The Beauty of Creation
March 16, 2012
Michael Baruzzini
Richard Dawkins recently attracted attention for his admission that his atheism was more properly a scientific agnosticism. This admission, though it caught the notice of the media, was not really anything new for Dawkins, who has made similar concessions in the past. Dawkins’ approach to all knowledge is strictly scientific. And since scientific knowledge is always technically tentative, so too must his ostensibly scientific opinion of the non-existence of God. Dawkins dismisses God because he finds no scientific evidence for God, but he must make allowances for the fact that scientific knowledge is always expanding.
In the course of the same discussion, Dawkins made another, more interesting comment that has not received quite the same attention. Speaking to his believing conversational companion, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Dawkins said, “What I can’t understand is why you can’t see the extraordinary beauty of the idea that life started from nothing—that is such a staggering, elegant, beautiful thing, why would you want to clutter it up with something so messy as a God?”
The archbishop, rather than disputing, agreed with Dawkins about the beauty of the scientific description of the development of life. But he then explained that God was not an extra that was “shoehorned” onto the scientific explanation. Dawkins’ mistake, the archbishop attempted to show, was to suppose that the scientific explanation suffices, and the religious one is an unnecessary complication. The beauty that Dawkins finds in science is not challenged by belief in God; it presupposes it.
Beauty is something reasonable. The beauty of scientific explanation comes from seeing that the arrangement of things is so ordered to produce the phenomena we observe. The scientist begins with a mess of clues and an unfinished puzzle. He begins with a mystery. He seeks that moment when the pieces fall into place. Dawkins’ picture of scientific beauty comes from seeing just this arrangement in evolution, in the material development of the universe. But where creation presents a unified theme returning, finally, to reason, atheistic scientism must insist that at bottom is only unreason.
Dawkins supposes that the doctrine of creation requires a Divine Tinkerer, interfering with or co-opting the natural beauty present in the workings of the natural world. Whether or not God tinkered with creation in the manner envisioned by creationism or some versions of intelligent design, such tinkering is neither necessary to the doctrine of creation nor is it the source of the beauty seen by the believer.
To use an analogy previously developed by Stephen Barr, to ask whether God or evolution created life is like asking whether Shakespeare or Hamlet killed Polonius. If there is no Shakespeare, Hamlet’s act is meaningless. It is merely the accidental arrangement of ink on a page. If there is a Shakespeare, however, his existence as the creator of the literary Denmark does not obviate the drama of the play. It is rather a necessary prerequisite for it. Shakespeare, as a playwright, is not a competitor with the drama of the play.
God as creator is not in competition with the beauty and causality of nature. Nor is God an unnecessary ornament added as a beautiful but superfluous extra onto the complete and subtle explanations offered by science, anymore than Shakespeare is a superfluity to the play Hamlet. The beauty seen in the working out of nature’s laws is not commandeered by God; God is the source of it, just as Shakespeare is the source of the drama in Hamlet.
Old debates about evolution often turned on the question of whether a million monkeys could accidentally type Hamlet in a given amount of time. The more important question is whether Hamlet could even be Hamlet, whether typed by monkeys or no. In recognizing the text of Hamlet, we see something beyond letters on a page. In recognizing the beauty in nature uncovered by science, both the believer and Dawkins see something beyond an arrangement of atoms. The believer can trace the source of this beauty to an ultimate source and declare that it is real. Dawkins must trace this beauty to a mere subjective reaction, and declare that it is an illusion. In presenting beauty as evidence against the archbishop, Dawkins invokes something that he, as an atheist, cannot finally believe in. He highlights something that the archbishop’s faith can plausibly give grounding to, but his atheism cannot. Dawkins attempts to challenge the believer with a weapon only the believer can legitimately wield.
But we cannot blame Dawkins too much: He accepts the evidence of what he sees even over the conclusions of his ideology. Recognition of the divine is something that flows naturally from contemplation of nature. Philosophically, the mind knows that mere matter as such cannot be the source of the beauty that the mind sees, and looks beyond it to find a source. The heart also, even the heart of the scientist, is moved to rise above mere physical description and be lifted into wonder, marveling, and praise.
