“Does God Exist?”

PAUL SIMMS

Good evening. Good evening, and welcome to the debate, “Does God Exist?” Thank you very much for coming. My name is Paul Simms. I'm a retired professor of physics at Purdue. My field is nuclear physics, and I was the director of the Purdue Nuclear Accelerator for most of the last, well, for 35 years. If you don't know where it is – it's about 200 yards in that direction underneath the engineering mall.

[My primary] scholarly activity at this time is interpreting the interaction between faith and science. I'm intensely interested in God's existence and anxious to hear the debate between our distinguished visitors. I cannot imagine a more important topic. The things you will hear tonight have the potential to shape your lives in powerful ways. Please set aside your preferences. I wish we had a sign out front that said “Check your opinions here” so we could get you inside with an open mind. Listen carefully, and consider both sides of all the issues as you form your opinions.

Let me tell you a little bit about the format. Each speaker will have 20 minutes for the first round in their presentation. The second round will be 12 minutes. The third, 8; the last, 5. If you add quickly, that's a total of 90 minutes. The speakers will be alternating back and forth. After that we will have a question and answer time of approximately 25 minutes, and I will give you the mechanism by which we will do that. Be thinking of your questions as we go along because a few will have a chance to answer them. You should have received a response card when you came in tonight. It requests a little bit of information. It gives you the opportunity to tell us how you enjoyed the debate. We will pick those response cards up during the question and answering time. So sometime between now and then we'd appreciate your getting them filled out.

Now I'd like to introduce Charlie Lopez who is the president of the Wabash College Free Thought Society. They are co-sponsor of this debate. Mr. Lopez will introduce our speakers.

MR. LOPEZ

Currently living in New York City, Austin Dacey both earned his Master's and PhD. in applied philosophy at Bowling Green State University. He is currently the Director of Research and Education at the Center for Inquiry and a visiting Research Professor in Philosophy at the State University of New York in Buffalo. Dr. Dacey's writings have appeared in The Journal of Value Inquiry, The Skeptical Inquirer, Free Inquiry, The Boston Globe, and a book that he co-authored recently called The Case for Humanism: An Introduction. He is also the executive editor of Philo, an academic philosophy journal. Austin Dacey has given numerous academic presentations to various philosophical organizations including The World Congress of Philosophy and the American Philosophical Association, and has written extensively on the philosophy of religion, evolutionary psychology, and ethics.

To my right, Dr. William Lane Craig is a Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife, Jan, and their two children, Charity and John. Dr. Craig pursued his graduate studies at the University of Birmingham and the University of Munich in Germany earning both his doctorates in philosophy and theology. Dr. Craig's writings have appeared in numerous professional publications in philosophy and theology. He has authored several works on Christian apologetics and has participated in numerous formal debates on the resurrection of Jesus and the existence of God.

Finally, this debate would not have been possible without the help from Campus Crusade for Christ, the Wabash College Free Thought Society, the Christian Faculty Staff Network, the Center for Inquiry On Campus, and, finally, Purdue University.

DR. CRAIG

Thank you and good evening. Let me begin by saying how delighted I am for the invitation to participate in tonight's debate, and I also want to thank Austin Dacey for his willingness to join in the discussion tonight. By the way, I hear that the word is out on campus that between the two of us, Austin Dacey is “hotter.” Now, that may be the case, but all I can say is this – I'll bet you that my wife is hotter. [laughter]

So having begun the debate on that elevated note, we now want to ask whether God exists. Now, in order to answer that question rationally we've got to address two further questions.

First, what good reasons are there to think that God exists? And, secondly, what good reasons are there to think that God does not exist? I'll leave it up to Dr. Dacey to present the evidence against God's existence. In my opening speech I want to sketch briefly six lines of evidence that weigh in favor of God's existence.

1. God is the best explanation of why something exists rather than nothing.

This is the deepest question of philosophy: why is there anything rather than nothing? Experience teaches that any “thing” that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in its own nature or in an external cause. You see, anything that exists is either one of two types. The first type is something that exists necessarily by its own nature. Example: many mathematicians believe numbers and other abstract objects exist in this way. If such entities exist they just exist necessarily without any cause of their being. The other type is anything that has an external cause of its existence. Examples: mountains, planets, galaxies, people. They have causes outside themselves which explain why they exist.

It's obvious that the universe exists. It therefore follows that the universe has an explanation of its existence. But what sort of explanation is it? Well, it seems plausible that if the universe has an explanation of its existence that explanation is an external, transcendent, personal cause. Why? Because the cause in this case must be greater than the universe. Think of the universe – all of space and time. So the cause of the universe must be beyond space and time. Therefore it cannot be physical and material. There are only two kinds of things that fit that description: either abstract objects (like numbers) or else an intelligent mind. But abstract objects can't cause anything. Therefore it follows that the explanation of the universe is an external, transcendent, personal cause, which is what everyone means by “God.”

2. God's existence is implied by the origin of the universe.

The atheist could try to escape the argument I just gave by saying that the universe exists necessarily by its own nature. But this second argument blocks that escape route. For anything that exists necessarily must exist eternally. Think about it. If a thing came into existence or ceased to exist then we know that its non-existence is possible. That is to say, it doesn't exist necessarily. In one of the most startling developments of modern science we now have pretty strong evidence that the universe is not eternal in the past but had an absolute beginning about 13 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event known as the Big Bang. What makes the Big Bang so startling is that it represents the origin of the universe from literally nothing, for all matter and energy, even physical space and time themselves, came into being at the Big Bang. As the British physicist P. C. W. Davies explains,

            “The coming into being of the universe, as discussed in modern science . . . is not just a matter of imposing some sort of organization . . . upon a previous incoherent state, but literally the coming-into-being of all physical things from nothing.”^[1]

This description holds not only for the standard Big Bang model but also for quantum gravity models like that of the famous physicist Stephen Hawking. Hence Hawking reports in his book, The Nature of Space and Time, “. . . almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang.”^[2]

Not only does this imply that the universe is not necessary in its existence, but it also raises the inevitable question: why? Why did the universe come into being 13 billion years ago? What brought the universe into existence? Well, unless you're willing to say that the universe just popped into being uncaused out of absolutely nothing, there must be a transcendent cause beyond space and time which created the universe. Thus, from:

1. Everything that comes into being has a cause.
2. The universe came into being.

it follows logically that:

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Now, as the cause of space and time this being must be a timeless, spaceless, immaterial, being of unfathomable power. Moreover, it must be personal as well. We've already seen one reason why this cause must be personal. Let me give another. How else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe? If the cause were an impersonal set of necessary and sufficient conditions then the cause could never exist without its effect. If the sufficient conditions were eternally present then the effect would be eternally present as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and the effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time without any prior determining conditions. Thus we are brought not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe but to its personal creator.

3. The fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life points to a designer of the cosmos.

In recent decades scientists have been stunned by the discovery that the initial conditions of the Big Bang were fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life with a precision and delicacy that literally defy human comprehension. This fine-tuning is of two sorts. First, when the laws of nature are expressed as mathematical equations you find appearing in them certain constants like the gravitational constant. These constants are not determined by the laws of nature. The laws of nature are consistent with a wide range of values for these constants. Second, in addition to these constants there are certain arbitrary quantities which are just put in as initial conditions on which the laws of nature operate. For example, the amount of entropy or the balance between matter and antimatter in the universe. All of these constants and quantities fall into an extraordinarily narrow – I mean I cannot convey to you how almost infinitesimal this is. An extraordinarily narrow range of life-permitting values. Were these constants or quantities to be altered by even a hair's breadth, the life-permitting balance would be destroyed and life would not exist. For example, if the atomic weak force or the force of gravity were altered by as little as one part out of 10 to the 100th power the universe would not have been life-permitting.

There are only three possible explanations of this extraordinary fine-tuning.

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

It can't be due to physical necessity because, as we've seen, the constants and quantities are independent of the laws of nature. So could the fine-tuning be due to chance? Well, the problem with this alternative is that the odds against the fine-tunings occurring by accident are so incomprehensibly great that they cannot be reasonably faced. The probability that all the constants and quantities would fall by chance alone into the life-permitting range is vanishingly small. We now know that life-prohibiting universes are vastly more probable than any life-permitting universe like ours. So if the universe were a product of chance the odds are overwhelming that the universe would be life-prohibiting. Hence:

2. The fine-tuning is not due to either physical necessity or chance.

But logically that implies:

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

Thus the fine-tuning of the universe implies the existence of a designer of the cosmos.

4. Objective moral values are plausibly grounded in God.

If God does not exist then objective moral values do not exist. By “objective values” I mean values which are valid and binding whether anybody believes in them or not. Many theists and atheists alike agree that if God does not exist then moral values are not objective in this way. Michael Ruse, a noted philosopher of science, explains,

“The position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that . . . Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . . . Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves . . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory . . . .”^[3]

Friedrich Nietzsche, the great 19th century atheist who proclaimed the death of God, understood that the death of God meant the destruction of all meaning and value in life. I think that Friedrich Nietzsche was right.

