Monday, February 4, 2013

William Lane Craig vs. Alex Rosenberg Debate Thoughts

I am not planning on doing a full review of Feb. 1’s William Lane Craig-Alex Rosenberg debate. I will say, however, that I was very disappointed in Rosenberg’s performance—and not simply because he was obviously uncomfortable with the debate format (then why do it?). His arguments ranged from outdated (in the sense that there have been easy answers to the problems he raised for decades of which he seemed totally unaware) to contradictory. Below are simply my observations. Feel free to add yours in the comments section!
1.      Dr. Rosenberg had a poor attitude.
Literally the first words out of his mouth were something like, “Wow! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Hopefully you didn’t have to pay for this,” implying that Craig’s speech was so terrible (or precisely the same as always, which wasn’t, strictly speaking, true, as Craig added new arguments I’ve not heard from him before) that no one should have incurred any expense. He continued most of the first half of his speech essentially insulting Craig/theism and/or explaining why he didn’t like debates (not a good sign in the opening). Often seeming annoyed or even angry, he once claimed he found Craig’s argument(s) “morally offensive.” I found it sophomoric and uncharitable, a kind of ploy more than anything else.

2.      Dr. Rosenberg was confused about what constitutes the Logical Problem of Evil.
He introduced what he called the “logical problem of evil” by saying that he couldn’t believe all of the evil in the universe was absolutely necessary in order to make the kind of world goodness demanded (and alternatively that a good God would never permit evil). That is not, strictly speaking, the logical problem of evil. The LPoE is that there two statements or states of affairs, namely, “God exists” and “evil exists” that are strictly incompatible, in a logical sense. Dr. Rosenberg said (paraphrasing), “Well I gave a logical argument against God using evil.” Insert forehead smack.

3.      Dr. Rosenberg contradicted his own views on objective morality.
While Dr. Rosenberg never explicitly stated there were no objective moral values during the debate, he did explicitly state such during the Q&A (and moreover affirmed the conclusions of his book, aka the conclusions of science, whatever that means). Curiously, he said, on more than one occasion, that certain of Craig’s arguments, objections, and defenses were “morally offensive” to Rosenberg. What? I thought there are no objective moral truths? If there are not any, it’s just a dressed-up way to say “I don’t like it.” But what relevance is that? Furthermore, the whole point in Rosenberg’s bringing up that it was morally offensive is that he was hoping we would think so too. So either Rosenberg was hoping we’d all just opinionate Craig’s views away, which is foolish, or he was thinking that there are at least some objective moral truths, after all. It occurs to me perhaps Rosenberg was speaking counterfactually (e.g., “if there were to be objective moral truths, then Craig’s arguments offend those sensibilities as I see them”), but again, I don’t see the point (especially since he neither mentioned nor alluded to this). Rosenberg seemed to be absolutely unaware of the third option in the Euthyphro dilemma, stating at several points, “We all know that God only chooses his commands based on what is good.” No, no we do not all know that.
4.      Dr. Rosenberg was confused about the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
Rosenberg’s view of the PSR was that it was “everything that is an effect has a cause,” and moreover conflated the kalam and this argument from contingency. The PSR has to do with explanations, which is different than the strict causal principle. As such, defeating the causal principle (which he did not) doesn’t do anything to the PSR.

5.      Dr. Rosenberg, hence, was confused about the kalam.
He seemed to vacillate between criticizing the kalam and the argument from contingency, and only bothered to bring up quantum indeterminacy as a possibility. Craig’s main principle used in these arguments is the so-called “something/nothing principle.” It is the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and the statement, “something cannot come from nothing.” Rosenberg treated all of these as pretty much identical, which is a mistake.

6.      Dr. Rosenberg was confused about the aim of the arguments.
Rosenberg seemed to take the deductive nature of the arguments to proclaim that he was justified in rejecting the major premise if it was even epistemically possible to reject. First, that is quite a heavy burden for any argument to bear. Second, it reveals that Rosenberg literally will not believe freely (at least as it stands now). Third, it misses the aim of the arguments, stated by Craig and displayed on the big screen. “God is the best explanation of . . .” which essentially weakens the major premise. Effectively, it’s not good enough to sit back and demand the premise’s denial be logically or metaphysically impossible (in some arguments, it’s still true that the major premise needs to be airtight [like in the argument from design]). By refusing to offer alternatives or even criticize the arguments in some cases, Rosenberg effectively conceded each one.

