God, Aquinas, and Dawkins: The Three Ages of Science

The Three Ages of Science.

The historical development of science can be divided into three stages in two different ways, within science itself and also against the background of the beliefs of society.

Within science, we can distinguish three distinct views of the world, as an organism, as a mechanism and as a mathematical formalism. The ancient Greeks, anxious to preserve human values, viewed the world as an organism, but this was a failure. In the Renaissance, when science came to maturity with Newton, the world became a mechanism, following precise mathematical equations. If we know the initial conditions, these enable us to calculate all subsequent motions, and the results are in precise agreement with our measurements. Finally, in the present century, mechanistic physics proved inadequate, and now for much of our work, we rely mainly on the mathematical equations, although physical understanding is still essential.

The relation between science and the society in which it lives also passes through three stages. In the first stage, most of the beliefs about the material world prevented or hindered the growth of science. Eventually science struggled into existence in the High Middle Ages when the Christian beliefs about the world provided the necessary conditions for its birth. It came to maturity in the Renaissance, and at that time most of the pioneer scientists were believing Christians who saw their work as showing forth the glory of God. At this point science became an autonomous self-sustaining enterprise that develops in accord with its own internal criteria, although it was still within a broadly Christian society. It needed the material support of society, and the relations between science and society were not always smooth. There have been from the beginning tensions between the scientists on the one hand and the theologians, the Church and the State authorities on the other, and among scientists between Christians and secularists. These can be a stimulating and healthy tensions, but they often degenerate into mutual incomprehension and hostility. Examples abound: Luther and Melanchthon attacked the Copernican theory, and Galileo was punished for his views. Nowadays the tension continues: many theologians are apprehensive of science, scientists like Hawking and Dawkins attack and pour scorn on theology, and there are continual battles with Government agencies to obtain sufficient support for scientific research.

In the present century we have moved into the third stage, when science more and more frequently finds itself in a society that is no longer broadly Christian, but indifferent or anti-Christian, either in its ideological roots or through the authority of the State. Science has spread rapidly over the world to non-Christian societies, as people become aware of its technological applications. But there is an important distinction; technology is easily exported and readily welcomed, but science is extremely difficult to export. Schools and universities all over the world teach science, but in most cases this has proved rather difficult, and it is not at all easy to establish really fruitful research programmes. Twice in Europe science has come under totalitarian regimes that have treated science as a slave or as a god, in Nazi Germany and in Soviet Russia. In both cases the effect on science has been disastrous, and science withered. Can science survive in a post-Christian society?

References

J. Barbour, Absolute or Relative Motion: 1. The Discovery of Dynamics. Cambridge, 1989.
E.A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science . Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1932
S. Chandrasekhar, Truth and Beauty. Chicago, 1990.
R. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman?
A.R. Hall, The Scientific Revolution 1500-1800. Longmans, 1954.
G. Holton, Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein. Harvard, 1973.
A. Koestler, The Watershed: A Biography of Johannes Kepler. Doubleday, 1959.
D.C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science. Chicago, 1992.
W.R. Shea, Galileo's Intellectual Revolution. Science History Publications, 1977.
C.S. Singleton (Ed), Art, Science and History in the Renaissance. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1967.
R.S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge, 1980.

God, Aquinas, and Dawkins: The Christian Origin of Science

The Christian Origin of Science

During the Middle Ages, the thought of Europe was moulded and dominated by Christian theology and philosophy. It is therefore interesting to see how the beliefs that we have seen are necessary for science are related to Christian beliefs about the world. There is indeed a close relation between them, so Christian theology prepared the way for science by teaching that particular attitude to the world that provides the basis of science.

We can see this by recalling the beliefs already listed. The Christian believes that the world is good because God made it so: "And God saw all that He had made, and indeed it was very good" (Genesis 1.31). Matter was further ennobled by the Incarnation: "The Word was made flesh and he lived among us" (John 1.14). The world is rational and orderly because it is made and kept in being by a rational God. It is contingent because it depends on the divine fiat: God could have chosen to make the world in a different way. There is here a delicate balance between the freedom and the rationality of God: tip the balance one way or the other and you have a belief in a chaotic or a necessary world, both inimical to the growth of science. Finally the Christian believes that the world can be apprehended by the human mind because God commanded man to subdue the earth, and he does not command the impossible: "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth" (Genesis 1.28). Thus the Christian mind is steeped through and through with the beliefs about the material world that are necessary for the development of science.

The Christian also has the strongest motivation to study the world. Christ himself reiterates the divine command to subdue the earth when by the parable of the talents he urges us to make full use of all our faculties and powers. Furthermore, as soon as it becomes clear that scientific knowledge can be applied to grow more food and improve his medical care, to provide better clothes and housing, it becomes a special obligation on man to do this in view of the injunction to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty and to clothe the naked.

The remaining condition for the development of science, the belief that knowledge must be freely shared, is enjoined by the Book of Wisdom: "What I have learned without self-interest, I pass on without reserve; I do not intend to hide her riches. For she is an inexhaustible treasure to men, and those who acquire it win God's friendship" (Wisdom 7.13-14). The Book of Wisdom also contains the declaration that the Creator ordered everything in measure, number and weight (11.20), the most frequently quoted Biblical phrase in medieval times.

We thus find that during the critical centuries before the birth of science the collective mind of Europe was moulded by a system of beliefs that included just those special elements that are necessary for the birth and growth of science. There is thus a living organic continuity between the Christian revelation and modern science. Christianity provided just those beliefs about the material world that are essential for science, and the moral climate that encouraged its growth.

It might however be said that the medieval origin of science is just a historical coincidence: how can we know that there is a real causal influence operating? This can indeed be found if we examine the work of some of the philosophers of the Middle Ages.

At that time the prevailing ideas of the nature of the world were derived from the Greek philosopher Aristotle. He believed in the eternity of the world, in a cyclic universe and in a world of purpose even in material things. He also believed that celestial matter, the world of the stars and the planets, is incorruptible, unlike terrestrial matter that can undergo change. These beliefs in effect prevented the development of science for two thousand years, This stranglehold had to be broken before science could develop into its modern form.
So great was the prestige of Aristotle that the philosophers of the medieval schools taught by commenting on his texts. Some of Aristotle's teaching, however, was inconsistent with the Christian faith, and the philosophers did not hesitate to differ from Aristotle when it seemed necessary. In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council decreed that all creation, spiritual and material, took place out of nothing and in time. This is directly contrary to Aristotle's belief in the eternity of the world accepted as a self-evident truth. There was intense discussion on a variety of topics, notably concerning the creation of the world and the motion of bodies. In 1277 the bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, found it necessary to condemn 219 philosophical propositions as contrary to the Christian belief. His main purpose was to defend God's absolute power against any attempt by the Aristotelian philosophers to set limits to it. Several of the condemned propositions set limits to God's power, saying for instance that He cannot make more than one world or to move the world so as to produce a vacuum. Tempier thus reasserted the belief that God can freely create any world, just as He chooses. This was a turning point in the history of thought, as it liberated philosophers from bondage to Aristotle and channelled philosophical speculations about motion in a direction that led eventually to the destruction of Aristotelian physics, thus opening the way to modern science.

