Herein, we continue, from part 1, considering a discussion between Gary Gutting (professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame) and Michael Ruse (philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology of Florida State University) that was published as “Does Evolution Explain Religious Beliefs?,” New York Times, July 8, 2014 AD
GARY GUTTING: What do you think of Richard Dawkins’s argument that, in any case, God won’t do as an ultimate explanation of the universe? His point is that complexity requires explanation — the whole idea of evolution by natural selection is to explain the origin of complex life-forms from less complex life-forms. But a creator God — with enormous knowledge and power — would have to be at least as complex as the universe he creates. Such a creator would require explanation by something else and so couldn’t explain, for example, why there’s something rather than nothing.
MICHAEL RUSE: Like every first-year undergraduate in philosophy, Dawkins thinks he can put to rest the causal argument for God’s existence. If God caused the world, then what caused God? Of course the great philosophers, Anselm and Aquinas particularly, are way ahead of him here. They know that the only way to stop the regression is by making God something that needs no cause. He must be a necessary being. This means that God is not part of the regular causal chain but in some sense orthogonal to it. He is what keeps the whole business going, past, present and future, and is the explanation of why there is something rather than nothing. Also God is totally simple, and I don’t see why complexity should not arise out of this, just as it does in mathematics and science from very simple premises. Traditionally, God’s necessity is not logical necessity but some kind of metaphysical necessity, or aseity. Unlike Hume, I don’t think this is a silly or incoherent idea, any more than I think mathematical Platonism is silly or incoherent. As it happens, I am not a mathematical Platonist, and I do have conceptual difficulties with the idea of metaphysical necessity.
So in the end, I am not sure that the Christian God idea flies, but I want to extend to Christians the courtesy of arguing against what they actually believe, rather than begin and end with the polemical parody of what Dawkins calls “the God delusion.”
As noted in part 1, Dawkins thinks that “God won’t do as an ultimate explanation of the universe” but that “luck” does. Also as noted in part 1, ultimately, God has been thought of a as a mind and a mind can conceptualize very complex ideas while the mind itself is a simple entity. For example, a human baby’s mind is very simple and yet, it performs an incredible series of very complex calculations in order to do something as simple as putting her hand to her mouth.
What Ruse hit upon is that Dawkins is turning the concept of an infinite regress into an infinite digress. That is, he takes and runs with the concept of an infinite regression (an endless series of events that are necessary to explain, for example) and make of it an infinite digression from the logical conclusion of an infinite or, eternal God.
For many pseudo-skeptics (who do not say “I will not believe until” but, rather, “I will not believe”—period) simply noting that Dawkins proposes his first-year undergraduate assertion will be enough and they will never follow though and make it to “Anselm, Aquinas, etc.
The next section will consider “the atheistic argument from evil.”