The Hiddenness of God
A Partial Debate Between Philosophers Michael Tooley
and William Lane Craig
and a Discussion with Dr. Tooley
In 1994 philosophers Michael Tooley and William Lane Craig debated the question, “Does God Exist.” They debated this topic again in 2010. After the first debate, Dr. Tooley discussed several questions with Encounter, one of which was his claim that the apparent hiddenness of God provides good reason to believe that theism is not true. We will begin with Craig’s and Tooley’s arguments from the first debate and follow with our discussion with Dr. Tooley.
Tooley: (p5) My third argument is the argument from the apparent hiddenness of God, and it turns upon two claims. The first is that if it’s true that God exists then that is a very important truth. The second is that if God exists, his existence is by no means as evident as it could be. So if God exists, he is to some extent hiding himself.
Now the first claim probably requires little in the way of defense since most people, I think, will readily grant that, if God exists, then that is a very important piece of information. And it is easy to see why people should take that view. For if God is defined as above, and God exists, then in the end justice will be done and good will triumph. [Tooley earlier said that “a being to be characterizable as God in that sense should be a personal being, should be a being that is morally perfect, a being that is omnipotent, and a being that is omniscient.”] Moreover if God exists then there’s a real possibility that death is not the end of the individual’s existence. And given that the existence of God has these other consequences, it seems only reasonable to hold that if God exists, that fact is a very important one.
What about the second claim—that is, the claim that if God exists, his existence is not as evident as it could be? Even most people who believe in the existence of God will grant that God’s existence is not exactly obvious, since, if it were, people would be no more inclined to doubt or reject the claim that God exists than they would be to question the existence of tables and chairs, trees and the flowers, people and animals.
But while granting this, believers attempt to respond that there’s nothing surprising about this. After all, God is immaterial; he has a mind and no body. This response, however, does not meet the point. The relevant claim was not that God’s existence could be as evident as that of physical things. It was rather that the existence of God—or, at least, the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient person—could be more evident, indeed, much more evident than it presently is. And this latter claim can, I believe, be given very strong support, for it’s easy to imagine events that could occur, and which are such that if they did occur, would be sufficient to convince any rational person of the existence of God—or at least of the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient person, if not a morally perfect one.
For example, we can imagine either a voice in the sky speaking different languages over different countries, or else a telepathic communication for all who request it, where the content of the communication involves information that is far in advance of what we now possess. It might involve, for example, solutions to problems that mathematicians have been working on unsuccessfully for centuries.
You could also imagine impressive displays of great power. A voice from the sky announces that the earth will disappear in exactly five minutes and then reappear on the other side of the solar system. This occurrence then takes place. If this sort of scenario were appropriately fleshed out, surely it would be true both that one would have excellent reason for believing that there is a being with unlimited knowledge and unlimited power, and that one would thereby have better evidence for the existence of God than one presently possesses.
The argument can now be put very briefly as follows. It is agreed that if it is true that God exists, this is a very important truth. It has been shown that the world could be such that the existence of God would be much more evident than it presently is. So if God exists, he is to some extent hiding his reality from us, and, thereby, is depriving many people of firm knowledge of a very important truth.
The crucial question is, “What explanation could be offered for this fact?” Various answers have been proposed—such as the idea that it is somehow crucial for there to be epistemic, or cognitive distance between ourselves and God. I believe that it can be argued that none of those answers is satisfactory. If that’s right, then if God does in fact exist, his hiddenness is an extremely puzzling fact. In contrast, if God does not exist, there is of course no problem why the existence of God is not as evident as it might be.
Tooley: if God does in fact exist, his hiddenness is an extremely puzzling fact. In contrast, if God does not exist, there is of course no problem why the existence of God is not as evident as it might be.
The conclusion, accordingly, is that one should accept the belief that God does not exist, since that is the hypothesis that provides the best explanation of the fact that God’s existence is much less evident than it could be. . . .
Craig: (p6) What about the apparent hiddenness of God? He argues that it is deeply puzzling that God is hidden. Well, here I would simply agree with Pascal, the French philosopher, who said that God has given evidence which is sufficiently clear for those with an open mind and open heart, but sufficiently vague so as not to compel those whose hearts are closed.1 I think that those who are seeking for God, who are open to God, will find the evidence satisfactory. In fact the New Testament says that God’s existence is evident to all persons through the created order around us and by the moral law that we sense in our hearts (Romans 19-20; 2.14-15). Moreover, the New Testament says that God hasn’t simply left us to work out by evidence whether He exists, his Spirit also speaks to the heart of every person drawing us to Him (John 16.8-11). That was my sixth point. If we respond to His drawing, I think that we can come to know God in a personal way and have that experience of Him immediately. So this apparent hiddenness, I think, is just God’s not being coercive.
Craig: God has given evidence which is sufficiently clear for those with an open mind and open heart, but sufficiently vague so as not to compel those whose hearts are closed.
