The Sean McDowell Show - William Lane Craig: The Case for God Is Stronger Than Ever

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Are the arguments for God’s existence still standing… or have they been defeated? After more than four decades of debates, writings, and public discussions, Dr. William Lane Craig offers a fascinating assessment of where the conversation stands today and why belief in God is far from intellectually obsolete. In this in-depth conversation with Sean McDowell, Dr. Craig walks through six major arguments for the existence of God, explaining why he believes they are not only still relevant—but stronger than ever when taken together. READ: Systematic Philosophical Theology, Volume IIb: Excursus on Natural Theology, the Trinity (https://amzn.to/4lMjXcg) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The King James Bible Study KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with the timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible studies simple and organize. Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store. Grow in your faith every day. Search for King James Bible Study, KJV, and download the app today. As you've been defending the existence of God for more than four decades in debates and in writings and in conversation, how would you assess the state of the debate today?

I think that there has been a tremendous revival of interest. Why does anything at all exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? The Bible says God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. If we truly want to find God, then we must approach him in humility and not in arrogance. Have the arguments for the existence of God been defeated? Or if they still stand, how strong are they when the toughest objections are raised against them? Our guest today, Dr. William Lane Craig, is perhaps the foremost contemporary defender of the existence of God.

In his latest volume of his systematic philosophical theology, which is not written for lay people, by the way. He defends six arguments for God's existence that he finds convincing. We're going to talk about them and the state of the debate today, and we'll invite you back Tuesday live at 430 Pacific Standard Time. I'll be joined by another Talbot professor to respond to your questions and objections from this post. You can email me questions at shawmn McDowell.org or write them in here, and we will take your best, toughest questions.

Dr. Craig, thanks for coming back. It's always a treat to have you on. Always enjoy doing your show, Sean. Well, let's jump right in. And this question might be this first one that I'm most curious about, because you've been defending the existence of God for more than four decades in debates and in writings and in conversation. How would you assess the state of the debate today versus when you began? I think that there has been a tremendous revival of interest in the arguments of natural theology over the last generation. The number of philosophers working on these arguments include some of the best philosophers working today. And so this is really a flourishing cottage industry, I think. Well, one of the most articulate and thoughtful critics of this movement would be Graham Opie,

and he's claimed that there are no good theistic arguments. Why do you differ with him? And what are the criteria in your mind that you think makes an argument good? I have a discussion of this question in the introduction to this volume. And I think that Professor Oppie sets the standard for what. counts as a good argument unrealistically high. He measures an argument's goodness by its success in persuading people to change their minds. But I don't think that the goodness of an argument is measured by its success, which could be impeded by all sorts of psychological and other

factors. And what counts as success? Well, according to Appi's account, a successful argument is one that ought to persuade all reasonable people who have reasonable views about the matter to change their minds. Well, that is unrealistically high as a standard of success. On that basis, there are no good philosophical arguments for anything, including Abbe's own arguments. So the standard of success, persuading all reasonable people, is simply unrealistic. I think that the arguments that I present are good arguments. They are deductive arguments, and a good deductive argument must be logically valid, have true premises, and then have premises that are supported by the evidence in such a way as to have a

particular epistemic value for us. Now, exactly what that value is, is very difficult to say. It certainly doesn't need to be certainty. Is it probability, plausibility? Well, in the the theistic arguments that I defend, I think that the probability of the conjunction of their premises is in every case pretty clearly greater than 50 percent so that these arguments demonstrate their conclusions to be more probable than not. And therefore, in my judgment, they are very good arguments. I really appreciate that point that we're not talking about certainty, but more probable. than not, and of course, leaning into what's the best explanation for some of these phenomena. Now, you have six arguments here, and for each one, I'm going to ask you to just kind of

briefly explain what the argument is, and then I'll have at least one objection to one of these, to each of these, and then invite your response. And again, people watching going, wait a minute, there's more objection than this. Write your objections in, and we'll be back live Tuesday at 4.30 with a professor from Talbot School Theology in the philosophy of Paul Jackson's Department, and we will do our best to respond to those as well. So let's start with the argument from contingency. What's that argument? This argument asks the question, why does anything at all exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? And I think a persuasive formulation of this argument is as follows. Premise 1. Every

thing that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause. Two, if the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. And three, the universe exists. Now, from those three, simple premises, It follows with logical necessity that therefore the universe has an explanation of its existence, and from that it follows that therefore the explanation of the universe is God. Those are the premises of the argument. I don't have time in our interview today to defend them, but you can look at the book for detailed defenses of each of the premises.

