From Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence:

Does this [view that science has done away with minor supernatural entities because they play no explanatory role in the world] mean that the progress of the natural sciences has given us equally good measure to deny God's existence? Not necessarily. Scientific progress would supply such reason only if theistic assumptions were in direct competition with naturalistic causal explanations. The reason we shouldn't believe in demiurges and sprites is because they are entities whose existence was to have been vindicated by citing their role in explaining the very phenomena that the natural sciences can now explain better. For most theists, God no longer plays that role. God isn't introduced to explain why a volcano erupted, or a hailstorm destroyed the crops, but instead for a variety of functions (e. g. as the author of the moral law) other than that of actively intervening in earthly affairs so as to continually cause all that occurs in the natural world. That sort of God would be one whose postulated existence would be in direct competition with the causal explanations offered by the natural sciences. But theists needn't take such a view, and so needn't fall prey to the argument that has entitled us to dismiss the minor supernatural characters (leprechauns, trolls, etc.) from our ontology. (114-115)

Michael Spencer of iMonk fame has asked for responses on a great open thread:

This thread is for this question: How have you resolved the tensions in your own life and thinking between science and your faith? What has been your journey? What was particularly significant in that journey?

I’m especially interested in those who were brought up in conservative Christian environments with typical conservative assumptions about the Bible.

The thread has attracted numerous interesting responses, some from professional scientists. The comments represent numerous perspectives, but almost all of them are from believers who have realized there is no substantive conflict between Christianity and the deliverances of science. Here's a sample from "Theo":

I didn’t encounter much tension between my faith and science growing up. We went to a Baptist church that occasionally taught on creationism and such, but they didn’t really shove it down our throats or make any “you must believe this or else..” sort of statements. My high school AP physics teacher was also the Bible club sponsor. I attended a Christian affiliated university (Baylor) and all my professors were Christian (or at least signed a statement of faith to get their job). So I breezed all the way through college with a masters in physics without ever having really been challenged in my faith as a scientist.

Now I am at a state university working on my Ph.D. My thesis adviser and many people that I work with are openly hostile toward Christianity. It is certainly a more challenging environment, but having known so many Christian scientists (not those kind) has left me with a confidence that I’m not alone in my faith.

Just one observation on the evolution debate. As an experimental physicist, I deal with exact equations and extraordinarily precise, repeatable measurements. All that is required of an evolutionary biologist is the ability to tell a good story (”the shape of the pig’s snout evolved over millions of years to be just the perfect tool to hunt out truffles”, or whatever.) I know they are doing their best with the facts they have available (and there is a bit more to it than just a story), but I find it humorous that it gets equal billing under the single term “science” along with physics or chemistry.

There are some great responses in the thread. I recommend reading through them if you're interested in the relationship between Christianity and science.

In the comments section of my last post on a typical silly argument by Richard Dawkins against religious belief, Uncle Skeptic said:

Allowing for some literary license with regard to generality and geography, the Dawkins quote is right on. If we can’t, in general, “judge an individual’s justification for her beliefs by the cultural soup from which those beliefs arise”, then how do you explain the overwhelming correlation between religion and geography? If you look at the geographical distribution of religions, it’s obvious that the vast majority of religious people do, in fact, acquire their religion based on the prevailing cultural soup.

A few points here. First, you are confusing sociological questions with epistemological questions. There are simple sociological reasons why we find high levels of religious uniformity among entire cultures, nations, and races: such uniformity allows for social cohesion, national identity, and a shared set of values. That people often adopt the beliefs of those around them is not new or surprising. Suppose 99% of the people of a culture believe the same thing on a particular religious subject - say, that humans are made in the image of God - and they believe simply because that's what their parents or their culture told them. This fact has exactly zero bearing on whether people actually are made in the image of God or not. As for me, if I'm trying to determine for myself what my view on human nature is, sociological facts about how and why this belief is widely held in my culture are entirely irrelevant. What only matters is whether I have good reasons for accepting it or not, and that is an epistemological question that is independent of sociological ones. If I have a suspicion that I have been duped or "indoctrinated" either for or against this belief, I need only to investigate the matter for myself. Just because a belief is held widely in one particular culture does not automatically make it wrong.

Here is a must-read post by Bill Vallicella: Does the Atheist Deny What the Theist Affirms?. I have no time to comment now. Perhaps later. Perhaps not.

