I am an atheist-not really

I know its a strange topic to post on after ages......

I went to hear William Lane Craig talk today about is life without God absurd. Interestingly, it is this suggestion by Craig that John Humphrey's found disconcerting. His case was essentially that with out God there is not point of reference to judge morality by and thus it becomes objectively meaningless. He went through various atheist philosophers to make the point that they to reached this conclusion. I did wonder if they would have agreed in exactly the way they were being used. He continued by showing various non-theistic attempts to construct a morality and showed how they failed.

Overall it was an enjoyable talk and the mainly christian crowed enjoyed it. Unfortunately, there was not much coherent atheist objections. The "that was the whole point of the argument" answer was quite funny, but showed that some atheists hadn't really understood it. And the "how did you obtain a personal relationship with Jesus" question was cringe worthy in the extreme.

I also asked a question, much to my friends embarrassment. I questioned that If we need and objective source of morality does God not need the same. And if not, why then should human beings need a source of morality outside themselves. (especially to be irksome I called God her). Craig put up an 'ok' argument about God being the source of all good. He rejected a voluntarian doctrine of divine Goodness (i.e. God will it there for it is good) holding the contrary view (God wills as it is good). He suggested that the question was similar to, and as nonsensical, as asking whether an orchestra is better than high definition recording of an orchestra. However, he did not really deal with the issue for my money. Essentially, God is the source of morality was a premise rather than a demonstrable conclusion. It certainly is a coherent argument that God is the source of all morality, however, I am unconvinced that it is the only coherent answer.

You may now be asking yourself, "Why all this dissatisfaction from someone who believes that God exists and is the source of all Good?" My major problem is that I am not convinced that reason outside the sphere of revealed truth can ever demonstrate God's existence. To put it another way there is no independent Natural Theology. All christian apologetics should do, in my view, is to demonstrate the rational coherence of the christian faith. To think that one can do more than this is to fail to appreciate the fundamentally fallen nature of mankind and as such the incapacity of human reason to reach God. I asked very briefly after the talk about whether he wanted to show that Christianity was rationally coherent or that it was rationally necessary to believe in it. He said the most plausible explanation. I am not sure I can agree that this is the task of apologetics. However, Craig also said that he wanted Christians and non-christians to think through the issues. I am sure that this can only be a good thing.