The Craig-Bradley Debate:
Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?

Question and Answer Session

Thank you, Dr. Craig. I certainly enjoyed what I've heard so far. I think it would be appropriate to give a round of applause to both these men for their efforts. [applause]

We'll begin our question and answer period now. So let's start out with a question addressed to Dr. Bradley.

Question:

I symbolize the eternal anti-Christian. Craig's Christ is sort of oxymoronic, bleeding-heart Jack the Ripper. Where Craig would burn me, Bradley would give me prozac and a polo mallet. You both have to choose, people have to choose, anti-Christ or Christ.

Don Reddick:

Sir, your question is . . . Do you choose to respond, Dr. Bradley?

Dr. Bradley:

If by anti-Christ, you mean the anti-Christ who is portrayed in the book of Revelation, then no, I'm not asking you to choose between Christ and anti-Christ. I am asking you to choose between belief in Christ and non-belief in Christ and all that stuff. For myself, as I said, I've found that, despite having been brought up with the intent of becoming a minister, missionary, or following in the footsteps of my maternal grandfather in those evangelical capacities, I could no longer bring myself to believe in that sort of God. Nor do I believe in any. I'm not asking you to believe in anti-Christ.

Dr. Craig:

Certainly that is the choice before us: to believe in Christ or not. Now all we've talked about today is a sort of defensive consideration: is there some logical incoherency in Christian doctrine? I haven't tried in any way to give a sort of positive case for why you should believe in Christ. But I think that is what a person needs to also consider: what are the arguments and evidence in favor of Jesus' being who he said he was and therefore being a reliable authority to speak on these matters? We should not only consider the negative objections but also the positive evidence.

Don Reddick:

Thank you. Now we will take a question for Dr. Craig. Sir . . .

Question:

I think in your opening speech you said that eternal damnation could be justified in terms of perpetual sinning in hell, is that right? I was wondering whether that implies that once you're in hell, you can get out of it by, say, stopping your sin?

Dr. Craig:

Well, that was my third option. I presented three or four possible ways in which this objection could be handled. And one of them was that you could say that, yes, God would let people out of hell if they would repent and believe in Him, but in fact they freely choose not to.

Question:

So there is nothing essentially eternal about it, is that right?

Dr. Craig:

One could adopt that point of view, right. It's only contingently eternal. It goes on because those in hell choose it to go on.

Dr. Bradley:

Just a quick comment on that: some Christian apologists like to construe the word "everlasting" or "eternal" in such a way that it simply means "of long duration" or "for an eon" or "for an age." There's a problem, of course, about that, as I'm sure Dr. Craig is aware, because if one were to believe that damnation in hell were only for a long period, then since the very same word "eon" is used also for everlasting joy in heaven, one would have to conclude that heaven was of finite duration, too.

Don Reddick:

Okay, we'll field another question for Dr. Bradley. Sir . . .

Question:

In your discussion on possible worlds there is no mention of another world which is revealed in Scripture, which is in the realm of angelology, in which, prior to the creation of this world, we had the creation of Lucifer and the angelic realm. And they were created in order to serve God, without choice. And yet Lucifer chose, by looking at himself, to choose to become like God. So therefore he chose . . . I know I should go faster.

Don Reddick:

Please phrase your question.

Question:

If this is the case, then, where there is another world and someone chose to go against what God wanted in serving Him, when they were not even given that choice, through pride and therefore fell, shouldn't we recognize that the New Testament also teaches that hell itself was created for the devil and his angels, and that was the purpose of the creation of hell and that otherwise . . . ?

Dr. Bradley:

Well, I think Dr. Craig will back me up on this, so far as I've understood your question. You're asking whether hell wasn't just created for Satan and his angels. Clearly the New Testament teaching, as I understand it, is that it was not solely created for them, but rather that we who are non-believers will also become inhabitants thereof along with Satan and his angels. Am I right?

Dr. Craig:

There is a passage in Scripture where it refers to hell, or this lake of fire you mentioned, as prepared for the devil and his angels{1}, and in one sense I would agree with the questioner that it's not God's intention that any human being should ever be there. That people should be there is something that is contrary to God's perfect will.