Speaking of big Al, his debate with Paul Draper on "Evil and Evolution" is now up at Internet Infidels. The introduction by Draper is here. I haven't had time to read it yet, but it ought to be interesting.

My posts on Richard Dawkins' 'Ultimate Boeing 747 Argument' against the existence of God are finished. Below you will find links to all the posts in this series as well as a few others that deal with Dawkins' claims. Or you could always just peruse the Contra Dawkins sub-category. I now wash my hands of the man.

Theism Defeated? A Response to Richard Dawkins' 'Ultimate 747 Argument' Against the Existence of God

• Formulating the Argument


• Formulating the Argument (part 2)


• Counterargument 1


• Counterargument 2


• Counterargument 3

Special Dawkins Bonus Posts!

• Richard Dawkins' non-argument against arguments from religious experience


• Tech savvy atheists and head-in-the-sand theists


• Dawkins jumps the shark


• Richard Dawkins = Cosmo Kramer

[This is the final part of my series critiquing Richard Dawkins' 'Ultimate 747 Argument' against the existence of God. Previous entries can be found here, here, here, and here.]

Counterargument 3: A Complex God Can Exist Necessarily

To see how this final counterargument runs, recall some of the premises of the various formulations of the 747 argument I outlined in previous posts. The first three premises of 747m are:

(i) All entities (potential or actual) possess organized complexity (C) in degrees.

(ii) For any degree of C possessed by any entity E, however, E’s possessing C entails E’s possessing improbability of existence (I) in a degree that is proportional to the degree of C possessed by E.

(iii) For any degree of I possessed by E, however, E’s possessing I entails E’s possessing a level of explanatory requirement (R) in a degree that is proportional to the degree of I possessed by E.

The move from (i) to (ii) and from (ii) to (iii) is questionable. It seems that Dawkins’ boldness allows him to muster the confidence to posit necessary connections between organized complexity, improbability, and explanatory requirement in a striking way. Is this move legitimate? It's hard to see how it is. Discussion of metaphysical issues of this sort is almost impossible without referring to the concepts of necessity and contingency. Thus Dawkins’ argument is incomplete; it doesn’t deal with issues it needs to deal with if it wants to arrive at its conclusion in a convincing manner. Traditionally theists have viewed God as a necessary being. Every created thing, however, is contingent. This just means that of quarks and Quakers, pandas and people, and molecules and mollusks, none of them have the power to exist on their own. God, however, being a necessary Being, does have the power to exist on His own. In fact, He’s the ground of all being Himself (“I AM”), and nothing can exist apart from His necessity. If God were to disappear, everything else would disappear as well.

From my beach reading, Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise:

2069 June 08 GMT 1537. Message 6943. Sequence 2. Starglider to Earth.

The hypothesis you refer to as God, thought not disprovable by logic alone, is unnecessary for the following reason.

If you assume that the universe can be quote explained unquote as the creation of an entity known as God, he must obviously be of a higher degree of organization than his product. Thus you have more than doubled the size of the original problem, and have taken the first step on a diverging infinite regress. William of Ockham pointed out as recently as your fourteenth century that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. I cannot therefore understand why this debate continues.

The speaker here is "Starglider," a robotic alien probe that passes through our galaxy on an information-gathering mission. Clarke means Starglider to be an immensely intelligent entity, a sentient logical computer with the accumulated knowledge of a thousand intelligent species at its disposal. As much as I admire Clarke and enjoy his writings, I find it difficult that a super-intelligent being would propound such a sophomoric argument for the non-existence of God (and I assume that Clarke means Starglider to be speaking for himself here). Starglider's statement first jumped out at me because of its conspicuous similarities with Dawkins' 747 argument, against which I have been voluminously blogging lately. Indeed, the argument is downright Dawkinsian in its cheeky assumptions about its own cogency, as if it decisively ends the debate.

[In previous posts I introduced Richard Dawkins' "Ultimate 747 Argument" against the existence of God. Dawkins has recently made this argument the centerpiece of his book, The God Delusion. In my first post I pointed out that the argument suffers from a debilitating lack of clarity. In the second post I attempted to construct the argument formally so that we would have an easier time of dealing with it. In my last post I presented my first counterargument. Now I present my second. All page references are from Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006). One quote is from Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1996).]

Counterargument 2: God is Not Necessarily Complex

Recall that on Dawkins’ system of probability, an entity’s improbability of existence is directly proportional to the level of complexity that entity possesses. The first three steps of 747m are:

(i) All entities (potential or actual) possess organized complexity (C) in degrees.

