutionary theory
Johan De Smedt, University of Ghent, Belgium

“Evolutionary Humanism”: How to cope with the ‘moral’ arguments against evolution
Dr Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Giordano-Bruno Foundation, Germany

Hinduism and the Myth of Evolution
Babu Gogineni, International Humanist and Ethical Union, India

‘Humanism and Science’
Professor A C Grayling, Birkbeck College, London, England

This should be a comprehensive overview. The detailed schedule on the BHA website indicates there will be opportunities for questions.