Intelligent Design and the Complexity of God
For the past few months, I have been having an engaging and enjoyable discussion with my good friend, Leighton Taylor, centering on the issue of atheism. Most recently, our discussion has turned toward why it is that Richard Dawkins allows for the possibility of intelligent design, but excludes the possibility that the designer could be God. Dawkins states his position in the following video:
Below, I have included our discussion to this point.
Sam
I would be interested in your response to this video.
I am interested because I see a pattern in atheist thinking. It is as follows: “We don’t believe in God because we see no evidence for his existence.” When presented with potential evidence for God, the response is inevitably, “Any possible evidence for the existence of God must have a naturalistic explanation because no God exists.” This tells me the issue is not really evidence.
You see this kind of reasoning in Dawkin’s statements in the video above. He is saying that genomes are complex (they are vastly complex), and this leads to the possibility that an intelligent designer is behind them. This is a reasonable conclusion. But then he immediately jumps to the conclusion that it can’t be God because God doesn’t exist. Aliens are a more likely explanation. This is the fallacy of exclusion of evidence, and it is a very weak argument.
In the case of inductive reasoning, which is what science is, no possibility should be excluded. Just because we don’t have the ability to detect something with scientific instruments doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Not all truths are discovered in the same way.
Leighton
In Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, his central argument against the existence of any eternal deity is that a god would be “the ultimate Boeing 747,” referring to the creationist/ID argument that the development of complex life through natural processes would be like a tornado blowing through a junkyard and creating a 747.
Dawkins makes the case that the existence of a god would be like a 747 “poofing” into existence for no reason, since there is no apparent reason why a god should have always existed. As I discussed in my post, “Does Complexity Require a Creator?” both theists and atheists believe that either something has always existed, or that something came from nothing. As you stated in your comment on that article, “the simpler thing is always more probable,” so Dawkins believes it improbable that a god has always existed, or that a god simply appeared out of nothing.
Because evolution, mainly driven by natural selection, is the only means we know of for complex beings to arise gradually through natural processes, Dawkins assumes that if there is an intelligent designer, that designer can’t simply have appeared suddenly or always existed–the designer must have arisen through evolutionary processes as well.
You’re right that no possibility should be excluded a priori, but so far the overwhelming majority of the scientific community has found great success pursuing natural explanations and has seen no compelling evidence of a supernatural designer, so if there was a designer of some kind, it was more probably natural than supernatural.
There is no way to disprove that an all-powerful god did something. For example, we could have all been created 10 minutes ago with all our memories in place and with the entire universe having the appearance of being old. This scenario can never be disproved, since if there were a god we would have no way of knowing if he/she were mischievous and deceitful, given to playing “practical jokes” on his/her creation. Or perhaps evolution never happened and a god planted all the evidence of evolution in order to deceive us. Since there is no way to disprove this kind of supernatural intervention, and since there is no evidence of such mischief, we can only assume that evidence reflects reality and continue to pursue naturalistic explanations.
Sam
False Gods
One of the biggest problems I see with atheism in general, and Dawkins in particular, is the tendency to oversimplify. Dawkins finds the idea of a god very “unpleasant,” and he wants to disprove the existence of any deity. So he sets about to sweep away all deities in the same way–in one fell swoop. While this approach may make for easy caricatures and funny jokes about the tooth fairy, the truth is that not all theists have the same conception of God. Ideas about God vary greatly from one religion to another.
Dawkins’ approach is like trying to disprove the existence of all animals. It might be easy to disprove the existence of a winged unicorn, but it would be impossible to disprove the existence of a zebra (unless you ignore the facts). They are both animals, but they are not the same animal, and you cannot treat them in the same way. If he is going to be intellectually honest, Dawkins should not oversimplify and treat all conceptions of God in the same way, either.
There is a reason I am a Christian and not a Hindu. And that is because I believe Hindus are wrong about God. If Dawkins wants to disprove the Hindu conception of the divine, or perhaps the ancient Greek conception of the divine, I will join him because I am not a polytheist. I am a Christian because I believe it is the only religion that is theologically and philosophically consistent and defensible.
So the questions arises, what god (or gods) is Dawkins trying to disprove? He needs to choose, because they can’t all be argued against in the same way.
Material or Immaterial
Second, Dawkins continually makes the mistake of comparing God to a physical being by comparing him to a machine like a 747 and saying God is more “complex.” This is an absurd statement. In what way is God complex? If Dawkins is going to base his entire argument against the existence of God on the fact that God is complex, he must first define what he means by complex.
