One of Dawkins first
assertions in Chapter 3 involves the belief that God is omniscient and
omnipotent. “..it has not escaped the
notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually
incompatible. If God is omniscient, he
must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history
using his omnipotence. But that means he
can’t change his mind about this intervention, which means, he is not
omnipotent.” This is ignorant of the
very nature of God. He exists outside of
time…He encompasses time, so the cute little poem Dawkins then quotes about the
future is irrelevant. We humans are
stuck in one dimensional time that only travels in one direction, although the
possibility of multiple dimensions of time has been discussed. God does not share our limitations.
Dawkins dismisses the
notion that the need for absolutes is a proof of God’s existence. He doesn’t use the word absolutes. He talks about a standard for
perfection. He ridiculously says that if
this is so, then “there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we
call him God.” However, the absolute standards that are attributed to God are
not related to physical qualities, such as odor. He is the standard for love, goodness, truth
and the like.
He tries to shoot holes in
the notion that if man can think it, it must exist. So, since we can think of God, He must be
there. I don’t mind the holes shot in
that, as long as they also go through his idea from the last chapter that
somewhere there are aliens with such advanced technology that we would view it
as almost supernatural. Just because he
can think it, doesn’t make it so.
The Argument from Personal
Experience—Dawkins completely ignores the most relevant aspect of this. He focuses totally on seeing visions and
hearing voices, which the vast majority of people of faith do not claim. The real argument from personal experience
should be the evidence of a changed life, which is overwhelmingly experienced
as a result of faith. Last week, I read
the book “Unbroken” which is the biography of Louis Zamperini. I have not seen the movie that came out
recently, but I have read that it stops short of the time when Zamperini went
to a Billy Graham crusade. Zamperini came back from his experience as a POW
with PTSD. He was alcoholic and
experienced nightmares and flashbacks.
His marriage was barely holding together. At the Billy Graham crusade, he accepted
Christ as his personal Savior. He went
home and threw out his alcohol and cigarettes.
The biography says he never again experienced a flashback or nightmare about those horrible experiences he had had. That is the personal experience of a changed
life, because one has met the living God.
I’m sorry that Dawkins has never had this experience, but it doesn’t
mean that it and the God who brings it about don’t exist.
The Argument from
Scripture---It would take an entire book to deal with the claims Dawkins makes
in these few pages. I will just say that
I have read the Bible from cover to cover numerous times, and do not see the
inconsistencies he tries to assert are present.
However, I totally accept that the Bible can’t be used to prove God’s
existence, if you don’t believe it to start with.
The Argument from Admired
Religious Scientists---at least he admits that there are some and names some of
them. However, he then says that they
are a minority in scientific societies.
This should not be surprising. If
a person makes his beliefs known, he is probably less likely to me elected to
such a society. As to the study of Mensa
members purporting to show an inverse correlation between IQ and religious
faith, I doubt that people of religious faith are inclined to join Mensa. Having consistently scored in the 98th
and 99th percentiles on various tests in high school and college, I
considered joining Mensa about 40 years ago.
In the end, I couldn’t see any reason to do it other than to have
something about which to gloat. This is
not compatible with my faith, so I never applied. I expect
this is a common attitude among believers.
Dawkins takes a little swipe at Wheaton College in this chapter. Shortly after I graduated, so it was probably
in the 1970s, I saw an article in Time magazine that said Wheaton had more
valedictorians and National Merit Scholars as a percentage of the student body
than any of the Ivy League schools.
Intelligence and belief are not mutually exclusive. I suppose it would drive Dawkins wild as a
naturalist, that when I took my Graduate Record Exams in 1968, I scored off the
top of scale on the Natural Sciences portion of the test….that was over 99th
percentile even on the boy’s scale…AND…I was and am a believer in God.
Pascal’s Wager—Dawkins
believes that Blaise Pascal’s argument that you stand to lose an awful lot if
you don’t believe and turn out to be wrong, so play the odds and believe, is
strange. He says “believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter
of policy.” Tellingly, he then says, “at
least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of the will.” But of course, that is the whole point. Accepting Christ as a personal Savior is
exactly an act of the will. It is a
decision….and God does know if it is genuine or empty words said thinking that one
can avoid hell fires. Dawkins asks, “Why…do
we so readily accept the idea that the one thing you must do if you want to
please God is believe in him? What’s so
special about believing?” Well, of
course, for those of us who believe the Bible, that is what it says we must do….if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is
Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved. For it is with your heart that
you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and
are saved. Romans 10:9-10
Dawkins thinks God would
value honest skepticism over dishonest belief.
I don’t think either of those is going to cut it. God is looking for a sincere heart. In dismissing Pascal’s argument, he fails to
mention some other things Pascal said:
“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be
filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through
Jesus.”
“Faith is different from proof;
the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.”
“There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are
sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.”
Too bad Blaise Pascal isn’t around to
debate with Richard Dawkins…..although in truth, no one is argued into
belief. It actually is by an act of the
will.
Near the end of this chapter, Dawkins
disparages faith. “I have challenged
religious but otherwise intelligent scientists to justify their belief, given
their admission that there is no evidence; ‘I admit that there’s no
evidence. There’s a reason why it’s
called faith’ (this last sentence uttered with almost truculent conviction, and
no hint of apology or defensiveness).”
That’s right…no apology. Now
faith means putting full confidence in the things we hope for; it means being
certain of things we cannot see….and it is after all only by faith that our
minds accept as fact that the whole scheme of time and space was created by God’s
command…that the world which we can see has come into being through principles
which are invisible. Hebrews 11:1-3 (New Testament in Modern English,
Phillips translation)
Richard Dawkins finds this revolting, insane,
unscientific foolishness, but there you have it, in the Bible thousands of
years before Dawkins was around to argue about it.
I’m so sorry, Richard. I wish you could see it. I wish you could find it in yourself to make
a conscious decision to believe.
But as Blaise Pascal also said….
“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough
shadows to blind those who don't.”
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