About this topic
Comparisons of whole worldviews: whether theism, naturalism, or other accounts best explain reality, consciousness, value, and experience. The focus is comparative explanatory scope, simplicity, and evidence, rather than a creator-only argument or one divine attribute.
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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Jonathan McLatchie vs Tom Jump — Does God Exist? · 2019
McLatchie’s cumulative Bayesian case narrowly prevailed, while Jump’s underdetermination challenges exposed unresolved comparisons behind its numerical confidence.
Jonathan McLatchie: 79 · Tom Jump: 76. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Christopher Hitchens vs Douglas Wilson — Truth, Goodness, and Beauty · 2008
Wilson argues that theism grounds reason, value, and purposeful beauty; Hitchens answers with human responsibility, secular awe, skeptical inquiry, and stricter tests for miracles.
Douglas Wilson: 75 · Christopher Hitchens: 80. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Richard Swinburne vs Peter Millican: Does God Exist? · 2022
Swinburne defended personal explanation, simplicity, freedom, and compensation; Millican pressed predictive specificity, scientific background, divine coherence, embodiment, and victim-centered suffering.
Richard Swinburne: 81 · Peter Millican: 88. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Graham Oppy vs Kenny Pearce: Is There a God? · 2022
Pearce develops theistic grounding and experiential arguments, while Oppy presses symmetrical naturalistic alternatives, epistemic calibration, and religious diversity as stronger comparative explanations.
Kenny Pearce: 84 · Graham Oppy: 88. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig vs Paul Draper: The Existence of God · 1997
Craig advances a cumulative Christian case, while Draper’s disciplined comparative-likelihood framework more effectively integrates evolution, suffering, hiddenness, and qualified replies.
William Lane Craig: 78 · Paul Draper: 85. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Paul Copan vs Stephen Woodford: Is Belief in God Reasonable? · 2024
Copan’s cumulative theistic explanation connected cosmology, consciousness, morality, and reform, but underdeveloped rival comparisons and the evidential challenge from suffering.
Paul Copan: 78 · Stephen Woodford: 81. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Jonathan McLatchie vs Alex O'Connor: Theism or Naturalism? · 2022
McLatchie advances biological-design and resurrection arguments while answering hiddenness and suffering objections through adequate evidence, moral probation, epistemic limits, and lawful regularity.
Jonathan McLatchie: 74 · Alex O'Connor: 83. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig and Rowan Williams vs Sabine Hossenfelder and Slavoj Žižek: Does God Exist? · 2026
Craig and Williams defend Christian theism through arguments, experience, practice, and human meaning; Hossenfelder and Žižek press scientific restraint, religious plurality, and a Christian-atheist reading of God as a communal or symbolic force.
William Lane Craig and Rowan Williams: 82 · Sabine Hossenfelder and Slavoj Žižek: 81. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig, Jessica Frazier, Philip Goff, and Joe Folley: Did God Create Reality? · 2026
Craig defends classical Christian theism as the best explanation of reality and objective meaning; Frazier, Goff, and Folley press Hindu, mystical, and agnostic alternatives that complicate God, value, experience, and morality.
William Lane Craig: 80 · Jessica Frazier, Philip Goff, and Joe Folley: 82. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Richard Swinburne vs Graham Oppy: Is Theism Probable? · 2022
Swinburne advances a cumulative theistic explanation, while Oppy answers with economical naturalistic alternatives and sharper comparative, anthropocentric, consciousness, and modal challenges.
Richard Swinburne: 80 · Graham Oppy: 85. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Frank Turek vs David Silverman: Which Better Explains Reality? · 2013
Turek advances cumulative theistic explanations, while Silverman emphasizes natural processes, evidential restraint, human responsibility, and tensions between divine attributes and suffering.
Frank Turek: 77 · David Silverman: 78. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Frank Turek vs Christopher Hitchens: What Best Explains Reality? · 2011
Turek advances a cumulative theistic explanation, while Hitchens more consistently supplies calibrated naturalistic alternatives and challenges the inferential bridges to design and revelation.
Frank Turek: 74 · Christopher Hitchens: 83. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Rowan Williams, Philip Goff, Elizabeth Oldfield, and Alex O'Connor: Between God and Atheism · 2024
Williams, Goff, and Oldfield defend traditional, revised, and experiential Christianity; O'Connor presses fine-tuning limits, suffering, Gnosticism, and purpose.
Rowan Williams, Philip Goff, and Elizabeth Oldfield: 80 · Alex O'Connor, with Jack Symes moderating: 82. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Michael Jones vs Richard Carrier: Does God Exist? · 2025
Jones and Carrier closely contest whether consciousness, cosmic structure, morality, and origins comparatively favor theistic idealism or secular naturalism.
Michael Jones: 74 · Richard Carrier: 73. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.