The theology of divine omnipotence had important consequences for the development of science as a result of Aquinas' distinction between God's absolute and ordained powers. God always has absolute power over all things, but he endows the natural world with specific natures, according to His plan for creation. These normally determine the behaviour of natural phenomena. It thus becomes a reasonable activity to try to find out about the world. Normally, by virtue of God's ordained power, the natural world strictly follows God's laws, and yet this does not prevent God from doing whatever he chooses by virtue of his absolute power. This reinforces the stability of nature as a sign of God's faithfulness so frequently expressed in the Old Testament (Jer 31:35-36; 33:25-26), while leaving open the possibility of miracles.

One of the medieval philosophers, Jean Buridan, was particularly interested in the nature of motion. This is the most fundamental problem of physics, and so if science is to begin it must begin here. In full consistency with his belief in creation, he wrote that 'God, when He created the world, moved each of the celestial orbs as he pleased, and in moving them He impressed upon them impetuses which moved them without Him having to move them any more except by the method of general influence whereby He concurs as co-agent in all things which take place'.

This shows a clear break with Aristotle, who required the continuing action of the mover throughout the motion. What Buridan called impetus was later refined into the concept of momentum, and the idea in the above passage became Newton's first law of motion. Buridan's works were widely published and his ideas became known throughout Europe, and in particular to Leonardo da Vinci and hence to the scientists of Renaissance times.

The Christian belief in the creation of the world by God also undermined Aristotle's sharp distinction between celestial and terrestrial matter. Since they are both created, why should they be different? Indeed, Buridan illustrated his concept of impetus with reference to the long jump; thus implicitly presupposing that celestial and terrestrial motions are similar. This made it possible for Newton to see that the same force that pulls an apple to the ground also keeps the moon in its orbit.

A vital component in the rise of science is the belief in the order of the world, that is the idea that every event is the precise result of preceding events. This implies that whatever measurements we make should correspond exactly, that is within the uncertainties of measurement, with our theories. A corollary is that if we want to test out theories we should make the most accurate measurements we can. This insistence on precision is essential for the progress of science, and it was made possible by the strong belief in the order of nature. It led Whitehead to say, in his Lowell lectures in 1925 on Science and the Modern World that 'the Middle Ages formed one long training of the intellect of Western Europe in the sense of order.' This by itself is not enough,and he went on:

I do not think that I have even yet brought out the greatest contribution of medievalism to the formation of the scientific movement. I mean the inexpungable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles. Without this belief the incredible labours of scientists would be without hope. It is this instinctive conviction, vividly poised before the imagination, which is the motive power of research: -- that there is a secret, a secret which can be unveiled.

He went on to ask how was this conviction so vividly implanted on the European mind, and concluded: 'My explanation is that the faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.'

One might indeed query whether unconscious is the right word, for many of the medievals explicitly saw their work as showing forth the works of the Creator. Furthermore, explicitly Christian beliefs played a decisive part in making modern science possible. Thus the debilitating belief in a cyclic universe was decisively broken by the Christian belief in the uniqueness of the Incarnation. Henceforth history was no longer an infinite series of dreary cycles, but a linear story with a beginning and an end.

The transition from Greek to modern physics has been graphically described by Pierre Duhem: 'The demolition of Aristotelian physics was not a sudden collapse; the construction of modern physics did not take place on a terrain where nothing was left standing. From one to the other the passage takes place by a long sequence of partial transformations of which each pretended to retouch or enlarge some piece of the edifice without changing anything of the ensemble. But when all these modifications of detail had been made, the human mind perceived, as it sized up with a single look the result of all that long work, that nothing remained of that ancient palace and that a new palace rose in its place. Those who in the sixteenth century took stock of this substitution of one science for another were seized by a strange illusion. They imagined that this substitution was sudden and that it was their work. They proclaimed that Peripatetic physics had just collapsed under their blows and that on the ruins of that physics they had built, as if by magic, the clear abode of truth. About the sincere illusion of arrogantly wilful error of these men, the men of subsequent centuries were either the unsuspecting victims or sheer accomplices. The physicists of the sixteenth century were celebrated as creators to whom the world owed the renaissance of science. They were very often but continuers and sometimes plagiarisers.'

The Work of Pierre Duhem

These Christian roots of modern science are not generally known. The man primarily responsible for uncovering the evidence for the Christian origin of science was the French physicist Pierre Duhem. He was a theoretical physicist working mainly in the field of thermodynamics, but had always been interested in the history of physics. He was asked to write a series of articles on the history of mechanics, and easily wrote the first one on the ideas of the ancient Greeks. Like most historians of science, he expected to pass rapidly over the Middle Ages to the giants of the Renaissance. But he was a careful man, not content to rely on secondhand sources. He found obscure references to earlier work, and following them up, primarily in the archives in Paris, he discovered the work of Buridan and his pupil Orseme, and of many other medievals who contributed to the origin of science.

Duhem wrote two volumes on the history of mechanics, three on Leonardo da Vinci, and then began a monumental account of the history of science in several volumes, the Systeme du Monde. The first volume, devoted to the Greeks, was published in 1913, and was highly praised by George Sarton, the founder and editor of the journal Isis, who said that he looked forward eagerly to the second volume. When however he read the second volume, he realised what Duhem had found was highly uncongenial to his secularist beliefs. Duhem left him in no doubt whatever. Writing on the doctrine of the Great Year, the belief that history continually repeats itself, he said: 'To the construction of that system all disciples of Hellenic philosophy -- Peripatetics, Stoics, Neo-Platonists -- contributed; to that system Abu Masar offered the homage of the Arabs; the most illustrious rabbis, from Philo of Alexandria to Maimonides, have accepted it. To condenm it and to throw it overboard as a monstrous superstition, Christianity had to come.'

Sarton did not try to refute Duhem; that would have been impossible. Instead he used the one remaining weapon, that of silence. None of the following volumes was reviewed in Isis, and the name of Duhem was thereafter hardly ever mentioned. In Sarton's own vast volumes on the history of science Duhem receives but a few mentions, whereas quite minor figures receive extensive discussion.

Tragically, Duhem died in 1916 when only five volumes of his Systeme du Monde, had been published. Duhem left the text of the remaining five volumes in MSS, and the publisher was bound by the terms of the contract to publish them in successive years. The secularist establishment however was bitterly opposed to their publication, and succeeded in preventing this for forty years. Only the death of his most determined opponent, and the threat of legal action, finally forced the publishers to act.

It is not surprising that secularists should be so determined to prevent the publication of books of massive scholarship that completely undermine their view of the development of science, and show that science as we know it is built on Christian foundations. What is surprising is that Christians have been so slow to recognise and to publish his work. Even today, after many decades of scholarly work on medieval science, the name of Duhem is hardly known outside specialist circles. It deserves to be familiar to all Christians, particularly those concerned with the education of the young, who are still taught that there is a fundamental opposition between science and the Christian faith.

