Bethinking 1/6: William Lane Craig on Dawkins' Objections to Theistic Arguments 

Love that Bill Craig is so passionate, and has helped me to increase my faith!!!

The only reason why Dawkins refuses to debate Craig is because Dawkins knows that he stands no chance. Out of all atheists I've seen debate, Dawkins is probably the least convincing opponent of theism. When he talks or explains things, it's almost as if he doesn't even believe what he himself is saying, and most of his arguments are about how God is just ridiculous and evil.

Absolutely superb argument.

he cites philosophers throughout. def worth a watch

I typically enjoy listening to Dr. Craig's lectures. But man... this one is off the charts. I cannot keep up with him on this one. Either I'm tired, or he's cranked the juice up to 11, here.

Craig is brilliant and well worth going to see

By the way, a point that Craig often leaves out of these lectures, but which he has mentioned in his published work (as did Robin Collins in the Blackwell Companion) is that a "world ensemble" with every possibility being actualized would spell the death of science and any probability judgments or predictive theorizing. After all, we could be in the world where everything proceeds predictably until... tomorrow! And in an unlimited multiverse that world would be just as likely as any other world.

Nice video! Thanks for sharing :)

Atheists - you know, deep down inside - you are denying God, not for lack of evidence, not because it is unreasonable to believe in God, but because you know, that if God is, then you are not autonomous, you will have to give an account to God. You should know that a claim to ignorance will not do, neither is God beholden to you to prove Himself to you. You are utterly dependent upon Him, you live in his world, breathe his air, eat his provision of food and you have him to thank for your existence. Just stop resisting the truth. God, is gracious and will have mercy on you and will forgive you - if you repent. Sooner or later you will come face to face with the truth.

William Lane Craig is awesome!

Often those excuses are contradictory too! He flip-flops from "I'd never share a stage with that man or shake his hand" to "I already shared a stage with him in Mexico" to "That wasn't really a debate with Craig, because Craig's a loser".... I'm wondering if he's ever just going to admit that Lennox beat him so badly that he wouldn't dare take on someone of Craig's caliber.

For those who keep commenting on the video without actually watching it (because they're so interested in the open-minded exchange of ideas), I'll quote my favorite line: "Is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man." -- Alex Vilenkin

Dr William Amazing Craig at his best!

Craig is Battle tested. I mean this guy knows what he's talking about I love listening to him

Uses rational arguments to defend his views, instead of attacking people personally... unlike certain people who clearly can't handle him intellectually.

Nice!

Actually, I was genuinely amazed that ANYONE thought Ahmed won that debate. I had heard other atheists saying "yeah, that wasn't one of the better atheist showings" and thought they were putting it too mildly. But for anyone to think Ahmed actually WON... well it goes to show what bias can do for you. By the way, I don't mind if Craig loses debates. I've actually been hoping to see one where he's at least strongly challenged... haven't seen it yet, though.

Watching Craig address Dawkins' arguments is like watching a pit bull fight a chihuahua. But we have to remember: that particular chihuahua is an asshole. ETA: But then again, aren't they all :P

Problems in the cosmological argument: why is the first cause exempt for cause ( special pleading), the premise of causality being arrived at a posteriori ( David Hume's problem of induction and that causal relations were not true a priori). Predestination paradox of the causal loop, the BB theory states that it was a point in time in which all dimensions came into existence, and starting space/time. This puts the KCA up to questioning, as well as the assumption of origins on a QM level.

He's doing precisely that. The Bible tells its followers to love God with all their hearts, souls and minds: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:36-40) By engaging with and addressing the objections to God's existence and other like questions, he is obeying this command and therefore worshiping.

What a great room!

To me, this highlights why mainstream academia is so silly. Why is Dawkins even given the time of day? He has absolutely no clue what he's talking about philosophically. He's a biologist. The Kalam Cosmological Argument by William Lane Craig is very strong evidence for God. So that's a good example of something great academia has produced, but there are actually even stronger evidences for God that can only really be discovered if you're aware enough to look outside of mainstream academia. I appreciate intelligence & knowledge, but not academia because mostly it's just limited to Naturalistic Scientism religionists who think they're scientific for promoting their dogma.

