Abstract
This is the published record of the Geer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum in Faith and Culture, which took place on 21 and 22 February 2014 at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The principal participants were Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and atheist theoretical physicist Sean Carroll. Their centrepiece debate is augmented by valuable and diverse contributions from four other participants – two theists and two atheists – to whom Craig and Carroll respond in turn. The theme for the debate was ‘Does the evidence of contemporary cosmology render God’s existence more probable than it would have been without it?’ (p. 3).
Craig speaks first, developing two familiar arguments for the existence of God. First is the Kalām Cosmological Argument, which holds that, if the universe began to exist, there must be a transcendent cause for its existence and, since the universe does have a beginning, there must be a cause of the universe that transcends it. The second is the Teleological Argument, which claims that, given the ordered structure of the universe, it is more compelling to interpret it as the consequence of purposeful design than the product of meaningless accident – hence, the probability of an intelligent designer. Craig proceeds to argue that modern cosmology provides a more congenial milieu for defending these arguments than those of earlier eras.
Carroll’s opening speech begins with a ‘confession’ that his aim is not to win the debate, because the kinds of issues that Craig is raising are simply not on the agenda of the community of professional cosmologists (p. 36). He asserts that practitioners operate on the basis of a ‘naturalist ontology’ in which it is presumed that the natural world is all there is and that the theist appeal to God is both superfluous and misleading. Consequently, he says that his goal is to explain why cosmologists think as they do. It is difficult to see how, for Carroll, any theistic claim can be anything other than a distraction. At one point Carroll comments that, ‘because theism has been undermined by science, it [science] takes theists and it marginalizes them as part of the wider intellectual conversation’ (p. 83). This is scarcely a posture of constructive engagement in the context of this forum.
The debate proceeds awkwardly, with contributors frequently frustrated by each other’s arguments and presuppositions. This was, perhaps, inevitable, once theistic and naturalistic ontologies were, effectively, pitted against one another. This need not have been the case. While all natural scientists proceed on the basis of methodological naturalism (with the implied delimitation of science’s scope), ontological naturalism is neither a necessary precondition of scientific work (many scientists are theists) nor an inevitable conclusion emerging from it.
Robert Stewart’s explicit intention in organizing this forum was to broker respectful and robust dialogue between experts of fundamentally differing metaphysical convictions on matters of cultural importance. While there is evidence that he met with some success in this case, the debate illuminates the fundamental difficulties of establishing constructive dialogue on this topic between those committed to fundamentally incompatible philosophical positions.