You know, I interviewed 100 apologists for what they consider the best argument. The one we're coming to next is the one that you considered the best or your favorite argument. Only one Protestant, I'm sorry, not a single Protestant apologist mentioned the contingency argument. It was only Trent Horn, who's a Catholic, who mentioned it. And then he followed up and got a whole bunch of Catholic philosophers and apologists who viewed this as the most compelling argument. Yeah, people like Alexander Pruss, for example, who is Catholic? has written extensively in defense of the contingency argument. So part of the argument is if things exist, then either it comes from their contingent,

they come from something that's necessary, or the things such as God or somebody could argue maybe the laws of logic in some sense necessarily exist. Perhaps the most common objection I've heard to this is people say, well, the universe exists necessarily. It's a brute fact. Things in the universe, and sometimes they'll put a nuance and say, well, even if things in the universe are contingent, the universe itself is not. So what would be your response to that common objection? This is actually two different objections, Sean. To say that the existence of the universe is a brute fact is to say that the universe exists contingently, but without any explanation at all for why it exists rather than not.

And I think the problem with this objection is that it commits what Alexander Proust calls the taxicab fallacy. That is to say, it assumes that you can just dismiss the principle of sufficient reason like a taxi cab whenever you want to. And it is arbitrary, and unjustified to dismiss that principle when you come to the universe. Richard Taylor, the great metaphysician, gave a wonderful illustration of this point. He said, imagine you're walking in the woods and you come across a ball lying on the floor of the forest. You would naturally wonder how it came to be there.

And if someone said to you, oh, don't ask that question. it just exists, inexplicably. You wouldn't accept that. Now, Taylor said, suppose the ball were the size of an automobile. Same question. Suppose it were the size of a house. Same question.

Suppose it were the size of a planet. Same question. Suppose it were the size of the universe. Same question. Merely increasing the size of the object. does nothing to obviate the need for an explanation of its existence. And therefore, those who try to exempt the universe from the principle of sufficient reason, I think, are guilty of the taxicab fallacy.

Now, the other objection you mentioned is much more radical. It says that the universe, yes, does have an explanation of its existence, namely, the universe exists by a necessity of its own nature. And I think this is enormously implausible and therefore has attracted very few proponents. Scientifically speaking, the universe seems to be contingent. For example, physicists explore different alternative models of the universe than the standard model of particle physics. Many have explored string theory, for example, and that is a different universe. And no one would refute string theory by saying it's metaphysically impossible.

This is a scientific question to be settled by the evidence, not by metaphysics. Or think of different cosmological models of the universe, the steady state model, oscillating models, vacuum fluctuation models. The universe, scientifically speaking, seems clearly contingent. Now, philosophically speaking, I would say it's very plausible that a different collection of fundamental particles, say quarks, could have existed instead of the quarks that do exist. But in that case, the universe exists contingently.

Think about your desk. If your desk, which is made of wood, were made of ice, instead, it wouldn't be the same desk. It would be an ice desk, the same size and shape as your wooden desk, but it would not be your wooden desk. So similarly, if the universe were composed of a different collection of quarks, as seems perfectly plausible, the universe must be contingent. That's a great response, and I think in many ways it leads us naturally to the second argument, which you cited as your top argument for the existence of God, if forced to pick one. And it's no surprise. If I might interrupt, I like to keep the argument separate because then you have independent lines of probability that are added together

and increase the probability of the overall case. But in fact, the second argument that we're going to talk about in a minute is, I think, coup de grace against the claim that the universe exists necessarily because it shows that the universe had a beginning. And if the universe had a beginning and came into being, then it is clearly not a necessarily existing object. Perfect. That's such a helpful clarification.

So why don't you walk us through basically what? is the cosmological argument. And then I've got two or three of what are some of the most prominent objections I want to get your response to. All right. As I formulated this argument, it goes as follows. Premise 1, whatever begins to exist has a cause. Premise 2, the universe began to exist. Three, therefore, the universe has a cause. And then you do a conceptual analysis of what it is to be a cause of the universe, and a number of striking, theologically significant properties can be recovered by such an analysis. It turns out that there must exist an absolutely first, uncaused, beginning less,

change less, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, enormously powerful, personal creator of the universe. which is the core concept of God. It's a remarkable conclusion from two premises alone, which is why it is one of my favorite to use in conversation with people. But one of the most common objections that comes up, you've obviously heard about this and dealt with this, is that quantum physics in which there seems to be weird, uncaused things can maybe explain the universe

without a cause or a universe from nothing. This is just false, Sean. It's based on a misunderstanding. Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The King James Bible study KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with the timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible studies simple and organized.

Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store. Growing your faith every day. Search for King James Bible Study, KJB, and download the app today. The vacuum is not nothing. Rather, it is a roiling sea of energy constantly fluctuating. And so in these models, the universe does not emerge from nothing. It has a physical basis in, for example, the quantum vacuum. You know, Bill, every time there's a worship song and the line says,

nothing is greater than you or nothing is greater than God, I always think of an argument because you say nothing is not something that's greater than God. It means not anything is greater than God. And the same kind of confusion is taking place here. Quantum physics, it's not in a realm of nothing in the way that we mean not anything. And so you're in my mind when we sing that worship song, I'm like, yep, I'm thinking of the possible logical argument. All right, so here's a second one that I think is maybe a little tougher to do with.

You had a debate with Sean Carroll, outspoken atheist, and he asked this question. I'm hoping you can respond. He said, now, how in the world can the author of the board Goof-Velan theorem say the universe is probably eternal? Our listeners need to understand that this has to do with a gimmick that Carol pulled in the debate of showing a photograph of Alan Gooth, one of the authors of the board Goof the Lankan theorem, holding up a little sign saying the universe is probably past eternal. And the real question is not the one Carol asks. The real question is how in the world could Valenkin say that the theorem shows that the universe probably had a beginning,

and yet Gooth says quite the opposite, that it probably did not have a beginning. Well, I found out later that there's a backstory to this puzzle. A few years later, when I had a debate with the British philosopher, Daniel came at Trinity College in the world. Dublin. Kame had seen the video of my debate with Carol, and so had written to Alan Gooth, asking him, what did you mean by that little sign that the universe is probably past eternal? And lo and behold, Gooth wrote back to Daniel Kame explaining that he was talking about Sean Carroll's own model of the universe, the Carol Chen model, which features a reversal of Times arrow at some point in the past.

And I actually read the correspondence from Gooth that King had received. And in the debate, I had exposed the Carol Chen model to extensive criticism showing how, in fact, It did not avoid, but actually implied the beginning of the universe, and Carol refused to defend it. And so it turned out ironically that that was what Goothe was talking about. So maybe quickly remind us, what's so significant about the board Goose-Velenkin theorem? Why does that matter so much in this debate? Well, it strengthens the conclusion of the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems that the universe cannot be past eternal. The universe can be infinite toward the future, but it cannot be infinite toward the past.

At some point in the finite past, you reach a boundary point before which time cannot be extended. it. So that, of course, strongly supports the idea that the universe had a beginning, the second premise. Okay. This one I heard recently from Alex O'Connor, and I listened to it a few times, so I hope I'm represented it as accurately as I can. He suggests that the Kalam cosmological argument may be circular, and he says it this way. He says, since the universe is all that began to exist, everything else is a result of matter being rearranged. arranged, according to Alex, then the first premise is basically the universe began to exist, which is the same as the conclusion. Thus, he asked the question, is the Klam cosmological argument circular? Well, this objection is nutty, Sean. The conclusion of the Klam cosmological

argument is not that the universe began to exist, but that the universe has a cause. And even if the universe were the only thing that ever began to exist, it still remains a factual question whether it could come into being uncaused from nothing or must have a cause that brought it into being. So the argument is certainly not circular or question begging. Good response. All right. So let's move to the third argument, which warms my wife's heart because she is a high school math teacher. Really? Yeah, she actually uses your short video on this, kind of the animated video, shows it to

her high school students every single year and they talk about it. And this is the argument from the applicability of mathematics. So let's start with what is that argument and then I've got an objection for you. This argument is more difficult to state. It's more complex, but I've reduced it to three simple, statements. Number one, if God does not exist, then the applicability of mathematics to physical phenomena is just a happy coincidence. Two, the applicability of mathematics to physical phenomena is not just a happy coincidence from which it follows three, therefore God exists.

