¶1Good. How are you? How are things? >> Good. I'm good.
¶2How about yourself? >> Good. Yeah, doing real well. I got back to Oxford twoish weeks ago, so >> I've just been getting back into routine kind of. >> What's your term look like?
¶3>> I have the rest of this four more lessons of this tutorial that I'm locked into teaching for this coming term, but I'm not going to pick up anything else. I'm just gonna do some dissertation stuff, just my research. Uh because the last three terms I've done a lot of teaching, a lot of course work and not had a lot of time on my own stuff. So I was like, we'll take it easier this term. >> Good.
¶4That's great. That's spectacular. It's exactly what you need to be doing. >> Yeah, that's what I think. That's what I think.
¶5Um but yeah. Yeah. Uh so I was hoping to look at as many of uh the classical theistic arguments or at least Craig's case uh that the the eight or so arguments he gives and yeah >> I imagine there will be overlap in the kind of comments that we make about them but I thought it would be fun to just go through each one. I'll say something, you say something. We go back and forth.
¶6>> Perfect. >> Great. So wait, I guess I should have checked to make sure I got my notes up. Yeah. Right.
¶7Yeah. The first thing I did want to ask you about though before even getting into all that is to give us a behindthe-scenes look at your 2016 debate with William Link Craig. >> I remember watching that. How old would I have been at the time? 17, 17 or 18.
¶8>> And it was quite disturbing to me because at that point Craig was like the number one source of truth second only maybe to the Bible for for me. That was at that period of time in my intellectual >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> And and I thought he lost the debate.
¶9>> I mean, it threw me for a loop. >> Um, so I Yeah. So I found it disturbing, but it was needed, you know, to break me out of whatever kind of like mold I was in. >> Good. Well, I'm glad >> I'm curious effect.
¶10That's good. >> Yes. Yes, it was. It was intellectually formative and positive, although painful at the time. But I'm curious how you prepared for that debate.
¶11like Craig is an excellent debater. He's got PhDs in philosophy and theology. >> How did you do this? >> Basically, I had um I was asked by the folks in the atheist undergrad community at um Ohio State to be a part of this Veraritoss um uh event. and they said there'd be like 2,000 people there and it would be you on YouTube and uh the whole deal.
¶12And I was like, "Yeah, that'd be great." And so they did say, "Look, um remember he's like a serious worldass debater and um you know, are you sure you actually want to do this?" >> You sure you want to do this? That's what they said, you know, and I was like, "No, I appreciate that warning, but I think this will be a good challenge." And um and I'm happy to have it, you know, recorded because I think it'll be good for um me to try to express my own views. I hope it'll be good for Craig to have a interlocutor who um genuinely cares about his view and what it looks like from the inside. And then I also hoped that the YouTube audience would um would respond to it in some way. I thought it would be at least something that would help people think through their um religious convictions with whatever position they were coming from.
¶13And I did the entire thing for the YouTube audience. I didn't do it for him or if they or for the the audience that was there. Obviously, I put way too much information and did everything way too fast for a person sitting there to just listen to it and like respond, you know? So, I didn't do it for the for the folks that were there. I did it really for the for the video, >> for the YouTube audience that could read the transcript, go back over sections, listen to it again.
¶14>> Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that was the right that was the right method. >> Oh, yeah. Cool.
¶15Yeah. Yeah, I had like two months to do it. I um I spent the entire two months working on it, you know, 20 like not 24/7, but as much as I can work, which is, you know, yeah, pretty intensely. >> So, I read um I didn't read all of his books, but I read I don't know six or seven of the main ones. I read the most recent stuff.
¶16>> I listened to his entire six-year podcast. Um, I >> Okay, that is specifically >> that's specifically something I wanted to mention because >> I remember in Craig's like debrief podcast. Yes. On reasonable faith, he said that you came up to him prior to the debate and told him >> told him that you listened all however many years at the time I know of. >> I love the I love the way he like I'm like I go over to him and I'm like bragging about my prep to him is like the way that he painted that.
¶17we just had it like we had to sit next to each other before the thing, you know, and we just sat there and hung out and talked, you know, and um I had told him that I listened to his podcast and that I really appreciated it. And especially, I mean, there was a moment in the podcast where one of Craig's um companions or confidants or is a religious leader is a friend of his, >> but more, you know, more than just friends. um they're you know they they seem to like have a a connection with respect to their faith as well. So >> um he had a horrible family tragedy. you can listen to the podcast and it talks all about it and um and I said that it was really moving to me that that you know those bits and the way that he handled it and the way that it was discussed um and that you know I was asking him how you know he was doing now >> and how his family was doing now and um so I mean I mentioned that I listened to the podcast and as like a as like a in a a sort of preface to me asking about this >> thing that was like really touching to me in the podcast and then it kind of came out.
¶18He he set it off as like I'm some idiot who walked over and bragged to him about listening to the podcast. Whatever. I don't know. >> See, that's funny you say that. I didn't interpret it as you being like obnoxious or an idiot.
¶19I thought you were trying to get into his head to be like, I listened to hundreds of hours of content. I just want you to know that's how I took it. >> That's really funny. Yeah, I there probably was an element of that. I did have a little bit of the sort of um I did have a little bit of um kind of strategic thinking before the debate because I knew I was going to be coming at him hard, >> right?
¶20And I wanted to have an edge to the presentation because I wanted it to expose something that I thought was deeply problematic in his approach and something that's not just deeply problematic as a human thinker, as a rational entity, but deeply problematic as your behavior here on Earth as a as a person living a human life. And um and I knew that if I had dinner with him before, I was scheduled to have dinner with him before. And I knew if I had dinner with the guy before, then I wasn't going to be able to have that edge at all because I' >> I see. >> You know, we'd hang out and chat and it'd be like personalized the whole thing, you know, and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it. I knew there was no way I could do that.
¶21So I I called sick to that um >> I see >> to that dinner um and then did the debate fresh without having chatted with him as like a person at over dinner beforehand. I knew I mean I know myself well enough there's no way I can just do I can't just go like >> right >> go off on some dude who's >> who I've just like had dinner with and been friendly with and shared like family stories and you know I can't do that. So, um, it's just not in me. Uh, so I knew that I wanted a a particular presentation and I knew that I wanted a particular >> style and I wanted to make a particular point and I felt like it would be difficult for me to do it if I hung out with them too much beforehand. >> So, did all that research?
¶22>> Yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say one distinctive feature of your presentation was not only did you attack the intellectual case for Christian theism that Craig develops, but you commented on the negative ethical and moral implications of I don't know what you would say his worldview, his methodology. That I think is where the edge came in. Is that is that kind of what you mean? >> I agree.
¶23Yes, absolutely. >> Yeah. So, so yeah, I my plan for the whole thing was after watching I watched I don't know how many debates of his did I watch on there. As far as I know, there's probably like something like 212 debates that are vid that are videotaped of his that I could find >> in 2016. There's probably way more now, but um I didn't watch them all.
¶24I watched I don't know maybe 50 or 60, something like that. And it was pretty obvious what was the strategy. I mean, he's got canned strategy responses to the same thing every single time. And the >> what happens is the atheist comes in, the atheist has this sort of um condescending attitude, like they're smarter than the theist. And so they're like, "What about the problem of evil?
¶25Like he's never heard of it before, you know?" And then he just crushes them, you know? And the atheist like, "Oh my god, this guy's actually thought about this stuff," you know, and just like gets killed >> over and over and over again, right? I mean, it was just like, you know, I think like, you know, shooting whatever in a barrel and it's uh for him for for for Craig, you know, I mean, he just >> a champion, just absolute champion. >> So, I noticed that and I was like, "Okay, he's not hearing anything from me that he's ever heard before. >> Nothing.
¶26All new. Every single thing I say is brand new. He's never heard it. He's never read it. Nothing ever.
¶27And so >> that's exactly what he did. >> The big move. >> Yeah. So the big move was to put basian uh basianism into the theism atheism debate. It's not a original move.
¶28Lots of people have done it. Um it's I don't claim any originality for it. I just tried it, you know, from scratch like my my way. And um so what I came up with was the the confidence argument for um particular atheisms. I said general atheism I was at 51% like I told you last podcast I revised that and I don't actually believe that now.
¶29But um that's a a fairly I guess small in the in the the view uh change but it has a big you know um kind of consequence change I suppose like not not counting myself as general atheist anymore doesn't mean I'm a theist obviously but >> sure >> I don't think general atheism is tenable. So, so I did that and then I had the com or the um I came up with all of the, you know, trying to calculate the probabilities through his um through his colam argument. That's what he's really known for. That's sort of his baby. And um and so I was like, okay.
¶30So I started playing around with probabilities for the for the assumptions and what you get at the end. And you know, I'm sure as you know, like logical steps that preserve equivalence, you know, so like if you go from um P or Q uh to the equivalent with a with conjunction and negation, right? So you don't have an or in there anymore. It's reversible and that preserves the probabilities um when you make that inference. But when you make an inference that does that's not reversible.
¶31So for example modus ponins uh you lose in some cases not in every case if you're dealing with tautologies you don't but if you're dealing with probab probabilistic statements that are um you you know all this stuff I'm just telling it for your audience um for your uh the the you you lose probability you start with 50% you run through modus ponents you end up at 30% or you know whatever it is I don't remember I'm not I'm not giving you specific numbers I'm just giving you an example of how the probabilities decrease even though you're going through logically deductively valid steps. >> Yes. >> And he's like, "All I want is the premises to be 51%." You know, and I'm like, "Well, that ain't going to do it at all." Like, there's no way that's going to work in any of your arguments. None of them. None of your arguments work then.
¶32And it's just I took it to be a just a technical point that I thought was really obvious. And um he didn't address that in the Q&A really at all. He just pretended like he didn't understand. And I knew he understood because I knew he had just done a podcast and a um a blog post about it. Uh and uh and so I knew he actually understood that stuff, but uh he pretended like he didn't.
¶33And I took the bait and tried to explain it and didn't go. >> Yeah. I I I mean whether he did or didn't I have always thought or at least recently it has been brought to my attention from having him on the podcast talking to him going through various critiques from Dan Lynford about his argument for a beginning of the universe and the way he thinks about probabilities of specific models transferring to the probability of like the whole conjunction of possible models whatever. I don't think he understands probability very well or at least he doesn't spend time caching his arguments out in probabilistically specific and rigorous terms. He prefers to talk about inference to the best explanation >> and to keep it kind of rough and ready.
¶34>> He does not discuss probabilities. And so I think that's a real weakness in his overall presentation, maybe even his comprehension of it. I mean he the most remarkable claim he made to me was if you could show that say of a family of five or six hypotheses you could show that one of them is 40% probable and therefore it's and and that it's quite more probable than each specific alternative even though it's only 40% probable you should believe it because it outstrips each specific alternative >> and he called it a a paradox of uh inference to the best explanation and I thought this is not a paradox Greg, you've just said something false. >> It's a fallacy, >> right? >> Yeah.
¶35>> So, I think you exploited a weakness in his philosophical approach to great effect in the in the debate. >> It was fun. That that part was fun. The fact that I could trace it through every one of his big arguments and have the diagram of all of those things, that was really fun to be able to do. That felt like a big kind of like woohoo moment.
¶36>> Yeah. the um the other sorts of criticisms, you know, the the divine psychology thing I think was the most I felt like that was the most interesting thing that I came up with to my own mind because it it's such a strategic move for the atheist to be like, we're going to give up the problem of evil, right? Bread and butter. our best thing, like literally our best thing, our best move that we have against everybody, like our, you know, that the it's the it's the bat that we pull out every time to whack the theist over the head with, give it up. It's it's invalid.
¶37It's facious. And uh and give up uh hiddenness, too. You know, that's fellacious, too. uh anything that has to do with you know what God would do and blah blah blah you know whatever his reasons to do this and that and you know if you're going to start with those assumptions as just like intuitions uh and then argue to the existence of God that's not valid like I said last time when we were chatting um if you want to argue to a claim about God's uh motivations reasons psychology or something like that from some sort of independent evidence that has nothing to do with those assump assumptions, then great. That's that's not invalid.
