William Lane Craig's Empty Arguments

Dr William Lane Craig and others have been engaging in public debates for years, against adversaries such as Christopher Hitchens, Peter Atkins and Lewis Wolpert. Every time the theistic arguments advanced are much the same. Here they are, with my responses in italics. I must add that many of the points I list are not original. Fellow secularists will, I am sure, detect herein the borrowed thoughts of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and others.

Click here for the mp3 of the Craig-Atkins debate.

Dr William Lane Craig’s Arguments with italicized responses

1. Origin of the universe
Why is there something rather than nothing? Astrophysical evidence suggests the universe began 15bn years ago. Matter, energy, space and time were created at that moment. The Big Bang theory requires the creation of the universe from nothing. Nothing can come from nothing without a cause so there must have been a cause that brought the universe into being. We can summarise as follows:

(i) Whatever begins to exist has a cause
(ii) The universe began to exist
(iii) Therefore, the universe has a cause

This cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, immaterial being of unimaginable power. It must be timeless and changeless because it created time. Because it created space it must transcend physical space and be immaterial, not physical. It must also be personal, because a changeless impersonal cause cannot exist without its effect, e.g. the temperature dropping below zero always causes water to freeze into ice. The cause must be a personal being which made a free choice to create a new effect without any prior determining conditions. For example, a man who had been sitting for eternity could freely choose to stand, and thus we would have a new effect arising from an eternal cause. Thus we are brought not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its personal creator.

Peter Atkins suggests in his book that the universe may have originated in a swirling dust of mathematical points which finally came by trial and error to form our space-time universe. This is obviously self-contradictory as it assumes time and space in order to explain time and space. Dr Atkins suggests that time brought the points into being, and the points brought time into being.

The Christian view – that there is a personal creator of the universe – is not only logically consistent, but follows from the logical premises laid out.

Why, indeed, is there something rather than nothing? I do not know, and, insofar as the question seeks a reason for the beginning of the universe, neither does anyone. One difference between me and Dr Craig is that he claims that he DOES know. He claims to know precisely why the universe was created: it was the personal choice of the Christian god. Having made such a bold and specific claim, Dr Craig has a great deal of work ahead of him as he must find specific evidence to support it. Let us see how he gets on.

Dr Craig’s three-step ‘proof’ seems reasonable at first, but he has walked straight into a logical fallacy based on inductive reasoning. He cannot imagine anything beginning to exist without a cause, so he states that whatever begins to exist must have a cause. This is rather like saying that all swans are white – that is, until a black one turns up. All beginnings are caused, until an uncaused one turns up. The ‘proof’ proves nothing. It’s worth saying at this point that such a trick is typical of the theist in debate. Starting from his comfortable set of conclusions, i.e. that the god of the Bible created everything, he concocts facile ‘proofs’ which he thinks (or rather, wants his audience to think) support his claims. In contrast, the scientist starts by assuming nothing, and formulates hypotheses based on evidence alone, without postulating complex entities for whom not a shred of evidence has been presented.

However, let’s grant Dr Craig’s point that the universe may have had a cause. What do we know of that cause? Nothing at all. We know that the universe began billions of years ago in an event popularly termed the Big Bang, but beyond that all is speculation. Nevertheless, listen to Dr Craig, out of whose magician’s top hat comes ‘an uncaused, changeless, timeless, immaterial being of unimaginable power.’ Where is his evidence for such a being? He has no evidence at all. Philosophical word games are not evidence. Why could this ‘being’ not be caused and ever-changing, based on what Dr Craig has said? His description is nothing more than a series of unfounded assertions.

If, as Dr Craig would have it, this unimaginably powerful being created the universe, space, time and everything, then presumably it also created the rules of logic. Yet Dr Craig requires the creator to obey a sequence of logical events, namely making a free choice without prior cause. The choice – to create, or not to create – is constrained by the rules of logic. If the creator chooses to create, then he denies himself the choice of not creating. He cannot have it both ways, i.e. he cannot simultaneously create and not create without violating the rules of logic, and that rule applies before he has carried out the act of creation and created logic in the first place! Dr Craig seeks to apply logic to a ‘time’ before the beginning of the universe and the beginning of logic. His words are meaningless.