Tooley: (p10) Let me now indicate why I believe that Dr. Craig has not satisfactorily responded to the . . . argument that I gave. . . . His response was the one that I had expected from him, although it was also one that I was disappointed to hear—namely, that involved in Pascal’s view that “there is enough light for those who wish to see and enough darkness for those who wish to remain in darkness.” For what Craig is saying is that if people of good will really make an effort to arrive at a knowledge of God, then they will do so. I suggest that that claim is simply, empirically false. I suggest that there are people who would like to be convinced that God exists, at least if ’God’ is defined in the way I defined it—rather than in the way that Craig might define it, where the deity is the creator of heaven and hell, and where hell is a place where many—indeed the majority of people—are going to end up spending eternity. But if one focuses upon the concept of God as I defined it, then it seems to me that anyone who is thinking clearly would hope that there is such a God. And it also seems to me that I know many people who would like to have that belief, but, having looked at the evidence—including the arguments that I have put forward—are convinced that that belief, unfortunately, is one that is not likely to be true. So I think that Craig’s response to my third argument was very unsatisfactory.
Q6: (Q&A) [To Dr. Tooley] For theists the existence of supernatural phenomena is enough to prove God’s existence. It seems to me that atheism is an excessively skeptical viewpoint. What would God have to do to prove his existence beyond a shadow of a doubt to an atheist?
Tooley: It’s easy to describe something very spectacular and in my presentation I mentioned the possibility that we could hear voices from the sky in every language over every country. Suppose the voice were to say, “Yes, Andrew Wiles has, at last, proved Fermat’s last theorem—he got it wrong the first time but he’s got it right this time. But let me tell you the proof that Fermat had in mind—which was a much shorter, and more elegant proof.” And the voice rattles off this proof. And you can imagine that being done for a number of unsolved problems. However, someone might respond, “Well, perhaps you know a great deal, but what about power?” The voice might then say, “How would you like me to transfer the earth from this side of the solar system to the other side of the solar system?” You then look through your telescope and you find that your situation in the solar system is very different than it was. I think that things much less impressive than that could be evidence for the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient person. But it seems to me that if you had events of that sort, any atheist that I know would conclude that there was an omniscient and omnipotent being.
Now there is still the problem of evil. But even here it might be possible to imagine some sort of dialogue that was at least helpful. You might say, “This world doesn’t look like such a great place—with cancer in it, for example. If I had a cure for cancer, I’d try to get cancer out of the world. If you’re omniscient, you must know the cure for cancer. Why don’t you get cancer out of the world?” If the voice responded with some sort of plausible story, then perhaps it might be reasonable to believe that the being in question was not only omniscient and omnipotent but also morally perfect. In any case, at the very least there could be evidence that would make the existence of God much more evident than it presently is.
Craig: I think that the detail in those kind of conditions shows how vacuous this argument from the hiddenness of God is. I mean if God would have to do those sorts of things for every individual person in order to convince him of His existence, I think you can see just how irrational it would be to expect God to have to do that. That would be a world that would be so massively irregular, so bizarre. The argument based on God’s hiddenness just looses all force. God has given sufficient evidence for those who want to believe, but it’s not going to be coercive evidence. If you don’t want to believe, it’s not going to coerce you. But you’re certainly not going to get voices from heaven and things of that sort in order to compel you to believe in God.
Q9: [To Dr. Craig] In your rebuttal to the hiddenness of God you stated that humankind must seek out God because God is not coercive. But everyone, atheist and theist alike, knows that if you don’t find God and accept him into your heart you won’t go to heaven and thus you will go to hell. Is that not coercion? The same question applies to happiness as being connected to acceptance of God. It seems to imply that we must seek and believe or else.
Craig: I don’t think it is coercive because obviously there are a lot of folks in this room, including Dr. Tooley, who don’t feel coerced. So it’s clear that people are not coerced, I think. They have the freedom to reject God, to reject His grace, and I believe that God’s will and desire is that no one be separated from Him forever. In one sense, God doesn’t send anyone to hell. I believe that people separate themselves from God by rejecting His love, His grace. And so in a sense they create their own destiny. God will not force Himself upon anybody. There is ample evidence for those who want to believe. His Spirit speaks to our hearts; He draws us to Himself. And I think in the end of the day no one rejects God out of their life because of lack of evidence or arguments. They ultimately reject God because they prefer themselves and to be without Him, basically; to separate themselves from Him.
Dr. Tooley said that people seek for God, but they don’t find him. But it was only a God such as was created in his own image, a God who was not a holy God, who would never send anyone to hell. Well, again, if you only seek a God who fits your description of what you want to find, then you may not find God. But if there is a God who loves us and has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from our evil, who offers us forgiveness and moral cleansing, then when we reject His grace we reject His forgiveness. Then there is no one else to pay the penalty for the moral wrong and evil that we have done. God has no choice but to give us the punishment that we deserve. So we separate ourselves from Him forever. And I don’t think of that as being anything that’s unjust, if we’ve chosen it ourselves.
Tooley: William Craig has constantly asserted that people who do not know that God exists are people who do not earnestly seek to find out whether God exists. I think that this is an incredible claim. I would suggest that, if we did an empirical study, we would find lots of people who are earnest seekers, and who would genuinely like to come to know whether God exists, and who do so in good will, but who conclude, reluctantly, that there isn’t good evidence for the existence of God. So to put it very plainly and simply: Craig’s claim is empirically false.