Michael Baruzzini writes from Colorado Springs.
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Comments:
3.16.2012 | 7:48am
Dolt says:
Dawkins agnosticism is really a " desire" to know God. He just hasn't found him.
His " desire" may be more important than anything else.
His " desire" may be more important than anything else.
3.16.2012 | 8:03am
Joe DeVet says:
A nicely-reasoned reminder of how the disbeliever misses the obvious point. The analogy of Shakespeare and Hamlet is a telling one--perfect illustration of the relationship among God, the fact of being for whatever has being, and causality. (Of course, there are those who doubt whether Shakespeare was the actual author of Hamlet. But I say, if it wasn't William Shakespeare it was another guy by the same name!)
Dawkins says he sees no evidence of God. Does he not wake up in the morning, open his eyes, and find evidence in superabundance? Yes, he himself calls it beautiful. So he does see it, but fails to make the obvious [scientific] inference. "There are none so blind..."
Dawkins says he sees no evidence of God. Does he not wake up in the morning, open his eyes, and find evidence in superabundance? Yes, he himself calls it beautiful. So he does see it, but fails to make the obvious [scientific] inference. "There are none so blind..."
3.16.2012 | 8:41am
ferd says:
I am of the opinion that creation is not the aggressive act of God (for want of a better term) that has been previously supposed, but a single, ongoing act of selective restraint (God's expression of perfect mercy) with one purpose in Mind--the glorified Body of Christ Jesus...the Church triumphant: for God is perfect Act and we now witness only this aspect (mercy) of His ongoing work.
If creation is viewed (as God reveals in Scripture) as an act of restraint, where God allows a sea of limited possibilities to "play out", then ofcourse there will be gradations of beauty where there are some possibilities much more akin to God's natural order and beauty than others. Ideas too will have various degrees of order and beauty while others will be more akin to the sea of chaos from which they came. Does Dawkins really sense the gradations of beauty and order? If so he is using terms that express God's existense.
If creation is viewed (as God reveals in Scripture) as an act of restraint, where God allows a sea of limited possibilities to "play out", then ofcourse there will be gradations of beauty where there are some possibilities much more akin to God's natural order and beauty than others. Ideas too will have various degrees of order and beauty while others will be more akin to the sea of chaos from which they came. Does Dawkins really sense the gradations of beauty and order? If so he is using terms that express God's existense.
3.16.2012 | 12:02pm
Sergio Méndez says:
"To use an analogy previously developed by Stephen Barr, to ask whether God or evolution created life is like asking whether Shakespeare or Hamlet killed Polonius. If there is no Shakespeare, Hamlet’s act is meaningless. It is merely the accidental arrangement of ink on a page. If there is a Shakespeare, however, his existence as the creator of the literary Denmark does not obviate the drama of the play. It is rather a necessary prerequisite for it. Shakespeare, as a playwright, is not a competitor with the drama of the play. "
Thanks for making me see the value of the "death of the author" thesis, so popular in many literature departments today. If there is or nor Shakespaere it is irrelevant to the value of the drama expressed in the play of Hamlet. It stands on its own. The same goes with philosophy: does it matter, for example, that Socrates actually existed or that he formulated many of the philosophical reflexions atributed to him? No. What matters are the contents of those reflexions themselves. They are true or not regardless if Scorates was a or not fiction created by a man named Plato.
Thanks for making me see the value of the "death of the author" thesis, so popular in many literature departments today. If there is or nor Shakespaere it is irrelevant to the value of the drama expressed in the play of Hamlet. It stands on its own. The same goes with philosophy: does it matter, for example, that Socrates actually existed or that he formulated many of the philosophical reflexions atributed to him? No. What matters are the contents of those reflexions themselves. They are true or not regardless if Scorates was a or not fiction created by a man named Plato.