¶38That's fine. But um but starting with assumptions about God's psychology justified purely by intuition is what's not okay. >> And so that had I I thought that so that was the thing that I came up with in those two months of prep that had the biggest impact on myself, my own thinking. >> And I took that to be the most interesting thing in the presentation. And I don't know that um I don't know that it was really received that way.
¶39Obviously, you know, when you do a presentation on something, you know, you don't you don't have an objective lens on, you know, what you're doing or how it's going to come across. At least I don't, right? Some people are really gifted at that, right? But I'm not. So, um so yeah, I I didn't know how it was going to come across.
¶40I got a lot of um email afterwards, tons of emails. I still get emails from time to time from people who watch it. >> I'd say I probably get I don't know maybe it's it's it's dwindled down maybe like four or five a year now something like that. >> But right after I got ton dozens and dozens of emails. One was from a guy who was a minister and um lost his faith after watching the video and didn't know how to tell his wife congregation and all this stuff.
¶41It was really >> Oh my god. >> Was insane. I like talked him through. You're like, I'm a philosophy professor, my guy. I'm not a I'm not a pastor, so I'm not pastoral.
¶42>> I did try to say stuff like that, but I also feel like an obligation to I can't just be like, oh, you're, you know, guess what? Change your change. Don't don't believe this anymore. And then like, don't talk to me about it. Like, go piss off and figure it out yourself, right?
¶43I'm not going to have that. So, you know, I I felt an obligation to um not just to him as a person, which I would feel anyway, but I think an obligation to him as somebody who listened to a message that I put out there >> and it affected his life in a major traumatic way to try to like help him through it and get him the like professional services that he needed and all this stuff. >> As far as I know, he ended up quitting his job and getting divorced. So, >> um it was like a real crazy thing. >> Yeah.
¶44Uh, and that that there was a bunch of stuff like that afterward that was I thought um you know an interesting an interesting kind of response. My grad students throughout the the years have you know watched that video and asked me all sorts of questions about it. Undergrads watched it um asked me questions about it in >> um in unrelated courses. Uh but um so yeah, it's like a kind of thing in my career where, you know, I really worked hard for those that couple months and I'd been already working on it. Like it's not like I just did nothing, you know.
¶45I mean, two years before that, I had done a huge religion kick where I was teaching at a a a university at a branch campus at Ohio State where most of the the kids are deeply deeply religious. And it was very very difficult for me to go into that class where you know they're like >> 95% evangelical, probably 60% young earth creationist. >> Wow. >> Um probably a third on the in in the fall. Uh a third had never been in a classroom before at all because they were homeschooled.
¶46So you know these are these are difficulties to try to you know reach an audience. And I and I I found none of my normal tricks worked at all. So, >> okay, >> not not at all, but they didn't they didn't work as well as I wanted them to. So, I did a huge religion kick and I read every religious text that I could think of, you know, starting with the Sumerianss and up going up to the um uh the uh Book of Mormon. Um wow.
¶47>> And I think I stopped there, >> but I did the whole New Testament and Old Testament. They were really impressive. And I I was really impressed by them and I thought, you know, I I put a lot of thought into them and um and then it really helped me when I go into a classroom to use those as as examples from the beginning because then it seems to the students that are that where this really matters for them in their life that I'm not just some outsider who is saying something knee-jerk critical of religion. I have something like I have an understanding of where they're coming from. >> So yeah, that was the bit that I did a couple years before and then the and then I did the the really intensive work on the Craig debate and then I had planned on like publishing that stuff and then >> I was going to say if you're putting on all that work.
¶48>> Yeah, we moved and to Scotland went to St. Andrews right after that. Right. I got the >> I did that prep. This is crazy.
¶49I did that prep about a a month after Allison and I got the um the job offers at St. Andrews. So I did all that stuff in the middle of like selling our house, selling our car, finding a house, getting visas, moving like we had two we had twin premature twin girls at the time that have been that were only like seven months old and uh you know had spent like a month in the NICU because they were premature and so it was a really intense time. >> Yeah. Uh, and then when we moved to Scotland, I was getting um set up to be the director of RK and um and trying to push a conceptual engineering seminar that I taught there for five years and um you know so that was just getting started and I mean it wasn't like now where conceptual engineering is kind of a a common thing.
¶50it it wasn't well known and I felt like I really needed to push it in order to in order to kind of you know do do the sort of PR on it that was required in order for a philosophy idea to get out there and get some traction. So >> so I never really came back to it. Um I've had some I've been doing some work on it the last few months just like playing around with various you know what would a book look like that kind of thing. >> Yeah. Well, if you need anyone to review a manuscript and offer feedback, you do let me know, Kevin.
¶51That would be great. I I think so. I don't know if I mentioned this to you yet, but circling back to the divine psychology objection, I remember think I remember being quite disturbed by that specifically because in the back and forth the discussion portion of the debate itself, I think you got Craig. I think one of in one of the very few instances I've ever seen, he really had no response to you on that point in in the CA it came down to fine-tuning and his point was look at how improbable a life permitting universe is on naturalism or atheism or fill in the blank. Look at the numbers one part in 10 to the 120th power.
¶52It's it's so incredibly small. And you said, but you have to show that it's more likely under theism if this is to be evidentially significant because if it's equally improbable, then fine-tuning or life permitting universe is no evidence one way or another. And he just couldn't he couldn't give it to you. It was almost pretty awkward, I thought, because you just and you did what you needed to do, which was >> Yeah. >> You put the point before him and pressed him.
¶53>> Yeah. Yeah. I set him up for it too at the beginning by asking about the probability of God creating the universe. And um that uh or it was it was either right before that or right after that in a in a little part of the Q&A. And um >> I he said exactly what I wanted him to say about that.
¶54And so then it was easy to go right for the the divine psychology move after that because he would have had to contradict himself to get out of it. >> Right. Yeah. And so, uh, in any case, the point I was getting at that I didn't circle to was I found that move so difficult because I couldn't come up with a good answer to it. And it stayed with me for years um, all the way until I was wrapping up my master's degree and decided to I I had been thinking surely there's an answer to this objection in the literature.
¶55But everything I found was like a couple paragraphs. I thought like woofily insufficient to to deal with it. And so that's what inspired me to write the paper divine psychology and cosmic fine tuning. So I owe that the germ of that to you is uh so I I appreciate you bringing it to my attention and stating it so forcefully. >> Well, I'm so happy that you were able to put it into the literature in such a beautiful way, way better than I would have been able to.
¶56So, I mean, I thought it was really nice that that's uh got some traction and that you were able to, you know, turn that from an idea that has some grip on you as a person into something that hopefully will be part of a conversation uh going forward and also hopefully it'll be good for your, you know, your career personally. So, >> Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I found it very personally edifying and now uh Nathan Bray and I have plans to write a debate book, him and I, back and forth on divine psychology generally. So, it's a gift that keeps on giving, Kevin.
¶57So, thank you. >> I'm excited about that. That's great. No, I'm really happy that that that happened. I I I really felt, you know, there's lots of times in your life or in your professional career where you you study something, you work on something, and you build something, and then you just don't do anything with it.
¶58At least I do. I mean, I don't know how what other people do, but for me, you know, I got dozens of those things just sitting around my head and um and I never ended up doing anything with them and because there's like there's too much good stuff to do and not enough time. And um yeah, so uh yeah, this was one of those things that and I'm really happy that um I'm really happy that it's had um an academic effect and uh and I hope that continues. So yeah, I really appreciate what you've done there. >> Of course.
¶59Well, why don't we uh take a look at some of the specifics and look at as many of the arguments in Craig's cumulative case as we can. Now, the first one is the argument from contingency, the cosmological argument more generally. And the way Craig formulates it goes like this. Everything that exists has an explanation for its existence. The universe exists.
¶60Three, therefore, the universe has an explanation for its existence. Four, if the universe has an explanation, that explanation is God. But then three and four entail. Therefore, that explanation, the explanation for the universe is God. Now, the argument is logically valid.
¶61>> Yeah. >> Overall impressions of this reasoning, I mean, premise one that gets at the idea that something can't just exist for no reason at all. >> Okay. So, let's grant that. And the universe exists.
¶62Great. I can grant that as well. I think the most jarring premise here for people, for at least non- philosophers, is premise four. If the universe has an explanation, it's God. Like, why think that?
¶63Well, >> yeah, that's the obvious. >> The basic >> that's the obvious weak spot. But the the basic idea that Craig gives here is that when we think of what the universe is, it's all of space-time, reality, and its contents. And so, if there's an explanation for why that exists, it can't be anything spaciotemporal or material. And then what Craig says is he can really only think of two things that could fit that description.
¶64Either an unembodied mind or consciousness or an abstract object like a number or a property or an idea. But abstract objects Yeah. But abstract objects by definition, they can't cause anything. So if it's got to be one of those two, it has to be an unembodied mind. And so the idea is if the universe has an explanation, it's a mind outside the universe that's pretty close to God.
¶65Therefore, the >> existence of the universe, whether it's uh began to exist or not, just sheer existence points to an unembodied mind outside of itself. >> Now, Kevin, what do you make of this? >> You can see Yeah, you can see um where you know I so I see a lot of weak spots in this one. The the one that we're going at right now, I think you're right to point at. I mean, just because some guy can only think of two explanations doesn't really mean anything at all.
¶66I mean, that's a sort of appeal to authority or something. I don't know what that is, but um you know, who cares? I I think that if you're going to give an argument that here are the extent explanations that you know, one finds in the literature or something like that, okay, fine. Um this reasoning about something coming from outside of spaceime is the only thing that could cause spaceime I think is not accurate. Um, one concern about any of these sorts of I'm going to use contemporary physics to prove God's existence is that contemporary physics is um currently split and it's not a consistent framework.
¶67Right? So you've got quantum field theory and the uh standard model of um of uh of uh particle physics. And then you've got general relativity and you know some of the other kinds of theories that go with the universe as a whole like multiverse possibly or you know expansion and those things and those go with the the um the fundamental model of um cosmology and those aren't compatible right and this has been known for a long time that you know when you try to put quant I mean it's back when you know try to put quantum theory and general relativity together, you end up with weird infinities and division by zeros and all kinds of, you know, answers that don't make any sense when you try to reormalize. So, um, it's not the case that there's a consistent unified framework for doing physics. In order to get any of those kinds of answers, you have to dodge the division by zeros and the uh and the infinities when you're trying to put considerations about quantum theory together with considerations about general relativity.
¶68Doesn't mean you can't do it. You can, but you have to know a lot of physics to be able to do it properly. And to think about the confidence that you have in those kinds of calculations takes a considerable amount of expertise and none of that's displayed in any of these kinds of arguments here at all. The other bit is that we've got a slide from explanation to causation. Um I know you're not making that slide, but that slide happens in the in the argument itself.
¶69Sometimes it starts with causation and runs straight through with causation. Um rarely does it happen that you run straight through with explanation. Um because you got to get this sort of causal principle about the universe getting a cause outside of itself or something like that. >> The concept so I've already talked about some of these other bits but you know I think one of the deep points here is that the concept of causation is a nightmare is a disaster. So is the concept of explanation.
¶70And you know when you try to understand these things it's not just that you have the normal philosophical issue of like oh well you know we've got some people studying knowledge that think that it's you know externalist and some people studying knowledge that think that it's internalist. It's not like that. It's way more fractured than that. And there's you know what seems to be canonical or constitutive for one crew is um you know genuinely false for a different view. You look at the the theories of explanation as well right?
¶71I mean, explanation is such a giant term and scientific explanation is tied to causation, but explanation in general isn't. There's mathematical explanation, explanation in logic, all these kinds of things. And you might be like, "Oh, well, those aren't real." Fine, but those that needs to be an argument, right? That needs to be some consideration. So, explanation as a concept is for the most part bigger than but just as messy as the concept of causation.
