Objections to Belief in God (part 1)
September 27, 2010 Time: 00:20:33
Summary
William Lane Craig responds to objections to belief in God.
Transcript Objections to Belief in God pt. 1
Kevin Harris: Hey, come on in. We're glad you're hear for the Reasonable Faith podcast with Dr. William Lane Craig. Dr. Craig, good to have you in the studio, and we're going to be looking at some objections to God's existence, or objections to belief in God based on some questions that we've received at ReasonableFaith.org. This first one says,
Dear Dr. Craig, I was recently looking through a website on the philosophy of religion, and encountered an argument for atheism called the argument from autonomy, and it goes like this: if God exists he is worthy of worship; if God is worthy of worship he requires unconditional obedience; but morally autonomous agents cannot have a moral obligation to obey anything unconditionally, since to do so would cause the forfeiture of moral freedom, and if moral freedom is forfeited then the moral agent ceases to be moral at all, and all moral obligations are destroyed; therefore God is incapable of being worshiped; therefore God cannot exist
The argument from autonomy.
Dr. Craig: Well, it's interesting, Kevin, this really isn't an argument against the existence of God—this is an argument against having unconditional moral obligations. So this would be a problem for any ethicist who thinks that we do have unconditional moral obligations, which is what most ethicists do believe, that we have an unconditional moral obligation, for example, to treat other persons as ends in themselves, and worthy of respect rather than as means to ends. So this is an important attack upon objective ethics. And I think that it's just clearly mistaken in that a person can be unconditionally obligated to do something morally, but he has the freedom not to do it, he has the freedom to disobey. And that's all that moral freedom requires, is the ability to do immoral things. So if we have unconditional moral obligations – which I think we most certainly do, such as to worship God – nevertheless we have libertarian freedom to not live up to our unconditional moral obligations, to sin and to do wrong and to be immoral.
Kevin Harris: This one says,
Dear Dr. Craig, my question is regarding the personhood of God. You have argued that it logically follows that God is personal in order to ensure a temporal universe. However, to say that God willed the universe into existence, and at that moment the universe simultaneously was caused, implies that there was a moment that God did not will. God's choosing to create only makes sense if there was a moment when he didn't choose. But how can this be if there is no prior to the moment, as time does not exist?
Dr. Craig: I don't agree that in order for there to be a first moment of time there needs to be a prior moment at which God was inactive. It seems to me that it makes sense to say that there is a state of affairs in which God is not causing anything, he is inactive, there are no events going on, and on a relational view of time, according to which time is a relation of before and after among events, there would be literally no time at this state. And then time would come into existence when the first event occurs. So that God's creating the universe would occur at the first moment of time and there just is no prior moment of time to that. What you have is a timeless state of affairs which is causally prior to that first moment, but it's not temporally prior.
Kevin Harris:
Dear Dr. Craig, this has always bugged me. It seems that God could be accused of being very vain or egotistical because he demands worship and he's very passionate about his own glory. For instance, in Isiah 48 he says “For my own name's sake I delay my wrath, for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you.” Why is God always tooting his own horn?
Dr. Craig: I think it's because God is what medievals call the summum bonum, he is the highest good. And there is nothing greater than God. Indeed I think he's determinative of what goodness is—he is that paradigm of absolute moral goodness. And so God's will can only be oriented toward himself as the supreme good. [1] God's will is oriented towards that which is supremely good – that is God – and therefore his will is oriented toward himself as supreme goodness. And similarly our wills ought to be oriented toward God as the supreme goodness—to love and to worship and adore him as the wholly good and worthy object of our worship and adoration. So it's not egotistical or vain of God, on the contrary it is the right moral thing to do, it is the moral nature of God himself, which means that God is oriented toward his own goodness.
Kevin Harris: There's not a lack in God of 'I have to have this', or 'I need this in order to fulfill . . .'
Dr. Craig: No, no—that would be a very anthropomorphic notion that would be inappropriate here. It's not as though it's some weak person who needs others to praise him in order to feel good about himself, or something like that. It's rather that once you understand God's relationship to moral value, that, namely, he is the good, he is the supreme good, then it's just obvious, I think, that God's will must be oriented toward supreme goodness, and therefore toward himself.
Kevin Harris: Next question:
Dear Dr. Craig, I am from Switzerland. To admit it immediately, I'm not a Christian but I've always been interested in religion, and appreciated the work of intelligent apologists such as G.K. Chesterton. Reading Dawkins' The God Delusion almost made be a believer, I am tempted to say. But even if atheism seems to be in bad shape these days, I have a couple of problems with theism that I deem unsolvable.
Now, that's very telling, first of all, before we even get to his objections, that atheism is in pretty bad shape [laughter], if Dawkins is any indication.
Dr. Craig: Well what's interesting is that despite his insoluble objections he was still tempted to theism because of Dawkins.