I have not yet read Peter Atkins’ thoughts on the beginning of the universe but, whether they be plausible or not, they do nothing to support Dr Craig’s assertion that the Christian god created everything. Dr Atkins depicts an imaginary scenario consistent with what little is as yet known. Dr Craig presents an imaginary scenario involving an unexplained complex creator. Such a scenario does nothing to explain what really happened.

The Christian view – that there is a personal creator of the universe – fits their belief system very comfortably. Unfortunately for that belief system, though, not a shred of evidence for such a personal creator exists.

2. The complex order in the universe
Life-prohibiting universes are vastly more probable than life-permitting universes like ours. Many physical constants – such as the rate of expansion of the universe – would prohibit life if they were even very slightly different. Such claims can be made for around fifty other quantities and constants present in the big bang. It is incomprehensibly improbable that these constants should have ideal values by accident.

(i) The fine tuning of the initial conditions of the universe is due to either natural law, chance or design.
(ii) It is not due to either law or chance
(iii) Therefore it is due to design.

We are here; there is no denying it. Who knows how many universes may exist? We do not know. There is no reason to suppose that our universe is the only one, or the only possible one. There could be an infinite number of universes, almost all of them life-prohibiting because they have the wrong set of physical constants.

There is no law against improbable events occurring, especially if you have long periods of time for them to occur in. Yes, it seems very improbable to us that the initial conditions of the big bang were just right for the development of life, but nevertheless life is here. Our astonishment at our good fortune may be profound indeed but it proves nothing at all about how the universe came to be. What if this universe had turned out differently, and we weren’t here. Would we now be saying, “Ah yes, our non-existence is exactly what we should expect, based on a probabilistic analysis.”? What a silly idea. It’s no good applying probabilistic prohibition to events that have already occurred.

Dr Craig’s argument is just the old Argument from Design using different words. That argument used to be applied to the complexity of living organisms, until Darwin’s explanation, based on gradual evolution by natural selection, banished it from biology. Now the creationists have become interested in the world of physics. Physics has not yet had its Darwin, so we don’t know how the initial conditions came to be, or what other values the salient physical constants could have had. We can’t conclude anything at all from what we don’t know. Our ignorance most certainly does not provide evidence for the existence of the Christian god. The greatest problem with god as designer comes from the argument from design itself: god must be highly complex, so who designed god? The argument shoots itself in the foot before it starts. If god (a) exists and (b) was neither designed nor caused, the onus is on Dr Craig to prove those claims without falling into logical fallacy.

The 3-step proof in this section is laughable. It’s a variation on the classic false dichotomy, except that it’s a false trichotomy. Theists are fond of trinities. Consider this alternative:

(i) The fine tuning of the initial conditions of the universe is due to either natural law, chance, or some other factor of which we have no knowledge as yet, and may perhaps never know.
(ii) It is not due to either natural law or chance.
(iii) Therefore it is due to some other factor of which we have no knowledge as yet, and may perhaps never know.

3. Objective moral values in the world
If god does not exist then objective moral values do not exist. Michael Ruse argues that morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and any deeper meaning is illusory. Nietzsche said that without god there is no meaning or value in life. It is not necessary to believe in god in order to behave morally or to recognize moral values. The question is this: do objective moral values exist? In the absence of god, the morality evolved by Homo sapiens is not objective. Acts such as rape are socially disadvantageous, and so in the course of human development have become taboo, but that does nothing to prove that rape is really wrong. Without god there is no absolute right and wrong. However, objective values do exist and deep down we all know it. There is no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of the physical world. Actions like rape, cruelty and child abuse are moral abominations. Love, equality and self-sacrifice are really good.

(i) If god does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
(ii) Objective moral values do exist.
(iii) Therefore god exists.

Dr Craig’s opening statement in this section needs close scrutiny. Do objective moral values exist? That means, is it true that some things are simply right and others are simply wrong, regardless of one’s point of view? Examples like murder and rape seem easy because they are so obviously bad. But is the matter always clear-cut? Torturing a prisoner during interrogation seems morally reprehensible, but what if he knows the location of an atomic bomb which will blow up the city of New York in an hour? Should we act morally toward the prisoner and allow millions of people to be killed, or should we use unpleasant means to learn the whereabouts of the bomb and thereby act morally toward the potential victims? We can’t escape acting immorally toward one party or the other. So much for objective moral values. Morality is nothing but a series of judgments made according to circumstance.

