Carroll’s Response

(FTB::Mano Singham) – In his opening remarks of the “God and Cosmology” Debate, William Lane Craig said that all he was seeking to show was that modern cosmology provided “significant evidence in support of premises in philosophical arguments for conclusions having theological significance”.

Then Sean Carroll made a non-standard move for a respondent by ignoring Craig’s framing and reframing the debate as to whether naturalism or theism is the better way of understanding the universe. He pointed out that at cosmology conferences no one takes god seriously as a proposition to be included in understanding the universe. He said that naturalism is preferable to theism because:

1. Naturalism works
2. The evidence is against theism
3. Theism is not well-defined

…

singham/2014/03/04/reflections

The Back-and-Forth

(FTB::Mano Singham) – We had two further talks by each that allowed for some back and forth.

Craig seemed a little frustrated at the way that Carroll had broadened the debate to one between theism and naturalism. He tried his best to get the debate back within the minimalist framing with which he had started and protested that the debate was not between theism and naturalism that Carroll had made it into and that the latter had introduced extraneous non-cosmological arguments to show that naturalism was superior. While this complaint may have had an effect on judges in a formal debating contest, here it came off as somewhat whiny.

This of course is the classic Craig gambit, to argue for the absolute minimal non-natural influence and once you have that wedge in the door, then blast through that tiny opening with an interventionist god, Jesus, miracles, the whole religious kit-and caboodle. It is completely disingenuous.

In response, Carroll reiterated that this debate was about whether naturalism or theism was better and that naturalism was preferable because of the three points he had made earlier: that naturalism works, the evidence is against theism, and theism is not well-defined. …

He said that Craig’s argument fails because he thinks that the same kinds of causal reasoning that applies to events within the universe that exist in time also applies to the universe as a whole. What applies to things inside the universe is different from what happens to the universe. Carroll said that we have no right to expect more than a complete model of the universe and to do so ends up asking the wrong questions.

500 years ago it would have been reasonable to be a theist because that was the best that people could do with the knowledge they had but that got undermined by modern science beginning with Newton, and after Darwin it was a complete rout. …

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