But we've got to be very careful here. The question here is not “Must we believe in God in order to live moral lives?” I'm not claiming that we must. Nor is the question, “Can we recognize objective moral values without believing in God?” I think that we can. Rather, the question is, “If God does not exist, do objective moral values exist?” And like Professor Ruse, I just don't see any reason to think that in the absence of God the herd morality evolved by homo sapiens is objective. On the atheistic view, some action, say rape, may not be socially advantageous and so in the course of human development has become taboo. But that does absolutely nothing to prove that rape is really wrong. On the atheistic view there's nothing really wrong with your raping someone. Thus,

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

But the problem is that objective values do exist, and deep down I think we all know it. There's 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 aren't just socially unacceptable behavior. They’re moral abominations. And here Dr. Dacey agrees with me. In his book, The Case for Humanism, co-authored with Lewis Vaughn, they state, “If our moral theory sanctions, say, the inflicting of undeserved and unnecessary suffering on innocent children, we must conclude that something is very wrong with our theory.”^[4]

Indeed, even Michael Ruse himself admits, “The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says 2+2=5.”^[5]

Some things, at least, are really wrong. Similarly love, equality, and self-sacrifice are really good. Hence I think we all know,

2. Objective values do exist.

But then it follows logically and inescapably that,

3. Therefore, God exists.

5. The historical facts concerning the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The historical person Jesus of Nazareth was a remarkable individual. New Testament critics have reached something of a consensus that the historical Jesus came on the scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority, the authority to stand and speak in God's place. He claimed that in himself the Kingdom of God had come. In his visible demonstrations of this fact he carried out a ministry of miracle working and exorcisms. But the supreme confirmation of his claim was his resurrection from the dead. If Jesus did rise from the dead then it would seem that we have a divine miracle on our hands, and hence evidence for the existence of God.

Most people probably think that the resurrection of Jesus is something you just believe in by faith or not. But there are actually three established facts recognized by the majority of New Testament historians today which I believe are best explained by the resurrection of Jesus.

1. On the Sunday following his crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.

According to Jacob Kramer, an Austrian specialist in the study of the resurrection, “By far most scholars hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements about the empty tomb.”^[6]

2. On separate occasions, different individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death.

According to the prominent New Testament critic of Vanderbilt University, Gerd Lüdemann, “It may be taken as historically certain that . . . the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”^[7] These appearances were witnessed not only by believers, but also by skeptics, unbelievers, and even enemies.

3. The original disciples suddenly came to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead despite having every predisposition to the contrary.

Jews had no belief in a dying, much less rising, Messiah. And Jewish beliefs about the afterlife precluded anyone's rising from the dead before the end of the world. Nevertheless, the original disciples came to believe so strongly that God had raised Jesus from the dead that they were willing to die for the truth of that belief. N. T. Wright, an eminent British scholar, concludes, “That is why, as an historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him.”^[8]

Attempts to explain away these three great facts, like the disciples stole the body or Jesus wasn't really dead, have been universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. The simple fact is that there just is no plausible naturalistic explanation of these facts. And therefore it seems to me the Christian is amply justified in believing that Jesus rose from the dead and was who he claimed to be. But that entails that God exists.

Thus we have a good inductive argument for the existence of God based on the resurrection of Jesus.

1.  There are three established facts about Jesus.
   1. [The discovery of his] empty tomb.
   2. His post-mortem appearances.
   3. The origin of his disciples’ belief in his resurrection.
2. The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” is the best explanation of these facts.
3. The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” entails that God exists.
4. Therefore, God exists.

Finally,

6. You can experience God personally.

This isn't really an argument for God's existence. Rather, it's the claim that you can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments simply by immediately experiencing him. This was the way people in the Bible knew God. As Professor John Hick explains,

“God was known to them as a dynamic will interacting with their own wills, a sheer given reality, as inescapably to be reckoned with as destructive storm and life-giving sunshine . . . To them God was not . . . an idea adopted by the mind, but an experiential reality which gave significance to their lives.”^[9]

If this is so, then there's a danger that arguments for God can actually distract your attention from God himself. If you're sincerely seeking God then God will make his existence evident to you. The Bible promises, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. We mustn't so concentrate on the external proofs that we fail to hear the inner voice of God speaking to our own hearts. For those who listen, God becomes an immediate reality in their lives.

In conclusion then, we've seen six reasons to think that God exists. If Dr. Dacey wants us to believe atheism instead then he must first tear down all six of the reasons that I presented and then in their place erect a case of his own to prove that atheism is true. Unless and until he does that I think we can conclude that theism is the more plausible worldview.

DR. DACEY

Thank you, and thanks very much to the Campus Crusade for Christ here at Purdue and the Wabash College Free Thought Society for making all this possible. It's always nice to return to the midwest where I was born and raised. The last time I was back in Minnesota was a few years ago for my ten-year high school class reunion, and my classmates couldn't believe that I was still in school getting my degree in philosophy, of all things. They kept asking me, “What are you going to do with that?” To which I used to reply, “Think deep thoughts about unemployment.” I don't know whether they'd be relieved or horrified to see that I've found something to do with my philosophy here tonight. Like many of those I grew up with as a young teenager I was a born-again Christian, and although I no longer have that faith, the questions of God and meaning and morality have always remained close to my heart. If there's one thing that Dr. Craig and I can agree on I'm sure it's on the importance of a reasoned public discussion of these questions. I'm really honored to share the stage with him, and thrilled that you all could be here tonight.

You might think it's just futile to argue that God doesn't exist because one can't prove a negative. Actually, there are a couple of ways to prove that a thing doesn't exist. One is to show that the thing couldn't possibly exist because the very idea of the thing literally makes no sense, like a round square. And the other way is to look very carefully and see if it's there. If you look as best you can for a thing and you still don't find it then you can sometimes reasonably conclude that it isn't there. Both methods have been employed to show that God doesn't exist. Many have argued that God is like a round square, that some of his properties (like being all-knowing and transcending time and space) are incompatible. Because our time together is limited tonight, I will not defend any of these conceptual or incompatible property arguments against theism. I'll just point out that they do have defenders, and I invite you to look into them if you haven't done so already. Instead, I'll use the look-and-see method. I will defend an evidence-based case against theism. I'll argue that in light of the evidence atheism is more reasonable to believe than theism. In particular, there is insufficient evidence for theism and overwhelming evidence for atheism. Now, I'm not suggesting that we can literally look and see whether God is there. What I have in mind can be seen in the following kind of example. Imagine that it's your birthday and your roommate has promised to bake you a birthday cake while you're away at class. So you arrive home expecting to find your roommate among mixing bowls and eggshells and a sweet smell in the air. But suppose you find none of this. Suppose what you do find is an unopened box of cake mix on a table and a dozen eggs in the refrigerator. That is, you fail to find a number of things that you would expect to find had the cake been baked, and you find a number of things that you would not expect to find had the cake been baked. Well, even before looking in the oven you could reasonably conclude on the basis of this evidence that your cake isn't there. In a similar way, we can reasonably conclude that God isn't there. We do this by considering what things we would be likely to find if theism were true, and what things we would be unlikely to find. I'll focus on five varieties of evidence, although there are others.

First, the hiddenness of God. Second, the success of science. Third, the connection between minds and brains. Fourth, evolution. And, finally, the abundance of pointless suffering. In each area we can ask what we would expect the world to be like if there were a supernatural person who's all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good, who created the universe, and who seeks and deserves our love and worship. And in each area we find that the world turns out not to be like that.

1. The hiddenness of God.

Let's begin by thinking a bit about why we're here. We're here for a serious discussion of whether God exists. But is this really a question about which there can be reasonable debate? After all, according to the book of Psalms, the fool hath said in his heart that there is no God. Well, if that's right and you think that all atheists are fools (well, wait a second, don't answer that) then there's no point in debating one, right? The fact that we are here suggests that there is such a thing as reasonable unbelief. But herein lies the first kind of evidence against theism. If this world were the creation of a supreme being who seeks a loving relationship with us, we would expect him to ensure that everyone believes in him, or at least everyone who is capable of reciprocating this love relationship. One would expect him to provide evidence that is sufficient to convince all such people. In fact, what we find is that there is no evidence that is persuasive to all reasonable people. Countless billions have lived and died without ever having believed in God, and cannot be blamed for the lack of belief since many deliberately and earnestly sought but could not find satisfactory reasons to believe. Notice that we're not just talking about atheists and agnostics here, but anyone who disbelieves in the God of classical monotheism – the subject of tonight's debate. Well, several of the world's oldest and most popular faiths have nothing to do with this being. Hinduism with about 800 million adherents worldwide, Buddhism with about 350 million, or Chinese traditional religions like Daoism with 225 million people. Why haven't more of these people been brought to the one true monotheistic faith by its divine author? It doesn't take much imagination to think of ways that an omnipotent being could provide evidence of his existence that would be persuasive to all reasonable people. Suppose that at the same moment everywhere across the globe and in a language that was miraculously understandable by all, a booming voice called out, “I am that I am.” That would make me a believer. Or maybe less Hollywood, God could simply give each of us a clear, unmistakable inner awareness of his presence. Clearly this has not happened. The philosopher J. L. Shellenberg, who pioneered this line of argument, has called the general situation divine hiddenness. The hiddenness of God is highly unlikely given theism; on the other hand, it's precisely what we would expect if there were no God at all.

