Richard Dawkins Refuted on Divine Simplicity
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- Richard Dawkins posted a clip on Twitter arguing that if God does exist, He cannot be simple and is instead a "big fat entity" composed of many (physical) parts. In this video I refute Richard Dawkins' argument against God and His simplicity, showing that even an atheist would have to acknowledge that God is simple, that is, not composed of parts.
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But he can't be wrong, he's so well dressed, has a british accent and he's a well known 'expert' in science, and he went to joe rogan as well.
Don't blame us Brits for Dawkins!
You just described this muslim guy
@@kaiserkhan9832 who’s Muslim ?
1. The DNA tie is total cringe
2. "Why isn't God limited to what I can imagine?" -dawkins
It is a silly tie. Especially since it does not fill the whole tie.
"If God is real, why am I dumb?"
-Dawkins
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The origin of Dawkins' error is applying his materialist presuppositions of mentality to God, i.e. "mind" is supposed to be an emergent property of interrelated matter, therefore the greater capacity of function that a mind has, such as omnipresence, it must have more material parts.
is there any reason to believe that the mind isn't just an emergent property of the brain?
@@averagedemocrat9546 - Mentality has at least one immaterial component intrinsic to it, that being intentionality, which is irreducible to material phenomena.
@@evangelium5376 You mean the ability to have deeper thoughts? Okay.
@@averagedemocrat9546 Yes. In order for an object to be able to operate, it must have an essence of some sort. You have to be actual in order to act, and the mind does act. There is a scene in the film Luther (2004) with Joseph Fiennes and Alfred Molina, where John Tetzel puts his hand into the fire and lets it burn so that he can show the people how painful and awful burning is. In Enlish history, when Thomas Crammer was sentenced to death by burning for being a protestant, he stretched his right hand so that the hand to the fire that signed his renunciation of the protestant faith (which he revoked) be punished until it burnt away. This an exersise of the will of the person against the natural will of the body to survive. If the mind were just an emergent property of the brain, then it would only be an extention to it, meaning it (the mind) would not be able to actually turn against the brain and prevail over it's (the brain's) will. In order for an opposition to take place there must be at least two different agents, and in order to be an agent you have to have an essence of some sort. Acts don't act, essences act.
@@averagedemocrat9546 - That's not what intentionality is.
I think Dawkins accidentally explains why we have the essense energies distinction and why absolute divine simplicity is not possible
He is just a philosophical illiterate.
yes!!
It's so sad that so many people admire Dawkin's so called 'logic'.
I actually go over exactly what he is looking for on my channel in terms of how the simplicity mechanically works. It’s the white board videos on water and consciousness. Seriously, I mapped it out so it’s mechanically comprehensible to a materialist.
I think that a lot of intelligent people aren't philosophically insightful enough to realise that a part doesn't always entail separation. All parts are portioned by a border or boundary, but boundaries as such have a paradoxical nature in that they separate and join any two different beings or natures. The same goes with simplicity which is for Dawkins polar opposite of complexity but if you apply the paradoxical logic of boundary states then simplicity must give rise to complexity.
Glory to God. ☦
As an Orthodox Christian, I feel like God's divine simplicity is a little more complex than what Catholics give it credit for. Or, at least there's language that we don't necessarily have for God's attributes as humans, which complicates things.
But, then again, apophatic theology simplifies things a little bit.
All I know is, I dunno, man...
I think "simple" really throws people off.
You should do a video on this person named “Orthoprax Christianity” Hes a Christian, yet doesnt support protestantism, catholicism, or Orthodoxy. in fact, he hates Orthodoxy, and has made videos and shorts mocking it. hes extremely uneducated and needs to be humbled by somebody.
Yeah, the dude is insane.
Just a goober who doesnt need any more attention
I'm pretty sure he's another one of those "anti-church" people, who doesn't like any church and says they're all wrong. 99% of the time these people are completely uneducated and rarely know what they're talking about. Also he said he accepts the book of Enoch so yeah that should tell you just about all you need to know
Not to insult him in any way or anything, but yes people like that must be informed
In 2009 I was an atheist and I bought God Delusion with enthusiasm. I had previously read Dawkins' books on evolution and they were very good. Reading God Delusion I felt a huge sense of awkwardness because of my previous philosophical training. And rather than criticize something from a position of ignorance, I prefer to keep quiet. Now, thank God, I am an Orthodox Christian and I experience similar feelings of embarrassment when some Orthodox criticize evolutionary theory from the position of creationism 😀 .
