Tag: Richard Dawkins

Making Sense of Science and Theism: Evolution, Engineers, and Category Errors

As the engineer is to a clock so is ___________ to the natural world?

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The first episode of the Uncommon Ground podcast with Justin Brierley is titled “What is Behind the Poetry of Reality?” The podcast features a conversation with Richard Dawkins and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Dawkins of New Atheist fame has a purely materialist view of reality – maintaining that reality is comprised only of materials things that operate on their own without the aid of God or any immaterial thing.

The discussion is amicable and informative, if not predictable. Rowan Williams accepts the evolutionary paradigm, but believes in God – an immaterial, personal creator of the universe. They seemed to agree on the science. The only difference is that Williams believes there is a God behind the science and the universe.

When Brierley asked Williams to summarize Richard Dawkins’ view of reality, Dawkins graciously conceded, “Rowan… understands so well that he can summarize what I think better than I can.”

Dawkins should be given credit for reading Williams’ recent book that was the backdrop for the discussion, but Dawkins admitted to being “baffled” by it.

Dawkins was unable to provide a cogent summary of Williams’ view of reality. He succeeded only in criticizing Rowan’s view, and Dawkins conceded, “I think Rowan understands where I’m coming from much better than I understand where he’s coming from.”

This reminds me of C.S. Lewis, who says that the Christian worldview can take in science into account, but a view of the world limited to the constructs of science cannot take into account Christianity. One is robust enough to hold the other, but the other is not sufficiently robust to do the same. (I have provided the whole quotation in its context below.)

I will admit that the robustness of Christianity to be able to make sense of science does not necessarily make it true. Conversely, the limited scope of science that is unable to account for Christianity does not necessarily make it untrue. If reality truly consists of nothing but matter and natural processes, then the limitations of science are the limitations of reality itself.

I think that reality is not sufficiently explained by science, which is limited to natural explanations. I am also fascinated with Dawkins’ attempt to explain his own worldview as follows:

“I see the world as a very complex thing, like a clock or like a car or like a computer, and, and in the case of a clock or a computer or a car, I know how it’s made. It’s made by engineers with drawing boards and they… put together the parts and, and those parts all work together. [T]he equivalent of the engineer in the world of nature is evolution by natural selection.”

I am an English literature major and an attorney. In both disciplines, the ability to draw connections, and distinctions, and juxtapositions between and among word meanings and concepts is essential. Attorneys are professionals in comparing and contrasting facts and circumstances to be to argue (consistent with clients’ interests) that laws either apply in the same way or do not apply in the same way to similar but different sets of facts and circumstances. Perhaps, this why I noticed that Richard Dawkins made a category error. Or did he?

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Is Your Faith Determined by Where You Live, Your Parents and Your Culture?

People do tend to adopt the faith perspective that is predominant where they live, that their parents had, and in the society in which they were raised, but….

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Richard Dawkins famously claims that religion and faith are a product of where people live and the influence of their parents and the culture in which they live. A quick look at data on religious faith might suggest Dawkins is right.

On other hand, Richard Dawkins was raised in the Anglican faith and was confirmed at the age of 13. He didn’t remain a Christian, though. In his later teens, he rejected the God and religion he was raised to believe in and the religion he was confirmed in.

Dawkins, himself, proves the falsehood of his own claims – unless, of course, Dawkins is the extremely rare outlier.

Dawkins’ assertion is generally true if we take a quick look at the data, but even the data reveals it isn’t so simple. People who live in areas in which religious belief is enforced by law and social custom tend to remain (at least) nominally loyal to that religious belief, but there are significant outliers in the data.

Iran, for instance, had 100,000-300,000 Christians in 1979, comprised of ethnic Armenians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans who had lived there for centuries. Organizations like ELAM Ministries and Transform Iran reported only 300-500 Muslim converts to Christianity in 1979.

In 1979, revolution dethroned the Shah formed an Islamic state. Since that time, Islam has been enforced by law and strong social mores. Onerous legal and social penalties are imposed on people who convert from Islam to other religions, including physical punishment, social exile, imprisonment, and even death.

