For the sake of this post, I want to make a crucial distinction. This is about G-d, the Creator. This is not about G-d, the Rule Giver.
In my post about atheists, I wrote a bit about bad religion. It is my contention that this is one of the greatest challenges in having these conversations. I don’t think that so many people have a problem with belief in G-d. Their problem lies with believing in the G-d that they learn about from bad sources. This post is not about that G-d. He’s not a man who sits in a chair in the sky. The only aspect of His “nature” that we are concerned with here is that He is the Creator of the Universe. With help from G-d (typed with a smile), we’ll get to more about whether or not those rules were given. But not here and not now.
Most people have heard of the watchmaker, or teleological, proof of G-d. A person is walking along the beach and finds a watch. He wonders who might have lost it, and posits that perhaps it has always been there. Two points about this idea. The first is the problem with the word proof. I am neither capable nor desirous of presenting a dissertation of the different levels of what would be required for “proof.” If this interests you, please check out a short book that is downloadable for free from Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottleib called “Living Up to the Truth.” Instead of using the word proof, I’ll simply avoid this semantic battle and talk about evidence. We’re not looking for irrefutable evidence. We almost never get that in life. We’re looking for the most likely scenario. To hear evidence for G-d presented and to respond, “Yeah. Well maybe there are creatures from outer space of far superior intelligence than ours.” Yeah, maybe. I feel like I have to hold my nose as I address such a response. To step out of such silliness, we’ll just stick with “compelling evidence” and not offer “proof.”
The second point with the watchmaker “evidence” is that it is notoriously under appreciated and usually underdeveloped. When I say underdeveloped, I do not mean to take this to a level of college philosophy. I’m aware that Cicero and Descartes developed this idea (anyone with wikipedia could figure this out), and I’m aware that there are arguments against this. I am talking about the average Joe on the street. I’m talking about our observable universe and how little people seem to truly consider this. The arguments against this teleological argument are not overwhelming or crushing at all. Some of the challenges actually strengthens the argument.
FORGET ABOUT THE WATCH – A PAPER CLIP
The watch somehow made it onto the map as the prototype to show design and function. Let’s try to understand the mechanics behind this argument.
If someone were to suggest that after billions of years and millions of mutations, a watch appeared on the beach, we’d dismiss him as a certifiable whack job. Why? Simply, it’s because we recognize patterns and function. Something guided the pieces of that watch into all of the right places. But the watch isn’t the best starting place. It’s too complicated. Before we examine something like a watch, let’s get to something even more simple.
A paper clip is a wonderful little creation. We take it for granted, but a little thought would suggest that there were likely thousands of hours of planning that went into this simple tool. How many years of metallurgy did humanity go through to be able to create such a perfect balance of pliable and rigid metal! How many failed shapes were tried before someone came up with that shape which is so familiar to us! And, then, how many years of development went into getting us to the point where there could be machinery that would produce these little clips by the millions so that we could stock so many supply shelves throughout the world with these awesome little widgets! To suggest that it just happened is literally insane. And, yet, this is one of the most simple products in our advanced society.
With even the most bare-bones simple gadgets, it is so obvious to us that something with so much design and function can’t be accidental.
ADD COMPLEXITY. ADD INSANITY
Now consider a pen, a bicycle, or even our world famous watch and what happens. The pen is perfectly calibrated (sometimes it’s not and it’s a woeful mess) to allow the ink out. The ink is complex as is the plastic. What grand functionality to a pen. Each item that we examine, if we look at what it does and how we got to the point of making these, is a marvel. The more complexity that a thing has the more insane it becomes to suggest that it happened by accident.
What happens when we take it to the next level? Look at a car! Now we can jump out of our skins with amazement. How many parts are there in a car? Each part is complex, and each is important to the functionality of the whole. The more we climb into this idea, the more we should be clear that complexity, design, and function speaks increasingly more loudly to purposeful creators.
I don’t use the term insane to insult. It is the proper use of the word. A person who were to believe that a paper clip, much less a space shuttle were products of accident and lots of time would not belong in a sane world. You don’t need to have seen a space shuttle created to know that it was. It’s built into our minds to recognize pattern. The ability to recognize pattern is a central aspect of any aptitude test that I’ve ever taken. It is basic measure of being in touch with reality.
