There is an interesting inconsistency between William Lane Craig’s understanding of a godless universe and his acceptance of the moral argument for the existence of God. Craig likes to convince his readers that the atheist’s universe is ultimately a depressing, unattractive, god-awful place. But he also likes to argue for God’s existence based on the idea that moral values depend on God. Now, at first these two claims may not appear to be at odds with one another. But take a closer look at what he says about each one:
According to Craig, objective value depends on the existence of God: “If God does not exist, objective moral values… do not exist.” And since “when we speak of moral values, we’re talking about whether something is good or bad,” it follows from this that if God does not exist, nothing can be objectively bad. [Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed., p. 172 (emphasis added)]
And yet, Craig also claims that a godless universe is really bad. He argues that it is “only by recognizing that the world really is a terrible place” that an atheist “can successfully come to terms with life” in it. “This,” he goes on, “is the horror of modern man.” And he asks of is readers if they truly “understand the gravity of the alternatives” here. For “if God does not exist, then all we are left with is despair.” The world that the atheist believes in is, in other words, dreadful. [Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed., pp. 73-78 (emphasis added)]
So, to sum up, if there is no God, nothing is objectively bad… and yet that would be really bad!
Now, maybe one could try to defend Craig’s views here by claiming that, when he says that a godless world would be “a terrible place,” all he means is that he personally finds the idea distasteful – in other words, that he is expressing his subjective opinion about such a world, not arguing that it would be objectively bad. But to begin with, it seems clear that he means the latter – that it is a fact that a godless world would be bad. Moreover, we need to keep in mind that this is a man who regularly takes atheists to task for claiming that this or that is bad when, in his opinion, they have no basis for believing in objective values. But then by the same logic, he has no basis for claiming that things would be bad if atheists were right.
According to Craig, objective value depends on the existence of God: “If God does not exist, objective moral values… do not exist.” And since “when we speak of moral values, we’re talking about whether something is good or bad,” it follows from this that if God does not exist, nothing can be objectively bad. [Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed., p. 172 (emphasis added)]
And yet, Craig also claims that a godless universe is really bad. He argues that it is “only by recognizing that the world really is a terrible place” that an atheist “can successfully come to terms with life” in it. “This,” he goes on, “is the horror of modern man.” And he asks of is readers if they truly “understand the gravity of the alternatives” here. For “if God does not exist, then all we are left with is despair.” The world that the atheist believes in is, in other words, dreadful. [Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed., pp. 73-78 (emphasis added)]
So, to sum up, if there is no God, nothing is objectively bad… and yet that would be really bad!
Now, maybe one could try to defend Craig’s views here by claiming that, when he says that a godless world would be “a terrible place,” all he means is that he personally finds the idea distasteful – in other words, that he is expressing his subjective opinion about such a world, not arguing that it would be objectively bad. But to begin with, it seems clear that he means the latter – that it is a fact that a godless world would be bad. Moreover, we need to keep in mind that this is a man who regularly takes atheists to task for claiming that this or that is bad when, in his opinion, they have no basis for believing in objective values. But then by the same logic, he has no basis for claiming that things would be bad if atheists were right.
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