Via John Loftus, I’ve learned that William Lane Craig will be debating Christopher Hitchens. Loftus predicts an easy win for Craig.
At first, I was inclined to agree. I wasn’t really a fan of God is not Great, which seemed more like a cash-in on the success of other atheist books than a serious attempt to say something worthwhile. Also, as Loftus says, Craig is a professional philosopher, but Hitchens is just a journalist.
On the other hand, Hitchens does extremely well in debate formats, I’m really glad we have him for that. He’s especially sharp at noticing logical problems in his opponents’ positions. Craig success, meanwhile, is not in his expertise but in his ability to sound like an expert. Most of the things he talks about in his debates–astrophysics, mathematics, and biblical scholarship–have little to do with his official job title of “professional philosopher.” His one purely philosophical argument, the moral argument, is embarrassingly bad. Craig’s strength is that he can read a little on any subject and then start talking like an expert, twisting the facts heavily while avoiding the most obvious factual errors. Superficially, Craig looks like a Leibnizian “universal genius” who could only be countered by another universal genius, but candidates for that title like Richard Carrier have done poorly. Craig is really a rhetorician, and should have to face another rhetorician.
Unfortunately, Hitchens is sometimes sloppy about getting his facts right–I remember in God is not Great, he seemed to be under the impression that everything discussed in Misquoting Jesus were things Ehrman had discovered personally, when in fact most of it had been known for a long time. There could be some awkward moments if Craig catches him in such mistakes.
Perhaps Hitchens will profit from Craig’s recent debate with Richard Carrier. Craig’s biggest advantage is that he is arguing from the side of the dominant paradigm and thus will be given the benefit of every doubt.
I actually think Hitchens would do well on that aspect just doing what he normally does. Most debaters aren’t confident enough to point to an unsupported assumption and say “I reject that assumption.” Hitchens is.
I seem to recall reading about how criticism paradoxically can have the effect of reinforcing the beliefs in question. It’s as if the fact that someone even bothers to argue with some unproven assumption is actually evidence that there’s something to it after all.
Better not to dignify these unfounded propositions with any respect at all than treat them as if they were debatable on equal terms with rational statements.