3.16.2012 | 1:22pm
WoodbridgeGoodman says:
Ferd:
For many years scholars say, religion, Christianity, have been very "dualistic." They have been trapped specifically in this kind of dualism: a Heaven v. earth, world vs. world, matter vs. spirit, dualism. But? One day or another dualism is supposed to in effect, end. As God and heaven, are supposed to return to this physical, material earth again. Rather as they did once before, in the person of Jesus; "spirit made flesh."
So how will this heaven/earth reunification happen again, more fully? In part, we can perhaps experience at least a presage of that moment, by a simple mental effort. One that begins to see ties, between classic religion and science - and heaven and earth - rather than absolute conflicts. Looking even for agreement between say, Dawkins and the churches.
And later? Seek ties between Religion and Science. Rather than positing an absolute difference or conflict, between a religious metaphysic and the works, the world we see around us, we can in fact, begin to see a gradated continuum.
But only? If we are willing to adopt a little Grace. And to look for the gradations and interrelationships. Rather than seeking to perpetuate stark conflicts.
Here Ferd's ideas might be useful, among others.
For many years scholars say, religion, Christianity, have been very "dualistic." They have been trapped specifically in this kind of dualism: a Heaven v. earth, world vs. world, matter vs. spirit, dualism. But? One day or another dualism is supposed to in effect, end. As God and heaven, are supposed to return to this physical, material earth again. Rather as they did once before, in the person of Jesus; "spirit made flesh."
So how will this heaven/earth reunification happen again, more fully? In part, we can perhaps experience at least a presage of that moment, by a simple mental effort. One that begins to see ties, between classic religion and science - and heaven and earth - rather than absolute conflicts. Looking even for agreement between say, Dawkins and the churches.
And later? Seek ties between Religion and Science. Rather than positing an absolute difference or conflict, between a religious metaphysic and the works, the world we see around us, we can in fact, begin to see a gradated continuum.
But only? If we are willing to adopt a little Grace. And to look for the gradations and interrelationships. Rather than seeking to perpetuate stark conflicts.
Here Ferd's ideas might be useful, among others.
3.16.2012 | 1:58pm
Raymond Takashi Swenson says:
Dawkins refers to the beauty in nature as a shorthand way of referring to the argument made by Charles Darwin in the last paragraph of later editions of his book, The Origin of Species. Darwin asserted there is "majesty" in the vision he offered of "endless forms most beautiful" produced not by design but by an unguided process of random variation "selected" by the competition for reproduction and survival. Darwin also invoked a "creator" in that paragraph, creating ambiguity that has been seized upon by some who claim he was not making the argument for atheism that Dawkins draws from the same theory.
Many people would suggest that the admiration for the beauty in creation grows out of an innate sense of the source of creation as being a creator, a sense which was bestowed upon us by the same Creator who endowed us with the ability to yearn for and worship Him.
Many people would suggest that the admiration for the beauty in creation grows out of an innate sense of the source of creation as being a creator, a sense which was bestowed upon us by the same Creator who endowed us with the ability to yearn for and worship Him.
3.16.2012 | 2:10pm
Ancius says:
"atheistic scientism must insist that at bottom is only unreason"
I don't see why scientifically minded atheism must insist upon this anymore than the theist--unless, of course, we are assuming a specifically theistic conception of "reason". But why assume that?
I don't see why scientifically minded atheism must insist upon this anymore than the theist--unless, of course, we are assuming a specifically theistic conception of "reason". But why assume that?
3.16.2012 | 2:16pm
Mike D'Virgilio says:
As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." Any time God doesn't "seem" real to me, I only have to open my eyes. Dawkins and other evolutionists admit that that cosmos and all that is in it "appears" to be designed, and how could they not admit the obvious. The issue isn't science, which Christian Western civilization made possible, but the desire in every heart to "be like God, knowing good and evil." Willful blindness to the obviousness of a Creator is solely a "heart" issue. An excuse will never be forthcoming.
3.16.2012 | 2:36pm
Ray Ingles says:
"Dawkins must trace this beauty to a mere subjective reaction, and declare that it is an illusion."
