Summary and comments on debate: William Lane Craig v. Christopher Hitchens, “Does God Exist?”

I was speaking to a Christian friend lately and so got in the mode of thinking through various arguments about evolution, existence of God and whatnot. I’ve been watching various debates on YouTube on the topic as a refresher, and wrote up some notes on one of them. They grew far too long for a YouTube comment so I thought I’d put them here. I’m not a materialist but I do not believe in a personal God, so I incline more towards Hitchens’ viewpoint. So you’ll see a bit of snark or even contempt on some of Craig’s points. I’ll leave it in for honesty’s sake, but I hope you’ll see that overall I try to be even-handed in how I capture the flow of the debate and my evaluation of aspects of it.

William Lane Craig’s Intro

Starts expressing the wish that Hitchens would prove a negative. Nice one. Misplacing the burden of evidence.
Blah blah blah creation must have come from the mind of some super-being blah blah blah – these old arguments for God feel so specious. Is that really the only way things could be?
Multiverse in response to fine tuning – I agree, it flies in the face of Occam’s razor, a lot like a personal creator God. Simplest explanation: our universe got lucky!
Assumes that atheists cannot believe in objective morality, that they can think of no objection to rape. He can’t be serious. This feels deliberately to misunderstand his opponents, for propaganda purposes.
Evidence of resurrection:

A scholar said that accounts of it are reliable
The bible says that people saw Jesus after his resurrection
The bible says that the disciples became completely convinced of the resurrection
These are a joke. He vastly overstates how “universal” the agreement is that there are no alternate explanations.

He asserts that you can know God through direct experience, encouraging people to misinterpret their own thoughts and feelings as coming from outside of them, or maybe I misunderstand him

Christopher Hitchens’s Intro

Past generations of apologists focused more on theological topics; now they focus on rearguard scientific or science-adjacent arguments; so the scientific approach has gained ground over time. The care for evidence by believers he terms evidentialism.
The apologetic framework considers how the world could make sense given the assumption that God exists. He calls this retrospective evidentialism. This is all very Bayesian.
Tons of extinctions over time, fragility of humanity.
Mitochondrial DNA as evidence of human evolution.
The escape from Africa to cooler latitudes.
So, why would God do it that way? Given an assumption of God, how likely is this process? Why so indirect? Emphasizing the low probability of the universe as we see it given an assumption of God.
He catches Craig’s placing the burden of evidence on atheists that God does not exist.
His approach: there is no plausible or convincing reason that there is such an entity, and all phenomena can be explained without the hypothesis of a personal creator God.
Separates deism from theism. Even if a creator God is required for the universe to exist as we know it, there is a lot of other content in theism which is separate from the creator / universe origin aspect. But the two are conflated generally by theists like Craig.
Emphasizes that Craig is trying to prove to a high degree of certainty that God exists; he’s not an agnostic saying “God might exist”; so greater evidence should be required for him to argue his side.
Reads from Craig’s book saying that evidence cannot overrule the witness of the spirit. So, the “direct experience” is paramount, and no evidence to the contrary is sufficient to overturn it.
Christianity says both that you’re a piece of trash, and supremely, super-duper important. It’s a bit of a tension.
“Seek and ye shall find” – could be seen as an encouragement to engage in confirmation bias.
Calls out that Craig mischaracterized the scientific understanding of the Big Bang as requiring ex nihilo creation.
Heat death of universe – why would a designer do it that way?

Craig’s rebuttal

Back to “there’s no good argument that atheism is true”. Again mischaracterizing the common definition of atheism as “lacking a belief in God”, dodging the need for evidence for God.
Says there’s no problem with evolution and Genesis 1 – it can all be de-literalized. Is he responding to Hitchens’s at all? Feels like a canned point.
Fine-tuning, anthropic principle, reiterated in more detail. If evolution occurred it was a miracle! He’s advocating the theistic evolution view. Which is sensible if you believe in God.
He’s arguing against the idea that God shouldn’t have waited to so long to bring Jesus – did Hitchens make that argument? Hacking at the leaves.
He says, no, I don’t need to show a high degree of certainty, only that it’s more likely that God exists. I guess it’s fair, but slightly over 50% probability seems more properly like agnosticism.
He says “We’re going to be doing deductive argumentation.”
Cosmological argument: he’s going back to his chosen interpretation of the Big Bang as ex nihilo.
Fine-tuning: scientists aren’t uncertain about it, he says. Then quotes someone who supports fine-tuning.
Heat death of universe: temporal duration of something is irrelevant to whether it’s designed; for example, a computer breaks down over time, and it was designed. But for Christians, the afterlife means nobody cares about the heat death of the universe. I think this is fair. The material outcome of the universe matters more to people who do not believe in a supernatural alternate reality.
Quotes N. T. Wright speaking enthusiastically about the “certainty” of the resurrection.
Immediate experience of God: is a “properly basic belief”. He keeps using that phrase as if it carries special weight of itself.
Therefore, he sums up, there’s more weight on the side of Christian theism.