Does he mean composed of a multitude of physical parts that you can diagram? Does he mean complex in intelligence? Does he mean complex in personality? He must define his terms. I ask again, in what way is God complex? And once the nature of God’s complexity is defined, how does that complexity compare to the mechanical complexity of a 747?
What you will find is that the comparison simply doesn’t apply, at least not to the Christian God. It is a false analogy. In Christian theism, God is not composed of parts like a machine, and Christians have an extensive philosophical tradition behind that belief. You cannot compare a spiritual being to a physical one and say the spiritual one is more complex. As a “natural” comparison, it would be like comparing pure energy to a Ferrari and saying energy is more complex. Energy is a different thing altogether than a machine, and so is God.
This shows me that Dawkins is either completely ignorant of the philosophical underpinnings of the Christian faith, or he is being intentionally dishonest. And that leads me back to my first point: Which God is Dawkins arguing against? If Dawkins wants to disprove the existence of the Christian God, he must deal with the truth claims of Christianity. But as it is now, Dawkins is arguing against a god of his own creation.
What Kind of God
You said:
“There is no way to disprove that an all-powerful god did something. For example, we could have all been created 10 minutes ago with all our memories in place and with the entire universe having the appearance of being old. This scenario can never be disproved, since if there were a god we would have no way of knowing if he/she were mischievous and deceitful, given to playing “practical jokes” on his/her creation. Or perhaps evolution never happened and a god planted all the evidence of evolution in order to deceive us. Since there is no way to disprove this kind of supernatural intervention, and since there is no evidence of such mischief, we can only assume that evidence reflects reality and continue to pursue naturalistic explanations.”
You are excluding the possibility of revelation of any kind, and assuming that, if a deity exists, it would naturally be capricious and cruel. Why would this have to be the case? Why would a deity have to enjoy playing tricks?
Besides this, the world we live in doesn’t reflect such an evil deity. Would such a wicked god really create an orderly, consistent, beautiful universe, the depths of which we have yet to discover? Would such a god create orderly laws of thought which allow us to comprehend the world we live in? Would such a god give us intellects, emotions and freedom of the will? Would such a cruel God provide us with an appreciation for beauty, the capacity for love, the ability to create? I don’t think so.
You are absolutely right, we see no evidence of such mischief. Instead, the world we live in provides evidence of the Christian God, the God who has revealed himself as the essence of love and orderliness and consistency, the God who has not left us in darkness.
August 24, 2011 2 Comments
God’s Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
-Gerard Manley Hopkins
August 14, 2011 Leave a comment
St. Iranaeus on the Power of the Eucharist
In this passage, St. Iranaeus inextricably links the miracle of the resurrection of the dead and the salvation of our bodies to Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. Because the Eucharist is the true body and blood of Christ, he argues that it unites us to Christ in a real, bodily way, and that through it, we become bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Iranaeus’s argument can be summarized as follows: Christ took on flesh, thereby sanctifying it. We eat and drink the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, uniting us to his sanctified and glorified body. Our bodily unity with Christ sanctifies and glorifies (saves) our bodies. Therefore, we will be raised from the dead as he was raised–unto eternal life. What a beautiful concept.
But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption. But if this indeed do not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of His body. 1 Corinthians 10:16 For blood can only come from veins and flesh, and whatsoever else makes up the substance of man, such as the Word of God was actually made. By His own blood he redeemed us, as also His apostle declares, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins.” Colossians 1:14 And as we are His members, we are also nourished by means of the creation (and He Himself grants the creation to us, for He causes His sun to rise, and sends rain when He wills Matthew 5:45). He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.
When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?— even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that “we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” Ephesians 5:30 He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh; Luke 24:39 but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones—that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body. And just as a cutting from the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a grain of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed, rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being nourished by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible incorruption, 1 Corinthians 15:53 because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness, 2 Corinthians 12:3….
From Against Heresies Book V, Chapter 2 (Circa 200 A.D.)
August 12, 2011 Leave a comment
Was the Early Church Protestant?
