Is God Simple Or Complex?

Atheist guru Richard Dawkins Makes the argument that God would have to be more complex than the universe he creates, and the more complex something is the less probable it is. “The whole argument turns on the familiar question ‘Who made God?’ which most thinking people discover for themselves. A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot help us escape. This argument…demonstrates that God, though not technically disprovable, is very  improbable indeed.” [1] Of course that assumes the contradictory notion that God is subject to a higher power and is the product a set of laws such the laws of physics. It's treating God like a great  biologicals organism The Christian tradition asserts that God is not complex. Of course Christian tradition asserts that God is spirit, thus is unlike any sort of thing in creation, no subject to natural law and not complex but simple. This latter dictum  will be the focus here.

According to the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and their adherents, God is radically unlike creatures in that he is devoid of any complexity or composition, whether physical or metaphysical. Besides lacking spatial and temporal parts, God is free of matter-form composition, potency-act composition, and existence-essence composition. There is also no real distinction between God as subject of his attributes and his attributes. God is thus in a sense requiring clarification identical to each of his attributes, which implies that each attribute is identical to every other one. God is omniscient, then, not in virtue of instantiating or exemplifying omniscience — which would imply a real distinction between God and the property of omniscience — but by being omniscience. And the same holds for each of the divine omni-attributes: God is what he has as Augustine puts it in The City of God, XI, 10. As identical to each of his attributes, God is identical to his nature. And since his nature or essence is identical to his existence, God is identical to his existence. This is the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS). It is represented not only in classical Christian theology, but also in Jewish, Greek, and Islamic thought. It is to be understood as an affirmation of God's absolute transcendence of creatures. God is not only radically non-anthropomorphic, but radically non-creaturomorphic, not only in respect of the properties he possesses, but in his manner of possessing them. The simple God, we could say, differs in his very ontology from any and all created beings. [2]

Long time readers of this blog have seen me talk about theologians such as Paul Tillich who say God is "being itself." This is the core of the concept. The scholastic philosophers defined it in saying God's existence is his essence, For contingent or temporal things in creation existence is distinct from essence. That a thing is not the same as what it is. There can be potential things that exist only in potential and not in reality.[3] Since God is the basis of all reality he is being itself. To be is to be either God or a creature of God. period. Those are the only forms of being there can be. These ideas sound very odd to modern people especially when they never studied theology, Thus atheists are often left to attack such notions,.

Clearly God is not complex in the way that Dawkins means. Dawkings deals with thye idea ofa big man, an organism something that grows and has parts. This is totally unlike God and God is simple in that sense.

So first, according to classical theology, God is simple, not complex. More remarkable, perhaps, is that according to Dawkins's own definition of complexity, God is not complex. According to his definition (set out in The Blind Watchmaker), something is complex if it has parts that are "arranged in a way that is unlikely to have arisen by chance alone." But of course God is a spirit, not a material object at all, and hence has no parts. A fortiori (as philosophers like to say) God doesn't have parts arranged in ways unlikely to have arisen by chance. Therefore, given the definition of complexity Dawkins himself proposes, God is not complex.[4]

In that sense God is Simple. 

Skeptics usually open their attack on DDS  with the notion of Trinity. "Of course, we have all heard that the doctrine of the trinity is incompatible with divine simplicity.  How can God manifest himself in these different ways and still be simple?  The standard answer to this question is that the three persons of the trinity are not "parts" of God.  They are a unity in three persons, distinguished by their relationships with each other.  One skeptic says "Well, that settles it, then.  We just play a little game of word salad, and pretend that we have made a cogent response to the question." [5] I will save a full discussion on persons in Trinity for another time.  The skeptic has to stop calling he doesn't understand "word salad" and start thinking about critical distinctions.  There is a critical distinction to be made between God being more than a super symmetrical  point with no diverse aspects and not having parts. This is especially crucial since not having parts is the definition of complex. God can be Triune and still simple because the three persona are not parts but aspects of one thing: divine essence. Analogy: three shafts of sunlight shining through the clouds aspects of one light without being "parts" of the sun. God is not the product of a development, he didn't grow and thus has no parts.

Skeptics might also the notion of God as a person, having knowledge, will, volition and ,man being made in God's image. [6] The notion of God as a person is part of Orthodox understanding, but is more of a modern idea.

Brian Davies observes that the formula ‘God is a person’ “is by no means a traditional one. It does not occur in the Bible. It is foreign to the Fathers and to writers up to and beyond the Middle Ages. Not does it occur in the creeds”... The Christian Trinity speaks of three persons of one substance (ousia or substantia). It does not say the Godhead itself is a person, or that God is three persons in one person. Stanley Rudman argues that thinking of the Godhead itself as a person is a relatively recent development (1998, ch. 8). It is mostly absent from Western theology before the eighteenth century. William Paley (1741–1805) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) provide early examples of trying out the idea. The nineteenth century sees an emphasis on God as a person or personality gain considerable momentum. ...[7]

Granted God would have to possess these attributes of knowledge, will, volition, on terms other than human consciousness, but we know that's the case anyway, God is spirit, not a biological organism. we can't draw conclusions about God based upon our own natures. The concept of being in God's image doesn't mean personhood just as it doesn't mean body. It probably refers to consciousness but that is not the same as personhood. Consciousness refers to the state of knowing. Being a person entails personality and that means hang ups so God can't be said to have one. Personhood is social and genetic. God is a product of neither,

Now we come to the most crucial problem, the coherence issue. Because the super essential Godhead (God as being itself) is based upon God's simplicity we have to accept the notion of God's attributes or properties being identical with God in order to be simple. Yet that's incoherent. As Plantinga points out if God is identical with his properties then he is a property and thus an abstract entity and thus inert. Moreover all the different properties would be identical and that makes no sense., But Nicholas Wolterstorff  points out that adherents of the Augustinian and Thomisitic tradition do not see properties of individuals as added abstractions external to them, but being ontologically constitutive of the person. Being material human beings have relatively varied degrees of constitutive properties. Not so with God. Since God is immaterial thus there is no individuating between God and his nature. If God is just he is justice. The divine nature is not a  abstract object

Material beings are individuated and diversified by their signate matter. Thus Socrates and Plato, though the same in nature, differ numerically in virtue of their different portions of materia signata. Matter makes them individuals, and matter makes them numerically diverse individuals. God, however, being immaterial, is not individuated by anything distinct from his nature, and so can be said to be a self-individuating nature. As self-individuating, there is no real distinction between God and his nature. In Thomist terms, in God nature and suppositum are identical.(ST I, q. 3, art. 3) The divine nature is not an abstract object related across an ontological chasm to a concrete individual;the divine nature is a self-individuating concrete unitary nature. [8]

Even though divine simplicity appeals to me, I am not a Thomist and I'm not stuck with Thomism alone for answers. That is not to say that I don't have great sympathy and respect from them, especially Gilson. Nevertheless, as an answer to Dawkins I would say to things: (1) The kind of complexity he's looking for is not characteristic of God. (2) Simple and complex are relative terms. They lose their meaning when used of God. A printed circuit is complex but not compared to the human brain. What meaning does it have to speak of the basis of reality as complex?





sources


[1] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, London: Black Swan, 2007,  136.
This is what he refers to as the "747" gambit.

[2]  William F. Vallicella, , "Divine Simplicity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/divine-simplicity/. accessed 5/7/16

[3] Etienne Gilson, God and Philosophy, New Haven:  Yale University Press; 2nd edition, 2002, 50.

[4] Alvin Plantinga, "The Dawkins Confession," Books and Culture a Christian Review: Christianity Today, URL http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2007/marapr/1.21.html aacessed 5/7//16
Even though Plantimnga argues against Dawkin's concept of complexity he does not support the Thomisitc notion of DDS.

