William Lane Craig Doesn't Deal With Morriston's Critiques of the Kalam

Jeffrey Jay Lowder first alerted me to Dr. Wes Morriston's critiques of the Kalam Argument for God's existence, saying they were the best critiques of the Kalam to be found. I agree. They are as far as I know. So imagine my utter surprise when I received Craig's 3rd edition of his "signature" book, Reasonable Faith, by finding him taking on atheist scholars like J.L. Mackie, Richard M. Gale, Graham Oppy, Howard Sobel, along with New Atheists like Daniel C. Dennett and Richard Dawkins, only to find that Craig doesn't even mention Morriston's critiques, must less try to respond to them! Morriston's critiques are not to be found in any bibliography in Craig's book, nor is Morriston's name in the index...at all!

Why? What reason can he give for this? I'm sure he'll come up with some reason. But one thing he cannot do is to say he doesn't know about them, because he responded to the first one, but not to the second one!

Maybe, just maybe, Craig is hoping that the popular audience he's writing for in his apologetics book will not see or hear of Morriston's critiques, because after all, they can only be found in the scholarly literature. Most of the readers of his book will never see it. Maybe he thinks he already answered Morriston in his one and only reply? But I do not think he did so at all.

That's where I come in *ahem.* I'm not writing for professional scholars. I've written a counter-apologetics book for the average college student. I'm taking the arguments of the professional scholars and articulating them for the average college student, educated person in the pew, and pastor.

In my book I tell the average college student about Morriston's critiques of the Kalam. That's right. I deal with the Kalam in my book by using Morriston's critiques. The average person will now be able to understand the best critiques of the Kalam when he or she reads my book. Then Dr. Craig will have to respond to Morriston sometime in a debate or in the next edition of this book.

You can read the exchange between Craig and Morriston for yourself. All of the following articles can be found online: Wes Morriston,“Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?: A Critical Examination of the Kalam Cosmological Argument,” Faith and Philosophy 17, no. 2 (2000): 149–69; William Lane Craig, “Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?: A Rejoinder”; and Morriston’s counter-reply, “Causes and Beginnings in the Kalam Argument: Reply to Craig,” Faith and Philosophy 19, no. 2 (April 2002): 233–44.

24 comments:

John said...

A vexing problem for me with Craig's argument is that even if it goes through (which I'm not sure that it does) is his claim that the argument is only more likely than not to be true. If all I know is that the probability lies in the half open interval between .5 and 1 I can't rationaly believe that teaching. To use the analogy that Plantinga uses suppose I'm about to toss a coin that is loaded and all I know is that it is somewhere more likely than not (Which is disputed among philosophers) to come up heads. Under those conditions I can't believe that the coin will land on heads. I can hope that it will come up heads or think that it is rather likely that it will. I can't believe it. At least I can't if all I know is that it's more likely than not.

Yoo said...

Even if Craig doesn't deal with Morriston's arguments, does he even do a good job of dealing with the arguments of other atheists? I doubt it, having seen him talk before, but I could be wrong ...

exapologist said...

Hi Yoo,

No, he does not even do a good job responding to one of the first critics of the kalam argument, viz., J.L. Mackie. What's frustrating is that he (and J.P. Moreland, btw) reiterate Craig's misconstrual of Mackie's main criticism without end, along with his inadequate reply to Mackie's original criticism, in just about all his apologetics books.

It's frustrating that he ignores Morriston's criticisms of Craig's kalam argument, since they're utterly decisive, and widely known to be such. Morriston isn't a hack. He's a well-known philosopher of religion at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The criticisms are in print in standard philosophy of religions journals (Faith and Philosophy and Religious Studies) Craig knows Morriston's criticisms, judging by how rapidly he responds to just about every criticism that comes out in the standard journals. Not only that, but Morriston's criticisms of the kalam argument are anthologized in standard philosophy of religion texts, such as God Matters.

It's despicable that Craig not only doesn't respond to Morriston, but that he omits any reference to his articles. Given the force of Morriston's criticisms, the best explanation is that Craig knows that the average reader of his apologetics books are people who will never pick up a philosophy of religion journal, and so he exploits their trust ("Craig is a responsible, honest scholar, and so he wouldn't omit an important criticism of his work if there was one").

I should also point out that Paul Draper has similar criticisms of the kalam argument in print and anthologized. Has Craig replied, or even acknowledged, Draper's criticisms in the revised version of Reasonable Faith, John?

P.S., My own view is that Morriston's criticisms re: Craig on the actual infinite, and on whether it can be traversed. Thus, I would list the following as the most important from Morriston here:

1. "A Critical Examination of the Kalam Cosmological Argument", in God Matters, ed. by Ray Martin and Christopher Bernard (Longman: 2002). This piece is the best place to start.

2. "Must the Past Have a Beginning?" Philo, Vol. 2 (1999) no. 1, 5-19.

3. "Craig on the Actual Infinite" Religious Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2 (June 2002).

