William Lane Craig’s eight Special-Pleading arguments for God’s existence

William Lane Craig — Professor of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology — has set out in the latest edition of Philosophy Now his eight “best” arguments for the existence of God (non-paywall access here). For an atheist these are worth reviewing if only to marvel at how bad such arguments — touted as the best of a “renaissance of Christian philosophy” — actually are. All show the pattern of deciding ones conclusions on wishful-thinking grounds and then using any amount of special pleading and spurious argument to defend them.

They are the sort of arguments (following in a long tradition including C. S. Lewis, Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell and many others) that only convince those who already believe. Their general tenor is actually to make things worse, trying to “explain” something by pointing to something that is even harder to explain. Only, the believer doesn’t ask that question because at that point they’ve already got to their god, and so stops.

(I) God is the best explanation why anything at all exists

Right, so in order to “explain why anything at all exists” you start off with something unexplained, namely God. Anyone can “explain” why something exists if you’re allowed to start off with something!

Admittedly, even Craig can see that flaw, so he uses special pleading. While claiming that everything needs an explanation, he then exempts his god, which of course doesn’t need explaining. He does this by claiming a distinction between “contingent” things (which need explanation) and a “transcendent personal being” (which doesn’t). Thus his argument becomes:

1. Everything needs an explanation of its existence.
2. Except God, of course, which doesn’t.
3. Therefore God created everything else.

A 14-yr-old could see the flaw: “So, what caused God, then? And if we’re allowed to say that God doesn’t need an explanation then why not just say that the universe doesn’t require an explanation?”.

Six reasons why objective morality is nonsense

Whether morality is an objective property of the universe, or instead the subjective opinion of humans, is one of the longest running issues in philosophy. Jerry Coyne recently returned to the theme, arguing that morality was subjective, and, as I usually am, I was surprised by the number of commentators arguing the contrary.

This debate seems hampered by a lack of clarity on what “objective” and “subjective” moralities are. Coyne gave a sensible definition of “objective” morality as being the stance that something can be discerned to be “morally wrong” through reasoning about facts about the world, rather than by reference to human opinion.

If morality were objective, it would have to be conceivable that the statement “George’s actions were wrong and he deserves to be punished” would be true even if every human in the world were of the opinion, “George’s actions seem fine to me, perhaps even laudable”.

Thus, if morality were an absolute set by a god, something could be immoral even if every human disagreed. If, instead, human feelings and desires are what ultimately count, then that is a subjective morality.

Thus, a subjective morality is strongly preferable to an objective one! That’s because, by definition, it is about what we humans want. Would we prefer to be told by some third party what we should do, even if it is directly contrary to our own deeply held sense of morality?

Given that an objective morality would be highly undesirable, why do so many philosophers and others continue to try hard to rescue an objective morality?

Einstein the atheist on religion and God

In his autobiography Prince Hubertus zu Löwenstein recounted that, at a charity dinner in New York, Einstein had remarked:

There are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views.

This story was published in 1968, which was 13 years after Einstein’s death, when he could not comment on the veracity of the quote. Löwenstein was a Catholic activist, decorated by the Pope for his services to the Church, and the autobiography’s title, “Towards the further shore”, indicates its apologetic intent. Was Löwenstein accurately reporting Einstein? We don’t know, though he is hardly a disinterested party and the quote is thus suspect. What we do know is that many people, as shown by this example, want to deny that Einstein was an atheist.

Such claims also circulated when Einstein was alive. In 1945 Einstein received a letter from Guy Raner, saying that a Jesuit priest had claimed to have persuaded Einstein to abandon atheism. Einstein replied (letter to Guy Raner, 2nd July 1945):

I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

Another example comes from 1954, the year before Einstein’s death. A correspondent had read an article about Einstein’s supposed religious views, and wrote to Einstein asking whether the article was accurate. Einstein answered:

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.    [letter 24th March 1954, from “Albert Einstein: The Human Side”, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann, Princeton University Press. Hereafter “AE:THS”]

Despite the above, many people point to Einstein as a rebuke to atheists, a supposed example of a preeminent scientist flatly rejecting atheism. People who are prepared to accept that Einstein lacked belief in a personal god, nevertheless insist that he was not an atheist, and that he did believe in a god of some sort.

Science can indeed answer “why” questions

“Science can answer ‘how’ questions, but religion answers ‘why’ questions”   has become a cliche, oft-quoted by those believing in a proper role for religion even in today’s scientific world. Rarely is this claim argued for, rather it is usually stated as though it were obviously true, a knock-down argument that refutes scientism. The claim is that, while science can tell us how the natural world works, only religion can tell us how the universe came to be and why it was created. Too much emphasis on science is seen as leaving the narrow-minded advocate of scientism as lacking any appreciation of the world of values and emotions and desires and everything that makes life worth living.

The advocate of scientism rejects any such suggestion, considering that values and desires are just as much a property of the natural world as anything else, being the products of highly evolved but entirely natural animals, and thus just as much within the proper domain of science as anything else.