Kevin Harris: Yeah.
Number one, God's standards and human nature: Christianity claims that we're all sinners and nobody can live up to God's standards. Thus there must be something wrong either with our nature or with God's standards. But both lie within God's responsibility, as we have chosen neither. Of course I'm aware of being less than perfect in many respects, but I cannot feel guilty for being only human.
Dr. Craig: I don't think there's anything wrong with human nature, as such, that makes us prone to sin. Adam and Eve in the Genesis story were created innocent by God with no proclivity to sin, and had the ability to choose good or evil, obedience or disobedience to God. But what happens is once humanity falls into sin there arises within us a kind of culture and orientation of sin and selfishness that then just spreads like a disease. And of course if you believe in original sin – that all human beings are fallen in Adam – then there would be a proclivity to sin that would be the result of that original fall. But even apart from that doctrine of original sin, just the fact that we're living in a fallen universe, a fallen world, means that we all get infected with this disease of sin. But there's nothing about human nature as such that is sinful or has a proclivity to sin. And the evidence for that would be not merely the first human beings but Jesus himself. Jesus was truly human, he has a complete human nature, and yet he was sinless. So there's nothing about being human, as such, that means we fall short of God's standards.
Kevin Harris: His second question is: “I do take the problem of nihilism seriously. I find it dangerous that many secular humanists ignore it or belittle it.” Boy, this guy's refreshing. [laughter]
Dr. Craig: Especially for a European—this is very unusual.
Kevin Harris: Yeah. He says,
However, I don't think God can solve the problem of nihilism in that, like Dostoevsky – I gather he is one of your favorite writers, and I fully share your admiration – without God all things are permitted cuts both ways. You said God has no moral duties, and whatever he commands becomes a duty to us. So in a sense with God on your side everything is permitted, too. Religion is good for good people and bad for bad people. And I think exactly the same goes for naturalism. The naturalist can't claim that his values are universally true, but if you don't believe in God that's simply what you have to work with. I don't think you would drop all your values if you cease to believe in God—probably you would simply adopt a more pragmatic approach.
Dr. Craig: Well, I would certainly agree with his last statement, that if you didn’t believe in God it's highly unlikely that you would drop all your values. [2] I think it's existentially impossible to live life without affirming moral values, the worth of other human beings, and so forth. And certainly the evidence of secular societies is that these societies continue to adopt humanistic values even in the absence of God-belief. The real question is whether or not those values have any objective validity or not, or is it more like a society that chooses to drive on the right hand side of the road verses the left hand side of the road? And I think the answer is it's the latter, that in fact there are no objective moral values and duties, and you're just adopting this pragmatic form of behavior to get along in life. But that requires you, I think, to deny that the child rapist or sociopath who goes against the herd morality really isn't doing anything wrong – he's just acting unfashionably – but he's not really doing anything that is morally impermissible, and that was Dostoevsky's point. Now, it's not true that you can say 'same's true for you, Christian, because God has no moral duties.' That needs to be understood in its context. What I meant is that our moral duties are the result of God's commandments to us. You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you shall not steal or murder or covet. And since God doesn't issue commands to himself, presumably, in that sense God has no moral duties. Rather God acts out of his own perfectly good and holy and just and compassionate nature. So the distinction that Kant made between acting from a duty and acting in accordance with a duty would, I think, apply in our case and in God's. What we do from duty, because we're commanded to do it, because it is our duty, God just does in accordance with duty, naturally, because it is his own moral nature to act in that way. So God doesn't have moral duties to fulfill, but he acts, as it were, in accord with what would be moral duties because he is naturally good and kind and just and loyal and so forth. And given that that is God's nature it means that his commandments toward us have a moral necessity about them, and that it is not true that all things are permitted or that anything could have been commanded. Rather these moral duties flow out of the very nature of God himself.
Kevin Harris: The next question he asks:
Does God solve the problem of meaning? I don't believe he does. Why is God there? What's the purpose of his existence? He can't possibly know as he is eternal and everything else is created by him. Could he be an existential, bemoaning his own . . .
Dr. Craig: Geworfenheit?
Kevin Harris: Geworfenheit—that's what he's saying.
Dr. Craig: Geworfenheit.
Kevin Harris: Yeah. “Could he be an existentialist bemoaning his own geworfenheit?”
Dr. Craig: [laughter] It means his thrustness into existence. God also, like us, finds himself thrust into being with no reason for his existence, and so God has his existential angst about 'why do I exist?'
Kevin Harris: He gets his own joke, but then he says, “But seriously, if the meaning of life has its foundation in God we simply stop thinking about it and assume that God must know what it is all about. But can he possibly know?”
