A Review of the God Delusion (Part 7)
The fourth chapter of The God Delusion finally gets to an argument that we do hear Creationists make. Dawkins titled this chapter: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God. As Brother Warren pointed out in his debate with Antony G. N. Flew, it is not sufficient to say that God probably does not exist. An atheist must affirm: I know that God does not exist. Theists do not defend hunches. We do not argue, I think God exists or God probably exists. We affirm, I know God exists. This statement is true; it can be proven, and it is something about which we cannot possibly be mistaken. Another proposition we confidently affirm is, I know that the Bible is the Word of God.
If Dawkins truly means that he is almost certain there is no God, then for all he knows, God could exist. He tries to discredit the argument from design. He says that Fred Hoyle made this argument: the probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a 747.
Dawkins talks about Creationists referring to a measure of improbability. No. The above scenario is not improbable; it is impossible, and everyone knows it. Why is it impossible? It cannot happen because random and chaotic forces show evidence of destruction ot design. A hurricane has no mind and no intelligence. It cannot make plans that show a design. God might use a strong east wind to cause the sea to go back and make it into dry ground for Israel to cross it (Ex. 14:21). Such an occurrence was by design; no hurricane ever divided the waters, allowing people to cross over to safety, and then collapsed upon their enemies when they tried to do the same thing.
Hurricanes and floods do not have the intelligence to design anything. Nobody is selling et ornado-designed watches after one swept through a mobile home park. Dawkins knows these things don t happen, either; so he tried to destroy the analogy. Actually, the two situations are not entirely analogous. The hurricane has a head start; it has a junkyard containing various objects. How can he prove that matter came into existence out of nothing? Or does he think matter is eternal? Since there is another alternative (God), he cannot assume matter is eternal; he must prove it. In either case, design has never been produced by random forces.
Dawkins thinks that Darwin disproved design by natural selection. Does natural selection have anything to do with the design that exists in the universe? Does it have anything to do with origins? According to the Internet, it refers to a mechanism of evolution that explains how organisms that are better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. Obviously, one must have life for natural selection to work. Apparently, Dawkins thinks nature is able, through environment, to create design.
Half a Wing
Dawkins endeavors to justify imperfect body parts on the basis that they are better than nothing. He refers to a bird with half a wing. That half could save the bird s life by easing its fall from a tree (149). Uh, how did it get up in the tree with only half a wing? If the answer is that it was born there, then how will it get off the ground to escape a predator r get back up in the tree? Does anyone take such absurdities seriously? Somehow, the half a wing theory is supposed to wreck the intelligent design theory (151).
And how does he explain symbiotic relationships? Both aspects of the relationship must occur at the same time, as explained by Eric Lyons in Discovery Magazine:
Have you ever thought about how bees, plants, and symbiosis point to a Creator? If bees need plant life to survive, and many kinds of plant life need insects (especially honeybees) to reproduce, then both vegetation and insects would need to have been created at virtually the same time. The Bible indicates that God made all plant and animal life within three days of each other. On the other hand, evolution says that everything evolved gradually over millions of years. Yet, how could flowers that needed help being pollinated and bees that needed pollen and nectar from flowers, have been separated by millions of years and still survived? They couldn t. In truth, the sweet symbiotic relationship between honeybees and vegetation is just another proof for Creation and against evolution.
The fact is that there is not just one symbiotic relationship in existence; there is a whole host of them. Without both counterparts in evidence, they would not have survived the evolution process.
Dr. Warren challenged Dr. Flew to explain how evolution could begin with lifeless rocks and dirt and develop the intricate systems that occur in the human body. He spoke of the marvelous interchange of oxygen in the air and carbon dioxide in the blood nd asserted that without that interchange a human being could not live longer than a few minutes. The chart appears on page 62 of The Warren-Flew Debate. Brother Warren explains:
There must occur in the human lungs, in the alveoli, the air passage and the blood passage, an osmosis of oxygen into the blood from the air and carbon dioxide from the blood into the air passage. This occurs because of a difference of pressure tension in the air passage of the oxygen particles as over again what is in the oxygen of the blood. So the oxygen in the air passes through the capillary wall into the blood but the carbon dioxide, because of a difference of pressure in the carbon dioxide in the blood and in the air, passes through the capillary wall into the air, and therefore, it could not have evolved since all atheists recognize that it demands millions of years to bring about changes which involve such complexity (58, 62).