7.      Dr. Rosenberg was completely unprepared for the debate.
Let me be clear and honest: Dr. Rosenberg is an intelligent man. He is the chair of a world-renowned philosophy department at Duke. He’s no slouch, intellectually. So why the poor performance? It can’t be mere debate. He did poorly from his opening speech (for which he had weeks or even months to prepare). My only conclusion is that he is simply not a philosopher of religion. It’s not his main specialty by his own admission, and his objections betrayed the fact that he had not seemingly read anything from current theistic arguments and discussions from the last 40-50 years. When Craig took down metaphysical naturalism from quotes from Rosenberg’s own work, all he could do was insist these were conclusions drawn from science. Charitably assuming the best, I can only speculate that philosophy of science is not Rosenberg’s specialty either (since his defense against Craig’s arguments that metaphysical naturalism is wrong was essentially to insist that metaphysical naturalism was not, in fact, wrong). It was a shame.

10 comments:

  1. Rosenberg was also blatantly dishonest or largely misinformed in saying that Craig doesn't respond to his critics. He obviously does not follow Craig's work at all because for those who do know that Craig makes a living responding to critics both popular and academic alike.

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    1. Indeed. If I am being charitable, which I try to do, I would guess that Rosenberg was mostly or relatively unfamiliar with the criticisms, but he knew they were out there and assumed their success. Thus, the only appropriate course of action for WLC was to abandon those arguments, and create new ones (although, Craig did the second, since he did not the first, and Rosenberg virtually ignored them most of the night). Of course, this would be foolish--even if he thought WLC's arguments were so easily and obviously refuted, the least he should have done was name-drop those who had refuted it, or sketched a 30-second objection. Not just insist it had all been refuted, so why take the time to do so? I found myself wondering why he agreed to do it at all.

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    2. My personal opinion (as it was during the debate and remains) is that Rosenberg is just highly untrained in this realm of philosophical discourse. Interestingly enough, I'm sure he is still waltzing around in a self-congratulatory attitude.

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  2. Is Craig really claiming that the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 led to a greater good?

    Somebody should hit him over the head with a piece of 2 by 4 theological debating wood, until he points out the pointlessness of this random violence.

    Craig's god spends half the Bible trying to ban all sorts of things.

    And now we are told that all the things in the Bible that Craig's god tried to ban actually lead to a greater good.

    Craig, of course, thinks that it would be a great evil for his god to have allowed Jesus to rot in the ground.

    And so claims, that on his worldview, we have EVERY reason to think his god would have resurrected Jesus.

    And yet if the evil of Jesus rotting in the ground had happened, Craig would stand up in a debate and claim there is NO reason to think his god should have prevented that evil.

    Just how inconsistent can one person be?

    'The LPoE is that there two statements or states of affairs, namely, “God exists” and “evil exists” that are strictly incompatible, in a logical sense.

    Is there a Logical Problem of Legs? Are there two states of affairs that are strictly incompatible - 'we have one leg' and 'our senses tell us that almost everybody has two legs.'

    Obviously not, because our senses could be mistaken. There is NO logical incompatibility.

    Christians love to point out that there is no logical proof that we have two legs, ergo, there is no logical proof that their god does not exist.

    It simply means when they 'refute' the Logical Problem of Evil, they simply demonstrate that they do not know what a logical argument is.

    Or else they would have to concede that we are just as likely to have one leg as for their god to exist.

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    1. Hi Steven, thanks for commenting. There are a number of errors here, and I think some misunderstandings. First, no, Craig did not claim, during the debate, that the evils all lead to a greater good. The dialectical context was Rosenberg claiming something to the effect that if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then he would prevent all the evils from occurring. Craig's response is how can one know that, since it may be, for all we know, that only in a world with suffering can the goods that God desires be brought about freely.

      Next, it's a bit unclear what you mean by "Craig's god spends half the Bible trying to ban all sorts of things." Do you mean mere commands, or enforcement? If enforcement, it's plainly false (as the sheer number of people and daily acts would mean the vast majority of actions were either unpunished or unreported--in either case we've no good reason to suppose they all were). But in any case you're mistaken that Craig thinks these evils are themselves goods. For instance, Craig does think the sacrifice of Jesus is noble; he doesn't think the Romans crucifying Jesus was noble.

