Person

Erik Wielenberg

American secular philosopher (b. 1972), Professor of Philosophy at DePauw University. The most-developed contemporary defender of atheistic moral realism, the position that objective moral facts exist as brute necessary truths without requiring a divine grounding. Author of Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism (Oxford, 2014), the canonical book-length defense of the position.

Wielenberg's codex relevance is dialectical: he is the atheist position the codex's Moral Arguments family and Atheist Moral Realism Objection defeater must steel-man before defeating. His position is the strongest available secular alternative to theistic ethics, substantially more sophisticated than the simple "morality is just social convention" view most popular atheists deploy. The Christian apologetic case for the moral argument must engage Wielenberg's position seriously to be intellectually honest.

He is also notable for being personally cordial with his evangelical interlocutors (William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland), multiple public debates and academic exchanges in respectful, rigorous mode.

Biographical sketch

Education: B.A. University of Northern Iowa (1993); Ph.D. University of Massachusetts Amherst (2000, philosophy).
Academic appointment: DePauw University since 2000; Professor of Philosophy.
Self-identification: Atheist; sympathetic to the broader naturalist research program but distinctively defends robust ethical realism against the naturalist-anti-realist alternatives (Mackie's error theory, expressivism, constructivism).

Major works

Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe (Cambridge, 2005), Wielenberg's first book; argues that meaning, value, and moral truth are available in a godless universe.
God and the Reach of Reason: C. S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell (Cambridge, 2008), engages the classical Lewis arguments for Christianity with Hume and Russell as foils.
Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism (Oxford, 2014), the canonical defense of atheistic moral realism. Coined the term "godless normative realism."
A God-and-Morality Reader (with others) and various journal articles, extensive engagement with William Lane Craig, Mark Murphy, and other Christian moral philosophers.

The position, godless normative realism

Wielenberg defends the following metaethical position:

Moral facts exist as objective, mind-independent normative truths. The Holocaust was evil; this is not a projection of human valuing.
Moral facts do not require God. They exist as brute necessary truths, analogous to mathematical or logical truths. Just as 2+2=4 does not require a divine commander, gratuitous cruelty is wrong does not require one either.
The grounding question is misplaced. Critics ask "what grounds moral facts on atheism?" Wielenberg responds: this is the same question that bedevils mathematical realism, and we don't doubt mathematical truths because of it. Some necessary truths are simply basic; their existence does not require further grounding.
Human moral knowledge is reliable enough. Despite the evolutionary origins of moral intuition (which Sharon Street's Darwinian Dilemma exploits, see Sharon Street), Wielenberg argues there are "third factors" (independent processes that explain both our moral beliefs and their correspondence to moral facts) that defeat the Darwinian-debunking move.

Wielenberg's position is sometimes called non-natural moral realism, moral facts are real but not natural (not reducible to physical / biological facts), and they do not require a supernatural divine grounding either. They are sui generis normative facts.

The codex's apologetic engagement

The codex's Moral Arguments family and Atheist Moral Realism Objection defeater engage Wielenberg as follows:

Acknowledgment of Wielenberg's force

Wielenberg's position is the strongest contemporary atheist alternative to theistic ethics. The simple Christian apologetic claim ("atheism has no moral grounding") is too quick, Wielenberg shows that a sophisticated atheist can hold to moral realism without theistic grounding by adopting a non-natural-brute-truth view. The Christian apologetic must engage at this level.

The defeater moves

The grounding-problem move (Craig). Necessary truths do require explanation in terms of their nature, mathematical truths plausibly are grounded in the necessary nature of God (the divine mind eternally contains all necessary mathematical structures). Brute moral facts hanging in space (Wielenberg's view) are more ontologically extravagant than moral facts grounded in God's necessary nature.
Sharon Street's Darwinian Dilemma. Even if Wielenberg's position is internally coherent, Street's evolutionary-debunking argument cuts against it: our moral beliefs evolved for survival, not for tracking brute moral facts. Wielenberg's "third factor" reply has not satisfied Street, atheist-internal critics, or the broader debate (see Atheist Moral Realism Objection).
The bindingness gap. Even if there are brute necessary moral facts, they do not bind the moral agent, facts don't bind, only agents-with-legitimate-authority-to-command bind. The Christian framework has the divine commander; Wielenberg's framework has the facts but no commander, leaving the binding question unanswered.
The borrowed-capital move (Bahnsen / Turek / Holland). Wielenberg's position presupposes an objective moral order whose practical substance (equal-dignity-of-all-humans, the duty to alleviate suffering, etc.) is historically a Christian-derived moral horizon (see Hypocrisy and Tom Holland's Dominion 2019). The atheist-realist is inheriting moral content the secular framework cannot itself produce.

The combined effect: Wielenberg's position is intellectually serious but dialectically defeated by the convergence of (1) grounding-economy + (2) Darwinian-debunking + (3) bindingness-gap + (4) borrowed-capital. The Christian framework explains everything Wielenberg wants explained more parsimoniously and without the unanswered explanatory gaps.

Tone of engagement

Wielenberg is unusually courteous in his exchanges with Christian philosophers. He has appeared in formal academic debate with William Lane Craig and others, engaged Mark Murphy's God and Moral Law (Oxford, 2011), and written respectfully about C. S. Lewis (God and the Reach of Reason, 2008). The codex's engagement with him should match this tone, sharp on the position, respectful of the person.

This is also pedagogically important: most popular atheist deployments of moral arguments do not engage at Wielenberg's level. When the conversation does engage at this level (philosophical-seeker or analytic-trained interlocutor, see Meaning-Centered Evangelism §philosophical-seeker), Wielenberg is the position to engage rather than the cruder versions.