(ii) For any degree of C possessed by any entity E, however, E’s possessing C entails E’s possessing improbability of existence (I) in a degree that is proportional to the degree of C possessed by E.

(iii) For any degree of I possessed by E, however, E’s possessing I entails E’s possessing a level of explanatory requirement (R) in a degree that is proportional to the degree of I possessed by E.

All this means is that, for example, my 1996 Nissan Pathfinder is more complex, and therefore more improbable, and therefore requires more explanation for its existence, than a three pound rock. For this second counterargument, however, we are going to focus on premise (vi) from 747m:

(vi) For any entity E1 that brings about the existence of entity E2, the degree of C possessed by E1 must necessarily be greater than the degree of C possessed by E2.

And (xv) from 747e:

(xv) However, if God created biological life then He would necessarily be more complex than even the most complex example of biological life.

Also, 747s can’t succeed without accepting either (vi) or (xv) as an implicit assumption, so it seems that this premise is crucial to the overall success of every version of the 747 argument.

Jeffrey Lowder of Infidels fame poses an interesting question to theists. He relates a story by the atheist philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. After his debate with Bill Craig, Sinnott-Armstrong received an email from a theist calling him

a "small minded" "egotist," "an arrogant fool," and a "pompous PhD," then added "it is pathetic that the College allows you in a classroom," and "That you don't [believe in God], I am sorry to have to inform you, calls into question your intelligence." Then it concluded, "Please be assured that this theist will impartially consider any persuasive response you can offer and, as such, I look forward to continuing this dialogue with you."

Lowder then poses his question to Christians, and to evangelicals in particular:

What are your thoughts about the email sent to Sinnott-Armstrong? Do you condone the email? Do you condemn it? Or are you indifferent? Do you agree with Sinnott-Armstrong that "Many theists feel perfectly justified in abusing atheists"? Why?

I'll respond to Lowder's question, but first I'd like to point out that this sort of behavior runs both ways. Christians make inane, cruel, vitriolic, and incorrigibly stupid statements to their ideological opponents at an astonishingly high rate. But there are atheists who do it too. See here for a good example of one of those enlightened brights sharing his special brand of intellectual clarity with us knuckle-dragging theists.

[In previous posts I introduced Richard Dawkins' "Ultimate 747 Argument" against the existence of God. Dawkins has recently made this argument the centerpiece of his book, The God Delusion. In my first post I pointed out that the argument suffers from a debilitating lack of clarity. In the second post I attempted to construct the argument formally so that we would have an easier time of dealing with it. In this post I present my first counterargument to Dawkins' claims.]

Counterargument 1: The 747 Argument Fails to Show that Theistic Belief is Irrational

First, Dawkins understands his argument to be a very powerful ontological or metaphysical argument, outlined in the last post as 747m. The problem here is that even in this version Dawkins is mixing his metaphysics with his epistemology in an unacceptable way. Consider premise (iii). Recall that (iii) was:

(iii) For any degree of I possessed by E, however, E’s possessing I entails E’s possessing a level of explanatory requirement (R) in a degree that is proportional to the degree of I possessed by E.

Furthermore, according to premise (iv) the degree of R possessed by E is directly proportional to the degree of I possessed by E. But (iii) contains a subtle and not entirely legitimate assumption. To understand this, consider the following two propositions:

(HI) It is highly improbable that God exists.

(HR) It is highly irrational to believe that God exists.

The conclusion of Dawkins’ argument (or at least to 747m and 747s) is (HI). But (HI) is a metaphysical claim, while (HR) is an epistemological claim. It is clear that Dawkins thinks that (HI) somehow entails or at least implies (HR).

The atheists over at the Internet Infidels are hosting a series of philosophy of religion debates by leading philosophers. God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence is edited by Paul Draper and ought to be very interesting. The first debate on the physicalism/dualism question in the philosophy of mind is already up, and there are some interesting ones coming down the line, including Paul Draper vs. Al Plantinga on "Evil and Evolution" and Quentin Smith vs. Robin Collins on "Science and the Cosmos."

[HT: John Depoe]

[Note: In a previous post I introduced Richard Dawkins' "Ultimate 747 Argument" against the existence of God. Dawkins has recently made this argument the centerpiece of his book, The God Delusion, but in my previous post I pointed out that the argument suffers from a debilitating lack of clarity. In this second post I attempt to construct the argument formally so that we will have an easier time of dealing with it. In order to ensure that I treat Dawkins' argument fairly I have formulated three different versions of his argument. In future posts I will show how theists can respond.]