THE TEENY LITTLE BABY STEP OF FAITH
What happens now with our evidence? It goes bonkers. We now turn from the world of human creations to the world of nature. Even with the mind boggling advances of science today, the level of complexity in the natural world is in a different category entirely from the man-made world. The thought that something can not only contain the complexity of a cell but reproduce already introduces us to a world which is several standards of deviation away from the man-made world. Imagine that buying two computers and leaving them alone in a room would be all you’d ever have to do to forever have generations of computers. Put your digital camera in the ground, give it just enough water and sunlight and come back a few months later to a tree filled with as many cameras as you could ever use.
My goal is neither to be ridiculous nor is it to wax poetic. My goal is to encourage you to stop simplifying the teleological argument into, “Yeah. The watchmaker thing. You know there are problems with that.” Think about it. Consider not only the complexity of a cell and its ability to repair itself and reproduce, but think about every part of your body, inside and out. Consider that all of those complex parts, made up of the complex cells, work together to perform countless tasks. Consider the balance of the natural world and how the world is so incredibly interdependent. Contemplate the spinning of the earth, tides, seasons, and gravity. It all works together.
So why isn’t it as obvious that the world has a Designer as it is obvious that the paper clip has one?
The answer that I propose is that the massive gap has a name. The unfathomable chasm between the complexity level of the man-made world and the complexity of the natural world is called free choice. We sometimes think that free choice lies in whether or not you want to eat vanilla or mint chocolate chip. That is a preference that might even be outside of your realm of free choice. Your free choice lies right there between whether you are willing to face the Divine or not. For those who want to see G-d, it is not a massive leap of faith at all. The obviousness of design, pattern, and function in the natural world is so clear as to be far past insane once you look for it. However, the gap is so massive that it needs some contemplation to notice it. In that gap the condition known as humanity seeks to rear its head.
This great distance between the level of complexity of the man-made and natural world has the ability to be clouded by human weakness. There is a part of us that wants to see G-d, but there is a less frequently discussed part of us that does not want to see G-d. We want to be left alone, unburdened by thoughts of eternity and morality. Humans have a unique ability to cloud their thinking; we can fool ourselves. If I want to believe in a G-dless world, I will cleverly amass all of the questions available to me and conveniently ignore any evidence that challenges my thesis. Of course the opposite is true. If I want to believe in G-d, I can ignore challenges to this theory, while only focusing on that which supports my desire to have world inhabited by G-d. How do you work out of this puzzle. Use your brain to gather information And just as importantly, use your power of introspection to investigate whether or not you’re being honest with your own motives. As a believer, I issue this challenge not only to those who don’t believe. Those who believe, I believe (couldn’t resist) would also do well to clarify their beliefs. If it’s really G-d (and it is), then we need not have fear in using our brains to find Him on an ongoing basis.
HOW ABOUT MUTATIONS!
One of the main challenges to this approach is that of mutations and disease. It seems to point to an imperfect world. To make a similar point to one that I made in the Atheist post, it is a question and a challenge, but it is far from a nail in the coffin. Very good point – there are mutations and seeming imperfections in the world. That challenges our understanding of who G-d is and why such a world would have these difficulties, but it does nothing to the argument of design. There are seeming flaws within the design, but there is still the infinitely complex world around us that screams (a persistent whisper is probably more accurate) an infinitely wise Designer. We’ll have to explore the problems together, but this is a post on a blog and not a book, so you’ll have to wait until we get there.
I wrote above, “Some of the challenges actually strengthens the argument.” There is a challenge that goes attempts to show the dissimilarity between the two types of design because the man-made design is a product of so many different people and generations. This is not a challenge. It strengthens my belief. The best that we can produce after thousands of years of design still pales to the most simple parts of the natural world. This doesn’t suggest that there must also be many gods. It suggests that the intellect behind the design is exponentially greater than the man-made version. It leads us towards a G-d whose wisdom is infinitely complex.
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Chris Lawrence said
Hello again. I agree ‘proof’ is a big ask, and the best thing to aim at is ‘the most likely scenario’.
But I find the argument from design unconvincing for a number of reasons. It might have been easier to resort to it before the great strides in Darwinian thinking of the last 50 or so years. But now the creator god hypothesis has a serious alternative.
It would be unwise to claim that ‘evolution proves that god doesn’t exist’. But I do think it’s wise to consider the possible impact of Darwinian principles on the idea of a god as a creator.