¶72And uh and one should not just reason willy-nilly with what you think to be constitutive principles of these concepts and expect to believe the conclusion. >> Well, it's not clear to me the it's not clear to me why we should think the contingency argument specifically is is predicated upon a certain understanding of contemporary physics. I mean at least ostensibly the idea is that it's so general it just it just relies or predicated upon the existence of the universe. It it doesn't require that it began to exist or the truth of a specific model in cosmology. It's just reasoning about the most general feature possible about the univer about the universe that it exists.
¶73So I guess like which premise do you think is >> predicated on physics? >> The first one the explanation premise. >> Okay. So when you start talking about explanation, you know what? Everything has an explanation.
¶74Well, I mean, okay, in what sense of explanation? What? Everything. Are we talking about objects, events? What's the explanation of an object?
¶75How it was created? Why it ended up there at a particular time? Like what, you know, what's the the entire causal history of the universe is the explanation for the object? I don't know. I don't even know what that means.
¶76And so I mean I know what it means in colloquial speech in a conversation where I'm having a you know I have a particular context and I have a particular person and I'm talking to my neighbor and my neighbor says you know why is that uh rock there? Well, okay. I put it there, you know. But uh yeah, >> but as far as like explanations for objects in just completely abstract terms without talking about a context or a conversation with another human being with particular interests, then I don't know. I don't I I don't even know how to think about that.
¶77That's very difficult to do and it ends up being a very from my point of view unjustified uh set of moves there where you're just like well here's these intuitive inferences having to do with causation. That's that gives away the game in a lot of cases from my point of view. Now you're asking me about my own particular views. I'm I'm giving you something that's deeply idiosyncratic to the way I think about philosophy and defective concepts and life in general as a homo sapien. You know, trying to live a life with a a set of borrowed concepts from whoever raised me.
¶78>> And um >> that's been one of the big kind of challenges of my kind of professional career is thinking through those sorts of issues. But that's idiosyncratic. I don't expect you or your audience to share that. um to share that that you know the sort of urgency of that project rather I'm just telling you one of the one of the things that I find problematic about that about the the argument almost no one thinks about the quality of the concepts that they're using to think with and >> uh and so you know it's not a normal thing to be like well don't think through the concept of causa don't use your your intu intuitions about the concept of causation to argue for the existence of God because that concept is uh an absolute mess and it's you know inherited from previous generations of homo sapiens maybe even from before homo sapiens right god knows where the concept of causation came from maybe it's neandertols or whoever before you know but there I'm already assuming some sort of naturalistic point of view to some extent and so um I don't expect that so I don't expect these considerations I'm providing with you right now to be compelling to a person providing writing a contingency argument. >> Yeah, that's interesting.
¶79I mean, I don't >> Yeah, I I don't have a profound thought about this idea, but I guess my instinct is that we have these pre-analytic concepts, a stock of just intuitively understood concepts. And so even without a successful an a philosophical analysis of the term that captures every seemingly correct instance of it and includes no incorrect instances even even without that we kind of like all know what we mean and if we I don't know if we can do that in everyday life and have conversations and understand what we're saying I guess my default is to think in philosophy we that's how we can engage and if we can't engage like that then I think you're absolutely right that like rampant skepticism is going to result because so maybe all of our fundamental concepts causation goodness even science there's no widely accepted analysis of these terms so if we can't reason and use them but so I mean so would you accept that kind of seemingly uh very very widespread skeptical implication that in so far as we're doing philosophical argumentation there's very little we can say or do because all of the concepts are going to resist resist the fundamental ones will resist analysis. But to me, that seems like a bit much that seems like a bit too much skepticism. >> Yeah, fair enough. Um, I'm sympathetic.
¶80However, I do think that with some analys not not conceptual analysis but with some processing some thinking some co some some cognition you know process about the the defective concept you can come to use it in a confident way that you're not contradicting yourself or your argument isn't relying on the internal contradictions in the concept. Now, in order to do that, you need successors. Uh, and so in the truth example, I mean, that's my my most worked out most well worked out example in my um in my own work. And it's unfortunate that it's buried in a bunch of logic and um complexity. I mean, the logicians took over the truth stuff after Kirky's 75 paper.
¶81And so, you can't make a move there without without doing the logic. But as far as an example goes, you know, it goes like this. you know, okay, well, um, we don't know when we can rely on these constitutive principles for the concept of truth uh, in a conversation. Uh, but if you have the successor concepts, then they can tell you that the there's a concept of safety that you can define using them. And if the sentences you're uttering are safe, then it's uh you can be confident that you're not treading on the internal inconsistency of the concept and you can trust the argument that you're giving.
¶82So there is that it requires successors. I believe that successors are to some extent successor concepts are to some extent interest relative I would say. And so it might very well be the case that one group of people should adopt a certain group of successor concepts to their defective concepts and a different group of people ought to adopt a different group of successor concepts because they have different interests. I'm not ruling that out. That could possibly be the case.
¶83If that's the case, then um then you might end up with disagreements on when it's okay to use the original defective concept. And those disagreements would be conceptual disagreements. So you it's not guaranteed to rule out it's not guaranteed to give you 100% confidence in every case but it gives you a concept or it gives you a an idea or an intuition of confidence that you can apply and in the truth case there's not a good way to count not a good way to count sentences unfortunately but um but the vast majority of the sentences that you encounter in an everyday situation are fine and the vast majority of the arguments are perfectly fine. you know, everything my everything my friend said yesterday was not true. Therefore, I shouldn't trust my friend.
¶84Yeah, fine. No problem. You know, um but but you got to have those successors to be able to make that move. And it's just a big confusing mess until you have the successor concepts. So yeah, I think a limited temporally modified skepticism is to some extent justified, but then as we do more conceptual engineering and do a better job of taking apart the the the understand the defects and the concepts that we have and then providing successors that are relatively consistent compared to the the concepts that we have now, um we'll be able to do a better job of deciding when to use the colloquial defective but still useful concept in a conversation or use the successors.
¶85>> Okay. So, so maybe the idea is that this argument is predicated upon a defective concept and until we have a replacement that does better that isn't defective, we can't really know if there will be some version of the contingency argument which could work under that successor concept. >> That's exactly right. That's a great way to put it. >> Okay.
¶86All right. I have to think about that. Never thought about that before. So, that'll be in the old noggin for a while. Um, >> good.
¶87The point I was making before about science and physics is the explanation point. You know, everything's got an explanation. Okay. Well, >> how are you going to do that? Like, I mean, it it doesn't it's not the case that everything has an explanation within science right now.
¶88That's for sure. Because, like I said, physics is broken. It's got it's got this it's got these two you know to some extent incompatible foundations and we don't you know they each one passes tests uh in its own domain and we don't have enough energy to be able to run tests in the overlap but so we don't know what to think. We don't know which one's right or maybe they're both wrong and there's some kind of underlying theory. You know the same way that like Newtonian mechanics falls out of relativistic mechanics in non-relativistic circumstances.
¶89you know, to be something like that. >> Well, I think that's interesting. I mean, I don't want to get too hung up on one argument of eight, but I would think that the quest to find a quantum theory of gravity illustrates the deep impulse to assume that there is an explanation. The quantum theory of gravity would allow us to explain the incompatibility between quantum physics and general relativity as they >> emerge from like low their low energy approximations of this unified quantum gravity theory. And so the whole the whole >> impetus for looking for a quantum theory is that there must be a quantum gravity theory is that there must be an explanation for the incompatibility and and for the physics of the universe.
¶90So, to me, I I see that as illustrating the the deep-seated need to explain rather than like calling it into question. >> No, that's good. I I think that's totally right. And I think you're totally right about that. We do have a deep-seated need need to explain.
¶91And I think that it's perfectly fine to express that need using our intuitive concept of explanation like you just did. That that's exactly right. And I think that's true. But upon when you when you get down into the details of a particular scientific explanation uh then holding that claim that everything has a particular scientific explanation or a particular kind of explanation that's what's hard to hold on to especially in the face of contemporary science. So I'm with you about the motivation and the impetus that that humans have.
¶92We definitely do and you know I feel it you know just as much as you do. So um I agree 100%. But the but then when you get into the like what is the scientific explanation a lot of times we don't know. We don't know what the explanation is and it's it's okay to not know. It's okay to put it off.
¶93Oh we don't know what that is right now. It doesn't mean you have to be like oh well it's God you know. Um it's fine to not know what it is right now. I think you know given the state of um our ev given our evidential state with respect to physics you know it's perfectly reasonable for us to say we just don't know which one of those is right or how it's going to turn out or you know what'll happen with quantum gravity or or whatever you we just don't know and it's I don't I feel fine saying that and not making the jump to well it has to be God. Um it's okay not having a belief about that explanation right now even if I'm committed to the claim that there must be some explanation about it.
¶94>> I see. So I think that's most germanine to this fourth premise that if the universe has an explanation in this really broad intuitive sense uh then it's God. The >> the fault with that is and I think Michael Humer put this most put this well most recently to me when he said >> in the history of scientific explanation the true theory the true reason for some occurrence of any large scale phenomenon is usually something that we hear too for had not even imagined like nobody even thought about quantum mechanics much less thought it was plausible prior to the 20th century >> and so to me I've always thought well Equals square. >> Yeah. I mean, same with with relativity, right?
¶95I mean, >> what? Yeah, I agree 100%. Sorry. Go ahead. >> And so then when it comes to non-physical realities, if we're granting this assumption that an explanation for the universe has to lay outside it, surely our cognitive grasp on the possibilities are even less.
¶96Um, right. And so I don't see why a principled agnosticism couldn't just be a legitimate response instead of forcing ourselves into one of these two, a mind or an abstract object. I don't see why we should do that. >> Agreed. And given our history of success with respect to scientific pursuits, right?
¶97I mean, it's not the case that, you know, once religion came on the scene, we automatically became vastly better at being able to control and manipulate nature. That's not what happened. But when science came on the scene and, you know, arguably the scientific revolution was just yesterday, you know, 400 years ago or so in the grand scheme of things, not very long. I mean, I don't think that's a very good way to think about the scientific revolution because I think it goes back to the a number of crucial medieval European and um and early medieval Islamic philosophers and um I think it underplays the the the real role that they had plus even back to like you know Plato's challenge about the planets and uh uh those sorts of things. So anyway, I'm the point though is that um science once once you have the scientific revolution and the standard picture of things which is you know 400 years ago in the 1600s or 1500s or whatever then you have dramatic immediate control over nature that has given us just completely unprecedented changes over our planet to the extent that scientists have called this the anthroposine.
¶98uh period where the you know the period of human domination over the entire planet and we've controlled you know to some extent weather patterns and uh large scale structures like >> lakes and uh even you know pathways through oceans and things like that you know th that's a reason to think that um the process of science Science has something to it that's >> that's worth confidence. It doesn't mean you should be confident in every particular pronouncement uh or even any particular pronouncement but as a process that humans are going through together as a team you know and that's really what science is. It's a team effort. You can't do science by yourself. um it's having it the effects that it's had I think justify to a small degree confidence in the method.
¶99>> Well, many of these issues will recur I'm sure for the our second argument. So perhaps we will just have to be a bit shorter on it because it'll overlap. the Kalam cosmological argument, the KCA. This is Craig's central argument and probably contribution to philosophy of religion. And it goes like this.
¶100Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Three. Therefore, I know I'm only saying the numbers sometimes. Three.
¶101Therefore, the universe has a cause. And so, on in defense of the second premise, Craig will give philosophical arguments related to the nature of infinity. and if you have an infinite past that would result in certain paradoxes and those arguments succeed or fail independently of science but then he says scientific evidence does in fact show or confirm anyway the idea that the universe began to exist and so I think looking at premise one that will probably reiterate some of the previous things that we've t talked about this concept of causation but I don't know I mean do you think that everything that begins to exist has a cause in some sense or at least that that's primmaacia plausible? >> No, not at all. >> Okay.
