DEBATE: Without God, Can There Be Objective Ethics? Dr. James P. Sterba vs. Dr. Adam Lloyd Johnson

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.

For the transcripts from this debate, see here: https://convincingproof.org/without-god-can-there-be-an-objective-ethics-debate/

Dr. James P. Sterba teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in ethics and political philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He has published 38 books, and over 200 articles. And he is past president of the American Philosophical Association, Central Division, the North American Society for Social Philosophy, and Concerned Philosophers for Peace. In 2013, he received a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to bring the yet untapped resources of ethics to bear on the problem of evil. In 2019, he published “Is a Good God Logically Possible?” with Palgrave/MacMillan, which you can find here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VB73YYH/, and in April 2024, Oxford University Press published a debate book he did with Richard Swinburne on the topic "Could a Good God Permit so Much Suffering?” which you can find here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CZMMR9JT/.

Dr. Adam Lloyd Johnson earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has taught for the Rhineland School of Theology in Wolmersen, Germany, for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, and serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Foundations of Ethics at Houston Christian University. He is the president and founder of Convincing Proof, a ministry that provides good reasons and evidence to trust in Christ. He is the author, editor, or contributor of several published works including “A Debate on God and Morality: What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties?,” co-authored with William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Erik Wielenberg, and others, which you can find here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0367135655/. His most recent book, “Divine Love Theory: How the Trinity is the Source and Foundation of Morality,” was published in March 2023 by Kregel Academic, which you can find here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1KNZ78X/. You can learn more about Adam and his work at https://convincingproof.org.

The debate was moderated by Joel Mohrmann. We are grateful to Dan Santos for the many hours he volunteered to edit this video.

You can find the debate between Adam Lloyd Johnson and Dr. Erik Wielenberg that Adam mentioned at 1:22:28 and 1:51:20 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg2WK-IIrd8.

0:00 Introduction
3:30 Dr. Sterba Opening Statement
23:22 Dr. Johnson Opening Statement
47:00 Dr. Sterba Response #1
58:14 Dr. Johnson Response #1
1:11:37 Dr. Sterba Response #2
1:19:43 Dr. Johnson Response #2
1:28:11 Dr. Sterba Closing Statement
1:33:00 Dr. Johnson Closing Statement
1:38:03 To Sterba: What about when interests conflict? Why do other people matter at all?
1:40:36 To Johnson: If God reveals morality, how can christians disagree about it?
1:44:15 To Sterba: If rationality leads to moral objectivity, what grounds rationality as a sufficient standard?
1:47:16 To Johnson: In the Bible like with Pharaoh, God violates free will to achieve His ends, so why not do so to stop the Holocaust?
1:50:23 To Sterba: When you talked to Erik Wielenberg about your argument, what did he say?
1:51:36 To Johnson: Why did God create people who choose evil? Couldn't He create people who wouldn't?
1:55:06 To Sterba: Could God's failure to intervene be explained because by doing so Moral Evil Prevention Requirement A would be violated by violating the right of people to choose evil?
1:58:17 To Johnson: If you base morality on loving relationships, how does this account for natural evil?
2:02:04 To Sterba: Theists act morally in order to make it to heaven. Under atheism, what is the purpose of good morals if there is no life after death?
2:04:53 To Johnson: If God allows evil on earth because of free will, then how is heaven different since there's no evil there?
2:09:24 To Sterba: If there's no God, where did objective cross-species ethics come from, since that doesn't seem evolutionarily feasible?
2:13:41 To Johnson: Isn't it odd to propose the loving relationships of the Trinity as the foundation of morality if they're not described in the Bible?
2:18:55 Conclusion