Don Reddick:

Okay, we'll move on to another question, a question for Dr. Craig. Ma'am . . .

Question:

We have talked about heaven and hell; we have talked about God. I would like you to elaborate on Ahriman and Lucifer and their role in establishing the heirarchies when the earth was created, their role especially to put the human beings . . . [interruptions] . . . between good and evil.

Don Reddick:

I'm sorry. Could you rephrase your question? I'm sorry; we missed it.

Question:

I wanted Dr. Craig to elaborate on the role that Lucifer and Ahriman played when the heirachies were established and when the human beings were placed in the polarity between good and evil to exercise their free will.

Dr. Craig:

I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with that second name you mentioned. This . . .

Question:

Ahriman.

Dr. Craig:

Oh, Zoroastrianism? Well, this is not part of Christian doctrine. I mean, I'm not a Zoroastrian, so this is beyond the scope of my ability to answer.

Question:

Can I ask you if you agree that if you see human being as polarity between good and evil? That their highest . . . [interrupted]

Don Reddick:

I'm sorry; we'll have to just address the question and response. So I'll have to give Dr. Bradley a chance to respond to the question, if you choose.

Dr. Bradley:

As it has been pointed out, it seems to me that you are talking about the Manichaean conception of two gods, one eternally good and all-powerful, the other eternally evil and equally powerful, eternally warring with one another. But that is not the Christian concept, though it is one that is widely accepted in various parts of the Middle East and is one whose intellectual credentials, I think, have got a lot more going for it than for the Christian concept.

Don Reddick:

Well, we'll go on to another question, a question for Dr. Bradley. Go ahead, sir . . .

Question:

I have two questions, real quick. Now, first of all, are you saying that you don't believe God exists at all?

Dr. Bradley:

I certainly am saying that, yes. I think I have the very best of all possible reasons for denying the existence of the Christian God. As I said, with respect to other, less well-defined gods, tell me about them, and I'll tell you what I think.

Question:

Are you saying you don't believe in any God whatsoever?

Dr. Bradley:

I am saying that, yes.

Question:

Okay, to me that would be more of an illogical statement because therefore you'd have to know everything in the universe at all times, and you would have to be omnipresent to go through the entire universe at all times to know that there is no other God, at all. And you'd have to be all-powerful, so I mean that takes a lot more faith [fades out] to have to believe in something that is not possibly known.

Dr. Bradley:

Okay, I think I understand your question, the point of it being, I take it, that if I were to say that I believe there are no such things as sea serpents, then I'd have a difficult job trying to prove it because I'd have to search through the vast realms of space and time to see whether there ever were any sea serpents. Notice that I didn't say that I believe that I have conclusive proof of the non-existence of God, except for one sort of God, namely the kind of God that we have had described today. I think I have logical reasons for that. As for other kinds of gods, as I say, I'm more of an agnostic. I don't think there are any good reasons for believing in any god whatsoever, even the nicely sanitized one that Dr. Craig would have us believe in.

Dr. Craig:

It's important to understand that the topic of today's dialogue is not the existence of God. I haven't in any way tried to give any arguments or evidence that God exists or even that Christianity is true. The operation has been wholly defensive. I've simply been arguing that there is no incompatibility internal to Christianity between God's being all-loving and all-powerful and some people's going to hell. So these questions, I think, are in a sense misdirected. What Dr. Bradley could argue, in response to this questioner, is that if he could show an internal contradiction in the idea of God, then he wouldn't have to do an inductive search throughout the universe. That would prove decisively that God does not exist. But I don't think that anybody, including Dr. Bradley, has ever been able to come up with a successful demonstration that the concept of God is internally incoherent or contradictory.

Don Reddick:

Okay, a question for Dr. Craig.

Question:

Dr. Craig, Dr. Bradley has a point that you were only able to lightly touch on in your discussion period. You believe or you say that it is logically impossible for God to create a world in which we humans with free will will all follow Him and Dr. Bradley points out, "Well, then, what is heaven?" I'd just like you to comment on that.

