Craig v Sinnott-Armstrong Does Evil and Suffering Disprove God? BEST CHECK

This debate ( audio | video | 1h 25m 57s ) took place in 1999 between Craig and Philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. They debated the Problem of Evil.

Debate begins around 5:53s in.

5 stars. BEST CHECK

PhilVaz 5/5
WK review: Xians always win*

I dunno why I haven’t heard this one before. It took place in 1999 and even more conservative Craig fans have applauded S-A’s performance. On CSA the book that these two have written is considered the best debate an atheist has put up against Craig and I think that book is an offshoot off of this debate.

Some of the reasons why Craig is considered to have lost this debate are evident in other debates, such as his debate with Kagan. This was more informal, as in the Kagan debate and more focused (on the problem of evil), as in the Bradley debate. But Craig certainly had home field advantage and he didn’t sound like he was working with material he isn’t comfortable with.

He also doesn’t go first, which I am just noting and could be wrong on this observation I am about to make. Craig is (rightly) on the affirmative and the affirmative usually goes first but this allows him to always shift the burden of proof, in a way. He usually lists things that the other side must address in order to meet their burden of proof and most of the time the opponent doesn’t address those things (whether they have to or not) or don’t address why they don’t have to meet such requirements.

But by simply going second, Craig can’t do this, and doesn’t too much in this debate. In fact, even when Craig says S-A didn’t address certain arguments, the more informal setting allowed S-A to call Craig out on it and Craig gave a pretty weak response.

S-A was pretty good, too. Like Parsons and Dacey I am totally bummed that S-A doesn’t have a lot of public debates out there, he certainly knows how to plainly convey his arguments and if you can devastate Craig like he did in this debate, then you should be out there more!

Great debate, one of the best – it’s a shame that it is one of the shorter ones.

Technical: Good AQ, this was done with the help of KKMS, a Christian Radio Station. If the Christians set it up, you know that the quality is gonna be good! The video is actual video of the event, not just the audio only!

A list of mini-reviews of Craig's debates can be found here!

*I highly suggest you look at the links available on WK's blog post.