For the past 44 years, Iranians who decided to become Christians have been persecuted with religious zeal and governmental force. (The World’s Fastest Growing Church, July, 20, 2023 (International Christian Concern)) “All missionaries were kicked out, evangelism was outlawed, Bibles in the Persian or Farsi language were banned and several pastors killed.” (A spiritual revolution in Iran?, September 16, 2020) Global Christian Relief))

Some people report that the number of Armenian, Assyrian, and Chaldean Christians has slowly dwindled to around 100,000. (See The World’s Fastest Growing Church) This kind of outcome is to be expected in a country like Iran in which one religion is not only predominant; it is enforced by legal decree and social coercion.

Unexpectedly, though, the number of Muslim converts has risen exponentially since 1979 according to faith-based groups that support them. Until recently, the claims of exponential growth in Muslim conversions to Christianity in Iran were largely anecdotal reports from faith-based organization.

Those claims have recently been affirmed by the secular, Netherlands-based research group, GAMAAN. A 2020 poll of 50,000 Iranians aged 20+ Iranians shows that 1.5 percent of then identify as Christian. (Survey supports claims of nearly 1 million Christians in Iran, Aug, 27, 2020, (Article 18)) With a population of 80M+, that works out to 1,200,000 Islamic converts to Christianity in 2020. (See A spiritual revolution in Iran?)

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The Problem of the Intelligibility of the Universe

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The Milky Way

“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” Albert Einstein

I am intrigued by the stories of peoples’ journeys, especially of their thought journeys. Some are more intriguing than others. The story of Pat Flynn fits squarely into the more intriguing category. (See the Side B Stories Podcast – Episode 78 – Science, Philosophy, and Reality – Pat Flynn’s Story)

Patrick Flynn has an educational background in philosophy. He embraced naturalism at an early age, but he encountered philosophical problems with naturalism when he read people like HL Menken and Frederick Nietzsche. These problems led him to seek answers that might provide a more coherent view of reality.

I am not going to try to summarize his whole story. You can listen to him describe his thought journey at the link in the first paragraph. I just want to focus on one aspect of his journey from atheism to theism.

Flynn’s journey took him from atheism to theism through the medium of philosophy. This process was intellectual for him, and not experiential. He became convinced of theism, first, before he even told his spouse, because he knew she was not particularly fond of religion.

He didn’t dive into Christianity after he became convinced of theism. He explored Eastern religions, first, perhaps because he had a good friend who was Indian. When the Eastern religions didn’t solve the philosophical problems posed by naturalism, he reluctantly began to explore Christianity.

One of the big issues Flynn had with atheism was the lack of explanation for the fact the universe is intelligible. Digging further, Patrick Flynn found that the fundamental, core commitments of science fit much better with theism than with atheism.

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Exploring the Edges of Our Knowledge on Matters of Science and Faith

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As often is the case with me as I read, listen to discussions, and watch YouTube videos, a number of strands from those media come together. I am going to attempt to weave some of those strands together today as I tackle the edges of our human limitations, dark matter, and knowing God.

In a recent discussion between Saleem Ali and Stephen Meyer on the Unbelievable! podcast, Some things that Ali said prompted me to want to respond. I wrote of the discussion recently in What is the Basic Order of the Universe? Bottom Up? Or Top Down? But, today, I want to take my observations a bit further.

Saleem Ali has a background in chemistry and environmental studies, and Stephen Meyer has a background in physics, history and the philosophy of science. In their discussion, Meyer argues that our study of the physical world reveals evidence for a God who created it (a top-down design). In Ali’s response, I agree with his statement that certain things are unknowable to human beings because of our empirical limitations.

Ali said these things to highlight that we cannot know with scientific certainty that God exists. I agree with that. I would simply add this: Because science is the study of the natural, physical world, and humans are creatures of the natural, physical world, we are constrained to the limitations of the natural, physical world in our scientific endeavors.