What if it's a non-illusory fact about how humans relate to some non-illusory aspects of the universe?
And even if a play arose by sheer chance, spilled ink on sheets of blank paper... it would still mean something *to the person who read it*. (Meaning of that type is vanishingly unlikely to arise without intelligent intervention, of course. But that's not the only possible kind of meaning.)
What if it's a non-illusory fact about how humans relate to some non-illusory aspects of the universe?
And even if a play arose by sheer chance, spilled ink on sheets of blank paper... it would still mean something *to the person who read it*. (Meaning of that type is vanishingly unlikely to arise without intelligent intervention, of course. But that's not the only possible kind of meaning.)
3.16.2012 | 3:21pm
Charlie Disque says:
I recently began re-reading "Life and Death in Shangai," the remarkable story of a Chinese woman, Nien Cheng, a Christian, who was imprisoned during the cultural revolution. In chapter 2, titled "Solitary Confinement," she describes observing a spider construct a web. She goes on to say
"I had just watched an architectural feat by an extremely skilled artist, and my mind was full of questions. Who had taught the spider how to make a web? Could it really have acquired the skill through evolution, or did God create the spider and endow it with the ability to make a web so that it could catch food and perpetuate its species? How big was the brain of such a tiny creature? Did it act simply by instinct, or had it somehow learned to store the knowledge of web making? Perhaps one day I would ask an entomologist. For the moment, I knew I had just witnessed something that was extraordinarily beautiful and uplifting. whether God had made the spider or not, I thanked Him for what I had just seen. A miracle of life had been shown me. It helped me to see that God was in control. Mao Zedong and his Revolutionaries seemed much less menacing. I felt a renewal of hope and confidence."
"I had just watched an architectural feat by an extremely skilled artist, and my mind was full of questions. Who had taught the spider how to make a web? Could it really have acquired the skill through evolution, or did God create the spider and endow it with the ability to make a web so that it could catch food and perpetuate its species? How big was the brain of such a tiny creature? Did it act simply by instinct, or had it somehow learned to store the knowledge of web making? Perhaps one day I would ask an entomologist. For the moment, I knew I had just witnessed something that was extraordinarily beautiful and uplifting. whether God had made the spider or not, I thanked Him for what I had just seen. A miracle of life had been shown me. It helped me to see that God was in control. Mao Zedong and his Revolutionaries seemed much less menacing. I felt a renewal of hope and confidence."
3.16.2012 | 3:49pm
maineman says:
Ray, if it is non-illusory, and a fact, that would make it true. And that would require the existence of absolute, as opposed to relative, truth. Dawkins cannot get there without acknowledging a source of truth outside of himself, so he, and those who wear similar blinders, must necessarily admit their first principal is that all is subjective, that there is no truth except that there is no truth , and on and on, down the rabbit hole.
3.16.2012 | 3:55pm
Don Roberto says:
Atheism requires a huge amount of faith. And one struggles to imagine a positive motivation for such a faith. Agnosticism is foolish: if one admits to the possibility of God, one is foolish not to ask for Faith ("God, if you're there, please show yourself to me")—and this is one prayer God never denies.
†
†
3.16.2012 | 6:34pm
Monkeyville says:
Michael Baruzzini,
What you have presented here is rather disjointed and confused, sadly, not unlike many similar attempts to address evolution and science. Like many people and scientists today, you don't understand what chance and probability is, and that science, especially modern science, is based on probabilities and on rationally understanding what this probability means and represents. The beauty is really just in the eye of the beholder, and as such it cannot be an objective scientific and rational criterion. The argument about the million monkeys typing Shakespeare typifies very well what the argument of evolution is all about, and dismissing it as silly just shows ignorance of reason, mathematics and of science.
The Greek word "agnosticism" is really just an equivalent of "ignorance", and one could leave any such agnostic, like Dawkins, in his own quagmire of foolish ignorance. If Dawkins wants reason & science, his problem is that he does NOT rationally accept the conclusions of modern science and of mathematics!