One of the things modern Darwinism introduces – possibly for the first time in human thought? – is the realisation that ‘design’ does not have to imply ‘conscious design’ or intelligent design. From a few starting principles (replication, variation, scarcity of resources, competition) it is possible to construct an overall algorithm to account for features of the natural world which otherwise might appear to have been the work of a conscious creator.
‘Design by natural selection’ therefore becomes a real alternative to ‘design by conscious intent’. (‘Design by natural selection’ doesn’t mean ‘design by chance’.)
The fact that it is a coherent hypothesis doesn’t of course mean it has to be true, or that it’s the only explanation. But for myself at least it seems to fit the facts a lot better than the alternative hypothesis of a creator god. One of the problems with the creator god hypothesis is the one I alluded to in my earlier response – how did the infinitely complex intelligence & power of the creator god originate? (Unless of course it is defined as something impossible to explain, in which case why bother trying to explain the natural world?)
Clearly the evolutionary alternative doesn’t yet (& may never) have all the answers. For example even if natural selection accounts for the variety & survival ingenuity of organisms, what kick-started the process? And yes it is possible that natural selection is the creator god’s deliberate mechanism for populating appropriate parts of the universe with living creatures.
I do think the evidence for natural selection is very convincing, regardless of whether there is or was a creator god. What worries me though about the idea that natural selection might be the creator god’s mechanism is that it is so difficult to square with the idea of a god as the origin & source of goodness & love. The natural world is so unremittingly painful & wasteful – why would a god of goodness & love establish creation on such a cruel principle?
My own ‘most likely scenario’ would need to include the principle of natural selection, because the evidence is so overwhelming. With that as one axiom, the clash between a cruel &/or callous creator god & a god of goodness & love seems a problem which monotheistic faith needs to address. If I had to choose, I’d go with the god of goodness & love.
clarityman said
Chris,
I don’t mean to avoid any points, but you raise a bunch. If I leave something out that you feel is essential, bring it to my attention and I’ll try not to leave anything out.
First, you use two terms seemingly interchangeably with which I take exception. Semantically speaking you may be correct, but the way the terms are used is what I have big issues with. Natural selection is as obvious as the nose on my face. Anyone who disagrees with natural selection doesn’t belong in an adult conversation. Evolution, however, needs to be dissected a bit before I can sit quietly allowing it to have such strength.
I will first admit to not having read Darwin. I am not a natural scientist. I can use wikipedia and pretend to know things as quickly as anyone, but I have the strengths and weaknesses that I have and I don’t serve myself well by pretending to have strengths that I do not. What I can comment on is how the masses use the word evolution. “When it became advantageous for the heart to have four chambers instead of three, it evolved . . . ” “When the fly evolved its ability to take flight . . . ”
These types of “thoughts” are so insane as to be beyond comedy. I don’t know if Darwin believed this; I don’t know if you do. I don’t believe that I can have a conversation with such people, however, because I am not convinced that such thinking falls within the category of sane. It is not only counterintuitive, there has never been anything observed to suggest that such massive shifts happen. The fossil records don’t support it; time doesn’t support it; common sense doesn’t support it.
Two big questions against this idea (written in very abbreviated form): 1) there are countless examples on cellular, organ, and organism level of things which are totally dependent upon each other. Neither could exist without the other. The complexity of said “evolution” would be beyond what imagination could tolerate. 2) How exactly did the first organism figure out that there was something called sound before it became advantageous to develop ears? Before you answer with something sophomoric with the word vibrations, think about the depth of the question. I’m writing with brevity because of the medium.
Natural selection works well with a Creator. Improvement is built in. Evolution, again as the way the masses use the term, does not.
What I ask you to consider is the level of complexity in the world. It is at such a higher level than anything man could create that it attests to a higher order of intelligence and plan. I think that you get lost in scientific terms as if they answer questions. They are simply labels to describe. The descriptions are often brilliant, but nothing comes close to a satisfying explanation of a planet’s rotation or a heart’s beating for 90+ years. I could practically write non-stop on the wonders of creation. Pick anything. Look at its components. Look at the components of the components. Keep going. Study how they work together. See the beauty, pattern and function.
