Contra Dawkins, Introduction and Part 1

In previous posts, I have criticised Richard Dawkins and the ‘new’ atheists for the lack of intellectual rigour in their writings – specifically, the fact that they rarely engage seriously with the best religious (specifically, theistic) scholarship. While they will make occasional references to actual theistic scholars, their responses never engage with these academics' more in-depth writings.

In new atheist literature, you will find few references to the plethora of scholarly writings – theist, atheist or agnostic – on the existence of God. Instead, Dawkins & Co. make extensive references to popular secular publications, such as the Skeptical Inquirer and Free Inquiry. Unfortunately, such publications are typically the product of an insular mentality much like that which atheists (sometimes correctly) ascribe the religious communities. By this I mean that ideas and arguments are recycled within an intellectual bubble whose occupants rarely engage with real opponents outside the bubble - except to dismiss or ridicule them. Within this bubble, you are unlikely to encounter detailed discussion of - or engagement with - scholarly theistic works. What's more, you will only occasionally encounter articles discussing more serious or scholarly atheist and agnostic books and arguments.  It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the same fatal flaw appears again and again within new atheist literature. (Ironically, despite new atheists rhetoric, I have found that this insular mentality is less common among religious apologists, who are typically more aware of the better atheist arguments and engage with them frequently, e.g., W. L. Craig's Reasonable Faith & Edward Feser's The Last Superstition.)

The quality of responses to the new atheists has been somewhat uneven. The best responses do not engage in a blow-by-blow rebuttal of new atheist claims, preferring a 'big picture' approach (e.g., Feser's The Last Superstition, Hart's The Experience of God). The worst responses tend to be those that barely rise above the new atheists' own level of cognition (e.g., Robertson's The Dawkins Letters). Neither approach is entirely satisfying, though the 'big picture' approach at least has the value of dealing with serious topics that the new atheists tend to breeze over or fundamentally misunderstand, assuming they are even aware of them at all.

As a result, I’ve decided to write an extended rebuttal to Dawkins’ The God Delusion. It is part critical review and part bibliographic essay: exposing the many errors of fact, logic and interpretation in his arguments while listing various scholarly books and articles that, had Dawkins read them before writing his anti-religious polemic, would have vastly improved his understanding of the issues. My response will be released in a series of posts. I shall not address the whole book - it is almost 400 pages long - and instead will focus on some key sections of the book, particularly chapters 2-4, as this is where the substance (if that’s the right word) of Dawkins’ anti-God argument is to be found.

Most of what Dawkins writes after Chapter 4 presupposes the truth of atheism. For example, his discussion of the 'roots', or origins, of religion is really just one extended genetic fallacy, unless the reader already accepts Dawkins' naturalistic worldview. Here Dawkins seeks to explain why people are religious and how religions form. His discussion is crude, but the general point – that some kind of naturalistic explanation of religion/theism is plausible – would really only be persuasive if the reader has already accepted that Dawkins is correct in asserting God's non-existence. If God does not exist, then it becomes obvious that some kind of naturalistic explanation of religion must be true. The only details that need to be worked out are whether that explanation should be Darwinian, Freudian, Marxian or some other ‘ian’. (This, actually, is a huge detail, but not one that I’m interested in, because I happen to disagree with atheism.)

If, on the other hand, Dawkins were trying to suggest that, because he can provide some kind of naturalistic explanation of religion, that shows that religious belief is irrational, Dawkins would, indeed, be committing the genetic fallacy. He does seem to flirt with the genetic fallacy throughout his discussion of the ‘roots of religion’, but if one presupposes his claims in chapters 2-4, it is more charitable to accept that Dawkins believes he has done the ‘hard work’ of refuting theism, and is subsequently going on to address the question: ‘If God doesn’t exist, why do people believe in God (or gods)?’.

Similarly, his discussion of morality and the evils of religion presuppose atheism. His insistence that all religion must be abolished only makes sense if religion is both bad and entirely false. If the world’s religions have been as bad as Dawkins claims, and yet God still exists, a more reasonable response would be to found a new, better religion or advocate for serious reforms within extant religions. And, in fact, many religious figures have done exactly this down through the ages – with varying degrees of success. Jeremiads lamenting the corruption of religion by politics, wealth, or fanaticism are common throughout the history of Judaism and Christianity, for example. The total abolition of religion would make no sense if at least some of the core claims of at least one religion turned out to be true, or probably true. Much could be said in critique of chapters 5-10 of The God Delusion, but the issues raised in these chapters are secondary to those discussed in chapters 2-4.

