Krauss on Craig: “disingenuous distortions, simplifications, and outright lies”

A couple of days ago, Lawrence Krauss released a statement on his recent debate with William Lane Craig over whether there is evidence for God. (If you haven’t watched it, ctrl-click here to view it on YouTube.)

His statement was posted on Pharyngula, the blog of infamous self-styled “godless liberal” PZ Myers, and was also circulated on Richard Dawkins’ forum (the self-styled “clear-thinking oasis”).

Let me make a couple o’ comments on it:


It’s clear that the thing I found most embarrassing about Krauss’ part of the debate—his complete lack of understanding of the contingency argument—has in no sense changed.

This argument is about why is there something instead of nothing; it isn’t an argument about causes, as he characterizes it (apparently confusing it with the Kalam Cosmological Argument), but an argument about explanations or reasons. It invokes the Principle of Sufficient Reason: that everything that exists must have a sufficient reason for its existence. Obviously, most of the things we know exist could just as easily not exist; in which case, why do they exist? But we can also see that some things, like the laws of logic, must exist—they exist necessarily. God in the latter category; the universe is in the former. There is nothing about its nature that says it must exist, or that it must exist exactly as it does. This is really not disputed, to my knowledge, among either scientists or philosophers. In fact, the science seems to indicate that the universe could have existed in so many other different ways that we literally cannot conceive of the number. But in that case, we are back to asking why does it exist, and why does it exist as it does? Krauss has no answer.

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A seamless garment with no holes: human persons and the failure of naturalism

Last year, the release of J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig’s Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology saw a lot of attention. And quite rightly. The Companion marshalled some of most cutting-edge work in the field of the philosophy of religion and showed why natural theology is fast becoming an exciting scholarly domain again. But in the shadow of the Companion‘s release, another of Moreland’s works was published: The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism. Although it might not have got the same amount of attention, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei also represented an important entry in the contest of ideas and a powerful defense of theism. In it, Moreland argues for the theistic position by way of a stinging attack on naturalism and its failure to answer the problem of consciousness and account for the basic facts of human experience, such as free will, rationality, and intrinsic value.

The problem of consciousness is a deep mystery for philosophers and neuroscientists. This problem is the dilemma of how conscious states (thoughts, feelings, perceptions) arise from physical brain states. Ned Block, the American philosopher at NYU, has said that “researchers are stumped” and that we have “no conception” that enables us to explain subjective experience or conscious life. Colin McGinn, a professor at the University of Miami in the philosophy of mind, says that the emergence of consciousness “strikes us as miraculous, eerie, even faintly comic”. Even if we are sure that they arise from brains, we do not know the sorts of connections that conscious states (such as “seeing a tree”) have with brain states (such as “there are neurons firing at point A in the brain”). Hard materialists like Daniel Dennett have argued that conscious states are nothing more than brain states and brain behaviour, but Moreland argues that in both science and philosophy, a strict physicalist analysis of consciousness and the self has been breaking down since the mid-1980s.

For Christianity, the existence of such features basic to human experience are not metaphysically strange or inexplicable. For if in the beginning existed a supremely self-aware Being, then it is not difficult to see how consciousness could emerge. And if Christianity were true, Moreland also suggests one would predict that alternative worldviews whose basic entity or entities are not spiritual would find these things we take for granted recalcitrant – that is, hard to explain or explain away. In his book, Moreland shows that this is exactly the case with philosophical naturalism. Because naturalism posits particles at the beginning, one cannot adequately account for consciousness without mounting other reductive or eliminative strategies to explain their emergence. In The Recalcitrant Imago Dei, Moreland looks at these strategies and shows why they fail. Moreland therefore concludes that consciousness, freedom, rationality, a unified/simple self, equal and intrinsic value, and moral action of a certain sort, are all rebutting defeaters for naturalism and evidence for Judeo-Christian monotheism.

Bill Vallicella has written an excellent and thorough review of Moreland’s book, giving a summary of Moreland’s discussion of naturalism and his argument from consciousness for the existence of God.

Formally set out, Moreland’s argument looks like this:

1. Genuinely non-physical mental states exist.

2. There is an explanation for the existence of mental states.

3. Personal explanation is different from natural scientific explanation.

4. The explanation for the existence of mental states is either a personal or natural scientific explanation.

5. The explanation is not a natural scientific one.


6. The explanation is a personal one.

7. If the explanation is personal, then it is theistic.


8. The explanation [for the existence of mental states] is theistic.

In his review, Vallicella examines each of the premises, cataloguing additional reasons that Moreland offers in support for them. He writes:

Moreland makes a very powerful case, to my mind a crushingly powerful case, that [mental states] do not have a natural-scientific explanation. I would go further and claim that they cannot have such an explanation. (If a naturalist pins his hopes on future science, a science that can do what contemporary science manifestly cannot do, then I say our naturalist does not know what he is talking about when he bandies about the phrase ‘future science.’ He is merely gesturing in the direction of he knows not what. He is simply asseverating that somehow science will someday have all the answers. That’s as ‘theological’ as the assurance that, though now we see through a glass darkly, later we will see face to face. What do faith and hope have to do with science? Furthermore, why should anyone hope to have it proven to him that he is nothing more than a complex physical system?)