2. The success of science.

Related to but distinct from divine hiddenness, there's another way that God is absent from the world, and this offers another kind of evidence that favors atheism over theism. It has to do with the natural sciences like physics, chemistry, geology, and biology. These sciences seek to explain phenomena like fire, earthquake, or cancer, by reference to natural causes. They do not invoke causes like the intentions or actions of a divine person that are thought to stand outside of nature, but nevertheless they have been extraordinarily successful at explaining our world enriching our understanding and enabling us to predict and control nature in accordance with our wishes. Every light you turn on, every aspirin you take, is a reminder of that. The agnostic philosopher Paul Draper has pointed out recently that if theism were true we would expect God to act in the world in ways that science must take into account. An all-powerful being who seeks a loving relationship with humanity would probably act in one way or another directly or indirectly as a causal agent in the history of the universe, and consequently scientific accounts of that history would have to take his actions into account. If theism were true then it would be extremely surprising that science can ignore God and still explain so much. And yet it does. So the success of naturalistic science, I think, favors atheism over theism.

3. The connection between minds and brains.

We all have minds and mental states like thinking and feeling and perceiving. It was once widely believed that the mind must be grounded in a special immaterial substance or soul. This philosophy of mind is now known as mind-body dualism. The dualist picture of a person as a mixture between an undying spirit inside a corruptible, mortal coil fits comfortably with many, though certainly not all, great religious traditions. However the vast majority of philosophers and neuroscientists now reject dualism and for two main reasons. First, it's not at all clear how an immaterial soul could cause changes in the physical body. Think about it. Souls are thought of as purely non-physical. They can't be weighed, split in half, heated, or cooled. They lack mass, electric charge, and so on. But then how could they possibly have a cause and effect relationship with bodies which are said to have these and only these physical properties? Second, there are many highly specific correlations between mental phenomena and brain activity that we would not expect if dualism were true. For example, particular cognitive abilities such as language use and spatial reasoning are localized in particular areas of the brain. Brain injuries cause very distinctive changes to perception, cognition, even personality. Some mental diseases like schizophrenia have been shown to have a genetic component. But why would any of this be if the mind were entirely independent of the brain. It appears then that mind-body dualism is false with respect to us. Yet, dualism is more likely given theism than given atheism. This is because theism is already committed to the existence of at least one immaterial mind, namely God conceived of as a disembodied consciousness. Furthermore, according to the religious notion that we are made in the image of God, humans have an essential commonality with the divine in virtue of our everlasting souls. Atheism, by contrast, makes none of these commitments and so gives us no expectation at all that people have souls. The discovery that we have none then supports atheism over theism.

4. Evolution.

Our brains no doubt are the most complex things we've ever encountered. It's no wonder that many people look on us as masterpieces of design that provide evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer. But if we actually look at how life came about through biological evolution we find a number of features that are extremely unexpected given theism. The evolutionary process is massively wasteful and inefficient. When people create something, we try to devise the best design in advance and then build the thing according to that design. Natural selection, the main engine driving evolution, it creates by randomly trying a huge number of possible designs and then discarding all the errors. Well, this would be like an engineer who tried to build a bridge by randomly trying every possible configuration letting it collapse until through dumb luck one stays standing. That's not design. That's crazy. Additionally, because evolution must operate by making gradual modifications to pre-existing structures, it leaves organisms with many traits that are functionally useless or even dysfunctional. Take human beings, for example. The openings for breathing and swallowing are so close together that we often choke. They didn't have to be that way. Our appendix? Apparently useless, but prone to infection, sometimes life-threatening. The birth canal is too small, increasing the chances of injury or even death during delivery. The list goes on. What's more, we know that almost every single species that has ever existed on Earth went extinct. Every museum of natural history is a junkyard of failed experiments. If we had commissioned the designer who did this, I'm afraid we'd give them the Donald Trump, “You're fired!” The wastefulness, inefficiency, and imperfection of biological evolution are more likely on the assumption that it is a blind causal mechanism with no mind and limited powers than on the assumption that it is the instrument somehow of an all-powerful, rational intelligence. It would be surprising if such a being chose to create life in such a way.

5. The evidence from pointless suffering.

Every single day an attack against children occurs that is ten times deadlier than the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th. The attack comes from preventable disease like measles, malaria, and pneumonia. According to a series of articles in the medical journal The Lancet last year, malaria is a leading killer claiming over one million children a year. It's usually fatal in young people if not treated almost immediately. The child's final experiences often include fever, shivering, severe pain in the joints, headaches, vomiting, coughing, generalized convulsions, and coma. If we say that terrorist attacks are evil because of the suffering they inflict on innocence, and surely it's right to say so, then what are we to say about this outrage? Now, we would expect an all-powerful, perfectly good God to prevent this suffering unless he has some reason not to. Notice that not just any reason will do. It will not do, for example, to say that God just doesn't care about the suffering of these children for God is supposed to be morally perfect. No, his reason must be such that it morally justifies his failure to prevent their suffering. It's tempting to think that there is some greater good that can only come about if these thousands of children are allowed to die in pain each day or some greater evil that would come about only if they were spared. Well, is there? We can answer that question by carefully considering all the kinds of goods and evils we can think of. For example, does humanity learn anything useful about malaria that we couldn't otherwise learn? Apparently not. We already know how to prevent it and treat it. Does it inspire you and me to be better people to strive to save the victims? For the most part, no. But even if it did, why should they suffer so that we can be more virtuous? You might wonder, why should we finite beings think that we're in a position to know God's reasons? Here's the answer. If God loved us then we would be the first to know the reasons he permits bad things to happen to us. A loving father who must bring his child to the hospital for a painful medical treatment will explain to her the reasons why he does what he does. If she can't understand the reasons he'll at least make sure that she feels his presence and comfort and receives some assurance that there is a reason even though she can't see it right now. So there is every reason to think that we especially should be aware of any justifying reasons that God has. What we, in fact, find is that many of those who undergo terrible anguish such as Holocaust survivors report feeling totally abandoned by God in their time of need. Of course many victims of disease, starvation, and natural disaster die very young having never even believed in him.

So if after considering the matter carefully we are unaware of any kind of state of affairs that would justify God in permitting suffering of this kind we can reasonably conclude that there is no such state of affairs. But it follows that there is no perfectly good God. If God were here with us then something must justify the suffering of these millions of children. But ask yourself, can you really believe that? Can you really believe it is anything other than a tragic pointless disaster?

To conclude, have we proven a negative? Well, the word “prove” is tricky. Sometimes proving means offering reasons that establish a claim with certainty beyond any possibility of doubt or error. It would be nice if all questions could be resolved with this degree of certainty. But, in fact, almost nothing we can know, including our scientific knowledge, can be proved in this sense except in logic and mathematics perhaps. What we can do, and what I have tried to do, is to indicate a body of evidence that, when taken as a whole, makes atheism significantly more reasonable to believe than theism. The hiddenness of God, the success of the naturalistic sciences, the physical embodiment of minds, the carelessness of the evolutionary process, and the abundance of pointless suffering and the lack of God's comfort in the face of it, all make atheism more probable than theism. The world would not be this way if theism were true. The world would not be this way if God existed.

Now, I haven't commented on whether there might be evidence in favor of theism as well. This is Dr. Craig's task, and I'll be examining some of his points shortly. But as you consider his arguments I want you to keep in mind that what the theist needs to establish is not merely the existence of a transcendent person who's perfect in power, knowledge, and goodness. As the Bible said, even the demons believe and shudder. No, Craig must establish that this divine person loves us and merits our love and worship in return. Having not yet heard Craig's arguments at this stage, I'll just conclude that the evidence clearly favors atheism over theism. Thank you.

DR. CRAIG

I want to thank Dr. Dacey for that very thoughtful case on behalf of atheism. In this speech I'd like to examine those arguments to see whether or not they provide compelling reasons to think that God does not exist. In general, note that all five of his arguments are based upon whether or not God fulfills our expectations. I think that that is a presumptuous assumption. It's a very dangerous assumption to think that if our expectations of God are not met that therefore God does not exist. It may be that our expectations are misplaced. Let's look at this more specifically.

First, with respect to the hiddenness of God. Here he says God would make it more evident that he exists if he actually existed. Let me make a number of points in response. First all, I don't think that there's any reason to expect more evidence of God's existence than the evidence that he has given. Apply this to what I've said in my first speech. The hiddenness of God, or the absence of evidence for God's existence, would count against him only if we should expect to see more evidence than we do have if God existed. In practical terms what that means is if God exists should we expect to see more evidence than the existence of a contingent universe, the origin of the universe out of nothing, the exquisite fine-tuning of the universe for the existence of intelligent life, the apprehension of a realm of moral values, the resurrection and radical claims of Jesus of Nazareth, and the immediate personal experience of God himself? Well, I think the answer is obviously not. Those all give good grounds for believing in God's existence, and there's no reason to expect, if God existed, he would give more than that.

