Debates

On April 24, 2024, Dr. James P. Sterba, a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame, debated Dr. Adam Lloyd Johnson, president of Convincing Proof Ministries. They debated the question “Without God, Can There Be an Objective Ethics?” Dr. Sterba took the affirmative position that there can be an objective ethics without God, and Dr. Johnson took the negative position, that there cannot be an objective ethics without God. The debate took place at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and was sponsored by the Ratio Christi chapter at UNL.

Without the existence of the all-good, all-powerful God of traditional theism can there be an objective ethics?

In September 2020, Adam Lloyd Johnson debated Dr. Erik Wielenberg, an atheist philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at DePauw University. They discussed the foundations of morality and whether or not God is necessary to explain the existence of objective moral values and duties.

On March 5, 2022, Adam Lloyd Johnson debated Dan Barker, an atheist and co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, at FREEFLO, which is the biennial conference of the Florida Humanist Association held in Orlando, Florida. They debated the question "Does God Exist?"

Who won the debate? Can you find Calvinism in the Bible? Was Molina trying to undermine the Reformation? Does God predestine everything? Is God limited by counterfactuals? This commentary on the James White vs. William Lane Craig debate covers these questions and more.

Mark D. Linville and Louise Antony recently participated in a written debate on the question of whether or not God is necessary for morality. Linville argued that God is necessary for morality whereas Antony argued that God is not. Adam interacts with the arguments made by these two authors and also puts forth his case that God is the best explanation for objective morality.

On April 22, 2020, during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Adam Lloyd Johnson and Luke Pitts engaged in a debate over Zoom about whether the Bible was true and could be trusted. Adam, as a Christian, defended that the Bible is true, that it gets the major events right and is also correct in all its details. Luke, a skeptic, argued that the Bible was not reliable or trustworthy because of many strange, unusual, and even contradictory things found within it. The exchange included four speeches by each participant as well as a time for questions at the end.

In 2018, William Lane Craig and Erik J. Wielenberg participated in a debate moderated by Adam Lloyd Johnson at North Carolina State University, addressing the question: “God and Morality: What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties?” Craig argued that theism provides a sound foundation for objective morality whereas atheism does not. Wielenberg countered that morality can be objective even if there is no God. The transcript of this debate was subsequently made into a book called A Debate on God and Morality which was edited by Adam Lloyd Johnson. The book provides crucial resources for better understanding moral realism and its dependence on, or independence from, theistic foundations.