¶102>> Just doesn't that just doesn't strike me as plausible at all. What's the evidence for that? I mean, if I'm if my evidence is just I sat around and thought about it for a bit and it seems true, then okay, I don't think that's evidence. So, um I mean it can be evidence in some sense. It's a data point for sure, you know, and it does tell you something about the way your concepts work and your concepts to some extent represent the world in a more or less accurate way depending on which concept you're talking about.
¶103So yeah, it's a data point. It's not doesn't it's not nothing but um but it's not everything either and you shouldn't rest everything on it. So I mean I think that's an issue. There's another big issue with this one which is the infinity point. um the way okay so now I'm telling you how I remember it from the literature in 2016 maybe he said something about this since then and if that's true then I apologize I I won't I don't know what's happening right now right so but in the literature at 20 in 2016 um he was defending an arisatilian notion of the infinite where you have potential infinite and actual infinite And um an actual infinity is impossible, but a potential infinity is not impossible.
¶104And so the arguments for a potent for an actual infinity being impossible are the sort of Hilbert's Hotel arguments that you know were present in the early 20th century and ear like late 19th century and motivated the big change in the mathematical theory of the infinite. uh you know the concept of the infinite was causing all sorts of problems in mathematics and led to a a real crisis in mathematics in the 1800s and um you know boiler is a good example in the beginning of the 1800s and you know the difference between um you know different kinds of convergent series um and then but once you get the late 1800s we get a new mathematical theory it gets a logical foundation in the early 1900s and then we've you know pretty much got ZFC see as that's a Frankle set theory as the the um pretty widely accepted uh basis. I mean ZF is the the Frankle C is the the accent of choice where you know that's a bit more controversial but but it doesn't really matter. The main point is we've adopted we humans who are experts in mathematics. I'm not counting myself among them, but the the the math folk, the experts in math have adopted a particular view on the infinite and have for over a hundred years now.
¶105And it has nothing to do with potential and actual infinity. It's that there's lots of different kinds of infinity. And uh the 1 2 3 4 5 forever one is the smallest kind of infinity. the you can prove that the the numbers uh the real numbers don't have that class of infinity. They have they're bigger in some sense.
¶106And how much bigger? Well, it depends on whether assumptions you want to make. And it's a whole ridiculously complicated thing. Thinking about the ordinal hierarchy and the cardinal hierarchy, you know, there's that was one of the things that I loved when I was in math. I mean uh that was one of my favorite things about um about mathematics was the you know thinking through that those the the effects in topology of those um those structures and uh the question you know how many how many kinds of infinity are there?
¶107Infinitely. Infinitely many for sure. Well, which one of the kinds of infinity describes how many kinds of infinity there are? None. Oh no.
¶108Oh no. So um and so you know you can do a ridiculous amount of math with a very small number of infinities. And um so yeah, I mean I think that the the whole argument here is you know se sort of se 18 17th or 18th century 19th century argument that um if you want to update it and and give a a proper account of infinity using you know transfinite set theory and then let's look and see if the argument is valid cool. But no one's done that that I know of. So I I think I more or less agree with you and I think that I have to think the vast majority of philosophers including philosophers of religion who've looked at specifically his philosophical arguments against infinity and for a beginning of the universe reject those ones.
¶109I mean even like the causal finitists like Alexander Puce or Josh Rasmmanson they're developing way more sophisticated arguments which maybe you think fail but they're far more sophisticated. They don't make these far-reaching claims about the non-existence of infinity anywhere. Still, against this concern with set theory, here's how Craig would probably reply. That you're describing a realm of mathematics. And he doesn't want to say that that's illegitimate or that it's fine to have this kind of conceptual existence of infinity where we explore the transfinite cardinals and their various properties and so on.
¶110But that none of that implies that there are real physical quantities in the world that correspond to those conceptual possibilities. That's probably the best remark that he could give is that yes, there's kind of this consistent existence of infinity in the mathematical sense if we adopt certain assumptions, but in the real physical world, those assumptions don't hold. And there's no reason to think that the series of past events or the extent of space in the universe could actually correspond to these mathematical notions. Even if the mathematician can sit at his desk and engage in all sorts of like mental explorations of this realm, that by itself doesn't give us a reason to think that the physical world could correspond with that mathematical realm. Yeah, I think that's um I think that's fine, but it doesn't there's two parts to the to a response I guess that I would have.
¶111One would be it doesn't really address the objection. The objection is that the argument doesn't go through. Uh it's an invalid argument using an an antiquated view of infinity. If you want the argument to work, then you need a contemporary view of infinity in order for for anyone to find it convincing unless they don't know anything about a contemporary view of infinity. And that's not somebody you should be trying to convince.
¶112your your target audience should be someone who's maximally knowledgeable. So um not that you can't convince people who aren't obviously but you know your standards here are are are set. So um so I in one sense this this reply doesn't do anything to the objection but in the second sense um I think it's also just not justified. So for example um there's lots of mathematical models that we use in science that um have uh infinite dimensions in them. So one example that I like is the mathematical model of uh ocean waves which treats the ocean as infinitely deep.
¶113If you don't treat it as infinitely deep it doesn't work. Do we think the ocean's infinitely deep? Nope. But the mathematical model that we're using to predict waves at least in certain cases and this is probably you know old science that came from an example from like 10 years ago or something like that. So you know don't quote me on what they're doing today in oceanography but um but that's just an example from the history of science that's fairly normal.
¶114And now then you take that and you apply it find another example which would be many of the models of the observable universe treated as the universe as infinite in in extent. Right? many, not all, but many. And so, um, so you're going to tell me that the models that we use, the best models that we use of the universe that treat it as infinite in extent in certain dimensions imply that the universe is not infinite or can't be. >> Right.
¶115>> Right. Right. Right. Well, he accepts that. Yeah.
¶116He'll say, "Yep." >> Yeah. So, I don't buy that at all. I need to see the argument I need to see the argument augmented with transfinite set theory to see exactly >> where it breaks or if it doesn't break then great that would be I think a huge accomplishment you know a massive accomplishment if you could run that with proper not not like one of the problems with trans transparent set theory is there's sort of like pop descriptions of it and then there's like how the math actually works and you can't try Same thing with like gervone completeness and halting problem and those sorts of things, right? There's like pop versions of it and you can't trust the pop version of it. You have to trust the technical version of it.
¶117And so you actually have to learn a bit of the tech to do it. Not it's not a lot, but you have to learn it. So you can just be careful and understand like what's a move and what's not a move. And um it's easy to make it's easy to make mistakes with that stuff. You know, when I teach this stuff, it's like, you know, I'll catch myself making a mistake or a student will be like, "That's not right." You know, like oh yeah, it's right.
¶118Yeah. And you know it's so complicated and even experts make mistakes you think through it. So yeah. >> Yeah. I found transfinite arithmetic like terribly fascinating.
¶119I've got a paper that is close to being published. So knock on wood and fingers crossed where yeah it looks at like the thesis of an unsurpassable world. So it it takes the theistic multiverse which is a conversation philosophy of religion and kind of abstracts it from the theological context and just says okay let's consider this proposition that a possible world with every possible universe in it above a certain level of value would itself constitute the best possible world. Well I thought that's just a fascinating thesis to examine in its own right. But one of the chief objections to it is what I called the problem of cardality of h how many universes denotes all possible universes.
¶120How many is that? Well, it turns out that every single possible transfinite cardality is insufficient. There's always going to be more possible universes than that. And so then you explore the question of what if they're absolutely infinite? What if they surpass every single cardinal and and you think is that even coherent?
¶121Anyway, agree with you. I've I've had to have a few mathematicians look it over to make sure I'm not making like fundamental errors because you need that. It's just so complex. >> It is. I think that's exactly right.
¶122And it's so easy to just make mistakes because your your intuition leads you astray in a lot of these kinds of cases and in a technical area. You just can't trust your intuition in a lot of cases. You have to you have to learn the math and learn the rules and actually follow those. So >> that's I I agree with you. I think it's it's that's that's you know exactly what's needed um for this literature is to is that level of precision.
¶123>> Yes. But that's never been done in the infinity cases with respect to Craig's arguments for the infinite. >> I haven't seen that. I've heard of various folks, you know, I've talked to various people who are doing PhDs on stuff like this at various times >> over the last 10 years. you know, hey, I'm going to do like the colom with proper transfinite set theory as my dissertation.
¶124You know, I think I probably talked to like three or four people who said they were working on that. >> Yeah. >> But I haven't seen anything like that, you know. Um I haven't seen anything like that come out. And you know, it's tricky.
¶125It's not the easiest thing in the world to get that stuff done. So, >> no. No. And maybe they did it and realized it couldn't be done. >> Yeah, maybe.
¶126Uh that would be my expectation is that there's just there's no way to do it. But um but I you know I don't know I've never thought through it uh in detail. I mean I can think through it right now and be like I don't see how it's going to work but that doesn't mean anything you know. >> Sure. >> Don't that's don't trust me.
¶127Don't just take that with a grain of salt you know. >> Yeah. No. Fair enough. Moving on to everyone's favorite argument, the fine-tuning argument.
¶128This is the way I'll articulate the way that Craig the frames the argument. It's not my favorite by any stretch of the imagination, but this is how he does it. It's very well known and somewhat in popular culture. One, finetuning is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. Two, it is not due to physical necessity or chance.
¶129And three, therefore, it's due to design. Now very succinctly stated fine-tuning refers to the fact that various parameters of physics are such that if you change their values even a small bit up or down the physics that results in the universe is completely inhospitable to life. So a very vivid illustration is the cosmological constant. One of the contributing factors to the expansion rate of the universe. Now, I always screw this up, but if the cosmological constant is just a bit larger, then the whole universe blows up far too quickly for gravity to get a foothold on gas and interstellar materials to form planets and galaxies and so on.
¶130So, you just have a big diffuse gas and life obviously can't exist in those conditions. If it's slightly smaller, then then the the gravitational force of attraction wins out in the end and the universe collapses back in on itself well before life could evolve. So you have this extreme sensitivity in the various parameters of physics. And the question then becomes why do these various constants and initial conditions, the strength of fundamental forces and masses of particles, why do they all take on values that fall into the very narrow life permitting range relative to their seemingly possible huge range of values? And so then what Craig is saying is there's three explanations.
¶131Physical necessity, it had to be that way. Chance, just we got lucky. Or design. And it can't be the first two and therefore it's designed. All right.
¶132Yeah. >> All right. With that setup, Kevin, what do we what do we think? >> Why can't it be the first two? Let's get the >> Okay.
¶133>> Yeah. So, I think Craig's consternation with physical necessity is that now I don't think they're any good. So, I do think the fine-tuning argument is good to to clarify. I don't think Craig's defense of it is good. But he says that, >> right?
¶134He says that well, you know, the science indicates that they're not physically necessary. You know, our our best attempts at a quantum theory of gravity like string theory, they allow for 10 to the 500 different possible physics, different possible universes. And so it seems plausible that that these quantities are in fact not physically necessary. And oh, the other point that he'll make is that while you might think there could be a necessitating explanation of physics, a deeper physical theory that entails the values of the constants, the strength of forces, the the masses of particles. Nevertheless, there could never be a physical theory that explains or necessitates the initial conditions, the way the universe started at t equals z.
¶135And many of those conditions are fine-tuned. So he thinks there's just kind of a category mistake in thinking about physical necessity with respect to initial conditions. Those are two of the things he's said over the years. >> Um and then with Chance >> there's a category mistake or is that we just have evidence that it's that it's not that those would be two different moves. >> I think it it's not that Craig is maximally clear on this point.