Taking G-d out of the equation means that it is all random. Even with the understanding of natural selection. As you mention, how did it get started? Where did all of the atoms come from. The odds are infentesimally small that a protein could ever come together from all of the swirling in the universe. But even if you say, “Yep. Incredible odds. But it did.” Good. Where did the pieces come from? How did it last for more than a milisecond? How did the next one join it? How did it reproduce? How did it get the knowledge to do anything? There was nothing else, except of course all of the parts that made it up and a bunch of wind to blow in the right direction.
I’m comfortable with “most likely scenario.” I live my life based on it.
I’d like you to tell me why you think that G-d is callous or cruel. I think I know what you mean, but please elaborate.
Because of my already busy life and increasing (slowly but surely) traffic, I don’t necessarily double check everything that I write in the comments. Please forgive my spelling or other errors. The thinking I take full credit for if you find mistakes, however. ( ;
Chris Lawrence said
Thanks again! Here are a few responses:
['First, you use two terms seemingly interchangeably...']:
Happy to admit the difference. A familiar way of speaking is eg ‘Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection’ – ie suggesting that evolution is what happened, & natural selection was how evolution happened. Historically ‘Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection’ was contrasted with ‘Lamarck’s theory of evolution by the inheritance of acquired characteristics’, which is not taken seriously these days.
['heart...flies...not convinced that such thinking falls within the category of sane....']:
Not quite sure it’s insane, but those sorts of statements about the heart & flies flying are often shorthand. Sometimes the shorthand is OK, sometimes it’s misleading. In a lot of writing about evolution, explanations are often proposed in a kind of metaphorical language, as if the particular species had a deliberate strategy to move in the direction it did. The writers know that there was no deliberate strategy, but the effect of selection on vast numbers of offspring with degrees of inheritable variation is such that it’s ‘as if’ the offspring (& offspring’s offspring etc) that survived were doing so in response to environmental factors. But they weren’t responding, all they were doing was surviving & reproducing where other members of their species didn’t. I think statements like ‘When the fly evolved its ability to take flight…’ should generally be interpreted in this ‘as if’ way.
['...time doesn’t support it; common sense doesn’t support it...]:
I’m not sure we can be so dismissive. I’m also not qualified to give encyclopaedic detail, but one example of a ‘massive shift’ is the evolution of the eye. Objections are often raised like – what good is half an eye? So how did the eye evolve step by step? Etc. As it happens there are many animals with ‘half an eye’, a quarter of an eye, a tenth of an eye etc – I mean almost every point on a continuum from rudimentary sensitivity to light to fully developed eyes like vertebrates, octopuses & flies have.
['...complexity of said “evolution” would be beyond what imagination could tolerate...']:
I agree that evolutionary explanations of co-dependent components could well be beyond what imagination could tolerate. But that in itself does not invalidate them.
['...first organism figure out that there was something called sound...']:
I don’t think natural selection needs to work like that. If the ability to respond to sound, even if on a rudimentary level, confers survival advantage, then that ability will be selected for, and so will any increase in that ability.
['...Taking G-d out of the equation means that it is all random...']:
It depends what is meant by ‘random’. I don’t think natural selection is random. One individual has an inheritable advantage & survives to reproduce while another without that advantage does not. If it was random there would be no correlation between advantage & survival. But it’s not consciously determined.
['...callous or cruel...']:
I think that natural selection is true, & that evolution occurs mostly if not completely by natural selection. One of the drivers is massive over-production of offspring such that only a small proportion survive. A high proportion of animals are sensitive to pain, and most of those die a painful death – eg from predators. If there wasn’t overproduction, competition for resources, the food chain etc, natural selection could not operate. Natural selection operates because only a tiny proportion of offspring survive long enough to reproduce. A god who established a creation and made the deliberate choice to use natural selection as one of its founding principles could justifiably be described as callous or cruel.
By the way, if this stuff interests you I really recommend Richard Dawkins’ earlier books, eg: the Selfish Gene; The Extended Phenotype; Unweaving the Rainbow; Climbing Mount Improbable. One of the best science writers around. Darwin’s Origin of Species is also much more readable than I though it would be.
clarityman said
Chris,
Let’s pretend for a second that we haven’t read any material supporting our particular belief. Just look around and try to figure it out. Simple couple of questions. Put Darwin on hold for a second. Can you really believe that everything in this world “just happened?” And keeps happening and happening?