Hitchens’s rebuttal

I’ve been mischaracterized regarding what atheism is, he says. Atheism probably doesn’t even need to be its own concept; I don’t identify as an unbeliever in tooth fairies, for example, he says.
The universe functions without the assumption of God.
Say humans are 100k years old as a species. Emphasizes terrors of the unknown in the world, disease, etc. Lots of shortcomings of our physiology due to evolutionary development. We’re getting into problem of evil territory. Mocks the notion of the torment of Jesus being the resolution to the problem of all the suffering in the world. Fair.
For God’s super-important plan, it’s strange that so many humans never hear of Christianity, or not from those Craig would approve of, e.g. Mormons.
Re: N. T. Wright: supposedly he makes arguments that Christianity is right because it’s been so successful. But this would apply to Islam and Mormonism as well.
Morality: you can’t prove that belief in a supreme dictator God makes people more moral
Emphasizes that our morality really doesn’t derive from the bible which contains various terrible teachings on slavery etc
Emphasizes that atheists also have access to moral intuitions and reasoning
Most human morality had developed prior to monotheism
Free will: makes a joke, seems agnostic on it; but criticizes the Christian approach as “Of course we have free will – the boss insists on it”, more characterizing of Christian relationship to God as of a subject to an authoritarian.
Characterizes heaven as a sort of North Korea, and says he’s glad there’s no evidence that it’s true

Cross-exam by Craig

Atheism as a lack of belief in a deity. He’s seemingly willfully ignorant of or misinterpreting Hitchens’s position. Hitchens reiterates his position that there’s no persuasive evidence of God, then goes on to conclude that God does not exist on the basis of lack of evidence. Hitchens is arguing from absence of evidence. He says he doesn’t agree that we shouldn’t draw conclusions from the absence of evidence, that the claim of God’s existence is so large that it deserves good evidence.
Moral argument: the reductive idea that evolved moral sentiments might not have any real moral weight – Hitchens is open to it.

Cross-exam by Hitchens

Do you believe in exorcisms, and devils? The gadarene swine being possessed by devils?
(With Craig it’s about the righteous-sounding phrases.)
Do you believe Jesus was born of a virgin? He says yes.
Do you believe the graves were opened on Jesus’ resurrection? He says he’s open-minded, maybe it was a metaphor.
Hitchens says others besides Christians have done miracles, exorcisms, etc. So why are Christians special?
Do you regard any of the world’s religions as false? Yes, Islam. Is it moral to preach false religion? No. So if Hitchens were born in Saudi, would it be better he were an atheist or a Muslim? Craig takes no position.
Are there Christian denominations you regard as false? Calvinism / Reformed.

Craig again

Says Hitchens has not given evidence that God does not exist.
Rehashing the percent of population living before Christ. Says God was preparing humanity for Christ to come.
Recapitulating prior stuff.
Moral argument: without God as a foundation of transcendent moral values, we’re lost in relativism, can’t condemn Nazism, apartheid, etc.
Insider smarminess in his joke about tithing.
Cites a guy who is skeptical of objective morality being possible for atheists.
N. T. Wright doesn’t say Christianity’s success makes it true; it was that the resurrection was so un-Jewish, so unexpected, that it’s surprising the disciples accepted it. He concludes (unreasonably in my view) that there could be no other explanation than the resurrection.
Sums up with some numbers.

Hitchens closing

Unlikelihood of a thing like that a Jew would accept the resurrection, being a weak kind of evidence. (Exactly!)
Mother Teresa as a “Catholic fanatic”. Miracle for her canonization already had (it was 2009) been announced – a supposed healing of a tumor. This will persuade people to seek miracle healing instead of treatment.
Seems to be saying that for a Christian to say like Jesus “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” would be blasphemous? Not sure.
Apartheid was supported by Reform Church of South Africa.
Cites various denominations with close relationships to authoritarian regimes. Vatican abetting fascism, etc.
He conflates right-wing Christianity and fascism.
Belief in god-emperor in Japan as source of morality.
Religion is easier to understand if it’s seen as man-made rather than God-made. To my view this is key. It makes more sense as purely human.
He overstates in my view the failures of religion.
“Emancipate yourself from the idea of a celestial dictatorship and you’ve taken the first step at becoming free.”