[5] I Am Skeptic

[6] I Am Skeptoc,  op cit

[7] Peter Weigel, "Divine Simplicity," Internet Encyclopedia of philosophy, online resource URL:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/div-simp/#SH5b access 5/7/16/
Peter Weigel is at Washinton college








 

This book is not an argument for the existence of God.

 

 Anthropologist Dave Stump

 This is by a friend of mine named Dave Stump. He is an anthropologist and has taught as an instructor at an eastern University. This review was on his blog, Peacefultermoil, June 5, 2014.
(peacefulturmoil; http://peacefulturmoil.blogspot.com/)


This is a review of my newly  released book. It's not a bunch of "Hey for Joe he's great." It had criticisms which I will attempt to answer, maybe on Wednesday. Please read it and buy the book.



There is a subtle distinction between saying that something ought to be or must be true because of some combination of evidence and logic and claiming that it is reasonable to believe that something is true. It is reasonable to believe that the person lurking outside of your neighbor's window at night is dangerous, even though there may be an innocent explanation for their presence. Who would think you were being irrational if you called the police to investigate the matter? Even if it was all a misunderstanding your actions, based on the circumstances, would seem reasonable.


This is the premise of Joe Hinman's first book, The Trace of God. In formal terms, the basis for such reasonable beliefs is described as a rational warrant. This is what Hinman seeks to offer as revealed in the subtitle, "a rational warrant for belief". To put it plainly: you don't have to be ignorant, stupid, or mentally incoherent to believe in God.

That message flies in the face of a popular depiction of those who do profess belief in God that has been perpetuated among some religious cynics and aggressive irreligionists. The image of the uneducated oaf who blindly accepts whatever his religion tells him is right no matter what. The image of a gloating imbecile who seems proud of his ignorance and whose pride in his anti-intellectual and anti-progressive stance is only matched by his inability to tolerate disagreement on matters of faith. To be fair, many who profess belief in God have helped to create and popularize this image and give those who deeply criticize religion increased credibility. This book is intended as a rebuttal to such an image and to those who professionally and casually capitalize on it.

The professional side includes individuals such as Wayne Proudfoot, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and others known to those involved in the debates over atheism. Hinman sees them as trying to lend their professional credentials to directly or indirectly support misrepresentations and negative images of those who believe in God. On the casual side there are self-professed skeptics and atheists on message forums such as those hosted by the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (better known by its acronym CARM) or The Secular Web. Hinman refers in Trace to the latter as (the) internet atheists.

It was these internet atheists that helped to form the basis of this book as the arguments and references within its pages are largely gathered from arguments and debates posted on the aforementioned forums as well the author's blogs. The book itself is a polished and organized collection of those arguments presented as a refutation of the idea that an informed, thoughtful, honest, and intelligent person could never really believe in God. Or that if such a person does so believe, that is must be the result of habit or lack of adequate reflection.

Hinman attempts to dispel this notion by presenting evidence that there are similar or identical states of experience found in cultures around the world that are associated with spirituality as well as with religious expression and practice. The claim put forward regarding these states -- referred to as mystical or peak experiences -- is that they are positive, life-affirming, healing, and consistent with the idea of a loving God as portrayed in particular strands of various religions. Spirituality is equated with transcendence and seeking a higher power, and God is associated with that higher power, whose communion with humans creates the mystical state of experience offering the benefits mentioned.

The book cites study after study to show that there is unbiased, scholarly evidence for the reality of these experiences as well as their benefits. This is tied together with an argument for what might reasonably count as evidence for the existence of God, how arguments for the existence of God should be evaluated, and why the evidence offered makes belief in God a reasonable yet not incontrovertible position. This is cast against many common arguments, made more popular over the last decade, that suggest that there is in fact no reliable or compelling evidence for the existence of God -- arguments that dismiss the reality, value, or meaning of the peak or mystical experiences that are the centerpiece of Trace.

Going on the face value of Hinman's interpretation of the significance of the studies cited (which are all referenced for those who wish to investigate them further), a strength of Trace is the picture it offers of common core mysticism (the unity of peak/mystical experiences across religions and cultures) and its associated benefits. This approach may leave the reader to wonder how these experiences are associated with any but the most generic kind of "higher power". While that does bolster the universal aspect of the experience and avoids the difficulties of issues such as mutually exclusive religious claims by appealing to something that pre-dates and transcends religion, such claims are seriously undercut by this approach.

A weakness of the book is that is somewhat limited in offering a broader view of the evidence and its implications. The arguments are geared in many cases toward a model of "Here is what some people claim/think, here is a different way to see things/evidence that contradicts what those people say." This refutation style tends toward a false dichotomy of potential views. This style is understandable given the author's goals, but still those who don't fit well within either of the two sides presented will nod along in some sections and shrug at others. The potential criticism of Hthe author's position comes as you might expect primarily from the arguments of those he is refuting. That is, "Here is what someone who rejects a certain kind of data (or a particular analysis of that data) says and here is my rebuttal". Self-critique is not entirely absent in the book, however, and there are caveats included regarding the author's interpretations of the evidence he provides.

Does the book succeed in its goal?

As someone who has argued and debated various religious topics with Hinman for over a decade and a half, it is difficult for me to see the material presented in Trace outside of that context. Moreover, the question of whether the book succeeds at its goal of presenting a rational warrant for belief in God depends on how you measure success.

Neither the internet atheists whom Hinman debates nor the professional promoters of atheism will be convinced in the slightest by this book that belief in God is any more or less reasonable. Anyone who is settled in their conviction that belief in God is ridiculous or harmful will not be swayed by the even the most detailed and subtle lines of reasoning put forward in this book. Even though Hinman tries to make the case that his definitions of God, religion, and so on are more nuanced than their common usage allows, one can still choose to reject the significance Hinman gives to these words and to the human experiences Hinnan connects to them. As an argument for a rational warrant rather than conclusive proof, there is ample room to take an opposing view if one is committed to doing so. Trace offers an approach to defending the reasonableness of belief in God, but its arguments do not obviate a thoughtful and honest rejection of such belief.

Where the broader success of the book will be measured, aside from sales numbers, is the impact that it has on those who are true fence-sitters in the God debate as well as the reception by those looking for broadly accessible arguments and supporting evidence for the reality of God. To the extent that it can interest or persuade the fence-sitters and seekers or bolster the conviction of believers and provide them some measure of cover against the image of the gullible God-nut it will have had an impact on the current religious debates as construed via social media. Check the reviews and testimonials if you want some sense of this metric.

This book is already a personal triumph for Hinman, however, in terms of bringing to completion a long term project that saw a few setbacks and delays. It is also a way of validating his productivity and the time spent debating atheists by turning his passion for arguing for the value and feasibility of belief in God into a tangible product. Not everyone manages to make something real out of their passions or is willing to subject their creations to public scrutiny.

 The book emphasizes evidence and arguments pulled largely from history, philosophy, and psychology as well as a good dose of theology, and the structure of the book is one long semi-formal argument and its individual components, and this might be a distraction for some readers, so make sure to keep track of the point of each section and its significance to the larger picture as you go. Don't be afraid to skip around a bit to get a sense of what is being said but be wary of missing a key detail or point if you just skim through. If you want to leave direct feedback for the author or ask questions about the book, you can do so here.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the contemporary atheism debate, especially as it is argued online. Whatever your position on the matter the book offers insight into how many commonly used arguments are formed and how they are framed and re-framed depending upon the worldview and goals of different participants in the debate. Whether or not you are convinced of the reasonableness of belief in God after reading this book, you will certainly be able to appreciate that intelligence and acuity is not anathema to such belief.