Science in Eastern Christendom

This explanation of the rise of science in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages as due to the beliefs concerning the material world inherent in Christian theology raises the question why it happened in Western Europe and not in Eastern Europe, where Christianity also flourishes. One might indeed have expected science to arise first in the east, because it was the heir to the wisdom of ancient Greece, preserved and to some extent developed by Arab scholars. Thus from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries mathematics, astronomy, optics, physics and medicine were far more developed in Islamic countries than in Western Europe. In one vital area, for example, Arabic astronomers had so improved the Ptolemaic system that it was mathematically equivalent to the Copernican system, although it was still geocentric. And yet the lead was lost in one area after another as the West surged ahead and Arabic science decayed. This learning came to the West not via Eastern Christendom, but mainly through translations from the Arabic made in Spain. The Byzantine scientific tradition lacked originality, being content with the achievements of the Greeks and the Romans. They were thus unable to develop technology and to apply their theoretical knowledge for practical purposes.

Could the explanation of the difference between the vitality of science in the West and its virtual absence in the East be due to a difference between Eastern and Western theologies, or are there other explanations, perhaps in terms of sociological factors, which themselves may or may not have their origin in theology?

The theological beliefs of Eastern and Western Christendom are essentially the same, but there are important differences at the conceptual and practical levels. These differences are difficult to describe, because there are many counter-examples to any general statement that can be made. Thus both attach high value to reason and to prayer, but the emphasis is different. In the West, scholarly work is itself considered to be a form of prayer. Orders of friars, such as the Dominicans, were founded to preach, and to teach in schools and in universities, and their times of prayer are regulated to allow time for study. Dominicans such as Thomas Aquinas taught in the universities and used reason to find out what they could about God, thus developing scholastic theology. In the monasteries of the east, the monks spend long hours in prayer, but as a result they have less time for study and for writing.

Of great importance for the origin of science is the concept of time. Before the advent of science our activities followed biological time, governed by the natural processes of night and day, the phases of the moon and the progression of the seasons. In contrast, scientific time is a regular sequence, and to each instant there corresponds a number, measurable to high accuracy. Monasteries need to have a way of marking the time to regulate the hours of prayer and work and initially they followed biological time, supplemented by sand and water clocks. In the Western monasteries, clocks of high sophistication were developed as early as the twelfth century, whereas clocks, imported from the West, were not used on Mount Athos until the eighteenth century. Even now, the east has a more relaxed sense of time.

The use of biological time is associated with primitive technology, whereas more developed technology comes with scientific time. Thus the larger western monasteries made many technological advances for domestic and industrial purposes, such as water mills and saws. This is of crucial importance for the development of science.

There are also several sociological reasons why science arose in the west and not in the east. It is essential for creative intellectual work that there are places where it can be carried on without external interference, so that the people there are free to think what they like and to follow wherever their reason leads them. Such opportunities are provided by universities, and many were founded in the West from the twelfth century onwards. The crucial steps that led to the birth of modern science took place in the university of Paris.
In the east, there was a spectacular intellectual and artistic revival in the ninth century after the end of the iconoclastic controversy, and the university of Constantinople attracted many distinguished scholars. There was, however, little interest in science or technology.

Byzantine society was rigidly authoritarian, with Church and State closely linked. The Emperor was considered the vicegerent of God, and as ruler of both church and state his word was law. There was a highly centralised state organisation with a well-developed civil service, so that practically all activities were controlled by the Emperor. Trade and commerce were rigidly controlled, not to serve the interests of the merchants but to subordinate economic life to the interests of the state. There were indeed schools, but they did not encourage independent discussion, and the static conception of life was not conducive to the development of science. In the west, on the other hand, the universities were centres of intellectual discussions, where novel views were expounded and discussed.

People speak and discuss freely when they are personally secure, when they know that they can say what they like without danger of any kind. This security can be provided by belonging to an organisation, such as a university, which encourages free discussions, or by a society that respects the right of private property. In the west this is legally established, whereas in the east property was held subject to the will of the ruler, and may at any time be revoked. If one lives in perpetual fear that the ruler will suddenly take away one's house, one is hardly likely to indulge in any activity that may incur his wrath.

In the twelfth century the Crusaders caused consternation in Byzantium as they passed through on their way to the Holy Land, exacerbating the age-old tensions between east and west. These came to a head with the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Byzantium survived another two hundred years, but was fatally weakened and finally fell to the Turks in 1453.

Such sociological factors are sufficient to explain why science did not arise in Eastern Christendom, and it seems that these are more important than any theological differences.

An instructive example of the effect of sociological factors on intellectual activity is provided by the contrast between the English, French and Spanish colonies in north and central America on the one hand, and the Dutch colony in South Africa on the other. In America, there was from the first a thriving intellectual activity, with printing presses and newspapers, and great Colleges and universities were founded within a few decades of the arrival of the colonists. Mexico was conquered in 1521, and by 1553 had a university. In North America, the colonists arrived in 1619, and Harvard was founded in 1636. In South Africa, on the other hand, everything was controlled by the Dutch East India Company, and profit was the only motive. There were no printing presses, newspapers, colleges or universities. The Church was also partly to blame for this situation, because they insisted that their ministers be trained in Holland, and were not willing to establish Colleges in South Africa.

 Islam and Science

The wisdom of ancient Greece was transmitted to Europe by the Arabs. They saved and copied the Greek manuscripts, and published extensive commentaries on them. It was just these works of the Greeks that had such a seminal influence on the Middle Ages and profoundly modified European thought. The Arabs made important advances in may areas, notably in algebra, optics and ophthalmology. From the eighth to the fourteenth centuries, astronomy, optics, physics and medicine were far more developed in Islamic countries than in Western Europe. Arabic astronomers, to take one instance, had so improved the Ptolemaic system that it was mathematically equivalent to the Copernican system, although it was still geocentric. And yet the lead was lost in one area after another as the West surged ahead and Arabic science decayed.

We may well pause and ask ourselves what would have been the consequences for world history if they, and not the medievals, had developed our modern scientific knowledge of the world. It was one of the most monumental failures of history. They had a start of five hundred years, and a great Empire stretching from Cordoba to Baghdad. What was missing? It is simply that Islamic theology emphasises the freedom of Allah at the expense of His rationality, so that their grasp of the order of the world is not strong enough for science to develop.

It is also part of Muslim belief that scientific research should not be undertaken unless it can be shown that it will lead to a useful practical result. This error appears again in Marxism. At first it sounds plausible enough, even praiseworthy. Scientific research is very expensive, so why should society pay for it if it is not going to produce anything useful?

This argument is based on a misunderstanding of the very nature of scientific research, which can only develop in accord with its own internal criteria. It cannot, except in a very general way, be directed by external criteria, however laudable they may be. Scientists want to find out about the world; this is their motive and should be their only reward. If Roentgen had been interested in helping medical diagnosis he would never have found X-rays. If Madame Curie had started by looking for a cure for cancer she would never have found radium. As in these examples, it often happens that after the scientist has found some new property of the world, it is found to have great practical value and can be used to benefit society. Scientists welcome this, but the prospect of such applications cannot be allowed to affect the conduct of their research.

The reason why modern science never developed in Muslim countries is thus a theological one. They need European science and technology, and are willing to pay for it. Unfortunately however, that very science is alien to them as it is based on Christian beliefs about the world that they cannot share. There are of course many eminent Muslim scientists, but most of them have been trained in Western countries and so have come to share implicitly those Christian beliefs about the world on which Science is based. There do not as yet seem to be many indications that science has really taken root in Muslim countries.