I appreciated the video! Very ironclad arguments. An additional qualifier I would introduce is that while parsimony is vital, it does not take priority when we are talking about explanatory power and scope. Sometimes, a substratum / mechanism can be more complicated than the subsequent effects. However, if the paradigm contains within it explanatory power and explanatory scope, parsimony does not take priority over these two points of epistemic criteria.
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Dawkins seemed to be presupposing a perenialist and/or polytheistic view of God which is why he thought god couldn't be simple.
Hey David, great response. To me Dawkins always looked low iq when it came to theology. I never took his arguments seriously tbh
Dawkins would make a good late night insult comic, but that’s about it.
Thank you, you give very easy to understand explainations and arguments.
what are your thoughts on the 14th century Christian text "The Cloud of Unknowing?" I found it to be very beautiful and profound, but I'm curious what you think about it.
Interesting. I never knew about this until recently. If God doesn’t have composite parts, how do we reconcile this with the incarnation of Jesus who took on human flesh?
Please help me understand.
Watch Davids video on the trinity where he describes the orthodox position of a non composite trinity
Hawkins and Dawkins are like pinky and perky, British TV puppets.
Thank you for sharing this comment!
However, I have to admit that I don’t understand how God can be outside his own creation? Isn’t all that the Almighty created a part of Him? Furthermore, doesn’t the trinity itself suggest that God is not just some abstract force, but a unity of persons? And what exactly does the concept of the trinity mean? How is the notion of “person” to be understood? If-in reference to the trinity-it has the common or usual meaning, then how can God be entity?
Maybe you could answer these questions or even suggest some texts by orthodox theologians who clarify all these issues. This would be truly great!
Kind regards,
A.
how is composition exclusively a physical feature>???? Ideas can be complex and they are immaterial. DOd
Ah but the richard dawkins of the world then cant account for ideas if they are immaterial
@@thefakebriskehHe’s saying he’s a cultural Christian now.
It is a classic strawman falacy. Dawkins quotes no sources because? He sold a lot of books that repeat the same false claims. Thanks David!
David, many apologies. It is just that the explanations really confused me . In reality I am thanking you and those who have suggested other explanations, especially David Bradshaw and of course Jay. Under standing Essence/ Energy and Divine Simplicty is also a sure path to helping us deal with our sinfully nature's and connecting us with the Lord.
Jay Dyer will tell you that orthodoxy does affirm divine simplicity.
What we don't affirm is *western* divine simplicity in the sense of there being no real distinction between essence and existence in contrast to the essence-energies distinction.
1) It's funny you feel like I have to "ask something" to Jay as if we don't talk about these topics regularly.
2) You're flat out wrong. Divine Simplicity is Orthodox. Denying this is heresy. Just because Thomistic/Neoplatonic ADS is heretical doesn't mean all forms of Divine Simplicity is heretical. It would be like saying just because tritheism is a heresy that we don't believe in the Trinity.
Dont confuse divine simplicity , with absolute divine simplicity .Two different things
@@10.6.12.Only Western Absolute Divine Simplicity, as others are saying. We have the Energy Essence Distinction. Jay Dyer has not said anything against the Orthodox view of Divine Simplicity
@joanna400 yes, it is all about the essence energy distinction. However, when you say Divine Simplicity and not absolute divine simplicity you're complicating things beyond comprehension
God of Bible has no limitations like you and me humans have. God is Almighty. Otherwise He is not God. God of Bible is outside of time, space, matter.
Here's simplicity- Dawkins is always wrong on God b/c he's simply stupid on the subject of God. He & Sam Harris are the most overrated intellects out there.
♡
I'm not sure the eye comparison works as an eye does do many things at once, and is made of many things, so how can we compare an eye that theoretically can only see one thing to God? (and I'll ignore that we could get really semantic and define what a "thing" means in all those previous instances - I'm going along with your idea that if you see a monitor, a wall, and a water bottle, you don't need three eyes to see them all, and I'm not counting "seeing" as a thing, either). I'm just not sure how that tracks, it seems to still line up with Dawkins here. The metapoint that "an eye can do many things, a new eye isn't needed for every new individual thing you are seeing" is a good comparison, but can't Dawkins simply respond by saying "yeah... I know an eye can do many things. I never claimed that an eye is simple?"