That's awesome. So we're moving from the applicability. of math suggesting something about the world and a divine purpose behind it, one of the objections that people will say is something to this effect. The applicability of mathematics to the physical realm is a brute fact. So in some ways, this is a similar response to one of the objections of contingency, is that all of us have to stop at some point with something that can't be explained further. And so they're saying this applicability of math to the physical realm is a brute fact. It's a mystery that doesn't require further explanation, let alone points to God. I would respond that it's really counterintuitive that mathematics should be

applicable to physical reality, since abstract mathematical objects, even if they exist, have no causal connection with the physical world. And because, mathematics is pursued on the basis of mathematical beauty rather than scientific utility. So the fact of the applicability of mathematics to physical phenomena seems to cry out for some sort of explanation. And I think that the existence of a transcendent intelligence who planned the universe on a mathematical model that he had in mind provides a good explanation of that applicability and therefore it should be preferred. That's a great response.

So I want to make sure that people listening are grasping this because this can be one of the harder arguments for people to follow, maybe not quite as hard as the ontological argument, which we will get to. but if we start from not the fact that most people we live our lives assuming that math applies to the natural world, we have in such a science-dominated culture. But if we start from the perspective of worldview, a the atheist should not be surprised that there's a connection between the two of them because God is rational. He made the world orderly. And of course, on a Christian count, called us to understand and subdue the earth.

But if you start with a naturalistic worldview, that's where the surprise comes in. Is that a fair? Yes. Yes, absolutely. I had a wonderful dialogue with Sir Roger Penrose in London a few years ago, where Penrose says there are three domains, as it were, of reality. The domain of the mind, the domain of mathematics. and abstract objects, and then the physical domain. And he said the puzzle is, how do you put these three together?

He had no answer for how you can have a unified worldview incorporating these three domains. And I said to him, theism is the answer. There is an ultimate transcendent mind who grasps the truths of mathematics and logic, in his own intellect, and who has created the physical world on the model that he had in mind. And Penrose said, I've never thought of that before. Wow. After the show was over, he thanked me for sharing that alternative with him because it was a new thought to him. That is amazing to me on a few levels. Number one, that he hadn't thought about that. Somebody's so brilliant and influential and has clarity on these

issues in what needs to be solved, in some ways that's quite revealing. And last thing I'll point out is I want to make sure people understand that your argument works here, whether you take a realist or a non-realist, a fictionalist view of mathematics, there's still agreement that science works, so to speak, and relies upon this mathematical connection. So it cries out for this explanation, regardless of whether you think numbers are real or not. Right. Okay, good. All right, excellent. Okay, so let's move on. We are halfway there. We have three arguments down. Three to go. The argument from fine-tuning. This argument can be very simply formulated. Number one, the fine-tuning of the universe can be explained by either physical necessity, chance, or design. premise two the fine tuning is not explained by physical necessity or chance three therefore it is due to

design bill sometimes people will formulate this i think i've heard dembski formulate that it's chance necessity or third a combination of the two and it's not any of those three why wouldn't you include that or do you feel like the response to the two is sufficient and that extra premise is included in the argument itself? Yes, that's my intention, Sean, is that to combine chance and necessity is not to offer a new explanation or account. It's just saying that those two things account for the fine-tuning of the universe and yet neither of them does either individually or even in concert. The fine-tuned argument was one of the top ones cited by the 100 apologist that I interviewed. And I've also heard a lot of skeptics, even people like Christopher Hitchens, citing the

fine-tuning argument as giving him some pause if there had to be some argument that pointed towards the existence of God. Two big objections. One of them, atheist Dan Barker has suggested that we have the fine-tuning argument backwards. So rather than the universe being fine-tuned for complex life, we are fine-tuned to the universe. This response seems to be crazy. The constants and quantities, which are the objects of the fine-tuning, have existed since the beginning of the universe. They are not the product of human perception. On the contrary, we human beings would not even be here without the fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the universe. I think you're right about that because for there to be any complex life, not just our complex life.

These laws have to be set within a very narrow range. It's not like you shift the laws and you get different life. You shift the laws and there's no stars, planets, or even the possibility of life. that's the level of fine-tuning we're talking about here. So I think he misses the vote on that one. Now, a more common objection, perhaps the number one objection. I speak on college campuses regularly, and every time I talk about fine-tuning, as far as I remember,

this objection comes up. And there's different words for it. Sometimes it's called the many-world's hypothesis. There's the multiverse hypothesis, and I think there's not just one, but there's this idea that many people have. if we're the only universe that exists and is fine-tuned, maybe it points towards God. But if there's many or infinite number of universes, that seems to give a plausible explanation

for why there would at least be one universe that's fine-tuned. What's your response? This is, in fact, the main competitor to intelligent design in the debate today over fine-tuning. And the basic idea is that in a multiverse, finely tuned universes will appear somewhere in the collection by chance alone, and only such universes could be observed by us. The fallacy lies in thinking that only finely tuned universes are observable. In fact, it appears that it is far, far more probable that most observable universes in the multiverse would be universes populated by freak observers called Boltzmann brains. These are brains that fluctuate into existence out of the vacuum with illusory perceptions of an external world.