I would also say that Craig’s contention seems to betray a certain inhumanity—because Craig is suggesting that those who don’t believe really deserve whatever they get. And what they are going to get in Dr. Craig’s view is very dramatic indeed: it’s eternal torment in hell. And if it is said, in response, that each person chooses hell, then one of the problems is that hell is eternal. It’s not that people can sort of try hell out and then get a second chance. For one primary objection to the doctrine of hell is precisely this: once the door is shut, it’s shut for eternity. And as a number of philosophers like Santayana have argued, this is really a very unsatisfactory conception.
Note: the following discussion is presented in a basically chronological order. However, some statements have been repositioned to follow appropriate statements or be followed more directly by their appropriate responses and continued discussion. E1 is Encounter’s first statement, T1 is Tooley’s first statement or response, etc. Much of Tooley’s objection to Craig’s argument involved the problem of an eternal hell. Since this is an important topic in itself, I have excised most of that portion of the debate and discussion and will consider it later as a separate debate and discussion.
Discussion with Dr. Tooley
E1: At this point you and Dr. Craig seemed to be stalled over the issue of hell. Craig says the seeker may not find God if one seeks a God who is not just. You, in essence, respond that a God who created an eternal hell doesn’t deserve to be searched after. I wonder if we can get over this impasse by just talking about justice instead of hell. I usually find that when the objection of hell comes up, the real objection is not that God should not punish evil, but that this—eternal torment—is simply not just. So on the possibility that there is an afterlife, do you object to the idea of God justly giving us what we deserve for any evil we’ve done?
[Tooley here offers several other objections to the historical Christian doctrine of hell. I include two which apply to our current discussion.]
T1: [One objection is that] the New Testament [NT] attributes to Jesus the view that certain beliefs are necessary in order to be saved. For example, Mark 16.15-16 has Jesus saying: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” Here the objection is that, if there is an afterlife, how one fares in that afterlife should depend only on how morally one has behaved throughout one’s life, and not upon what beliefs one accepts or rejects.
[Secondly,] many philosophers have objected to Hell on the grounds that it involves the idea of retributive punishment, which they hold to be unjustified, on the grounds that punishment is justified only if its function is either reform, or deterrence.
You ask me, in effect, whether I would agree with the last of these objections. The answer is that, contrary to most contemporary philosophers, I am not convinced that a retributive conception of punishment is indefensible. The issue seems to me a difficult one. But my acceptance of the idea of retributive punishment is clearly not a way around what you call an impasse, since Craig embraces an orthodox conception of Hell, which I believe to be morally completely unacceptable.
E11: (re T1) You say, “My acceptance of the idea of retributive punishment is clearly not a way around what you call an impasse, since Craig embraces an orthodox conception of [an eternal] Hell.” So you do admit this is a way around the impasse—if this idea of eternal punishment is not a factor and if one receives as one deserves. Remember that these are the central stipulations of my question.
Concerning [your first] objection (in T1), Jesus’ statement that those who do not believe will be condemned, Jesus also said that anyone who wills to do the will of the Father will know whether his (Jesus’) teachings are true (John 7.17). Thus for anyone who has heard and confronted Jesus’ claims, their choice [to do God’s will] shall determine their belief. Romans 1 indicates that the same is true concerning belief in God. Anyone who disbelieves in God does so because of their choice to repress knowledge that God gives them.
This knowledge might consist of nothing more than something like a whisper in one’s ear: “What if I’m really here? Would you seek me?” Or perhaps it might contain much more detailed information. How one responds to even the former will determine whether more information will be given. A person is morally accountable for such choices. Thus one’s choices may determine not only how one behaves but also what one believes. If the Christian view is correct about our choices determining our knowledge then, to use your words, “how one fares in that afterlife” definitely should depend “upon what beliefs one accepts or rejects.”
E4: Now I’m not sure whether Craig would agree with what I’m about to say, but let’s imagine that you and he are talking about the same God, at least a just God, whether or not this God sends anyone to hell. Let’s just say that for the time being we won’t make a pronouncement as to exactly what justice requires. Having reached this point, it seems that here we would have a clear disagreement between the two of you. You claim that not all who seek God will come to believe Christianity to be true and Craig claims that all who do so will.
One important qualification should be made to Craig’s claim. We aren’t told in scripture how long it will take for the seeker to find God. It is conceivable that for some it could take an entire lifetime. But that would be the exception. When the scripture says that all who seek will find and that anyone who wills to do God’s will shall know that Jesus’ teachings are true, the sense seems to be that normally it won’t take an extraordinarily long time. At any rate, finding a seeker who doesn’t believe in God is not a disproof of Christianity. If you could show that statistically most seekers who have heard of Jesus’ claims do not believe in Christianity, then I think that you would have a better case. But I don’t think you would be able to do that. You claim that Craig’s claim is empirically false and you would probably say that mine is also. But likewise we would say that your claim is empirically false. . . .
T4: (re E4): Let’s consider the implications, first of Craig’s claim, and then of your claim. Craig claims that all who seek God will come to believe that Christianity is true. Do you wish to assert that all Buddhists who seek God will come to believe that Christianity is true? That all Hindus who seek God will come to believe that Christianity is true? That all Jews who seek God will come to believe that Christianity is true? That all Muslims who seek God will come to believe that Christianity is true? These claims strike me as utterly fantastic. But unless you are willing to embrace all of these claims, and many others, then you must be agreeing with me on this matter, and rejecting Craig’s claim.