¶136So I'm interpreting him. Um, and what I think he's meaning to say is that scientific explanations proceed by way of showing how a condition at t equals 0 evolves via a dynamical law to the present state. So if you want to explain the universe today, you can show how the initial condition of the universe in conjunction with the laws of physics gives you that the present condition. Um, or just more generally, you explain any state of the system today based on its state at a prior time. You plug that into the equation.
¶137the equation tells you how it evolves into the present state and that gives you an explanation. >> Well, if you go all the way back to truly initial conditions, you can't apply that model anymore, that model of scientific explanation because there's no prior conditions that you could appeal to and then a dynamical law into which they evolved. This is just the beginning. This is it. >> So, I think that's what he's saying.
¶138>> And then the the chance one is um everything happens for a reason, so it can't be chance or something like that. I think in this context he just says the chance is just so the the the probability of getting a life permitting universe of all these constants taking on these values by chance is just so hideously low it can't possibly be right >> now I think that's facious but that is what he says >> yeah that's no good so I think the first move is um the first part of this we know in the um you know it can't be um structural um or necessary or what have you. You know, it's not it wouldn't be u metaphysically necessary anyway, but it would be like what nomologically necessary or something along those lines. So, um that I see absolutely no reason to think is true. Again, we don't have a complete theory of physics.
¶139We have two to some extent incomplete and incompatible theories of fundamental physics. And we can't make claims like this in this situation. I mean, I just think like anytime you're like, science tells us that P I mean, it's just not how it works. And um I don't know. So, so I'm super suspicious of anything like that.
¶140This initial conditions versus um versus uh physical constants distinction isn't obvious like that that's going to be a distinction in the successor theory. So, I don't know why that we we we can make those kinds of arguments. And again, it just kind of goes back to the like urgency. You know, I got to have an explanation now. You know, it's got to be God, but there can't be anything else.
¶141Yeah. I mean, this is a big it's a you know, a big thing, you know, what you know, how do we think about the beginning of the universe and how do we think about the origin of the universe? And it's not the case that I have some like, you know, brilliant answer that's going to be compelling to people. But it's okay to not know. I don't know.
¶142It doesn't it's not the case that any of the explanations that I've seen are super compelling and the scientists that talk about it tell you straight up, we don't know how that started. We don't know what happened back before a certain period of time. And um so if you're deferring to science, that's what they say. And the whole idea of I mean I just want to take a like quick aside on the big bang, right? Like it's not the case that science has a model called the big bang where the whole universe is a single little point and then it explodes and becomes the universe.
¶143That's not true. That's not what's happened. Instead, what's true is we can see that the universe is expanding and in all directions. And the only model of universal expansion in all directions is if you have a particular uh time when things were closer together and we can map and model them being closer and closer and closer together to a certain point. It's like you know 10 the minus 35 seconds after you know the big bang.
¶144The big bang would be when they were all at one point but that's but we don't have models of that. Our scientific models break down before that. they break down at, you know, we can tell like kind of if they kept going, here's what would happen. And then we get, you know, inconsistencies and infinities and sort of stuff like that. So, we have a model that says everything in the universe was really, really, really close together at one point back in time.
¶145Was it a single point? Doesn't say that. We don't know what happened before that. Was there a big bang? Doesn't say that.
¶146We don't know what happened before that point in time. They're all broken. That theories don't work. is silly to think that we have any kind of clue about what happened before that because none of our best theories work at that point. So when you talk about the big bang, it's easy to misinterpret it as a scientific theory.
¶147It's not it's we know that everything was really close together. If you keep following that logic back, then it was just like one little point that exploded. But that's not there's no scientific evidence for that, if that makes sense. So I think this is a crucial distinction in thinking about what science tells you about the beginning of the universe. We, you know, we can trace it back pretty far, but we don't trace it.
¶148There is no scientific model of the beginning of the universe. It's there just isn't one. Now, in your response to Craig's critique of like the chance option where he says this just is just too improbable. You know, some of these constants are fine-tuned to like one part in 10 to the 90. One part in 10 followed by 90 zeros.
¶149Surely that can't just happen by chance or more. Exactly. But the critical insight is that we would only be justified in inferring to a non-chance hypothesis in this case if it were both anticedently plausible, not terribly intrinsically unlikely itself, but also if it made the outcome more likely than the chance hypothesis. So this is something we said before. And so your point was that fine naturalism that ascribes these constant values to pure chance uh it's it has an extremely low likelihood on this naturalistic hypothesis.
¶150But why should we think that it's any higher given theism? Now, I'm just very curious because we've we've talked about this a few times and and we've spoke about it in a debate debate context, but in so far as our hypothesis is like the omniod, if that's what we mean by theism, that God is all powerful, all knowing, and perfectly good, why do you think we're like completely in the dark about what that hypothesis might predict? And so specifically in this case, why do you think it's so difficult or even impossible to ascribe a higher likelihood of a life- permitting universe on theism so defined compared to naturalism? >> Okay, good. So I think there's two points here, two issues.
¶151One is you're taking the definition of God to be the omnisient, omni omnipotent and um omni benevolent, which I think is super controversial. I mean there's lots of folks who count themselves as theists who don't believe in such a god. But moreover, one might expect an argument for the existence of God on something really bare minimal like you know something that created the universe or something like that and then you argue for those particular feature. I know you know this. I'm just hoping out the audience.
¶152And then you argue for those particular features, you know, omnipotent, omnisient, whatever. Um, that's a standard way to go because it seems like a pretty honest way to go. If you're going to assume that God has all those features at the beginning, then it's pretty easy to prove that it's a lot easier prove that he exists, you know. Um, I'm not saying it's easy, but it's easier. Okay.
¶153So, that I would be worried about that from the beginning. But then the the big thing is um, you know, why would why would that god, an omnisient, omnipotent, omnibent god want there to be life in the universe? I just don't get that. I don't see that. Why Why not prefer a universe that's lifeless?
¶154I I just have absolutely no intuition one way or the other. The concept of goodness doesn't push me toward one or the other. Omniscience, omnipotence, neither of those push me together. I see no synergistic reaction between those um properties that would get me to God wants life. Mhm.
¶155Well, do you grant that under theism so defined where God is perfectly good that that would make God sensitive to axiological considerations? That could that is to say, God would evaluate whether or not to create a state of affairs in part based upon and maybe solely based upon its its moral value or its axiological value. The more morally valuable a certain state of affairs, the more likely a morally perfect being would be to actualize it. And this is kind of the intuition that drives an argument for atheism which says that you know if God is morally perfect and omnibalent specifically and if he has all power then he would create a perfect world he would create the best possible world. Our world clearly isn't that.
¶156Now there are issues with that argument I think but I I do think it's plausible that if God is if you have a being that's perfectly good then they'll be sensitive to axiological considerations. And when we understand the the unique value that attaches to conscious agents and the moral goods that only they can bring about as opposed to kind of like a lifeless barren universe with the beauty of the Grand Canyon, but there's nobody around to see it. It seems to me like conscious agents are kind of at the pinnacle of our of our abil the things that we can grasp that have moral value. Agents are at the top. And so if if if an agent if a if a if a god really is morally perfect, seems plausible to me that they would create a universe where that kind of pinnacle moral good can come about because then otherwise I'm just not really sure what moral goodness for God even amounts to.
¶157>> Yeah. No, I think that's I think that's a nice way to put it. Um, and I I feel like that's a um it's probably a really natural way to to think through it, but I don't agree that um conscious organisms in the world is objectively better than no conscious organisms in the world. And um so I just don't buy that. I I just don't see why that would be the case.
¶158And um and if we're going to make that argument, my guess is that argument is going to have a bunch of hidden assumptions in there. And then now those have to be listed as part of the overall argument, right? So um and so those are all going to be weak spots in my view because for example, the concept of consciousness is itself, um I mean I don't want to keep going back and harping on this defective thing. So don't even put it in my terms. Just put it like this.
¶159Uh there's a lot of disagreement about the concept of consciousness. Chalmers thinks it's one way. Cognitive scientists think that it's something else. You know, can you have empirical evidence for consciousness of an entity that's not you or not? You know, for from the the deep problem folks, you know, the Chalmer's folks, it seems like the answer is no because of the possibility of zombies.
¶160And so um it's inevit it's it's it's undeniable that you're conscious from the from your own perspective obviously from the Schalmer's people but um from a third person perspective on somebody else it's there is no it doesn't seem at least that there'd be good evidence for there to be you know yes versus no there whereas cognitive scientists are using it in a very different way and they're looking for all sorts of different evidential cues and like thinking about self-consciousness as having a model of yourself that you use to differentiate things that happen to you versus things that you do. So when you start running, you don't think that the whole world is blowing by you. You know, you're doing it because you've got a model of yourself, right? There's a difference between uh something that you yourself are causing versus the world, you know, acting on you. That's a crucial distinction.
¶161And if you don't have a concept of self and consciousness, then you can't do that. So I'm, you know, which way is the right way to think about it? I don't know which which one of those is the is valuable. Neither. I just don't see why either of those would be morally good.
¶162>> Yeah, I guess some of my hang-ups or my response to that would just be my hang-ups with the our our like metaphilosophical differences here where I I do think we just have a grasp an intuitive grasp on these concepts and these notions and that it would pro it would be impossible to devest ourselves of them in phil philosophical context or otherwise. And so I would just say like whatever it is consciousness turns out to be that is the thing that allows for all of these morally valuable states of affairs like love and joy and friendship and contemplation and achievement. Like it seems like past a certain point maybe even all moral goods maybe not aesthetic goods but all moral goods presuppose consciousness and agency. And so to me that puts that puts conscious agents in a category unto itself. So that if I'm asked to place to to place a bet on how likely it is that if God creates a universe, a perfectly good being creates a universe, how likely is it that they would construct it such that consciousness and agency is possible.
¶163Well, there I'm I'm a lot more confident than any other like very specific kind of good because of this exceptional status attaching to it. So that was interesting that you said that a world with conscious agents or universe with conscious agents isn't better or more valuable than one without. What do you mean by that? Because to me I'm like oh but it so obviously is but so I'm I'm just curious what >> Oh, I get that. Yeah.
¶164>> Yeah. So for me um I don't assume that folk psychological phenomena require a conscious consciousness in the the hard problem sense from >> so otherwise zombies would have no um mental states at least no um no uh uh folk psychological mental states And so if folks like psychological mental states like beliefs and desires and such require consciousness then um I don't see how that argument is supposed to go through. Moreover, it's not clear to me in dealing with AI and I agree I'm bringing in a big consideration here when I'm talking about dealing with AI. But in dealing with AI, I do feel like it makes sense for us to distinguish between having representational states that are functionally integrated, like having a belief, versus having something that feels from the inside like a belief. And um I think those might very well be two different things.
¶165And if they are, then they need to be tracked separately. And if that's the case, then it's not clear to me that agency, as you described, requires consciousness. agency as you know deliberate action that's not just passively um accessible but even actively accessible as something performing morally good or bad actions. It's not clear to me that that thing requires a consciousness in the chalmer's >> hard problem sense >> in the cognitive scientist you know can you recognize yourself in a mirror type thing you know >> um that's not the only one but I'm kind I'm being you know facitious in that characterizing it that way but that's like the yeah >> you know the the spirit of the types of things that cogs folk are after there I'm much more sympathetic to that and if that's the case then yeah sure but Uh, but that's very different than than consciousness. It's just a, you know, physical thing that you're studying in, you know, certain animals.
¶166>> I guess my off-the cuff response would be that if >> Sorry, my dog's barking. Oh, you're fine. >> Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. that would be that if AI agents or artificial intelligence generally doesn't have consciousness in broadly understood in the way that we mean then there's no way for any of the products of its activity to have moral significance or for it to ever be morally responsible for those things.
¶167And so if if you take that out, well then, you know, nothing they can do can have that moral dimension. Whether or not they have maybe agency more broadly, they wouldn't be able to realize morally significant outcomes if there's, for example, no internal sense of eye to these agents or no awareness or choice involved in what they're doing. And so and I know these are all like very difficult notions to define in the first place. >> That's so tricky. I know.