These, and lots of his other published articles, are online at his department webpage. Here is the link. Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

Paul Draper, who is he? :-) No, Craig does not deal with his critique, nor is his name in the index!

This is an amazing insight to me about Craig, both with regard to the Kalam AND to the view that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. He is not being honest.

GordonBlood said...

While im well aware that is isnt, and never has been above DC to slime Craig, he actually does have responses to Morriston on the reasonablefaith website, which is hardly a journal for academics and the like. To expect Craig to deal with every single argument against the Kalam in a popular book seems to me more than alittle unfair.

David B. Ellis said...

The Kalam argument is weak on several fronts. For me, the most decisive problem with it is the fact that even if one succeeds in establishing that there must be a first cause there is no reason to think it must be a personal agent or anything supernatural.

Craig's argument to the effect that it must seems to me one of the shakiest parts of his version of Kalam.

Quantum foam (or some similar purely natural physical reality that hasn't even been thought of by cosmologists yet) makes just as good a first cause as the christian God.

Emanuel Goldstein said...

Amazing, you accuse Bill Craig, the man you brag about studying under and still say is a good man, of being a liar.

How respectful.

As you say, maybe he just sees things differently than you.

Anonymous said...

Hi david,
exactly.
Craigs (and all apologists) main problem is that all his arguments rest on the circular reasoning that the bible verifies itself.

The fundamental question. Where it all starts.
Why should anyone accept the bible as authoritative over any other scripture?

Additionally he uses a whole host of special pleading arguments for faulty principles that make me sick to read.

Listening to him makes my head swim trying to grasp his perspective as he moves onto his next fallacy.

I'd like to see him debate what I think is "THE HARD PROBLEM" for christianity.
"Why should I or anyone accept the bible as authoritative over any other scripture?"

This is what ultimately deconverted me. For me, everything else is irrelevant.

Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system.

John said...

I also agree with David. There are an infinite number of logically possible explanations. So, it would be difficult to ensure that one has the best explanation.

Again, here's the problem as I see it. Our believings are inextricably entwined with our passions, emotions, and will. Our fundamental commitments and values can obscure the truth. We are in every case epestemically situated - historically, culturally, socially- and we lack a God's eye view of the world. What counts as evidence, the weight that should be attatched to it, and inferences that follow from it are conditioned by our commitments.

kiwi said...

Haven't you guys figured out by now that William Lane Crag is the equivalent of a car salesman? Why expecting anything of substance from the oxymoronic "reasonable faith"?

The modus operandi of any scammer is: if the argument is attackable, rush to attack it. If the argument is too incovenient, pretend it doesn't exist.

Bart said...

In a recent argument, the Kalam argument was offered to me as proof of a creator.

Im not a religious philosopher. My background was in science and physics. So my reply to the 'Kalam' was completely different than the other replies I've run into.

My argument with Kalam is the basic assumption of causation. That the universe was 'caused' to exist. It created a great confusion in my opponent, when I stated that causation is merely an effect of 4 dimensional space (3 of space, one of time) and that causation falls down at the quantum level.

At the quantum level, effects can precede cause, and nothing makes sense as it does in our traditional space/time that we live in. So trying to use our understanding of causation to explain what happened 'before' the big bang is to fail to understand quantum mechanics. And if you don't understand quantum mechanics, you have no business trying to theorize a 'cause' for the origin of the universe, while citing the 'big bang' as Craig does.

Its just a shame more particle physicists arn't interested in religious debates.

M. Tully said...

Interesting,

The cosmological argument is actually a "god of the gaps" vs. physics argument.

Did Craig address Hawkings or Stenger?

Curious.

M. Tully said...

Gordon,

First let me say that you are one of the most reasonable theists that I have encountered.

Having said that, let me take exception to this comment, "To expect Craig to deal with every single argument against the Kalam in a popular book seems to me more than alittle unfair."

I don't expect him to "deal with every single argument against the Kalam." However, to be considered intellectually honest, I do expect him to deal with the Strongest Arguments. To not do so, makes him, in my opinion, a liar.

Shygetz said...

bart,

I recently brought up that objection to a philosopher who defends the kalam argument. His response was that, while quantum mechanics does disprove the idea that all things require sufficient causes, it has not disproven the idea that all things require necessary causes. In other words, everything we have ever seen is preceded by SOMETHING, so we cannot say that something could come from nothing.

He then proceded to argue that, since we have seen something come from something else, we can make an inductive argument that everything must be preceded by something. I pointed out that we have never been able to observe nothing, so we have no basis of comparison, but he would not budge--the fact that we only see things that were preceded by something else is inductive evidence that everything requires a necessary cause. I tried to point out the fallacy of this line of reasoning. I used lines like "I have only seen fish in the Atlantic Ocean, so I can conclude that there must be no fish in the Pacific, even though I've never seen the Pacific" to try to convince him of the error of his ways, but to no avail. I was dismayed that a Professor of Philosophy at an accredited university could get the basics of inductive reasoning so wrong.