And therefore, if you adopt the multiverse hypothesis to explain fine-tuning, you have to believe that you are all that exists and that everything else around you is an illusion, which no sane person believes. This is, correct me if I'm wrong in this, but I think the response you're given here is a reductio ad absurdum that says, okay, if we take the many world's hypothesis to explain A, it leads to When life unravels, hope can feel out of reach. But what if God is still weaving something beautiful? I'm Kirby Kelly, and in my new book, The Fabric of Hope, I want to show you that even in seasons of suffering, waiting, and uncertainty, God is never absent or far away. Through honest stories and encouragement, this book invites you to see where God is at work stitching the broken pieces of your story with purpose. If you're longing for hope that holds,

the fabric of hope is for you. Find it wherever books are sold. Other absurdities, which nobody is going to accept, namely that we can't trust really our minds at all or we'd expect to find a different kind of universe than we're in. Therefore, we have reason to question the many world. hypothesis. Is that a fair way to put this response? That would be a sort of generalization. In other words, what you're saying is that if we were just a random member of a world ensemble of many worlds, we could never be certain of anything that we perceive with our senses around us because it is more probable that we are, one of these Boltzmann brains than a normal observer.

But the reason that leads to skepticism, Sean, is that then we can't trust the evidences of our senses that we exist in a multiverse. So that the multiverse hypothesis not only fails to explain fine-tuning, but it is also self-defeating because in a multiverse, you wouldn't be able to trust your scientific inferences and perceptions to say that you are in a multiverse.

That's really helpful. Now, there's some other issues we can talk about here, and we won't, about what is the actual evidence for a multiverse? Is God consistent with a multiverse? But we're coming back Tuesday. If you have those further objections, write your objections in, and I would bring a Talbot professor of philosophy with me, and we'll do our best to respond. All right.

So let's move to the fifth argument, the moral argument. I've defended a very simple version of the moral argument. There are many versions. Mine goes like this. Premise one, if God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Two, but objective moral values and duties do exist from which it follows logically. Three, therefore God exists. I know I don't have time to totally go into detail here, but that second premise is where I find

students pushing back and challenging this sometimes. In fact, in my class here, teach a class here at Biala, and we talk about the moral argument, and the students are like, we agree with you, we're with you, but role play with us so we can think about this. They're like, how do we really know that morality is objective? How do we prove or how do we demonstrate this? Maybe give us one key way you would support that second premise? I think that 98% or more of people really do believe in objective moral values and duties, Sean, even if they give lip service to moral relativism or nihilism. And the best way to help people to see this is just to ask questions. So, for example, I was approached after one university talk by a black student who said,

I don't think that there are objective moral values. And I said, really? So you think that racial discrimination is not wrong? And he was kind of set back on his feet. And he says, well, I guess I do. In that case, he doesn't believe in objective moral values. So use illustrations like religious persecution, the crusades. If the religious right were to round up all the homosexuals and put them in concentration camps,

do you really think that's morally neutral? And if they're honest with you and not just putting up a smokescreen, as I say, over 98% of people will say, yes, we do believe in, objective moral values and duties after all this generation of students though they've been taught to give lip service to relativism are deeply committed to values like inclusivity open-mindedness diversity uh equity and so forth and so they they really do believe in the objectivity of moral values and duties that's my experience as well is that some of the live and let live and tolerance of maybe the 90s is gone.

And we have a very judgmental generation willing to shame somebody who does something wrong. And whether I agree with the tactics, which it's done or not, there's a deep intuition behind that that there's things such as justice. There's things such as human values. We ought to live a certain way. And so your strategy is encouraging to me. It's interesting you said 98%, because I've had hundreds of conversations. And I've had only two students, bite the bullet and say the Holocaust is not wrong. One at Berkeley and one at a university in Singapore.

But of course, I push back and tell them, I don't think you really believe this. And next time you're watching the news and you find yourself judging something as being moral, remind yourself, you don't actually think that's wrong. And so in many ways, you're appealing to this deep intuition and knowledge that we have. Okay, so here's a response one. And again, folks, there's a lot more responses than this. You can write him in. We'll come back live Tuesday and do our best to address them.

