August 2008
Answering The New Atheists, Part 1:
Escape From Reason
Greg Koukl
Occasionally I run across something that is so
valuable to me that I just have to pass it along to you. The recent
May/June issue of Solid Ground contained an article on the New Atheism
by Greg Koukl, President of Stand To Reason.* I
present it here in full for your edification. . . .
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The so-called “New Atheists” grabbing the
headlines lately have been creating a stir. These are old-school
modernists with an attitude. They’re angry. Not only is theism false and
religion inherently irrational, according to them, religious people are
dangerous.
Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion,
compares the evils of religion to the evils of smallpox, “but harder to
eradicate.” He equates religious faith with mental illness. According to
Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, religion is so bad it should be
eliminated like slavery was. Christopher Hitchens’s title speaks for
itself: god [sic] Is Not Great—How Religion Poisons Everything.
A closer look at their arguments, however,
reveals serious weakness. There’s really nothing new about the “new”
atheism except, perhaps, the belligerence. No new breakthroughs in
science, discoveries in history, or developments in philosophy have
overturned theism in general or Christianity in particular.
On the contrary, the more we learn, the
stronger our case becomes. Just recently one of the preeminent
philosophical atheists in the world, Antony Flew, did a dramatic
about-face and embraced theism on the strength of the scientific
evidence for a designer.
Nevertheless, the assault has continued. The
New Atheists generally do not argue for atheism. Instead, they attack
religion. And they are very good at it. These writers have tremendous
rhetorical appeal, overwhelming their opponents with dozens of
objections fired off in rapid succession.
Though I do not have space here to parry every
allegation, most of the objections fall into three specific categories.
The New Atheists think reason is on their side, science is on their
side, and morality is on their side. In the next three issues of Solid
Ground, I want to show they are wrong on each count. I’ll take on the
question of rationality first.
Since these challengers take the side of
reason, we need to take a moment and see exactly how careful thinking
works.
In any debate, there are always two distinct
elements in play: substance and style. These are often confused with
each other. Those good at gamesmanship are sometimes persuasive for the
wrong reasons. In order to separate the wheat from the chaff, you need a
game plan based on the fundamental skills of critical thinking.
A Crash Course in Critical Thinking
The primary purpose of reason is to help us
discover what is true. The primary tool of reason is argument. An
argument is a specific kind of thing. Think of it like a simple house, a
roof supported by walls. The roof is the conclusion, and the walls are
the supporting ideas. If the walls are solid, the conclusion rests
securely on its supporting structure. If the walls collapse, the roof
comes down, and the argument is defeated.
The task of critical thinking is to weed out
distracting or irrelevant details so you have an unobstructed view of
the structure of the core argument and can assess its strength. This
involves a simple, four-step plan.
First ask, “What is the claim?” This may
seem like an obvious initial step, but you’ll be surprised how often we
charge ahead without having a clear fix on a target. Take a moment to
isolate the precise point being made. Write it down in unambiguous terms
if you need to. In this case, the claim is clear: God does not exist.
Second ask, “What are the reasons given to
support the claim?” The person making the point is trying to
persuade you to believe him. How is he doing that? Sometimes the
rationale is obvious, but not always. The more troublesome appeals are
implicit, hidden in the rhetoric. Pay close attention and note what you
discover.
Third ask, “Which appeals are irrelevant?”
This is the “weeding” step and it’s the most difficult because you have
to know what counts as a relevant reason and what does not. Appeals are
frequently unrelated to the claim. These include any attack on a
person’s character, psychology, circumstances, or culture.
For example, ridicule and scorn are not
evidence. Simply labeling an idea as silly, simplistic, or
unsophisticated does nothing to disprove the idea itself. True, many
religious people are foolish and gullible, but so are many non-religious
people. This observation gets you nowhere.
Some Christians may be hypocrites—fakers.
Church-goers may have all sorts of vices, but this tells you nothing
about Christ. It may be that many Christians born in America would be
Muslim if born in Iraq. This may tell you something about culture and
psychology, but it tells you nothing of the relative merits of
Christianity vs. Islam. For some, God is a crutch, but that doesn’t
prove there is no God to hold them.
Each of these is a rabbit trail because none
addresses the issue. As one has said, “You cannot disprove a belief
unless you disprove its content.” The atheist’s question is simple: Does
God exist? Any appeal that does not speak directly to that question is
an irrelevant, irrational intrusion. Anyone who advances such an appeal
is being unreasonable. Weed out the nonsense.
Finally ask, “Does the conclusion follow
from the evidence?" Once you isolate the structure of the argument,
it’s time to test the walls (the reasons) to see if they are strong
enough to keep the roof (the claim or point of view) from tumbling down.
Are the factual claims accurate? Do the reasons give adequate support
for the claim?
