Dawkins's Argument
Dawkins's Argument
Having explained some important background observations, I want to turn to the argument itself. Each of the two premises must be investigated. If both are true, then the argument works, and the conclusion is established. The first premise is the claim that a universe made by God would be different from one made by natural occurrences. Again, we must do a little clarifying work. If the argument is to progress, the difference between the theistic universe and the atheistic universe must be a detectable difference. What is it, then, that makes something detectable? Dawkins is disposed to think of detectability in terms of sense experience and the methods of the natural sciences. Something that is in principle subject to scientific investigation is detectable. We ought to wonder if other sorts of observations can show us that there is a detectable difference between theories.
For example, ethical theories can differ from one another in detectable ways. If one theory prohibits lying in every circumstance while a second theory allows lying under specified conditions, there is a detectable difference between them. This is not the sort of detectable difference that decisively falsifies one of the theories. We would have to have a sense already that lying is permitted in some circumstances (or that it is never permitted) in order to use this difference to choose between theories. The difference between the theories is also not due to some empirical observations. The difference is due to the sort of moral assessment that each theory supports.
Given that there ought to be detectable differences between the claim that the universe is theistic and the claim that it is not theistic, even if these differences do not have to be empirically detectable, we can grant that the first premise of the argument is true. It remains to investigate the second premise. Does the universe as we observe it fit better with the theistic story than it does with the atheistic story? We must make careful observations to see whether there are good reasons to think that the second premise is true.
Although Dawkins does not spell out the way our universe fits with atheism precisely, he does point in the direction of what he has in mind. His view is that any naturalistic universe with complex life would include a long period of biological development through a process something like natural selection. This notion is built into his articulation of the naturalistic worldview that is an alternative to the God Hypothesis. He states that position: “Any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution.”5 Furthermore, I think he holds that a theistic universe would most likely not include a long process of biological development. He does not make this claim explicitly in connection with this argument, but it seems to lie behind his approach. In this case his argument is that natural selection does not fit well in a theistic universe, but it fits neatly in a naturalistic universe. Since the evidence for natural selection is overwhelming, the probability that the universe is naturalistic is very high.
To what degree does biological development through natural selection fail to fit neatly with a theistic universe? I do think there is a degree to which it does run counter to theism. In a theistic universe the origin of various life forms is not restricted to gradual processes. God could use any process He wants to create living things. It is perfectly possible, if God exists, that He just brings living things into existence in all their variety at one moment. He is not restricted to processes that run over long periods of time. In this way our expectations about the development of biological life in a theistic universe ought to be wide open. Theism does not rule out a long process of biological development, but theists are not restricted to such theories by their theistic commitments.
An atheistic universe, in contrast, lacks the resources for instantaneous creation of all life forms. It would be completely baffling if complex life emerges instantly in a universe without God. Complex life would require some kind of long developmental process. This process would not need to be through genetic variation and natural selection, but it would need to be gradual. It would need to be, it turns out, something like the way we find it.
Since the theistic universe is compatible with a variety of mechanisms for the development of complex biological life, the fact of gradual development through natural selection does not provide specific evidence for theism. Since the naturalistic universe seems to require some kind of long-term biological process for complex biological life, the fact of natural selection does support the claim that the universe is naturalistic. This aspect of the universe we find, then, supports the claim that there is no God. Natural selection provides evidence for atheism even though it is not incompatible with theism.