What you have presented here is rather disjointed and confused, sadly, not unlike many similar attempts to address evolution and science. Like many people and scientists today, you don't understand what chance and probability is, and that science, especially modern science, is based on probabilities and on rationally understanding what this probability means and represents. The beauty is really just in the eye of the beholder, and as such it cannot be an objective scientific and rational criterion. The argument about the million monkeys typing Shakespeare typifies very well what the argument of evolution is all about, and dismissing it as silly just shows ignorance of reason, mathematics and of science.
The Greek word "agnosticism" is really just an equivalent of "ignorance", and one could leave any such agnostic, like Dawkins, in his own quagmire of foolish ignorance. If Dawkins wants reason & science, his problem is that he does NOT rationally accept the conclusions of modern science and of mathematics!
3.16.2012 | 6:42pm
Ray Ingles says:
maineman - If you could produce a quote of Dawkins 'denying a source of truth outside himself', then perhaps you'd have a case. I, well... won't be holding my breath.
Don Roberto - I prayed that prayer back in college, which is longer ago than I can believe sometimes. If It's out there, God is taking Its time.
Don Roberto - I prayed that prayer back in college, which is longer ago than I can believe sometimes. If It's out there, God is taking Its time.
3.16.2012 | 8:09pm
Cliff Anderson says:
In the debate, Williams ends with an additional statement regarding the notion of 'cluttering' evolution's explanation with God and creation; in that, the elegance and beauty found in the explanation of a God of both 'love and mathematics' is an idea worth not only explaining and/or investigating, but contemplating in a such a way that one enjoys the act of pursuing such explanations.
That is a sensible approach to me because, when an impasse is produced in such debates, the Dawkins of the world fall to the side that claims 'life's hard, then you die' (which Dawkins says as 'stuff happens' in this particular debate) when explaining the things that bring pain/sorrow to every sentient being (including certain animals); whereas, from the perspective of Williams - and those who share his worldview - there is more meaning when evaluating the negative output in the conditions of human life when a creator is involve than not. And that meaning gives life its impetus, its value, and the forwardness brought about by hope.
That is a sensible approach to me because, when an impasse is produced in such debates, the Dawkins of the world fall to the side that claims 'life's hard, then you die' (which Dawkins says as 'stuff happens' in this particular debate) when explaining the things that bring pain/sorrow to every sentient being (including certain animals); whereas, from the perspective of Williams - and those who share his worldview - there is more meaning when evaluating the negative output in the conditions of human life when a creator is involve than not. And that meaning gives life its impetus, its value, and the forwardness brought about by hope.
3.16.2012 | 8:20pm
Gene Callahan says:
@ancius: "I don't see why scientifically minded atheism must insist upon this anymore than the theist..."
Because for the atheist, at the bottom, it is all brute, unreasoning matter.
Because for the atheist, at the bottom, it is all brute, unreasoning matter.
3.16.2012 | 8:42pm
ferd says:
Mr. Goodman,
My view of creation incorporates the Lord's claim that "heaven and earth will pass away"...also...Peter, Paul, James, Isaiah, John...et al...that "the elements will burn with fervent heat"...that the world will end by fire. I do not hold to the old social gospel claim (or Left wing christianity) that a proper utopia here will seduce Christ's return. Furthermore, to see "a new heaven and a new earth" is not that far-fetched. Even Dawkins posits the possibility of a universe birthing anew. The limited possibilities that "play out" in chapter one of creation are as salt water, while the new creation will be refreshed continually by the River of God (Christ).
Dualism is baby-thinking compared to the multi-faceted reality of God's perfect Act.
My view of creation incorporates the Lord's claim that "heaven and earth will pass away"...also...Peter, Paul, James, Isaiah, John...et al...that "the elements will burn with fervent heat"...that the world will end by fire. I do not hold to the old social gospel claim (or Left wing christianity) that a proper utopia here will seduce Christ's return. Furthermore, to see "a new heaven and a new earth" is not that far-fetched. Even Dawkins posits the possibility of a universe birthing anew. The limited possibilities that "play out" in chapter one of creation are as salt water, while the new creation will be refreshed continually by the River of God (Christ).