But you also had a debate with Eric Wielenberg. And he offered, I thought, a fascinating, atheistic account of objective morality that's called godless normative realism. Now, of course, people can go watch the whole debate and make up their own minds. but why do you ultimately find his account an attempt to get objective moral values and duties without God? Why do you find it lacking? Wielenberg defends an account of objective morality based on Platonism, namely the view that moral values exist as abstract objects. And I raise three objections against such a view. First of all,

I think the account is unintelligible. I understand what it means to say that a person is just or loyal or faithful, but I draw an absolute blank when I'm told that in the absence of any people, that justice just exists or that loyalty exists as an abstract object or fidelity exists. I do not understand how these sorts of moral qualities can exist as abstract objects apart from persons. Secondly, the account gives no explanation of objective moral duties. It attempts to show that moral values are these abstract objects, but whence arises my obligation to conform my life to these values, presumably on Platonism, there are also objective moral vices that exist, like sloth, avarice, jealousy, cruelty, and so forth. So why am I morally obliged to align my life with one set

of these abstract objects rather than another? The account has no answer. And then finally, the account cannot explain why the natural realm governed by the laws of physics and the moral realm happen to perfectly match. How is it that the blind physical processes have yielded a creature whose moral duties exactly correspond to those that are based in the abstract realm, which has no causal connection with the physical realm, it seems to me far more plausible to think that both the natural realm and the moral realm are under the hegemony or direction

of a natural and moral lawgiver who has created the world in such a way that these match each other. I think all three of those are very fair objections. The last one, how kind of the natural, world lines up with the moral world, it's not only a problem for that view, but it's arguably a positive case for design, because for there to be this principle of justice that exists, and that we would evolve to the point without any mind or intention whatsoever, that we would

grasp that, be capable of living that way, feel a duty to carry that out, seems far more probable that there's design behind it than there is just some blind process. But of course, someone could write a doctoral dissertation and flesh that one out in a little bit more detail. All right. So the last one, the ontological argument, before we jump in, Bill, you know, I taught high school Bible for 21 years, full time and part time. And my last few years, I would teach an honors Bible class with students. So these are juniors and seniors. And each year I did this, they wanted to spend more time on the ontological argument than any of the other arguments. And it fascinated me. So as best as you can, and I only frame it that way, not because I don't

think you're capable of, because this is a difficult argument. Explain to us the heart of the ontological argument. Yes. At the heart of the argument is the idea of a maximally great being. And a maximally great being is defined as a being which is necessarily existent, omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. And the argument goes like this. One, it's possible that a maximally great being exists. Two, if it's possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.

Three, if a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world. Four, if a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. Five, if a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists. Six, therefore, a maximally great being exists. I think it's a brilliant argument. Now, maybe before we come to the objection, can you clarify what's meant by possibility

because there's physical possibility, metaphysical possibility, logical possibility. When you say a maxima great being possibly exists, clarify what we mean by possibly exist, please. That's crucial, Sean. we are talking here about metaphysical possibility, not merely epistemic possibility. Epistemic possibility means for all I know. And so you might say, well, for all I know, it's possible that God exists and it's possible that God does not exist. But that is not possible in a metaphysical sense. It's one or the other, not both.

To illustrate, suppose you see a complex mathematical equation on the whiteboard, and you want to know whether or not it's true. Well, you might say, well, it's possible that it's true, but it's possible that it's not true. Well, that's the case only in an epistemic sense. In a metaphysical or logical sense, that equation is, either necessarily true or it's necessarily false. So similarly, when we say that it's possible that a maximally great being exists, what we mean is it's metaphysically possible that there is such a being. Okay, so this means we can move from the mere metaphysical possibility of God to the existence of God. And so the critic has to show that the metaphysical existence of God,

is impossible. That's the burden of proof that the critic would have to show. And is the only way to do that is to show that it's logically impossible? Because if something's logically impossible, then by definition it would be metaphysically impossible. What the critic has to do to overturn the argument. Well, what the atheist has to say is not simply that God does not exist. He has to say that it's impossible that God exists. Because the argument should, shows that if it's possible that God exists, then he actually exists. Now, it is not correct to say that he has to show that the concept of God is logically incoherent because there are metaphysical impossibilities that do not involve a logical contradiction.

I gave one earlier in the podcast. my desk could have been made of ice. That's metaphysically impossible, but there's no strict logical contradiction in that. Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The King James Bible Study KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with a timeless KJV translation.

