Richard Dawkins taken to the cleaners—in The New York Times

Gary Gutting, who teaches philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has written a couple of pieces for The Opiniator ("exclusive online commentary from The Times"). The first was titled, “Philosophy and Faith"; the second is titled, "On Dawkins’s Atheism: A Response" and includes a succinct philosophical undressing of Richard Dawkins' crude, even embarrassing, attempts to argue God out of existence:

In what sense does Dawkins think God is complex and why does this complexity require an explanation? He does not discuss this in any detail, but his basic idea seems to be that the enormous knowledge and power God would have to possess would require a very complex being and such complexity of itself requires explanation. He says for example: “A God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle in the universe cannot be simple” (p. 178). And, a bit more fully, “a God who is capable of sending intelligible signals to millions of people simultaneously, and of receiving messages from all of them simultaneously, cannot be . . . simple. Such bandwidth! . . . If [God] has the powers attributed to him he must have something far more elaborately and randomly constructed than the largest brain or the largest computer we know” (p. 184).

Here Dawkins ignores the possibility that God is a very different sort of being than brains and computers. His argument for God’s complexity either assumes that God is material or, at least, that God is complex in the same general way that material things are (having many parts related in complicated ways to one another). The traditional religious view, however, is that God is neither material nor composed of immaterial parts (whatever that might mean). Rather, he is said to be simple, a unity of attributes that we may have to think of as separate but that in God are united in a single reality of pure perfection.

Obviously, there are great difficulties in understanding how God could be simple in this way. But philosophers from Thomas Aquinas through contemporary thinkers have offered detailed discussions of the question that provide intelligent suggestions about how to think coherently about a simple substance that has the power and knowledge attributed to God. Apart from a few superficial swipes at Richard Swinburne’s treatment in “Is There a God?”, Dawkins ignores these discussions. (see Swinburne’s response to Dawkins, paragraph 3.) Making Dawkins’ case in any convincing way would require detailed engagement not only with Swinburne but also with other treatments by recent philosophers such as Christopher Hughes’ “A Complex Theory of a Simple God.” (For a survey of recent work on the topic, see William Vallicella’s article, “Divine Simplicity,” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Further, Dawkins’ argument ignores the possibility that God is a necessary being (that is, a being that, by its very nature, must exist, no matter what). On this traditional view, God’s existence would be, so to speak, self-explanatory and so need no explanation, contrary to Dawkins’ premise 3. His ignoring this point also undermines his effort at a quick refutation of the cosmological argument for God as the cause of the existence of all contingent beings (that is, all beings that, given different conditions, would not have existed). Dawkins might, like some philosophers, argue that the idea of a necessary being is incoherent, but to make this case, he would have to engage with the formidable complexities of recent philosophical treatments of the question (see, for example, Timothy O’Connor’s “Theism and Ultimate Explanation” and Bruce Reichenbach’s article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Religious believers often accuse argumentative atheists such as Dawkins of being excessively rationalistic, demanding standards of logical and evidential rigor that aren’t appropriate in matters of faith. My criticism is just the opposite. Dawkins does not meet the standards of rationality that a topic as important as religion requires.

I've read six or seven different books written in response to the "new atheists" at large or Dawkins in particular and I think that for a cool, pithy, and cerebral approach, you can't go wrong with God Is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins by Thomas Crean, O.P., (Ignatius Press, 2007; read an excerpt and an interview with Fr. Crean), and for the brilliant, cutting, and caustic approach, check out Edward Feser's The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (St. Augustine's Press, 2008).

Here is a short quote from Feser's book that parallels Gutting's final sentence above: "Secularism can never truly rest on reason, but only 'faith,' as secularists themselves understand that term (or rather misunderstand it, as we shall see): an unshakeable commitment grounded not in reason but rather in sheer willfulness, a deeply ingrained desire to want things to be a certain way regardless of whether the evidence shows they are that way." See my recent article, "Augustine’s Confessions and the Harmony of Faith and Reason" (This Rock, May/June 2010), for more thoughts along those lines.

Finally, one of my favorite works of philosophy/theology, God and The Ways of Knowing (Ignatius, 2003; orig. 1957), by Jean Daniélou, S.J., has a very accessible chapter, "The God of the Philosophers", that should prove helpful for readers wanting to get their feet wet but don't wish to drown.

Comments

[M. B..]

"Religious believers often accuse argumentative atheists such as Dawkins of being excessively rationalistic, demanding standards of logical and evidential rigor that aren’t appropriate in matters of faith. My criticism is just the opposite. Dawkins does not meet the standards of rationality that a topic as important as religion requires."

Amen to that. When Dawkins is told, "You're too rational!" he hears instead, not unjustifiably, "You make too much sense for my comfort!" The key to addressing him is showing that he is not too rational, but rather not rational enough. Like most scientific atheists, he is rational only so far as empricism goes. Once the questions go beyond that, he doesn't have the courage to keep asking, but simply waves the questions away.

[Thomas Gilson]

Dawkins says, "If [God] has the powers attributed to him he must have something far more elaborately and randomly constructed than the largest brain or the largest computer we know."

God "has" something as a part? Then that part precedes him? God is "constructed"? Who did the building?

The point of my questions here is not to say there's some problem with the Christian doctrine of God. God has no parts, as was clearly noted in the article, and he's not constructed. There are excellent philosophical and theological reasons to think this is so and to allow that it makes good sense.

What I'm trying to point out instead is the kind of "God" Dawkins thinks he's refuting. In a word, it has nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with the God Christians believe in. Dawkins thinks that in order to believe in God, we must regard God as not-God (something other than God) and since this not-God is logically absurd, therefore we cannot believe in God. He's the only person I know of who thinks he can refute A by rebutting not-A.

I'm just glad he never held an endowed Oxford chair as Professor for the Public Understanding of Logic.

[Mark Brumley]

Some Christians may think the case for God is simpler and easier than it is. But there is little doubt that many atheists, including Richard Dawkins, think the case against God is much simpler and much easier than it is. Although Gary Gutting said some good things about Dawkins' book and treated him respectfully, the fact is he clearly thinks Dawkins' argument in The God Delusion is an intellectual embarrassment.

[Thomas]

I'd be interested to hear what people think of the posts that follow the article. Whenever I read an article about the existence of God, I take a deep breath before reading the fairly nasty comments that follow.

Thoughts anyone?

God bless you

Tom

[S Henning]

I think both MB and Thomas Gilson wrote excellent responses to Dawkins arguements. What little I've read of Dawkins struck me as very poor reasoning and not even good writing.