How does your claim differ from Craig’s? Only, it would seem, in that you want to say that it may take some time before a person who seeks God comes to accept Christianity. But you, like Craig, are committed to the view that, eventually, everyone who seeks God comes to believe that Christianity is true. Like Craig’s claim, this one strikes me, as they say Down Under, as coming from Cloud Cuckoo Land. Do you really believe, for example, that every Muslim, every Jew, every Hindu, every Buddhist who has sought God has, eventually, converted to Christianity?
E5: One other comment I should have made clear earlier: If a person seeks and doesn’t find God, even if one seeks all one’s life, this shouldn’t suggest that that person is lost. I doubt that Craig would agree with me here but I would claim that there might be some lifelong seekers who, though they find God eventually, do not find God in this life. I say this because the passage I had cited and others I could mention do not, strictly speaking, preclude this possibility. Nevertheless, most seekers I’ve encountered or have heard have said that it hasn’t been extremely long before finding Christianity to be true.
E14: You ask if I think all Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, [atheists,] etc. who seek God will discover Christianity to be true. I think it should be obvious from my other questions and comments that you have looked at that I think they will, though some may not do so until after death. Though I have to read between the lines, it appears that that is not your question. You’re asking about “eventually” coming to believe in Christianity only in this life. Notice also that I said I’m speaking of “those who have heard of Jesus’ claims.” By this I mean that they have intellectually confronted his claims. This might have a very significant affect on whether a seeker finds spiritual truth in this life or in the next. Large portions of the world’s population of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. have never heard Jesus’ claims. And many more have never really confronted his claims. I can think of an actual Jewish couple whose only knowledge of Christianity came from their familiarity with local Catholic churches with their statues and painting of the “gentile god.” To them this was all gross idolatry. Or think of the Muslims who cannot hear the Christian claims because they cannot get past the thought that Christians believe that God had sexual relations in order to have a son, namely, Jesus; or that Christians believe in three Gods. But even in cases like these we do not know whether God draws the seeker to look more closely or to dig deeper to better understand the Christian claims. If one fails to follow such leading and is mentally and emotionally able to do so, wouldn’t this show that the claimed desire to seek God, to obey or will to do God’s will, was either originally a sham or is now repudiated? If this is the case wouldn’t this deserve God’s judgment?
We should also notice that there are also many who have mental blockages either from religious, social, or cultural upbringing or incidents. For example, someone sexually abused by a religious authority or even someone merely ridiculed by a religious leader might be unable to even consider that religion in this lifetime. This could be true of almost anyone who has witnessed some evil done in the name of a religion. For people like this, even coming to seek God and seek the truth from God may have to wait until after death.
If you still think my claim is utterly fantastic then I would hope you would tell me why you think this. If there is a God, is the thought of God speaking to someone, leading them to a particular belief, incredible to you? God need not speak audibly but, perhaps, intuitively, with a sense of certitude that given statements are true. Or God might simply expose the person to new evidence or help them to see old evidence in a new way (perhaps in some cases without the self-imposed blinders one had before).
Also, we might wonder how many people in the world do seek God. Do you, Dr. Tooley? If it doesn’t really interest you to do so, don’t you think it might be conceivable that the majority of humanity feels the same way? This just might be the most important reason we have such large secular and religious non-Christian societies in the world. Now I do not claim to know how many people in the world are God-seekers, so I’m just throwing out this possibility in case there are relatively very few. If many or even most non-Christians are God-seekers, then a consistently biblical view would say that most of them will not discover and accept the truth of Christianity until after death.
Also, we might wonder how many people in the world do seek God. Do you, Dr. Tooley?
T5: (re E5): Two points. First, recall a passage that I mentioned above, namely Mark 16.15-16, where Jesus says: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” This seems perfectly clear: a person who dies without accepting Christianity will be condemned. So there is no room within Christianity for your optimistic gloss about people finding God after death.
Secondly, you refer to “most seekers we encounter.” But you aren’t, of course, going to encounter, for example, most people who seek for God and who have been raised within a Muslim culture—people who, when they ‘get religion,’ will in all probability come to believe that Allah is God.
E15: (re T5): Concerning the Mark 16 passage that says that those who do not believe in Jesus will be condemned: First of all notice that this passage is speaking of those who have heard and understand Jesus’ claims. Secondly, let me ask you, Does this passage say that those who do not immediately believe will be lost? No? The fact is that the NT tells of several people or groups who took some time to come to believe. The Jews who lived in Berea had to take time to search and examine the Hebrew scripture, and especially the prophecies, before believing Jesus to be the promised Messiah. And these people are extolled by Luke for their nobility in doing so. James, Jesus’ brother, disbelieved in Jesus until after Jesus’ death when James encountered him resurrected.
