About this topic
Broad cumulative cases for or against God's existence and the reasonableness of belief, spanning several questions without one specialist issue dominating. Creator-only arguments are not treated as sufficient to establish a personal, involved God.
Debates are grouped by their main question. Scores assess the reasoning presented, not the truth of a position. Read the assessment method.
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Justin Schieber vs Randal Rauser — Religious Disagreement and God · 2017
Schieber’s calibrated comparative case outscored Rauser’s thoughtful but insufficiently evidenced appeals to permissive divine reasons and underdetermination.
Justin Schieber: 85 · Randal Rauser: 78. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Richard Swinburne vs Bart Ehrman — God and Suffering · 2009
Ehrman’s victim-centered, natural-evil, and scriptural challenges outweighed Swinburne’s coherent but incompletely warranted account of responsible freedom, sanctity, redemption, and heaven.
Richard Swinburne: 78 · Bart Ehrman: 85. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig vs Michael Nugent — Does God Exist? · 2017
A close contest in which Nugent’s method and targeted rebuttals narrowly outperformed Craig’s structured cumulative case, while both left central grounding questions unresolved.
William Lane Craig: 76 · Michael Nugent: 78. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Randal Rauser vs Dan Barker — Is the Christian God Worthy of Worship? · 2020
Rauser narrowly prevailed by making his Christian framework explicit and conditional, while Barker's victim-centered objections kept the central moral burden unresolved.
Randal Rauser: 83 · Dan Barker: 82. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Paulogia vs Michael Jones — Divine Hiddenness and a Perfectly Loving God · 2019
Paulogia narrowly wins through the one-exception burden and unequal disclosure, while Jones offers calibrated psychological, public-evidence, and postmortem compatibility replies.
Paulogia: 86 · Michael Jones: 83. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Trent Horn vs Raphael Lataster — Does God Exist? · 2016
Horn offers four converging routes to classical theism; Lataster narrowly prevails by preserving premise uncertainty, probabilistic counterevidence, and unresolved supernatural rivals.
Trent Horn: 79 · Raphael Lataster: 81. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
SJ Thomason vs Scott Clifton — Morality, Meaning and God · 2020
Clifton’s careful separation of moral facts, duties, and finite meaning outperformed Thomason’s suggestive but under-supported appeals to transcendence and higher calling.
SJ Thomason: 70 · Scott Clifton: 85. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Randal Rauser vs Justin Schieber — Does God Exist? · 2015
Schieber’s comparative naturalist case better connects simplicity, hiddenness, cosmic hostility, and suffering to the motion, while Rauser offers serious epistemic and moral replies.
Randal Rauser: 76 · Justin Schieber: 83. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Adam Lloyd Johnson vs Dan Barker — Does God Exist? · 2022
Johnson narrowly wins by presenting the more integrated cumulative case, though Barker’s coherence and evidential objections substantially limit its force.
Adam Lloyd Johnson: 78 · Dan Barker: 77. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig vs Klemens Kappel — Does God Exist? · 2012
Craig’s cumulative theistic arguments face Kappel’s qualified atheism, comparative naturalism, and challenges concerning explanation, morality, testimony, and disagreement.
William Lane Craig: 78 · Klemens Kappel: 84. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Dinesh D’Souza vs Dan Barker — Does God Exist? · 2009
Barker narrowly wins by sustaining evidential restraint and sharper rebuttals, while D’Souza offers a broad cumulative case weakened by several unsupported inferential bridges.
Dinesh D'Souza: 72 · Dan Barker: 76. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Frank Turek vs Dennis Nørmark — Does God Exist? · 2014
Turek’s cumulative theistic case narrowly loses to Nørmark’s calibrated natural explanations, stronger concessions, and more consistent evidential burden.
Frank Turek: 74 · Dennis Nørmark: 76. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Matt Slick vs Dan Barker — Does God Exist? · 2014
Barker wins by controlling burdens, sharpening divine-coherence objections, and limiting prayer conclusions, while Slick raises serious grounding challenges without completing their Biblical bridge.