For example, Christopher Hitchens notes that
any person looking to nature for evidence of design must face the fact
that 98% of all species ever “designed” are now extinct. This he takes
as evidence against a Designer.
But is this a good reason to deny God? What
logical link is there between the design of a created artifact—whether a
species or a buggy whip—and its demise? Even something perfectly
designed is crafted with particular circumstances in mind. When
conditions change, its usefulness may have run its course. When
carriages give way to cars, buggy whips disappear. When wetlands dry up,
frogs fade into oblivion. Extinction may tell you something about
circumstances. It tells you nothing about design.
Since Hitchens’s conclusion does not follow
from his evidence, this argument fails. The rules of reason show him to
be unreasonable at this point.
Dawkins’s Delusion
Richard Dawkins fares no better. In his case,
we do not need to dig for the argument. On pages 157-8 of The God
Delusion, Dawkins summarizes what he calls the “central argument” of his
book. The substance is as follows:
1. One of the greatest challenges to the
human intellect has been to explain how the complex, improbable
appearance of design in the universe arises.
2. The natural temptation is to attribute
the appearance of design to actual design itself.
3. The temptation is a false one because
the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who
designed the designer.
4. The most ingenious and powerful
explanation is Darwinian evolution by natural selection. The appearance
of design is an illusion.
5. We don't have an equivalent naturalistic
explanation for the apparent design features of physics.
6. We should not give up the hope of a
better explanation arising in physics, something as powerful as
Darwinism is for biology.
7. Therefore, God almost certainly does not
exist.
Now it’s time to do some weeding. The first
premise is an introductory observation. It may have literary value, but
it’s not part of the argument. Weed it out.
In (2), Dawkins notes the powerful, completely
rational tendency to infer design from the appearance of design. This is
a problem for him, so he offers (3) to rebut it. Regardless of the
legitimacy of (3) (I’ll address that below), notice that neither of
these points moves Dawkins closer to his conclusion. He does not intend
them to. Rather, he is trying to anticipate an objection and dispatch it
before it gets traction. Since Dawkins means (3) to cancel out (2) so he
can make room for his own naturalistic explanation for the appearance of
design, you can strike them both. Neither contribute to the core
argument.
(4) is a mini argument of its own (Darwinism
adequately explains the appearance of design. Therefore, this appearance
is an illusion. It is not evidence for God.) I’ll let it stand for the
moment.
(5) is not a premise. It’s a candid admission
of a problem. Dawkins thinks Darwinism provides an explanation for the
“illusion” of design in biology, but there s no such naturalistic
explanation for the appearance of design in the fine-tuned constants of
physics. He admits the problem, then punts. (6) is not evidence. It is
an article of faith. Since (5) and (6) have nothing to do with the
argument, eliminate them both.
Now that we have relieved Dawkins’s argument
of all its irrelevant and distractive details, this is what we are left
with:
4. The most ingenious and powerful
explanation [for the appearance of biological design] is Darwinian
evolution by natural selection. The appearance of design is an illusion.
7. Therefore, God almost certainly does not
exist.
As you can see now, our final step of analysis
is virtually effortless. Clearly, there is no rational connection
between (4) and (7). Even if we grant (4) - a highly controversial
point, given the amount of contrary evidence - Dawkins only succeeds in
showing that the design argument fails. It’s entirely possible
that other arguments succeed. Since there is nothing in Richard
Dawkins’s line of reasoning that contributes to his conclusion, the
central argument of his book is irrational.
In both of these cases, the rules of reason
show that the New Atheists have not taken the rational high ground. But
how does theism fare when put to the same test?
A Simple, No Frills Argument for God
The case for theism can be made with a simple
argument. It doesn’t trade on irrelevant attacks on atheists, but rather
on sound reasons for believing in God. When someone charges, “It’s not
rational to believe in God; there is no proof,” this straightforward
line of reasoning rebuts the charge.
Note in advance that I am defending the
rationality of theism, not the absolute certainty of it. Mine is a very
modest claim. If I succeed, then theists are within their rights to
believe in God.
My main premise is an uncontroversial,
self-evident principle: Every effect requires an adequate cause, and
nothing can cause itself. Simply put, things happen for reasons. Those
reasons have to be sufficient to explain what took place. Nothing that
happens made itself happen. Something else must have been the cause.
Three more premises are added, creating three
distinct arguments that all lead to the same conclusion:
A Big Bang (effect) needs a Big Banger (cause).
Design (effect) needs a designer (cause).
Moral law (effect) needs a moral law giver
(cause).
Therefore, God exists.
There are sophisticated ways of defending these
premises, but you don’t need them. A simple summary of the rationale for
each variation will do for most cases.
The first variation is called the cosmological
argument. That the universe had a beginning is completely
uncontroversial in virtually any circle, scientific or theological.
Something outside the natural, physical realm must have caused the
cosmos. Because of the nature of the effect—a massive, complex, material
world—something personal, powerful, and non-physical is the most likely
explanation.
