2021. május 21., péntek

Faith arguments Part 5

19:05 - Lennox: D argues that things go from the simple to the complex, God, by definition, is more complex than the thing one is explaining, so He has got to be explained. (D agrees.)
The simple -> complex approach is intuitive, but not necessarily correct at its extreme: having eternal matter in place is not simpler than having an eternal God. You cannot explain either, and if you're willing to accept either as a given, God will explain the rest, while matter won't.
19:43 - Dawkins: When you drop a stone, it falls to the ground, and you as a scientist will explain that by gravity. You wouldn't dream of saying, "God must be pushing it down". That is, in effect, what L is saying about evolution. (L disagrees.) We understand evolution even better than gravity.
We don't know the origin of gravity any better than the origin of God, so D's point gives a false impression. Also, L will tell you that God is not normally supposed to interfere with gravity, He's seen as the Creator, rather than the supplanter, of gravity. Gravity vs God is a false dichotomy.
20:09 - Lennox: D opposes science and God as explanations. Newton didn't say, now that he's discovered gravity, he doesn't need God. God is an explicator as an agent, not as a mechanism. The more sophisticated a mechanism is, the more it points toward an agent.
Newton's unshaken faith in God is only a point of interest, not an argument. The Christian God is an agent, but the deist God is not, or not all the time. How sophisticated a mechanism is is very much in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, sophistication is not a strong argument in God's favour.
20:55 - 21:37 Dawkins: You do get rid of an agent, if the agent is superfluous to the explanation. You're watching a car avoiding obstacles on the road, there is an agent, i.e. a driver. But we don't need an agent for biology/gravity. Newton was a theist, because he lived in the 17th century, when everbody was. An agent is a gratuitous grafting-on of something you don't need.
D has a point here: if you can explain a phenomenon by a mechanism, you don't (and shouldn't) use God as an explicator. However, nothing is explained in its entirety until its origin has been explained, i.e. God can only be left out of the processes we have mechanical explanations for. Note that the process of the simplest forms of life coming into existence does not have a mechanical explanation - so obviously, you can't leave God out of it. At most, you can will God out, but that doesn't necessarily make the idea true.

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