Dr. Craig:

All right. It's difficult to communicate to a lay audience some of these difficult concepts because when we talk about a possible world, we're not talking about, say, a planet or a universe. We're talking about a sort of maximal state of affairs. And I agree that it is logically possible that there would be a world in which everybody would freely choose to accept God's salvation. What I argued is that it may not be feasible for God to actualize that kind of a world, that if He tried to actualize that kind of a world, in fact the creatures would freely go wrong and some of them would not freely accept Him. It's the difference between what's logically possible and what's feasible. And I'm simply saying that not everything that is logically possible, not every world that is logically possible, is a feasible world for God to create. Now, with respect to heaven, I would say two things. First of all, it may not be feasible for God to create a world which consists simply of heaven alone, in isolation from the world that leads up to heaven, where people freely choose to go there or not to go there. Secondly--this did not come out the debate--but I personally don't see any reason to affirm that people have free will to sin in heaven. I would be quite happy to say that people who have the beatific vision of Christ, who are in the very presence of Christ, are in a sense sealed in the decision they have made during the earthly life, and that they therefore no longer have freedom to sin. I don't have any problem with that. So I would be quite willing to say that in heaven, due to the immediacy of the presence of Christ, that the freedom to sin is removed.

Dr. Bradley:

I agree with Dr. Craig that this does raise some highly technical questions, and I hope that I'll have the chance to go through some of them with him later.

I would have thought that the heaven that is portrayed in the New Testament and that he believes in is a feasible world. As to whether it is maximal, then again we are into technical issues here, and I would argue along with Carnap and others that it is indeed a maximal world . . . in Plantinga's sense, too. But, leave the technical issues aside, although much does indeed hinge on them; there's an interesting question raised by Dr. Craig at the end, and that is with respect to the role and the importance of free will. If we don't need to have free will in heaven, why the hell, might I ask, do we need it here on this earth? What's so good about it, if it's going to lead the majority of the human race into eternal damnation?

Don Reddick:

A question for Dr. Bradley. Ma'am . . .

Question:

I just wanted to ask why would we choose a good life, more or less, if there is no existence of heaven or hell? What I mean by this is why we continue to be good if there are no rewards such as heaven or punishment such as hell?

Dr. Bradley:

Well, I guess your question could be construed as asking, well, you know, if there is nothing to look forward to like a heaven and an afterworld, does life here have any meaning this time around? Is that what you're getting at?

The quickest way I can answer is to invite you to consider the following analogy. You open a book, a good novel perhaps or a history. You read it. What do you read? You find all sorts of sentences that in the book have meaning. The book comes to an end. There's a period at the last page. There's nothing more thereafter. Does this mean that because the book--your life by away of analogy--has come to end, there is no meaning in life? On the contrary, I want to suggest the meaning of life lies in the little things that we do for each other in life. It lies in the texture of everyday existence. It does not lie in yearning for something in an afterlife. If it lay in the latter, if this life had meaning only by virtue of there being another life afterwards which gave it meaning, then what is the meaning of that life? It would have to be followed by a still a third, and so on.

Dr. Craig:

We haven't talked in today's dialogue about any positive reasons to believe that, in fact, hell is true. And I think that the questioner raises one: namely, in a world where there is no moral accountability, it ultimately doesn't matter how you live. What that means is that ultimately our moral choices have no significance. Acts of self-sacrifice, acts of compassion, are empty gestures. What do you say to the hedonist or the amoralist who says, "I may as well just live for pleasure and live as I please because there is no moral accountability!"? Richard Wurmbrandt, who was a pastor who was tortured for his faith in communist prisons, says that sometimes the torturers said, "There is no God. There is no afterlife. There is no hereafter. We can do what we wish." And they expressed it in terrible brutality inflicted on prisoners.{2} A world in which there is no moral accountability and our choices are devoid of moral significance is truly a horrible prospect.