Dr. Craig: Yeah—I think that this is the beauty of theism, really, is that it does solve this problem of meaning. God is not a contingent being who just happens to exist, who's just thrust into being and wonders 'why am I here?' God is metaphysically necessary. Moreover he is supreme goodness – as we said earlier – and therefore he has his own inherent meaning for existence in knowing and loving himself as the supreme good. So that whereas our meaning for being is found in God, the ultimate being, God doesn’t need anything external to or in addition to himself in order for his life to be supremely meaningful and valuable because he just is supreme goodness, and he exists with metaphysical necessity. So I think that, far from being a problem for theism, this really shows the superiority of theism, and I hope our Swiss friend will really think this over seriously. He could well become a Christian, I think, because the questions he's asking are good ones, they're serious ones, and I think they lead very naturally to a theistic view of the world.
Kevin Harris: I want to continue with his questions because they're good.
Dr. Craig: Oh, he's got more?
Kevin Harris: He does. He says,
This point it not really a rational one, but there are certain consequences that would follow if Christianity was true, which seems too absurd to me that I could not accept them. [3] Simple things like 95% of my favorite writers would be in hell. I might even join them simply for good company. I think wholly apart from logical argument, nothing could bring me to believe that. Can you imagine some of the great writers in hell? Can you imagine Gerte and Schiller in Hell? They were not Christians at all.
Dr. Craig: Yeah, well, I guess unfortunately I can imagine these persons to have irrevocably separated themselves from God forever. This is what they wanted, and God gives them the free result of their own decision. Many of these atheists were antagonistic to God and they rejected God, and for God to allow them to irrevocably separate themselves from him forever, against his desire and will, I think is a measure of God's respect for them and their autonomy that we spoke of earlier. So if he's concerned about writers – I mean, he admits this is not a rational point – there is a tremendous Christian tradition in literature, of which Dostoevsky is perhaps a supreme example. And I think that by appreciating these Christian writers and what they say this can help to accommodate this aesthetic desire for having great literature which is also deeply and profoundly Christian. There's no reason to think that people who reject God and are antagonistic to God have to be talentless. Why think that they can't be great writers, film makers, artists, and so forth?
Kevin Harris: And they may be reflecting the glory of God and the fact that they're made in the image of God without acknowledging it, or even realizing it.
Dr. Craig: Really—and that is the ultimate tragedy of it, I think – wouldn't you say? – that these persons' talent . . .
Kevin Harris: It is a tragedy.
Dr. Craig: . . . comes from God, and yet they repudiate the very source of that talent and separate themselves from him.
Kevin Harris: You can admire their work.
Dr. Craig: I think so, yes.
Kevin Harris: And also bemoan the fact that they don't acknowledge the source, in a sense. Final question from him:
In your debates you've repeatedly said that the unbeliever must make a positive case for atheism, that is against the existence of God as absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You said that we disbelieve in fairies not out of a lack of evidence for their existence, but rather because there is good evidence against them. But I'm not sure if this is a fair challenge. Could you maybe in a couple sentences make a positive case against the existence of fairies? I don't see how this could be done.
Dr. Craig: The absence of evidence will count as evidence of absence when if the thing existed, then having surveyed the grounds, so to speak, we would expect to see evidence of their existence, and we don't see it. And so, for example, in the case of fairies, if they existed then we ought to be able to find traces of their existence – their dead bodies when they die, their carcasses, other sorts of remains, little clothing factories where they build their clothes, and we ought to detect them flying about just as we detect dragon flies and bumblebees – but we don't. So this would be a case where I think the absence of evidence would count as evidence of absence. And I do think a good biological case could be made, too, in a more positive sense for the absence of biological organisms of this sort. You would require there to be some sort of miniaturized flying human being, which is probably just physically impossible—it's biologically impossible for there to be such a thing. And so that would be positive evidence against their existence as well as the failure to observe evidence that ought to be there if they did exist.
Kevin Harris: This is how he concludes his note to you, Dr. Craig. He says,
To conclude, I appreciate your polite and patient debating style very much. And I try to keep an open mind on the big questions. But at the moment I don't see how I could accept theism, both emotionally and rationally.
That's very honest of him—that he's got some, he says, “I have some emotional objections.”
Dr. Craig: Yes. I think that is good, and I would encourage him to think through some of these rational reasons and then, to deal with the really emotional problems, I would encourage him to keep reading these Christian authors and to be inspired by the sort of vision that they provide that can be so tremendously attractive, to read Christian poets and writers that will present the vision of a Christian worldview.
Kevin Harris: Well, thank you so much for joining us for Reasonable Faith. And we have some great podcasts ahead planned for you. So come back often to ReasonableFaith.org. And if you want to be a part of us be sure that you look for the many opportunities in your own area to start a Reasonable Faith chapter, and you can also partner with us financially by donating to Reasonable Faith as we continue to expand all over the world. Thank you so much for partnering with us. And just go to ReasonableFaith.org for our resources and for other ways to become a part of us – that's ReasonableFaith.org – and we'll see you next time on Reasonable Faith. [4]