Jeffrey Dahmer and the Dangers of Naturalism

Dr. Craig discusses comments from Jeffrey Dahmer about his avid belief in pure naturalism and the ease it afforded him in committing murder.

INTERVIEWER: There's a show on Netflix about Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer who was killed in his cell I believe, or killed in prison. Dahmer . . . (I thought we got a "woo" for Dahmer! That was a baby. OK. [laughter] I was worried for a second. I thought somebody went "woo!" See me after the service. [laughter] It's a baby.) Dahmer said before he died in multiple interviews with various media outlets that one of the things that made it easier for him to take lives in such an awful, heinous way was his avid belief in a pure naturalism. The idea that all that exists is the natural world; there's nothing supernatural at all and we are here purely because of what he would call Darwinian processes, unguided evolution, and so what is life really worth? What's anything really worth? He's not saying in those interviews that that's why he killed people, but he said that made it easier for him to kill people. Later he became a Christian in prison. I don't believe it was just jailhouse religion. I think he really converted, but what got him to faith in Christ was someone who met him on a rational ground and said, "Look, there's another way of seeing the beginnings of the universe and the reasons we have for being." I just wanted to ask you. Do you think there's something there about the inherent dangers of a strictly naturalistic worldview?

DR. CRAIG: Oh, I do. I think that's absolutely correct. I think in that sense Dahmer did draw the logical conclusions of atheism and naturalism. When you study the atheistic worldview it is very dark because there is no purpose for which we or the universe exist. Eventually the universe will suffer a sort of thermodynamic heat death so that nothing we do makes any difference. We are headed on a path toward annihilation and oblivion, and really nothing matters in the end. It always turns out the same. Moreover, without God there isn't any sort of absolute standard for right and wrong, good and evil. In nature whatever is is right. So the world is ultimately valueless. And then as well it seems that the world is ultimately purposeless. There isn't any reason for which you exist. You're an accidental byproduct of environment and genetics. There's no reason for which the human race exists. There's no reason for which the universe exists. It's just the product of an accidental explosion that is destined to perish in a hundred billion years or so. So it is a very dark view. I think that it is only by living inconsistently with their worldview that contemporary atheists and agnostics are able to live happily in life. I do not think that anyone who lives consistently with an atheistic worldview will be happy. He will be in despair as many French existentialist philosophers and others have expressed. On the other hand, if he does manage to live happily, it's only because he lives inconsistently with his worldview. He takes a leap of faith and affirms objective moral values and duties, the objective meaning of his existence, and some sort of purpose to his life and the life of the universe even though he has no right to those values in virtue of his worldview.