Don Reddick:

Okay, a question for Dr. Craig. Sir . . .

Question:

If is as the Bible says, there's a vast gulf between heaven and hell, I would like to know what that gulf, that vast, vast gulf, really is?

Dr. Craig:

The questioner refers to a parable in Luke 16 where Jesus describes a man in Hades and sees another man in Abraham's bosom, and there's a vast gulf fixed between them. We need to be very careful about trying to press the details of these parables to try to tease Christian doctrine out of them. The parables were primarily meant to teach one important truth, and it's not a legitimate interpretive principle to try to use the details of these to get Christian doctrine. Those details may just be incidental or colorful elements of the story. In this case the idea of the gulf between the two, simply means, I think, that the righteous in the afterlife are separated from the unrighteous in the afterlife, namely, that there is such a thing as a heaven and a hell, and I don't think there is any deeper significance to it than that.

Dr. Bradley:

I pass.

Don Reddick:

Sir, your question for Dr. Bradley.

Question:

When a person becomes aware of religion itself, they will then become aware of a whole variety of religions in the world. How would this person, on what basis would this person, base their decision for choosing their religion? For choosing the wrong religion, as we've seen today, you would be sent to hell.

Dr. Bradley:

Interesting question because it raises a lot of issues. And it certainly raises an issue that I agonized with in my very early years. Yeah, I'd been brought up as a good little Baptist, Bible class boy. I believed the Bible. I believed, as I said before, that I was going to follow in the noble footsteps of my grandfather. And then I found myself wondering why not everybody who was good, why not everyone who was religious, shared my beliefs. Across the road there were the Catholics, the Kellys, and I was told by my mother in virulent terms that, of course, they worshiped the God of Rome. I found that there were Presbyterians down the street and Methodists around the corner and Anglicans, and then came across all sorts of other religions, too, and I began to wonder why it was that I was so fortunate as to have been brought up with the only possible true faith.

I therefore began to inquire--first of al--reading the three volumes of systematic theology that my grandfather bequeathed to me on his deathbed and then, since those volumes alluded to the beliefs of other world religions, I started to investigate them. I read the writings of Buddha; found that Buddha had some 600 years before Christ jumped the gun with respect to much of the content of the Sermon on the Mount, for example. Problem is, of course, that these different religions were, of course, contrary to one another in so many ways. They issued contrary injunctions getting down to the point of morality. The God of one would tell you to kill the heretics who didn't believe in his religion and the God of the other equally. And I found that I could not reconcile those divergent, because logically inconsistent, belief systems, coming to think that indeed, none of them was true.

Dr. Craig:

Wait, a minute! What was that last sentence? You came to the conclusion that therefore none of them was true?

Dr. Bradley:

No, I said I came to the conclusion that probably none of them was true.

Dr. Craig:

Oh, it doesn't follow at all! From the fact that they are mutually contradictory , it doesn't follow that none is true. It only follows that at best one is true. [clapping and interruptions] Let me finish my answer . . .

Dr. Bradley:

No, no! Wait! You're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say that.

Dr. Craig:

Okay. You didn't say that. What did you say?

Dr. Bradley:

I said I came to the conclusion that probably none of them was true. Probably. That doesn't say that it follows logically that none of them was true--that is, follows logically, at best, that only one could be true if they are all contraries.

Dr. Craig:

But that doesn't even follow probably or inductively that none is true because you have a number of logically incompatible views. Especially when you think that atheism, Dr. Bradley, is also one of those views. Now if none of them is true, then not even atheism is true.

Dr. Bradley:

Atheism is not a religion; it is the denial of a religion.

Don Reddick:

Okay. Lively exchange! Let's move on to the next question. The question is for Dr. Craig.

Question:

To what end, teleologically speaking, would it be for God to create people He knows are going to commit evil, have them come into the world and wreak this evil upon innocents, or whomever, and then internalize them in hell for eternity to suffer? And why isn't this idea completely repugnant to Him? Would not just the mere thought of it make Him ill?