Craig closing

Repeats himself. Atheism is also a worldview. This is fair, if atheism is expanded to include materialism. He says atheism is no more tolerant than Christianity.
Asserts there is a creator and intelligent designer, and that there are no objective moral values without God.
Mocks the moral sense of pig societies. He seems to be smearing the idea of biologically-derived moral intuitions and practices, since presumably there would be morality amongst pigs as well. Narrow-minded.
Closes with a call to convert to Christianity. Of course.

Questions from the Biola University student audience

Moderator: there are stupid questions.

@Hitchens: is bible prohibiting bestiality “dangerous sexual repression”? (Ignorant question – can’t imagine other sources of ethics.) Hitchens argues from societal sustainability such as avoiding cannibalism, that a society that persists in it will die out.
Craig chimes in agreeing with student, that an atheist couldn’t condemn anything in nature.
Hitchens: it doesn’t help to assume a supernatural authority; there are reasons why homosexuals are so prevalent in society.
@Hitchens: you said bad results of religion discredit belief in God; but atomic weapons were developed by physicists.
Hitchens: “Physics isn’t a belief system.” He says there are specific scriptures in the bible that encourage evil actions.
Moderator hits it again on its way over to Craig.
Craig: cares more about the truth than its social impact. In other words, the utility of a belief is irrelevant to whether one should hold it. (Which I disagree with. It’s even in the bible, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”) There are true ideas that have negative social impact. (Also true.)
Hitchens: commandment to genocide the Amalekites.
Craig: grants that it was “nationalistic fervor” that led to the genocidal scriptures.
@Hitchens: what is the purpose of life without a God telling you what to do?
Hitchens rejects as non sequitur.
@Craig: you have written life without God is absurd, but I know unbelievers who live fulfilling, moral lives.
Starts against a straw man: the purpose of life is not to glorify God.
Splits hairs: apart from theism, life is meaningless… he means objectively. Heat death of the universe.
Calls non-theistic meaning “illusion”. “That’s not really the meaning of your existence, it’s just a subjective illusion.”
Says who?
Hitchens: there is good evidence for these things (heat death), he doesn’t like it but doesn’t want to engage in wishful thinking. Religious people prefer power in this world; they also know this life is the only one we’ve got.
Craig: it’s about whether you have good grounds for believing in resurrection.
Hitchens: if everything will be set right in the afterlife, why care about what happens here and now, why do churches seek legislation, etc.? Dostoyevsky: “with God all things are thinkable too”.
Craig: quotes Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov, without immortality “all things are permitted.” Valuing people as ends of themselves, etc., he thinks can only be through belief in God. Churches seek to affect this world because they care.
Hitchens: there are humanist reasons to care as well; but those who think they have God on their side, what will they not do, convinced that it is God’s will?
Craig: they are acting inconsistently with their worldview; Jesus would not have been a guard at Auschwitz. Humanism, without belief in God, is just species-ism.
Hitchens: Auschwitz is the outcome of centuries in which the Christian church blamed Jews for Jesus’ death, bible says Jews called for blood on their heads for generations; it’s a scriptural injunction [to blame the Jews for Jesus’ death].
Craig: guards at Auschwitz would have been acting contrary to Christianity.
Hitchens: a large percentage of members of the Waffen-SS were Catholics; they were not disciplined for participating in the “final solution”. (Weird time to interrupt from moderator.)
@Craig: Epicurus: if God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent, and doesn’t intervene. (Classic problem of evil.)
Craig: intellectual vs emotional problem of suffering. (He subdivides.) Is the atheist claiming that God’s existence is logically incompatible with the existence of suffering? Waves hands in air: “no philosopher has ever defined the assumptions that blah blah”. Not a substantive response.

How could the atheist know that God would not permit evil and suffering? (This is a fair response.) Maybe evil and suffering are actually good for people and help lead them to salvation. He implies, suffering is worth it for salvation; and we are saved at least partly through suffering.

He pushes for a personal God because Jesus suffers on cross, so… we can relate to him? This is quite Mormony feeling, suffering as valorous. Jesus as a hero who endured suffering, so we can too. Okay, I dig it. But it’s not really an evidence for God?