Interview I did on a message board about The Trace of God.

please see my book tralier on youtube so we can get the ratings up and get it in a higher level, seen by more people.

buy my book (The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman)
on amazon

Evidence, Leap of Faith, And A really Good Diving Baord

 


When I was a kid I really wanted to go off the high dive. I thought if I went off the high dive I would be really cool then all my problems would be solved. I would often storm up the ladder to the top with bluster and determination only to become dizzy and afraid of the heights and stop and just stand there on the top waiting for the nerve with one else on the ladder going "go on!" I would have made them all get down so I could down, which I could barely do becuase I was frozen in my tracks. Eventually I began to tell myself it wasn't worth the hassle. That's why the atheist refusal to believe without empirical evidence (they really mean total absolute proof even they will never admit it) reminds me of my old conundrum being stuck at the top of the high dive unable to go off and looking for a way to rationalize having to come back down.

There's a concept in God arguments I like to call "extending the platform." For years my line was using that as a rhetorical device to explain how even though the arguments can't "prove" God beyond the shadow of a doubt and render belief into fact, they are still valid way to sort out truth. That's becuase reduce the space we have to traverse in the leap of faith, they give us an educated guess as to which way to leap, or as I put it "they give us a really nice platform from which to dive off in the leap of faith." That concept becomes even more important when we compare it to the failure of atheist arguments to meet their own standard of empirical proof. That's just the beginning, the concept is also valid when we consider the argument atheists make that we imposing meaning upon a random universe. I'll deal with the imposed meaning issue on Wednesday.

Atheist demand empirical proof. they worked out logical rationalizations that make empirical proof the deal breaker. We can see this at the popular level.

Debate.org
Typical 18 year old atheist
repeating the dogma I've heard
on message boards a thousand times.

To assume something exists without empirical evidence is purely illogical. If you could accept a belief in something without evidence, you could believe any possibility. You could assert that there is a large dog floating in the sky striking down those that displease it, and think it true. However, it could be said that just because you can't prove something doesn't mean it's been disproved. This being true, the converse is also true, you can't believe in something because of a lack of evidence.

Experience project.com

Posted by TheOrdinaryGuy 1 Sep 3rd, 2013 at 6:10PM

God is, for all intents and purposes, unfalsfiable. Completely indistinguishable from a God that doesn't exist. Therefore there's no reason to accept the proposition "a God exists" as true.

It's document by writers, thinkers and expository critics.

Michel Antony
Philosophy Now: a magazine
of ideas. "The New Atheism"
sept./Oct. 20/13

Evidentialism plays a key role in attacks against religious belief by the New Atheists, as it did for Hume. Belief in the existence of God or other divine realities is criticized on the ground that there is no good evidence for it. Echoing Carl Sagan and Laplace before him, we are told that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” and we are assured that there is nothing of the sort when it comes to the divine.

 But what of the New Atheists’ atheism – their belief that there is no god or other divine reality? According to evidentialism, that belief (with whatever degree of confidence it is held) also requires evidence in order to be rational. However, the New Atheists tend not to worry much about providing evidence. Although they sometimes offer arguments – ‘the problem of evil’, Dawkins’ ‘Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit’ in The God Delusion, and a few others – overall, those arguments play a minor role in their attacks. Far more central is their repeated insistence that because religious belief lacks evidence, it is irrational and so should be abandoned.[1]

Of course the atheist opinion leaders such Dawkins and Harris echo it endlessly.

Dawkins wrote:

Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?' And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.[2]

The problem is Atheists don't have empirical proof for most of their major potions. Take Fine Tuning, the idea that the universe is rigged to favor life and conditions which are totality vastly amazingly improbable (we are talking about scads of zeros in the numbers) are nonetheless not only the way things are but they must be that way to have life make it. It's not deterministic, it's not a matter of pure chance (too improbable), it's not the case that just any old universe would produce life. We would have to develop the ability to observe beyond space/time in order to see one. So the theory will always be guess work. 

Paul Davies:

"You might be tempted to suppose that any old rag-bag of laws would produce a complex universe of some sort, with attendant inhabitants convinced of their own specialness. Not so. It turns out that randomly selected laws lead almost inevitably either to unrelieved chaos or boring and uneventful simplicity. Our own universe is poised exquisitely between these unpalatable alternatives, offering a potent mix of freedom and discipline, a sort of restrained creativity. The laws do not tie down physical systems so rigidly that they can accomplish little, but neither are they a recipe for cosmic anarchy. Instead, they encourage matter and energy to develop along pathways of evolution that lead to novel variety-what Freeman Dyson has called the principle of maximum diversity: that in some sense we live in the most interesting possible universe."

"Some scientists have tried to argue that if only we knew enough about the laws of physics, if we were to discover a final theory that united all the fundamental forces and particles of nature into a single mathematical scheme, then we would find that this superlaw, or theory of everything, would describe the only logically consistent world. In other words, the nature of the physical world would be entirely a consequence of logical and mathematical necessity. There would be no choice about it. I think this is demonstrably wrong. There is not a shred of evidence that the universe is logically necessary. Indeed, as a theoretical physicist I find it rather easy to imagine alternative universes that are logically consistent, and therefore equal contenders for reality." First Things: Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address (1999) [3]

That's a good reason to believe in God. It may not be absolute proof, but it's a fine diving board. We need the courage to make the leap and jump in the water of faith.  Yet you can't ask for a better diving board from which to leap. The atheist is still standing here saying "not until I have empirical proof." Actually in a scientific sense this is empirical proof, it's not derived from logic alone but from observations of astronomy and phsyics. It may not be strong enough to call the God concept "fact." Strong enough to warrant beilef. If you were on a high dive and you wanted to proof that diving from that level would not kill you, you could test it by having someone else of your general physical level go in first. That would be a sort of test even though ti wouldn't be absolute proof. This might strong enough to suggest that someone else has dove in first an survived. That still doesn't prove you will survive and so you must make the leap on a bit of faith. But you have a warrant for the assumption that it wont kill you. See my own fine tuning argument with evidence on my old God argument list on Doxa.

In response to the argument atheists try to negate it by using the multivariate argument. A very big deal it is by a star of atheist scinece Tegmark.[4] They allude to the theory that There are numerous (in fact endless) parallel universes, each one it's own space/time continuum. They are infinitely and eternally there. Now the odds change. Now we have an infinite number of universe one must be fine tuned. There are many responses to this. I have something like 26 on my own argument. I don't want to get into just this one argument. This is just one example. Yet there is only one answer we need and it's absolute. Multiverse is not the product of empirical proof. There is no empirical evidence. We have never seen a multivariate. We have no physical observation for them. It's all completely theoretical. Atheist Multiverse supporter Martin Rees states that the status of hte theory is “is plainly still no more than a tentative hypothesis.”[5]

The counter argument is that the theory is made sure by mathematics. We can't doubt math that's the illusion of technique. we are so good manipulating thing with mathematics. Yet it's still not empirical. They will also argue that the accuracy of the math is proved by the recent discovery of Higgs boson particle that confirms that our mathematical skills are such that we can locate a nat on a dime. (homespun aphorisms complements of yours truly). [6] "According to a popular but polarizing framework called string theory, the number of possible types of universes that can bubble up in a multiverse is around 10^500. In a few of them, chance cancellations would produce the strange constants we observe."[7] Unfortunately that string theory is another example of a theory that has no empirical backing (although atheists back it and use it as a basic assumption propping up their ideology). So this one unproven non empirical thing is supporting this other unproved non empirical things. These are the major supports of the people who say "you can't believe things that aren't proved empirically." They are just special pleading. They are really saying "you can't believe things that aren't proved empirically unless they support my view."

