Richard Dawkins is the pinup boy of the New Atheist movement. He represents is, being its strongest and most aggressive warrior. He almost embodies its very nature and being, its views and personality, and with amazing prose demonstrates the reasons for his views with an eloquence theists could only dream of. However, whilst he has style, his substance seems to be lacking. Whilst he can attack the bottom rank of theist intellectuals, his arguments are weak when put up against the titans of our day, such as Plantinga's, Swinburne's and even atheists like Flew's. Furthermore, they have little weight or power, for they seem to fall apart on critical inspection. Thus, I wish to demonstrate that Dawkins' main argument against the existence of God is not very convincing at all, and thus his views as a philosopher should not be taken as authoritative. Note, this is not an attempt to show the truth of theism, nor the falsity of atheism. Rather, it is a stand alone analysis of Dawkins' argument and only a critique of his views.
Dawkins' central argument in his various debates and books can be summarised as follows:
1) A complex thing is something with many parts if its put together in such a way that it is unlikely just by chance.
2) The more complex a thing, the more unlikely it is to exist.
3) The universe is a complex thing, that we know exists.
4) To infer a designer of the universe, such as God, to explain the complexity of the universe would be to deposit an even more complex being, if not infinitley complex.
5) Thus, we would need to inquire who designed the designer, for this complexity would also need an explanation which is simple.
6) As there is 1: no explanation for the designer and 2: no need to add a more complex being, it follows that it is almost certain that God does not exist.
This argument appeals to various principles which can be recognised as intuitively true. Dawkins builds upon the idea of Ockham's razor, namely that in any explanation of observational evidence you should not multiply entities beyond necessity, commonly summarised as turning to the simplest explanation being the correct one. This seems to be the essence of his argument, that God is an over complication which is removed by the Ockhamistic method, and thus is irrelevant to explanation, and thus belief in God is irrational.
However, Dawkins seems to have a confused argument here. He claims that a complex being is one with many parts. So humans our complex compared to a pile of sand, for if you pick up a pile of sand, and then pour it on the floor, it is more likely to have the same structure than if you took a human apart and then dropped them on the ground and observed as to whether it regained its structure. Humans have hands, feet, eyes, teeth, hair and all the other aspects of the body, whereas sand is just tiny grains which are not complex in of themselves. This example clearly illustrates Dawkins first premise.
However, this breaks down because God isn't a being with parts. God is supposed to be a spirit, a transcendent being who has no physical aspects or parts to His divine nature. So it follows from Dawkins own definition that God couldn't be complex, which undermines the argument completely! God is a simple being on this definition of complex, and thus by Dawkins' reasoning he would be a highly probable and sound explanation for the apparent complexity within the universe.
This refutation of Dawkins argument is devastating. As it his fundamental reason for not believing in God, with its refutation he has no substantive reason for his rampant and aggressive atheism. Therefore, I would encourage atheist and theist alike to regard Prof. Dawkins arguments with a mindset of critical understanding and a revulsion to such poor objections to the existence of God. Rather, look at respected scholars like Hume, Flew, and Plantinga, to name but a few, to base your judgments on this most important of all topics.
(On a side note, I would like to say a special thanks to all of you who read my blog posts, especially those in foreign countries. It is a real honour, and I hope they engage, entertain and ignite your cognitive capacities. Feel free to leave your comments if you so wish as well!)
I have to say, I've got a somewhat mixed view on the athiesm vs god debate. On the one hand, I basically took to the big bang theory for a long time and took that as the answer to everything. But then surely there'd need to be some form of energy behind the big bang itself, could something like that happen out of nothing? And if the universe is constantly expanding- it must be expanding into something. That's kind of common sense.
ReplyDeleteThere's also an element about the world that makes me think that it's in someway designed, because it's perfect, in terms of living and that type of thing.
Having said that, I'm often really surprised that some people have such definitive views on what the real answer is- there are so many possibilities and i think the answer could be somewhere beyond human comprahension. Certainly with the shred of evidence we currently have as humans, it's all mere speculation. (Well, that's one possibility)