Hitchens: office of Devil’s Advocate has been abolished; I’m representing him pro bono.
If you make the assumption of a deity, then all things are possible, he grants, a backhanded complement.
Extreme suffering of an imprisoned, tortured woman. Prayers unanswered for 25 years.
Apologist Doug Wilson said God will cancel all that, all those tears will be dried. (Revelation 21:4) He said “You’re perfectly free to believe that.”
Softball from moderator: why are so many people interested in debates like this?
Hitchens: theocratic moment; Iran maybe getting bomb; jihadists ruining Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan; Jewish settlers stealing other people’s land hoping to bring the Messiah; those who don’t want “stultifying nonsense” in schools in the West.

Craig: the fruit of modernity. Enlightenment threw off church and monarchy (is he a monarchist???) through reason, trying to usher in a humanistic utopia. Fruit of naturalistic worldview is that mankind is reduced to meaninglessness, purposelessness, valuelessness. And we’re starting to question it. “I’m part of a revolution in philosophy” as scientific, naturalistic, atheistic worldview has been challenged, and theistic worldview reasserted. Beginning to question the assumptions of modernity, bitter fruits of modernity; looking for a “tremendous renaissance in Christian thinking and Christian faith”.

My conclusion

Lots of simplistic thinking from Craig; also some real points on his side. Everybody is befuddled by their dualism, both Craig and Hitchens, without acknowledging it. The tendency to reduce everything to material causes either in belief (by Hitchens) or in imagination (by Craig) haunts the convo. But maybe moreso by Craig. Is the biological, the evolved, “just” material? Or is it… material, and subjective, somehow both at the same time in a way that nobody understands? Are our emotions “just” emotions, evolved strings by which impersonal forces puppeteer us? Or are they… evolved forces which influence us, and are part of us, simultaneously? Is the expected dissolution of the universe to dispersed, cold matter quadrillions of years from now really… even… going to happen? That’s a very, very, very, very long time from now, yet it guides the thinking of both men.

I grew up in Mormonism but have since lost my belief in the religion, and in a personal God. Now, to hear an apologist like Craig, I get an uncomfortable feeling that the focus is not on truth but on being heard to say certain things that give people confidence that their choice to dedicate their lives to Christianity (perhaps in spite of doubts) is the right one, that it is righteous, and those who disbelieve are really kinda dumb and morally deficient, and should choose to believe even if they… don’t believe. Some of the arguments are real, there is genuine uncertainty to the world and to any worldview. But many are specious hand-waving meant to impress believers more than to convince anyone.

Hitchens I think is too ready to see the natural world in the darkest possible lens, without accepting that we came out of it and are adapted to it. It is our home, as imperfect as we and our bodies and our minds and our societies may be.

I prefer God to be a metaphor; I prefer Christianity as a language for ethics than as a system of salvation; I find this approach makes more sense, and helps me more in the world, than begging an intervening personal God to alter my life circumstances contrary to causality. I tried as much for decades and think it’s unlikely my prayers were heard by anyone or anything other than my own subconscious mind.

Is atheism “just” a lack of belief in God?

A repeated point of contention was whether atheism is its own worldview per se, or merely the lack of a worldview asserting the existence of God.

If simplistically there are two options, 1) God exists OR 2) God does not exist, then the probability of each is the 1.0 minus the probability of the other. The two concepts are in a sense one and the same. The probability of God existing is exactly the inverse of the probability of God not existing.

So in a sense Hitchens is wrong to claim that his lack of belief is so different from Craig’s assertion of belief. They are both a worldview, and relate somehow to the observed world, and to the inverse worldview as well.

Craig is also wrong to say that Hitchens gave no arguments against God’s existence. He did so partly by talking about the related probability of the universe being how it is given that there is or is not a God. (These probabilities are related by way of Bayes’ rule.) By arguing that the world seems more likely given no God than with a God, Hitchens was indirectly arguing that it is more probable that there is no God, given the universe as we observe it. The Bayes’ rule relationship means that increasing P(world | not God) must increase P(not God | world):

P(not God | world) = P(world | not God) * P(not God) / P(world)

The conditional also relates in this simplistic model thus:

P(God | world) = 1.0 – P(not God | world)

So when Hitchens talks about the likelihood of there not being a God, he is implicitly making a claim regarding the likelihood of there being a God; and when Craig makes a claim that there is a God, he’s also making a claim about how likely there is to not be a God. They’re the same question, if you consider those the only two options.