Dr. Craig:

I think that the thought of these people going to hell and, as you say, being lost forever is repugnant to God. And you read the Scriptures, like the one I read, where God literally pleads with people. I mean, this is the God of the universe, begging people to repent and believe and not to die! Now let me finish. The question is, then, why would God create such people, you ask? Why would He create a world like that?

What I'm suggesting is that it may not be feasible for God to create world of free creatures in which there are no such people, given that He gives people free will. He doesn't create people in order that they would be damned. He creates them in order that they would be saved. And His desire and will in creating is to redeem a people, a multitude, for Himself the Scripture says, from every tongue and tribe and people and nation, that they would know and experience the love and joy and fellowship of God forever. But unfortunately the only way in which God can do that is by creating a world in which people have the freedom to reject Him. And the cost of that is that some people freely condemn themselves to hell forever. But that is not the reason for which He created them. That's not His primary intention. It's kind of like the unfortunate concomitant. You're following me? It's kind of like the unfortunate consequence of a desire that is good, namely, to create people who would know Him and experience His love and fellowship forever.

Do you want to come back on that? We've got thirty seconds.

Question:

If you don't mind. So the greater good, which would be everyone's happiness, is sacrificed for this . . . [interrupted]

Dr. Craig:

No, He does it for the greater good, which is to achieve this multitude of persons who come to know and experience His love and forgiveness. And what I'm saying is the fact that some people freely would choose to reject it shouldn't be allowed to blackmail God into not being free to create a world. They shouldn't have a veto power over what God wants to do, so long as God gives them sufficient grace to be saved as well. Their loss is the result of their own free will.

Question:

But I'm still not seeing the purpose of then taking these people and concretizing them and then having them suffer . . .

Dr. Craig:

I'm out of time.

Dr. Bradley:

I think one of the problems you may be getting at here, though I don't want to put words in your mouth, is that there are so many barriers to belief. I seem to recall Woody Allen once saying that he would believe in God if only God would give Him a sign--like if God depositing a hundred thousand dollars into his Swiss bank account. [chuckles] We don't need to take that one terribly seriously. But . . . look, it is very, very difficult for many of us to have the kind of belief in Jesus as Savior that Dr. Craig and Christians, conservative Christians, that is, insist that we should have. Many Protestant theologians these days are prepared to say that there is so little we know about Jesus, for example, after a century or two of biblical scholarship, that what we know could be put on one postcard alone. Why should we believe in him?

Don Reddick:

Sir, a question for Dr. Bradley.

Question:

Dr. Bradley, thank you very much for taking the hot seat, and Dr. Craig as well. I also appreciate . . . pun intended . . . I also appreciate your drawing attention to the fact that Christians often gloss over the fact of the terribleness of hell. And I would agree with you that the Bible does depict a very terrible picture of hell. My question for you deals with your definition of being exclusive. I feel Dr. Craig was able to define that as heaven and/or Christianity being open to all, to both the evangelized through their choice in hearing it and the unevangelized through nature and conscience. How does a requirement relate to being exclusive? If I invite the world to a party and my requirement to come to the party is that they RSVP, and people show up to the party who have not RSVP'd, they are not allowed in. Am I being exclusive when I've invited everybody? In other words, defend your definition of being exclusive.

Dr. Bradley:

It's not my definition. It's one that's standard in the literature, and it has to do with the question whether or not there will be people who are excluded from God's presence in the afterworld. Whether by their own choice or not is not the issue when the terminology is actually used. Exclusivism, then, is to be contrasted with universalism--universalism being the doctrine that all will eventually, if not immediately, finish up in God's presence, basking in the beatitude of Christ. Exclusivism is the denial of universalism--it is the claim that not all will. Just take the term in that relatively innocuous sense.

Dr. Craig:

I think there is a relatively innocuous sense of the term, but it is an emotionally loaded term, too, . . . exclusivism. My understanding is that people exclude themselves from salvation, not that God excludes anybody. He includes everybody. People exclude themselves. In that respect, I didn't comment on this before, but Dr. Bradley changed some of the propositions that he said were from my article such that you had them reading God will send them to hell, when in fact that is not what I said. My view is that people send themselves, not that God sends them. It's people who exclude themselves from salvation.