O But this science? This isn't arrived at by superstition this is scinece! Right, just like my 200 studies on religious experience which are published in academic journals by social scientists in good standard, based upon empirical research which the atheists carm refuse to read (for 5 years--I linked to the chapter in Hood's book 147 times plus a huge number I didn't count--2 people read it, one I'm sure only read a couple of pages, the other admitted he didn't understand it). Yet they never case to tell me how stupid the studies are how bad badly they are done (without reading them, without quoting anyone, without understanding the methodology). I even went so far as make my own very simple study that was designed to show them that the M scale (Ralph Hood's "mysticism scale) could not be validated by a purposeful campaign to lie bout one's experiences. They tried to validate another writing by lying about their experiences and they could not do it. Yet every time they say "he just ask them to say what their own experiences are and they are lying about it." The M scale is the most validated (by other studies and replication) study in the history of scientific study of mystical experiences. There could not have been a purposeful campaign to lie to validate the M scale but even if there was it would not have worked. (see my article on religious a priori for details). Every kind of stupid and irrational and ignorant critcism has been made of those studies the one thing they wont do is read one.This is the way they treat empirical evidence, when it doesn't support their ideology.

The point is that when they don't have the empirical evidence they are quite content to make a leap of faith. They make with the aid of their diving board constructed out of scientific theory. Science theory doesn't always support atheist views. I will leave off the Multiverse argument here, but that's not the end of the line. Even if Multiverse is proved that's a far cry from proving that life bearing universe is not a fixed game. (see my 26 other arguments). But we can at least that well with God arguments. The 200 empirical studies on mystical experience lend themselves to God arguments in three ways: (1) empistemic judgment; (2) co-detemrinate; (3) universality argument.

Epistemic judgement: we cant' prove reality directly. We live in complaisance with our judgements of reality we don't prove reality by our experiences. We follow the experiences that work. We just a criteria to make the judgement as to what works: that the experience is regular, consistent, inter-subjective and enables us to get by--that it works to assume it's real. Go on the battle field and assume hte enemy boynettes aare not real, you don't come back. That didn't work. Assume they are real, get out of the say. those who did not don't come bac, you do, so it works to make that assumption.

Co-deterinate: like the footprint in the snow, the signature of the absent foot is the print, the trace, the trace. Religious experience is the trace of God. Why? Because we have made that historical association throughout history. That's why religion exist in the first place.

Universality: We find through Hoods work that when they take off the specific names of a tradition the experiences are all the same. The actual experiences themselves are the same. That doesn't mean that all religious tradition are the same or that Jesus is not unique. I am not a universalist in that sense, see my article "Salvation and other Faiths." The universality argument on mystical experience is that such experiences are not universal to all people but they are to all faiths and cultures and times. That is a good indication that there some objective thing being experienced. That's how we determine objective truth, that we all experience the same thing. The atheists argue that it's due to having a human brain that they have the same experiences. But that doesn't wash since not everyone has the experience. It's also that the experience is understood in relation to cultural icons and constructs, (religion is cultural) those are not genetic.That's all derived from empirical research on mystical experience.

 Another example is Cosmological necessity argument. The argument basically says that there must be an eternal necessary (as in not contingent) aspect to being that serves as first cause and since that fulfills the major attributes of God we can assume that God is real. That's not proof, it is a warrant for belief. It's a good platform from which to make the leap. That's based upon empirical evidence of  cosmology. Atheists have tried to swing that issue their way by appealing to Quantum theory as evidence that the universe just Popped up out of nothing. The last time they tried that was Krauss with A Universe out of Nothing. He did not fair well with that but went down in ignominious defeat to a philosopher with a physics Ph.D. David Albert.

leap of faith, evidence, empricism on our side, scinece is nuetral they want to treat it like atheist enformcement. illusion of technique. The next time you hear an atheist say "scinece supports atheism because we have all the fact and there are no facts supporting belief in God," tell them both sides have gap to cover that is nothing more than unknown air, so we have to make a leap either way. The God leap is based upon more empirically based data than than the atheist leap of doubt, that is a contradiction to the whole atheist ideology.



sources

[1]Michel Antony, "The New Atheism: Where's the Evidence?" Philosophy Now: a Magazine of Ideas, sept/Oct,, 20/13. http://philosophynow.org/issues/78/Wheres_The_Evidence
accessed 10/13/13
[2] Adrian Jarvis, "Christianity + Science: Do Science and Religion Conflict," be thinking.corg. The Christian unions, quoting a published letter by Dawkins to his Daughter.
URL: http://www.bethinking.org/science-christianity/introductory/christianity-is-completely-irrational-and-not-testable-without-evidence-why-should-i-believe-it.htm  accessed 10/13/13

[3] Paul Davies, "Physics and the Mind of God, Templeton Prize address," First Things, Aug/Sept 1995. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/09/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24   accessed 10/13/13.

Paul Charles William Davies, AM is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. Wikipedia (b.1946).

[4] Multiverse, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse accessed 10/13/13

[5] Martin J.Rees,  Just Six Numbers: the Deep Forces That Shape the Universe. New York: Basic, 2000. 150.

[6] Natalie Wolchover and Quanta Magazine, "New Phyiscs Complications Lend Support to Multiverse hypothesis." Scientific American, June First, 2013.on line http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-physics-complications-lend-support-to-multiverse-hypothesis  accessed 10/13/13

[7] Ibid.

Is God simple or Complex?

I have dealt with the issue before, "Is God complex?" about a year ago. I'm not satisfied with my answer because I got off on a tangent. The idea that God is complex and that somehow that disproves God or makes it harder to believe in God, is all over the place, ever atheist message board, on thousands of pages it a standard myth of their propaganda. Having dealt with it again recently I feel like it's time to give it a good bash.

Take the view point of Richard Dawkins in his most celebrated work The God Delusion. [1]

The argument from improbability is the big one. In the traditional guise of the argument from design, it is easily today’s most popular argument offered in favor of the existence of God, and it is  seen, by an amazingly large number of theists, as completely and utterly convincing. It is indeed a very strong, and, I suspect, unanswerable argument—but in precisely the opposite direction form the theist’s intension. The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist…[2]

This quotation tells us several very important things about the manner in which the major leader of the new atheist movement thinks. The first thing this quotation tells us is that Dawkins’ views evolution as an atheist territory, he doesn’t think of evolution as a theistic possibility, he can only conceive of belief in God being the domain of people who can’t understand evolution. He thinks of God belief as strictly creationist territory. He basically says as much in following up this quotation above he talks about the analogy of a 747 being assembled by random chance from a junk yard. “This in a nutshell is the creationist favorite argument.”[3] He doesn’t say there are other theological views and he doesn’t deal with them, as though they don’t exist. One might forgive this tendency if he thinks liberal theology is just out of the main stream and thus beyond the focus of the popular audience. Nevertheless he goes even further, “It turns out to be the God hypothesis that tries to get the free lunch…however statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by evoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the ultimate 747.”[4]

            He is doing more than just reversing the design argument he’s trying to apply the logic of the design argument to a critique of belief in God. This led to the often repeated refrain on message boards and blogs, “who designed the designer?” That’s not exactly what he’s saying either. He is establishing the idea that God has to meet the same requirements of probability that nature has to meet as an alternative to God. The point here, however, is that he is enabled to make this argument by the badly misconstrued nature of theology in the evangelical camp. That misconstrual allows for an application of the same principle to God that we take to examining nature. He is treating God like a big man in the sky. Is God subject to the laws of probability? It is the fundamentalist tendency to think of God as a big man in the sky rather than the foundation of all that is, that conditions the atheist appraoch. When we think of God as “creator” and “designer” rather than “ground of being” we put God in the category to be analyzed by the laws of probability. There is no logical reason why the ground of being could be analyzed as though it is just another thing in creation alongside flush toilets and swizzle sticks. In reality, God is not probable at all. The word “complex” is meaningless when used of the basis of all that is. “Complex” is a relative term. A jigsaw puzzle is complex compared to a baby’s building blocks. It may be child’s play compared to a printed circuit or higher mathematics.  This is like trying to apply up and down, north, south, east, and west in outer space. Which way is up when there’s no down? Which way is west when there’s no horizon? The creationists really put the misconception in motion by thinking of God a “designer.” It would have been better to peserve the truth of God that the church fathers taught us, that God is beyond our understanding. In their haste to produce an argument that would impress modern science the apologists (William Paley before him Newton and Boyle) tried to ground proof in empirical data and succeeded only in creating the impression, perhaps even against their own beliefs, that God can be thought of analogously to a big man in the sky. Dawkins is not going to work very hard at correcting the impression. Through the ground of being concept we can realize God’s reality without having to rely upon data or empirical scientific observations to know that God is real.