¶168Like that's so like all of those everyone that you just said is so brutal and it's so tricky to like try to >> try to negotiate those because each one of those they all come apart from one another, you know. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead. >> Right. >> Well, I I guess so then I would just say like maybe we can we can sidestep that to to be honest because there's something that is required as a substratum for moral significance.
¶169>> Yeah. you know for for the uh love and kindness and relationships and joy connection between agents themselves conscious agents or between God and whatever is the realizer of those those those values >> sure >> perhaps we don't need to identify it strictly with this narrow concept of conscious agent >> and we could just say fine call it X call it >> the the substratum of these things X. Well, in so far as like we have some grasp on what that is, you know, it incorporates AI and and agency in that context or lack thereof. Seems like that might obtain there even though it's not strictly conscious. Well, it seems like in order to get that, you still need fine-tuning.
¶170So maybe we should just then talk about fine-tuning for X. And in so far as changes to the constants and initial conditions give you a universe without like anything at all. They don't give you X this broader category either. Perhaps that is the way to move forward in light of the ambiguity because you wouldn't even get a you wouldn't get AI systems in a universe where the cosmological constant took on a value radically different from its present value. So that that would be at least where my thinking I agree that's probably true.
¶171>> Yeah, I'd have to see those considerations and I think that's a really nice project that you just laid out. Um okay, >> I would love to see that done in detail. uh and yeah if that's the case you know I mean another way to do this project is also to think about um you know the core concepts uh um you know project coming out of uh Harvard where um you know we it's not the case that we have innate knowledge but we definitely have concepts that are built into our minds in a certain sense and some of them are numerical some of them are agency concepts cepts and some of these other ones are certain ways. And then it provides you with, you know, if you think of these concepts as at least built in for the vast majority of homo sapiens, then it provides you with a way of studying the connections between them and which kinds of um assumptions about agency have been productive and helpful enough for our species to be encoded, hard encoded into our brains. um that is compelling to me at least and so that would be a different way of going about a similar kind of project uh would be from this sort of um you know origins of concepts uh >> uh core core I mean it's called core concepts now I think in the the the research tradition I I don't I haven't kept up with it the last five or six years but that's one of my favorite um my one of my favorite traditions in the psychology of concepts.
¶172>> Well, very good. Um, we have about a half an hour left, so we'll take these at somewhat of a quicker pace, though we still want some depth. >> The fourth argument is the argument from the applicability of mathematics. Yeah. >> And the way Craig puts it, I always found rather bold and brass.
¶173But one, if God does not exist, the applicability of mathematics is a happy coincidence. Two, the applicability of mathematics is not a happy coincidence. Three, therefore, God exists. So it has the virtue, I think, of being logically valid. So that's nice.
¶174>> It does. That's true. Great. >> But it exactly we do. But it doesn't really bear on its face the like subarguments which are very critical to evaluating it.
¶175Um well okay so very briefly right I like him introducing the happiness as an additional assumption like what if it's a coincidence it's not happy you know oh well >> right like >> my favorite >> no I know I know I just I do not understand the like informal nature of this argument why he went for that but anyway so the applicability of mathematics is very much related to fine-tuning it's less about like >> the fact that we have a universe where morally significant outcomes are possible like life but rather we have a very aesthetic universe. The structure of physics is shot through with mathematics. The universe seems to have a rich mathematical structure to it which makes its cotification in physical laws and equations possible. Newton's law of gravitation, the Einstein field equations, the Schroinger equation, they're all rather elegant and they have a certain mathematical structure that apparently maps onto the universe. And the question is why?
¶176Why? It could have just been complete chaos or a simple reality in any case, something more akin to maybe the same Minecraft that does not have the rich mathematical structure of Einstein's general theory of relativity. So I I think the intuition is that you know if you've got God then this is the way I guess that would be the way that I would put it. But the way Craig says it is God's got power. He's got the power the ability to make a universe according to a mathematical blueprint.
¶177Whereas under the leading atheistic alternative of naturalism, there's just no explanatory resources there to to to tell you why or to make it likely that we'd have a universe like this with so much rich mathematics. >> Yeah. Good. >> That undergur it. >> This is interesting.
¶178>> I like this argument because I I mean I don't like it as an argument. I think it but it is a fruitful argument in a sense that it makes you think about things in a kind of different way. And so I like that I like thinking through this one. Um the so from my perspective um there's a mistake here in assuming that if a scientific theory applies if a scientific theory does a good job of describing its topic and it uses math then the world that it's describing has that math built into it somehow. I think that's false.
¶179Um so for example Newton uh not only came up with his mechanics but he invented a version of calculus to be able to utilize it right that's beautiful and incredible and elegant and gorgeous and whatever superlatives we want to use to throw it on that same list with the Schroinger equation and everything else. So but here we know for a fact that um Newton's uh mechanics is false and we know that's not true. uh Mickelson Morley experiment in the late 1800s gave us a big shot and freak out about it and then we end up with 1905 the special um special relativity as a a direct competitor and uh and a better theory a better a better one. So now does that mean that our current theories are true? No, I don't.
¶180It's not I don't see any reason to think that our current theories are true um in the sense that they accurately reflect reality. You know, does it you know, is quantum theory true? I don't know. I just have no idea, right? I don't see how we can make any decision like that.
¶181It does really well. it works great um in various cases and you can think about you know an analysis of the evidence but um but this whole idea that because science works well the world must be built out of math I don't just don't think that's right >> but even the Newtonian mechanics was not thrown away completely in the advent of general relative relativity rather its domain of applicability was just narrowed from everywhere down to a certain range but within that domain it still works to describe phenomena quite well. So I wonder if >> and this is similar to what Craig said in his conversation with Graham Offy on mathematics is that those equations of motion in Newtonian mechanics do still accurately describe say the the propulsion of a spaceship from Earth over to Mars. You can still model all of that with Newton's equations. And in that respect, there still is like a mathematical relationship describing the path of the spaceship onto the planet.
¶182So I guess I guess what I'm gesturing at what I'm grasping at is like surely there is something here that's mathematically describable and and that thing that we're talking about >> Newtonian mechanics can be used to provide you know uh you know to map out a successful you know um spaceship trajectory like you just said. Yeah, you can do that. >> But the answers that when you ask Newtonian mechanics or you do a calculation using Newtonian mechanics about the features of that system, >> its answers are false. >> They're close enough to true from what we understand from Newton or from Einstein. >> If taking Einstein as the truth, you know, they're close enough to true to work.
¶183They're the differences are negligible, >> but the answers are false. >> Yes. So if you I guess what you mean is the true answers would be there like the answers you get from Einstein's general theory of relativity within the domain of applicability for phenomena that fall within the domain of applicability for Newtonian mechanics are basically the exact same answers but they differ ever so slightly in like the 10th or 12th decimal or something like that. >> They differ negligably. Yeah.
¶184For your purposes they're negligible. >> Yeah. But I guess isn't there still some sort of mathematically significant relationship in the actual physical phenomena themselves? >> I mean, if you think of the phenomena as obeying those mathematical relationships exactly, then that's just not true. They don't.
¶185They're close, >> right? >> But they just don't. >> I think the reply I did not fully understand from Craig was approximate truth is enough. The theories are approximately true. >> That's where you have to go.
¶186That's the the the natural way to go here and I think that's exactly where you have to go now. Good luck with that. >> What's the account of approximate truth? I mean, oh my god, nightmare. Uh I don't know an account of approximate truth that works very well.
¶187I've thought about this kind of project for my entire career and you know having worked on like I wrote a book on truth. I've written like you know dozens of papers on truth you know so sure and I also care deeply about science scientific method obviously I've thought about approximate truth but I don't know how to make that work at all and I don't think the views in the literature work very well and I don't know I mean it's a it's an important concept and I think it's very intuitive and I think you're absolutely right that there's a huge demand for it but it's not clear to me that any of the extent theories are even plausible at all and though. Um, I mean, look, we're talking philosophy, so you know, every theory is swimming in a sea of counter examples, but this is especially bad. Yes. Okay.
¶188So, this one we probably can make shorter work of because it overlaps with lots of things we've said, but the argument from consciousness, which again, Craig gives the most idiosyncratic formulation of this argument I've ever seen, but that's okay. Uh number one, if God does not exist, intentional states of consciousness do not exist. Two, intentional states of consciousness exist. Three, therefore, God exists. So here obviously the pivotal concept is an intentional state of consciousness.
¶189The most easily understood example is just a thought. A thought has content. A thought is about something. So if I think about this cup right here, the cup is the content of my thought of this mental event. And the thought is of or about the cup.
¶190That's intentionality. There's an object directedness to certain mental states. And I think it's less an argument that he gives, but he just kind of points to it and says that's a puzzle from a naturalistic perspective. It's very very strange. If if naturalism say entails that consciousness resides in the brain or is identical as some sort of brain state, then thoughts themselves as a certain mental state, those would have to be brain states or physical states somewhere.
¶191And it's very strange to say that there's a physical thing that's about something else that has content. He doesn't really even give that argument. That's one I give. I'm build I'm buffing now. But that that's the idea.
¶192Um, and so the point would be if if God does not exist and therefore naturalism is true, then we wouldn't have intentionality like this at all. Such a universe, such a reality would just be devoid of of intentional states of consciousness. But of course, it's undeniable that we have them. I thinking about this cup, so therefore, God exists. All right.
¶193>> Yeah. >> There we go. >> All right. So I like the way that you laid out the the object directedness, the intentionality, the sort of you know um that that idea is really prominent in western philosophy and I think rightly so. We have also had a major difficulty coming up with naturalistically acceptable theories of content and there's like a a whole a whole uh soap opera associated with that that extend through the 70s 80s and 90s and still is going on today.
¶194Although there's a lot less work on that than there was then a lot less optimism now than there was then um you know back in the heyday of like photos uh asymmetric dependence stuff is what I'm thinking of basically. Um, so yeah, I mean, how do we naturalistically explain content? I don't know. I I don't think there's a good we don't have a good explanation for that right now. Um, I think it's the hardest thing in philosophy, honestly.
¶195Um, to have a an an explanation of kind of have to be naturalistic because like when we say naturalistic there, I think that it's going to you're there people mean different things by it. you know, am I providing a particular kind of explanation, like a reductive explanation? Good luck. Am I appealing to stuff that's like not supernatural? Okay, fine.
¶196Do I have some kind of like consistency or continuity with the sciences in some sort of methodological way? Okay, but those are all different and they pull apart in different ways, right? Scientists typically don't give uh uh reductive theories of what they're giving theories of, at least not in the sort of philosopher sense of reduction. It's extremely demanding. Um that's just not the case.
¶197And they certainly don't give analytic definitions of anything, you know. So that's not what they're trying. They give analytic definitions of their framework and then they use that to explain something. But you're not like, oh, I'm going to give an analytic definition of content. Um, so yeah, I I think that that that there's some tricky issues in there.
¶198But just because we don't have a naturalistic account of content doesn't mean that God did it. And um I think that that's again the same sort of move. Although this one's a bit more convincing because this is such a nasty problem. And you know, how can you imagine having a theory of content that's naturalistically acceptable? It just seems impossible.
¶199I know that's true, but a lot of things that seem impossible aren't impossible. Um, and so, uh, we're not in a position to understand how that works right now, but I just don't think it's justified to say therefore God did it. And in order for this to actually even make sense, you have to have some kind of comparison like how bad is the problem, you know? Um, I heard a noise last night outside in my backyard. I don't know what it was.
¶200It was a really weird noise. God did it. Well, I don't have any other explanation. That's obviously stupid, right? So, but why is what I just said obviously stupid and this is not?
¶201I don't think it's obviously stupid. Just to be really clear, I don't think that these kinds of arguments are stupid at all. I think they're they're crucial and important. But the argument I just gave is stupid about the noise in my backyard. And I don't know where the difference is there.