References

M. Clagett, The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages. Madison, 1959.
A.C. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo, The History of Science 400-1650. Falcon, 1952.
A.C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science 1100-1700. Oxford, 1953.
C. Dawson, Progress and Religion. Sheed and Ward, 1929.
C. Dawson, Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. Sheed and Ward, 1950.
E.Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy. Sheed and Ward, 1936.
E. Gilson, The History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Sheed and Ward, 1954.
J. Gimpel, The Medieval Machine. Pimlico, 1992.
E. Grant, Physical Science in the Middle Ages. Cambridge, 1977.
E. Grant, Planets, Stars and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos 1200-1687. Cambridge, 1994.
F. Heer, The Medieval World. Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1961 (Ch. 12).
T.E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West. Cambridge, 1993.
S.L. Jaki, Science and Creation. Scottish Academic Press, 1986.
S.L. Jaki, Uneasy Genius: The Life and Work of Pierre Duhem. Martinus Nijhoff, 1984.
S.L. Jaki, "The Physics of Impetus and the Impetus of the Koran." "Science and Censorship: Helene Duhem and the Publication of the Systeme du Monde." Chapters 9 and 11 in The Absolute Beneath the Relative. University Press of America, 1988.
S.L. Jaki, Reluctant Heroine: The Life and Work of Helene Duhem. Scottish Academic Press, 1992.
S.L. Jaki, "Medieval Christianity: Its Inventiveness in Technology and Science." Article in: Technology in the Western Political Tradition. Ed. M.R. Zinman. Cornell U. Press,1993.
D.C. Lindberg (Ed), Science in the Middle Ages, Chicago, 1978.
J.A. Weisheipl. The Development of Physical Theory in the Middle Ages. Sheed & Ward,1959.
A.N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World. Cambridge, 1926.

God, Aquinas, and Dawkins: The Origins of Science in Christian Europe

Science and Belief – The Origin of Science in Christian Europe

The following three posts contain excerpts from 8 lectures given by Peter Hodgson, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, England, where he is head of the Nuclear Physics Theoretical Group of the Nuclear Particle Physics Laboratory.  He has written 10 books on nuclear physics, 300 research articles and many popular articles on theology and science.  These lectures were first given at the University of Oxford in 1996 and 1998.

Why did science develop in our civilisation and not in any of the other great civilisations of the past? This is a complicated historical question that can be approached by listing the conditions that seem to be necessary for the rise of science and then seeing to what extent they are present in the different civilisations. If we find that the conditions necessary for the rise of science are present in only one civilisation then we have as full an explanation as it is possible to have for a historical phenomenon. We cannot of course expect to understand or explain the detailed history, for this depends on the presence of men of genius and other external circumstances.

If we think about what is needed for the viable birth of science, we see first of all that it needs a fairly well-developed society, so that some of its members can spend most of their time just thinking about the world, without the constant preoccupation of finding the next meal. It needs some simple technology, so that the apparatus required for experiments can be constructed. There must also be a system of writing, so that the results can be recorded and sent to other scientists, and a mathematical notation for expressing the results of measurements in numerical form. These may be called the material necessities of science. Since they may be found to a greater or lesser degree in most of the major civilisations of antiquity, we must look elsewhere for the answer to our question about the unique birth of science.

If the answer does not lie in the material conditions, we must seek it in the realm of ideas. Is it not possible that whether science develops or not depends on the attitude of the people to the material world? We can imagine that certain attitudes would prevent anyone thinking about the world in a way likely to lead to a scientific understanding, while others might at least provide a fertile soil for its growth. The type of thinking carried out in the early stages of science is done by people who share the ideas and beliefs of their civilisation. It is only later when science is well-established that specialised languages and modes of thought grow up and are taught to students and young scientists.

If we think about science and the attitudes that are likely to help its growth we can see first of all that it is essential for people to be interested in the material world. This implies that they must believe in some sense that it is good, so that it is worthwhile and respectable to try to find out more about it. Some people have thought that matter is evil, and that we must have as little to do with it as possible. Some early mystery cults taught that the world is evil and transitory, so that perfection may be attained only by turning away from the things of this world towards the eternal spiritual realm. If you believe that, then there is no possibility at all that you will become a scientist.

Another essential belief is that matter is orderly, that it behaves in a consistent and rational way. This means that if we observe and measure something one day, we will get the same results if we do the same thing on another day, or at another place. If we did not get the same results, if things behaved in a chaotic or random way, it would be impossible to build up a body of knowledge and science would be impossible. Unless we believe that there is an order in nature we will never take the trouble to find out what it is.

Concerning the order in nature, there are two possibilities. We may believe that the order in nature is a necessary order, that the material world could not be made in any way except the way it is in fact made. If we believed this, we might then think that the order of nature can be discovered by pure thought, that science can be developed in much the same way as mathematics. Many people have indeed tried this, and have not got very far; their speculations turn out in the end to be either trivial or wrong. We know that the only way to find out about the world is by controlled observation and experiment, and this is not encouraged if we believe that the order of the world is a necessary order.

The other possibility is that the order of the world is one of many possible ones. In other words we could assume that the order is contingent, that it depends on something else, that it could be other than it is. If we believe this, then the only way to ascertain that order is by observation and experiment, and thus the way is open for the development of science.

Another requirement for the development of science is the belief that the whole enterprise is a practicable one. We must believe that the order in nature is in some degree open to the human mind, that if we try hard enough we can discover some of its secrets. If the order in nature is hidden from the human mind, if there is no way of discovering it, then there is no point in trying to find it.

To sum up so far, we can see by considering the nature of science that it can grow in a civilisation in which the people believe that the world is good, or at least morally neutral, that it is rational and orderly, that it is contingent in the sense that it could be other than it is, and that it is apprehensible by the human mind.
These beliefs are essential, but they are not enough on their own. Scientific research is difficult, and nature does not readily yield its secrets. There needs to be a strong motivation to carry the scientist through all the failures and disappointments that inevitably come his way. Without this we might never get down to work, even though we recognised the theoretical possibility of attaining some knowledge of the world.

Another important characteristic of science is that it is a communal endeavour, the work of many minds. Every scientist builds on the work of his predecessors and shares his results with his colleagues. If scientists kept their results secret, the knowledge they gained would die with them and an extensive coherent body of knowledge would never be established. The scientist must therefore believe that whatever knowledge he gains is not his alone, but must be shared with the whole community.

These are the main beliefs that must be held by the whole community before science can even begin. They need not be held consciously and explicitly, in the sense that they could write them down in an orderly list. Many of them are usually held unconsciously or implicitly. They are to us so obvious that we would never even think of formulating them. They are part of the very fabric of our thought and form the way we look at the world.

Yet when we do think about them we realise that they constitute a very special set of beliefs that is by no means universal in human history, In fact if we examine the beliefs of past civilisations we find that many of them are quite different from those that we have seen are essential for the development of science. The very special set of beliefs about the material world that is needed for the growth of science did exist in Europe in the seventeenth century and this is why science as we know it developed at that time. But what is the origin of those beliefs, and why were they present at that time? To answer this questions we must go back to the beginnings of our civilisation.