I think you're right on here. I hear a lot about how Craigs arguments have been refuted but when I ask them what that is, I get nothing. At best I get a point of direction to someone else who supposedly refutes. But when looking at that, it's actually NOT a refutation at all. I then conclude that the one who says Craig has been refuted is just full of hot air. How illogical is it to stare at a fact and say it's not a fact.....well that's what many want to do & it's just crazy and rediculous. thx

spot on!! :)

" To listen to WLC is like to listen to a moron." Yeah, you are acting emotionally again. I thought it was only the religious fundamentalists who did that but apparently that is not the case. "There are no laws of the physics out of humans minds - they are not objective." That is simply irrelevant to the fine-tuning argument so I will not bother to answer.

"This MEANS Craig cannot use "fine tuned universe" argument because ours is not such." We exist. Obviously the universe is fine-tuned. The fine-tuning argument is that there wouldn't be life if our universe wasn't fine tuned. " But WLC is a lair" Even if true, that doesn't invalidate the fine-tuning argument. "he does not want to take under considerations the last results of cosmological discoveries" BECAUSE THEY ARE IRRELEVANT. How hard is that for you to understand?

That's what I said.. Glad you agree. That was easy to sort out then. If you have any other misunderstandings feel free to let me know.

Watch this video from 42:42 - 44:07, please. Craig covers this point.

Hey, wow, and WLC video where I can actually comment.

"WLC sets up 3 reasons for a universe can be fine-tuned for, not me." False. Craig argues that ONE (1) of those three (3) is the right answer. If you think of other possible explanations for the fine-tuning of the universe, then you are welcome to tell me. "but he is wrong because he does not know what means a physical system" I already explained this to you. Stop ignoring what I have explained. Don't do any straw-mans.

"Extra stuff" would answer the points I mentioned in the other post, which remain totally unanswered (and, many scientists think, unanswerable!) without positing immaterial minds. There is no violation of the laws of thermodynamics, since these apply only to closed systems, and the existence of minds would simply show that the material Universe is not a closed system.

Well that was an enjoyable hour and a bit.

God bless WLC, God bless us all.

(continued) To put it more simply, consider the example of numbers. Given mathematical Platonism, the numbers are abstract objects which have necessary existence as one of their properties. As such, either a number is incoherent, or else it necessarily exists.

Haha, there were some really interesting questions in the end.

Atheists can’t believe in miracles but they can believe the universe came into being without any cause.

TYPO: I meant to say "an event", but I typed "and even"..... I don't know why. Sorry about that.

When did I say "I don't know how to explain the cell"? Hm? I said there are irreducibly complex systems (there is also what Dembski calls "specified complexity"), and there is genuine scientific debate on these matters. Craig is open either way, just like everyone should be when it comes to scientific theories. End of story.

1) The Kalam is a deductive argument which concludes to exactly this. So it is already shown. 2) See point 1. 3) I could say "see point 1" again, but this one is even easier. If the Universe began to exist, then your #3 point is a necessary truth. Regardless of theism, materialism, etc, if time has a beginning then the boundary of the beginning of time is a timeless, changeless state. 4) Timelessness requires changelessness, which physical things can't do

TYPO: I meant "ennumerable" quanta; not "innumerable"! Sorry.

But, that's exactly why Craig presents specific defeaters. If there were no defeaters, then I would agree that actual infinities are possible (so would Craig, for that matter). But his thought experiments (the orbiting planets, the counting man, Hilbert's Hotel, etc) show that impossible scenarios would arise from the existence of an actual infinity. Hilbert himself saw this, and said the infinite only exists as a concept in the mind.

Seriously, did you not watch the clip from 42:42 - 44:07?

The postulate of an immaterial soul DOES add explanatory power. For example, conscious experience is unified and continuous, and yet brain processes are scattered and discontinuous. Also, the belief in free will (and, concordantly, moral responsibility for our choices) is difficult to reconcile with the physically deterministic processes of an organ like the brain. Also, our mind seems to have downward causal power, as a sui generis entity. Positing an immaterial soul helps in each case.