Official Christian doctrine says God is simple:

Catholic Teaching:

God is not composed or divisible by any physical or metaphysical means. Simplicity of God refers to the fact that he has no parts. The simplicity teaching extends to the entire nature of God. His substance, nature, and very being is that of utter simplicity. The properties usually attributed to God such as omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence do not contradict the teaching of simplicity because each property is a different way of looking at the infinite active being of God from a limited perspective. One consequence of this teaching is the fact that since God is simple, he must be a pure spirit.

• Definition of the Dogma:

The dogma of simplicity follows from the teachings of the 4^th Lateran Council and the first Vatican Council which stated that God is an absolutely simple substance or nature. The basis of this De Fide dogma can be found within the gospel of John, "God is a spirit" (John 4:24).

• Heresies which reject or confuse this teaching:

Anthropomorphism (the heresy of believing God has a body) violates the dogma of simplicity. Anthropomorphism, latent in Mormonism, paganism and polytheism fails to consider the fact that God exists in complete and total actuality. Since God has not unrealized potentiality in the metaphysical sense, he cannot possibly have parts or a body.
Additionally, pantheism, New Age religions and some of the more naiveté Christian sects tend to view God as a diffuse metaphysical being that permeates nature and gives nature a certain metaphysical share in divinity. Such a doctrinal stance violates the teaching of God’s simplicity by assuming that nature has a metaphysical share in God’s nature. The creations of God can play no part in his metaphysical being without violating his simplicity.[5]

Atheists are now arguing that if God is mind and God imagines the world then that would make God complex, becuase it's a complex mind that has a lot of stuff in it. But that's assuming the kind of mind that is supported by a physical brain and that needs dendrites to house memory. There is no proof that  a purely mental reality would would be complex. Minds can have an infinite number of things in them and not take up any room.

Even if we wanted to accept that God is complex why would it have the same consequences that Dawkins argues for it? When Dawkins says that complexity is less likely than simplicity he's assuming an evolutionary process. God is not the product of an evolutionary process. Because Dawkins assumes an evolutionary process he also assumes a flesh and blood organism, and God is not that either. There is no evidence for a mental being to be complex it would produce any kind result that would impare God's existence.



Sources:

---

[1] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. New York: First Marionor books, Houton Mifflin Company, 2008 first published in Great Britain by Bantam, 2006. On line version  Google Books URL:  http://books.google.com/books?id=Ayt0bUwN5v4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Dawkins+from+the+God+Delusion&source=bl&ots=6M_E5W8-Uo&sig=j5bAGhDSY6MGYxYeQpv_q8T3l_A&hl=en&ei=gPKATLvvHsHflgeNgKHnDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=true

[2]  Ibid. online page number 138 all quotations from this source are from the Google books online version.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5]S.M. Miranda, "Good is Simple,"Catholic Philosophy.website:
http://www.saintaquinas.com/article5.html

Dawkins's Major Argument Agaisnt The Existence of God

Dawkins


Several atheist scientific types make the claim that science disproves God. Here I’ll look at three of the major writers who make such claims: Dawkins, Stenger, and Krauss. In dealing with this topic the first thing to keep in mind is that all three illustrate the use of reductionism and its ideological assumptions in their work. In fact their arguments are only possible given their reductionist assumptions because they are only dealing with a concept of God that reduced God to the level of a great biological organism in the sky. Of course they have to do this because if they did not they would have no business even thinking about God. They must assume God posses the qualities of such an organism for him to even be amiable to their domain. Science has no business discussing God since God is the basis of reality and not a thing in creation. God is not given in sense data, thus can’t be subject to scientific proof or disproof. In fact the arguments I will examine here really amount to a bait and switch. They claim to disprove something that can’t be dealt with as part of their domain. In trying to drag God down to the level of the scientific domain they are merely creating a straw man, or “straw God” argument.

Richard Dawkins made one of his major media splashes and scored a big hit for the cause by publishing The God Delusion.(1) The lynch pin of the book is the argument against the existence of God, which turns upon reversing the design argument. The role of science in this argument is really a deception because they actually have no data that demonstrates the lack of God. All he really does is present evidence for a materialist explanation (featuring evolution) then assumes that evolution rules out God by making him unnecessary. This is not actually a disproof and it depends upon Dawkin’s notion of “necessary.” What he means by God is not necessary for his purposes.

This assertion about God is shrouded in the mystique of science as the only knowledge. It becomes encoded in the fortress of facts mentality and then is looked upon as “official scientific proof,” by the faithful. Dawkins never actually says what concepts of God he’s dealing with, yet the only one he ever does deal with is a crass version of “Bible god’ that is sort of chick comic books special “big man in the sky.”(2) We have a major Hint in that he doesn’t deal with any other concept.

To be fair Dawkins does deal with poly theism. That creates the illusion that he’s dealing with other models of God, but he’s not because the polytheism with which he deals is based upon separate versions of the one comic book noting, the big man in the sky. Instead of one sky father we have several. It’s the same thing. From pages 29 to 37 the entire section designated “polytheism” he avoids mentioning anything about polytheistic views after the first program.(3) From 37 to 46 all he does is talk about what he doesn’t like about the God of the bible.(4) In fact he admits that he means to deal mostly with Christianity and tires to actually remove other religions such as Hinduism form the category of religions!

I shall have Christianity mostly in mind, but only because it is the version with which I happen to be most familiar. For my purposes the differences matter less than the similarities. And I shall not be concerned at all with other religions such as Buddhism or Confucianism. Indeed, there is something to be said for treating these not as {38} religions at all but as ethical systems or philosophies of life.(5)

I’m sure the followers of Hinduism would be shocked to learn they don’t believe in God. This is clearly a bait and switch. He’s replacing legitimate theological and philosophical concepts with a straw god argument that’s easy to beat. He knows he can’t disprove any actual theological notions so he has to reduce God belief to the big man in the sky so he can make it subject to his dictates as a purveyor of scientifically based ideology. That way he doesn’t have to take on the great thinkers of Christian theology. He can dismiss Aquinas and Whitehead and so on the basis that “these are just those liberal guys that one listens to.” In effect he’s making his own atheist straw man (straw God) argument. Straw man is when you make an argument that is a mock version of what your opponent says it is tailored to your own level of refutation so you can beat it easily, then you claim you beat the opponent’s argument. So the major and most sophisticated God concepts, the one’s that bring belief into the modern era, he just ignores. He makes a thing of beating up on pre scientific concepts of the big sky father which is an anthropomorphism that no educated theist in the modern world worries about. He doesn’t actually disprove it. He has no smoking gun, no God DNA to disprove, no black God finder box that shows there’s no God. All he really has is an argument that the antiquated sky father doesn’t fit with evolution. To him this is “disproof” of God.

