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A Review of
Oct 19, 2007, Wausau, Wi — In the last
installment of my review of Richard Dawkins’, “The God Delusion” I looked at some of the problems
in Dawkins’ attempted refutation of Aquinas’ arguments for the existence of God,
or at least the lead up to his main argument.
To recap,
Aquinas’ first three arguments all deal with the impossibility of an infinite
regression of linked events. Such a
regression can either go on forever, with no beginning, or it can have a beginning. Aquinas’ argument is based on the claim that
it would be impossible for such regressions to go on forever, but there must
have been a beginning to the sequence, a first cause, a first mover, etc.
When
Dawkins’ gets to his main refutation, surprisingly he seems to concede the main
force of the Aquinas’ argument, that infinite regressions are impossible,
arguing instead that the beginning of the sequence might be natural.
To justify
his position Dawkins writes “Some regresses do reach a natural terminator” (p 78) and goes on to give the example of
cutting a piece of gold into two pieces and then taking one of those pieces and
cutting it in two to get two more pieces, and
how this cannot go on forever. Eventually you will get down a single
atom of gold, and if you cut that in half, you no longer have Gold.
While true,
like so much of Dawkins criticisms, it really misses the point, and in fact may
even be seen as arguing in favor of Aquinas.
It misses the point because the arguments of Aquinas are not based on
just any sequence but particular types of sequences.
In reality,
Dawkins argument raises a huge, and little discussed issue that goes to the
core of the difference between atheists and theists. Just what are the natural and the
supernatural? Until recently, the
natural world has been understood as the physical universe in which we live
which is governed by the laws of nature. The supernatural was then something
else, something beyond the natural universe, where the laws of nature as we
understand them did not apply.
Atheists
then argued that reality applied only to the natural universe, and that there
was nothing beyond the natural universe.
A more nuances argument along these lines was that, while there may be
something beyond the natural, since our understanding and knowledge was limited
to the natural universe of our existence, it was impossible to know anything
beyond the natural.
This view of
natural and supernatural worked well for theist and atheist alike, until in the
middle of the twentieth century it began to cause problems for those committed
to denying the supernatural. This was
because the discoveries in science, such as the big bang, made it increasingly
clear that the natural world had a beginning. The science clearly showed that at the big
bang, reality as we know it, including space, time, and the physical laws that
govern how the universe works came into existence. In short, the natural universe came into
existence. This was very disconcerting to atheists, who
had denied the Bible’s claim of a creation, believing instead the universe was
eternal. In fact much of the work in
cosmology since has been aimed either directly or indirectly at trying to avoid
this conclusion, but to no avail.
Thus those
denying the supernatural were put in a very difficult position, for if the
universe had a beginning, it either popped into existence out of nothing for no
reason, a proposition that would be akin to magic, and would fly in face of
everything they believed, or it came from something that was not part of the
natural world and thus would fall under the definition of the supernatural.
So far most
skeptics have avoided this dilemma by effectively reversing their claim that reality
is restricted to the natural into the natural is anything that is real. Thus as
science has begun to investigate (or speculate) about be a reality beyond the
creation of the universe, since scientists are investigating that reality, that
reality is automatically assumed to be part of the “natural” universe.
Yet while
such a view may seem to avoid some difficulties, it has may others. For
example, much of the rejection of the supernatural is based on the inviolability
of the laws of nature. Miracles such as
raising Jesus from the dead, or the parting of the Red Sea, are rejected
because they would violate the laws of nature, and the laws of nature cannot be
broken and they always apply. Since they
cannot be broken, miracles are impossible. But what do such arguments mean, if there is a
part of natural world where the laws of nature do not apply?
In short, secularists
like Dawkins are caught in a huge paradox. If they stick to the old
understanding of natural and supernatural their arguments for rejecting the
supernatural at least make some sense, even if they are based on assumptions
that Christians would reject. But then
the reality beyond the Big Bang would by definition be the supernatural. On the other hand, if they expand the concept
of natural to include the reality beyond the creation described in the Big Bang
theory, they may avoid the problem of seeing this reality as supernatural, but at the cost of having their arguments
against the supernatural fall completely apart.
Either way they have major problems.
This is
Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
See www.consider.org for additional information.
The book and press materials are available upon request.
To schedule an interview or to have
Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. speak at your chruch or event
contact Aletheia at 715-849-8328