That's because the argument is sound.

It's very discouraging. I often want to give up. But then I think maybe I'll still run into someone who sincerely wants a conversation, and perhaps something I say will make a difference in their life.

By the way, I don't have to keep defending ID. The whole point of this discussion is that Craig is being rational by keeping his mind open to Evolution being either true or false. He doesn't think science is in the business of producing dogmas, and he's right about that.

*THEISM WITHOUT RELIGION WILL BE THE FUTURE OF THIS WORLD.* Before reading Richard Dawkins’s book ‘The God Delusion’, I thought that I would become an atheist after reading his book. But, much to my surprise, I became a stubborn theist after reading his book. All his refutations of God’s existence are implausible. Atheism as a whole always was implausible. The arguments for God’s existence are way more plausible than atheistic arguments. However I do not believe in the divinity of any religious scripture (Bible, Quran, Hindu scriptures etc.) Religious scriptures are nothing more than books of fiction. My views about God are as follows. I attribute the following features to God(s). 1. He is the creator and destroyer of everything. 2. He is neither one nor many. He is infinite. 3. He is the author of destiny of all living beings. He has created perceivable inequalities among living beings for his own entertainment. Fate is the biggest initiator of inequality, followed by genes, time and circumstances. 4. He is amoral i.e. he is neither moral nor immoral. He is neither good nor bad. He is neither benevolent and merciful nor malevolent and merciless. But he has created objective morality for all living beings and remote controls behaviour of all living beings, just like a puppeteer. We are all just puppets of God. 5. He is the intelligent designer. 6. He is very capricious and incomprehensible. 7. He is the ultimate cause behind everything (good, bad, horrible, wonderful, amazing, tragic, comical etc.) and the source of energy 8. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and eternal. 9. The shackles of time, circumstances, natural laws, mortality, morality, gender do not limit him, despite him being the creator of these invincible things. 10. He is supremely intelligent and has complete totalitarian authority over everything including minds of living beings. 11. He does not have any religion, nor does he speak any one particular language. He has never certified any religion as true or any language as holy. He has never certified any book, place and ritual as holy.

Try reading my ENTIRE post, and not just cherry-picking little bits. I specifically mentioned both the physical determined aspect (and, at the macroscopic level where quantum effects are practically non-existent, there is certainly a great deal of determinacy) AND the random aspects. Neither determined effects nor random ones are congruent with free will.

Dawkins biggest fear. You can call Craig what you want, but you can't call him a coward.

Why are 'besaved' and 'berepentant' missing?

Science is not equivalent to rational thinking; it is just one of the tools for rational thought, to be used on particular kinds of matters. All philosophers of science recognize this. And Craig is perfectly open to the Big Bang being overturned; it just has a great deal of support right now, and that means that modern science agrees with a premise in one of Craig's arguments. Plantinga and Craig are both philosophers, and they both recognize the limits of science.

If an inclination is irresistible, then it does not fall under the purview of my question. Are you ever going to actually answer the question? If a decision is not irresistible, and you have an inclination in one direction, can you choose to go against that inclination?

Sorry, I'm not aware of anyone named Billy Lane in this video. I do know of Bill Craig, with multiple degrees and a slew of books to his name.

Let's start with this: Do you agree that an actual self-contradiction cannot be instantiated in reality?

No one is talking about executing choices based on programs and input. I'm talking about the ability to either do X or refrain from doing X, and that nothing physical (like brain states or inputs) is determining which you will do. You can freely decide. The only reason machines aren't considered moral agents is because they can't do anything but what is physically determined by their "programming" and the inputs.

This was a great lecture, and excellent for any thinking Christian who wants a better understanding of why we need to believe in God.

Ok, let's try this another way: If you have a fully sufficient set of causal conditions, is it even possible that you would not also have the effect for as long as those causal conditions exist?

sounds good to me.

Loved the last question: he got Dr Craig to shout "PIG!!!???" X-D

Hi Jack, first thanks for the friendly comment. I am a Computer Scientist, as such there isn't any philosophy that I am aware of that is useful in my line of work. Perhaps I can imagine a time when humans can create computers with intelligence equal to our own and have a philosophical discussion as to its implications.