Dualism is baby-thinking compared to the multi-faceted reality of God's perfect Act.
3.16.2012 | 8:44pm
Wittman says:
Maineman:
Ultimately, every kind of knowledge - religious or rational - gives up trying to find a truth behind its functional truth. Most religious people for example, have decided that "God" is the ultimate term. Never asking this question: "so where did God, in turn, come from? To say he just always was, does not answer the question."
By the way though? Most rationalists today, when they appeal to something as "The truth," understand the truth in a slightly different sense than religionists; they understand that there is always a degree of uncertainty, even in our own most rational truths.
Just as there is uncertainty even in religious folks; even in our best ideas about God. Because we are merely human, and therefore our best ideas about what God is like, will inevitably be colored by our own sins and errors, and flawed human ideas.
So that, oddly enough? There is a certain amount of uncertainty, even in the very religious, and the very rational; both.
In a way, you might call this realization, Humility. And this core virtue or ethic, seems to be one of the common elements, of many varieties of both Religion, and Reason too.
Ultimately, every kind of knowledge - religious or rational - gives up trying to find a truth behind its functional truth. Most religious people for example, have decided that "God" is the ultimate term. Never asking this question: "so where did God, in turn, come from? To say he just always was, does not answer the question."
By the way though? Most rationalists today, when they appeal to something as "The truth," understand the truth in a slightly different sense than religionists; they understand that there is always a degree of uncertainty, even in our own most rational truths.
Just as there is uncertainty even in religious folks; even in our best ideas about God. Because we are merely human, and therefore our best ideas about what God is like, will inevitably be colored by our own sins and errors, and flawed human ideas.
So that, oddly enough? There is a certain amount of uncertainty, even in the very religious, and the very rational; both.
In a way, you might call this realization, Humility. And this core virtue or ethic, seems to be one of the common elements, of many varieties of both Religion, and Reason too.
3.16.2012 | 10:31pm
Joe E. Dorner says:
I've often thought I could understand a scientist saying he believes in God, but struggles to believe in a personal God. The order of creation ("seen" by science) points to a creator, but it is divine revelation that is needed to experience and know the loving creator.
Maybe some of these "agnostics" upon reflection will realize one day they are really.... deists?
Maybe some of these "agnostics" upon reflection will realize one day they are really.... deists?
3.17.2012 | 1:29am
A Rasmussen says:
"In recognizing the beauty in nature uncovered by science, both the believer and Dawkins see something beyond an arrangement of atoms. The believer can trace the source of this beauty to an ultimate source and declare that it is real. Dawkins must trace this beauty to a mere subjective reaction, and declare that it is an illusion."
A subjective reaction is not necessarily an illusion. When I stub my toe and feel pain, I am not suffering from an illusion, though my pain is entirely subjective. Joy is real, though entirely subjective. I doubt that Dawkins would declare every subjective experience to be an illusion.
Even people who experience the same thing in subjectively different ways are not suffering illusions - I like rainy days, my friend finds them depressing. Which one of us is suffering from an illusion? Neither.
I'm not saying that Dawkins is right about the indeterminacy of God's existence. But the argument that God is necessary in order for our experiences to be "real" is without merit.
A subjective reaction is not necessarily an illusion. When I stub my toe and feel pain, I am not suffering from an illusion, though my pain is entirely subjective. Joy is real, though entirely subjective. I doubt that Dawkins would declare every subjective experience to be an illusion.
Even people who experience the same thing in subjectively different ways are not suffering illusions - I like rainy days, my friend finds them depressing. Which one of us is suffering from an illusion? Neither.
I'm not saying that Dawkins is right about the indeterminacy of God's existence. But the argument that God is necessary in order for our experiences to be "real" is without merit.