Ali also admits that we may not ever be able to know the origin of the causes of the universe, or of the origin of the laws of physics, or of the origin of life because these things would require us to search beyond the parameters of the constraints of the natural, physical world in which we are bound.

Since we, ourselves, are physical creatures in a world that is limited by physical constraints, we may never know with scientific certainty what else exists.  

This assumes, however, that we have no capacity to know of anything that exists beyond the natural world. Some people are content to foreclose the idea that we are incapable of knowing anything that is not material and physical in nature. I am not convinced, and I see evidence that we are not so limited.

We have basically two choices: 1) assume that the existence of the universe is nothing more than a brute fact; or 2) assume that the universe had a creator. We can either resign ourselves to agnosticism or choose to test one of those two assumptions.

I made the assumption that the universe makes more sense on the premise of a creator, and I have been testing that hypothesis ever since. I won’t apologize for making that assumption, and the degree to which I have tested that assumption has not left my unsatisfied.

To those people want to judge me on that point, I say that you may be in a worse position than me to be a judge. I assume an intellect far greater than me created me with intellect. I do not trust it on my own account. On what basis do you have confidence in your intellect and agency that derived merely from inert, unintelligent matter?

To the extent that you believe your reasoning power evolved from lower life forms, why do you have confidence in the reasoning of a monkey’s mind? I say this not of my own accord; I am applying Darwin’s reasoning that he applied to own his convictions. (See Reflections on Faith and Atheism and Universal Design Intuition and Darwin’s Blind Spot))

As hints of the painter appear in his painting, our study of the natural world can (and does I believe) give us hints of the God who created it. We see the personality of the painter in his painting as we see the personality of God in His creation – including the creation of human beings.

I cannot prove that, just as I could not prove the painter by virtue of his painting. If I had no connection with the painter and knew no one who knew him, my knowledge of him would be mere speculation. But, I would be right in assuming a painter.

Ali says that finite creatures such as ourselves are going to encounter a certain amount of mystery and awe, but that mystery and awe does not necessarily validate a theistic explanation. Mystery and awe by themselves do not warrant a conclusion that God exists. I agree with him on the statement, as far as it goes, and I think we need to be candid about these things.

If God exists, who preexisted, and caused the universe and all things that we know to come into being, including ourselves, we may be cut off from knowing that God and from viewing that causality by our physical limitations and the physical limitations of the universe in which we are bound. Even if the universe hints of Him, we may be incapable of knowing Him by our own abilities because of our limitations.

The only exception I can think of would be for such a God to reveal himself in some way to us. Of course, that is the claim of theism.

We do not know the painter of a painting unless we meet him, and we cannot know the God of the universe unless we “meet” Him in some way. We might be able to track down the painter of a painting, because that painter exists within the same bounds of the same world as we do. Because of our limitations, however, God would have to introduce Himself to us.

That is the claim of people who claim to have “met” God in some fashion. We can explore those claims as we can explore the claims of anyone who witnessed an event or met a person we we have not met ourselves, but let’s lay that aside for the moment.

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A Preface to the Problem of the Origin of Life

The problem of the origin of life is an Achilles heel, not for science, but for the materialist

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Particles of DNA strands flying through space to Earth.
Concept of the origin of life. Elements of this image furnished by NASA.

Michael Guillen, who obtained degrees in physics and mathematics from Cornell University, where he studied under Carl Sagan and Fred Hoyle, and who taught physics at Harvard University, has a podcast in which he addresses the problem of the origin of life (among many other things). (See Science + God with Dr. G. Episode #44)

Guillen was an atheist into his late 20’s or early 30’s. Then he became a theist, and then a Christian. He has always been a “science guy”, however.

You can find the explanation of how he gravitated from atheism to Christianity in earlier episodes of the podcast. I am not going to address it here. I want to address the origin of life problem using this particular episode as a backdrop because I think he explains the problem well.

Before I do that, I want to preface the origin of life problem and put it in some context. The unspoken and unexamined assumptions we make can cloud our understanding, so I want to seek a little clarity first.

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