[1jan21 addendum: In Romans 11 Paul says that some are like branches who have been broken off of the natural olive tree. He says that they are cut off of redemption but they can be grafted back in if they do not persist in unbelief. So again we see that one does not need to immediately believe and indeed that one may live in unbelief for some time before coming to believe. We are simply given no time limit after which one has no hope of salvation. Though I think there is a time limit ending at death for some people who reject God, for others who are particularly resistant to God, they may reach a point of reprobation long before their lives end; but nowhere do we see in scripture a definitely stated time limit which ends at death for all people.]
Does the Mark 16 passage give some indication of how soon it must be before one must believe without being condemned? No? Then the passage does leave open the possibility that some—particularly the God-seekers—might take an entire lifetime and even that some might not believe until after death. What you say is “clear” in Mark 16 is simply not there.
Now it is only those who seek God, those who will to do God’s will, who should feel confident that eventually they will discover spiritual true. Those who disbelieve and do not seek God should have no hope of coming to faith and salvation after death. The failure to obey God’s initial leading to seek him would certainly be deserving of God’s judgment. Also, the fuller context of Mark 16 indicates that Jesus is saying that the proclamation of this gospel will be accompanied by sufficient evidence to believe. One cannot be considered innocent who rejects such evidence.
E17: (re T5): Concerning my claim that “most seekers we encounter” will discover Christianity to be true, you object that I haven’t encountered most seekers who grew up in a Muslim culture and that they will probably come to believe in Allah. Following the example you gave of a Muslim culture—this is a very real possibility; it could be that few or none of them will discover this before death.
[1jan21 addendum: I can no longer offer the possibility that none of those God-seekers from countries with one exclusive religion or secular ideology will discover the truth of Christianity before death since there are accounts of some who have done so. From one account I know of, a man cried out to God for the truth and heard a voice telling him to embrace Jesus as his savior and to get a Bible. He lived in such an exclusively Muslim portion of the world that it took years for him to even have access to a Bible.]
Some theologians claim that anyone who seeks will also gain a knowledge of the truth of the Christian claims before death. And there are many anecdotal accounts that will support this claim. The person who calls upon God for truth who lives in a country that has repressed religious inquiry and literature: he happens to stumble upon a Bible though all Bibles are outlawed. The Ethiopian tribesman who calls upon God and is given a vision of missionaries who would come years later. The man who is known to the rest of his tribe for his close walk with God and the knowledge God has given him: when Muslim missionaries come to his village he hears them and tells the people that this religion is false; when Christian missionaries later come, he tells his people that their claims are true.
Stories like these can be multiplied. But there may be other stories of those who have called upon God who have not discovered anything about Christianity. So my own feeling is that there are many seekers who have not heard of Jesus and will not hear or know anything of him in this life.
Will our hypothetical Muslim seekers gain a greater dedication to Allah or to Islam? This certainly might happen either through or even without God’s direct activity in their lives. And as I’ve said, depending on their knowledge of Christianity, they might never in this life leave their Muslim beliefs. Of these seekers I think God will lead many of them to gain a greater dedication to the core theistic concepts. Perhaps they will be drawn by God to have a greater love for God and an awareness of their own sin and failing and their need of repentance. Maybe some will become aware of God’s love for them. Some might even be drawn to see through some of the false extraneous beliefs of Islam. As one says to God, “However I can be accepted by you and be made right with you, if there is any such way, I would do it,” so God would accept them. Like the righteous Hebrews before Jesus’ time who sought to do God’s will, they were accepted by God through Jesus’ atonement even though they didn’t yet know of it. Nevertheless, for any such God-seeker who does not discover and accept the truth of Christianity in this life, they will in the next.
E16: In summary, every person, no matter what they know or believe, is drawn by God to seek God, Craig points out. If one does seek God and acts upon whatever knowledge is given, that person won’t be lost. I think I’ve adequately shown that this is a biblical view. . . . I’ve also stated that one would be deserving of judgment who knowingly accepts false beliefs. God does not punish people for not accepting certain beliefs which they have no good reason to believe, rather God punishes for rejecting beliefs that they know to be true or which they refuse to even consider. One who seeks God must accept whatever truth God would give them. So now then, where is the “inhumanity” you think is so glaring in Christianity? How is the Christian belief in any way “immoral”?
E7: One question from the audience to Craig (Q9) proposes that the threat of hell for not believing [and trusting in Jesus] seems to be coercive. Of course it’s not coercive for anyone who doesn’t believe in hell, as Craig points out, but is it for the person who does and who believes that belief [trust] in Jesus will remedy the problem? I met a lady—I believe she had cancer—who told her physician that she would undergo any surgery necessary to delay her death, because, she said, she knew where she was going. I’ve never seen such a deadly serious and deadly frightened person in my life. So is the threat of hell coercive [to commitment] to a person like this? [I would think so unless she believed she was beyond hope. But then again, she most apparently believed in hell.]
Suppose someone contemplates a crime but believes they will inevitably be caught and punished if they do so. Are they coerced not to commit the crime because of their belief? If this is coercion, there is nothing objectionable about it. Likewise if hell is merely receiving the punishment we deserve, then there is nothing wrong with believing that that is what we will get if we don’t take the way out that God offers.