      There's finally the misunderstanding of "logic." The two statements you provide are *not* logically incompatible, for several reasons. 1. It's not clear if everyone has one collective leg, or if each individual has only one leg. 2. If the usage is of a specific group of one-legged individuals, then both statements are compatible. 3. It is logically possible for one's senses to be mistaken (psychosis, delusions, etc.). Now what you seem to mean by "logic" is "reason," but the two are not identical. So I find it ironic that you insist I don't know what a logical argument is. In order for strict logical incompatibility to be shown between two statements, the meaning of each statement must be contradictory to the other. But no one has shown, without introducing some third or fourth statement, why it should be that "God exists" and "evil exists" are definitionally opposed, or impossible to co-exist. It also does not follow that if two things are not logically contradictory, they are each as likely as some third thing to be true.

      I sincerely hope you consider what I have said, and I'd be happy to provide reading resources from a non-Christian perspective for you!

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    2. "Craig's response is how can one know that, since it may be, for all we know, that only in a world with suffering can the goods that God desires be brought about freely."

      Can you really say that you are 100% happy with this response? It may be, for all we know, that God is simply indifferent to our suffering. There's evil in the world because God doesn't care enough to prevent it. That's a pretty simple explanation. In fact, I might go further and say it's more probable than the idea that God has some clever plan to bring about good by allowing evil. But I don't think Craig cares about what is probable. Like most theists, Craig is only interested in the path that will support his beliefs, not the path that leads to truth.

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    3. Hello Shad, thanks for responding!

      Yes, I can say that I am 100% happy with the response! Here's why: the dialectics. This is crucially important, for it means that I can happily grant your first premise, that "for all we know, that God is simply indifferent to our suffering." This epistemic uncertainty is precisely the point. The idea is that, given free will and our epistemic limitations, we cannot know the claim that if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, evil would not exist. You haven't bothered arguing for the claim yourself--it's notable you only asserted that your claim is "more probable." How could you know this? What evidence do you have, and background knowledge, that could tell you the relevant counterfactuals? Your explanation is also less simple than you think: a good God that grounds morality doesn't care? It seems you'd need some complex reasoning to get that out.

      Finally, your psychoanalysis is both irrelevant and uncharitable, and may itself be projection. Have a good day!

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  3. ''Hi Steven, thanks for commenting. There are a number of errors here, and I think some misunderstandings. First, no, Craig did not claim, during the debate, that the evils all lead to a greater good. The dialectical context was Rosenberg claiming something to the effect that if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then he would prevent all the evils from occurring. Craig's response is how can one know that, since it may be, for all we know, that only in a world with suffering can the goods that God desires be brought about freely.'

    This means that all evils lead to a greater good, just like I said.

    Craig's view is that if children die of malaria, that is the only way his allpowerful god can get people to believe in him.


    ' The two statements you provide are *not* logically incompatible, for several reasons.'

    That's exactly what I did say.

    Christian logic means there god is as immune to logical disproof as the idea that we only have one leg.


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    1. Hi Steven, thanks for the reply! :)

      It's important in dialectical and logical contexts to understand entailment and implication. Craig's statement does not entail that all evils lead to a greater good; it doesn't even entail that "only in a world with suffering can the goods that God desires be brought about freely." All it does is function as an epistemological challenge: how does Rosenberg know that if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, evil would not exist? And your caricature is both inaccurate and not an entailment of anything Craig does say. Finally, I suppose I am confused as to your usage of the language of degree in comparing one leg (amongst other things, like the ambiguity of the premise, for example, which still hasn't been explained, and is in any case irrelevant); something is either logically compatible in the strict sense or it is not. In that sense, just any two statements or states of affairs that do not violate the "a and not-a" prohibition are "just as" immune to logical disproof. Go ahead and pick any two random states of affairs, even two that are demonstrably untrue, and as long as they are not logically incompatible you have the same scenario or problem. Again, in speaking of formal logic I honestly don't have a clue what the problem is supposed to be.

      There's finally one thing I need to know: I am willing to help you, but for a variety of reasons you're coming off as an Internet troll. Are you just presenting objections or is this going to be a long, drawn-out, bizarre strawman-fest? If the latter, I'll just cut it off now. :)

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