God, Aquinas and Dawkins: Science, Religion, Reality, and the Epistemic Cycle

Dawkins' Premise: Science based on empirical evidence is rational and inordinately disrespected. Religion based on belief is irrational and inordinately respected.


We have been discussing belief and knowledge, both proper and improper. Our focus has been to discuss this in relation to modern empirical science. In this post, I want to explore the question of how we know – the beginning of knowledge and belief for each individual.

Dawkins’ argument, at its crudest level, represents a dichotomy between reliable, well-grounded and verifiable knowledge on one hand, and uncertain, unverifiable fancies on the other. Dawkins tells us that scientists are careful to check all their measurements and theories against reality, experience, and experiment. Therefore, science provides reliable knowledge. Belief, particularly religious belief, is just a matter of feeling or opinion.

But for both groups, the atheistic naturalists and the theistic supernaturalists, there is the basic assumption that they possess the truth. Truth is the conformity between my mind, my intellect, and the thing known. For theists, truth includes God – their belief or knowledge of God conforms to the reality of God’s existence. For atheists, there is no God so any idea or mental construct of God is simply false.

We arrive here at a very fundamental, critical question. What is the connection between my mental construction and reality? Do I take as fundamental my mind or a reality external to my mind that my intellect can directly perceive?

If I answer that it is my mind, then I will never be able to escape from my mind. This was the fatal mistake of Descartes, Kant and other modern philosophers – such error led inexorably to positivism – which we will address more fully in a later post.

The other choice is to recognize that I have the capacity to grasp the external world directly. I know definitely and without possibility of error what is directly in front of me. This may seem obvious to the reader. It is very common-sensical you may say. But as I will show in a later post, the argument put forward by Dawkins that science is the only means of achieving authentic knowledge has as its historical basis very nonsensical philosophy.

For now, I assert that I can indeed have certain, reliable knowledge of the things, external to my mind, that are right in front of me.

The Epistemic Cycle

Consider a young child. Babies and toddlers do not sit still. They are constantly interacting with the environment. Reaching out to things, picking things up, shaking them, throwing them, putting them into the mouth. In such manner, they become aware of the world around them, building up knowledge. The fact that babies and very young children are active not passive gives us a clue that the best way to learn about the world is to act on it and see what happens.

As time goes by, they build up knowledge of a range of familiar things. They learn to recognize these things on sight. They don’t need to go back through the whole process again. Occasionally, they may be mistaken, but they learn how to correct their errors by further interactions with the object.

At the lowest level, the baby learns that there are certain objects in the world with particular properties. His rattle makes a nice noise, it can be thrown about but is not good to eat. Then maybe he is given another rattle of a different shape and color. He recognizes that the two rattles have some properties in common but in other ways they are different. He realizes that he can think about rattles in general, abstracting from any particular rattle. In this way he has formed the concept of rattle. He will make mistakes; perhaps he sees something that looks like his rattle, but when he shakes it nothing happens; it is not a rattle but another sort of toy. In this way the baby builds up a series of concepts that enables him to classify the objects and the people around him. This cycle of guessing followed by checking and then another round of guessing and checking is called the epistemic cycle.

This process goes on as the baby grows up, through higher and higher epistemic cycles. Very soon, particularly as the ability to speak develops, the process becomes a social one. He learns the word for rattle, and indeed the development of the concept of rattle is helped and crystallized by the word. Our language develops in response to our apprehension of reality. Concepts are developed and refined as the learning process proceeds; the concept of swan is revised when we see one that is black.

It is possible that after some time the cycle runs into a dead end; it is clearly not correct and yet it is not obvious how it should be changed. It may then be necessary to go back several stages in the cycle, and try again. It is a requirement of a successful concept of the object that it will eventually be reached from a large number of different starting points. It is a very flexible and ultimately stable process.

This has important philosophical implications, and provides the justification for the starting point already affirmed, namely that the mind directly apprehends an objective external world.

First there is the problem of innate ideas. Are we born with some ideas about the world? If so, is there any reason why they should be correct? If they are not correct, will they not irretrievably distort all subsequent knowledge? On the other hand, if we do not have some innate ideas about the world, how can we ever get started?

These difficulties are overcome by the extreme flexibility and self-correcting nature of the epistemic cycle. Almost any idea, however wrong-headed, suffices to get the cycle going, and once it is going the erroneous elements will soon be eliminated. The cycle can be started anywhere, and it will in the end lead to the same result. It does not even matter in a fundamental way how the cycle is operated; because of its self-correcting nature almost random actions will in the end lead to the same result, although of course that will take longer than intelligent and coordinated actions. Thus it does not matter whether we have innate ideas or not, or what they are. As long as we have the urge to learn by interacting with the world we are set on a process of continual learning that automatically progresses to higher and higher levels.

This process is not without its dangers, particularly if we come to believe that there is a one-to-one correspondence between language and reality. This is not so bad for simple objects, although some languages are richer than others. The danger becomes acute at the higher levels of abstraction, when we use words like mind, space and time. Such words have a long history and do not have sharp and easily defined meanings, but are only defined in the context of definite philosophical or scientific beliefs.

This process is never-ending, as we explore the richness and complexity of reality. We can be sure of some of our knowledge, but there are also legitimate areas of disagreement. A concept or a scientific theory may have been quite well tested against a range of experiences but may later fail, and then we have to think again. The whole process also presupposes a willingness to revise our ideas in the face of contrary evidence. If we stick to our beliefs regardless, the whole fruitful growth of our knowledge is impossible. It is not surprising that there are still strong areas of disagreement, but we have available the means to resolve them.

The concept of epistemic cycles applies at every level of knowledge: from the initial efforts of the child to the work of the scientist, philosopher and theologian. While ultimately the process leads to the attainment of objective truth, it becomes progressively more difficult with the degree of abstraction of the subject matter. The child soon finds out if he is mistaken, and the scientist can subject his theories to sharp tests, often requiring precise numerical agreement. If a philosopher makes a false move, all his system is fatally flawed, and in the end will prove untenable, but in the absence of sharp tests it may be a long time before this is apparent. The system may have much to commend it, and when the first difficulties appear it may be possible to develop the system to account for them, thus postponing the final reckoning.

This is still truer for systems of religious belief, which can survive for millennia. The final challenge comes partly from within, but more often from without, as another system of beliefs proves able to account for all that is good in the original system, and much else besides. Individuals may find it very difficult to change, but the next generation is able to take a more objective view and so eventually the old beliefs die away and become a historical memory.

This is exactly Dawkins’ contention - science provides an account of the world as good if not better than does religious belief. He views the scientific view as a simpler explanation and thus, the more appropriate one. He contends that science can not only answer all the major questions traditionally answered by religion but that its answers are more consistent with reality. His description of religion is, of course, heavily influenced by the religious tradition of the West – a tradition formed, molded, and shaped by Christianity – especially Catholic Christianity. The problem is that his view, image, perception of religion – especially Christianity – and even more specifically Catholicism – is false. He consistently misstates the philosophical and theological principles underpinning the religious tradition of the West. I will address this more completely in a later post.