From my university days I recall a discussion between two students - a medical student and a historian - about a landlady's plans to have her adopted pet cat neutered. The historian was all for the operation, carried out humanely under general anaesthetic, to prevent future suffering by averting the potential births of hundreds of stray kittens, most of whom would die young and horribly amid the garbage bins of Liverpool. The medical student was aghast, considering such mutilation an immoral act against an animal that had no choice in the matter. Who was morally right? I agreed with the historian and I still do, but I could and can see the future doctor's point. Can objective morality rescue us and settle the matter?

What about assisted suicide? A patient in extreme pain, with no prospect of recovery, may wish to end their life artificially before their condition does it for them. Many thinking people would agree that a person should be allowed to choose when to end their own life, claiming that it would be immoral to interfere. Others are just as convinced that suicide is morally wrong. Again, where is this clear-cut objective morality that can decide the matter for us?

Objective morality is a myth. Some things are obviously right and others are obviously wrong, but that has nothing to do with objective morality. It has more to do with empathy. A questioner put exactly this issue to Dr Frank Turek during questions in a recorded debate, and Turek rather embarrassingly demonstrated that he didn't know what empathy means. His voice rising in pitch and volume, he cried, "And what makes empathy right?" Dr Turek, the questioner's whole point was that it does not need to be right in order to become widespread practice. Empathy means feeling what another person or creature is feeling. Obviously we have to use imagination in order to do this as we can't wire directly into their feelings, but if we are asked whether it's right or wrong to commit rape we are likely to consider the potential experience of the victim before giving a response. It is wrong to commit rape because the effect on the victim would be horrible. Moreover, someone contemplating rape might imagine his feelings after the event, when he would know he had inflicted terrible harm on another person. Wishing to avoid those feelings might be a factor in his decision not to be a rapist. We don't need a celestial dictator to help us see those things for ourselves.

Is there a difference between right and wrong which is a hard-wired feature of the world, external to us all? I don't believe there is, but I think Bertrand Russell dealt neatly with those who do in Why I am not a Christian. I'll paraphrase his argument rather than pasting verbatim. Someone like Dr Craig, who says there is a clear difference between good and bad, must face this question: is that difference due to God's fiat or not? If it is, then for God there is no good or bad, and it means nothing to say that God is good, a claim that most theists make. If the difference is not due to God's fiat, then we do not need God in order for good and bad to exist, and the distinction between good and bad is logically anterior to God.

Russell snookers completely those who keep insisting that God is good. God is just as bad as he is good, because in creating the distinction between good and evil he created evil as well as creating good. Dr Craig is similarly snookered because, if God is (as he claims) a good and loving creator, then logically the separation of good and evil must be external to God.

Returning to Dr Craig’s 3-step proof, we can now see that his first premise simply does not follow. There is no such thing as objective morality so the proof falls before it starts. Interestingly the collapse of the proof does nothing to disprove the existence of god. It doesn’t have the slightest bearing on the matter one way or the other.

It’s also worth noting that the ‘proof’ assumes that god’s existence is a default position. Dr Craig seems to think that, because he believes he has shown that objective moral values exist, he has somehow proved god’s existence by disproving god’s non-existence. This is logical nonsense. If objective moral values did exist they could have been caused by something else, outside Dr Craig’s ken and mine. His reasoning is not reasoning at all.

Finally on this point, the logic itself of the 3-step proof is false. The first step follows the model:
If (not A) then (not B). But you can’t go from that to if (B) then (A). It’s rather like saying:
(i) If Winnie the Pooh does not exist, the honey would not have been stolen.
(ii) The honey was stolen.
(iii) Therefore Winnie the Pooh exists.
That’s not logic. It’s circular reasoning thinly disguised as logic. Poor Pooh’s guilt is assumed, and the assumption is used to prove his existence. Is this the best the theists can come up with?

4. The historical facts concerning the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
Jesus was a remarkable individual with an unprecedented sense of divine authority. He carried out miracles and exorcisms. He was resurrected from the dead – a divine miracle, which is evidence for the existence of god. There are three established facts best explained by the resurrection.
(i) Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty on the Sunday following his crucifixion.
(ii) Several people saw Jesus alive after his death. Jesus appeared to his disciples as the risen Christ. Sceptics and unbelievers also witnessed these appearances.
(iii) The disciples suddenly came to believe in the resurrection despite having been predisposed not to. There is no explanation for the rise of early Christianity unless the resurrection really happened.

