The natural desire to know
can be only satisfied if the person is passionately
looking for truth . Somehow we
know that life in delusion , illusion and ignorance, must be necessarily false, meaningless and leading to disaster. The most
essential distinction between humans
and other lower forms of life consists
precisely in the fact that man has a mind
which in it’s quest for truth is unconquerable . Aristotle’s statement that
all man by nature desire to know seems
to be true beyond any question. All human history is a gradual development
of ideas and visions of reality, because ideas are
governing human behavior.
Human beings are known
to have been freely and willingly
dying for their beliefs and I do not mean here only religious beliefs, but also other strong convictions for which man
was willing to die. Since man
is not only a self,
and the mind , but also embedded
in matter and body, he/she is
subject to many deviations, and
even conscious denial of the importance of seeking the truth. Those
hindrances are connected with many powers and institutions in which
humans live. Especially in modern times
the pressures against honest search for truth are enormous.
Everyone is constantly bombarded by political propaganda , commercial
advertising, biased mass media , and chauvinistic and corrupted influential politicians. In
such situation it is easy to resign from one’s own independent thinking, and
follow the accepted political ideology for fear of being
ostracized and even persecuted as an enemy of the state, and the interest of the nation, like it
happened for example in the Nazi ideology
in the XX century.
However the purpose of this article is to analyze
the position of new atheism (Richard Dawkins, Lewis Wolpert, Sam Harris,
Victor Stenger, Daniel Dennet and quite a number of others) and
it’s relationship to the ultimate truth of reality and the atheistic attitude.
The basic problem
here is the question of possibility of the human mind to reach the transcendent , philosophical truth.
Atheism developed under the
umbrella of science, which
primarily for atheists, became the new idol of our times. The average person is
also under the influence of the
authority of scientific accomplishments . Many people when they hear the words scientifically
proven, accept
whatever is announced without any question. The authority of
science replaced for many the authority of religion, tradition and even moral values.
The question is very important
because there is an absolute unbridgeable gap between
atheistic position and the vision of religious person. Religion , to the degree it is true, requires
the totality of man’s life: it
influences his/her thinking,
his/her expectations for eternity , his/her values and his/her way of living
this life. In other words, it calls for total, absolute commitment. On
the other, hand atheism destroys the power of the human mind to discover the transcendent being (metaphysics)
it denies any
meaning after death , and it has
to establish its own values, purposes and
meaning of life. To many atheists,
especially existential thinkers,
life appears utterly meaningless and
absurd ( Russell, Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche and others). The
appeal to science as a final
explanation of the universe and it’s
development cannot be justified
logically because science on the basis of it’s methods does not deal with the questions of existence , the universal mature
of being and the final answer to the question why is there
universe at all.
The aim of science is
to conquer the natural forces for human purposes . Every scientific theory
is therefore provisional and subject to
the possibility of change and replacement by
a more comprehensive theory. That is why
science never will answer the
most fundamental question of existence and
it cannot therefore serve as
replacement of philosophical arguments concerning the
nature of final , contingent beings and their existence. Science cannot answer the question
why is there a universe at all, why not
nothing instead .
The
basic arguments for existence of a
transcendent infinite being are as follows :
1.
The
first cause of existence of a universe of contingent beings (The Aristotelian
concept of a First Mover).
2.
The inference from contingent existence of all
finite beings to one First cause creative
of all contingent reality.
3.
The
purposefulness and regularity
observable in the universe both in the inanimate world and
especially the living world developing in the process of evolution
shows the validity of the
teleological argument pointing to some
cosmic intelligence responsible for the
nature and structure of all finite beings man included.
The three above arguments are not
all but the most obvious pointers to some
sort of infinite transcendent
being, perhaps not only as First Cause
but also as a personal reality self-hood
and freedom and intelligence.
Dawkins and the other new atheists do not show in their writings that the metaphysical arguments mentioned are not
sound. Certainly, Richard Dawkins in his book “The God Delusion” does not show it. He
stresses again and again that science is
the complete explanation of the phenomena of nature. By science Dawkins means the theories of development of the universe but primarily
the fact of Darwinian evolution relative to the appearance of man. He
does not explain why there is life
or evolution of life. He simply assumes that this is how it is and that is enough. If one takes him seriously,
then man is nothing else but a little
higher developed great ape . The
intelligence of humans would then be only somewhat different from the intelligence of higher primates but
same in kind. This approach is really abolition of man as man . For man, so understood, is not really a person with
symbolic language , ability to
think abstractly and to develop
philosophical understanding of reality. He/she remains within the borders of scientific method where transcendent activity of the mind to reach
towards the absolute is simply denied at least according to Richard
Dawkins.