The Metaphysical Version of the 747 Argument

Dawkins’ explicit claim is that the 747 Argument is aimed at (G), the proposition that such a being as God actually exists. If so, then the argument is essentially about metaphysics. It purports to show the extremely high improbability that a certain type of being actually exists. If we assume that his argument is against (G), and that his comments referring to certain theistic design arguments are only incidental to this primary aim, then we have an argument that looks like the following:

[Note: All page references are from Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006).]

In his recent book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins claims that he has formulated an argument against the existence of God that decisively trumps all challengers. Dawkins, the Oxford biologist and plucky standard-bearer for militant anti-theism, is supremely confident that his ‘Ultimate 747 Argument’ against the existence of God is not only successful in its aim of debunking theism, but that it is practically immune to any argument that can be brought against it. Indeed, Dawkins thinks the argument is more convincing than even the argument from evil, and that, “this argument … demonstrates that God, while not technically disprovable, is very very improbable indeed.” (109) Thus Dawkins takes his argument to be a particularly compelling inductive argument, one that shows the extreme improbability of God. In his view, this argument

is indeed a very strong and, I suspect, unanswerable argument … The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist. My name for the statistical demonstration that God almost certainly does not exist is the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit. (113)

The conclusion of this argument, “is close to being terminally fatal to the God Hypothesis.” (61) In this series of posts based on a recent paper I wrote, I want to show that Dawkins' confidence in this argument is wildly misplaced, and that the theist's only trouble in answering it will be in determining which of the several available options will do the best job.

As much as I dislike the idea, it's time to start blogging on Richard Dawkins and his anti-theisic crusade. I'm currently putting the final touches on a paper critiquing Dawkins' "Ultimate 747 Argument" against God's existence that he so loudly trumpets in The God Delusion. When I finish it I'll put it on the still under-represented Writings section. Until then I thought I'd start posting summaries of ideas I formulate in the paper.

Today our topic is Dawkins' treatment of arguments from religious experience as they are used to (1) justify belief in God or (2) "prove" God's existence. I'm not sure Dawkins understands the difference between these two purposes, but I'll set that aside for now. Dawkins thinks he can do away with arguments from religious experience in a mere six pages (if you find this hubristic, consider that he spends even fewer pages on Aquinas' five ways). However, even in these six pages there isn't much of an argument. Dawkins' contention is that the human brain has very sophisticated "simulation software," and that somehow spiritual experiences are manufactured by this fine piece of biological engineering. Here is a characteristic bit of Dawkinsian wisecrackery on the subject:

You say you have experienced God directly? Well, some people have experienced a pink elephant, but that probably doesn’t impress you. Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, distinctly heard the voice of Jesus telling him to kill women, and he was locked up for life. George W. Bush says that God told him to invade Iraq (a pity God didn’t vouchsafe him a revelation that there were no weapons of mass destruction). Individuals in asylums think they are Napoleon or Charlie Chaplin, or that the entire world is conspiring against them, or that they can broadcast their thoughts into other people’s heads. We humour them but don’t take their internally revealed beliefs seriously, mostly because not many people share them. Religious experiences are different only in that the people who claim them are numerous.

Consider the following argument for God's existence:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

This is the famous kalam version of the cosmological argument for God's existence, popularized in recent decades by Bill Craig and over which much ink has been spilled by theists and atheists alike. The question is this: is the religious believer acting rationally in accepting the above argument in the support structure for his belief in God? Notice the question is not, "Does the argument succeed?" but, "Is it rational to view the argument as supporting theistic belief?" The atheists generally argue against kalam by claiming that the argument fails: by challenging one of the premises, or claiming that the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, or by pointing out that even if the argument is sound, it doesn't prove that the cause of the universe is anything like what theists call "God," just to name a few.

I think the second question is more appropriate, not because of any glaring flaw in kalam but because the last few hundred years of philosophy has shown us that it is difficult to achieve indubitable certainty on any matter from any argument. It's difficult to produce a rock-solid argument for the existence of the external world, or for past events, or for the existence of other minds, just to name a few very popular examples. Why think that God's existence can be proved to any greater extent than these? Now, maybe God, being the ground of all existence, can be proved in just such a way by just such an argument. But maybe not. It seems that the whole of Scripture doesn't point to people coming to knowledge of God by arguments to His existence but by encounter with Him directly or with His attributes indirectly.