¶202Like, you know, we our our quality of explanation for X is so bad that we have to appeal to God right now. I don't know what the I would love to see a theory of that. Show me. I would love that. Give me Give me an account of that.
¶203Right. Like quality of explanation or quality of explanation for uh the existence of consciousness is so bad that we have to appeal to God. All right. But I I mean I haven't seen anything like that. Well, and related to that, there are a lot of steps that are made implicit by Craig's presentation that are actually crucial to get this argument is most directly an argument for substance dualism, for thinking that states of consciousness are fundamentally immaterial.
¶204They they can't be physical because how could a physical thing ever have intentionality? Blah blah blah blah blah. And then you need to go from there. Even even getting to a soul or an immaterial mind, that doesn't give you theism. That doesn't give you an all powerful, all- knowing, perfectly good god.
¶205So, you still have major philosophical work to connect that to theism. >> And I don't I have no idea how that argument would go. But I think at the first stage of even just getting to a non-physical mind, I think like I think this is Peter Vanwagen's response to a similar argument is he says the issue is that content itself seems absolutely and utterly mysterious, not a physical things having content. And so if you're told that actually a thought is a state of an immaterial soul, it's not clear how that's any more edifying. It's not clear how we now can suddenly see how content can happen for an immaterial soul in so far as we can tell or see anything about it.
¶206So I think it just trades on the mysteries of content itself >> and then illicitly says, "Oh, it's it's the physical instantiation of content that's the problem." >> Not really like >> as far as I can. >> Yeah. It's a sort of normative virtue uh issue, right? >> Yes. >> Well, you've relabeled the problem rather than giving an explanation for it.
¶207Yeah. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I think that's good. I think I really like that point.
¶208Yeah, I think that's I think that's accurate. Um I mean what's just be to decide whether whether to even go down this road, I think you could just think to yourself like, well, what's more likely? We we're a bunch of apes that can't figure out how our own minds work yet in 2026, at least this aspect of it, or God did it. Which one's more likely? I mean, I I don't know how to judge the likelihood of the God did it one at all, but the >> the apes in 2026 can't figure out exactly how their own minds work.
¶209Seems really obvious, like really plausible to me. >> Interesting. >> Yeah, I see that. I see that. I don't know.
¶210I mean, it's it's always very hard to know when a phenomenon would be remarkable enough that it would overcome the presumption that there is a natural explanation. I mean, we don't have to open the can of worms of awesome theistic evidence, but in thinking about those sorts of things, it clearly is the case that the history of scientific explanation, the success of natural hypotheses in uncovering the truth about the world, that for any specific event, those facts make it very, very unlikely that there's a supernatural explanation for it. But it's still always in principle possible that you know today's the day God decided to reveal himself that that fine-tuning for example is God's means of of revealing his existence. That's that's always a possibility. And so >> I I don't know how to answer these questions but it's hard to know when a phenomenon is remarkable enough that it overcomes that initial presumption in favor of of natural theories.
¶211>> Yeah. And there's two answers here. When has it historically? You know, that's just a material, you know, like a factual answer. When has it historically?
¶212Yes. >> And when ought it, >> right? When when should it? >> And historically, you know, you get the God of the gaps argument from the that the atheists make a lot of the time, right? And there's something to that.
¶213>> Um the the you know, it looks like the goalposts uh which is a um American reference, but whatever. the goalposts move. Uh and you know that that means that you know what counts as as as success changes and you know at from at one point it's um we have eyes and then at another point it's uh we have uh we have uh you know consciousness or we have thoughts that are you know about the world >> and so we have eyes therefore God. I don't know too many people who buy that argument anymore. Um, that was really popular though in the late 1800s.
¶214Like really popular. >> Yeah. >> So, um, should it have been? No. The ones that we have now that are popular, should they be?
¶215And I I don't know. I mean, I >> for me, I just don't see this as I I don't see a compelling, clear, consistent account that's going to say, "Yeah, go for God on these cases." and keep hoping for science on these. >> Yeah. Okay, we'll do a bit more of a lightning round. I've said similar things every time and then we just get into >> There's too much interesting stuff.
¶216There's just too much good stuff. >> I know. I know. And that's okay. Um if we only get to six out of every possible argument for God, then that's okay.
¶217Um, okay. So, the moral argument, if God does not, number one, if God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. Yeah, I bet you know the second premise that's coming. Objective moral values and duties exist. And three, therefore, God exists.
¶218So, by objective, Craig means valid and binding independently of human opinion. I think this is what common philosophical parliament today calls uh stance independent that you'll see that thrown around on Substack a lot. So the paradigm of of objective facts might be like mathematical facts 2 plus 2 equals 4. That is true whether or not any person thinks that it is. And that's in contrast to subjective facts like chocolate is the best f flavor of ice cream.
¶219That's a fact about me. It's true in a sense when I say it, but it's not an objective fact about ice cream itself. Objectively speaking, there's no property of tastiness that it has. And so what Craig will want to say is if there is no God, then moral statements about morality like it's wrong to torture people for fun or it's good to love your neighbor, it's good to love your parents, those kinds of statements are just statements of taste. They're purely subjective.
¶220In the world itself, there are no objective moral properties which are true even if everyone thought it was wrong. And uh the most powerful illustration that Craig gives is this is he says to say that morality is objective is to say that even if the Nazis had won World War II and successfully exterminated everybody who thought the Holocaust was wrong, the Holocaust would still be wrong. That is what a statement of objective morality implies. Okay? And then the second premise is just think about it.
¶221Clearly, it's plausible that there are objective moral principles and it therefore follows that God exists. >> Yeah. >> All right. Good. >> Okay.
¶222So, I like this argument a lot. I think it's super compelling. I think that for the most part, atheists poo poo this argument and they shouldn't as much as they do. I think that there's a lot here, especially because a lot of our concepts of goodness and so forth really were constitutively tied to deities and um and supernatural powers. uh you know thousands of years ago and I think that it's reasonable to think that humanity has been engaged in a sort of conceptual engineering project of creating uh uh moral concepts that are to some extent or another divorced from religious assumptions over the last I mean that's kind of like one way of thinking about the project of enlightenment right I mean um I'm not alone in thinking this this is just a sort of standard way thinking about, you know, one kind of liberal interpretation of human history.
¶223So, um, let's say that's true. Well, then we've got changes in our concepts of good and bad and right and wrong and those kinds of things. And I mean, man, now it's not really tricky to say like according to those old concepts that were constitutively tied to religious doctrines, these arguments should work. Um but those old concepts I would suggest don't accurately reflect anything in the world. And it's our new uh naturalistically acceptable concepts of good and bad and right and wrong that do a better job of carving nature at its joints.
¶224I don't know they do a great job. They do better than the old ones. And so according to the ar according to our these newer concepts um you know these arguments are no good. Now, what I've just said is the kind of thing that I want to say, but oh my god, there's a nightmare there. Like, how am I distinguishing between one concept and another?
¶225What change makes a new concept versus not? And you know, all of these kinds of things are so tricky. If I'm admitting that the argument works well for the old concepts, but the old concepts are bad ones that you shouldn't be using for these kinds of arguments, then is that admitting too much? I don't think so. But, um, so yeah, I think that there's a lot to be said here.
¶226I do think that if we think about contemporary philosophical literature, there is a massive number of theories of morality. So we're talking just you know uh normative theories that offer an account of values and goodness as objective and independent of humanity but are not um supernatural. They don't require supernatural entities. And I mean I think in the debate I listed off a whole bunch of these. Uh, but I mean I I think that's probably a cheap move in the debate to like list off a whole bunch.
¶227It's like a it's like a uh um uh I can't remember the the the official name for why that's a bad move in a debate, but you like give way too much. >> Gish galloping. >> Yeah, it's a gish gallop. Yes, thank you. >> Yeah.
¶228Yeah. Yeah. >> I do feel like that it is like that that the way that I presented it in the debate was really unfair. But I wanted to get across the fact that he's ignoring explicitly ignoring this entire tradition in uh in contemporary moral theory and you know pretending like everyone agrees like if morality is objective then it's got to do with God when that is not assumption in the literature by the experts the people who pe who who humanity is paying to think hard about this stuff do not agree with that at all. Yeah, I think the best way to formulate the argument is to explicitly cash out divine command theory as your normative and metaethical foundation for morality and to argue that that account is superior to all of its rivals.
¶229>> I agree >> in v against various criteria. And if you can do that, then I think you've you've at least gone >> substantially in the direction of like a more abductive or inference to the best explanation form of of an argument um for God from morality. And there are all sorts of interesting questions that that brings up, but I I've never seen that done in a really systematic way. I think the deductive formulation Craig gives obscures the logic considerably. I think that it would be better to I know that it's has the virtue of clarity.
¶230Three premises, it's right there. >> But that's just not going to get it's not going to work. It's not a successful argument. You need something more nuance. >> Yeah, I agree 100%.
¶231I think that um you know divine command theory has a sort of bad name and people don't want the arguments for the existence of God based on morality to depend on divine command theory because I think that they rightly so see that as largely rejected and um but I don't see any other way to do it and I think that's the honest way to do it is it is divine command theory of some version or another just be honest about that with that I think that's a much better project. You don't really see that, right? Like I mean divine command theory versus deonttological versus consequentialism as you know normative theories or you know how does it how does it fare against you know um an expressivist or a quasi realistic doing you know metaeththics. It doesn't it's not really part of those discussions a lot of the time. So yeah, I think that that >> Yeah, I think >> the only one that I can think of is the debate between Craig and Eric Wheelenberg >> where Craig explicitly says, "Here's my view, divine command theory, and we're going to compare it against godless normative realism." And then you you got a very nuanced um and clear onetoone comparison.
¶232And I thought, "Okay, that's not bad." >> Yep. Yep. Yep. I agree. That's the best um that's that's the right way to go on that.
¶233But you need to pick something like um a contemporary view, you know, pick uh it doesn't have to be crazy like but you know, pick somebody that's got a contemporary realist view as your example and then have them go toe-to-toe and let's see that. I just I don't see that. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a project, >> you know.
¶234you what >> I said if and and if you really want to go crazy like pick something hard you know pick like the triple theory or something you know and uh >> and really you know do it up because I feel like that's >> uh kind of the state-of-the-art and you know to some extent natural acceptable you know combinations of um normative theor normative ethics and meta ethics. Well, I think we'd be remiss if we didn't at least talk about one of the original and signature arguments that Craig gives >> is the argument from the resurrection. >> So, bit of stage setting here. The the argument is not deductive. It's it's abductive.
¶235It is it is explicitly an inference to the best explanation. Inductive logic. And here's how it goes. One, we can know from historical investigation the following facts. That Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arya.
¶236That his tomb was found empty shortly after his death by a group of his women followers. That is that the earliest disciples experienced appearances of Jesus alive after his death. And that belief in Jesus's literal resurrection originated early in the Christian movement among his own followers despite them having every predisposition to the contrary. H so that's the first stage is we establish these historical facts and then two the best explanation for these facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead and from that three by v by v by v by v by v by v by v by v by v by v by via inductive logic three therefore god exists. So I I like the argument because it is explicitly an argument from miracles.
¶237It's not philosophical or scientific. It's historical nitty nitty-gritty. And I think historical, New Testament, Jesus studies, they're all fascinating. I know I cobbled them together there, but it's all interesting stuff. So anyway, what what do you make of this?
¶238>> I think this is exactly the kind of argument that you that folks should be focusing on because I think it's widespread and I think that um many theists, many Christians believe in Christianity partly because of this kind of argument. And so I think it's really important to focus on this sort of argument. And um you know, I'll say I don't think that you can just establish historical claims as fact. It's not like that. You're not like, oh well, it's a theory for a little while and then you get enough evidence and now it graduates to being a fact and now we can't now now it's settled.
¶239Don't need to. I don't know. I just don't that's not the right picture of the world. It's not how inquiry works. It's just not any of that stuff.