At any rate whether we are discussing modern science, philosophy, or theology, it is important to recognize that throughout this account we have tacitly presupposed that we live in a real world. This is the essential assumption underlying the epistemic cycle, for it describes our interaction with reality. It is justified by the result. If there were no objective reality the cycle would not work, still less would it yield results that are agreed among many people. If we were trapped in our own minds, building concepts and ideas into acceptable patterns, there would be no reason why my pattern should be any truer than yours. Indeed I would have no reason to even speak about you, for the concept of another person would on this view be simply yet another construction of my own mind. I am trapped within my own self, a solipsist. The epistemic cycle would not work because there would be no objective standard that would enable us to distinguish the false from the true. Its success would be wholly inexplicable; if there is no objective external world then why can we improve our ideas by systematically correcting our mistakes?

The recognition of individual facts is but the first step in knowledge, the second is the classification of facts, the recognition of the general in the particular. This is a spontaneous unconscious act, a basic characteristic of human thinking. It is not an inference from sensations; it is the immediate grasping by the mind of a facet of reality.

God, Aquinas and Dawkins: Science, Religion, Empiricism, and Faith

Premise:  Science based on empirical evidence is rational and inordinately disrespected.  Religion based on belief is irrational and inordinately respected.

The major work done in Chapter 1 is the juxtaposition of modern science and religion.  Dawkins bemoans the lack of respect he perceives modern science receiving, and denounces the alleged fact that religion receives so much respect and deference.

But this is a false dichotomy as I will point out in this post and the following.

Empiricism strictly defined means observation or experience.  If you observe something, you can empirically prove it happened.  If you don’t observe it, you cannot empirically prove it.  You may be able to prove its truth in other ways – logical deduction or logical induction for example – but you cannot prove its truth empirically.

Consider for a moment the motions of the earth – its rotation on its axis and its revolution around the sun.  Both are standard scientific facts taught in our schools.  These facts are ubiquitous permeating our collective mindset.  Yet I don’t feel the earth’s surface moving at 1000 miles per hour due to its rotation.  I don’t sense the earth moving 67,000 miles per hour around the sun.  Indeed, our common language indicates how strongly we don’t sense these motions.  We talk about the sun coming up or going down.

I have no experience to base the truth of the claims that our earth moves in these ways.  Yet, I accept the truth of these propositions because I accept the authority that taught them to me.  The motions of the earth are a matter of belief, credence.  Furthermore for most of us, it is a matter of unconscious belief.  Even among the most scientifically literate, many have not considered on what grounds they believe and say these things.  It is one thing to trust the word of an expert.  It is another level of belief completely to not even be conscious of the fact that one is taking another’s word.

Our “knowledge” of the motions of the earth is not an empirical conclusion based on personal and direct observation and experience.  Rather, it is part of an unrecognized belief system attained in childhood.  Similar arguments can be made to our knowledge of the roundness of the earth.  We all “know” the earth is round.  Yet very few of us have directly observed the earth from space.  Very few of us have flown around the earth in orbit.  True, we have seen pictures of the earth taken from space, but the photographs are not direct evidence – direct personal observation.  We trust that the ones telling us the pictures are accurate and true are indeed telling us the truth.  We “know” the roundness of the earth and its motions from unconscious belief in science.

In such ways, modern science permeates our collective mindset.  We identify with the conclusions of modern science to such an extent that we consider ourselves in some way superior in knowledge to our predecessors.  We even perpetuate the myth that the medieval man was a victim of ideological and religious strictures preventing him from knowing the roundness of the earth.  The historical fact is that the ancients as well as medieval men were familiar with the curvature of the earth – allowing one to see ships at a distance from the crow’s nest but not the deck – seeing approaching ships “rise” over the horizon as they drew closer to port.  Yet we teach our children that Columbus proved the earth round in 1492 – and thus perpetuate a myth that in part helps to protect and perpetuate the system of unconscious belief in science.

These examples highlight the distinction between knowledge and belief and that we often do not know where one begins and the other ends.  In the case of the earth’s motion, we know what others tell us about it and we believe it to be true.

Commonly, knowledge means anything we accept as relatively certain for whatever reason.  This is knowledge in an improper sense.  I have knowledge proper only when I come to conclusions based on facts and principles that I personally have experienced, observed, or apprehended and if required, based on a chain of reasoning that I have walked through myself.  Belief commonly refers to having a level of probable, but not necessarily certain, conviction that is usually based on the word of another.  In this sense, improper knowledge is a type of belief.  Belief in a proper sense means trusting the word of another.

If I say, “I believe the moon is full” and I am looking at the moon and it is a full moon, then I am using the word “believe” improperly.  In such a situation, I know the moon is full through direct experience and observation.  I cannot know and believe the same thing at the same time in the same manner.  If I know something, someone telling me it does not change my state to one of both knowledge and belief.  If I say I believe in my friend and I know him, then I must be referring to different attributes of my friend.  For example, I know his basic character and I believe he will make good decisions.

Empirically speaking – I Believe

Belief is as much a component of modern science as it is of theology.

Consider the craters on the moon.  We were taught that these craters were formed by meteors.  I personally have seen the craters on the moon through a telescope.  It would seem that these craters offer empirical evidence of meteors supporting what I was taught and believe.

But these craters are empirical evidence of nothing at all.  Strictly speaking, I cannot empirically draw the conclusion that meteors formed the craters I saw.  I did not and have not personally observed a meteor impacting the moon and forming a crater.  Therefore, I cannot empirically prove the proposition that meteors caused these craters.

Even if I did observe a meteor impacting the moon’s surface forming a crater, I can only attest that this meteor formed this crater.  As a strict empiricist, I cannot apply this one observation to the millions of other lunar craters because I did not observe how each of those craters was formed.  Because I did not observe their formation, they could have been created by a process unknown to me.

But you might be thinking, this guy is getting quite ridiculous.  Of course the craters on the moon were formed by meteors.  Scientists have observed such incidents many times and have recreated such events in the laboratory.  The evidence from all these confirm that meteors created the craters.

But as a strict empiricist, I cannot accept your testimony or the testimony of those many scientists.  To do so would be to trust someone else’s senses, experience, observations that I cannot be sure are trustworthy.

Even if you saw a crater formed by meteor impact, I cannot trust your observation unless I directly observed you observing the crater as it was being formed.  If you saw it and I observed you see it, I would empirically know that your observations were correct.

Now it is almost certain that the lunar craters were indeed formed by meteor impact.  I know this because this is what science and scientists have taught me.  I accept their testimony because I recognize their authority and expertise in this area.

The scientists arrived at this conclusion through formal logic, through induction from evidence provided by experiments which they claim are similar to meteor impact, etc.  But the scientists did not arrive at this conclusion through empirical observation.

When I read in a scientific journal about the experiments and observations that led to the conclusion about crater formation, I accept the conclusions.  I believe the information because I trust the person who wrote the article.  I trust the peers who reviewed the article.  In short, I trust a person or group of persons.

I could not do science without this belief or credence. Belief is critical to scientific endeavors, for even the strictest empiricist has not performed all the foundational experiments in his discipline, nor has he personally created all the instruments through which the experiments were performed. Yet he should do both, in order to be sure that everything worked in the way he thinks they work.  He cannot do this.  Even if he tried to be a strict empiricist, given the current state of knowledge, he wouldn't live long enough to discover anything really valuable.