Secondly, though, I want to argue that a clearer revelation of God which he could have given would not necessarily guarantee that more people would enter into a love relationship with him. Remember that God's primary aim is to draw people into a saving love relationship with himself, not just to convince them that he exists. If that were all he wanted then certainly he could offer booming voices from heaven or sky writing in the clouds to show that he exists. But there's no guarantee that such a display would cause people to come into a deep and loving relationship with him. It might even have the opposite effect. The Bible says that God has provided sufficient evidence of his reality in nature and conscience and through the internal witness of his Holy Spirit in drawing people to himself. And as an omniscient being he knows what will be most effective in drawing people freely to salvation. He's not obligated to give a clearer revelation of himself if he knows that that wouldn't do any good. So what Austin Dacey would have to prove is that a clear revelation of God would be more effective (not just in convincing people that God exists, but in drawing people into a saving love relationship with himself) than the way that God has chosen. And that, I think, is just sheer speculation.

Thirdly, I want to point out that God by his Spirit does draw people into a saving relationship with himself. It's not just a matter of exterior evidence; it's also a matter of that interior way that I described in my first speech. And I think that anyone who responds to that drawing of God's Spirit on their heart with an open mind and an open heart will in fact come to know that God exists. So I don't think that the hiddenness of God is a compelling reason to believe in atheism.

What about the second argument: the success of natural science? I find this argument completely unpersuasive for two reasons. First of all, it is theism that guarantees the success of natural science. It is because of theism that we can be confident that we live in a world that is rational, that operates according to natural laws, and that that makes science possible. Secondly, I think God has periodically intervened in the natural process. For example, I gave evidence in my first speech for the resurrection of Jesus. I would say the whole history of Israel is punctuated with self-revelations of God in history. So I just dispute his assumption that God hasn't done what he thinks God ought to have done. I invite him to look more closely at the evidence for the resurrection.

The third argument was the problem of the mind-body dualism. He argued there that the correlations between mental events and brain events implies that dualism is false. Let me say a couple of things in response to that.

First of all, mere correlations between brain events and mental events don't at all prove that there isn't an immaterial self or soul or mind that is correlated with the brain. There have been plenty of dualist-interactionists today (people like Sir John Eccles, a Nobel prize-winning neurologist, and Sir Karl Popper who wrote a book The Self and Its Brain, who are dualist-interactionists). Mere correlations don't disprove the reality of the mind or soul. But, secondly, I think that we are acquainted with ourselves as immaterial persons. Reductive materialism, which just says I am the same as my brain or my nervous system, doesn't work because mental properties aren't the same as physical properties. For example, the brain is not sad or jubilant. I am, but not the brain. The brain doesn't have those properties of being jubilant or sad. Epiphenomenalism, the view that the physical brain has mental properties, is incompatible with things like self-identity over time and intentional states (willing “that something” or knowing “that something”) because the mind on this view is a mere excrescence of physical processes. It's incompatible with freedom of the will because there is no agent who is a causal effective agent to interact with the body. And so in knowing ourselves as self-identical, as having intentional states, as having freedom of the will, I think we know ourselves as immaterial persons. So I think that the best view is some kind of dualism-interactionism, and we act as agents to cause physical events in the world. And God similarly can act as an immaterial agent to cause events in the world. Finally, let me just say in response to this objection that there are Christian materialists (like Peter van Inwagen, for example), so it's not entirely clear that if you were a materialist about human persons that that would imply that atheism is true.

Fourthly, he suggests that evolution is incompatible with the existence of God because evolution is wasteful and inefficient. Let me make two responses to this. First of all, efficiency is important only for a person who has either limited time or limited resources or is limited in both. But for God he isn't troubled by limited time or limited resources and therefore I don't think efficiency is a necessarily important quality for God. If God chooses to create via evolution I think he's entirely free to do so and we can't gainsay it just because it doesn't meet our expectations. But secondly it's not entirely clear to me that the assumption behind this objection is true, namely that macroevolutionary theory is true. It's far from demonstrated. In fact, it's fantastically improbable that this could have happened in the absence of a designing intelligence. This has been pointed out by Frank Tipler and John Barrow in their book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. They list ten steps in the evolution of homo sapiens, each of which – each of which! – is so improbable that before it would have occurred by chance alone the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and incinerated the Earth.^[1] They estimate the [odds of the] evolution of the human genome are somewhere between 4 to the negative 180th power to the 110,000th power to 4 to the negative 360th power to the 110,000th power. So if evolution did occur it would literally be a miracle and therefore evidence for the existence of God.

What about the problem of innocent suffering in the world? In dealing with this problem I think it's vitally important that we distinguish between what I would call the emotional problem of suffering and the intellectual problem of suffering. Pain and suffering –  watching a child suffer – is certainly, I think, a major emotional obstacle to believing in God. But however emotionally difficult suffering makes it to believe in God, I'm convinced that this is not a good intellectual objection to God's existence. Why? First of all, it is not at all clear that the suffering in the world is truly pointless. You see, we're simply not in a good position to make those kind of probability judgments. When we observe any instance of suffering in our lives we have really no idea what God's morally sufficient reasons might be. William Alston lists six limitations on us which make it impossible for us to judge that God has no good reason to permit suffering in our lives. Take just one – our being limited in time and space. We have only a narrow window upon time and space, but God orders the end of history from the beginning and his morally sufficient reasons for permitting some instance of suffering to enter our lives might not emerge until centuries later, maybe in another country. Just because in our narrow framework we don't see the reason for its occurring doesn't mean that there isn't a reason for its occurring in God's wider framework. Thus Alston concludes, “it is in principle impossible for us to be justified in supposing that God does not have sufficient reasons for permitting E[vil] . . .”^[2]

Now, Austin Dacey anticipated this response and said, “But then why doesn't God tell us why we suffered? Tell us the reason!” Well, number one, he has told us! In the Bible it tells us “this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Whether or not God's purposes in allowing our suffering are achieved all depends upon our response. Do you respond with anger and bitterness and hatred toward God, or do you respond toward what you suffer with dependence and courage and trust in God? Austin might say, “Well, why doesn't God get more specific than just this sort of general statement?” Notice that would turn the universe, first of all, into a haunted house. God would whisper, “The reason you just fell down the stairs and broke your ankle is because 75 years from now I'm going to have someone in Catalan, Mexico who will greatly benefit from the effects of this event.” Well, that would just turn the universe into a sort of haunted house, I think, which is absurd. Secondly, it might not do any good even if God told people why they were being allowed to suffer. They still might resent God just as much as they do when they don't know the reason. So I don't see that God's under any obligation to tell us more specifically. Thirdly, it might be logically impossible for God to tell us the reason because if he did then people might not act in the same way. They might act differently so that God's morally sufficient reason wouldn't transpire or come about. Thus it may well be logically impossible for God to tell us specifically. What he has done is he told us generally that we can trust him, he's given good evidence of his existence, so that we can trust him as we go through the valley of suffering confident that when we come out the reward awaits us in heaven – an eternal reward that is far, far beyond, immeasurably beyond, anything that we suffered in this life so that when we look back we would say, “I'd go through it a million, million times over to know this joy and this happiness.” Therefore, I don't think any of these arguments present compelling reasons for thinking that God does not exist.

DR. DACEY

Dr. Craig's first argument said that theism provides the best explanation for why there's something rather than nothing. Why the universe exists at all. But I'm a bit puzzled by his use of the Big Bang as empirical confirmation of the claim that the universe began to exist out of nothing. That's not how many mainstream physicists would characterize it. Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, writes in his latest book The Fabric of the Cosmos,

“A common misconception is that the big bang provides a theory of cosmic origins. It doesn't. The big bang is a theory . . . that delineates cosmic evolution from a split second after whatever happened to bring the universe into existence, but it says nothing at all about time zero itself. And since, according to the big bang theory, the bang is what is supposed to have happened at the beginning, the big bang leaves out the bang. It tells us nothing about what banged, why it banged, how it banged.”

As physicists trace the expansion of the universe backwards in time they reach a point at which current theory just breaks down. Many cosmologists think that a full account will await a new insight that will synthesize Einstein's relativity theory with quantum mechanics – the theory that talks about the behavior of very, very small systems like the initial singularity at the beginning of the universe. There are many contenders for such a unified theory, but no clear victors as of yet. In 2002 the National Research Council issued a report detailing 11 unanswered questions in physics and astronomy and one of them is how did the universe begin. So I think it's fair to conclude that our scientific knowledge of the origins of the universe is just nowhere near complete. Therefore it would be premature to use it as a premise in an ambitious theological argument such as Craig’s.