While Vallicella acknowledges that there are possible objections to Moreland’s argument (he raises some potential ones himself), he concludes that it renders belief in the Judeo-Christian God reasonable, and when combined with the rest of Moreland’s arguments, demonstrates why theism is more reasonable than naturalism.

It is worth reading his whole review (it can also be found on his own blog here). Also worth looking at is Moreland’s interview about the book on the Evangelical Philosophical Blog from last year (part 1 and 2) and Moreland’s post about the topic on his Amazon blog.

The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism, can of course, be picked up on Amazon.


“God, Naturalism and the Foundations of Morality” by Paul Copan in The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue, ed. Robert Stewart. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.

Are Faith and knowledge functionally opposite?

Greg Koukl of apologetics ministry Stand to Reason writes,

In an odd sort of way, Christians have abetted atheists in their efforts to cast doubt and even derision on believers. Here’s how.

Atheists have tremendous confidence that science will continue its record of silencing superstition. As knowledge waxes, foolishness wanes. Consequently, there’s no need for sticking God in the so-called “gaps.” Science will fill them soon enough.

Atheists are buoyed in their confidence by what they consider an inverse relationship between knowledge and faith. The more you have of the first, the less you need of the second.

Faith is merely a filler for ignorance. As knowledge increases, silly superstitious beliefs are discarded. As science marches forward, ignorance will eventually disappear and faith will simply dry up.

Simply put, faith and knowledge are functional opposites. The only place for faith, then, is in the shadows of ignorance.

Ironically, this same perspective has been promoted by Christians themselves. “If I know that God exists,” they challenge, “or that Jesus rose from the dead, or that Heaven is real, then where is room for faith?” Note the same inverse relationship between knowledge and faith held by atheists: Faith and knowledge are functional opposites.

This view is obviously false if you pause to think about it. The opposite of knowledge is not faith, but ignorance. And the opposite of faith is not knowledge, but unbelief. It’s certainly possible to have knowledgeable faith and ignorant unbelief.

More importantly, the knowledge vs. faith equation is not what the Bible teaches. In fact, Scripture affirms just the opposite. In this month’s Solid Ground, I lay out the case that biblical faith is based on knowledge, not contrary to it. Once you see the textual evidence, I think you’ll agree that faith and knowledge are compatible, shoring up our confidence in the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

With confidence in Christ,

Greg Koukl

(Greg recently has recently interviewed author David Berlinski about his book, The Devil’s Delusion that has just been released on paperback. This was very interesting discussion and recommended. Listen Here.)


Atheistic blogging of late has generated a lot of dry tinder for intellectual cannons. It goes to show, like Richard Dawkin’s book The God Delusion, that brilliant scientists can make miserable philosophers. Today I’m going to look at what scientism is, and why it’s clearly irrational.

As a methodological principle, if I want a definition for a philosophical term, I go to a philosopher. J. P. Moreland, distinguished professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology writes;

Strong scientism is the view that some proposition or theory is true or rational if and only if it is a scientific proposition or theory. That is, if and only if it is a well-established scientific proposition or theory that, in turn, depends upon its having been successfully formed, tested, and used according to appropriate scientific methodology. There are no truths apart from scientific truths, and even if there were, there would be no reason whatever to believe them…

[W]eak scientism allows for the existence of truth apart form science and are even willing to grant that they can have some minimal, positive rationality status without the support of science. But, science is the most valuable, most serious, and most authoritative sector of human learning. If strong scientism is true, then theology is not a rational enterprise at all and there is no such thing as theological knowledge. If weak scientism is true, then the conversation between theology and science will be a monologue with theology listening to science and waiting for science to give it support. For thinking Christians, neither of these alternatives is acceptable.1


Now strong scientism is self-refuting. That is, if strong scientism is true, then it is also false by its own merits. At base level, strong scientism is self-referencially incoherent. Things that are self-refuting are not merely false, but necessarily false. To dissect further, lets ask a couple of questions generated in response to the recent statement, “If you don’t use honest process like science you don’t get to the truth.2

Is the statement “If you don’t use [an] honest process like science you don’t get to the truth,” true? If it is not true then it is false. If it is true then that statement, which itself was not arrived at by a scientific process, breaks its own rule. This is a philosophical claim about science methodology, and not a scientific claim established by the scientific process. Therefore, the statement is false either way.