¶240just sort of um a really unsophisticated view of how that stuff works. And I think it that that the that the argument to some extent depends on that. But um either way, let's grant it those are historical facts. Those folks did that stuff. Cool.
¶241What's the best explanation of that? something that is totally impossible according to the best scientific views that we have or scientific theories that we have or these folks were mistaken in various ways about their beliefs uh about the world and some something happened that um you know explains why they made these various mistakes. It's not that they're like delusional or stupid or um you know on um you know on drugs or something but you know whatever it was there's some explanation. Which one of those is more likely for me? I mean this is just an application of the of the confidence argument.
¶242You know which one's more likely? Which which one should we have confidence in? I think the answer is really obvious. And so um for me no argument of this sort of structure is going to be a good argument uh because it's inductive and when we think about inductive arguments the amount of support for the scientific side is just it's almost incomprehensible how much inductive support that has as a as a whole. >> I think people really really misjudge that.
¶243Oh, so this is a really good a really good full circle moment where in the debate with Craig the other I had just you you made me remember it. The other moment that really stood out to me and stayed with me was when you pressed Craig on his comments about miracles where I don't remember in what context it came up maybe it was here where he said that miracles don't violate the laws of nature or contradict the laws of nature rather they just miracles by definition fall outside the scope of applicability for our natural laws and theories. It's kind of like saying uh that a traffic incident in the United States violates a traffic law in the UK. Well, no it doesn't. It's just outside the scope of applicability for those laws.
¶244Okay. And so what he'll want to say is that the laws of nature like Newton's laws of motion or the biological theories that predict that dead people can't rise. They have inbuilt all things being equal clauses or specifically they have inbuilt there are no supernatural agents acting clauses. So you can think of it like the real full form of Newton's law of motion or of Newton the the second law of motion. I think it is force equals mass times acceleration is assuming there are no supernatural agents acting force equals mass times acceleration.
¶245So if you if you define the laws that way then of course they're not violated when that condition doesn't obtain when there is a supernatural agent. So that's I think what he would say in response to this argument that we have like all this scientific evidence that dead people don't rise. Well, that would only implicate the hypothesis that Jesus rose naturally from the dead. Surely, we should reject everything. We should reject that um before except we what's the way of phrasing it?
¶246We should always reject that. We should always reject the hypothesis that Jesus rose naturally from the dead, but but not the hypothesis that he rose supernaturally from the dead. >> Exactly. Exactly. >> That's the gist of what he says.
¶247And I know you have some pointed remarks in reply. >> Yeah, that was fun. I I that was one of my favorite points in the debate and I think it was one of the things that was most implicit because I had this whole take on the miracles bit. Um I didn't know what he was going to come up with. So I mean I was ready for probably I don't know maybe another 50 or 70% of what he said that he didn't you know I was expecting him to say and I had had stuff ready to go but the miracles one was my favorite.
¶248Um, and I really liked that part of the debate and I don't feel like it came through very well. So, one of the things is that um, it's not true that scientific theories are formulated like that. Uh, and it's pretty easy to see why because they wouldn't be mathematically applicable and uh, you know, because there's no math of assuming there's no supernatural entities, right? And it's not it's not up to Craig to decide that that's what all the science says. I mean, it's it's just not you.
¶249You have to ask the scientists and look at the scientific practice and look at how they use it and they just don't. It's just not not true. So So I just don't find that just that just seems totally made up to me. And um and I don't find that even remotely plausible at all. So that that part of the whole thing I agree that's exactly what he would say that that they all have hidden Keteros clauses.
¶250Um but um one I think that's objectively false and two um uh it's not it it it's it's not that hard to just go do some research and see what people think of when they think about scientific laws. And moreover none of the you know all scientific laws or Keterus parabus laws um doesn't fit into the literature on the nature of scientific laws at all. Go ask anybody who's an expert on the nature of scientific laws whether all laws are ketus parabus laws and many of them will say no that's a minority view that's not a that's not a something that just falls out of the nature of laws whether you whether you believe you know Lewis or uh you know humian view or or whoever else you know I mean I like I like non-human views of of laws but you know that's just me um none of them are compatible with that. Yeah. Well, do you think there's I mean in your mind, this isn't a gotcha question.
¶251Uh is there a difference in plausibility between the two versions of the resurrection hypothesis, the the one that says Jesus rose naturally from the dead versus the one that says Jesus rose supernaturally from the dead, that God raised him from the dead. To me, >> yeah, >> they do seem to have very different degrees of plausibility. And >> for sure >> that's some intuitive support for this idea that scientific evidence is going to act differently between the two. That would be my only consideration in favor of this kind of idiosyncratic analysis of laws. >> I think it's it's absolutely worth thinking through you know what's a move in the system versus what's a move that the system can't really make a you know scientific system that it can't really make a claim about you know so >> you know if you ask I hate personifying theories like this so let's not do that.
¶252So instead, if you utilize a scientific theory to try to answer a question, um then uh you know what's going to happen is either you're going to get you're going to do some kind of calculation or you're going to get some kind of reasonable answer or you're going to get nothing. And uh the um you know what happens when what happens when Jesus rises from the dead supernaturally? That's a nothing answer, right? You're not going to be able to get any kind of answer from a scientific theory utilizing a scientific theory for whether that's plausible or not. You just there's no answer to that.
¶253Did Jesus rise from the dead? Naturally, you can use scientific theories to get plausible answers to that. And my guess is that the chance would be very close to zero. Um now, uh how close to zero? I don't know, but pretty close.
¶254I mean, I I would expect close enough that you would believe that the other explanations, even like widespread delusion type explanations would be plausible >> or aliens. I think you should go there before thinking that Jesus spontaneously rose from the dead naturally. >> Yeah, the aliens thing for me I have debate too there. Yeah. I mean, I think aliens are are are theistic assumptions, right?
¶255I mean, for me, like >> I don't I Theism is incorporating both uh monotheism and pol and polytheism. And um you know and I think that aliens are pretty squarely in a polytheistic, you know, framework. You know, if aliens showed up and to the ancient Greeks, you know, what would they say about them? Are they gods or not? I would guess that they say they're some sort of divine thing.
¶256So, um, so yeah, for me, aliens isn't a naturalistic assumption. It's more of a polytheistic assumption, but that's where the kind of distinction there breaks down. You know, aliens could be naturalistically acceptable. Maybe they are, maybe they're not. Same thing with the with the simulation hypothesis, right?
¶257I mean, is a simulation hypothesis some kind of like supernatural hypothesis or is it a scientific hypothesis? you know, Chalmer's in the Reality Plus book, which I would encourage folks to look at who are interested in this stuff. Yeah, he's he he I disagree obviously with his conclusions, but I think that the way that he lays this out, I mean, you want to see like a ridiculously smart person with an incredibly clear mind engage in a ridiculously difficult topic and do it really clearly. Oh my god, it's just it's a work of art. I mean, I think it's just beautiful.
¶258I mean, I just like I said, I disagree with all those conclusions, but the but the performance and the the product there is just amazing. So, yeah, I I it's great. It's a great book in that sense. And it's the same thing, right? Is this is this supernatural?
¶259Is it natural? Well, there's a there's a blur there. There's a gray area there. And you know, so um I you know, if you're going to ask me on this, well, it's a feature of the fact that our concepts weren't built to think about this stuff. you know, they weren't built at all.
¶260They just naturally organically kind of developed among large portions of humanity trying to struggle to stay alive mostly through the hunter gatherer phase. So, I mean, that's that I keep going back to that. I know, and it's annoying, but I mean, >> yeah. >> No, I think those broader epistemological questions are really important. I think people get irritated by them because they are typically ones that those assumptions are taken for granted in like say the apologetics community or even in philosophical discourse often.
¶261So when you come along and you say actually hold on you can't just take that for granted. >> They normally don't have a well thoughtout reply. So I think >> I think that's probably why >> it's annoying too because I'm not playing the game right. I mean, it's a particular game. And I say game, I I play games, too.
¶262And somebody who comes into my to like a logic discussion is like, well, you know, say something like silly about it. You're not playing my game, right? You're not doing the same thing I'm doing. And yeah, it's true. I'm not I'm I'm I'm I'm questioning whether that's a a good game to play.
¶263You know, some games are good games to play and some aren't in certain circumstances. You know, I think the biggest argument, the reason why most people are theists who are theists is in any of these arguments is about some sort of personal connection with God. And it's the idea that there's this entity that's been talking to you and you've been talking back to throughout your life >> that's looking out for you. And you know, a personal relationship with God is, in my opinion, the number one reason why theists, especially Christians, are um are theists. And that doesn't have anything to do with any of these arguments at all.
¶264That's a much different kind of move. I agree with you. I I think it would be good then to end on that. What do you make of the rationality of basing one's belief on God, belief in God on this more direct, if subtle experience of God? Because that that is one of the two answers I've always given to the question, why do you believe in God?
¶265It's it's not fine-tuning fundamentally or any of the other arguments. Uh, it's just because God has had a certain level of reality in my life. Not like the burning bush where it's blindingly real and in my face, but subtle. And that's enough for me. But I wonder about the rationality of of that.
¶266And if you have any thoughts. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I think this is so tricky. Um, and I don't want to I don't want to come across as if like these are conclusive because they're really not.
¶267um you know how people interact with their own selves inside is so weird and different from person to person and you just it's so like almost kind of inaccessible. you know what's going on in your head versus you know are you having conversation are you like a conversational mind or you've got like a it seems like you've got like a flow of talking inside your your mind or you one of those people who doesn't have that I mean it seems like there's different kinds of folks and if you have a conversational mind and it feels like you're having a conversation with something that's you know external it's not you but it's in your mind you know there's a it's it's super tempting to think that that's um an external influence as opposed to just some element of your mind that you're you have some sort of independent that has some sort of independent uh roughly independent uh you know existence at least for that period in your mind you know so I think these are the most compelling things these are the these are the big reasons why people um why people believe this a lot in addition to the sort of comfort that comes from thinking that their loved ones are um are are not permanently gone. You know, there's a there's a nice place that they'll them again. I think that's a really crucial aspect to it as well. And I think they're tied together.
¶268Um you know, that the the personal God that's in your mind that helps you through the hard times, the really hard times. Um that's the that's also the God that's that's looking out for your loved ones who have died. So, um so yeah, I don't know whether that's rational or not to tell you the truth. I I don't know. Um I really don't I I'll tell you like a quick little anecdote.
¶269you know, in my my own mind for as long as I remember, there's been a an aspect that, you know, has a sort of conversational structure and um and uh and has always wanted to be kind of known as Linets and um you know and it's been around since I can remember, you know, and it's not like a personality. I don't adopt it as a personality. It's just like some little thing in my head that I talk to from time to time, you know. Does that mean that it's really linenets? No.
¶270Does it mean that I'm like the incarnation of livvenets? No. It like I'm, you know, I've got a neurode divergent brain. It's got some kind of weird quirk in it, you know. Okay, cool.
¶271Um, I'm not saying that this is epistemologically equivalent to the experience that other folks have had that lead them to be theists, but rather If if conversations with God could equally be labeled conversations with myself, then um it's not obvious that there is good reason to think that that's actually coming objectively to your mind. So, but I don't want to come across as like flippant on this at all. I think this is just this is a a an an incredibly difficult area of human experience and I certainly don't claim to to understand it um in in any detail. I think we humanity have really just kind of scratched the surface of this part and um so yeah I if I was working if I was a theist and I was working in philosophy of religion you know I would be really pushing this line a lot. I there's I think it's really fruitful.
¶272>> Well, Kevin Sharp, thank you for your 2016 debate with William Lane Craig. That was such a font of inspiration for me and >> thank you for coming on the podcast today to discuss these like super interesting issues. >> Yeah. No, it's always great to chat with you. I I think your podcast is spectacular.
¶273I think you just do an amazing job on this and so it's just a delight to be able to talk with you. >> Thank you. We'll have you on again soon. All right, take care.