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MORE ON WILLIAM LANE CRAIG'S MORAL ARGUMENT

10/29/2015

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Christian philosopher William Lane Craig maintains that atheists very often accept both premises of the following argument (while rejecting its conclusion, of course):

1. If there is no God, objective moral principles do not exist
2. But objective moral principles do exist
3. Therefore, there is a God

In particular, he accuses Richard Dawkins of doing this. But of course accepting the premises of this argument while denying its conclusion would be illogical, since the argument is formally valid. According to Craig, then, it seems Dawkins and these other atheists really are – as the “good book” says – fools.

But is there any reason to believe Craig's claim?

As evidence that Dawkins endorses the first premise of the argument, Craig quotes a well-known passage from River Out of Eden. “The universe that we observe,” Dawkins tells us, “has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” However, what Dawkins is obviously pointing out here is that the amoral nature of reality is evidence of its lack of purpose or design, and hence of its lack of a creator. If there were a God who supposedly cares about sentient beings, one would not expect a universe of “blind physical forces” where “some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice” (as he states in the passage leading up to the above quote). And that's not the same as claiming that there are no objective moral principles that apply to human society.

But even if Dawkins did accept the first premise, Craig would have to show that he accepts the second one as well. And that's where his case is especially weak, for his evidence here is simply that Dawkins makes moral judgements. That is, Dawkins says that some things are right and others wrong, and that, according to Craig, shows that he believes in objective moral principles. What's more, this is all the evidence Craig presents with respect to other atheists who supposedly make the same mistake.

But expressing a moral viewpoint isn't the same thing as claiming that morality is objective, and Craig should know that. He acknowledges that there are moral relativists, who maintain that morality is relative to culture. And yet a relativist can certainly claim that something is right or wrong, even if his claim must be made from a particular cultural point of view. Similarly, subjectivists – those who say that morality is ultimately based on subjective preferences or desires – can, and do, express their own moral preferences.

Craig therefore has failed to show that Dawkins or any other atheist accepts the two premises of the moral argument.


(For a complete refutation of Craig's argument, see chapter 5 of my book, The Truth about God.)


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IS WILLIAM LANE CRAIG BEING DISHONEST?

10/22/2015

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Well-known Christian philosopher William Lane Craig maintains that if there were no God, objective moral values would not exist – and as a way of backing up this claim, he likes to quote atheists who supposedly agree with him. For example, on page 17 of God? A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist (co-authored with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong), he quotes Bertrand Russell and Michael Ruse.

Russell once said that “ethics arises from the pressures of the community on the individual,” and made many other statements showing that he did not consider values to be objective. And Ruse put it even more bluntly: “Morality is a biological adaptation,” he tells us. “Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory.” Craig then goes on to say that, like Russell and Ruse, he doesn't “see any reason to think that in the absence of God, the herd morality evolved by homo sapiens is objective.” (p. 18)

Does this mean that these two well-known philosophers agree that the non-existence of God implies the non-existence of objective morality? After all, they are both atheists, and they do both say there are no objective values.

But the problem is that one can be an atheist and reject the objectivity of values without, however, agreeing with Craig – and Craig almost certainly knows this. So could it be he's being dishonest here?

While it is true that both Russell and Ruse deny the objectivity of values, it doesn't follow that they do so because of their atheism. Russell most certainly did not: his reasons for becoming a subjectivist about values had nothing to do with God (in fact, he rejected theism long before he abandoned belief in objective morality). And I suspect as much in the case of Ruse, since most philosophers who disbelieve in objective values do not do so as a result of of their atheism.

I for one agree with Russell and Ruse about the nature of morality – and I would do so even if I became convinced there is a God. When it comes to the nature of ethics, God's existence or non-existence is simply irrelevant.

(On the next post I will say something about why the rejection of moral objectivity does not mean the rejection of morality – and why Craig's criticism of Dawkins, among others, on this point is therefore all wrong.)
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BOOK EXCERPT: OLD TESTAMENT MORALITY, PART 3

10/15/2015

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(The third and final excerpt on Old Testament morality from my book The Truth about God. This one picks up where yesterday's post ended.)

There is another problem with this attempted solution to the savagery promoted in the Bible [see previous post]. If worshipping other gods is regarded by Yahweh as such a great evil, why is the destruction of rival religious traditions no longer commanded by him today? What explains the change? One answer, offered by Gleason Archer, is that Christians don’t have to behave as the ancient Israelites did because, being empowered by the Holy Spirit within them, they “possess resources for resisting the corrupting influence of unconverted worldlings,” and are thus “able to lead [their] lives in the midst of a corrupt and degenerate non-Christian culture (whether in the Roman Empire or in modern secularized Europe or America) and still keep true to God.” It is for this reason that they “have no occasion as ambassadors for Christ to resort to physical weapons to protect [their] faith…” What Archer is maintaining here, in other words, is that if it were not for the empowering influence of the Holy Spirit, Christians
would be justified in killing non-Christians! They don’t have to, but only because they have an inner strength that allows them to remain uncontaminated by the evil secularism and pagan religious practices that surround them. Such a view, however, is not only highly disturbing; it also fails to explain why the ancients couldn’t likewise have been given this kind of inner strength. ...