In fact, it is design that eventually persuaded Flew that God does exist. Flew decided to follow the evidence wherever it leads, wrote Jonathan Witt, Ph. D. in the article, Famous Atheist Changes His Mind, published in the January, 2007 issue of Think (9). Flew is quoted as saying: It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design (9). Considering the intricacies of DNA, how could one logically conclude otherwise? Dawkins cannot hope to overturn the evidence of design, including symbiotic relationships, with his half-a-wing gambit.
Defense?
The focus of discussion now shifts. Dawkins seeks to defend evolution with statements he would never let Creationists get by with nd then attacking all Creationists on the basis of what one argues. He charges that Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding (151). Do we seek gaps or just acknowledge that they exist? Hundreds and thousands of gaps exist in the evolutionary chain. They do not exist because Creationists put them there. Intermediate life forms simply cannot be found. When evolutionists think they have found even one, they trumpet their find from one end of the earth to the other ven if they have to fudge and manipulate the data.
He goes on to say: If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default must fill it (151). If that isn t a convoluted smattering of gibberish, what is? Which came first he Bible or Darwinian evolution? Hmm. The books of the Bible were written by the end of the first century .D. 96 at the latest. Darwin published On the Origin of Species in A.D. 1859 763 years later. Yet, Christians are the ones filling gaps? We don t have any gaps. God created all the land and sea animals on days 5 and 6. Man was created on the sixth day as well.
It is evolution that insists God did not do what He said He did nd that animals evolved over millions of years. When flaws are pointed out in this explanation, he has the temerity to blame theists with inventing God to fill in the gaps. Which explanation existed first? And which one needs to fill its own gaps? God revealed to mankind the fact that He created the world. If man wants to invent some other explanation (which, by the way, will not be true), the responsibility falls upon him to make it plausible. Theists merely point out why this Johnny-Come-Lately theory is flawed.
Dawkins opines: Admissions of ignorance and temporary mystification are vital to good science (152). Would he let Christians get away with such a statement as, Admissions of ignorance and temporary mystification are vital to good theology ? Hah! Even if he would, we do not operate by such wisdom.
The theory of evolution has been around for more than 150 years; the gaps are still there despite frantic searching for fossils all over the world to substantiate what cannot be proven. Dawkins adds, It is utterly illogical to demand complete documentation of every step of any narrative 153). If theists held to a theory that could not be proved, we might make the same argument. But Christianity has proof ot excuses.
Augustine
One thing that Dawkins is actually good at is finding erroneous statements made by theists and then pretending that all theists agree with it. He does so with respect to Augustine, who said:
There is another form of temptation even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this that drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which man should not wish to learn (159).
Our response to Dawkins is, Would you like to know what else we disagree with Augustine about? We would be glad to send you a list of theological doctrines concerning which we strongly oppose. Christianity does not oppose true science (which evolution is not). Go ahead. Research what makes this world tick. Discover why things work the way they do. Go where the evidence leads. But you will not like it, Richard, because, in the final analysis, it will support what the Bible teaches about God. It will never verify Darwin.
Dr. Warren s Argument
Dr. Thomas B. Warren used this argument in his debate with Antony G. N. Flew in 1986. Flew could not answer it; the well-read Richard Dawkins did not deal with it at all. It is found on page 101 of the debate.
Either Creation or Evolution is true (re: man s origin).
Creation implies God.
Evolution implies that two non-human parents gave birth to a human being or that a non-human being was at some point transformed into a human being.
It was not by birth (lack of evidence).
It was not by transformation (lack of evidence).
It was not by birth or transformation (the only 2 choices).
Therefore, Evolution is not true.
Therefore, Creation is true.
Therefore, God exists.
Someone might say that earth was populated by space aliens. That idea does not change the above logical conclusion. How did the aliens come into existence? That s right y Creation or Evolution. Flew agreed that no non-humans gave birth to a human being or were transformed into human beings. Would Dawkins care to so assert? Or is this one of his admissions of ignorance?