Erik J. Wielenberg

Erik J. Wielenberg is Professor of Philosophy at DePauw University, working primarily in metaethics, philosophy of religion, and the ethics of C. S. Lewis. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has become one of the principal contemporary defenders of 'godless normative realism' (sometimes called robust non-theistic moral realism), arguing that objective moral facts can exist as brute, sui generis features of reality without requiring grounding in God. In Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe (2005), he addresses meaning, morality, and virtue under naturalism, engaging William Lane Craig's argument that atheism entails moral nihilism. God and the Reach of Reason (2008) examines C. S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell on natural theology, the problem of evil, and miracles. His later Robust Ethics (2014) systematizes his non-theistic Platonist metaethics, drawing critical responses from theistic ethicists including Craig, J. P. Moreland, and David Baggett, who argue that abstract moral facts cannot do explanatory work without theistic grounding. Wielenberg has also developed influential critiques of evolutionary debunking arguments and divine command theory, and has engaged Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. His work occupies a distinctive position within analytic philosophy of religion, taking theistic arguments seriously while defending the metaphysical and moral sufficiency of a godless universe.