T7: The threat of punishment may certainly coerce people into not committing crimes, and you are right that there is nothing wrong about such coercion. What you then want to go on to say is that if the threat of Hell coerces some people into accepting Christian beliefs, there is nothing wrong with that. But what your analogy shows is that coercion is acceptable when it is used to discourage immoral actions, and so what you’re assuming here is that someone who rejects Christian beliefs—who holds, for example, that God is not a trinity, and thus that Jesus, in particular, was not God—is acting immorally in rejecting those Christian beliefs. By contrast, I take it that you do not hold that you are acting immorally in rejecting Buddhist beliefs, or Muslim beliefs, or Hindu beliefs, or the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, etc. What would a Buddhist, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Roman Catholic think of your claim here? Would they not find it arrogant, immoral, and utterly preposterous?
E18: I’m disappointed that I have been so unclear that you have so completely misunderstood what I have said in this section. Let me try to show that I have not said and would not say the “arrogant, immoral, and utterly preposterous” things you think “I would want to say.” Please notice that I have stated that we are talking about people who actually believe Christianity to be true. I have not said that one should believe something because of the threat of punishment for not believing. So when I said that there is nothing wrong with believing that we will get the punishment we deserve if we do not take the way out that God offers, I should have added, “if we happen to believe that God in fact did offer a way out and that such a hell will otherwise be our lot.” This should have been obvious from my prior statements but evidently it was not.
Also notice that whether or not we have reason to believe in God and an afterlife in which justice is carried out, there is still nothing wrong with believing that we will get the justice we deserve, at least in a weaker sense of “believe.” What I mean by that is that we might still consider that all may receive the justice they deserve and that such an afterlife is a possibility and thus we might consider it prudent to live accordingly.
Although there is nothing wrong with living as though we will receive justice after death, there definitely is something wrong with having an unquestionable belief in God’s existence and justice such that at no point in our lives would we feel free to repress such knowledge and choose against God. Certainly there are many people who might feel so compelled to belief before making a free choice for or against God, at least initially. I know I did as a child growing up in a Fundamentalist church. But like myself, I think everyone comes to a point at which they are able to question such beliefs and reject them if they want to. It is because the evidence is not irresistible, it is because we can mentally repress even evidence that should be sufficient to persuade any normal, rational person, that one is not coerced to believe. Only if the evidence is not irresistible can God know what our free choice will be. Now it might be the case that after choosing to do God’s will, to follow God and accept the evidence God gives, that one will come to feel that belief in God is irresistible. But that wouldn’t really make a difference so long as the initial free choice has been made. There would be nothing wrong with someone having such an undeniable belief at that time.
Back to your comments about coercion to belief, I’m not saying that to reject Christian beliefs is under all circumstances morally wrong, and I don’t think that is what Jesus said. There are many people who seek after God and who do reject those beliefs because psychological, social, and cultural factors. Some reject him because they have not yet encountered sufficient evidence to do so. They have reason to remain agnostic, at least until more information comes to them. But my point is that all seekers will sooner or later discover that they are wrong to reject Christianity and this will occur before it is too late to find God’s acceptance and salvation.
If Christianity is true, someone who confronts sufficient evidence to believe God has acted such that Christianity is true and who rejects that belief will face God’s judgment—unless they repent of doing so before it is too late. As I mentioned earlier, other statements in the Gospels make it clear that these make up some of the people Jesus is speaking of in Mark 16 who will be condemned who do not believe. Even if they merely confronted enough evidence to see that it could be true, they would have an obligation to seek further.
If I were to become aware of the evidence for Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, or even Transubstantiation, and if I ignored or failed to honestly confront that evidence, then I would be acting immorally. If I were to honestly confront that evidence and reject any of those beliefs thinking the evidence is not strong enough, then I would not be acting immorally; and I think followers of these religions and doctrines would normally admit as much if they believed that I had tried my best to be honest in my evaluation. And the same thing is true of non-Christians as they evaluate the basic Christian claims: they would be acting morally or immorally depending on how honestly they confront the evidence for Christianity.
If I could doubt this God’s existence, this would give me an escape; I could then freely choose to reject this God. God is looking for our free choice, not a coerced choice.
I think the most important point is that this question from the audience focuses on exactly why God does need to make sure that it is not undeniable to all of us that God exists or that Christianity is true. If I had no doubt that God exists and deserves my highest commitment and love and that I would deserve some punishment if I refused to give it, and if I believed God were just, I would feel that I have no choice but to make this commitment. On the other hand if I could doubt this God’s existence, this would give me an escape; I could then freely choose to reject this God. God is looking for our free choice, not a coerced choice.
E8: Now there may be more to this individual’s question (Q9) than appears on the surface. It sounds as though she resents the use of the threat of hell to make people believe. Now that is understandable. I know of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians as well as various other religions and cults who, rather than try to persuade by honest evidence, have used the threat of hell to make converts or warn backsliders. And I agree that this is disreputable.