As to the argument from fine-tuning, the fine-tuning of the universe would imply theism only if we knew that the life-permitting values of the fundamental constants are brute facts – things that won't be explained by any further deeper physical laws that we'll discover. However, there's no consensus in physics about this either. According to Sir Martin Rees, former director of Cambridge University's Institute of Astronomy,

“The status and scope of anthropic arguments, in the long run, will depend on the character of the (still quite unknown) physical laws at the very deepest level. [Steven] Weinberg hopes that a ‘final theory’ exists, and that we may someday discover it. . . . [w]hat we call the fundamental constants . . . may be secondary consequences of this final theory, rather than direct manifestations of its deepest and most fundamental level. . . . Consider, for instance, the cosmological constant. . . . Will the final theory offer some deep reason why this has to be exactly zero? Or is its value an accident? We just don't know.”

Again, Craig is trying to base a sweeping metaphysical conclusion on a highly speculative unfinished frontier of an advancing science. I think it's simply too soon to say whether there can be no naturalistic, non-theistic explanation of cosmic fine-tuning. And note that the history of science gives us some reason to hope that there will be. Don't forget that 150 years ago the adaptiveness of organisms to their environment was thought of as a kind of fine-tuning that only a loving creator could explain. But thanks to Darwinian natural selection theory, we now know that it's not necessary to invoke that.

In any case, the postulation of a transcendent cause of the cosmos would be unsatisfactory as an explanation. This is because it presupposes a radically new and mysterious kind of causation. The causes that we know about, for one thing, precede their effects in time. By contrast, God's creative actions are supposed not to precede their effects in time because he transcends time. Craig asked how could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect, and he answers that the timeless cause must be a person. But whatever could that mean: a person who acts timelessly? Persons as we know them (as we are them) we do things in time. I mean, some of us are more on time than others, but we act in time. Furthermore, causation as we know it involves the rearrangement of pre-existing matter as when you create a sand castle by rearranging pre-existing sand on a beach. God's creative action produces its effect out of nothing at all. Think about that. Creating out of nothing at all. If he wants theism to make sense of the origins of the universe then I think Craig owes us at least a rough sketch of how this radically new kind of causation is supposed to work.

Dr. Craig also asserts that objective moral values depend on God. Well, the overwhelming majority of people who have thought carefully about the nature of morality including many theists, and as you heard from a quotation from my book, myself, would disagree. And it's not difficult to see why. Ethicists develop moral theories that among other things try to explain and justify the thought that people and in some cases animals have moral worth – that we really matter. Ethicists have considered the possibility that this moral worth might depend on God in some way. Think about it. How might that work? Could it be that God simply decides that we have moral value? That doesn't seem right because we don't suppose that God could simply decide that, say, a lump of coal is as valuable as a person. Rather, it must be that God recognizes something about us that is morally important. Maybe it's our capacity to suffer or to have interests and plans or to make promises. But if that's right then God falls out of the picture. It's these morally important features that determine our value, and these we have in virtue of facts about us not facts about God. The existence of objective moral values does not entail the existence of God.

As to the argument from the resurrection, I concede that if Jesus had been raised from the dead by God then that would constitute pretty powerful evidence for the claim that God exists. But what reasons have we been given to believe it? Dr. Craig has pointed to three facts that he says are best explained by the hypothesis that Jesus was resurrected by God. First, the empty tomb. He says that all the alternative explanations of what happened to Jesus' body have been rejected universally by New Testament scholars. I'm afraid this is just a gross overstatement. The truth is that some have been rejected, some are more plausible than others, and that each leaves some questions unanswered. But such is the nature of inquiry into the distant past. For instance, it's not implausible to suppose that after a temporary internment in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb during the Sabbath, Jesus’ body was moved to a common grave as was customary for those who were crucified as criminals. While this leaves some questions unanswered it's surely more probable given our total evidence and background knowledge than the hypothesis that Jesus was miraculously raised from the dead by God. As for Dr. Craig's two other facts, the post-crucifixion appearances and the disciples’ belief in the resurrection, there's no corroborative evidence for these claims besides the Gospels themselves. Later mentions by non-biblical non-Christian sources were references to the Gospels, and we have good reason to be highly skeptical of the Gospels as reliable historical documents of such matters. In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul writes, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with scripture. He was buried and raised the third day. If Christ had not been raised then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” Most people think of these core Christian doctrines as being based on the Gospels, but that's historically backwards. The Gospels were written between the years 65 and 100, a generation after Paul began preaching about the resurrection to early Christian communities. The Gospels were not written by Jesus' disciples or any other eyewitnesses to the events of his life. In fact, almost nothing is known about the authors except that they were partisans of a new vibrant growing religion that was built on the belief in the resurrection. So the Gospels as you and I know them are not historical accounts by eyewitnesses but were produced by a careful process of selection and editing and rewriting undertaken over an extended period – hundreds of years – by early Christians in order to record an approved theology of the emerging church and to aid its missionary expansion.

In sum, we can explain the empty tomb without resorting to the extraordinary claim that Jesus was raised from the dead by God, and Christ's appearances and the disciples’ convictions (the other alleged facts to which Dr. Craig appeals) I think lack credibility as real historical events and have corroboration only in the Gospels themselves.

By the way, Craig cites the skeptical German theologian Gerd Lüdemann in a way that makes it look as though Gerd believes that the risen Jesus actually appeared to the disciples. Gerd’s a friend of mine and a colleague at the Center for Inquiry, and I asked him if that's what he meant, and he said, no, Craig had misused my words. What he really believes is that the disciples had hallucinations. They had visions of Jesus just as people have visions of Mary today, and that caused them to believe.

Finally, on the idea that we can experience God directly. Ordinary sensory experiences like seeing or touching this podium are perceptual. That is, they're caused by an object existing independently of the experience, and they're what's called veridical – conveying accurate information about that object. But not every experience is like this. When I hit my head and “see stars” I'm really not seeing anything. If I am on an LSD trip I may see things but my experiences aren't veridical. So there's no doubt that people do have religious experiences. I know people do have them because as a Christian I had some. But the question is whether they are typically perceptual and veridical in character, and Dr. Craig has not shown this. What has been shown by neuroscientists like Michael Persinger is that by stimulating certain areas of the brain it's possible to generate mystical experiences. Now, I'm not claiming that all people who have mystical religious experiences are delusional, but only that Craig has not shown that such experiences are perceptions of God. For all we know they could be like hearing a song in your head, just an interesting, non-perceptual, or non-veridical experience for which we can thank our amazing brains.

In conclusion, I'm afraid that none of the reasons presented by Dr. Craig provide compelling evidence for theism. Thank you.

DR. CRAIG

You'll remember in my opening speech I presented six reasons why I think it's plausible that God exists. The first of these was the argument from existence. Notice that Dr. Dacey did not address this argument. He completely skipped it. This is the argument that says that anything that exists has an explanation of its existence either in its own nature or in an external cause. The universe exists, and therefore there must be an explanation for the existence of the universe, plausibly a mind which is beyond space and time. That argument has gone unaddressed in this evening's debate and so still stands.

What about the second argument, however, based on the origin of the universe? Here Dr. Dacey attacked the premise that the universe came into being, and he quoted Brian Greene as saying the Big Bang theory is not a theory of cosmic origins. Well, I just simply beg to differ. That is not true. According to Barrow and Tipler in their book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, “At this singularity [that is, the beginning of the universe], space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo [that is, out of nothing].”^[1]

P. C. W. Davies, the British physicist, in his recent book About Time, points out that, “Recent ideas in quantum physics have changed our picture of the origin of time somewhat, but the essential conclusion remains the same: time did not exist before the Big Bang.”^[2] So, as Davies says in his article, “The Birth of the Cosmos,”

            “What caused the big bang?’ . . . One might consider some supernatural force, some agency beyond space and time as being responsible for the big bang, or one might prefer to regard the big bang as an event without a cause.  It seems to me that we don’t have too much choice.  Either . . . something outside of the physical world . . . or . . . an event without a cause.”^[3]

And I think it's far more plausible to believe that there is a transcendent cause of the origin of the universe than that it popped into being out of nothing. Certainly Austin Dacey is correct in saying the theory is not complete, but I think it's undeniable which direction the evidence points – the evidence points clearly to the origin of the universe at some time in the finite past.

He also then suggests that God cannot be the cause of the universe because causes precede their effects in time. But what I would argue here is that you can have simultaneous causes and effects. Sometimes the cause and the effect exist simultaneously, and I would say the moment at which God causes the Big Bang is the moment at which the Big Bang occurs. God's decision to create the universe is a decision for him to enter into temporal relations with the space-time universe and that therefore this is a simultaneous cause and effect.

Notice that although he challenges the notion of creation out of nothing, on the atheistic view you have a double incoherence, namely you have the origin of the universe uncaused out of nothing. On the theistic view, there may not be a material cause but there is a productive cause. On atheism, if the universe began to exist you have neither a material nor a productive cause, and I think therefore atheism is far less plausible.