Dr. Bradley:

But the topic of our question was whether God will send people to hell.

Dr. Craig:

Yes, yeah.

Don Reddick:

Okay. Yes, ma'am, a question for Dr. Craig.

Question:

In the Scriptures, in Genesis, I believe, Moses sees a burning bush, and it is referred to in some translations as an everlasting fire. Now that word "everlasting" is used in other portions of the Bible. I believe that it is incorrectly translated because I don't think that the bush that Moses saw is still burning. Therefore I think that there is no such thing as a hell that lasts forever. It only burns until evil is destroyed.

Dr. Craig:

I think that your point about the burning bush is just inaccurate. I think that's wrong--that that could be or is translated as "everlasting." But your viewpoint is what I call annihilationism. I said that if one does have trouble with the idea that hell is everlasting separation from God, there are Christians that hold to the doctrine of annihilationism, such as this lady just enunciated. Seventh Day Adventists, in particular, is a Christian denomination that holds to annihilationism. I don't hold to it myself. As Dr. Bradley said, the words used to describe hell are the same words used to describe the eternity of God.

[tape jumps]

Question:

. . . and I'll be praying for you as well. First of all, I'd like to share with you a verse from God's Word, from I Timothy 4:1 and it says that the Spirit clearly says that in latter times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared with a hot iron. Dr. Bradley, if you go to Psalms 4:2 it also says . . .

Don Reddick:

Sir, excuse me, could you please phrase your question?

Question:

I've got two questions for Dr. Bradley. Comparing Stalin and Hitler's death camps to Christ's justice of hell is ludicrous. God is a divine being made into the flesh to suffer and feel our pain so He can be a more compassionate and loving God.

Don Reddick:

Sir, you'll have to phrase a specific question. We have a limited amount of time.

Question:

So how can you compare Hitler and Stalin's judgments with God almighty, the creator of man? Should not Satan be condemned to hell for his pride? How can man try to set himself up as God, above God? Two questions.

Dr. Bradley:

I made the comparison between Hitler and his atrocities and God and those described in the Bible read non-metaphorically because the comparison is one that must inevitably strike one. If you are going to be talking about sending people to torture, just think of some of the worst perpetrators of those sort of crimes on this earth. I'm sure Hitler is likely to come to your mind. He sent people to the gas chambers because they were of the wrong parentage, whether Jews or Gypsies. That certainly does invite comparison with God, who sends people, in the terms of our question, sends people to hell for the sin of lacking the right beliefs. What I did say was that when you make the comparison, which must inevitably come to mind, you must recognize that the kind of horrors that people are going to suffer in the gas chambers are only finite, whereas those of hell, unless you are going to believe in annihilationism, which Dr. Craig I think very properly rejects, are eternal. I would suggest to you that burning in hell eternally is a lot worse than burning for five or ten minutes in a gas chamber.

Dr. Craig:

I certainly do think that being in hell is far, far worse than what the people experienced at the death camps. But I think that the point is that they are disanalogous because those who endured the death camps were innocent, but those who are in hell are not innocent. They are there because they have deliberately chosen to reject God and because they have failed to live up to the demands of his moral law. Therefore, their condemnation is just. As I've said, the way to assess this question is to not look at others. It's to look into your own heart and ask yourself, "What do you see when you look into your own heart?" Do you see someone there who deserves to go to heaven, who has some kind of a claim to have earned his way? Or do you see someone there who desperately needs God's forgiveness and grace? I think it's the latter and that therefore those who are in hell are only there of their own free choice.

Dr. Bradley:

I'd just like to make a quick comeback on that one, if I may. Dr. Craig, you spoke of the damned as being deliberately there of their own free choice. But, of course, part of your article and part of your argument is that a lot of the people who go to hell are people who haven't even heard and are sent there because God knew in advance what they would choose were they to hear. So you can't speak fairly here of them deliberately choosing to go to hell. You can only speak of God's alleged foreknowledge of what they would deliberately choose.

