Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Central Argument of "The God Delusion"

For some reason I always feel the need to say Richard Dawkins is a man of intelligence before I criticize any of his arguments.  It's the same with Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss.  Some are critical of those who criticize their arguments, since they're not professional philosophers.  Poetically, that's entirely the point.  Not only are they not professional philosophers, but they've shown very little evidence that they've studied philosophy to any reasonable extent.  However, whenever a person enters into the world of philosophy, they had better be prepared for some philosophical critiques.  Can you imagine me, as a scientific layman, writing a book called The Science Delusion, and then making excuses for why I shouldn't debate the leading scientists of the day?  Dawkins has done just that with William Lane Craig for years now.  Nevertheless, let's take a quick look at the argument that Dawkins considers a knockdown argument for atheism.

1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises. (Premise)

2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself. (Premise)

3. The temptation is a false one because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. (Premise)

4. The most ingenious and powerful explanation is Darwinian evolution by natural selection. (Premise)

5. We don't have an equivalent explanation for physics. (Premise)

6. We should not give up the hope of a better explanation arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism in biology. (Premise)

7. Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist. (Conclusion)

Now, anyone even remotely familiar with logic will say that the conclusion that "God almost certainly does not exist" is a complete non sequitur.  Even if one grants all six of Dawkins's premises - even the most dubious ones, such as (3) - the conclusion is simply not a cogent inference.  Let's say the design argument fails, and let's grant that arguments concerning law-like behavior and the fine-tuning of the universe's initial conditions fail.  So what?  These are largely inductive arguments, whereas Thomism and other philosophical traditions offer mostly deductive arguments for God's existence.

Dawkins only offers a couple pages dedicated to the proofs of Thomas Aquinas, and he misinterprets them for the most part.  For example, with respect to the first three ways Dawkins states on p. 101 that, "[Thomists] make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress."  Unfortunately, had Dawkins taken the time to read Thomas Aquinas's reasons for concluding to an Unmoved Mover, an Uncaused Cause, and a Necessary Being, he would have realized that the causal premises require that the First Cause be uncaused.

Dawkins continues, "Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one . . ."

I'm going to stop right there and point out that Thomas offers three distinct arguments against an infinite regress of essentially-ordered causes.  There's nothing arbitrary about it.

Continuing, "there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts."

At this point, one can only wonder: did Dawkins just read the five ways in the Summa Theologiae (literally a summary of theology) and simply gloss over Thomas's arguments for God's omnipotence, and so forth?

Next, "Incidentally, it has not escaped the notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible.  If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence.  But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent."

First, what logicians is Dawkins referring to?  He makes no citations and only adds a little poem by Karen Owens to confirm his point.  Secondly, God cannot do what is logically impossible.  He cannot create a square-circle, and no, he cannot change his mind, since he is immutable.  This fits quite nicely with the actual definition of omnipotence (the ability to do whatever is logically possible) and can only be used as an argument against God by adopting a caricature of the term.

Finally, "To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a 'big bang singularity', or some other physical concept as yet unknown."

This is the definitive proof that Dawkins doesn't understand Thomas's arguments.  Thomas argues that the universe must have a First Cause in the order of essentially-ordered causes, or sustaining causes.  This is entirely different from the originating cause of the kalam cosmological argument that Dawkins conflates with the Thomistic proofs.  As far as Thomas is concerned, a universe infinite in the past still requires a First Cause in the order of sustaining causes.  It's one thing to ask why something begins to exist, and quite another to ask why it continues to exist.  For defenders of the kalam argument, I'll leave it to you to explain what's obviously wrong with Dawkins's alternative "big bang singularity" being the cause of anything.


24 comments:

  1. For some reason I always feel the need to say Richard Dawkins is a man of intelligence before I criticize any of his arguments.

    You shouldn't. In fact, I think Christians in general need to get over this particularly with regards to several prominent atheists. Dawkins is an ex-scientist. He is known, first and foremost, for his pop sci writings. I'm all in favor of giving someone their due, but in this case, I think it's more a situation that everyone is needlessly ceding too much respect.

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  2. The central argument, as Dawkins states it, is definitely a non sequitur, there is no doubt about that. It can, however, be formulated in such a way as to make a really powerful argument against God. The problemwith the argument is that teher are far too many hidden premises that must be make explicit before the argument makes sense.

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  3. Doug,

    I wrote a post the other day on the cosmological argument from contingency that I think you would find interesting. I'd be interested to know how close my ideas come to Thomistic ideas about classical theism.

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  4. But Walter, any reformulation of Dawkins's argument, even if it were a sound one, would only undermine the design argument. It doesn't address the deductive arguments of AT natural theology, the moral argument, the ontological argument, the conceptualist argument, the historicity of Jesus's resurrection, the mereological argument, and so forth.