Matt Slick: 68 · Dan Barker: 76. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig vs Michael Tooley — Is God Real? · 2010
Craig’s cumulative theistic case confronts Tooley’s probabilistic evil argument, with moral perfection and inductive method ultimately deciding a narrowly stronger con case.
William Lane Craig: 77 · Michael Tooley: 80. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig vs Austin Dacey — Does God Exist? · 2004
Dacey won by sustaining stronger comparative cases from hiddenness, suffering, embodied minds, and evolution while repeatedly undercutting Craig’s central explanatory bridges.
William Lane Craig: 73 · Austin Dacey: 82. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Al Sharpton vs Christopher Hitchens — God, religion, and morality · 2007
Sharpton narrowed the case to personal theism, but Hitchens won by separating private belief from public warrant and supplying stronger naturalistic alternatives.
Al Sharpton: 76 · Christopher Hitchens: 84. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Does God Exist? John Lennox vs. Michael Shermer · 2008
Shermer’s disciplined evidential restraint narrowly prevailed over Lennox’s wide-ranging cumulative case, chiefly through stronger replies on suffering, historical underdetermination, and uncertainty.
John Lennox: 76 · Michael Shermer: 81. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Is God a Figment of Our Imagination? Michael Shermer vs. Alister McGrath · 2017
Shermer prevailed by connecting religious diversity, evidential burdens, naturalistic morality, and unfalsifiability to human construction, while McGrath offered thoughtful but less evidentially complete defenses of faith.
Michael Shermer: 77 · Alister McGrath: 72. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Does God Exist? William Lane Craig vs. Antony Flew · 1998
Flew narrowly prevailed because his disciplined evidential burden and domain objections exposed unresolved causal and probabilistic leaps across Craig's cumulative case.
William Lane Craig: 74 · Antony Flew: 77. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig vs Victor Stenger: Does God Exist? · 2010
Craig’s stronger modal, cosmological, moral, and cumulative replies outweighed Stenger’s empirical challenges from natural explanation, prayer, neuroscience, hiddenness, suffering, and disputed resurrection history.
William Lane Craig: 76 · Victor Stenger: 69. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Bertrand Russell vs Frederick Copleston: Does God Exist? · 1948
Copleston develops contingency, religious-experience, and moral arguments for God; Russell narrowly prevails by exposing modal, evidential, and normative explanatory gaps.
Frederick Copleston: 78 · Bertrand Russell: 80. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig vs Peter Millican: Does God Exist? · 2011
Craig presented a cumulative Christian case; Millican’s calibrated challenges stressed underdetermination, alternative explanations, evidential reliability, suffering, and sincere nonbelief.
William Lane Craig: 75 · Peter Millican: 87. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Stuart Knechtle vs Aron Ra: Does God Exist? · 2023
Knechtle advances cumulative theistic arguments from order, reason, morality, and Jesus; Aron Ra counters through evidential standards, natural explanations, and religious unreliability.
Stuart Knechtle: 71 · Aron Ra: 78. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Daniel Dennett vs Dinesh D'Souza: Is God a Human Invention? · 2007
Dennett advances naturalistic explanations of religion, cosmos, mind, and morality, while D'Souza defends divine reality through conceptual, cosmological, experiential, and moral arguments.
Daniel Dennett: 80 · Dinesh D'Souza: 75. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Frank Turek vs Christopher Hitchens: Does God Exist? · 2008
Turek advances cumulative theistic explanations, while Hitchens more consistently enforces evidential burdens, challenges Christian specificity, and defends secular moral autonomy.
Frank Turek: 74 · Christopher Hitchens: 81. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens: Does God Exist? · 2009
Craig advances a cumulative Christian case; Hitchens presses evidential burdens, inferential gaps, suffering, religious authority, and secular alternatives with greater consistency.
William Lane Craig: 78 · Christopher Hitchens: 82. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.