Dr. Craig:

That's a misunderstanding, Dr. Bradley, of the position I take. That would be unjust of God to judge people on the basis of what they would do in other circumstances. What my article argues is that those who have never heard of Christ are not judged on the basis of Christ. They are judged on the basis of how they respond to the information that they do have, which are standards vastly, vastly lower. Even on those lower standards the question is whether or not people live up to those. If they will, then they will be saved.

Don Reddick:

We have only time for one more question, unfortunately. We've covered a lot of ground, and we are running out of time. Now we'll just do one more question. Sir.

Question:

Dr. Craig, I would just like to ask you if you could comment on what Dr. Bradley was talking about before, about there being two Gods, like one of the Old Testament and one of the New, and that the Old Testament God is more compatible with the idea of hell and that the New Testament God is not. I'd just like for you to comment on that.

Dr. Craig:

Well, I obviously think that is a false dichotomy. The God of the Old Testament is also the God of love, who draws people to Himself, whether they are in the covenant family of Israel or outside like Job, for example. The New Testament God is equally the God of righteousness and holiness. It is important to have a balanced picture of who God is. He is both the holy God and He is the loving God. To quote passages just on one side would give a distorted caricature of who God is. This picture of God as both holy and loving is found both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

Don Reddick:

Let's just do one more. Sir.

Question:

Okay, I didn't know we'd get two more questions, but that's all right. Dr. Bradley, do you think Dr. Craig has really refuted your argument about logical inconsistency or is he just claiming to do so? And how can you assume that there is no moral accountability in this life without God?

Dr. Bradley:

Two big questions! As to the first, no, I don't think Dr. Craig has adequately answered my refutation, my heavenly rebuttal, as I euphemistically called it, of his free will defense. As I said, that is a question we'll have to go over because it involves a lot of technicalities about maximally consistent sets of propositions, feasible worlds as opposed to possible worlds, and the rest.

As for the other question which you asked about . . . I take that it was to do with morality . . . the grounds of morality if one were not to believe in God. Could there be an objective morality if one did not believe in God? It seems to me that a morality based on belief in a divine command theory of ethics, that one must do what God says one should do because that is definitive of what is good and disobedience is evil, is a very primitive morality. It is one that is based on fear, and it is in fact contemptible.

Furthermore, I believe that if one takes a look at the evidence there is in the Bible for an objective morality, then you will find the content of many of God's edicts is repugnant. For example, as I cited earlier in my paper, the command to Moses to give 32,000 captured virgins to his soldiers, to use as they may while going on to slaughter their mothers and their brothers, seems to me to be the kind of edict which shows that God's commands, though Christians may claim that they are always good, are often patently not.

Dr. Craig:

I think it is important to understand that with regard to the first question the propositions that God is all-loving and that some people go to hell are not explicitly contradictory. So the burden of proof lies on the person who claims that they are. I don't think that Dr. Bradley has been able to succeed in any way in showing that these are logically incompatible. That is all that I have tried to demonstrate in today's debate. All of these other issues are sort of extraneous, issues that haven't come in or shouldn't be coming in. I haven't defended a divine command morality. I would say that God's commands flow necessarily from the goodness and holiness of His moral nature so that they're not arbitrary.

As for the sorts of commands in the Old Testament that Dr. Bradley is talking about, I think you would have to look at those specifically on a case-to-case basis. In some cases, for example, these would represent God's judgment upon unrighteous nations which were merely carried out by human instrumentality. Human beings wouldn't have the right to do such things; it would be only as instruments of God's judgment upon certain persons. That would have to be looked at in much greater detail on a case by case basis.

Don Reddick:

Well, we are going to have to wrap things up right now. I hope you've found this worth while. I'd like to thank you all for attending. That will be it.

Notes

{1} Mt. 25.41.

{2} Richard Wurmbrandt, Tortured for Christ (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1967), p. 34.

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