Philosophy
begins with the wonder of the fact of
existence analyzed on the metaphysical
level . Without this attitude there is no philosophy. If one refuses to use
the power of the human mind then one commits a mental suicide One refuses simply even to seriously ask the
questions and becomes an agnostic
or skeptic. As Frederik
Copelston remarked in his famous
discussion on God’s existence with Bertrand
Russell: “If one does not sit down to the chessboard and makes the first
move one can never lose the game.” One
can add here: neither can one win it.
Even
if science would explain every detail in
nature and how it all works in
the whole universe known to man , it
would not answer why there is a universe
or why there is such a universe and not
another. Neither would it explain
the dynamic nature of the world
developing from sub atomic particles to
molecules, to primitive living forms ,
to the multiverse of life, to the
rudiments of animal intelligence, to
self consciousness, abstract intelligence and
free personality of humans. So
much can never be denied and it is enough to guarantee that the argument of the First Cause , the Prime
Mover and the Cosmic Intelligence are valid pointers to the existence of God.
Richard Dawkins seems to believe
without any hesitation that Darwinism implies the following : (a) there is no
evidence for God , (b) no life after death and (c) no foundation for right and wrong or ultimate meaning of
life. (d) people really have no free will.
If we take Dawkins statement seriously we would have
to believe that nothing produces everything, non-life produces life, randomness
produces information, unconsciousness produces consciousness, and not reason
produces reason. It is obvious that for Dawkins the Darwinian theory of evolution is
a complete universal explanation of any problem whatsoever.
The central question here is the
definition of truth and it is the
fundamental problem because outside of truth we have only ignorance, deception,
and delusion of all kind. The first
thing to notice is the crucial distinction between facts and
interpretation of fact , explanation of facts or proving
facts. All relationship between mind and reality is a form of mutual
interaction . The scientific method, so popular in our times is a philosophical assumption
because it cannot be proven scientifically. Consequently rejection of metaphysical reflections is also an unproved
assumption. It denies the minds the natural ability to make the fundamental questions of existence intelligible
and somehow
valid as arguments for a
transcendent being.
Here we have very many positions beginning with
uncritical acceptance of whatever is given
in the society and the mass media, through the skeptical attitude of the
agnostic who affirms that any knowledge
of the ultimate question is not
possible, to the scientific attitude and finally to philosophical metaphysical
reflections. Methodical realism accepted in those present reflections is an accepted definition of truth. It
assumes intelligibility of the realm of being and penetrability of beings to the human
inspection and analysis. Truth therefore will have three basic characteristics
:
(1) Conformity of
the concepts of the mind to what the facto is real.
(2) Intrinsic
coherence.
(3) Consistency
and ,
(4) Acceptance
of both deductive and inductive thinking conforming to the laws of logic. The
mind is not a passive faculty but it
is both active and passive .
Search for truth requires methodical
effort of the whole mind and a serious commitment
to the importance of truth in human life. At the base of any problem whatsoever
in human life there always lies a
question of value . Without fully
expressing the attitude of the mind to
reality we all know that truth is
of fundamental and absolute
value. Any other position leads to living in semi –darkness and a mental suicide.
Evolution of different forms of life including humans
is by no means hostile to the belief in a transcendent deity . The concept
of natural selection and survival of the
fittest leaves out many fundamental philosophical problems
completely untouched:
(1) Matter is not eternal as it was believed for many centuries because astronomy and physics itself proves the
beginning of the universe.
(2) Natural selection is in itself not productive of
new species but it eliminates the less adapted , and it is important to remember that before there are the fittest there had to be first
the fit, that is the beginning of life .
(3) The biological increase in complexity from the
most primitive living cell to the phenomena of man does not explain the appearance of consciousness, self-consciousness
, the human personality and the nature of the human mind.
The concept of evolution
understood in his own way by Richard Dawkins
does not provide evidence or
sound arguments. It is a dogmatic ,
philosophical assumption. The whole philosophy of people life Dawkins and his friends
ultimately is based on sheer
unproved belief that nothing exists but only matter in movement.
If one accepts this first
assumption then of course any talk about
mind, spirit, purpose, intelligibility,
moral values are of course automatically rejected. However it remains
nothing but sheer assumptions not a
valid interpretation and explanation of
reality. If the arguments mentioned here for the existence of God are valid -
and no one ever proved that they are not
valid – then there exists a transcendent First Cause , Omnipotent Creator, One
Prime Mover , Immaterial, Intelligent Personal Being and this
to use the words of St. Thomas:
All call God.
Suggested readings
Miller, Kenneth R. Findings
Darwin’s God. A Scientist’s Search for Common ground Between God and
Evolution Harper, Perennial: (New York, 1999)
Strobel, Lee,
The Case for a Creator, Journalist Investigates
Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God, Zondervan: (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2004)
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