Summary of "The God Debate II Harris vs Craig"

Debate Overview

The video features a formal debate titled "The God Debate II: Harris vs. Craig," moderated by Professor Mike Ray at the University of Notre Dame. The central question is whether the foundations of moral values are natural (atheistic) or supernatural (theistic). The debate is between William Lane Craig, a Christian philosopher and apologist, and Sam Harris, a prominent atheist author and neuroscientist.

Opening Remarks and Context

The debate is organized by Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion and various university departments.
The question focuses on the grounding of objective moral values and duties: Are they best explained by the existence of God or can they be grounded in a naturalistic framework?

William Lane Craig’s Position (Theistic Foundation for Morality)

Agreement on Objective Morality: Both agree that objective moral values and duties exist, meaning they are valid and binding independent of human opinion.
First Contention: If God exists, then objective moral values and duties have a sound foundation.
- Moral values are grounded in God's character, who is essentially good, loving, and just.
- Moral duties arise from God’s commands, which are not arbitrary but reflect His holy nature.
- The Judeo-Christian tradition summarizes moral duty as love of God and neighbor.
Second Contention: If God does not exist, then there is no sound foundation for objective moral values or duties.
- Without God, humans are accidental products of evolution with no intrinsic worth.
- Morality on atheism is a byproduct of biological and social evolution, functioning as a herd instinct without objective binding force.
- Sam Harris’s attempt to ground morality in well-being is a semantic redefinition of “good” that fails to establish objective moral values.
- Naturalism cannot account for moral “oughts” because science deals with facts, not norms.
- Without free will (which Harris denies), moral responsibility and duties cannot exist.
Conclusion: Theism uniquely provides a metaphysical grounding for objective morality, while atheism fails to do so.

Sam Harris’s Position (Naturalistic Foundation for Morality)

Critique of Theistic Morality:
- Belief in God is unnecessary for universal morality and often leads to moral blindness.
- Religious faith can justify atrocities and moral double standards (e.g., Taliban’s oppression justified by religion).
- Theistic morality depends on faith in scriptures that endorse slavery, genocide, and eternal punishment.
- Divine Command Theory can justify any behavior if commanded by God, including atrocities.
Naturalistic Moral Framework:
- Morality is grounded in the well-being of conscious creatures.
- Consciousness is necessary for value judgments; without conscious beings, notions of good or evil are meaningless.
- The “moral landscape” metaphor: there are better and worse states of well-being; science can help identify actions that promote flourishing and reduce suffering.
- Objective moral truths exist as facts about well-being, which science can study through genetics, psychology, sociology, etc.
- Rejects the idea that science cannot address values; science necessarily involves value assumptions (e.g., valuing evidence, logic).
Free Will and Responsibility:
- Harris denies libertarian and compatibilist free will, seeing moral responsibility as a social construct.
- Despite this, he argues that we can still make objective moral claims based on well-being.
Critique of Theism’s Moral Claims:
- The problem of evil and suffering challenges the idea of a loving, just God.
- The concept of eternal hell is morally repugnant and incompatible with the notion of a good God.
- Religious morality is sectarian and culturally contingent, whereas science-based morality is universal and open to revision.

Rebuttals and Exchanges

Craig’s Rebuttal:
- Distinguishes moral ontology (existence of moral values) from semantics (meaning of moral terms).
- Argues Harris equivocates on “good” by using non-moral meanings.
- Harris’s moral landscape fails because psychopathy and evil people could be at “peaks” of well-being, undermining the identity of well-being with moral goodness.
- Without God, there is no authority to ground moral duties; atheism lacks moral imperatives.
- Free will is necessary for moral responsibility; Harris’s determinism undercuts moral duties.
Harris’s Rebuttal:
- Defends his naturalistic approach as consistent with science and experience.
- Argues that subjective facts (like pain) can be studied objectively and that morality concerns such subjective facts.
- Rejects the idea that belief in God is necessary for moral experience or higher states like love and compassion.
- Points out the diversity of religious moral claims undermines the idea of a single true religion.
- Emphasizes that morality must be grounded in reality as understood through science, not faith.