What about the third argument – the fine-tuning argument? Here Dr. Dacey took the remarkable position that there really isn't any fine-tuning; that the fine-tuning may be done away with by some sort of a unified theory. I think that is not going to happen. Any sort of final unified theory we have will still have these fine-tuned parameters. Ernan McMullin in his article “Anthropic Explanation in Cosmology” in the year 2003 (he's a philosopher of science) says,

“It seems safe to say that later theory, no matter how different it may be, will turn up approximately the same . . . numbers. And the numerous constraints that have to be imposed on these numbers . . . seem both too specific and too numerous to evaporate entirely.”^[4]

So I don't think there's much hope that you're going to get rid of the fine-tuning in some final ultimate theory. It's noteworthy even in string theory you have these fine-tuned parameters. Notice that Dr. Dacey did not deny that if the fine-tuning exists it must be the result of some sort of intelligent mind. He simply tried to show that it didn't exist. But if it does exist, certainly intelligence is the best explanation.

What about the moral argument for God's existence? Here he says that even though God does not exist, objective moral values still exist. I would simply challenge him to explain to us why on atheism human beings are special. Why think that human beings have value? He suggested, and also says this in his book, that it's our capacity to suffer and have projects. But clearly all kinds of animals have the capacity to suffer. And as for having projects, well, even beavers have projects like making a dam across the stream. So the capacity to suffer and have projects I don't think in any way shows that human beings are invested with objective moral value. In any case, even if we were different in that sense, why does that mark us off as being objectively morally intrinsically valuable? It's just arbitrary on atheism. On atheism, we're just animals, and animals aren't moral agents. As J. P. Moreland, a Christian philosopher, has written,

            “On an evolutionary . . . scenario . . . human beings are nothing special. . . . [The universe] evolved to us through a blind process of chance and necessity. There is nothing intrinsically valuable about human beings in terms of having moral non-natural properties. . . . The view that being human is special is guilty of specieism, an unjustifiable bias toward one’s own species”^[5]

So I don't think Dr. Dacey has been able to make plausible tonight that if there is no God you can still save objective moral values and the value of human beings.

He says, “But how does God ground moral values?” Simply the moral nature or character of God is “the good.” God is by nature essentially loving, kind, generous, just, and so forth, and this nature expresses itself toward us in the form of divine commandments which then constitute our moral duties.

What about the resurrection of Jesus? He suggests that perhaps Joseph may have moved the body of Jesus. Well, this was a theory suggested back in 1922 by Joseph Klausner and has been almost universally rejected by contemporary criticism. Number one, there's no basis in history for such a hypothesis. That criminals’ graveyard he spoke of was only 50 to 600 yards from the place of the crucifixion. So Joseph could have placed the body there directly. There was ample time to do the simple preparations for the burial. The Jewish practice was always to bury on the same day as the day of execution, and Jewish law did not permit the body to be moved except in the case to the family tomb. So there's no evidence for the hypothesis that Klausner suggested. But, secondly, if Joseph had moved the body then the Jewish authorities would have pointed out the disciples’ stupid blunder when they began to proclaim his resurrection from the dead. They would have had to simply point to where Jesus’ body was placed by Joseph and they would have nipped the Christian movement easily in the bud.

As for what he says about the appearances and the origin of the Christian faith, I simply want to point out that he goes against the majority of New Testament critics here. It is universally acknowledged among New Testament critics that the original disciples came to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead and that they had these visual experiences of Jesus alive after his death. They go far beyond the bounds of anything that the case books in psychology can explain on the basis of hallucinations. Therefore, I think there are good grounds to believe that they were right. They were telling the truth. Jesus had risen from the dead. Therefore, that shows that God exists.

DR. DACEY

Dr. Craig asserted that I haven't addressed his argument from the existence of the universe. Actually, I did try to. Perhaps I didn't make it clear. I said that the postulation of a transcendent personal cause is of no help here since it only piles mystery upon mystery. There is a genuine mystery about how the universe began. That's why it's a burning question for cosmologists. But unless you can give us a rough sketch of how this external, personal, timeless causation would work then it doesn't increase our understanding of anything to point to that as a cause. And that's a point that applies to the Big Bang argument, but also to the argument from the contingency of the universe.

He made a general remark that my arguments were presumptuous. I am presuming to know the mind of God. Well, all I can say is if I'm presuming to know the mind of God then so is Dr. Craig. After all, no serious consideration of the question of God's existence could even get off the ground without attributing some beliefs and intentions to God. Actually, Dr. Craig has explained the existence of the entire universe by doing just that. But why think that God would want to create the universe? Why 13 billion years ago rather than 10 or 5? Why think that God has fine-tuned the universe for humans rather than some other kind of life? After all, there's more bacteria on Earth and in more environments than there are people so you might reasonably conclude that what God was after was fine-tuning for bacteria. If you want to deny that then you have to start attributing beliefs and intentions to God, and I think that's unavoidable. The question is which of these attributions are most reasonable.

As for divine hiddenness, Craig pointed to his own six arguments for theism and he said, “Well, there are the revelations. There's the evidence that God has revealed to all, and they can reasonably believe in him on the basis of those.” But, again, the fact that I'm here knowing Craig's arguments (and there are countless others like me who know his arguments) and aren't persuaded means that atheism and theism is like so many other interesting intellectual questions: a matter of reasonable unbelief.

He said that a clear revelation of God needs to be more effective not just in proving that God exists but in drawing more people into a saving love relationship with him. I think that's true. That's what God wants ultimately according to classical theism, but think about this. If God remains hidden then the probability of reasonable unbelievers coming into a loving relationship with him is zero. Right? Whereas if he does reveal himself then, well, I don't know what the probability of them coming into a loving relationship would be but presumably it would be higher than zero because they would know that there is such a being and they would know perhaps that he wants to have a loving relationship with them.

As to the view of the argument from science – he rebutted that by saying that science actually presupposes the truth of theism. For example, the whole idea that the world is knowable at all, that it has laws that we can understand, is something we would expect on theism not atheism. That may or may not be true. I think scholars are divided on that. As a historical matter of fact, it may be that Christian and Muslim societies were more apt to kind of come into the scientific mode of thinking, but that wouldn't show that in order to do science theism must be true. And of course I wasn't arguing that science doesn't presuppose theism – the truth of theism. All I was saying is that scientists have found no need to invoke God's actions in explaining nature, and I think that's all I needed to show. Craig also said God does act in nature, for example in miracles. Well, that's just begging the question against the argument from science, in the success of science. If there were key parts of the history of the universe that involved God's creative actions or indirect or direct actions then why doesn't science need to appeal to those actions as it clearly doesn't.

As for the argument from the mind-brain connection, he attacked what's called reductive materialism – the idea that our minds are nothing but our brains. But of course my argument doesn't require reductive materialism to work. It only needs the falsity of dualism – the idea that minds and brains are entirely independent. So I don't need to claim that the mind is nothing but the brain, but only that it couldn't exist independently of it. The mental could be distinct from the physical while being causally dependent on it. The alternative suggestion that the intricate correlations between mental states and brain states can be explained by the interaction of a brain and an independent mental substance – that runs up against the view that I've already discussed which is how do you explain the causal interaction between a totally spiritual substance and a physical substance? I think that, in light of the mind-body problem and the evidence about the brain and how it sensitively determines the mind, I think anyone who still believes in substance dualism ought to have somebody else's head examined.

As for physical survival, he says God doesn't really need dualism to resurrect people and bring them into heaven. That's true. There's no logical connection there. Maybe God reanimates your body at the appropriate time after your death, or he could swap your original body with a new body that will go on to the afterlife. Here theism is starting to sound less like the Passion and more like the Dawn of the Dead. But more importantly if all these resurrected people have actual physical bodies, well, where are they? Several years ago the Pope told us that hell is a state of mind, not a place. But if hell's inhabitants have bodies then they must be someplace. I think the only thing more bizarrely incredible than spiritual survival is the idea of physical survival in the afterlife.

In regards to evolution, again he said it's presuming to know the mind of God, that maybe God has a different notion of perfection that we do. I think if we look at biological structures, we look at their history and their present functioning, we can determine what criteria must have guided the process of their design. Eyes are for seeing, and since they're complex systems that could not arise by chance we know that the process that created eyes (whatever it is) must have been guided by that criterion. If I told you that an intelligent designer was behind that process, you couldn't reasonably deny that the designer followed that same criterion. Yet by a more rational placement of the optic nerve, say, eyes could have performed their function better or the tubes for breathing. So if God made eyes I'd say they are inferior by the standards that must have governed his design. That's just the reasonable conclusion on the basis of the evidence and what criteria must have guided the production of eyes which are clearly for seeing.

I agree that the evolution of human beings is immensely improbable, but of course improbable events happen all the time. I live in New York City, and, believe me, in the city of nine million people things with a million to one odds happen nine times a day. Most importantly with the help of evolutionary theory we can give a detailed account of why the evolution of humans was so improbable and how it happened anyway. In any case, the rest of my rejoinders will have to wait until the final section. Thank you.

DR. CRAIG

I hope you've enjoyed this debate as much as I have. In my final statement I want to try to draw together some of the threads of the debate and see if we can come to some conclusions.

