2 replies to this topic

[Augustine]

Richard Dawkins’s ‘Ultimate Boeing 747′

Originally posted here

Perhaps one of the vocal and outspoken atheists out there today is Richard Dawkins, who is an evolutionary biologist and a professor at the University of Oxford. Dawkins, along with Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennet, are the premier 'evangelists for atheism'. In his book entitled The God Delusion, Dawkins makes what he calls the 'Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit' [1]. Dawkins's basic argument goes like this:

Quote

…the designer hypothesis raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbably. We need a 'crane' not a 'skyhook', for only a crane can do the business of working up gradually and plausibly from simplicity to otherwise improbably complexity.

Dawkins's argument is basically "If everything is so complex, then God must be even more complex" and thus appealing to God as a prime mover ultimately begs the question of 'who designed the designer.' As convincing as it sounds, there are a few problems with this argument.

First, the argument is a category mistake. It attributes a property to a being which couldn't possibly hold that property. It's like asking 'what does the color blue smell like?' Obviously, colors don't have smells. Now how could Dawkins possibly attribute the property of complexity to God? How can God be complex? God isn't a physical being. God doesn't have parts. How can God be complex if God has no parts at all? Dawkins confuses an immaterial being with a material being. Material beings can hold the property of complexity, but immaterial beings cannot. God has no parts at all. So instead of God being complex, God is rather quite simple.

As if this didn't deal a harsh blow to Dawkins's argument already, his argument backfires because the argument can be used against him. Whatever Dawkins wants to posit as his first cause, I can easily rebut by saying 'well what caused that?' Just because something is simple or complex does not mean that it can go by without a cause. Clearly if we use the logic behind this argument, both sides ultimately get nowhere in terms of explaining things. It becomes clear that "One cannot go on giving reductive explanations forever." [2]

When you think about it, there has to be a first cause which is itself, uncaused. Giving an explanation and refuting it by saying "what caused that" ad infinitum gets both sides nowhere. In a recent FamilyLife Today broadcast that I was listening to, the philosopher J. P. Moreland was asked the question 'who made God?' Moreland answered this question by using an excellent example using a typewriter. The following is Moreland's analogy taken from the broadcast transcript:

Quote

Suppose that I went to you and said, "Could I borrow a typewriter?" And you said, "Absolutely. I don't own one, but let me borrow one, and I'll give it to you." So you go to someone and say, "I'd like to loan a typewriter to my friend. Could I borrow one from you?" And the person says, "Absolutely. Unfortunately, I don't own a typewriter. Let me go get one."

Well, if you keep doing that, then no one is going to get a typewriter, because everyone is a borrowing lender that has to get a typewriter first. Eventually, you're going to have to stop with somebody who just has a typewriter who doesn't have to borrow it first.

Now, the same thing is true for existing. If I have to be given existence by something before I can give existence to my children, whatever gave existence to me – if it had to get existence from something else, you eventually have to stop with something that just has a typewriter – that just exists and doesn't come from anywhere. [3]

Ultimately, we see that the chain of causation has to end somewhere, and that somewhere is God. Going by Dawkins's argument, both sides utterly fail to explain anything in terms of our origins. This is what happens when you let a biologist play philosopher.

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Endnotes

[1] - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin. 2006) PP: 137-189
[2] - Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003) PP: 122
[3] - http://www.familylife.com/site/apps/nlnet/...&ct=5393773

[Temerity]

I see.

[Red Phazon]

1. Something does not need to be material to hold the property of complexity.

dictionary.com said:

Complex: 3. So complicated or intricate as to be hard to understand or deal with: a complex problem.

So God is complex as the intelligent designer.

2.

Augustine, on 23 July 2008 - 06:05 PM, said:

As if this didn't deal a harsh blow to Dawkins's argument already, his argument backfires because the argument can be used against him. Whatever Dawkins wants to posit as his first cause, I can easily rebut by saying 'well what caused that?' Just because something is simple or complex does not mean that it can go by without a cause. Clearly if we use the logic behind this argument, both sides ultimately get nowhere in terms of explaining things. It becomes clear that "One cannot go on giving reductive explanations forever." [2]

When you think about it, there has to be a first cause which is itself, uncaused. Giving an explanation and refuting it by saying "what caused that" ad infinitum gets both sides nowhere. In a recent FamilyLife Today broadcast that I was listening to, the philosopher J. P. Moreland was asked the question 'who made God?' Moreland answered this question by using an excellent example using a typewriter. The following is Moreland's analogy taken from the broadcast transcript:


Ultimately, we see that the chain of causation has to end somewhere, and that somewhere is God. Going by Dawkins's argument, both sides utterly fail to explain anything in terms of our origins. This is what happens when you let a biologist play philosopher.

The way you wrote this is hard to respond to. So basically, what I am getting out of this is that, "If God created the universe then who created God?" is not a good argument, reason being you need to start somewhere, but the point Dawkins was making (actually, might have been making. I haven't read the book so I don't want to put words in his mouth. At least Carl Sagan said something along this line.) is that if God doesn't need a creator, then why does the universe? Instead of borrowing a typewriter, why not buy one or make one yourself? (See why that typewriter analogy is kind of odd on this topic?)