If the 5th symphony (or anything else, for that matter) exists as a Platonic abstract object, then it cannot have causal powers. This is a very different situation from an immaterial mind, which substance dualists maintain has causal interactions with your brain all the time.

You're loading the premises, and getting an invalid conclusion. The mind does affect the physical world, and I never said otherwise. But that doesn't mean that it adds physical energy to the physical world, it means that another kind of causation is in play.

Indeed! I am a Christian, but if I was undecided, I'd look at the responses of Christians vs. atheists and would have to conclude that the atheist side must be far weaker, if only on the basis of the responses which they give even to videos like this. Instead of engaging with the questions/the topic, they immediately start insulting the speaker and/or Christians in general.

And what if your inclination is not resistible? Can you choose your threshold of resistance? Again, never said a given choice is unavoidable. A computer can also work with fuzzy logic following some tendencies when faced with some inputs. This does not make him free to ignore his program.

That would constitute spam, no one would appreciate that, nor is it dialogue. But like I said, choose what you think is his best argument and you will get a reply,

At 18:35 Craig says that Dawkins doesn't dispute that the argument successfully proves the existence of an uncaused, beginningless, changeless, timeless, spaceless, and unimaginably powerful personal creator of the universe. Neither did this atheist - *ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-go6m-KNUmG4.html*. Look how well that worked for Dr. Wolpert.

So, if Dawkins doesn't want to give apologists undue attention, why has he debated John Lennox twice?

And you have failed to answer my question. Can a self-contradiction be instantiated in reality?

Movement is a temporal concept. Points in time are records of change. But in the absence of time, obviously there is no change. And in the absence of change, there is no time. The "dot" is the eternal changeless moment, which forms the boundary of that very first instant of time (the very first change). Again, this is how philosophers of time have always spoken about the beginning of time, if such a thing exists.

I have not argued from "We don't know how to explain consciousness". I argued from "postulating an immaterial mind answers questions about consciousness, which a purely material approach may be fundamentally incapable of answering". And to say "there's no extra energy" is to speak in biased terms. We're talking about something non-physical.

I'm a Thomist. So I agree with St. Thomas Aquinas's metaphysics. Thomas would say that there's a multiverse, it needs a cause since it''s composed of parts. Can a maximally great being be infinitely great? If suggest that if a maximally great being is finitely.great, that being wouldn't be God. Changeability is a flaw. If you're a bodybuilder, what would you prefer, a perfect physuque or one that can always improve?

You said no one but Craig and his supporters think he won that debate. The very first atheist site that comes up in a Google search strongly disagrees. "Genetic Fallacy" actually refers to a family of informal fallacies, but the kind I'm referring to is the kind that so often gets committed by atheists, namely: Attempting to invalidate a position by showing how people come to believe in that position. Craig actually didn't lose that debate, and even atheist bloggers agree with me on this.

What arguments of Craig's do you think are good? The Kalam cosmological has inconsistent premise (it's first premise undermines agent causation). The moral argument doesn't take into account that ideal observer theory both is greatly supported over divine command theory and entails the negation of divine command theory. Craigs teleological argument is built on a false trilemma. What other arguments are there that you would like an atheist to address?

Can someone please explain to me since I fail to grasp at around 47.25 the ontological argument vailidity. About point 3 and forward it assumes because if it can exist in every possible world it does to me that could be applied to every entity like flying spaghetti monster to reincarnation to me it does not make sense that if it is possible to it exist it does but I hope some christian philosopher will explain how that could be a valid argument.

Simple point: Properties are not pieces. A shirt is composed of physical pieces, all the way down to the subatomic level, and it gets its existence and properties from the co-existence of these pieces in a particular way. However the elementary particle itself isn't composed of any pieces. Its properties are just by virtue of being that kind of particle. So it is with God.

Never made my line of argumentation on the basis of "I'm not making an assertion", therefore such thing can't be a reason for failure.

