Michael Nugent, chair of Atheist Ireland, debates William Lane Craig, of Reasonable Faith, in University College Cork, Ireland, on March 21, 2017.
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Learn more about William Lane Craig here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/
Learn more about Michael Nugent and Atheist Ireland here: http://atheist.ie/
See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmlcmVye4hM
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Support Pints With Aquinas here:https://www.patreon.com/pwa
says
I really liked Dr. Craig’s demonstration of how the random (undersigned) multi-verse theory implies an almost necessary belief in solipsism. However, his explanation does implicitly accept the Principle of Sufficient Reason (which would be a great podcast topic). Why can’t the atheist just say, it was a brute fact that the universe was fine-tuned? Ultimately that is one of the major problems with the Kalam and fine-tuning arguments. Even if they succeed, they still are very prone to these brute fact objections. Aquinas’ 1st and 5th ways are also dependent on PSR, but in his ways, there would’ve have to be an unimaginable number of convenient brute facts at every instance of the universe’s existence. This is much less plausible on the surface than a single brute fact (although one). The other problems is that it gets us at best to deism and does not help explicate the traditional divine attributes. It seems that Dr. Craig, being a theistic personalist, chooses these particular arguments because they do not necessitate the classical divine attributes in the way Aquinas’ Five Ways do.
Definitely worth the listen, though. Thank you for the post!
I really liked Dr. Craig’s demonstration of how the random (undersigned) multi-verse theory implies an almost necessary belief in solipsism. However, his explanation does implicitly accept the Principle of Sufficient Reason (which would be a great podcast topic). Why can’t the atheist just say, it was a brute fact that the universe was fine-tuned? Ultimately that is one of the major problems with the Kalam and fine-tuning arguments. Even if they succeed, they still are very prone to these brute fact objections. Aquinas’ 1st and 5th ways are also dependent on PSR, but in his ways, there would’ve have to be an unimaginable number of convenient brute facts at every instance of the universe’s existence. This is much less plausible on the surface than a single brute fact (although one). The other problems is that it gets us at best to deism and does not help explicate the traditional divine attributes. It seems that Dr. Craig, being a theistic personalist, chooses these particular arguments because they do not necessitate the classical divine attributes in the way Aquinas’ Five Ways do.
Definitely worth the listen, though. Thank you for the post!