The lynch pin of his argument is found in a chapter entitled “why there almost certainly is no God.”(6) As we have seen it really has nothing do with most concepts of God that educated thinkers in the modern world care about. It really should be called “why there almost certainly is no old man in the sky.” His arguments basically amounts to reversing the design argument by reducing God to the level of biological organism and then applying concepts of biology and probability to make it seem God would be more complex and that’s less probable.(7) He calls this argument the “ultimate Boeing 747 gambit.” (8) It’s based upon reversing the idea used to defend the conventional design argument that evolution is like expecting a 747 to assemble form hurricane in a junk yard.
It was actually atheist Scientist Fred Holye who made this analogy. Dawkins takes this to be the creationists favorite argument.

Some observed phenomenon — often a living creature or one of its more complex organs, but it could be anything from a molecule up to the universe itself — is correctly extolled as statistically improbable. Sometimes the language of information theory is used: the Darwinian is challenged to explain the source of all the information {114} in living matter, in the technical sense of information content as a measure of improbability or ‘surprise value’. Or the argument may invoke the economist's hackneyed motto: there's no such thing as a free lunch — and Darwinism is accused of trying to get something for nothing. In fact, as I shall show in this chapter, Darwinian natural selection is the only known solution to the otherwise unanswerable riddle of where the information comes from. It turns out to be the God Hypothesis that tries to get something for nothing. God tries to have his free lunch and be it too. However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747.(9)

The crux of the issue is this, most people think that coming about random chance is chance in the absence of design and that makes it less probable that it could happen (like the chances of junk blowing around to form 747. The fact is, according to Dawkins, Darwin’s concept of natural selection actually explains the changes better and provides the mechanism that replaces the need for a designer. Dawkins argues that before Darwin thinkers such as Hume understood that design is not eh only alternative to chance, they had no mechanism for the alternative and that’s what Darwin offered them, graded transitions through natural selection. That is it. No secret mathematical formula, no astronomical observations, no data form the dreaded black box, no peering into the microscope to see a label saying “nature by chance.” The whole argument is just that we don’t need big man in sky to explain word because we have random change, and that is made more rational and covers for seeming design features by natural selection.

Dawkins spends a lot of time dealing with the issue of complexity. Complexity is not only important in terms of design vs chance (the more complex the less chance of coming about randomly) the irreducible complexity concept seems to be one of the major things the ID people have going for them. The irreducible complexity is all or nothing. An eye badly formed wouldn’t make it. How could such a complex mechanism just spring up one day? It only works in its entirety so a gradual slow progression makes no evolution. They would not pass on the trait for a half formed eye because it’s not enabling survival. Dawkins answers this by discussion of Darwin’s concept of “decent with modifications.”(10) Dawkins points out that creationists love to site Darwins passage about the problems of the eye. The joke is on them since he was only using this as a rhetorical device to draw them in and “lower the boom” so to speak. His answer is basically that the assumption of all or nothing is fallacy. There is value to half an eye or half a wing. For example cataract patients may not be ale to see well but they could see well enough not to walk off the cliff. Half a wing will not enable the bird to fly south for the winter but it might lessen the fall from the nest.(11) He spends most of the chapter beating the ID movements dead horses and gloating about how much smarter he is than religious people. ”One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.” (12) This is coming form the guy who says “we don’t’ need to read theology because we know it’s stupid.” For the record, I am not an ID guy or a creations, I'm a Darwinian and what has been said in this paragraph is why. How that effects his theory of "religion breeds ignorance," the reader can decide.

He’s so carried away with admiration for his superiority he can’t resist going after Dietrich Bonhoeffer (major theologian of 20th century) as an example of one who teaches us to be content with no understanding and who worships the gaps. He asserts that Bonhoeffer loved the gaps but laments their closing.” What worries thoughtful theologians such as Bonhoeffer is that gaps shrink as science advances, and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide.” (13) Unfortunately, despite his great superiority Dawkins just doesn’t read far enough in Bonhoeffer to see that what he’s really saying is that this is an warning to Christians not to make God of the gaps arguments. He’s merely telling them what any good logician would tell them, if you base your view of God on the gaps, they are likely to be filled. That means we should base our knowledge of God upon what can be deduced logically rather than upon gaps in science. Which is exactly what Dawkins would support were it not advice about making good God arguments. So the uber mensch just forgets to follow his own advice and not be content to not understand. Had he known this he might have read more Bonhoeffer. Uber Menschen are like that. While we are on the subject of Bonehoeffer there’s no reason to think that he is a favorite of creationist or that he was one himself. The existence of God was a done deal for Bonehoeffer. Like most liberals he didn’t care much about arguments on that score because he didn’t have any trouble believing and he didn’t see belief as necessitated upon proving something.

From pages 125 to 143 Dawkins is trashing creationists. He gives it to Behe and others. Its’ not until 142 or so in the chapter entitled, “The Anthropic Principle Cosmological Version,” that he settles down to business and makes the 747 argument in full. I skip over the content of this merely because it’s important to my views. I am not a creationist, I have no problem with Dawrin per se, I’ve already indicated the major thrust of my position that he’s just running a straw God argument; he can disprove all old men in the sky he cares to that doesn’t effect the Christian God. Dawkins discusses the anthropic fine turning argument. Of course he asserts that there is a multiverse and we just happen to live in one of the space/times that worked out for life. Because there are a whole bunch of choices, maybe infinitely, there are opportunities for the problems and dead end universe to be played out but we just happen to get in the one of the ones that works. The problem with this is it’s just another version of assuming the reason to believe in God is about explaining things. We don’t need God as an explanation so there must not be a God. That’s not proof of anything accept that maybe there’s another reason to believe besides explaining the physical universe.

At this point (146-147) he introduces the concept of probability based upon complexity. That’s really curx of the whole argument. His whole book really rests on this point. This in itself is the reason he says “there almost certainly Is not God.

It is tempting to think (and many have succumbed) that to postulate a plethora of universes is a profligate luxury which should not be allowed. If we are going to permit the extravagance of a multiverse, so the argument runs, we might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and allow a God. Aren't they both equally unparsimonious ad hoc hypotheses, and equally unsatisfactory? People who think that have not had their consciousness raised by natural selection. The key difference between the genuinely {147} extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis is one of statistical improbability. The multiverse, for all that it is extravagant, is simple. God, or any intelligent, decision-taking, calculating agent, would have to be highly improbable in the very same statistical sense as the entities he is supposed to explain. The multiverse may seem extravagant in sheer number of universes. But if each one of those universes is simple in us fundamental laws, we are still not postulating anything highly improbable. The very opposite has to be said of any kind of intelligence. (14)

Of course we must observe once again, he’s dealing with the big man in the sky. He sees God as thinking. Why would God need to think? He sees God as “an agent” who is calculating. God knows all, why would he need to ratiocinate? God could be considered an agent in some senses but why in the sense of pondering and considering? Dawkins needs him to do this so his argument can work. The argument being that God has to be more complex than the universe in order to create it. If he’s more complex then he’s more improbable. There are several things wrong with this idea.