What is more reasonable? The cosmos came from a
personal, powerful Creator outside the natural, material realm, or the
universe popped into existence out of nothing for no reason?
The second is called the teleological, or
design, argument. Richard Dawkins himself affirms that design needs a
designer. He begins his book, The Blind Watchmaker, with this sentence:
“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of
having been designed for a purpose.” He tacitly admits that something
must account for the intricate order. Though he thinks the mechanisms of
Darwinism are up to the design task in biology, it is dubious in the
extreme that the complex set of instructions in DNA, for example, have
no author. Design evident in physics has no such naturalistic
explanation, as Dawkins himself admits. Thus, the “fine tuning” argument
was largely responsible for the conversion of philosophical atheist
Antony Flew.
What is more reasonable? The intricate and
delicately balanced design in the universe—both in biology and in
physics—is an accident, or the “appearance” of design is the result of
an actual, intelligent Designer?
The third is called the moral argument. Even
though there is a relativistic impulse in our culture, when pressed,
virtually everyone affirms objective morality, including Christopher
Hitchens. Even those who deny morality contradict themselves in everyday
conversation. The person who says, “Morality is relative,” and then
says, “It’s wrong for you to push your morality on me,” or “We should
tolerate others,” or “We have an obligation to the poor,” proves my
point. Morality entails obligation, and we only have obligations towards
persons.
What is more reasonable? Transcendent moral
obligations have no explanation—there is no one we must obey and there
are no ultimate consequences for behavior, either good or bad—or
transcendent moral obligations are grounded in a transcendent personal
God who’s character defines goodness, to whom we are accountable, and
who will ultimately punish badness and reward goodness?
Each variation of this argument shows that
belief in God is rational, that there are good reasons to conclude God
exists. Even if it turns out that theists are mistaken, there is nothing
irrational about their conviction. Contrary to the New Atheists claim,
theism has a solid foundation in reason.
Who Designed the Designer?
But who made God? Richard Dawkins thinks theism
has “utterly failed” because apparently there is no answer to this
question. Sam Harris shares this conviction. The utter failure, however,
is with the objection, not with theism.
First, if you see shoeprints in the sand, you
don’t need to know the manufacturer of the shoe in order to know that
shoes made the imprints, not the accidental collision of seashells in
the surf. An explanation can be a good one even if you do not have an
explanation for the explanation.
Second, the objection commits the straw man
fallacy because it mischaracterizes our argument. Our main premise is
not, “Everything has a cause,” but rather, “All effects have causes.”
Though there are many empirical reasons to believe the cosmos is an
effect, there is no reason to think that an eternal, self-existent God
who exists outside of the natural world and physical time is an effect.
If everything must have a cause, we are pushed into a regress of
infinite causes with no ultimate beginning.
Moreover, God Himself is not “complex” in the
way the universe is. Philosopher William Lane Craig notes:
"As a
non-physical entity, a mind is not composed of parts….In contrast to the
contingent and variegated universe with all its inexplicable quantities
and constants, a divine mind is startlingly simple. Certainly such a
mind may have complex ideas—it may be thinking, for example, of the
infinitesimal calculus—but the mind itself is a remarkably simple
entity."
The “Who designed the designer?” objection
misses the mark widely. It creates no logical, rational limitation to
the argument for God based on the existence of the cosmos, design, or
morality.
Theism on the High Road
The New Atheists claim that reason is on their
side and that atheism represents the rational high road. My point in
this short piece was to show this is not the case. Though I have not
addressed each of their arguments—that would take a book—I have taken
representative examples from their writings to show they are often
irrational in the way they reason.
Theists, on the other hand, are well within
their rational rights to hold that God exists. The arguments I’ve
offered build from common-sense premises to a conclusion that seems to
be the most reasonable inference from the evidence provided. There are
no linguistic tricks, rhetorical ruses, rabbit trails, or red herrings.
The charge that belief in God is irrational is
common, but completely without basis. There is nothing unreasonable
about the idea of a personal God designing and creating the cosmos, or
grounding transcendent moral law. This is a thoughtful conclusion based
on the evidence.
By contrast, atheism seems more at odds with
good thinking. The arguments are often filled with irrelevant
distractions and logical fallacies, and the pertinent evidence does not
deliver the conclusion they are after.
In the next issue of Solid Ground, we will see
if the New Atheists fair any better with science.
Yours for the truth,
Greg Koukl, President
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I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Until
next month. . .
Without Wax-
Jim Osman
Footnotes:
* Stand to Reason
is an educational organization training ambassadors for Christ to
defend classical Christianity and classical Christian values in a
gracious, even-handed, yet incisive way. Greg Koukl is an award-winning
author and a radio talk show host. A central theme of his speaking and
writing is that Christianity can compete in the marketplace of ideas.
You can access their website at
www.str.org.
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