Perhaps what was meant is, “If you don’t use [an] honest process like science you won’t be able to know if the conclusion is the truth or not.3

This rephrasing does avoids self-refutation, but leaves the ‘honest process of science’ self-defeating. As a philosophical statement about how we know truth and not scientific one, we have no way of knowing if the statement itself is true or not. If it is false then we shouldn’t believe that science is the only process by which we attain truth. If it is true, then as the statement did not come via the scientific process, we cannot know it is true.

Perhaps a more generous reading of the modified statement is required, and “an honest process like science” means we should include other methods such as logic, philosophy and experience as ways one can discover and know truth. If that is the case this would severely undermine the charge of scientism displayed by atheistic bloggers and open the door once again for a two way dialogue on God’s existence. Alternatively, perhaps it means to exclude dishonest processes4 such as those supposedly employed by Christian apologists. But as apologists use philosophy and other truth gathering methods that effectively drains away all meaning from the point originally being made (which was it is illegitimate to plug God into a gap where there is scientific ignorance5), and the task of the apologist’s detractor remains the same – to show that the method or argument used in garnering specific truths is faulty.


There are two considerations that equally undermine both strong scientism and weak scientism.


It does not adequately allow for the task of justifying the assumptions necessary for science’s success. The practice of science relies upon some necessary presuppositions that themselves need to be supported. Science cannot be strung up on thin air.

But the conclusions of science cannot be more certain than the presuppositions it rests on in order to reach those conclusions. Thus it is philosophy, and not science, which is in a better position and is the far stronger candidate for being the paradigm of rationality.

A list of the assumptions is given here;6

(1) The existence of a theory-independant world

(2) the orderly nature of the external word

(3) the knowability of the external world.

(4) the existence of the truth

(5) the laws of logic

(6) the reliability of our cognitive and sensory faculties to serve as truth gatherers and as a source of justified beliefs in our intellectual environment

(7) the adequacy of language to describe the world

(8) the existence of values used in science (honesty)

(9) the uniformity of nature and induction

(10) the existence of numbers.


Truth can be known apart from the scientific process. There are many fields outside science and wholly apart from the scientific process that provide us with true, rationally justified beliefs. Highlighted here are five of these areas.

First, logical and mathematical proofs.

  • 1 + 1 = 2
  • Laws of inference, (e.g., modus ponems, disjunctive syllogism)
  • Law of non-contradiction, (e.g., you cannot be man and non-man at the same time and the same place)

Second, metaphysical truths.

  • There are other minds that are not my own,
  • The past was not created five minutes ago with the appearance of age.

Third, ethical beliefs or value judgements of right and wrong.

  • It is wrong to torture babies for fun.
  • Feeding the poor is a virtue.
  • Kicking orphans and widows is wicked.

Fourth, there are aesthetic judgements,

  • A sunrise beaming through a morning fog is beautiful.
  • The glacial lake surrounded by ice-capped mountains is inspiring.
  • Mozart’s second symphony is sublime.

Fifth, certain propositions.

  • Red is a colour.
  • I am now thinking about science.

All these examples are well within our rational rights to believe, though we have no confirmation of their truth from science. In fact, one hundred years from now all these will still be perfectly rational and hold greater epistemic status than certain scientific theories. For instance the metaphysical truth that I am not only a brain being stimulated in a vat, or that absolute truth exists, hold greater warrant than the science that says the plane I’m on will successfully supersede the law of gravity according to the laws of aerodynamics, or the major cause of global warming the human carbon footprint.


Considering the above it becomes evident that scientism, in either its weak and strong form, is a hindrance to science. It is also anathema to truth and bears a striking resemblance to the dogmatism the advocates of scientism wish to avoid. It is for this reason that scientism is considered among philosophers to be a bankrupt system of thought and avoided at the cost of rationality. Nicholas Rescher, University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, concludes;

The theorist who maintains that science is the be-all and end-all — that what is not in science books is not worth knowing — is an ideologist with a peculiar and distorted doctrine of his own. For him, science is no longer a sector of the cognitive enterprise but an all-inclusive world-view. This is the doctrine not of science but of scientism. To take this stance is not to celebrate science but to distort it by casting the mantle of its authority over issues it was never meant to address.7


1. J. P. Moreland, Love God With All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1997), P. 144-145.

2. Ken Perrott, “Fine tuning of the universe?”, 75., (; Retrieved 13 Jan, 2009)

3. Heraclides, “‘Scientism’ in the eyes of the beholder”, 14., (; Retrieved 13 Jan, 2009)
4. Ibid., 23.

5. Ken Perrott and James, “Fine tuning of the universe?”, 70, 72., (; Retrieved 13 Jan, 2009). See also Stuart McEwing, “The “god-of-the-gaps” argument”, 6, 7, 11, 17., (; 28 Dec, 2008)

6. J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press: 2003) p. 348.

7. Nicholas Rescher, The Limits of Science (Berkley, University of California Press: 1984).

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