In the Protestant world, many anti-Catholic apologists try to claim that the ancient Fathers and Doctors of the church were far more Protestant than Catholic in their thinking. Quotes are offered as proof that the Fathers believed in Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Eternal Security and other Protestant beliefs. Yet, was this really the case? Here’s what Patristics scholar Fr. Hugh Barbour has to say in his article, “Baptists at Nicea”:
So was St. Athanasius a “true Protestant,” as the Baptist apologist claims? The Athanasius who believed that a Christian could lose his salvation through mortal sin (cf. Discourses Against the Arians 3, 25)? The Athanasius who venerated Mary as “the Mother of God” (Greek: theotokos; cf. Treatise on the Incarnation of the Word, 8)? The Athanasius who believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity (cf. Discourses Against the Arians II, 70)? The Athanasius who believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (Sermon to the Newly Baptized)? If indeed Athanasius can be called a Protestant, then the word “Protestant” has no meaning at all.
….
[Regarding the Canons of the Council of Nicea] Is there any Protestant who would view the Holy Eucharist as “most necessary viaticum” at the hour of death? Would the Baptist apologist recognize the Eucharist as a “sacrifice” or oblation in which he shares? Do Protestants, for that matter, concern themselves with episcopal jurisdiction, the dates of feasts and the proper posture for liturgical prayer? When was the last time you heard of a Protestant pastor giving absolution and holy viaticum to a repentant excommunicate in order to ensure his eternal salvation?
No Protestant apologist attending the Council of Nicea would recognize it as an organ of his denomination or as anything resembling his version of “biblical” Christianity. The issues discussed and the conclusions reached are common only to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Of course none of the 318 council Fathers would be familiar with the expression “Roman” Catholic, since this pejorative expression was invented by the Protestants of the 16th century, and later humbly adopted by orthodox Christianity in the West. Nevertheless, the Council of Nicea bears the unmistakable mark of Catholicism. Not surprising, since the Council was Catholic.
Read the entire article here.
August 10, 2011 5 Comments
Logic and the Logos
At the back of all our thinking is the firm conviction that, if we think at all, we should think properly. That is, we should not think in circles, that our arguments should be structured in an organized and coherent way, and that two plus two never equals five.
All science, mathematics, and philosophy is based on this principle. These fields of knowledge assume an orderliness and predictability, not just of the world we can observe, but to the world we cannot–the world of abstract thought and ideas. They assume that if one thing is proven true, then it follows that the opposite must be false, and that a syllogism, if properly constructed, carries all the weight and force of a definite law.
For there is a definite and universal character to the laws of logic and of thought. The strictness and regularity of these laws is even more easily testable and provable than the laws of nature, where mere probability is the rule. On the most fundamental and conceptual level, if A equals B, and B equals C, then A always equals C. This is not a matter of chance or probable outcome. This is not even a matter subject to empirical observation. The outcome simply follows with a more immutable certainty and necessity than the rising of the sun.
To those who take pleasure in thinking, this is a sacred truth, and there is nothing more feared than a fallacy. To embrace a fallacy would lead to intellectual impotence and a dissolution of the very fabric of reason. A fallacy is more than a mistake–it is a rebellion against the orderliness and harmony of the cosmos; it is a disregard for the truth and positivity of all things; it is a denial of our thought’s very relation to reality.
Now, the laws of logic, while necessary for all thought, are unusual things. They have a unique character, quite separate from the realm of ordinary experience. This character can be described in three ways: They are immaterial and abstract–that is, their consistency is reflected in the material world but their existence is not contingent on it. They are also immutable, for what is proved logically true and necessary today cannot be proved logically false tomorrow. And they are universal–They are not simply conventions on which we agree, and there is no one to whom they do not apply.
It is not possible for me to have my own laws of logic by which I can prove with certainty that I am a cow. Nor can you have your own laws of logic where one and two equals twelve. There is an element of submission to the laws of logic–a recognition of a higher authority to which we must bow, not only for convenience but for comprehensibility.
This binding reality the ancients referred to as the Logos, the Logic–the basis of all thought and all argument; the unifying ratio or reason back of all that is. The Logos was divine in origin–for from whence but the Divine could a universal, immaterial constant emanate? Where indeed.
The materialistic atheist is quite insistent on being logical and rational–on not violating these laws of thought. And rightly so. Yet, this submission to an abstract, supra-natural entity is inconsistent with a materialistic philosophy–for it is not possible to intelligibly account for the laws of logic, independent of the material world as they are, when locked in a prison of matter. It is like arguing that oxygen doesn’t exist while using oxygen to breathe. It is, in fact, quite irrational.
No, there is but one fountain of all reality that can account for the rationality, logical consistency, and intelligibility of the universe, for the origin of an immutable, immaterial constant that governs our intellects and gives them life. And this fountain is not a principle, it is a person–the person of whom it was said, In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.
