Why Dr. Craig is Wrong and Why He Still Won the Debate with Dr. White

I have immense respect for both Dr. James White and Dr. William Lane Craig. I consider them both to be brothers in Christ. I've learned a lot from both of them and was really looking forward to their debate on whether Calvinism or Molinism best address the Problem of Evil.

Both men are great thinkers with very astute minds. And both men have debated a plethora of opponents over the history of their careers as public theologians.

Why Dr. Craig Won

Dr. White's views more closely match my own than Dr. Craig's views do, but nonetheless, I personally found Craig to be the winner in the debate. Dr. Craig has a particular, well-honed debate methodology and style that enable him to win virtually every debate he has ever participated in, regardless of the opponent.

"If it is evil to cause someone to do evil, then Calvinism makes God evil."

How many times did Dr. Craig say this, or something like it? After the dust settles, and everyone walks away, the chief thing that I think will stand out in viewers' minds is that single concept. Dr. Craig repeated it over and over. It is short, sweet, simple, easy to understand, and easy to remember. And, it seems to make sense.

Dr. White had no such statements. Many of his made sense, for sure, but they were not short, sweet, and repeated multiple times. Nothing White said can or will be remembered verbatim. This single phrase is the biggest part of the impeccable debate skill that Craig brought to the table.

Beyond that, I was, at the end of the debate, very clear on Dr. Craig's views about the Problem of Evil. In his Molinist view, God did not decide what each of us humans would be like. Our individual "essence" (as Dr. White put it) simply is what it is regardless of God. As a result, our evil intent is not the result of God's choice. Therefore, God cannot be blamed for our sin.

However, I lacked clarity on Dr. White's view of the Problem of Evil. He certainly disagreed with Dr. Craig, and, I think, for good reason. Dr. White made it clear that in his view, because God is sovereign, there is meaning in evil. But apart from asserting that there is meaning in his view, and asserting that meaning is absent in Dr. Craig's view, I don't feel that he clearly explained why anyone should agree with those assertions. And, to say that there is meaning in evil is not, as far as I can tell, a full response to the Problem of Evil. Dr. White also insisted that God is restraining evil, but what (in his view) brought about the evil that needed to be restrained in the first place? Dr. Craig claims that, in Dr. White's view, God brought about the evil that God is restraining. Whether Dr. White agrees with Craig's characterization of his view is unclear to me.

So while Dr. Craig clearly explained his views on the official topic of the debate, the Problem of Evil, I felt that Dr. White did not.

Dr. White definitely scored some points in arguing against Craig's Molinism, but Dr. Craig himself is the one who made Dr. White's concerns about Molinism most evident and clear for the listener in my opinion.

As Craig explained the difference between his view and what he takes White's view to be, "These counterfactuals of human freedom are either true logically prior to the divine decree, or they are true only logically posterior to the divine decree." (53:30)

In other words, individual humans have some sort of essential existence (some sort of meaningful BE-ing) before God creates them, or else they do not.

Either God didn't actually create us, or else God is evil because he did. This is the false dichotomy Craig proposes. And Dr. White, as far as I could tell, never fully responded to it.

So, in the end, I can see many viewers walking away from the debate perhaps concerned about the orthodoxy of Dr. Craig's views, namely, that God, in a very real sense, did not create humans, but nevertheless convinced beyond all doubt that Dr. White's views make God evil.

Thus, Craig, though I disagree with him, seems to have won the debate.

Why Dr. Craig's Views are Logically Incorrect

A False Dichotomy

First, let's look at what I referred to as Craig's "false dichotomy." Either God didn't create us, or else God is evil because he did.

Really?

Either George Lucas didn't create Palpatine, or else George Lucas is evil because he did.

But is George Lucas evil for creating Palpatine? Should Lucas be given life behind bars, or even executed, for killing everyone on Alderaan? Seriously?

Now, I assume Dr. Craig would respond to this question by suggesting, like many others have, that the analogy is a false one. We are real; Palpatine isn't. If God is really our creator, then God caused real people to sin, not people that he just made up. Real people.

But, if God is our creator, then we are made up by God, and the analogy holds! Only in Dr. Craig's view are we not made up by God, not in my view. In my view, we are God's fiction. Since we are God's fiction, as Palpatine is Lucas' fiction, it is a Special Pleading Fallacy to suggest that God is evil for causing us to be. In Dr. Craig's view, we are God's fact, not his fiction. Even as God is, so also are we. "I AM" applies to Tim McCabe as much as it does to YHWH. We ourselves actually exist, even as God does, in some very real sense, right alongside God, in the same context as God, preexisting creation just as he does. If the God of Dr. Craig's Molinism caused one of us to sin, it would be like George Lucas causing Steven Spielberg to sin, not like George Lucas causing Palpatine to sin. But if the God of my own perspective caused one of us to sin, then it actually is like George Lucas causing Palpatine to sin.

And George Lucas is not evil simply because Palpatine is. Just as my God is not evil simply because we are.

But how can we know which is which? How can we determine if in fact we are simply what God made, and determinism is true, or if in fact we somehow are apart from creation, and Molinism is true? How can we know if what Dr. Craig says is in fact true or false?

Rational Justification

Middle Knowledge, like any other kind of knowledge, must be justified. Knowledge is, after all, at minimum, "justified, true belief." In order for any belief to be rationally justified, there must first be reason behind it.

Let's take the statement "Tim McCabe would do X in circumstance Y." Let's call that statement S1 (for "Statement 1").

If S1 is true, and if it is true apart from God's will, or prior to God's will, and yet God believes it, then whose reason justifies God's belief in it?