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He says the prime minister could have been a prime number. Well, there's no logical contradiction in that, but nevertheless, it's clearly metaphysically impossible. So the atheist has to give, if he's to be justified, give some reason for thinking that it is impossible that God exists. Okay, so Bill, I just want to make sure I understand. So if something is logically impossible, then by definition it's also metaphysically impossible. But there can be metaphysically impossible that aren't logically impossible. Like my wooden desk is ice.

Correct. Okay, so here's one of the common objections that I'll hear is, I guess some people might call it the reverse ontological argument. Instead of saying it's possible that a maxima great being does exist, they'll say it's possible that a maxly great being does not exist. Why is that not convincing to you? I just see no reason to think that this premise is true. I think that we have much better reasons for thinking that it's possible that a maximally great being exists than that it's possible that a maximally great being does not exist. But I'm content to just leave the questioner, pardon me, I'm content to just leave the question

with my interlocutor, just leaving with the question, what do you think? Do you think it's possible that God exists? If you want to deny the existence of God, you have to think that it's impossible that God exists. So what do you think? Is it possible that God exists or impossible? And I think that puts as Greg Kokel likes to say, a stone in his shoe, give him something to think about. And so I'm content with even just doing that much. That's really fair.

Now, of course, there's many more objections to each one of these. And again, put them in here, folks. and we're going to come back Tuesday at 4.30 Pacific Standard Time and do our best to respond to some of these. But you picked six arguments. Why did you pick these six to include in the latest volume of your systematic philosophical theology? Well, these are the six that I've worked on over the years, beginning with the Kalam cosmological argument in my doctoral research at the University of Birmingham in England. And then most recently with the argument from the applicability of mathematics. So these are simply the ones that I have studied in considerable depth and find to be very persuasive.

So roughly three decades ago, Avon Planniga gave a lecture called two dozen or so arguments. And then a book was published, kind of a compilation with a lot of these arguments after that. and it really helped motivate a generation of scholars to defend God's existence. Back to my first question to you about where we are at with these arguments. Adam Planooga played a massive role in that. I'm curious, how many good theistic arguments do you think there are beyond these six that are at least convincing? Would you put a number or an estimate on it?

How would you land that plane if possible? Oh, man, I just don't know, Sean. Certainly there are many more good arguments for the existence of God than the ones that I've had time to work on in my finite lifetime. But I wouldn't be able to put a number on how many good arguments for God's existence there are. That's fair. I suggested you might respond that way. I thought maybe he'll give me a number, but you're such a careful thinker and you've studied. these six. So, you know, if Alvin Planegas said it, in some ways that settles it, that minimally

there's a lot more arguments than these six. But I think you argue that these arguments themselves are sufficient, especially taking cumulatively. Maybe you could clarify for our views. You said earlier that you take these kind of one by one, but you also talk about how they're a cumulative case. So how do you combine those two angles one by one with cumulative for the existence of got. Well, I think the analogy here would be the case presented by a prosecution in a court of law. If the prosecution is trying to show that the accused is guilty of murder, he'll give DNA evidence for the DNA of the accused being on the knife, for example. He'll appeal to the videotape evidence from the ring doorbell. He'll appeal to eyewitness evidence who saw the accused walking by the house

at the time. And any one of these might be sufficient for conviction of the accused. But when you put them all together, the cumulative force of these arguments is mutually reinforcing and makes for a very powerful case. And I think that that is what we have in the case of theism. What's striking about these arguments is that they appeal to so many different sectors of human exploration and knowledge, cosmology, philosophy, mathematics, physics in the fine-tuning of the universe, ethics in the moral argument. And the very diversity of the things to be explained makes theistic hypothesis such a powerful one. One other illustration of views, maybe you could explain, is the difference between like a chain where one link is connected to the other

and chain mail. Explain how the arguments work more like chain mail than kind of a link in this In a chain, the chain is only as strong as the weakest link. If that weak link breaks, the chain falls apart. But in a coat of chain mail, such as medieval knight might wear over his chest, it is not true that the coat of mail is only as strong as its weakest link, because the links all reinforce one another. And so even if there are some weak links, in the coat of chain mail, the coat is much stronger than any single link considered in isolation.

And that is certainly the way we should consider these theistic arguments in a cumulative case for God's existence. In debates on God's existence, you've included religious. religious experience at times and the resurrection. Why not include those in this volume? I talk about the experience of God in volume one of my systematic philosophical theology because I am not presenting an argument from religious experience. Rather, I'm saying that you can know that God exists without any arguments simply through having a personal experience of God. The belief in God, I think, is a properly basic belief that is grounded

in the experience of God, just as my belief in the external world is grounded in my sensory experience of the world. You don't infer the existence of the external world from your sense experience. Rather, you form the belief in the external world. in a basic way. And it is a properly basic belief because it is grounded in experience and there are no good defeaters to deny the veriticality of that experience.