August 7, 2011 5 Comments
Art and Atheism
Photo courtesy of Bartek Langer
I don’t envy the Atheist, for he lives in a world of which he can only explain one half. The other half he can only guess at. By the other half, I mean all the things which are not explained by science: Morality, Happiness, Love, Religion, Art, etc. Of course, the Atheist has explanations for all these things, but none of them are really satisfactory. The animals get along fine without them; why shouldn’t we? That is a difficult question for the atheist.
But it is a question we need to ask. In the cold and cruel universe of atheism, all these things would make life more inconvenient and less efficient. They certainly do not make it simpler. The orangutan never asks why he exists, and so he doesn’t commit suicide when he gets no answer. He also doesn’t build a cathedral when he does. All these human things contradict the machinery of evolutionary efficiency. They should not be. Art is one example that is worth considering.
Animals are not artists. If the lion developed a sudden artistic attachment to its prey, we would hardly call it an advancement. We certainly wouldn’t call it efficient. Lionic poetry about the leaping grace of gazelles would not contribute to the evolution of more advanced and efficient lions. Lions are efficient because they don’t romanticize gazelles–they eat them.
It is the difference between utility and beauty that is the insurmountable gulf between animals and man. It is conceivable that an animal could learn to use tools to survive. But it is inconceivable that an animal would decorate its tools until they were unusable. It is perfectly efficient and reasonable for an ape to turn a rock into a tool for cracking nuts. It is inefficient to the point of insanity for an ape to turn a rock into Ulm Cathedral.
Art is not useful. It contributes nothing to the evolutionary process. Utilitarian beauty was a brief Victorian mood, but the fact remains that useful art is a contradiction in terms. A Ming vase may be perfectly suited to hold trash, but the idea of actually using it as a wastebasket is appalling. Some things are too beautiful to use, and this fact is proved by the existence of museums.
That art is wasteful and impractical is almost too obvious to mention, but this lack of utility is an enigma from an evolutionary perspective. Even if an ape could have evolved the intelligence to build a house, it would have never evolved the desire to decorate it. Art is something larger than reason and utility.
I’ve said until this point that art is useless, but that’s not exactly true. It is only true from a naturalistic perspective–not from a super-natural perspective. There is a use for art that can only be explained by spirit: Art is the language of living souls. It is the attempt of one spirit to express to another the inexpressible nature of things–to say something beyond words. Realistic art has never been very popular because the point of art is not to be realistic. Why reproduce what we can see with our eyes? Art is often exaggerated because it is what we cannot see, but still know, that art tries to capture.
The atheist might say the purpose of art is to make the world mean something. This is true, but the most reasonable explanation for it is that the world does mean something. We do not create art to invent meaning that isn’t there; we create art because we know meaning is there. All art and music and poetry are simply attempts to remember what the world means.
Back of everything that is, we can sense the purpose of an unseen Will, the breathing of a tremendous Life. We feel Its power as certainly as we feel we are alive, and the sensation is both strange and vaguely familiar. It is familiar because it is the echo of a distant memory. It is strange because we should not have forgotten it.
The insane sublimity of art is simply the striving of the soul to remember and to name this sense. It is the attempt to recall and remake the wonder and innocence of a home long forgotten, and the name of its Maker. It is the struggle to recover the glory and grace of a Garden, a place with two rivers and two trees at the very heart of the world–a place where a man could hear God walking in the cool of the day.
July 18, 2011 3 Comments
St. Augustine On the Nature of the Catholic Church
“We believe also in the holy Church, that is, the Catholic Church; for heretics violate the faith itself by a false opinion about God; schismatics, however, withdraw from fraternal love by hostile separations, although they believe the same things we do. Consequently, neither heretics nor schismatics belong to the Catholic Church; not heretics, because the Church loves God; and not schismatics, because the Church loves neighbor.”
St. Augustine, Faith and the Creed, 393 A.D.
July 8, 2011 Leave a comment
You’re Doing What?
This coming Easter, God willing, my wife and I will be received into Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic church. For us, this will be a happy day, a joyous day—the culmination of a journey of many months, and for me, many years.
To many of our friends and family, however, this will not be a joyful day because they believe we are making a grave mistake. Likely, they think we have been somehow deceived or mislead, and sooner or later we will come to our senses.