I have already dismissed all such suggestions as raising bigger problems than they solve. But what attempts have theists made to reply? How do they cope with the argument that any God capable of designing a universe, carefully and foresightfully tuned to lead to our evolution, must be a supremely complex and improbable entity who needs an even bigger explanation than the one he is supposed to provide?(15)

He takes on Richard Swinburne and his attempt at answering the problem. Swinburne essentially sees the world of atomic and subatomic particles as chaotic and complex and brings God in as a stabilizing force because God is simple compared the structure of this tiny world. Dawkins sees this as absurd. Form him the world of atomic and subatomic forces is beautifully simple. It’s just one idea that no matter the fact that there are many of the same kind of tiny thing. That is simple. “But how can Swinburne possibly maintain that this hypothesis of God simultaneously keeping a gazillion fingers on wayward electrons is a simple hypothesis?”(16) Swinburne is arguing that God is only a single substance (no parts) Dawkins sees this as a trick. He argues hat Swinburne is asserting this “without justification.” Of course that’s mere ignorance. There is a long tradition in thinking that spirit is one substance not made up of parts or of tiny particles. In trying to carry off this argument Dawkins really tips his hand. He quotes the following passage from Swinburne:

Theism claims that every other object which exists is caused to exist and kept in existence by just one substance, God. And it claims that every property which every substance has is due to God causing or permitting it to exist. It is a hallmark of a simple explanation to postulate few causes. There could in this respect be no simpler explanation than one which postulated only one cause. Theism is simpler than polytheism. And theism postulates for its one cause, a person [with] infinite power (God can do anything logically possible), infinite knowledge (God knows everything logically possible to know), and infinite freedom.(17)

This quotation gives the idea that God is simple as an explanation not as a “force” or “entity.” Theism posits one cause to which all phenomena can be taken back, causes everything. Now Dawkins is going to trade on the distinction between the simplicity of explanation and simplicity, for want of a better term, “nature.” He observes that Swinburne says God can’t do logically impossible things. Dawkins finds nothing more to interject in response to this point than incredulity. God’s power, aside form logically necessity/impossibly is endless and Dawkins to resents it. AT this point he evokes the concept of God’s complexity of nature than answer the idea above about simplicity as exploitation. So he’s actually talking at cross purposes. He says a God who could keep up with the individual status of every particle would have to be immensely complex. That is in terms of his own nature not the place occupies logically an expiation which is not in the sense above. They talk at cross purposes. Swinburne says God is simple as an explanation, Dawkins says God is complex as an "entity."

Dawkins also bring in Keith Ward, Dividity professor at Oxford. Again the same thing. Ward is talking about God as hypothesis being elegant:

As a matter of fact, the theist would claim that God is a very elegant, economical and fruitful explanation for the {150} existence of the universe. It is economical because it attributes the existence and nature of absolutely everything in the universe to just one being, an ultimate cause which assigns a reason for the existence of everything, including itself. It is elegant because from one key idea — the idea of the most perfect possible being — the whole nature of God and the existence of the universe can be intelligibly explicated.(18)

Yet Dawkins is talking about how complex God would be as an “entity” as though he has to have lots of parts. Dawkins seems to know something is wrong by tries to cover by making out as though it’s Ward’s fault: “Like Swinburne, Ward mistakes what it means to explain something, and he also seems not to understand what it means to say of something that it is simple. I am not clear whether Ward really thinks God is simple, or whether the above passage represented a temporary ‘for the sake of argument’ exercise..” He’s saying Ward doesn’t know what simple means when in fact he doesn’t get that he’s making a parsimony claim. He’s saying all the different problems aspects of origin are summed up in this one answer, the use of the term “elegant” is a dead giveaway that it’s parsimony. By the same Token Swinburne is making the same sort of patrimony claim. Dawkins’s answer doesn’t even apply to make it seem that it’s their fault something is wrong, he as makes as they don’t get his argument right when in fact they wrote first he’s bring them to make a straw man argument. Like most straw man arguments he has to stretch to get it to fit.

Dawkins entire argument turns upon the reduction of God from the level of ground of being or something beyond or understanding, some basis of reality, that of a giant biological organism. Dawkins straw God doesn’t know, he has to monitor and keep track, he has to be complex enough to keep track of all the sub atomic particles and so on. As the ground of being God would be intimately connected to everything, Dawkins’s straw God would have to keep watch on each and ever particle. Dawkins actually does make this point (see fn on his answer to Ward). Since God is not a big man in the sky or a big biological organism what would be the consequences of his being complex? The reason complexity comes into it is because Dawkins wants that to be the guide to probability. Now to measure the probably of something it must be quantifiable and it must be observable. Thus to even consider God as a subject of the concept of probability he has to be observable. So that sort of skews the whole business right there. Moreover, how can one fix a “probability” for the basis of reality? That’s like trying to time a speedometer with the speedometer itself. Or trying to weigh a scale with the scale being weighed. The whole issue is, like the consciousness issue, more reductionism bait and switch.

If God was complex I don’t see how it could be reasoned as less probable by the standards of ordinary probably nor would it be a problem for God. Surely an infinite God could handle the demands of complexity since it would not be the sort of complexity we know in the physical world. God is not made up of parts. It’s not as though God is a Rube Goldberg machine. God’s complexity would surely be of a totally different ilk than anything of which we know. What would it mean to say God is complex? If God is not made of atoms and has no moving parts, not produced by a brain then what exactly is complex? If it’s his understanding that’s complex I don’t see how that would render him less probable since it’s the complexity of parts that determines probability. The basis of knowledge would not be proportional to any biological brain chemistry or anything of that nature in thinking of God. The whole argument is just a trick of reductionism. It’s a straw God argument that might work on the comic book God of fundamentalism who is a big man in the sky but it doesn’t work on more sophisticated concepts such as process theology or Tillich’s notion of God as being itself. If we think of God as a universal mind, the super-essential Godhead of Dionysus the Areiopagite, the whole concept of complexity as we understand it in relation to the physical is just a passing fancy I mind we can’t understand.




Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. Boston, New York: The Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. All quotes from this source will be from online copy of the text URL: http://macroevolution.narod.ru/delusion/delusion.htm all page numbers apply to free ebook.
find chick
(1) Dawkins, ibid, 29-37.
(2) Ibid, 37-46
(3) ibid, 37
(4) ibid, 113
(5) ibid
(6) ibid.
(7) ibid. 114
(8) ibid. 115-122
(9) ibid. 123-124.
(10) ibid 125 “the worship of gaps”
(11) ibid.
(12) ibid, 146-147
(13) ibid 147
(14) ibid
(15) Swinburne quoted by Dawkins, ibid 148-149
(16) Ward, quoted by Dawkins ibid 149-150
(17) ibid 150
(18) Ward quoted by Dawkins 149

Finding God is not like finding a new animal in nature

the so called "God particle."

As long time readers know that I have this idea of God as Being itself, as Paul Tillich, John Macquarrie, and Has Urs Von Balthasar discussed. Atheists are slow in learning the nature of it. Those I've argued with over the years still make the same mistakes they made about it years ago becuase they don't listen and they don't care. I have evoked in my understanding of the nature of God and reality to the point that I don't think of God as a single think separated from other things and put over against reality as an item on a list in nature, like a single tooth brush or a single rock or tree; I see God as more like a category. That doesn't mean I think of God as unreal or unconscious. I still relate to God as a loving father. I am aware that my image of "father God" is metaphor for I can't possibly understand in it's entirety. For me God is the eternal necessary aspect of being; the part of being that has always been and will always be; we are temporal products of being produced by that eternal aspect. The eternal aspect itself is a mind. We are like thoughts in that mind.

The Corollary to this idea is that being is not merely a surface level affair which can be understood by summing up the existence of individual items. As Tillich says "being has depth." the full quote goes:

Paul Tillich, The Shaking of The Foundations

"The name of infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of our being is God. That depth is what the word God means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being, of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without any reservation. Perhaps, in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional that you have learned about God, perhaps even that word itself. For if you know that God means depth, you know much about Him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. Being itself is surface only. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not."

That being has depth means that belief in God is not merely adding a fact to the universe. Being is more than just surface appearance but has hidden aspects. God is the foundation and thus the depth of the depth. God is not just another thing in creation alongside a hunk of cheese or a swizzle stick. God is the basis of what it means to be. Thus we can't compare proving God's existence to that of finding an new species of animal. For this reason amputates such as those of Dawkins or Victor Stenger to set up conditions hey think are initiative of a God and then showing that other things account for it, no more disprove or summarize the odds of their being a God than disproving the existence of Bigfoot could disprove biology. Yet one still finds atheist speaking as though scinece can rule out god merely by realizing that it doesn't provide proof for God. Karl Popper tells us that scinece is not about proving things. Popper is the one philosopher of scinece who scientists actually seem to respect a lot. On this latter point see also. Yet there ar still plenty of atheists who are involved in scinece and should know better, who take this approach:

science is the only trust worthy way to know reality

science doesn't prove to us that God is real

therefore, we should assume God is not real.

