'Why there almost certainly IS a God' by Keith Ward

Those of you who have read Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion' will immediately notice that Ward has inverted the title of Chapter 4 from that book: 'Why there almost certainly is no God'. Ward's book is a reply to that chapter of his book and Chapters 2 'The God Hypothesis' and 3 'Arguments for God's Existence'.

Many professional philosophers have questioned whether Dawkins has the philosophical credentials to write on the subject of philosophical theology such as Alvin Plantinga who says:

"Now despite the fact that this book is mainly philosophy, Dawkins is not a philosopher (he's a biologist). Even taking this into account, however, much of the philosophy he purveys is at best jejune. You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class. This, combined with the arrogant, smarter-than-thou tone of the book, can be annoying."

Those of you who know Plantinga will, no doubt, be questioning his objectivity as a theist. It is worth noting then that this reaction has been shared by many atheist philosophers too such as Michael Ruse who, in his review of the book, states:

"The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist."

None of this is intended to discredit Dawkins ad hominem [although this is a practice Dawkins himself regularly utilizes] but rather to point out that a great deal of atheists are limiting themselves on the subject of philosophical theology if the only book they have read on the subject is Dawkins. Dawkins has himself admitted that philosophy is not his subject but it is worrying that so many atheists repeat his arguments verbatim and thus are subject to the same naive mistakes he makes himself.

You may then ask is Ward qualified to respond to these chapters? I'll let you decide. He was Professor of Philosophy at Kings College, part of the University of London before becoming the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. He is a member of the Council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy. He has written numerous books on philosophy and philosophical theology during his career which have been well received.

Ward starts his book by commending Dawkins to his readers on the subject of biology. That may come as a suprise to some but it must be remembered that in England theists have never rejected Darwinism. The majority view has always been one of synthesis. However, Ward is troubled about how [not just what] Dawkins writes when he writes philosophy.

"But when he enters into the world of philosophy, his passion tends to get the better of him, and he sometimes descends into stereotyping, pastiche and mockery, no longer approaching the arguments with his usual seriousness and care." [p.11]

I hope a brief synopsis will leave you wanting to read this more more fully.

Chapter 1 The God Hypothesis: Ward notes that Dawkins uses a very unusual, minority view within philosophy to justify most of his arguments - viz. philosophical naturalism [materialism]. The view that everything which exists is comprised of matter. Ward notes that Dawkins assumes this and fails to make any argument for it. This ought to be the least he should do since the vast majority of philosophers throughout history have rejected it completely.

Chapter 2 Large Aeroplanes and God: Here Ward questions whether there is anything scientific about Dawkins notion that evolutionary biology makes belief in God redundant. He does so, you may be pleased to hear, without any recourse to Intelligent Design Movement. If evolution is a true account of our biological history [and Ward thinks it is] then is God superfluous? Ward discusses the argument of improbability and the suggestions made by Dawkins in his book 'The Blind Watchmaker'.

Chapter 3 Explaining God: Atheists who have read 'The God Delusion', and even those who have not, love to ask the question 'Who made God?' or some form of it. Here Ward points out why such a question is an illogical one. If it is an illogical question it should not have an answer since you cannot give a rational answer to an irrational question.

Chapter 4 God and the Multiverse: A nice overview of some cosmologists who have suggested other universes or a meta-universe to explain this one and why Occam's Razor and non-materialist accounts may be more rational in accounting for the existence of our universe.

Chapter 5 Objections and Replies: A short but thoughtful account on necessity and contingency and a very worthwhile section on the problem of evil, including a theodicy that most atheists are simply not aware of [no, I'm not telling you - you should read the book and think about it for yourself].

Chapter 6 The Five Ways: In 'The God Delusion' Dawkins gives Aquinas all of three pages!! However he doesn't! As Ward says:

"Dawkins claims that they [the Five Ways of Aquinas] are easily exposed as vacuous, and he does so in just three pages. This would be a very impressive acheivement, except that he does not infact deal with Aquinas' Five Ways at all. What he does is to consider instead five arguments of his own, which bear vague resemblance to those of Aquinas - in some cases, a resemblance so vague that it can no longer be recognized." [p.102]

Ward then discusses the common interpretation of how one should read Aquinas' Five Ways and how Dawkins has failed to engage with them at all.

Chapter 7 The Argument from Personal Experience: Dawkins really goes to town on religious experiences and incures some of his 'greatest' rhetoric and spitefulness. Ward, by contrast, is more measured whilst being realistic about what a personal experience could be used for in terms of evidence.

Chapter 8 Why there is a God: An overview of all of the main points made in the book and a plea for more intellectual honesty from both sides.

Whether you consider yourself a theist, atheist or agnostic I hope you will consider reading a book that is very thoughtfully written by one of the best current British philosophers on the subject. £8 [$15] well spent in my view!

You're becoming something of a stalker arn't you? I cannot post a thread without you chipping in! If you read the book you'll see that Ward does not misrepresent materialism but that I am keeping my overview brief. He is quite right, however, to notice that it is the minority view in current philosophy and historically speaking too. I would suggest you don't know of any philosophers who've argued against materialism because you havn't read many, if any, philosophers [I base this on the disdain you express toward them in other threads]. Therefore it's rather like someone who has not read any poetry espousing the non-virtue of it. We hear ya but we merely raise our eyebrows.