​Quoted material: Gleason L. Archer Jr., Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Zondervan, 1982, p. 159


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BOOK EXCERPT: OLD TESTAMENT MORALITY, PART 2 

10/14/2015

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(Another excerpt from my book The Truth about God.)

... At this point, the believer might object that if God kills, he must have a good reason for doing so. Copan says as much, claiming God may take human life for “morally sufficient reasons.”[1] But this changes the argument. Copan conflates this idea with the previous one, but now it no longer is the case that God has the right to kill us because he is our creator; rather, his right derives from there being a moral justification for killing. What we have here, then, is yet another possible reason for the apparently immoral events found in the Bible. According to this view, the troubling episodes in the Old Testament are not what they at first appear to be, for they all have underlying reasons, even if we cannot always see what they are. We may simply not know, or not have thought about, all of the details. In many cases, we may simply be failing to keep the big picture in mind. What we have to do is take all of the facts into consideration.

Thus, one possible reply with regards to the annihilation of conquered tribes is simply to claim that it was fully justified by the terrible behavior of the people in question. Their “degenerate idolatry and moral depravity,”[2] according to some apologists, had to be entirely wiped out from the land. Geisler and Howe, in their work on Bible difficulties, remind readers that the Midianites, for one, had “corrupted God’s people by leading them into idolatry at Baal-Peor so that 24,000 Israelites died in the plague.”[3] Similarly, they say, it was “necessary to completely exterminate any trace of the city [of Jericho] and its people. If anything had remained, except that which was taken into the treasure house of the Lord, there would have always been the threat of heathen influence to pull the people away from the pure worship of the Lord.[4]” Of course the plague that supposedly occurred as a result of idolatry was presumably sent by Yahweh, who after all is, by his own admission, an angry and jealous God. Moreover, it’s somewhat debatable whether worshipping other gods merits being massacred and having even your small children put to death. (It is also interesting that in the almost complete destruction of Jericho an exception was made of the silver and gold, so that it could be taken into “the treasure house of the Lord”; religion, it seems, never changes.)
​

Now, it is true that there were many behaviors among these conquered peoples which were genuinely bad. They apparently engaged in child sacrifice, for example. But it should be pointed out, first, that to put a stop to child sacrifice by killing everyone involved including the children does not seem entirely sensible; and second, that early on in their history, the Israelites seem to have performed such sacrifices as well. It was sadly an all-too-common practice, and, as will be shown in the next chapter, there is biblical evidence that God’s chosen people were no different from other tribes in this respect. But if that is true, then the fact that other tribes engaged in this practice could not be the reason why God commanded their annihilation. ...


[1] Paul Copan, “Are Old Testament Laws Evil?”, in William Lane Craig and Chad Meister, eds., God Is Great, God Is Good, InterVarsity Press, 2009, p. 148

[2] Gleason L. Archer Jr., Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Zondervan, 1982, p. 158

[3] Norman L. Geisler and Thomas Howe, The Big Book of Bible Difficulties, Baker Books, 1992, p. 110

[4] Geisler and Howe, p. 138


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BOOK EXCERPT: OLD TESTAMENT MORALITY, PART 1

10/13/2015

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(An excerpt from my book The Truth about God – more specifically, from the section in chapter two dealing with Old Testament morality and the excuses apologists make for it. In the following, "Copan" refers to Christian philosopher Paul Copan.)

The next explanation of the biblical atrocities is one that Copan mentions as well, though many others have made the same point. The problem as they see it is that the critic of the Bible is appealing to a moral standard that applies to human beings. But according to defenders of this view, God is not to be judged by such standards. God, after all, is the creator, and since he gave us life, he has the right to take it away. To quote Copan once more: “If God is the author of life – the cosmic authority – he is not obligated to give us seventy to eighty years of life… God can take Canaanite lives indirectly through Israel’s armies – or directly, as with Sodom…”* In fact, an argument along these lines appears to be all but necessary if one is going to justify the most extensive atrocity in the Old Testament, the Flood. I have not mentioned that one until now because it is so familiar that people usually don’t give it a second thought. As a result, it might not seem as terrible at first as some of the other cruelties described above. But imagine what is supposed to have happened: God killed everyone on earth with the exception of eight people and a number of animals. Countless infants and small children were drowned on purpose – a horrible way to die – by the infinitely merciful Lord. And yet he is regarded as morally perfect. People must be judging him by a different standard!
​

The idea, then, is that as the one who created us, God is perfectly within his rights if he wishes to destroy us. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. But is that right? Suppose you suddenly found yourself with the power to create life. You create an entire civilization of miniature beings who think of you as their god. You can see from observing them through a microscope that they are every bit as complex as humans, caring for their loved ones, planning for the future, and so on. Does it follow from the mere fact that you created them that it would be acceptable for you to now destroy them? I hope you agree that the answer is no. It would be nothing less than genocide. As soon as such creatures are created, it becomes wrong to kill them. Likewise, even if God made us, the fact is that we are here, sentient beings who care about others, who have hopes and dreams, and who are not deserving of death and suffering. It would be no more morally acceptable for God to kill us than for anyone else to do so. It makes no difference who performs the act: the end result would be the same.


* Paul Copan, “Are Old Testament Laws Evil?”, in William Lane Craig and Chad Meister, eds., God Is Great, God Is Good, InterVarsity Press, 2009, p. 148


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