Why Dawkins should believe in God

The modernist consensus would have one believe that William Paley was a poor philosopher, whose teleological argument for the existence of God has been destroyed by the theory of evolution by natural selection, as propounded by Darwin and his latter-day disciple, Richard Dawkins. On the first count I would have to render a grudging assent, although I might add that The God Delusion, Dawkins’ pathetic attempt to engage in theological philosophy, surpasses by light years Paley’s crude watchmaker analogy in its lack of any clearly formulated logical argument. But it is the issue of the Watchmaker which presently concerns me, that is to say the validity of inferring the existence of God from the evidence of design in the world. With regard to this particular theistic argument, Dawkins presents a more persuasive rebuttal, not via logic (which he seems incapable of comprehending) but rather via the results of the scientific method, indicating both the possibility of arriving at complex organisms from simple structures without any designer, and the probability, on the basis of the evidence, that such a process actually occurred. This being so, one is certainly not justified in drawing the conclusion that the appearance of design in the universe necessitates the existence of a universal designer, as the alternative of The Blind Watchmaker is not only possible, but highly probable. Having admitted all this, it may come as a shock that I regard the teleological argument, properly formulated, as persuasive. The problem with most such arguments, however, almost always lies with the existence, or rather the non-existence, of a properly formulated version. St. Anselm laid the ontological argument open to the so-called ‘Buddhist objection’ by stating vaguely that existence is greater than non-existence. If he had defined his concept of greatness, say in terms of number of qualities, that objection could be dismissed with contempt, but as he failed to do so it has done great harm to the reputation of his argument. The same is true of the teleological argument. The crux of this argument is not really evidence of design but rather the principle of causality. By this I mean the principle by which one presumes non-existence unless a reason is given for existence. If one accepts nothingness as the state of nature, then one must always posit a positive reason for anything. A teleological argument based on causality thus runs like this; the existence of something implies a reason for its existence which is also a thing and as the universe is a thing, its existence requires a reason, which can only be God. The evidence of design is the very existence of the universe, which implies a telos, a reason, an end. This formulation of the teleological I argument I think justifiable, for the reasons I shall now set out.

Coke once said that ‘Magna Carta … will have no Sovereign’, by which he meant that it was such a fundamental law that if its validity was questioned the whole constitutional system, including the monarchy, would logically be questioned along with it. A similar thing may be said for causality, just read ‘scientific method’ for ‘constitutional system’. Consider the logical formulation of the ideal scientific method; in a given situation one occurrence is solely preceded by another, and thus the scientist claims that the first thing occurring was the reason for the second thing occurring. Of course, this theory can rarely, if ever, be put into practice; the most a scientist can say is that as far as one can see, taking all precautions humanly possible etc., in a given situation one occurrence is solely preceded by another, and thus the first thing occurring was the reason for the second thing occurring, with the aforesaid limiting formula being necessarily added to the conclusion as well. This, however, does not change the ideal scientific method beyond the addition of a limiting formula, and as the practical scientific method derives the legitimacy of its more hesitant conclusions from the knowledge that the ideal scientific method would yield logically certain conclusions, it is the latter method that will be considered. Logically formulating this method formally, in terms of premises and conclusions, would result in the following:

1. In a given situation, occurrence Y is solely preceded by occurrence X
2. Occurrence X is thus the reason for occurrence Y happening

On the validity of this argument rests the validity of the scientific method. Regardless of whether one is justified to proceed from a given situation to a universal rule by induction, if one cannot justifiably say that even in a given situation X is the reason for Y then the scientist has no capacity to come to any scientific conclusion whatsoever. Now it is apparent that in order for conclusion 2 to logically follow from premise 1 one must supply an antecedent premise 0, that is:

0. Every occurrence has a reason, which is also an occurrence

If premise 0 is not true then one is not justified in drawing conclusion 2 from premise 1. Only if it absolutely necessary to posit a reason for an occurrence, which is also an occurrence, can one say that the preceding of Y by X alone entails that X is the reason for Y, as Y will require an explanation which is an occurrence, and as X is the only other occurrence available it must that explanation. Premise 0, the principle of causality, is thus the Magna Carta of the scientific method; the truth of the former must be accepted if the truth of the latter is also to be accepted. If it is rational to believe in science, it is rational to believe in causality. The scientific method, logically formulated in full, must therefore run thus:

0. Every occurrence has a reason, which is also an occurrence
1. In a given situation, occurrence Y is solely preceded by occurrence X
2. Occurrence X is thus the reason for occurrence Y happening

