William Lane Craig: Avoiding More Debate Opponents?

Recently Craig refused to debate me again. But not just me this time. He also refused to debate Robert Price, Hector Avalos, and Richard Carrier, three other contributors to the anthology to be released in April called The Christian Delusion. Maybe he ought to refuse to debate everyone who contributed to that book, right? Here's the story:

We at UB Freethinkers have learned first-hand that renowned Christian theologian William Lane Craig is brave enough to debate anyone — that he gets to choose.

For months now, we at UB Freethinkers — in cooperation with the Center for Inquiry and our friends at UB’s Intervarsity Christian Fellowship — have been planning an Easter-time Veritas Forum debate between a pair of heavy hitting experts that we could each bring in. The topic: Whether Jesus of Nazareth truly rose from the grave.

With such an important motion being forwarded, we were thrilled to learn that our Christian friends were able to secure the famous theologian William Lane Craig, a professor of philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology at BIOLA University, and one of western Christianity’s most frequently touted apologists.

Unfortunately for us, our first choice, biblical scholar R. Joseph Hoffmann, was unavailable. Not to worry, so we thought, since there are a great number of very capable individuals whom we could choose from. Little did we know that when dealing with Dr. Craig, apparently the choice wasn’t ours alone. Time and again over the past months, Dr. Craig has taken it upon himself to refuse participating alongside the following opponents we’ve proposed:

Robert Price

Hector Avalos

Richard Carrier

John W. Loftus

The idea that someone would get to choose their opponent in a debate seemed very odd to us here at UB Freethinkers. Such an attitude was especially surprising coming from someone like Dr. Craig, whose reputation among Christians as an eloquent and confident debater precedes him.

After this much time, the situation has simply become absurd. If we’re unable to find an available opponent that receives Dr. Craig’s blessing, the entire event could fall through. It’s becoming a tremendous strain upon us, and upon our Christian friends who have been working diligently to plan this event.

More-so, given the nature and importance of an open and intellectually rigorous debate, to quietly submit that one side can choose a preferred opponent would be dishonest to everyone in attendance. As such, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to broach Dr. Craig’s rather selective intellectual courage in this matter.

At the moment, we may have finally found an acceptable (and spectacular) opponent for Dr. Craig — should they be available. Yet, when dealing with a Christian intellectual of his supposed caliber and experience, the difficulty of getting to this point has been rather disheartening. Perhaps Dr. Craig has very good reasons for avoiding certain opponents. We would love to hear them.

Link

Not to reveal anyone's name or the university but I recently heard that Bill refused to debate me in a different venue, citing the fact that I had not yet established myself enough as a debater.

Now wait just a minute, okay? None of his reasons for refusing to debate me so far make any sense. Take this last one for instance. How many people has he debated who met that requirement? How many of them had previously established themselves as debaters? Not many of them. That I can say for sure. But he singles me out, again.

Perhaps he just wants to watch me debate to see my weaknesses? Perhaps he wants to see how I argue so he can be prepared to counter my objections? Perhaps he's worried? Who knows, right? He did say that the person he fears debating the most would be a former student of his. That would be me!

No wonder I watched with some irony Dawkins refusal to debate him.

This is nothing personal with me. I like Bill. I really do. It's just that he has some questions to answer, don't you think?

Bill, you called Dawkins a coward for not debating you.

Okay, coward.

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Update:

UB Freethinkers responds to a post on Dr. Craig's forum:

Dr. Craig agreed in advance last winter to come here for this Easter-time event and represent Intervarsity. In the meantime, we at UBFT have been a bit more limited than usual when searching for someone available to represent our side, since this debate specifically requires a historian and biblical scholar (it’s on the historicity of the resurrection) instead of just any old religious critic or blasphemer.

Honestly, we’re a podunk freethought student group simply looking to hold an event with our Christian friends at Intervarsity. If Dr. Craig was intent on avoiding certain people, he should have proposed a list of undesirables (and/or desirables) when IV contacted him last spring. Instead, we at UBFT and CFI have been going back and forth with him (through IV) for almost a year now, proposing names as we secure them, only to have them denied.

Dr. Craig is supposed to be the definitive lion of Christian apologetics. If he’s going to commit to a debate, one would expect he’d also be willing and able to show up — Kalam in tow — and dance around the most experienced person we can find, whoever the hell they might be.

If not, don’t offer in the first place.