A Debate on God and Morality: What Is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties? (with William Lane Craig)

This volume presents a philosophical debate between Erik J. Wielenberg and William Lane Craig on whether objective moral values and duties require theistic grounding. The work exemplifies contemporary analytic philosophy's engagement with meta-ethical questions about moral ontology and their implications for arguments concerning God's existence.

Craig advances a moral argument for theism, contending that objective moral values and duties cannot exist without God. His position builds on the traditional divine command theory while incorporating contemporary philosophical refinements. Craig argues that atheistic naturalism lacks the metaphysical resources to ground objective morality, as evolutionary processes and material configurations cannot generate genuine moral facts. He maintains that only a transcendent, personal God provides the necessary foundation for moral realism, making the existence of objective morality evidence for theism.

Wielenberg defends a robust moral realism without theistic foundations, developing what he terms "godless normative realism." His account posits that certain moral facts exist as brute ethical truths, requiring no further explanation or grounding. Wielenberg argues that basic moral properties supervene on non-moral properties through necessary connections that hold independently of any divine will or nature. He challenges Craig's premise that atheism entails moral nihilism or relativism, presenting a sophisticated naturalistic account of how moral facts can be both objective and authoritative without theological underpinnings.

The debate engages crucial questions in contemporary philosophy of religion and meta-ethics. Both philosophers address the is-ought problem, the relationship between moral epistemology and moral ontology, and the explanatory adequacy of competing worldviews. Their exchange illuminates fundamental disagreements about whether moral facts require external grounding or can exist as sui generis features of reality.

This work contributes significantly to discussions of the moral argument for God's existence, offering readers direct engagement between two leading philosophers defending opposing positions. The debate format allows each thinker to respond to specific objections, clarifying the strengths and weaknesses of theistic and atheistic approaches to moral realism. For scholars and students examining the intersection of ethics and philosophy of religion, this volume provides essential contemporary perspectives on whether morality points toward or away from divine existence.