1) I totally agree that science is not dogmatic. Ergo, being agnostic when there are controversies is totally permissable. Admirable, really. 2) Roundness cannot be removed from a ball. You can take a ball and stop it from being a ball.

I never said "entirely flawed", so I'm not sure why you think I did. And I'm certainly not arguing for global skepticism (I don't know where you get that from). The EAAN just says you cannot rationally hold that N&E are both true since that conjunction does away with the reliability of our cognitive faculties (and we need those faculties to justify the conclusion).

For the hundredth time, properties are not the same thing as pieces. Something is only complex (warranting a design inference) if it has lots of parts that work together in a seemingly designed fashion. An electron has many properties, but it doesn't warrant a design inference, since it has no parts and is therefore perfectly simple.

I'm simply amazed that a non atheist video hasn't been downvoted into oblivion by the ''free thinkers''.

Saying someone is incorrect, calling their views nonsensical and demonstrating that their views are such aren't attacks.

no you were implying he hasn't or cant refute those questions.....i disagree..but if you want to throw those questions at me i 'll see if he has replied to them.

We know that things do not change because time is passing and there's no movement in place. If no time is passing, how do you know the thing is not already in movement, unavoidably collapsing to the ignition of space/time? Occam's Razor erases your "dot" before the line. We don't need it to postulate a boundary. T=0, the first point in the line, is already the boundary.

Yes I understand we all have different beliefs/ areas of study, however when doing studies you never start with your conclusion you get evidence then see what you can derive from them. You continue to start with your conclusion, why do you thin the universe is designed? Why do you hold this religious belief above the many others? Why assume the conclusion through speculative evidence?

For that very reason. ;-)

More projection. Truly frightening.

Also Plantinga's EAAN has problems too. The fact is that the intuitions evolution has provided us *aren't* all that great for assessing truths. A great example of this is our intuitions for actual infinite's that Craig loves to play on. Actual infinite's are certainly possible, and yet he's able to get so many people to think otherwise by pumping their intuitions one way rather than the other. This is why we've developed methodologies to arrive at knowledge by means other than sheer intuition.

Christianity actually IS irrelevant to this discussion, but the question of whether you consider us free moral agents is at the very heart of the matter. If you think we are free agents with moral responsibility, then you are already committed to something other than physical determinism or randomness, in the case of human behavior. You are committed to agent causation.

lol, someone thumbed this video down before it had even been up long enough for them to watch it. X-D

I thought you would have actually posted something substantial.

it's not a FACT when comes to the atheistic moral landscape...it's opinion and you know it!

I don't know. I think his faculties are quite reliable just as are mine. I'm just pointing out that the presuppositions I'm using to attack the argument are the same presuppositions he uses to make the argument.

[Choosing what you believe is impossible.] Then it is impossible to me to believe I have free will.

The term Plantinga uses is "unreliable". That is to say that they cannot be relied upon to properly orient us toward true belief. E&N yield that kind of skepticism. The EAAN is sound.

Do you have a point? We already went through this.

They are indeed inherently impossible, and not just based on Hilbert's Hotel. There are numerous other similar arguments (the Counting Man, the orbiting planets, the Grim Reaper Paradox, etc). The existence of an actually infinite number of things would create a self-contradiction in reality.

1) If the explanations will be either deterministic or random (or an amalgam of the two), then it doesn't matter that we don't know everything yet. Those are the wrong kinds of explanation, IN PRINCIPLE. 2) There is a third option: intentional choice.

Metaphysics is not the place to set any issue, it's the place we start our discussion on the issue. If your ghost is still locked in it's metaphysical stage, then we already know that we are still arguing about the validity of the very idea that is rational to think it may possibly exist. This point is galaxies away from the demonstration that it is rational to believe that the ghost is real.

This tour needed an Orthodox perspective. It was a veritable drought of Protestant thought.

Asking if you have any qualifications in philosophy or theology when you support these philo/theo arguments is not irrelevant. You seem convinced, so the intention is to understand your mind set, and how someone (some Christians) are capable of being persuaded so easily and to think so uncritically the question of what are your qualifications was not asked to set up ad hominin attacks or an argument from authority (if it was a debating technique it would actually be an argument from expertise