We should certainly do what is right because it is right. We should seek God because God (by definition) deserves to be searched after. If we do not know that God exists, we should admit to ourselves at least that we would seek such a God if this God does exist and we should actually seek God on just this possibility. But we should also be aware that if we do not seek God and if some day we will stand before God, we will deserve God’s judgment. We deserve judgment for any other failure to do what is right as well. So it seems to me that if someone comes along who claims that God has provided a means by which we can be free of the sin and resulting judgment we deserve, we have an obligation to seriously consider their evidence for that claim and to seek the truth from God concerning that claim (on nothing more than the possibility that God does exist). There is no religion or secular ideology that should use the threat of hell as a club to win converts, but the possibility that we will face the justice we deserve should be used as a threat to cause us to fulfill our more primary pre-religious obligation, [our obligation to seek God].
T8: First, you do not know of any Jews who have “used the threat of hell to make converts,” since Jews do not believe in Hell. Nor do you know of any Buddhists who have “used the threat of Hell to make converts,” since Buddhists do not believe in Hell.
Secondly, you claim that it follows from the definition of God that one should search for God. This may, of course, be part of your definition of God. I cannot see, however, how it follows from the idea of God as an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being that one should seek after God. Why shouldn’t God be satisfied if people simply strive to live moral lives—as Kant, for example, maintained?
Thirdly, even if there were an obligation to seek God, it would not take much investigation to dismiss many religions: the presence of immoral beliefs in many religions would be all the grounds that one would need for concluding that God had not revealed himself in that religion. And one of the first religions one could set aside would be Christianity, with its belief that anyone who rejects Christianity will be condemned to eternal torment.
E20: I didn’t lie to you about knowing of Jews and Buddhists who believe in hell. If a Jew or a Buddhist has told you that they do not, they either do not know what they are talking about or they do not believe in it in their particular branch of Judaism or Buddhism and they would like to give the impression that all Jews or Buddhists believe the same. Obviously, the latter is lying and, sadly, sometimes people do resort to lies to try to make their position look better.
Concerning Judaism, let me just give one example. Rabbi Tovia Singer said in a public debate that any Jew who believes Jesus is God goes to the eternal fires of hell.2 And this is hardly an isolated example in the history of Judaism.
Now some Buddhists [do not believe in an afterlife punishment. But some do. Some] might say that they do not believe in hell because they define hell as being eternal and the place of punishment in the afterlife as described in Buddhist scripture is not eternal. That might be so, and if it is true I have defined hell too broadly. Nevertheless, I do question this claim because of some of the descriptions found in Buddhist texts.3 But even if all of the Buddhist hells are not eternal, that might not make a lot of difference. One of the Buddhist hells lasts about 200 trillion years and in all of them the torture sounds like something out of Dante’s Inferno.4
In Tibetan Buddhism there are special hells for various sins, such as those who revile the Buddha, apostates who reject the truth of Buddhism, and Buddhist heretics. These respectively involve being kept in flames that are never consumed, being rolled in red-hot iron plates, and being cooked in molten iron. Other Buddhist hells are similar.5 I mention these particular sins to show you that there are Buddhists who have used the threat of hell to warn followers not to backslide or reject Buddhism. (I cannot resist mentioning Waddell’s comment that there is even a special hell for those who grumble about the weather. He quips that this must be a hell that was created especially for the British.)
I’m not sure that omnipotence and omniscience are necessary for God “to be an appropriate object of religious attitudes” as you say. I do think being morally perfect and being deserving to be searched after are. (However, I do think God is omnipotent and omniscient.) God must be one who deserves our highest commitment. If God’s nature accords only with your definition, then it might be that God would be satisfied just with our striving to live moral lives in relation to each other. But if God deserves our love, commitment, and search, then I think it follows that God should not be satisfied with anything less from us, nor should we of ourselves. On just the possibility that there is such a being, we have an obligation to seek such a God.
Yes, immoral beliefs within a religion “would be grounds . . . for concluding the God had not revealed himself in that religion.” But then, I have elsewhere shown that Christianity does not teach any such beliefs, at least none that you have thus far put forward. I have argued elsewhere that it does not teach eternal conscious torment for those who reject it. It does teach just punishment for those who know it to be true and reject it and those who reject it out of hand and those who fail to seriously evaluate it and ask for the truth from God. So Christianity cannot be dismissed on the grounds you give. One does have an obligation to seek God and to consider the evidence for Christianity.
E9: Craig dwells on the point that too strong of evidence would be coercive. That seems to me to be a very persuasive point. God desires for us to seek God without feeling compelled by the evidence. How can God know what our desire and free choice is otherwise?
T9: To believe in God is one thing; to act morally, and in accordance with God’s will, is quite another. Thus, to make the point within the Christian framework itself: Satan knew that God existed—and so he was ‘coerced’ by his experiences of God into believing that God existed—but this left him perfectly free not to act in accordance with God’s will. Similarly, a human who knew that God existed would still be free to choose whether he was going to live as God willed or not.
E18: I think you are right that some may be quite sure God does exist and still rebel against doing God’s will. This may be what happened to Satan when he fell. You say that in Christian theology Satan knew God existed and yet was “perfectly free not to act in accordance with God’s will.” This is possibly true. On the other hand, we are not certain that Satan knew his rebellion would fail. Satan might have thought that God could be defeated or at least dissuaded from carrying out his justice. If Satan had known that he would fail, do you really think he would have rebelled? If we had overwhelming evidence of an omnipotent and just God (something Satan may not have been fully aware of), then we would know that our disobedience would inevitably bring a painful justice. Do you really think we would disobey or reject God? You said earlier that you had never met a person who has said, “I know that by rejecting Jesus I’m going to spend eternity in Hell where I’ll suffer torment that never ends,” and still reject Jesus, and I agreed that neither I nor anyone else will ever meet anyone who will do such a thing so long as they are in their right mind [T3]. By the same token, I think we will not meet many who will feel free to act against God’s will if they believe the inevitable outcome of their act will be extremely painful to themselves.