Yet, now that it has come to it, I am more certain than ever that the Roman Catholic Church is Christ’s church, and that it is absurd for any Protestant sect or denomination to stand in judgement of this Church.
As I grew toward this decision, I began to realize that the Lord had been drawing me for many years—even since childhood. I began to “connect the dots” and to see a pattern of Catholic thinking beginning many years go. I hope to catalog this journey further in a future post.
But while many factors have led me to this point, I first consciously decided to look into the teachings of the Catholic Church when I began to question the claims and assumptions of Protestantism. I began to question things that I had always taken for granted—and I quickly realized that Protestantism made no sense.
Here are just a few of the questions I asked myself (there are many more):
How did we get the Bible?
From a working knowledge of Church history I knew there were many false gospels circulating in the early Church. Examples include the Gospel of James, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Peter. Many of these false gospels claimed to be apostolic in origin and to contain the truth about Jesus Christ. Yet, they contained teachings that were contrary to the Faith once delivered to the saints.
We know the Bible didn’t fall from the sky in leather bound ESV study Bible form. So who decided the Canon? Who had the kind of authority to definitely decide what gospels and other Scriptural books were canonical and which were non-canonical? What books did the early Church confirm as canonical? Are they the same books in the Protestant Bible? If the Protestant denominations had the same task today, would they be able to come to an agreement? Who would have the final say?
These and other questions raised doubts. It seemed that every Protestant I knew constantly appealed to Scripture (even to prove that Scripture was inspired) without ever asking where Scripture came from. The Bible was an assumption, a presupposition. Even renowned scholars such as R.C. Sproul could only answer that Scripture is a “fallible collection of infallible books.” Which raised many more questions.
Heresy? Orthodoxy? Says who?
Again, from Church history, I knew there have been and still are many heretics, claiming things such as Jesus isn’t fully God, Jesus isn’t fully man, there is no Trinity, there is no hell. Not to mention all the simply weird teachings out there generated by men like Harold Camping. All these people claim to be getting their beliefs from the same Bible.
Who’s to say their interpretation is wrong and heretical? Who’s to say what interpretation is right and orthodox? If Protestants truly believe and firmly hold to the idea that the ultimate interpreter of Scripture is the individual and his conscience, then Christianity becomes an interpretive free for all, and no one can be truly condemned as a heretic and outside of orthodox faith. In essence, there is no orthodox faith.
If the oneness Pentecostals interpret Scripture to say that there is no Trinity, they should be free to do that. If Rob Bell reads Scripture and is convinced by the “plain meaning” that there is no Hell, who’s to say he is wrong? There is no authoritative magisterium of the Church. Canons and councils and sacred tradition mean nothing. Only the individual interpretation matters? Right?
I found this concept incredibly disturbing and even impossible to sustain. The fact that Protestantism hasn’t decayed into more theological chaos than it has is only because Protestants (fortunately) don’t actually follow this belief. Everyone believes in interpreters. The Calvinists look to John Calvin, the Lutherans to Luther, the Wesleyans to Wesley, the Adventists to Ellen G. White. Each has their own teacher. All claim to look to the Bible alone for the truth, yet all come to different conclusions. It’s just a matter of which interpreters and which interpretive tradition one believes is correct and authoritative.
How is the Church really one?
As a Protestant, I had always believed that the Church was one spiritually, or invisibly, but not visibly. This is the common Protestant explanation for the unity of an obviously splintered and fractious world of Protestant denominations.
Yet, on reading John 17, I realized that Jesus prayed to the Father that the world would know that his Church is one even as He and the Father are one. The kind of unity Jesus is talking about is visible unity—a supernatural unity that the world can see and that defies explanation.
How could the world know without a doubt Christ’s Church is one by looking at 30,000 different denominational groups all claiming to be the true Church that Jesus founded, with many of them condemning each other as heretical? If it is true that the carnal mind can’t discern spiritual realities, how could Jesus expect unbelievers to see and understand that the Church is one spiritually when visibly it is a splintered mess?
Questions and Answers
There are two kinds of questions: The kind of questions that seek to avoid the truth, and the kind of questions that seek to find the truth. The more I asked hard questions, the more I realized that they were leading somewhere, or to something. To what, I feared to guess. But after many months of agonizing investigation, I can say that I have found the answers to these and many other questions. Real, solid, and definite answers. In further posts, I would like to explore the answers I found in more depth. I would like explain and even defend the beliefs I now hold. With God’s help, I will do so.
July 1, 2011 4 Comments