Craters, Rotating Orbs, and Revolution – What an Impact!

I accept the motions of the earth and the craters of the moon.  I was taught about these in school.  I have done no experiment, made no observation, no analysis of data – I simply accept it because that is what I was taught.  My belief about each of these matters hangs from a chain of other beliefs – trust in my teachers, trust in those who taught my teachers, and ultimately trust in the scientists who discovered these facts.  Over time, my life experiences have strengthened my trust in these authorities.  I have learned how to judge who are real authorities and who are not.  But even now, I do not have proper knowledge of the motions of the earth or the craters on the moon.  My certainty of belief rests on the trustworthiness of authority and its attending cultural structure.  My belief about the earth’s motions is not knowledge proper but very reasonable and necessary human faith.

Scientists who have not done the experiments, made the observations, or done the analysis directly also operate on belief (have faith) based on authority.  Nonetheless, they have a degree of certainty that I lack because they have ancillary knowledge that gives the statements about the earth’s motion or the formation of lunar craters more believability.  With this background they can personally understand something of the explanations of these phenomena.  Knowledge of these ancillary facts gives scientists reasons that interlock at multiple places with what they are told about the earth’s motions and the lunar craters.  Such interlocking points give scientists valid reason to give greater weight to the conclusions given to them by authority.  But it still remains that unless they do the experiments, make the observations, and do the analysis personally they do not know in the proper sense.

In the Know

As we have seen not all knowledge is direct knowledge.  There are things that I can deduce from facts, experiences, observations, even beliefs that create a chain from which a new piece of knowledge hangs.  For instance from the fact that I am typing on a keyboard, I can deduce that someone manufactured the keyboard.  This knowledge is just as real as the first.  However as I proceed to more complicated and multi-tiered reasoning, the possibility of error in my reasoning increases.  The need for checking and rechecking my reasoning also increases.  I must always be careful to proceed from what is more known to me to what is less known.

All of us depend on improper knowledge and belief.  Because much of this type of knowledge contains only virtual or probable certainty, we should attempt to bring as many things as prudently possible under the umbrella of real knowledge – beginning first with the most important things and moving in order of importance to as many other things as dictated by our abilities, time, and station in life.  We cannot know everything.  It is a gain in proper knowledge to understand that we depend on each other’s truthfulness and accuracy to do what we do well with minimum error.

God, Aquinas and Dawkins: Preface to My Response to Arguments in Chapter 1

Preface to My Response to Dawkins Arguments in Chapter 1

The power of modern science (and the engineering technologies derived from basic science) to explain, control, and manipulate the physical universe is undeniable.  In the wake of the scientific revolution, we have reached a standard of living unknown and unimagined by the ancients.  Our ability to understand the intricacies of the operation of the universe and our ability to explain the basic operations and processes of nature are unparalleled.  The scientific method is indeed a very powerful tool.

I have no argument with Dawkins here.  If you are looking for an understanding of the processes and operations of the physical universe, modern science provides this.  I share Dawkins wonder at the lawful order of the universe.  I am fascinated by the explanation and description of this order provided by science.

The question is not about the explanation of the order in the universe.  The fundamental question is the fact that the order can be explained at all.  Why is there such order?  Why is the universe so intelligible?  Why does anything exist at all?

The answer to such questions is beyond the ability of the empirical sciences.  They lie outside the scope of science.  Science can describe the order.  Science can uncover the underlying laws and principles of the universe.  But the reason for the order, the fact that anything exists at all cannot be described and cannot be uncovered empirically.  I can experimentally, empirically discover and test the order, laws, and principles that govern the universe.  But there is no experimental, empirical test that shows why the universe is as it is.  There is no experimental, empirical test to answer “why” anything exists at all.  Science can explain how things exist, how things change and become other things, how the universe has developed – but it is beyond the scope of science to explain why there is a universe at all.

This is an important point for in it is the crux of the whole “God question”.  This point needs to be clear to the reader before we go on. 

Let’s use Darwinian evolutionary theory as an example.  In common language, evolution by natural selection explains “why” there is such diversity in species.  However in this example, “why” has a different meaning from how I used it above.  Evolution describes the process of how the species we experience now came to exist.  Evolution describes how living organisms developed from simpler materials, changed over time through natural selection, and became the great variety of species we see today.  Evolution answers the question of how life came to exist as it does now.  Similarly, the child’s question of why it rains can be answered by the description of the processes of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.  And the question why there is a rainbow can be answered by the description of the refraction of light through water droplets.  But none of these descriptions answers the fundamental question of why the universe operates in this way – why is the universe such as it is that evolution, evaporation, and refraction occur at all?  Why is the universe such as it is that the human mind can discover, describe, and understand this order?  Conceivably we can imagine or think about a universe that operates by different laws and principles – a universe ordered differently from the one we find ourselves in – but the point remains that it wouldn’t be the universe that is.

Empirical science cannot and does not explain why there is a universe that operates in the way it does.    We can and have discovered many of these laws and principles – and I agree with Dawkins in that there are many things about the physical universe we currently do not understand or only have limited understanding of – and I agree that the natural sciences are our best hope in eventually describing the principles, laws, and processes that underlie them.

My contention is that Dawkins got the whole thing terribly wrong – not because of his disbelief in God – but because he missed this central point.  The acceptance of the truth of evolution by natural selection, or its rejection, has no bearing on the essential “God Question”.  Scientific explanations and theories simply cannot address the question of God’s existence.

The scientific enterprise does indeed yield truth about the physical universe.  But as I have alluded, there are questions to which the truths of science offer no answer.  This does not mean that such questions are unanswerable.  It means that we must approach them from a different angle utilizing different tools.   “Not every truth admits of the same mode of manifestation, and a well-educated man will expect exactness in every class of subject, according as the nature of the thing admits" (Summa contra gentiles, 1.3).

These fundamental questions about reality are the purview of philosophy which, according to Aristotle by way of Aquinas, is “the science of truth, not any and every truth but that truth that is the origin of all truth and appertains to the first principle of the being of all things; hence its truth is the principle of all truth, for things are in truth as they are in being” (Summa contra gentiles, 1.1).  Wisdom is the consideration of this truth – truth that lies at the heart of all reality.  Aquinas says, “Of all human pursuits, the pursuit of wisdom is the more perfect, the more sublime, the more useful, and the more agreeable” (Summa contra gentiles, 1.2).  It is the intent of this blog to pursue that truth.

For some this may seem to be a matter of some abstrusity.  Others may find my philosophical arguments as an exercise in splitting hairs.  Some may just find the whole thing rather frivolous.  To all of these folks, I ask your patient indulgence.  Stick with me and we will get to our destination in due time.  I also offer G. K. Chesterton’s definition of philosophy:  “Philosophy is merely thought that has been thought out. It is often a great bore. But man has no alternative, except between being influenced by thought that has been thought out and being influenced by thought that has not been thought out”. 

The problem with Dawkins is that he presents thoughts that haven't been thought out.  A further problem is that he has presented them to a Western culture that just plain no longer thinks at all.

