Thursday, April 09, 2009

God v. Devil = Craig v. Hitchens

The indispensable ToTheSource.com offers a summary of a recent debate between outstanding Christian philosopher/apologist William Lane Craig and famously erudite atheist Christopher Hitchens.

The summary is worth reading both for those who are familiar with the nuances of theistic arguments as well as those who are new to the discussion. For those without the will to read the brief summary, we provide a briefer one: Craig effectively lays out the key arguments for the existence of the Christian God, not just any "god," but Hitchens insists that the idea of a god is so fabulously unlikely that these arguments are inadequate. To put it more keenly, Hitchens simply doesn't like the kind of God that these arguments argue for.

We find ourself amused by Hitchens's insistence that if the universe is "designed" for human life, it ought not have obvious cosmic events in the future that would destroy human life, like the explosion of the Sun or the collision of the Andromeda galaxy with the Milky Way. Nothing illustrates our characterization better: if there is a god who wants humans to exist in this universe, s/he must want those humans to exist forever. The fun fact that Christian theology expressed a belief in a coming judgment and transition to a "new heaven and earth" before anyone knew that stars like the sun explode or that galaxies collide is for Hitchens no hint that a god might so design the universe as to provide for lengthy but temporary residence by humans.

There's more, but time is short, as the previous paragraph reminds us. Gentle readers must read the article and do their own thinking.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm disappointed that he did not use Anselm's ontological argument.

Anonymous said...

What? Think for myself? When were we supposed to start doing that?

I only think what the media tells me to think.

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

Anon, in our view, the ontological argument is valid but incomprehensible to all but a few. To appeal to it in public debate is nearly useless.

JB in CA, you know more than a little on this. Comments?

JB in CA said...

I imagine SWNID is probably right about why Craig ignores the ontological argument in public forums like this. It's too difficult for most people to grasp in a few minutes, which is all the time he would have to explain it in a debate. (Note that the reporter didn't even manage to get the cosmological argument quite right. It's not an argument that asks "Why does the universe exist?" but "Why does anything at all exist?" And the cosmological argument is much easier to understand than the ontological argument.)

I would add that Craig himself is primarily interested in the bearing that empirical science has on the question of divine existence. The ontological argument is more relevant to the bearing that formal science (in this case, logic) has on the question of divine existence. Hence, he spends most of his time discussing the cosmological argument (in relation to the big bang theory) and the teleological argument (in relation to the apparent fine-tuning of certain physical constants).