I was intrigued to go to Methodist Central Hall last night, not least because I was about to watch a fantastic debate but because the early Pentecostals used to use the hall for their meetings. Pentecostal history is an interest of mine. In addition, even though I’ve lived in London for a year now, I’ve never walked through Westminster so it was brilliant walking past Big Ben (or should it now be called Leaning Big Ben?) and the houses of parliament.
Methodist Central Hall, Westminster
I should state from the outset that I was rooting for Craig and even though I tried to keep an open mind, I inevitably lack objectivity.
I think Craig had an unfair advantage in that he knew how to speak into a microphone. No one told Law that in a debate context, when putting forward your argument, you ought not to mumble into your chest. I missed about 20% of what he said, at one point even Craig had to ask him to repeat himself and he was sitting right next to him.
The subject of the debate was “Does God Exist?” and clearly no one told Law this because the lynch pin of his argument was that there is no way of proving that God is good. If the debate topic was an exam question, Law would have failed because he didn’t answer the question. When challenged about this, Law responded “ah well, there is overwhelming evidence that God does not exist but I’ve chosen this one line of argument.” He also just happens to have a book out on the Evil God problem.
Law was remarkable for his lack of conviction. He stated and I use a direct quote “I change my mind from day to day on the reasons for why God does not exist.” He was challenged on how he could justify his belief in the existence of objective morals? His response after a long pause and finally throwing his arms up was “it just seems like there are.” This seemed like a case of situational expedience. Atheism becomes all the more repugnant when it is revealed that it is impossible to hold objective morals as an atheist and repugnance is not a good position to defend in a debate.
But what of the Evil God dilemma? This is in many ways quite clever. It doesn’t argue atheism, it just argues that there is no way of determining that God is good. Law continually repeated the same mantra, if you are arguing that the existence of good (with a little evil) proves the existence of a good God why shouldn’t the existence of evil and suffering (with a little good) also prove the existence of an evil God? Craig pointed out that he was not arguing for the existence of a good God on the basis of how much good or evil was in the world but that this was in fact irrelevant. He also pointed out that the very definition of “God” is that he is something that is worshipful. I think that Craig missed a trick here though because the truth is the only weapon in our armoury, for a good God over an evil God, is trust.
God sent his agent, who was good, the good agent taught us the way to God, the good agent told us that God was good and that he knew this because he was directly from God, that there was no difference between him and God and that he was in effect God. In order to believe that God is good, we have to trust the words of (the good agent) Jesus but until we are safely on the “other side” we cannot really be sure that it is not a big sick joke. Wouldn’t an evil God’s evil be all the more vile having masqueraded right up until the last that he was good? Something inside tells me that God is not evil, that darkness and destruction cannot be a more powerful force than light and creation. This is just intuition though and intuition is not an argument. The strength in Law’s argument, unlikely though it may be, is that you cannot prove that God is not evil. However, Law was at the wrong debate because the question was “Does God Exist?”
In contrast to Law, Craig provided two lines of argument for the existence of God: (1) That there are good reasons for believing in the existence of God and (2) that there is comparatively no good reasons for believing in the lack of the existence of God.
(1) Reasons for the existence of God.
(a) The Cosmological Argument: the universe exists, how did it come into being? Generally atheists argue that it has always existed, that it is infinite but this leads to metaphysical absurdities. For example, if you have an infinite number of coins and I say to you take away every third coin then how many coins do you have left? Infinity. So (infinity) – (infinity) = infinity? This is patently not the case. There is clearly a limited number of things in the universe, it is not infinite. Therefore, if the universe is not infinite it must have had an uncreated, timeless and all powerful cause. This is God.
Law’s response: throws his hands up “I don’t know why the universe exists.” [this is an exact quote of what he said, I'm not making it up].
(b) The moral argument. Objective morals exist. Child rape is wrong. It is no good saying that rape is just socially disadvantageous (an evolutionary moral argument), it is genuinely evil. Objective morals have to come from a higher being, a moral arbitrar, a superhuman judge. Otherwise, it is just one man’s opinion versus another.
Law’s response: he conceded that he did believe in objective morals, “because it just seems like there are.” [this too is an exact quote].
(c) The historical evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. The tomb was found empty, the body was missing, Jesus was later seen by many eye witnesses. Jesus resurrection was very un-jewish, unexpected, counter intuitive.
Law’s respsone: people believe all sorts of things. The reality is probably something more mundane. He then relayed an anecdote of an account of a strange glowing object spotted over a lake in America in the 1960s, this was reported in newspapers and by two policemen. It later turned out that this strange glowing object was the planet venus.
(2) There are comparatively no good reasons for believing that God does not exist. Cue Law’s irrelevant argument.
In his summary, Law plugged his latest book about the evil God problem (ah so that’s why he chose not to actually address the title of the debate).
Craig merely reiterated his arguments, rightly, pointing out that failure to sufficiently address his three reasons for the existence of God and failure to provide good reasons for not believing in God, in a debate context, counts as a concession.
Craig 1 – Law 0
Prof. Craig (left) me (right)