If God's belief is unjustified, it cannot be called knowledge, and Middle "Knowledge" ceases to exist, and Molinism is false.

But rational justification comes in only three possible flavors -- imputation, authorship, and discovery. And none of them work here.

If there were reason behind God's belief in S1, whose reason is behind God's belief in S1? If there is no reason behind it, it cannot be rationally justified.

Well, if there is reason behind God's belief in S1, either the reason behind it is God's reason, or else it is someone else's reason. There are no other options.

If it is someone else's reason, yet it is God's belief, then God's belief was imputed to him by whoever created his beliefs. In other words, God has a creator. A calculator's premises are rationally justified by imputation: they are given, already justified, to the calculator by its creator.

On the other hand, if God's own reason is behind God's belief in S1, then it is either God's reason by means of God's will, which is to say, God's willful authorship of the fact itself, which Dr. Craig explicitly rejects; or else it is God's reason regardless of God's will, such that God must discover it.

Those are all three flavors, imputation, authorship, and discovery, and there is no logical space for others.

Since we know straight-up that Dr. Craig rejects divine authorship of the fact; and since I think we can safely assume that Dr. Craig also rejects the idea of a super-God or Grandfather God as imputation requires; it seems that Dr. Craig is claiming that God's belief in S1 is justified by means of God's own reason apart from God's will.

But, having ruled out both authorship and imputation, S1 cannot be a rationally justified first premise of God's. It cannot be a first premise of God's that God Himself authors; and it cannot be a first premise of God's that someone else has authored and imputed to God. It thus necessitates that, if S1 has someone's justifying reason behind it at all, then S1 is not a first premise of God's at all. If it is not a first premise, it can only be a conclusion, derived from other premises, and justified only if its prior premises are justified. It is a discovery.

Imputation passes a justified belief from a creator to its creation. Discovery passes justification from a set of premises to a conclusion. But neither imputation nor discovery actually inaugurates any rational justification -- they merely pass the buck.

Only willful authorship of the fact itself can inaugurate the reason-chain leading to the rational justification of any belief.

So who authored the fact that "Tim McCabe would do X in circumstance Y"? Who authored the truth of S1? If it was not authored, then there can be no rational justification for holding it, as the reason-chain can never begin without an author of the fact itself. And if there is such an author of this fact, yet the author is not God, and if God is not created, then a justified belief in the fact was not imputed to God. Indeed, as long as God is understood to have no creator, no beliefs can be imputed to him. All his beliefs, if rationally justified, are either his direct will (and he is their author), or else they follow from his direct will (and he has discovered them). Any other beliefs that God has, if he has no creator, are necessarily without reason.

So-called Middle Knowledge, of which S1 is an example, is not authored by God, nor could it have been imputed to God by his creator (since he doesn't have one), nor could it merely be discovery -- conclusions drawn from either of the above. Thus God's "Middle Knowledge" does not consist of justified, true beliefs. At best, it would consist of unjustified, true beliefs, which, since unjustified, cannot be called "knowledge."

God cannot have justifying reason for believing that "Tim McCabe would do X in circumstance Y" unless God has a creator who made that fact true, and imputed that knowledge to God; or unless God Himself made that fact true; or unless it can be concluded from either of the above. "Tim McCabe would do X in circumstance Y," for a Molinist God, doesn't fit into any of those categories, thus, it is an unjustified belief. It is irrational. It is unwarranted. God has no reason to think it true.

Therefore, Middle Knowledge simply cannot be "knowledge."

It also follows that all of God's beliefs that depend upon his Middle Knowledge are also irrational. Therefore, Molinist God has no knowledge of the future, insofar as human free will determines it. He may have beliefs, and those beliefs may or may not be true, but they are completely irrational.

In my own view, by contrast, God is the willful author of all.

Which God is Evil?

We've already seen that George Lucas causing Palpatine to do evil does not itself make George Lucas evil. So there is no justifying reason to call the God that I believe in evil. But, believe it or not, a very strong case can be made that the version of God promoted by Dr. Craig can be properly seen as evil.

The Molinist version of God promoted by Dr. Craig takes pre-existing human wills that Molinist God did not make, that are equally ultimate as he is, and that Molinist God has no ontological or natural authority over, and places them into circumstances they do not appreciate. Then, in their inherent (free-will) fight against this bully of a God, Molinist God judges them, condemns them, and throws them into a pit of hellfire for eternity.

This, if Craig's Molinism is correct, is much like George Lucas telling Steven Spielberg that he must behave in some particular way simply because Lucas says so, and then, when Spielberg refuses, Lucas judges and condemns him, and throws him into a pit of fire.

Frankly, I find that behavior despicable and offensive. And that is Molinist God. He has delusions of grandeur. He's a bully. He's an usurper. If it is evil to bully someone you have no authority over, to force them to conform to your own arbitrary set of rules on pain of eternal damnation, then Molinist God is evil.

My God, on the other hand, only condemns us fictional people to hell, not people who are "real" in the same way that God is.

No one is "real" in the same way that God is.

 

As always, your comments are more than welcome.

Gilbert Guttlebocker, Defender of Dragons

Riveting, yet absurd; romantic, yet innocent; Gilbert Guttlebocker, Defender of Dragons is a little Roald Dahl, a little Harry Potter, and a little Chronicles of Narnia, all rolled into one. Timothy McCabe collaborates with the great Benedict Ballyhoot to bring you the novel of the century!

 

In Printed Form

Along with numerous other authors including Don Landis, Bodie Hodge and Roger Patterson, Timothy McCabe contributes analyses of various world religions and cults in this volume from Master Books.