Dawkins prides himself on his belief in science, and as I have just shown, that belief logically rests on an acceptance of causality. Thus, by believing in the scientific method, Dawkins, and I would hope the majority of humanity, enter the realm of teleological arguments; we all must accept that things have a reason and a purpose of some sort if we wish to use science to arrive at knowledge. I have not, nor was it my intention, to prove that causality is a rationally necessary principle; I merely state that if one thinks oneself rational in believing in the scientific method, then one must think oneself rational in believing in causality. Here I must beg leave to destroy a miserable subterfuge employed by enemies of the cosmological and teleological arguments, namely the fact that the supposed results of the scientific method indicate electrons appearing for no reason whatsoever, so-called Heisenbergian uncertainty. These results are used as evidence that causality is not a true principle. It is surely evident, however, that these results are invalid as they contradict the method by which they were arrived at. It is not legitimate for a conclusion of a particular methodology to destroy the methodology which produced it. The absurdity of the opposite statement can be demonstrated if we adapt the logical formulation of the scientific method to the circumstances of a Heisenbergian uncertainty experiment:

0. Every occurrence has a reason, which is also an occurrence
1. In a given situation, the occurrence of an electron appearing is solely preceded by nothing whatsoever
2. Nothing whatsoever is the reason for the occurrence of an electron appearing

Any scientific conclusion that tries to deny causality must, as seen above, be rejected, as the two premises from which it was drawn are contradictory, and in any case it does not logically follow from the premises. The principle of causality must therefore be accepted with the same degree of certainty as the scientific method itself.

Returning to the teleological argument based on causality that I have proposed, it is clear that the first premise, that the existence of something implies a reason for that thing, which is also a thing, is as rationally justified as the scientific method itself. Dawkins at least, therefore, ought to accept it as true, and thus also accept its logical consequences. If causality is true, then just as one cannot say that an electron’s appearance is due to nothing, one must equally posit a reason for everything finite, the former, of necessity being infinite. The logical formulation of the scientific method can again be used to demonstrate the truth of this statement:

0. Every occurrence has a reason, which is also an occurrence
1. The occurrence of everything finite is solely preceded by occurrence X
2. Occurrence X is thus the reason for the occurrence of everything finite

Perhaps my choice of language here has been clumsy; the word occurrence seems to imply only events, whereas causality, as demonstrated previously, applies to everything. But this is only nit-picking; if one wishes one can read ‘thing’ for occurrence, or use any other term to signify members of the universal set. The argument would not be damaged by such a substitution. As all will immediately notice, the reason I have posited for everything finite is an unspecified occurrence X. The crucial question is thus, what can X stand for which will yield a sound argument? Clearly it cannot stand for ‘nothing’, for the reasons given in the previous paragraph. If X were to stand for something, however, the argument would be valid. Yet this does not prove God; the something, after all, could be merely a particle. In order for the argument to be sound, though, the conclusion must not just follow from the premises, the premises themselves have to be true. Now if X were to stand for any finite thing premise 1 could not be true, as it would entail a contradiction; if X precedes the occurrence of everything finite, then it obviously cannot be finite itself. One therefore must come to the conclusion that X is something, and that it is not finite, in other words, it is an infinite thing. To reformulate the argument:

0. Every occurrence has a reason, which is also an occurrence
1. The occurrence of everything finite is solely preceded by occurrence X
2. Occurrence X is an occurrence of a thing that is not finite, that is, infinite
3. The occurrence of an infinite thing is thus the reason for the occurrence of everything finite

Again, for occurrence one may legitimately read ‘existence’, ‘thing’ etc. It is conceivable that one might accept the conclusion that an infinite thing is the reason for existence of the universe, but reject the proposition that that thing matches the classical definition of God. An infinite thing, as opposed to quality, however, implies complete unlimitedness, that is, a thing which is infinite in infinite respects, rather than infinite in just one (which is anyway contradictory as you cannot set the quality of unlimitedness in the bounds of a finite quality). It therefore matches the classical definition of God, the reason why the universe exists.

Central to the argument of The Blind Watchmaker is the notion that evolution by natural selection is a simple mechanism by which the mystery of existence can be explained, whereas God is an ‘organised complexity’ which, while it admittedly does explain our existence, fails to provide justification for the belief that it is the most probable mechanism of creation. Yet, as seen above, the scientific method which yielded the theory of evolution is dependent on the principle of causality, which logically leads to the conclusion that the universe exists because of God. All evolution does is push the moment of general design back to the beginning, it does not, and cannot as a scientific theory, dispense with the need for an ultimate reason to explain the universe. This can only be God. In one of his television series, Dawkins cites an example of an aged scientist instantly recanting his life’s work when presented with evidence that it was wrong. I would suggest he does so himself in the matter of God’s existence, otherwise his faith in science must logically fall along with the deity he seeks to topple.