Anonymous said...

Hi shygetz,
I was dismayed that a Professor of Philosophy at an accredited university could get the basics of inductive reasoning so wrong.
Whenever i see someone or something go in a way that I don't understand, I look for where the benefit is; who or what gets the benefit. That usually clears it up for me.

In this case, the philosophy professor gets the benefit because he is not in the minority, he can satisfy himself through sophistic arguments that ease his cognitive dissonance, and he feels better cause he knows that someone somewhere is in control and that there is more meaning to life than just "chance".

As my man Howard Beale would say, "that's the god bullshit".

Anonymous said...

M. Tully, Craig does deal with Hawking and he footnotes Stenger.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

these are bad arguments because they all depend upon one view of theism.

DingoDave said...

Andrew wrote:
"Amazing, you accuse Bill Craig, the man you brag about studying under and still say is a good man, of being a liar. How respectful."

Andrew, for a detailed expose of Craig's breathtaking dishonesty, go to Mark Smith's excellent website entitled 'Contra Craig'.

Here's the address.
http://jcnotme.com/Items/contra_craig/contra_craig.htm

As Kiwi said; "Haven't you guys figured out by now that William Lane Crag is the equivalent of a car salesman?"

I agree with Kiwi's analogy, except for the fact that that cars are real products which serve a genuinely useful purpose. I think a more fitting analogy might be that Bill Craig is the equivalent of a 'snake oil' salesman, or a 'junk bond' salesman.

Sorry Kiwi, but I worked as a car salesman for many years, and I get a little sensitive when people compare people who work in the motor industry, with the likes of Bill Craig. We always offered a written guarantee on all of OUR products.

Bugger_Butt said...

exapologist said,

"It's despicable that Craig not only doesn't respond to Morriston, but that he omits any reference to his articles. Given the force of Morriston's criticisms, the best explanation is that Craig knows that the average reader of his apologetics books are people who will never pick up a philosophy of religion journal, and so he exploits their trust ("Craig is a responsible, honest scholar, and so he wouldn't omit an important criticism of his work if there was one")."

This is the biggest load of crap that I have read in a long time. Basically, what you are charging Craig with is dishonesty without having said facts. All speculation aside, why don't you ask Craig why he has not replied to Morriston's newest criticisms?

At least Craig puts his work out there for others to see; he isn't a trained philosopher, former apologist, being an intellectual bully to internet theists who don't have the same amount of experience in philosophy. he gets in the ring with the big boys instead of playing with the hacks.

I understand that DC is a blog by atheists for atheists and that your (Dc's) constant bashing makes you all feel better about yourself but why don't you do me one better and ask Craig what it is you are charging his with?

exapologist said...

Re: ignoring recent important work from a scholar's standpoint:
If I were to submit an article to a philosophy journal, and I ignored the best criticisms of my view, no reviewer would take more than 5 minutes looking over my paper. I'd get a rejection letter with no comments. Craig is a professional philosopher, and he knows what responsible work looks like.

Re: ignoring recent important work from a layperson's standpoint:
You don't think it's plausible to say Craig is being dishonest by not discussing the most powerful criticisms of his own view -- some of which have been in print for almost a decade? Suppose, say, Michael Tooley wrote an atheistic apologetics book that ignored the criticisms of his arguments (doesn't address them, and doesn't list them in his bibliography) -- criticisms that are well-known to Christian philosophers, but which are unknown to the atheistic layperson. Would you say Tooley was being dishonest, and misleading his audience of atheist laypeople?

Bugger_Butt said...

What I don't think you seem to be understanding is that you are in the dark as to Craig's motivations, intentions and so forth. Just because you and Lowder (of all people) feel one way doesn't mean that others (including Craig) do. Craig has addressed Morriston in the past and maybe Craig is currently reading future responses. There could be many factors going on here but instead of entertaining other factors as possibilities the usual suspects on their internet platform (Lowder), including you, have to assign dishonesty to Craig. Has even one of you asked Craig? If not, then my suggestion is to stop your accusations because they turn a professional philosopher into an amateur hell bent to attack the character of another person without having all the facts before them. Speculate about it all you want, but keep it to yourself or admit it's just speculation. Good day.

Bart said...

Shygetz, next time you talk with this professor, ask him if he can explain the spontaneous creation and annihilation of positrons and electrons in vacuum.

Under quantum mechanics, we can break the law that 'Matter cannot be created or destroyed'. Small amounts of matter and antimatter are created, then annihilate each other all the time. What is this effect to the theist? God twiddling his thumbs?

lillanasse said...

"ask him if he can explain the spontaneous creation and annihilation of positrons and electrons in vacuum. "

standard reply is: "just b/c its spontaneous doesnt mean there are no necessary causes"

Anonymous said...

Craig claims his book is an "honest" one, that he takes on the best atheist arguments, as heard here.

Now which is it?