Imagine a mother at lunchtime, with a baby in her leap, cooking some beans while yelling at her husband on the phone and also listening to music. She's performing at least 4 external activities, plus breathing sweating smelling etc etc.
You haven't listened well then. Dawkins doesn't just say God isn't simple, he says God isn't one (evident by him saying "how can God be ONE simple entity"). The eye example is to refute the argument that God cannot be one on account of doing many things.
@@therealMedWhite I'll quote the video:
"how can he be a single entity if he's simultaneously [goes on to lists examples of things God is doing]... in order to do the things that God is supposed to be doing, he cannot be simple."
Yeah so it's a comprehension thing on my end. Dawkins does appear to be attacking both the "simplicity" of God and also that God can't be "one entity." Now, I think your eye example tackles the "one entity" issue well enough. But it does not address the problem of simplicity. That said - maybe it's mostly semantic. Even Dawkins' own question/argument is kind of self-refuting. Dawkins is assuming that one Entity can't handle lots of responsibilities at once? But he is obviously stumbling on "simplicity" here. What are we talking about when we mean "simple"? Dawkins is probably thinking, like, "a single celled organism" is simple, or something. And so in that case yeah, God is infinitely more complex than that, so "simple" isn't a very good descriptor, and so you can imagine why he says something simple can't do all these things at once. That's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw - if that's your understanding of simple. But a human is both "simply a human" and also "a complex thing." So... that idea of "simplicity v complexity" is his real stumbling block here, it appears. And it probably doesn't help that he is thinking of ADS in the RC way.
So it appears to be coming down to "what does simple mean" in these different contexts and paradigms, and I think this causes him to get stuck on the loop. "God is simple" actually meaning "God transcends all partite things" isn't possible for Dawkins to grasp. And to some extent that's fair, in a materialist paradigm, God quite literally can't be simple, just like an eye ball isn't simple - at least if you're giving "simple" a restrictive definition I mean, a brick is "simple" but it is composed of tons of things, made a person, has forces applied to it or applies forces. At some point then "simple" isn't even possible at all for Dawkins, which also refutes him. Thanks for your reply, and also @juniorgallo8786 helped me re-think and clarify for myself (uhh.. I hope) so thank you both!!!
Um, mind, body and sole create one person. Am i wrong?
Not scientifically whatsoever it seems more likely there’s a simple dualism going on with one mind, and having a single body no soul included because a soul would serve no purpose
4:00 I can see an Atheist trying to use your words here against you when it comes to the Incarnation.
Your argument about the eye is flawed, the eye is only ever doing one kind of thing, sensing photons that reach it and constructing the information into an image in your brain.
An eye only ever does this, it doesn't hear, it does not smell or anything like that. Animals have a specific organ for each ability we possess. That is its specialization, vision.
Are you suggesting that the eye is limited to sight? It has no other properties in sense data?
If so, give your eye a little tap and report back.
@@JasonCodreanu You're right, the eye has cells that are dedicated to sensing touch as well as light.
The eye is a very complex organ. It has to be to do what it does.
@@JasonCodreanu If OP wanted to actually refute Dawkins, he would have shown an example of a structure that is capable of doing different tasks. Also that structure cant have internal components that are dedicated to each task, it has to be one completely unspecialized entity that can do many different types of actions.
@@averagedemocrat9546 I think the eye analogy illustrated the point just fine. There are no perfect 1 to 1 analogies for God because God Himself is beyond analogies. Analogies are useful for us in understanding God's properties and mode of being, but nothing our minds can come up with will exhaust all that defines God.
That said, I'll offer an alternative analogy; you. You are a singular being capable of several operations, and while there are many processes and operations occurring in you, you remain one. Both one and many, some might say.
@@averagedemocrat9546 Remember that the Orthodox position is divine simplicity, not absolute divine simplicity. We reject the false doctrine of absolute divine simplicity, so your criteria for refutation falls upon a Roman Catholic presupposition about God, not ours.