Doug TenNapel over at Big Hollywood offers a retrospective of the Hitchens/Craig debate held last Saturday at Biola University. TenNapel, who was present for the event, thinks that although Craig won the argument, Hitchens won the debate. He says this because Craig's arguments, based as they are on reason and logic, have little purchase in a culture that has learned to think emotively rather than rationally. Hitchens based his case for atheism on the ubiquity of suffering and returned to this theme at every opportunity. It's a theme that deeply resonates with people and possesses a great deal of emotional and psychological power even if, as an argument, it possesses very little logical force.
TenNapel writes:
But in my opinion, though Dr. Craig won the argument (he was the only one who even presented a formal argument), Hitchens won the debate. It's not the argument of the debaters, it's the condition of the audience that wins the day. While few of Dr. Craig's arguments are dispersed through culture, even religious culture, I've been raised on most of Hitchens' arguments. Dr. Craig's arguments are true and well-reasoned but difficult to comprehend on a first hearing. Hitchens' arguments are what we'll find spoken against God on prime time television, at the water-cooler, I've even heard some of them on Animal Planet. Culture generally makes Hitchens' argument by default....
I think if there were atheists in the audience on the brink of salvation that Dr. Craig's well-argued positions would find little purchase. Opposite that, the room of Christians would likely have a large segment of doubters, and the cultural arguments against God presented by Hitchens would likely change more minds in my opinion.
So are debates judged by the merit of the arguments or the embrace of the audience? In this all important subject, I think the effect on the audience is the preferred measurement. But the evening left little doubt to most of us that Hitchens did not make a case for atheism at all. He barely even acknowledged his own atheism which was oddly refreshing. It reminds me of G. K. Chesterton who said, "Somehow one can never manage to be an atheist."
It reminds me of a quote from Feuerbach who said that all atheists deny their faith by their actions. In other words, they can't live consistently with the logical entailments of their atheism.
At any rate, TenNapel is probably correct about the effect of non-rational appeals on a post-modern audience, and the power of Hitchens' wit and British accent to charm his listeners are not to be underestimated either. Even so, I think there's something ironic in the fact that an atheist who lays claim to having the rationally superior position utterly fails on the grounds of rationality and can only succeed by resorting to emotional appeals. Some might have thought that emotional appeal would have been the recourse of the defender of theism.
Anyway, you can read TenNapel's full summary of the debate at the link.
RLC