First, have we seen compelling reasons to think that God does not exist? I think we saw some significant shifts of ground in Dr. Dacey's last speech. For example, with respect to the hiddenness of God, Dr. Dacey responded to my point that there's no reason to expect more evidence of God's existence than what we've got by saying, “I doubt the arguments. I doubt the reasons.” But that doesn't address the point that if God existed should we expect to have more evidence than the fine-tuning of the universe, the origin of the universe out of nothing, the resurrection of Jesus, and so forth? I don't think he's been able to show at all that we should expect more evidence than that. Moreover, I argued that just having more evidence of God's existence wouldn't guarantee people come into a loving relationship with God which is God's end, and he said, “But there's a zero percent chance they would come to that relationship if they don't have enough evidence.” But remember my point was that God knows in his omniscience what would be the most effective in drawing people to himself, and so Dr. Dacey would have to show that it is probable that if God were to offer a clearer revelation of himself that more people would come to know him and his love personally. And that's just sheer speculation. And remember I said the Holy Spirit also is operative to draw people to himself. It's not just a matter of external evidence.

What about the point about theism guaranteeing the success of science? Here again we saw a shift on this. The point of his argument originally was that if God exists then we shouldn't somehow expect natural science to work like it does. But my argument is that it's precisely if God exists that we should expect natural science to work. As for interventions of God, I suggest that he has intervened in certain ways; for example, in the resurrection of Jesus. He says, “Why doesn't science take cognizance of this?” Because science operates on a methodological naturalism. It only operates by looking for natural causes. So of course science doesn't look for things like explanations of the resurrection of Jesus that would be supernatural in nature.

What about the mind-body problem? Here he said, “You could have mental properties that are distinct from but dependent upon the brain.” But notice if that is not dualism then that's some kind of epiphenomenalism which I argued is incompatible with our knowledge of ourselves as self-identical over time, having states of intentionality, and freedom of the will. On that view the self is a mere excrescence of the brain and has no causal power or properties whatsoever, and that's an utterly implausible view of ourselves. So I don't think that he's been able to carry the day against dualism-interactionism in that respect.

What about the argument concerning evolution? Now notice the shift of ground here. Here he started in his last speech to argue that the imperfections show that things aren't directly designed by God. But the argument was supposed to be, remember, that the reason God couldn't use evolution to create things was that would be inefficient, and I pointed out that that's only important for someone with limited time and resources which God isn't bound by. Moreover, I argued that it's not at all clear that the evidence supports evolution, and here he says the improbable happens. In saying that he abandons science. He’s now saying although the evidence makes it very, very improbable that we are products of natural selection and biological evolution, nevertheless he believes it anyway by faith. I think that if it is as improbable as I've suggested it is, it provides actual evidence that it didn't occur; that namely it's the result of a superintending intelligence.

Finally, he dropped his argument about the problem of evil because I don't think we can show that it's improbable that God has good reasons for permitting the suffering in the world that he has.

Now, what about my arguments for God's existence? First, the argument from existence. He says, “How does positing a personal being alleviate the mystery?” Very simply, it has to be a necessary being. The argument leads necessarily to an eternal, uncaused, necessary being that explains the existence of the universe, and it also happens to be personal.

The origin of the universe, I don't think he's responded to anything I've said more recently on that.

Same with the fine-tuning of the universe. I answered his objections to that.

The moral argument. According to my notes I've answered his objections to that.

As for the resurrection of Jesus, I want to conclude just with what N. T. Wright has recently written on this subject. He calculated, after a 800-page study of this, that the empty tomb and appearances of Jesus have a probability historically so high as to be “virtually certain” like the death of Augustus in AD 14 or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.^[1] And I know of no good naturalistic explanation for these facts.

Therefore, in conclusion, I simply want to say I don't have any good grounds for thinking that my experience of God is delusional. I think I've got good reasons to believe that God exists. He's a living reality in my life. There aren't comparably good arguments for atheism. Therefore, I am enthusiastically and happily a Christian theist.

DR. DACEY

Thank you. Just to tie up some loose ends. As to hiddenness, the question is why should we expect God to provide more evidence than he in fact does? For the simple reason that we would expect a person to provide evidence for their existence and notify another of his or her intentions if you wanted to strike up a love relationship. Love is as love does. How can we say that God wants to have a loving relationship with all of humanity if hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions and billions of people are excluded from this and who aren't given enough evidence? That's just not what we would expect God to do.

As for mind-body dualism and materialism, Craig says that epiphenomenalism is unworkable. Well, that's a matter for the philosophy of mind, and many, many people who work on this problem just disagree. Can we have a coherent conception of ourselves thinking that we are our physical brains? Sure.

Evolution. Now, have I shifted ground in saying that I'll accept evolution on faith because it's so highly improbable? No. The point was that if you look at something in light of your total evidence and it's improbable but you can explain why it results anyway then it's reasonable to accept it. After all, somebody's got to win the lottery and we don't have to accept on faith that someone does. And you don't have to abandon your reason to explain why it's got to be somebody although it doesn't have to be one person over another.

As for the argument from suffering, could eternal communion in heaven with God make up for a child's short life of misery on Earth as was suggested? Well, the victims might be glad to go to heaven but that alone wouldn't show that God was morally justified in permitting their misery. If I steal your car and total it and then I give you a hundred thousand dollars, you might be happier with the money but that wouldn't show that it was morally okay to rob you. Anyway, God could allow these children into heaven without allowing them to die in agony.

Now we have a kind of dispute of dueling experts as to the fine-tuning and the first cause and the Big Bang. It's like in World War II in the race to create the bomb there were German physicists working on both sides, and the question was whose Germans were going to be better? I guess, in this case, we have a question of whose physicists are better. I don't know if we can resolve that right now.

I didn't say that Joseph of Arimathea had to have moved Jesus' body, although I don't see why that's ruled out by anything we know. As far as I know, some of the disciples or robbers could have. Could Jews have gone and pointed to the body to disprove the rise of this new sect based on Christ? Well, if it's in a common grave there could easily be confusion about who's who, and of course bodies do rot. Do all experts agree that the disciples had visual experiences of Jesus? Well, that would mean that everyone who studies the New Testament is a Christian. I'm sorry that's just not the case.

In my view the most reasonable position that you've heard this evening is that there is no God. Well, maybe slightly less reasonable than that, but not as reasonable as the view that there's a Christian theistic God would maybe be that there's the God of Genesis chapter 6. You remember that's a deity who's basically abandoned us, who neither seeks nor deserves our love. Remember God of Genesis chapter 6 repents having ever made a people who he says are evil in every inclination, and he says that he's going to blot them out of the face of the Earth. Well, the God of Genesis chapter 6 makes a lot more sense of the silence of God in the face of suffering and the hiddenness of God and much of the other arguments for atheism I pointed out. So if you're intent on believing that someone is up there, I'm afraid that you can do no better than him.

But note in conclusion I think some of the intellectual and moral costs of clinging to theism in the face of the evidence in the way that Craig has – first, there's a non-physical person who transcends space and time but who can cause events in space and time and who explains the existence of everything there is. Billions of ordinary people are basically not being reached by God and God has no intention of reaching them because he knows that they would not be persuaded to enter into a relationship with him. If you believe in hell, as many people do, then all these billions of people are damned in advance. And, finally, that God's plan for creation includes September 11th, Chernobyl, Stalin and Mao’s purges, genocide in Armenia, and so on. That's just not the kind of God that I think we can reasonably believe in. Thank you very much for your attention.

PAUL SIMMS

I would like to thank the speakers very much for coming and for all they've said. I found it very interesting. I couldn't write fast enough. In addition, I really would like you to express your appreciation. I'll express my appreciation. They only ran seconds over in all five of those opportunities. Well done for sure, and greatly appreciated.

Now, the question and answer session. Let me tell you just a little bit about it. We have two microphones – one here which will be used to address questions to Dr. Dacey, and that'll be moved back a little bit into that aisle. And one here which will be moved back in this aisle. If you want to ask a question to Dr. Craig, please use this microphone. We're doing that so that we can be sure that we get alternate questions between the two men. That just will make it a little bit more fair. Now, before you can ask a question you will have to sign a release for videotape that we are doing. This tape will be made available to the public, and we can't show you on it asking your question if you haven't signed the release. So please do that for us, and that will acknowledge that you know you're on the tape and that you're going to be seen in public asking your questions.

There's always a temptation at this point in Q&A for people to want to express their opinions. I'm sure you realize we simply cannot permit that. We would like for you to ask your question in 30 seconds, and I'll have to intervene if you do not. So formulate your question before you come to the microphone and then we can give the time to our speakers in order to really learn more of what their thoughts are. There is a person at each microphone who will try to help you so that this goes smoothly.

The speaker you address will have two minutes to answer the question, and then his opponent will have a minute to make a comment if he would like to do so.

Finally, let me talk to you about your cards – the response cards. You still have them. While the question and answer is going on, we'd very much like you to give us the information on those cards and also any comments that you want, and when you have done that as we go along in Q&A just pass the cards to the aisle nearest you and people will come by and pick them up. OK, have I covered everything? I hope. How are we fixed? Do we have a questioner ready?