Your turn:

Define 'matter' for me.

Oh, and btw, I am here to discuss. But I believe in doing so politely. I will give you a chance here but as soon as you start swearing insults at me then I'm afraid I'm not continuing. There are plenty of other people here who seem to like the posts and I've had several PMs to that effect. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean you can start telling me what I can't and can do. I will listen to Conrad on that but not you. You arn't SM by any chance are you? You have a very FDR way about you in the way you talk that's all.

P.S. The only people who hate name-dropping are people who can't do it!

I've got to say. After all the badgering you've done of me over definitions in the last 24 hours I hope you feel ashamed and somewhat embarrased. No doubt you won't but you should.

Matter = 'that which things are made of'

And what is that exactly?

And I suppose the inverse is true also - that things [whatever they are] which make things up are matter?

I'm sorry but I'm trying hard not to pee myself with laughter. Priceless.

This is exactly why 'materialism' has been a non-starter and is even more so now we know Democritus was wrong [although he did pretty darn well for his time - respect].

Materialism is essentially arguing that the ultimate nature of reality is "we don't know"! This matter. Which is stuff [possibly understood completely metaphorically btw way - don't take us too literally] which makes up stuff.

Almost all the great philosophers were idealists and the few that were not were certainly not materialists.

Don't forget that as well as atoms, quarks, probability waves, superstrings, dark energy, quantum fluctuations in a vacuum all being candidates to explain matter there is also the current hypothesis of two prominent physicists who have argued that matter is a complete illusion caused by some substratum in the mind!!

A truly precious moment that was - thank you for that.

The only thing which is predictable is your response here. It is clear you do not even know what you are talking about. You cannot discuss the finer points of materialism since you don't even know what it's all about. If you know anything about idealism you're certainly very quiet on the matter.

Instead of actually discussing the philosophy at hand you want to trade silly remarks like a little child would.

You have COMPLETELY ignored my criticism of your definition. And for good reason. It's one of the main current criticisms of materialism. Let me tell you what the other is since you won't know. The other is that materialism claims that everything can be reduced to matter in some way. Yet, there exists no materialist account of where truth resides in the physical realm. Therefore the claim that materialism is true is a completely nonsensical assertion. It contradicts itself. Not to mention that fact that, along the way, it completely patronizes most of the things humans find the most important about their existence such as aesthetics, love, morality and justice.

Your definition is completely and utterly vacuous. Don't feel bad - I knew you wouldn't manage it in the first place. No one else has either. Please don't feel bad. Have a cookie - you'll feel right as rain!

Originally, you said:
"Materialism then, isn't a "minority view within philosophy", since to my knowledge at least, no philosopher has proposed or identified an alternative to matter and energy. Of course people have suggested that there could conceivably be something else (that we haven't yet discovered or conceived of), but nobody has offered any suggestions as to what that might be (or if they have, it's not famous enough for me to have heard of it)."

What I do know with a great deal of certainty is that that paragraph above is just riddled with philosophical ignorance. Whatever your area of study. It isn't philosophy. Care to tell me what your area[s] of expertise is? Since you don't know a single philosopher who identified alternatives to matter as the ultimate explanation for why something exists rather than nothing let me enlighten you. Some names you might recognize:
Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel [just to name a few]. Don't take my word for it. Look them up. Once you have you will then know that all [not some] of the greatest philosophers had nothing to do with materialism. Almost all of them were idealists. None of them materialists. Materialism is one of the few epistemologies that has no serious proponents with it. It's much like a biological theory you come across and then discover that no biologists hold to it. How seriously should it be taken? We've disagreed about a lot but I'd be very surprised if your answer to that question is different to mine.

Did I claim to know how to define matter? Of course not so that's an invalid point for you to make. You decided to defend materialism and you were made to confess that there is no standard understanding of matter any more.

You gotta luv the title choice of this one: "almost certainly".
haha!
Wouldn't wisdom call for "certainty", not "almost certainty"?!?
(other than a slight of ear, becoming quite consistent, I'm not even sure what is significant about "almost certainly"?!)

Why, there's almost certainly UPB! (and let's not forget, almost certainly equally The Invisible Pink Flying TriuniMonster!)
Que Curly Joe's "Soin'tly" here.


Butt on the matter at/in hand... for me, I offer that we might agree that matter is simply all that ("almost certainly"? nah) ultimately matters when it comes to one or more individuals wishing to agree upon something claimed --be that a claim of experience, or of knowledge/a known, or of truth. Deny my "board" (material/matter+real) and click off the lights and I'll swing it up back side of your doubting (and/or doubted) head to get your agreement on the matter. Anything "more", well, that's "theory", "imagination", "personal", "funnsies", "entertaining", "paranoia", "distraction", "delusional", "superstition", and the like. [all the "more" of which I'm beginning to realize get the umbrella of "philosophy"?]

Granted, one might label the matter/marteau/martillo differently; and even another label for the label "matter"/matière/kwestie.
The more likely universal of "OUCH!" (followed by cut'oral influenced cussin'/profanity/swearing choice) --the matter of "sound waves"-- not withstanding.
Agree? (^this matter being that of "pixels")


*lest I come across as multi-lingual, "thanks, Babelfish.com"