3.17.2012 | 4:20am
Bret Lythgoe says:
Richard Dawkins is in many ways an admirable man. He has devoted a good portion of his life to studying the evolution of life, and has proven himself to be not just a great evolutionary biologist, but quite a gifted writer as well. One might even be tempted to say that he often writes beautifully. And his hypothesis of the "selfish gene'', whether it ultimately stands up to the relentless scrutiny of science, is a beautiful hypothesis. But Dawkins talents abandon him when he reaches into the realm, that he considers no more real than fairy tales, theology.
Although I have no doubt about the veracity of evolutionary theory, and consider it wholly compatible with Christianity, I am puzzled how it could have arose purely by evolution. Of course, evolutionists say that beauty is an indication of fitness. Maybe, but I'm sceptical.
Speaking of beauty, it's rather fitting that this essay, by Michael Baruzzini, is beautifully written: obviously planned, well though out, and executed. It's a work of creation.
Although I have no doubt about the veracity of evolutionary theory, and consider it wholly compatible with Christianity, I am puzzled how it could have arose purely by evolution. Of course, evolutionists say that beauty is an indication of fitness. Maybe, but I'm sceptical.
Speaking of beauty, it's rather fitting that this essay, by Michael Baruzzini, is beautifully written: obviously planned, well though out, and executed. It's a work of creation.
3.17.2012 | 4:46am
Goodman says:
Agnostics (like Dawkins at times), usually don't firmly say there is no god; they more often say that since we are mere fallible human beings, we can never know exactly, fully, what God is like. This position is, amazingly, often supported by the Bible itself. Where commentators often suggest that God's ways are especially, "unsearchable" (Job 5.9, 36.26; Ps. 145.3; Isa. 40.28; Rom. 11.33; Eph. 3.8). Many in the Bible add that our "knowledge" of God will always be "imperfect," until the Second Coming or Judgement Day (1 Corin. 13.9).
So that oddly enough? There is some surprising biblical/Magisterial support for ... agnosticism.
So that oddly enough? There is some surprising biblical/Magisterial support for ... agnosticism.
3.17.2012 | 12:00pm
Dianna Narciso says:
Richard Dawkins is an atheist. He has no belief in deity. That's all atheism is. It requires no faith; it makes no claims. It's simply a lack of belief in gods. The realization that few theists are able or willing to understand this very simple idea is illuminating. It says quite a lot about theists...and theism.
3.17.2012 | 1:21pm
Ray Ingles says:
maineman - "Dawkins... must necessarily admit their first principal is that all is subjective"
Do you have a quote of him actually saying anything like that? Rejecting objective truth, etc.? Or perhaps he does 'acknowlege a source of truth outside of himself', but disagree that it's God?
Don Roberto - I prayed that prayer back in college, which is longer ago than I can credit sometimes. God is apparently taking Its time.
Do you have a quote of him actually saying anything like that? Rejecting objective truth, etc.? Or perhaps he does 'acknowlege a source of truth outside of himself', but disagree that it's God?
Don Roberto - I prayed that prayer back in college, which is longer ago than I can credit sometimes. God is apparently taking Its time.
3.17.2012 | 9:27pm
Bret Lythgoe says:
Maineman: even though I disagree with Dawkins views, I don't think that it's correct that Dawkins, and those with similar views, are reduced to the notion "that there's no truth, except that there's no truth.'' Dawkins can just say that truth exists, but there's no need to postulate a God to explain truth's existence. He clearly believes that physical objects exist, without the need for a God to explain their existence, and he can consistently say that truth exists without the need for a God to explain it. Now, I think that Dawkins is wrong, concerning God's existence, but he's not being logically contradictory by asserting that truth exists, but God doesn't.
3.19.2012 | 2:20pm
Maria says:
Behold and see, we are beautiful." One of my favourite quotations. nd all that is in it "appears" to be designed, and how could they not admit the obvious. The issue isn't science, which Christian Western civilization made possible, but the desire in every heart to "be like God, knowing good and evil.