QUESTION

Dr. Dacey, if you could snap your finger and immediately take away all the consequences of pain and suffering that children receive from their wrongdoings from their parents, would that increase or decrease the likelihood of their parents doing acts that would harm their children? And, in light of that question, how does that address the issue of God having to allow hate if he allows love?

DR. DACEY

I think that's a very good question. Thank you. I think that people are in a different position than God when it comes to deciding what pain or displeasure or suffering that we will choose to permit if we can. First of all, because our capabilities are so much smaller than God's – he's all-powerful. He has no limits on his power unlike us. But, second, we see that there are many kinds of discomfort and pain and suffering that are necessary to go through to produce some higher good. Anyone who has spent an hour in the gym can tell you that. What I was pointing out was that in God's case the suffering that he permits to befall some of us (like children who suffer from malaria) cannot be shown, first of all, to be a result of his inability to prevent it as we can show in the case of persons because he has no such inabilities. But, secondly, if we think about it, we really can't reasonably believe that there is some higher good that will be brought about by that kind of suffering in the way that there is a value in sweating and straining at the gym. I tried to point out that we of all people should be aware of any justifying reasons that God has because he intends to have a loving relationship with us. After all, we would think it a criticism of a parent who brought his child to the hospital for a painful treatment without explaining the treatment or, in absence of that, if the child is unable to understand offering some comfort or making his presence known and trying to assure the child that there is a reason for the suffering even though it's not clear right now. If we hold people to that standard then truly we would hold a perfect being to the same.

QUESTION

A quick analogy. If Purdue police stopped giving traffic tickets, would we be more or less likely to park unlawfully? We'd be more likely. I posed the question by saying if you could take away all the pain and suffering that children receive because of the wrongdoings of their parents would their parents be more or less likely to do wrongful deeds? Obviously the parents would be more likely to. And that leads into my question: God does not take away suffering because he would have to take away the opportunity to do wrong, and if he took away the opportunity to do wrong he would have to take away the opportunity to do right. Love-hate. So free will has to exist, and that answers the question of innocence that you posed in your fifth plank.

DR. CRAIG

It's certainly true that free will is sort of the joker in the deck here because it may well be the case that only in a world which contained pointless suffering that the maximum number of people would come to freely know God and his salvation. So it may well be the case that natural evils and moral evils are in a sense part of God's broader providential purpose to bring about the salvation of multitudes of individuals. And to say that it's improbable that God has done that means that the atheist has to be in a position to judge that there's another feasible world that God could have created having less suffering than this one but with an equal amount of the knowledge of God's salvation and eternal life – and that's just pure speculation. There's no basis for making that kind of probability judgment.

QUESTION

Dr. Craig, all your arguments seem to presuppose that God is a beneficent, kind creator. Has it ever occurred to you or have you ever given thought to the idea that there's a God more like the Genesis 6 God that Dr. Dacey described. That there is a creative force in the universe but that he or it is not particularly benevolent?

DR. CRAIG

Right. I think to the contrary, my first two arguments didn't say anything about the moral character of this creator and designer of the universe. Those arguments have sometimes been faulted by atheists on those grounds. Actually, the first three arguments I gave. “All right. You've proved the existence of a necessary, personal creator and designer of the cosmos, but that doesn't prove that he's all-good or all-loving or all-holy.” That's why those first three arguments need to be supplemented by the moral argument to show that this metaphysically ultimate being is also the locus of absolute goodness and value. So you're quite right in saying that the first three arguments don't do anything to demonstrate that this creator and designer of the universe is beneficent. I think you need the moral argument, you need the argument from the resurrection of Jesus who reveals a loving, heavenly Father to get that sort of conclusion. So my case is a cumulative one in which the arguments complement one another to build a cumulative case for Christian theism.

DR. DACEY

I contemplate every day the possibility that there's a very powerful being that just doesn't love us because that's the way the world appears to me, if there's any being like that at all. The idea that God might have unknown reasons for not intervening to prevent suffering which he could; we could just as easily say that there's an evil God who permits lots of good things for reasons which we cannot know that have to do with them leading to higher evils which we cannot know. So maybe every silver lining has a hidden cloud; maybe every success is necessary for a failure on a grander scale. My point is not that there are such reasons. I'm not here to defend the God of Genesis chapter 6. But the point is that we have no less reason to believe in them than we have to believe in unknowable goods. So the insistence that there must be such goods is just an attempt to save theism at all costs. It's not a response to any independent reasons.

QUESTION

Dr. Dacey, in your case for atheism tonight you spoke about blind causal mechanism in the context of macroevolution, and you also talked about the notion of there not being an immaterial dimension of man such as a soul. Then you spoke about goods and evil. My question is, assuming your worldview does provide a basis for morality, how can people still be held accountable if their actions are the results of that which “natural law” as opposed to their soul or mind dictates? In other words, why punish a murderer if he's just an advanced weed?

DR. DACEY

That's a good question. There are a couple questions there. One is can we make sense of our lives in a naturalistic, materialistic universe? I think we can, and I think more importantly the idea that there is a soul doesn't really add anything of use. So I pointed out that the soul is a quite mysterious kind of ghost in the machine because it's not clear at all how it could cause your brain to do anything because it has no physical properties and your brain has only physical properties. Now, why would you hold a soul accountable for its wrongdoing but not a person? There doesn't seem to be any more moral accountability that inheres in this mysterious non-material substance than inheres in a person. And besides, attributions of blame and praiseworthiness are, in my view, like other moral judgments that we make. We make them on the basis of good reasons or sometimes poor reasons, and we make them so that they will conduce to the best consequences so that things will go best for us and other people who matter morally. So I can say that a murderer is guilty and I can be correct in saying so because attribution of guilt doesn't have to do anything with an immaterial soul but because a system in which we attribute guilt to murderers works out best for everyone.

DR. CRAIG

I think the question is an incisive one. You can prove that the person in fact did commit the murder and is in that sense guilty but he wouldn't be morally culpable or morally responsible for it any more than a tree is morally responsible for growing a limb. If we are just electrochemical machines that are determined by our genetic makeup and the input of our five senses then our moral decisions and actions are no more morally significant than the movements of a puppet's limbs controlled by the strings of genetic makeup and sensory input. So the reason a soul makes a difference is because a soul has freedom of the will and can therefore choose. But if we are just electrochemical machines then it's not only difficult to see why we would have moral worth in the first place but it's even more difficult to see why we would be morally responsible for our actions because they would all be determined.

QUESTION

Dr. Craig, with the Bible being an important tool for a Christian with his or her walk with God, what would you say to Dr. Dacey’s comment earlier that the Gospels may have been an unreliable source of what the apostles went through or what they actually saw.

DR. CRAIG

Sure. It is frustrating in these debates to have to try to talk in sound bites and not be able to delve into these issues at length. One of the most remarkable things about the current of New Testament criticism is how, compared to say a century ago, the trend in criticism is towards seeing the four Gospel accounts as fundamentally reliable accounts of the historical Jesus. We know much, much more today about the historical Jesus, though he's a rather minor figure in one sense in history, than we do about most major figures of antiquity. We not only have these four independent sources of Jesus in the Gospels, but we also have the Pauline letters and traditions behind the Acts of the Apostles to provide multiple independent testimony to the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The outlines of the historical Jesus, his career, his passion, his death, and so forth are very widely agreed upon. And, in particular, as I indicated, there are several fundamental facts about Jesus that are agreed upon by the majority of New Testament historians today that I think point to the resurrection. The first would be that he was killed by crucifixion under Roman authority. Second, that he was buried by a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin named Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb. Thirdly, that that tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers on the Sunday morning after the crucifixion. Fourth, that the disciples then (and other groups of people) on multiple occasions under different circumstances experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead. Everybody admits that. Now, as Austin says, some try to explain these away as hallucinations like Lüdemann but everybody admits they had these experiences, these apparitions of Jesus. And then finally, fifth, they came to believe that God had raised him from the dead despite every predisposition in Judaism to the contrary. And I don't know of any naturalistic explanation that provides an overarching explanation of those five facts that is as plausible and historically grounded as the resurrection hypothesis that God in fact raised him from the dead.

DR. DACEY

Well, notice that Craig now says that the naturalist has to not only explain each of the three facts but has to point to a single hypothesis that explains all three facts. Well, of course, this is something that no naturalist could do, but it's not anything that naturalists need to do either. I mean, after all, we don't expect that for other historical explanations. Why did the Civil War erupt? We don't need a single hypothesis that explains all the factors leading up to it. I granted the empty tomb, as you may recall, but I pointed out that there are lots of other scenarios that are not as implausible on the background knowledge as the claim that Jesus was miraculously raised from the dead by God. Does everyone agree that there were appearances to the disciples of Jesus? Well, that's ambiguous. Jesus appeared to the disciples, or the disciples had experiences that they thought were of Jesus. And, of course, if the empty tomb was a fact then it wouldn't take a miracle to explain why people developed stories that he had been found living. After all, we know where Elvis Presley is buried but people see him all the time.