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    1. I said it would make a powerful argument against God, I did not say it would prove that God does not exist.

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    2. First, that doesn't make any sense. It would hypothetically only be a powerful argument against the design argument for God's existence. Secondly, I never mentioned anything about "proof." Thirdly, there are plenty of arguments for God's existence that don't depend upon the design argument.

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    3. Even though the many arguments for God do not depend upon the design argument, the conclusion of most of those arguments is that a God who is at least capable of designing things, exists. The modified version of the Central Argument attempts to argue that the existence of such a God is extremely improbable, so, if sound it is a powerful argument against God. Not just against the design argument.

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    4. That still doesn't follow. Let's say God didn't design the universe. Does that mean God is incapable of designing the universe? Not at all. I'm really surprised that you've been taken in by this argument, Walter. If God wanted to, he could have just created the universe and let it evolve all on its own.

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    5. Since none of what you are saying here has even the slightests relevance to what I was saying, I am going to leave it it that.

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    6. In any case, I'd love to see this modified version sometime.

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    7. A simplified version of it would look something like this.
      1. Entities capable of designing things are the result of a long evolutionary process.
      2. God is not the result of a long evolutionary process.
      3. Therefore God is not capable of designing anything.

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    8. In that case, I'd reject (1). Even with your modified version, that's still no reason to say there is almost certainly no God.

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    9. Of course you'd reject (1), just as I reject one or more premises of every argument for God. The point is, if this argument is sound, the conclusion would be that there is almost certainly no God capable of designing things. I concede that there might still be romm for some wtaered-down version of God, but that's the problem every atheist argument faces: it is virtually impossible to disprove every single one of the tens of thousands of different God concepts that people (have) come up with.

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    10. Well that's a much different conclusion than "there is almost certainly no God," which is what Dawkins states.

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    11. I think in TGD Dawkins explains what he means by 'God', so I don't think this conclusion is all that different.

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    12. It's certainly different to have a conception of God and say that this God almost certainly does not exist, as opposed to saying there is almost certainly no God.

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  5. ingx24, I like the argument! It appears to be a blend of Thomistic and Leibnizian cosmological arguments. You begin with the contingency of the universe and the PSR, both Leibnizian principles, and end with a Thomistic conclusion with God being Pure Actuality, or being itself subsisting. If you could formalize the argument, that would be a great help.

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  6. Hm, let's see if we can do this:

    (1) Existence itself is absolutely necessary: there must always be such a thing as "the way things are". (Premise)
    (2) Logical and mathematical entities/laws are absolutely necessary. (Premise)
    (3) Physical entities (time, space, matter, energy, etc.) are contingent: they might not have existed. (Premise)
    (4) Mental entities (in the sense we are familiar with) are contingent. (Premise)
    (5) All contingent entities have an explanation for their existence at any given time in terms of something that is not itself contingent. (Premise)
    (6) Therefore, the sum of physical and mental reality must have an explanation in terms of a necessary entity that is neither physical nor mental. (From 3, 4, and 5)
    (7) The sum of physical and mental reality must have an explanation in terms of either existence itself or abstract necessary entities. (From 1, 2, and 6)
    (8) Abstract necessary entities cannot explain physical and mental reality. (Premise)
    (9) Therefore, the sum of physical and mental reality must have an explanation in terms of existence itself. (From 7 and 8)
    (10) All contingent entities are at least potentially existent: the idea of an electron, for example, is necessary regardless of whether any electrons actually exist. (Premise)
    (11) Therefore, the sum of physical and mental reality is explained by existence itself actualizing potentially existent abstract entities. (From 9 and 10)

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    1. From what I can tell, that's a logically valid argument. You can get the same conclusion by defending the argument from change, which concludes that Pure Actuality (existence itself) exists and possesses many, if not all of the divine attributes. Nevertheless, your argument makes use of modal contingency, which is why I call it a Thomistic-Leibnizian cosmological argument.

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  7. Walter and Doug,

    There is no need to try to reformulate Dawkins' argument. It's already been done in a peer-reviewed journal and found to be wanting, but an atheist no less. Check it out here (PDF).

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    1. I have never claimed that a modified version of the Central Argument is water-tight, but it is much better than the seven point summary Dawkins himself provides. And of course it is Dawkins himself who is to blame for this.
      Hwoever, the claims that God is necssary and God is simple are also found wanting by various philospohers, theists and atheists alike.

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    2. I'll definitely grant that your version is better. It's at least logically valid. The fact that God's necessity and simplicity are contested doesn't concern me. Philosophers rarely (if ever) garner a general consensus on anything.

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  8. Thanks for the link, Martin. "One moral of my story will be that theists and atheists alike ought to put away The God Delusion and open (or reopen) Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion."

    Amen!

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    1. I second that. the God delusion is a popular book and much too shallow to count as a work on philosophy.

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