And I would say that that is the same with theism. It's not an argument for God from religious experience, but it is again the claim that you can know that God exists in a properly basic way by having an immediate experience of God that grounds that properly basic belief. How about the resurrection? Is that something you're going to come back to later in your systematic philosophy? Well, honestly, the reason that I would sometimes include that in debates is for evangelistic purposes.

I don't want people simply to come to believe in God. I want them to come to believe in the Christian God. And I think that the resurrection is key to making that transition from generic theism to Christian theism. But I would say your argument from the evidence for the resurrection is vastly, vastly stronger if you do your natural theology first. You first establish the existence of a creator and designer of the universe who is absolutely good. And then you look at the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and his personal claims to show that this creator has specially revealed himself in Jesus of Nazareth. So I would say that the best apologetic case is one that begins with the arguments of natural theology. and then transitions to the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus on that conclusion.

Two last questions for you, and we'll wrap up, is you worked on these six arguments, and I know the systematic philosophical theology is going to take you some time to work it through, but if you were to study a seventh argument, I'm curious what that would be, because I remember I interviewed you maybe two or three years ago, and you said you didn't really have this plan laid out exactly where, all of your research was going, but just things that kind of fascinated you along the way and got your interest. So if you're like, you know what, here's the seventh argument I'd love to pour into and study. Is there one or are you not even sure which one that might be? Yes, there is. And I was

almost tempted to include it. It would be an argument from the reality of mind. I think we can give very good arguments for mind-body dualism, interactionism. That Physicalism with respect to human beings is false. We are not just bags of chemicals on bones. We have minds that have phenomenal states of awareness like self-consciousness, intentionality, freedom of the will and moral agency. And the reality of mind, Sean, makes far, far better sense on theism than it does on naturalism. On theism, you already have an ultimate, transcendent, unembodied mind who is created and designed the universe. And so it's hardly surprising that there might be finite embodied minds which God has created. So I think

that this is a seventh, very powerful argument for the existence of God. I love it. Good stuff. Now, I have your other two systematic philosophical theologies here, Volume 1, Volume 2A. This one is not out yet at the time we're recording this, but you can pre-order it. You can get it. Now, this is not written for lay people. I think most of it is very readable. Some of the higher math we're defending that the universe has the beginning, non-specialists, and I don't have a background in math, some of that was challenging, but as a whole, this seems to be the most up-to-date defense of the arguments for the existence of God that you've published. So skeptics and believers alike, I would strongly encourage you

to dive into and read those. It's an excellent volume. Love it. Last question, what encouragement would you give to somebody? He says, okay, you know, you made some good points, Bill, but I'm just, I'm not quite convinced. I don't know. I'm still wrestling with these. What would your final words be? My advice to such a person, Sean, is to realize in a very self-conscious way that the question of God's existence is not simply an intellectual question, but rather is a deeply spiritual question.

The Bible says God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. If we truly want to find God, then we must approach him in humility and not in arrogance. The Bible says that God by His Spirit is working to convince you of your sin and to draw you to himself if you will simply be open to His grace. So while we look at the arguments critically and think about them hard, we must not ignore the inner voice of God speaking to our own hearts. Bill, I love it. Always enjoy talking. Thank you for your work on this.

Thoroughly enjoyed the volume. I've read all three volumes in their entirety, and I look forward to getting a physical coffee, and I'll probably go back through it another time. So I hope our listeners will pick it up. Remember to join me, and I'll have another time. Talbot or Apologetics professor here Tuesday 430 Pacific Standard Time live to take your questions. You can send me your questions, questions at shonmcdowl.org, or you can post them right here in the YouTube video and do our best to come back and address them.

Make sure you hit subscribe because we've got some other videos like this coming up, including in April. We're doing a three-part series with Doug Axe, Jay Richards, and Stephen Meyer on three different evidences for the existence of God, but we're going to do a deep dive and then all looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day.

with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. Also do live engagement. You won't want to miss it. If you thought about studying Apologetics, we'd love having our MAFILL program or in our Apologize program. There's information below. Dr. Craig, thanks for your time. Thanks for coming on. Always a pleasure, Sean. Thank you. Hey, friends. If you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet, and it makes a huge difference in helping us reach

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