So let’s get thinking, shall we?

God, Aquinas, and Dawkins: Chapter 1 The God Delusion (Part 1)

Before I begin discussing Chapter 1 of the book, let me describe the method I will use in this and the following posts. There are many statements, premises, arguments that Dawkins makes throughout the book. Some have counted upwards of 160 separate premises. The book is written in conversational style marked by strong passion and even polemics. It is clear that Dawkins did not mean to write a philosophical treatise but wrote in a manner to reach the greatest number of people. As such, he often makes bold statements that are not supported by evidence or fact as well as making provocative and denigrating statements about religion in general.


I will be posting my response to each chapter in the book. For each chapter, I will provide a very brief synopsis of the chapter. Then I will outline or delineate the major premises Dawkins makes in the chapter. Finally I will respond to each premise. In my response I will try to outline the philosophical history/roots of each idea. I will also show the fundamental error or mistake underlying each idea. I will then discuss the correction to each of these ideas. I will try to limit my posts to addressing one premise (or a very few if appropriate). Thus for some chapters there will be more than one post.

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Summary of Chapter 1

In Chapter 1, Dawkins begins laying the foundation upon which he will build the remainder of the book. Chapter 1 draws a sharp dichotomy between modern science and religion. The title of the chapter, "A deeply religious non believer" is a partial quote from Albert Einstein, who described his "religion" as an awe of nature and its "magnificent structure." The main thrust of the chapter is that science deserves respect (which it doesn't get) whereas religion deserves little or no respect (which it receives).

The first section of the chapter uses Einstein to illustrate that awe and wonder at the grandeur of the universe and its underlying structure are not necessarily religious sentiments – religious in the sense of believing in a Creator God. He goes to great length to show how Einstein sometimes used religious language to capture the powerful emotions he felt. But quotes from Einstein show that even though he used “God-talk” to describe these feelings he personally did not believe in a personal God. Dawkins quotes Einstein, “It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

Dawkins argues that such transcendent wonder at the universe has been monopolized by religion in past centuries but is not necessarily characteristic of only religious believers. Many modern scientists who are avowed atheists hold such feelings at heart.

He defines atheists as philosophical naturalists. Dawkins writes, “An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles - except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural. As ever when we unweave a rainbow, it will not become less wonderful.” A quote from Julian Baggini further illustrates his point: “What most atheists do believe is that although there is only one kind of stuff in the universe and it is physical, out of this stuff come minds, beauty, emotions, moral values - in short the full gamut of phenomena that gives richness to human life."

Dawkins also writes, “human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain.”

He then defines terms:

“A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a nonsupernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.”

He sums up part one and sets the stage for the chapter’s second part: , “I wish that physicists would refrain from using the word God in their special metaphorical sense. The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miraclewreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason.”

In the second part of the chapter, Dawkins seeks to convince the reader of the irrationality of religion and its “undeserved respect” in the West. He rattles off a litany of violence, atrocities, and evil performed in the name of religion throughout the years especially in the late 20th-early 21st centuries.

Major Premises

1. The deep appreciation and wonder at the structure of the universe is not just characteristic of religious believers.
2. Nothing exists outside the material, physical universe.
3. Human thoughts, emotions, arise out of the physical features of the brain.
4. And a corollary to this, there is no immaterial soul.
5. Modern science, especially Darwinian evolutionary science, explains the origins and workings of the universe.
6. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, science will eventually understand it and embrace it within the natural.
7. The theistic belief in a personal God who created the universe, oversees and influences it, and is intimately involved in human affairs is false. No God exists.
8. Atheistic science is rational.
9. Religion is irrational.
10. Religion is a major source of violence and evil in the world.

In the next post, I will respond to these major premises.

God, Aquinas, and Dawkins: Preface to The God Delusion

In the preface to his work, Dawkins lays out what he hopes to accomplish in The God Delusion. He seeks to encourage those raised in a religious tradition who “are unhappy in it, don’t believe it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents’ religion and wish they could, but just don’t realize that leaving is an option” to realize that “atheism is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one”. He assures the reader that atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled. He goes on to bolster the self-esteem of his fellow atheists by stating that being an atheist “is something to be proud of, standing tall to face the far horizon, for atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind”.


He continues by delineating numerous evils committed in the name of religion asking us, along with John Lennon, to imagine a world with no religion. To his credit, he admits that religion is not the root of all evil, but he is clear that he considers religion to be a great force for evil. He continues to juxtaposition religion with reason – identified with the natural sciences. From this he draws the conclusion that religion is not necessary to leading an ethical life.


He presents belief in God as one hypothesis about the universe that should and can be tested just as other hypotheses. He goes on to assert that Darwinian natural selection and similar scientific theories are superior to this "God hypothesis" —the illusion of intelligent design— in explaining the living world and the cosmos.

In his refutation of religion, he describes the religious training of children as child abuse.  Children should not be labeled as “Christian children” or “Muslim children” for they are not capable of giving free assent to these religious views.  Rather they are the subjects of indoctrination.  As he says in the preface, “If you are religious at all, it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that of your parents.   If you were born in Arkansas and you think Christianity is true and Islam false, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan, you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.  Mutatis mutandis if you were born in Afghanistan”.


As I mentioned in my last post, the ideas and arguments put forward in this book are nothing new.  The passionate attack on religion and religious belief that marks the tenor of the book is also not new.  What is new is that a book so short on well reasoned argumentation; so short on accurate portrayals and descriptions of opposing views; so impoverished of a true understanding of histroy can be such a powerful influence on so many.  This fact alone is enough to indicate the weakness in our educational system.


With that rant complete, let's look at the argument that religion and science necessarily oppose each other.

God, Aquinas, and Dawkins

Now that I have described Aquinas' basic ways to know the existence of God, let's turn our attention to the major arguments refuting the existence of God. Specifically, I want to address the arguments and thoughts of the what is termed the “new atheism”, the most famous proponent of which (arguably) is Richard Dawkins.

In his two bestselling works, The God Delusion and The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins takes aim at belief in God specifically and religion generally. Dawkins claims that God certainly does not exist and that those who believe in such existence are deluded. In both books, he asserts that natural evolution and other scientific theories adequately explain the existence and order found in the universe.

He particularly focuses on an argument from design, more commonly termed intelligent design. He points out the age old human effort to explain the apparent design in the universe. Dawkins suggests that there are basically two competing explanations or hypotheses. One attributes this design to a divine designer. The other shows how science has shown how something more complex can arise from simple origins and principles. He goes on to assert that the alternative to an intelligent designer is not blind chance but natural selection.

Along with Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennet, Dawkins represents what has been termed the “new atheism”. But as we will see, their brand of atheism and their arguments are anything but new. In the 13^th century, Thomas Aquinas was already familiar with these arguments which he clearly understood and addressed. The roots of these arguments, indeed the very arguments themselves, can be found in the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle.

Over the next several posts, I will address each of the major arguments and points made by Dawkins showing their historical roots as well as the fallacious thinking that underlies them. I invite any readers to make comments, ask questions, share insights, and even try to refute or support my ideas. All I ask is that unlike Dawkins himself, we maintain a decorum of respect and thoughtful dialogue.