There is no plausible naturalistic explanation of these three facts. Therefore Jesus rose from the dead and was who he claimed to be, which entails that god exists.

This entire section of Dr Craig’s arguments is nothing more than a simple affirmation of faith in the historical accuracy of the New Testament. Let’s deal with each of the three ‘established facts’ in turn.

(i) The empty tomb
Jesus’ tomb was not the first to be found empty, and it will not be the last. Tombs have been emptied by perfectly mundane, non-divine means since burials became fashionable in the earliest civilizations. The empty tomb proves nothing. Before leaping toward divine intervention as an explanation I might as well claim that god was responsible for the empty Ferrero Rocher box I found in the refrigerator.

(ii) Jesus seen alive after his death
Aside from the controversy over precisely when the gospels were written – largely accepted to be decades after the events they describe are supposed to have taken place – they do not of themselves provide evidence for supernatural goings-on. Suppose I were an unscrupulous historian who wanted people to believe my particular version of events. What could be simpler than to concoct a few emotive and plausible-sounding eyewitness stories and insert them into my narrative? We require more than a few tales in an old book before we throw over our acceptance of repeatable scientific laws. Dead people do not get up and walk about, days after being executed. Such antics would require suspension of natural laws, i.e. they would be miraculous. But, as David Hume argued, eyewitness testimony for the miraculous may be admitted only if its falsehood would be more miraculous than its truth. Lying and exaggeration have been practised by humans since the dawn of language, and they offer a much more believable explanation for ‘fact’ (ii).

(iii) Belief in the resurrection became popular
Well there wouldn’t be much point in writing a story about the beginning of Christianity unless, later in that story, Christianity was seen to have caught on. Once again, unscrupulous historians with their own agendas are known to exist in this universe. Based on what we know, the Biblical account of the spread of early Christianity is far more likely to be a result of their work than god’s. Does Dr Craig believe Christianity the only religion in the history of the world? If he is arguing that a religion’s popularity is an indicator of its truth value, surely he must grant the same status to all religions that have stood the test of time, including the cult of Olympian Zeus and the meteorological pranks of Thor and his hammer.

5. The immediate experience of god
This is not really an argument for god’s existence. It’s the claim that you can know that god exists, wholly apart from arguments, simply by experiencing him. This was the way people in the Bible knew god. To them god was not an idea but an experiential reality. Proofs for god can actually distract your attention from god himself. Draw near to god and he will draw near to you. If we concentrate too much on the proofs we may miss hearing the voice of god speaking to our hearts.

An opponent in debate must tear down all five of these arguments, and in their place must erect an argument proving the non-existence of god.

There are no arguments for god’s existence in section 5 of Dr Craig’s introduction. Indeed, he says as much in his first sentence.

I am sure that god is an experiential reality for the other characters in the Bible, just as Blofeld is an experiential reality for James Bond. However, stories in books don’t prove that the characters in them are real.

If the ‘proofs’ that Dr Craig has described are distractions from god, how do they support his case that god exists? What does god say when he speaks into our hearts? I am listening but I don’t hear him. Theists should not be allowed to get away with stating this kind of wild rubbish. They need to be challenged robustly.

As Dr Craig invites, I have torn down his arguments. It was rather like tearing down a wet tissue. However, I’ve no more need to erect a case proving god’s non-existence than I need to erect a case proving that Lemuel Gulliver wasn’t a real person. The burden of proof lies with him who proposes the existence of a supernatural entity. Dr Craig is not entitled simply to assert that god exists and challenge others to disprove his baseless assertion.

In another debate, Dr Craig was asked by the chairman, during the closing phase, if there was anything his opponent could have said that would have changed his mind. Dr Craig replied that there was nothing that would change his mind or make him depart from his faith in Christianity. The opponent, when asked the same question, immediately stated that simple basic evidence in favour of a supernatural creator would change his mind on the spot. The debate I’m referring to took place in 2007, between Dr Craig and Prof Lewis Wolpert, and was chaired by John Humphrys of the BBC.