No sins to face. No Jesus. No confessions. Just you, me, and this unbelievably awesome universe.
Help me out. Remember. Try to give me a reasonable explanation that works with my common sense and yours. Maybe there is a third avenue to travel down, but it seems to me that we’re looking at either a (relative to us) very smart and powerful Creator or . . . dumb luck?
I admit that we have questions to tackle – what you call the cruel universe, suffering, mutations, etc, but what logical, commonsensical explanation can you offer me without using any fancy terms. There is a difference between being simple and simplistic (in my language). I’m attempting to be simple in my life – not simplistic. This does not come from an inability to handle complexity. The opposite is true as I have 15+ years of Talmudic training in my repertoire (incredible complexity). If it doesn’t make sense, it has to be rejected. How did all of this just get here?
I don’t want to get too tied up in points raised because each one needs sourcing and study. Which species have which level of eyes? Are there any examples of any observable change from one level to the next? Does any of this answer the improbable complexity of how eyes actually work? Depth, color, memory, light, shadow, protection, flushing system.
Every single corner of every part of the universe screams, yells, whispers, suggests, and says, “Wisdom.” I so want to avoid my poetic and subjective side, but I guess I don’t get how anyone can seriously ignore what I’m talking about. (I get how people can construct all sorts of systems to ignore the moral imperative that might follow, but I just don’t quite get how you can seriously suggest that the world is random.)
Chris Lawrence said
We’ll have to agree to disagree!
‘Let’s pretend for a second that we haven’t read any material supporting our particular belief’: OK. Pretend we haven’t read or heard or in any way received any opinion about the fundamental nature & structure of the universe & our place in it. Or any speculation concerning its origin. Or any concerns about what sort of explanation we could come up with as to why things are the way they are. Why would we even think an explanation was necessary? I don’t think we can be selective about what we take out of the equation & what we leave in. It’s not obvious how we remove every layer of baggage so only ‘common sense’ is left.
We could speculate that lonely shepherds sat on hilltops at night lost in wonder at the constellations, but that itself is a created image. I don’t mean it’s necessarily false, but it doesn’t necessarily represent any primaeval human condition.
If we cannot (as I do not think we can) coherently get down to a ground zero of simple common sense, then we can either base our beliefs on what we have absorbed & accepted in our lives so far, or make all our beliefs subject to new information, new insights, new experiences. Maybe those two options come to the same thing, the difference being whether our beliefs morph (I nearly said ‘evolve’!) unconsciously or consciously.
I too am immensely struck (absurd understatement) by the enormity, variety & apparent design in the natural world. But I want to know more & more about it. I don’t want to know things so as to amass evidence either that there is a god or that there isn’t. I can’t really ‘put Darwin on hold’ because I find the thinking which is present-day Darwinism too profound (& too profoundly simple) to ignore. One of its key spin-offs is how ‘design’ & ‘randomness’ do not have to be polar opposites. In the Darwinian explanation they co-exist. But all the time it is ‘only science’ in the sense of being ultimately refutable by counter-evidence & better theories.
Because of what I think is the profound simplicity of Darwinism it should in theory be possible to express it as a ‘reasonable explanation that works with my common sense and yours’. In practice though I think it will take too many words, hence my suggestion to read eg Richard Dawkins if it interests you. It takes a lot of words not because it is complex but because I think it needs to be presented in the context & detail of real biological examples in order to engage the imagination with its simplicity.
clarityman said
You are correct on disagreeing.
I also concede your point about what can/can’t be stripped away to get to common sense. I am simply (cute usage considering the context of that word in last post) suggesting that there is an inner “voice” that is acutely aware of a Creator. I do think (obviously aware that this is outside of a “scientific discussion) that awareness of G-d being here is a natural human ability.
I guess you’ve forced me into reading Dawkins in order to continue. Without reading it, I would still have to scratch my head as to why, when you recognize the freakish profundity of the world and admit to design, you can argue for something even remotely related to atheism.
I don’t care what you call this Big, Strong, Wise Being. Don’t call Him Randomness, Darwin, or Dawkins. I’m not suggesting what the moral imperative is. I’m not saying that you should pray to or subjugate yourself to this Being. I would only suggest that there is very strong evidence that this Being is here and that it is worthwhile to also study what the hey this Being might want from us (if anything).