3.20.2012 | 9:55am
ctbaglow says:
Compare Ferd's perspective to that of Charles DeKoninck, 20th century Thomistic philosopher, in his unfinished work The Cosmos (1936). He argued that all of nature is oriented towards the natural production of man (bodily speaking). That leaves him with the question: why do natural processes produce so much else? Here's his explanation:
"But a nature is never entirely determined to the point of excluding chance and
deviations, which are, paradoxically, natural consequents of it. The ascendance cannot describe a single trajectory. It entails deviant ramifications and failures.
What paths have been followed in the execution of this work? What were the steps? What species have arisen in this journey of the whole of nature to man? Without doubt, one cannot deduce them in a philosophical manner, since the ways of nature lack rigor...if evolution, despite the deviations and lost efforts along the way, did not arrive necessarily at man, prime matter, nature, all the work that was done, would be in advance contradictory, impossible. It is nature that tends toward man, not chance. We ought not however seek the intention of nature exclusively in the limits of the torturous road which leads to man, nor to consider all the branches which left the road (and sometimes rejoined it later on) as pure failures. If the fundamental idea of nature was a parsimonious and determinist idea, it would certainly be so. But it is essentially liberal and magnificent, it has a horror of calculation."
I think Ferd has captured the theological complement and fulfillment of this profound conception of nature as necessarily tending towards man and finding its raison d'etre in him, but at the same time involving the free unfolding of the universe. Divine restraint and divine creative activity, are, in the final analysis, one and the same. I think the Thomistic conception of ongoing creation best captures this non-competitive relation of God to the universe. Thanks, and well done!
"But a nature is never entirely determined to the point of excluding chance and
deviations, which are, paradoxically, natural consequents of it. The ascendance cannot describe a single trajectory. It entails deviant ramifications and failures.
What paths have been followed in the execution of this work? What were the steps? What species have arisen in this journey of the whole of nature to man? Without doubt, one cannot deduce them in a philosophical manner, since the ways of nature lack rigor...if evolution, despite the deviations and lost efforts along the way, did not arrive necessarily at man, prime matter, nature, all the work that was done, would be in advance contradictory, impossible. It is nature that tends toward man, not chance. We ought not however seek the intention of nature exclusively in the limits of the torturous road which leads to man, nor to consider all the branches which left the road (and sometimes rejoined it later on) as pure failures. If the fundamental idea of nature was a parsimonious and determinist idea, it would certainly be so. But it is essentially liberal and magnificent, it has a horror of calculation."
I think Ferd has captured the theological complement and fulfillment of this profound conception of nature as necessarily tending towards man and finding its raison d'etre in him, but at the same time involving the free unfolding of the universe. Divine restraint and divine creative activity, are, in the final analysis, one and the same. I think the Thomistic conception of ongoing creation best captures this non-competitive relation of God to the universe. Thanks, and well done!
3.30.2012 | 2:44pm
Don Roberto says:
Atheism is a dead end. Chesterton said that Man is “an animal that makes dogmas”—a creature who, intellectually, gets somewhere.
"As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human.
"When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded."
†
"As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human.
"When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded."
†
4.7.2012 | 5:18am
mark says:
I couldn't agree more. For me, atheism is the gateway to complete freedom of philosophy. Instead of being confined or limited by god-stuff, humans become free to explore and think and reason for themselves. You don't have to start out in this tiny box that says God did it.
For a mind that wants to explore, what's more exciting and enticing than heading off into the wilderness, where everything's waiting to be discovered rather than laid down into nice neat paths for you?
For a mind that wants to explore, what's more exciting and enticing than heading off into the wilderness, where everything's waiting to be discovered rather than laid down into nice neat paths for you?
Many people go to Colorado, because of the beauty of the natural environment. A beauty which suggests to all - Christian or pagan - that whether or not there is an ultimate or clearly knowable source for it all, still, there is much order and beauty in Nature, nonetheless. Even if we do not clearly know the source of it.
Many claim that being sure that "God" is the source helps quite a bit. But then to be sure? Who among us is proud or vain enough to declare that he or she absolutely knows God? Even the most dogmatic zealots at times acknowledge a certain "mystery" to it all.