Yesterday on CARM I had an exchange with one of them. Harry C is apparently or claims to be a real Zoologist who works with primates. This began as his denunciation of the validity of Philosophy. Many atheists think that since God arguments are primarily philosophical arguments then if they trash philosophy they trash the ability to prove God exists. He latter shifts his argument when it's made clear that naturism is a philosophy.Instead he tries to argue that God is not a proper object of knowledge for philosophy. He begins to imply that philosophy is ok it just can't talk about God. That is a total shift form his original position.


Originally Posted by Harry C View Post

Philosophy is a completely inappropriate method to determine the existence of any being, supreme or other.

Meta:
that's because you concept of what is being done as "determine a being" is foolish. that is not the nature of belief in God.

(1) God is not a being

(2) we don't determine his existence a though he's a bug under a microscope.

that's the whole point of this depth of being jazz. it's not adding a fact to the universe it's not like proving Bigfoot. It's coming to an understanding of the nature of being and our place in it.

It's no different then discovering zen. It's awakening to a different orientation to being.


Originally Posted by Harry C

Im a I’m a zoologist who works with gorillas. Ten or twelve years ago an expedition to the central Congo reported that they had found chimp/gorilla hybrids. The photos they took were not all that good as they couldn’t get close enough.
I would really like to know if such beings exist but no one has gotten back there since. I’d love to go but it is too dangerous and frankly I’m too old.
So tell me, if philosophy is an appropriate method to determine if beings exist or not what philosophy should I use to find out if these apes are what is claimed or not? You would save me the trouble and expense of doing the science.

the mistake you are making is in trying to make God the object of knowledge as though he's thing in the universe and you are going to go examine him. you can't treat the foundation of reality as a thing in the unites like toothpaste or a a money or some object that you can examine.

Meta:
Your statement would be like saying "I'm going to examine nature to see if it exists."

I say "but nature is all around, everything is nature."

You say "I don't see a label saying it's nature, how do you know it is? until i see nature under the microscope I can't believe in it."


Originally Posted by Harry C

And I answered you by requesting that you name a philosophy that was appropriate.

for what? no aspect of philosophy is going to tell you about the hybrid chimp. That doesn't mean that tit's not good for the questions it's designed to answer.

Meta
One that I would suggest for you is philosophy of science. You like Popper? he's a philosopher. do you like Denntte? He's doing philosophy.

Harry C

My car has a perfectly fine speedometer . The fact that it is inappropriate to use this speedometer to determine if it is raining in no way takes away from its value.

why don't you consider the way analogy backfires? you are the one trying to use the speedometer to see if it's raining. you are trying to measure Philosophy by scinece.

The fact that philosophy cannot be used to determine if a chimp/gorilla or if a God exists likewise in no way takes away from its value. You need to use appropriate methodology. In these cases a barometer for the rain and science for the apes and the God.

Meta:

Philosophy does prove God I've demonstrated this. It also warrants belief I've demonstrated that several thousand times.

stop trying to approach God as he's just another fact in the universe. look at your words?you put it right in the same sentence with the chimp. those are two totally different things.

what you are saying is like comparing finding the hybrid to finding God. that's comparing finding the hybrid to finding nature. Or finding the turth of zen.

I find it surprising that he admits some value to philosophy the way he was talking it seemed like he saw none.

Originally Posted by HRG

"The task of philosophy is not to establish the truth of propositions, but to clarify their meanings" (L. Wittgenstein). IOW, how do we distinguish "good" philosophical arguments from "bad" ones ?

Of course that's Wittgenstine, who felt embarrassed about not being taken seriously by scinece. He tired to work out an anti-philosophical philosophy that would be of use to scinece without having to embrace anything messy like metaphysics (which of cousre is a metaphysical approach to thinking) and wound up destroying all value in art, literature, philosophy, science, any kind of knowledge.

Poly

A sensible distinction is that the former make use of plausible premises and conclusions which necessarily or probably follow from those premises, whilst the latter do something else. I would have thought that this was not in need of clarification.

Originally Posted by Harry C

Then you would have already had to know which premises and which conclusion were plausible and the philosophy would only be telling you what you already know.

You are using philosophy every time you think scientifically. When you decide finding a new chimp is your job and not that of some other discipline your using codes of taxonomy that exist becuase the inverters of modern scinece were also philosophers.

Meta:
why has it not occurred to you that the reason you don't see the use of philosophy is because you haven't studied it enough or learned to use it right?

One problem is that apparently you decided the only kind of question worth asking is the that you can pin down and get a precise answer to according to your field and nothing else matters.

why would you decide that philosophy should be used in zoology? you are not even willing to consider it on it's own turf. as though your field is the only valid way to think.


Originally Posted by Harry C

We aren’t talking about “belief” we are talking about science & philosophy and what each is capable of.

"belief" is code for atheists meaning "the straw man." In reality you use belief every single day. You have belief in reductionism and naturalism and you work on the premise of that belief all the time.

You are talking about God as an inappropriate object of knowledge and what I said was that it's not the same kind of knowledge that zoology gives us.

Yes, we are all familiar with you new age who ha that the Supreme Being isn’t a being…and no one cares.

you are calling to "new age" to make fun of it, but you are totalitarian truth regime is not valid and you can't make it valid by calling my things names.

Harry C.

The scientific mythology is the only viable method to determine whether or not this God exists. That the answer we get doesn’t appeal to you is your problem.

The position they really employ is the "second rate" understanding of life. That's my name for it it means something similar to "default." "this is the best we can do, it's not good but it's the best we can do." Yet the whole reason for being the best we can do, science and naturalism and ruling out God o the premise that we can't prove it with scinece so it we can't trust it, this the true pessemistic postion lurking behind the forthress of facts. that's why I call it "second rate." They usually come on first with the proud arrogance of the fortress of facts, then settle for this second rate position when the fortress of facts has been exposed. The fortress of fact is the idea that science is fact finding and we stack up a huge pile of facts for materialism and none for God belief. Yet confronted with Poppoer's relaity that science is not about proof but disproof into the second rate position, this is the best we can do. Not even the Dawkins and Stenger kind of thinking is real. This appraoch is clearly window dressing for the second rate option. They want us to think they are ruling out the only possible avenue for God to exist by showing that God is not needed to explain the universe as we know it. When we peal back the layers of provado and realize that they merely advacing their own straw God arguemnts by second guess what God would do if he was stupid enough to things they way they would have him dot them, we see what they are really arguing is "this is the best we can do..."

The problem with the second rate appraoch is it's not the best we can do. It's the best we can do if we accept the premise that being is only surface level and the question about the existence of things in reality on the surface is the end of inquiry about existence. By "best we can do" they mean "and prove it by the methods we accept as valid and final." Yet those methods are not about proving things but disproving them. Science cannot disprove God it has no business even separation of God. God is beyond the domain of scinece. So the second rate approach is begging the question and creating a straw God argument in the first place. Trying to compare finding God to finding a new animal species is like comparing finding a single species to finding nature. If i said "science can't find nature so nature must not exist" that would be more analogous to finding God. Now the skeptic might say "that's nonsense, we know nature exists and it's all around us, everything proves nature." Well being is all around us and we are part of it, and we know it exits, things exist. So the foundation of being must exist too but you can't "find it" anymore than you can find nature. That prefectly analogus becuase I am saying God is not a thing in the world along side other things but is the basis of all things, being itself.