For the sake of the argument I will concede that possibly Satan did rebel in full knowledge of what his end would be. Furthermore, there may be some people who likewise rebel against God with the same full knowledge. My point is that for most of us, our acceptance of God’s will in cases like this would be too coerced. If the evidence we are given is too irresistible that God exists and that we will face judgment if we disobey God’s will, many of us will not feel free to reject him. We should expect that God would want to make sure that everyone is free to choose for or against God. If Satan had full knowledge of the pain he would endure if he would rebel and if on that basis he did not rebel, God would have later given him opportunity and reason to doubt that knowledge.
E10: Suppose we concede, for the sake of the argument, your claim that many or even most spiritual seekers will never come to believe in God [in this life]. Might someone claim that the more important issue isn’t whether we come to know God exists but rather whether or not we seek God? Isn’t that what would be more important for God to know? So if God cannot be found in this life, ultimately, what would that matter? If we must wait to find God in the next life, then the good that you acknowledge would be accomplished from discovering that God exists will still be achieved.
T10: My view is that “Morality Rules!”—in the sense that what is important is the attempt that one makes to lead a moral life. But I also think that a part of what is involved in that is an obligation to attempt to find out the truth in important matters that bear upon human life. So I would agree with Lessing, who said: “Not the truth in whose possession any man is, or thinks he is, but the honest effort he has made to find out the truth is what constitutes the worth of man.”
You are saying something rather similar when you suggest that what may be important is the effort a person has made to find God. But this view is, of course, a view that is not compatible with the teachings of Jesus, as is clear from the passage that I quoted earlier, and from many other passages in the NT, which affirm the importance both of certain beliefs, and of certain rites—such as baptism. So your view is heretical, and had you lived, for example, in Calvin’s day, then you would probably have suffered the same fate as the founder of Unitarianism—Servetus—whom Calvin burned at the stake for denying that Jesus was the eternal son of God.
E23: We are obligated to attempt to find spiritual truth, but that obligation involves seeking God and seeking the truth from God. A person is not lost or saved by what they know but by what they choose, and specifically, by whether they choose to will and do God’s will. Yes, it is the choice, the attempt, that is the important thing. But, as you know, I’ve also claimed that all who seek will find, at least eventually (John 7.17). They will know that it is true and be obligated to act and believe accordingly. So it does follow that many will be responsible for failing to accept certain beliefs and obey certain commands in this life. I’ve also shown that my claims are or follow from Jesus’ and other NT teachings.
As a bit of an interesting (though very sad) aside, I’ve heard followers of Calvin try to defend him by claiming he didn’t agree with the civil authorities’ decision to execute Servetus by burning. But that’s only half the truth. Calvin thought he should just be beheaded. Though this may mitigate Calvin’s guilt, before God he was still a murderer. Unless he had repented of this evil, the scripture assures us that no murderer has eternal life (1 Jn 3.15). I find it amazing that someone who had so immersed himself in the study of the Bible should form an ethic so opposed to its teaching. This shows the extent to which those who claim to be most free of bias will accept their culture’s corrupt values and will avoid and distort what they do not want to see. According to biblical teaching, Servetus is now in heaven; whether or not Calvin is, we cannot know.
References
- Blaise Pascal, Pensées, #430.
- Who is Jesus (Sid Roth's It's Supernatural! and Messianic Vision, P. O. Box 39222 Charlotte, NC 28278; https://sidroth.org/about/about-sid/; May 1991) 607' side 1, debate on audiocassette, OOP.
- Theodore T. de Berry, The Buddhist Tradition (NY: Vintage Books, 1969), 297.
- de Berry, 323.
- L. Austin Waddell, Tibetan Buddhism (NY: Dover, 1972), 95; originally published in 1895 as The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism.
Note: Our discussion with Dr. Tooley was first published in 2000. Page numbers in one of the original manuscripts of the first Craig/Tooley debate have been included so the reader will have a better understanding of the general location of these comments within the debate. For some of my final statements to which Tooley has not responded I have recently altered some of the wording and added or removed text for better clarification. Any additions to these final statements which have provided any new information are set apart in brackets. Any clarifying alterations in any of my statements to which he has responded are indicated with brackets and/or ellipses. No new information has been added to my statements to which Tooley has responded. Dennis Jensen is speaking for Encounter in this discussion. The included portions of the debate are used with permission.
Dr. William Lane Craig. Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology and Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Birmingham, England, and a doctorate in theology from the University of Munich.
Dr. Michael Tooley. Distinguished professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado. He received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and is a noted author. He is a fellow at the Australian Academy of the Humanities, a member of the American Philosophical Association, and he has served on the faculties of several universities both here and abroad.