Obviously, in my list(s) of works  think Dawkins ought to have read in preparation for writing his The God Delusion, I’ll stick as much as I can to books and articles written prior to 2006. One can hardly expect Dawkins to have included in The God Delusion discussion of items published after his book. Where there are revised versions of these works published after 2006, I will note these editions, as well, just so that contemporary readers can access the most up-to-date materials. I will primarily focus on materials written by theists, as Dawkins should have been aware of the best theistic scholarship before attacking theism as a ‘delusion’.

Part I: Dawkins, Einstein, God, Religion...Stuff

I’ll start with a historical point of contention: Dawkins rather confidently states that Einstein was a pantheist. He then goes on the define pantheism as “sexed-up atheism” (p. 18) - not exactly the most helpful definition. For Dawkins the equation is simple: Einstein = pantheist = atheist. In support of this conclusion, Dawkins notes that Einstein admired Spinoza: “I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings” (Einstein quote, cited p. 18). One might think that this is a profession of theistic belief of some sort. Dawkins, however, reminds us that Spinoza was a pantheist; and a pantheist is just a sexy atheist. (Perhaps pantheism exists to ensure that atheism doesn’t become an evolutionary dead-end.) Anyway, there are a couple of problems with this interpretation of Einstein’s religious beliefs. Like much of his argumentation thought this book, Dawkins’ interpretation of Einstein's views has just enough subtlety to be misleading, but not enough to get at the truth. Instead, Dawkins ignores Einstein quotes that certainly seem to contradict his interpretation of Einstein’s worldview.

Firstly, what does Einstein mean in the quote above, when he says he believes in 'Spinoza's God'? It is clear that he objects to an anthropomorphic, i.e., human-like, conception of God. Apparently, this God is a being who: (1) answers prayer, (2) intervenes in the development of history, (3) imposes a goal upon the world. It is true, then, that Einstein’s conception of God is quite different from the way in which religious theists think of God. Yet, if we dig a little deeper, it becomes clear that Einstein's idea of God is also distinct from pantheism.

Firstly, such an objection to anthropomorphising God is not unique to pantheism. Many great religious philosophers and theologians cautioned against anthropomorphising God. This particular line of argument goes back at least as far as Xenophanes, in ancient Greece. Einstein’s definition of what an ‘anthropomorphic’ deity would look like is, however, somewhat broader than what is typically meant. Sophisticated theologians – really sophisticated theologians, not Dawkins’ idea of ‘sophisticated theologians’, i.e. theologians who happen to agree substantially with Richard Dawkins – such as Aquinas, Maimonides, Avicenna, etc., would have strongly objected to ascribing human-like characteristics to God. However, they would have found it odd to suggest that God ‘intervenes’ or ‘imposes’ some sort of purpose on human development. Intervention implies that God is some kind of tinkerer, messing around in the universe, when Medieval theologians would, instead, have argued that everything, every aspect of the universe, is the way it is because of the will of God. How can one be accused of ‘tinkering’, when one has near-absolute control, moment by moment? (Near-absolute because most of them would have allowed for the reality of human free will.) A popular analogy here would be that of a musician's relation to his music. So long as the musician plays, the music continues. When the musician stops playing, the music ceases. Perhaps the musician will improvise a little with the melody, e.g. in jazz. One could hardly accuse the musician of 'interfering' with his own music, even if he were to jazz it up, because the music cannot exist absent the musician playing it. So too, classical theists view God's relationship of nature.

I suspect that Einstein’s objection to ‘purpose’ in the sense meant by most religions is not because he was a pantheist, but because he was a strong determinist. Max Jammer, in Einstein and Religion, comments:

Unrestricted determinism, Einstein argued, does not admit a “God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and whose purposes are modeled after our own.” (p. 47).

And:

Einstein was most influenced by Spinoza’s thesis of an unrestricted determinism and the belief in the existence of a superior intelligence that reveals itself in the harmony and beauty of nature (p. 47).

What Einstein is objecting to is not God per se or purpose per se, but to the common idea that God would ‘interfere’ in nature to shape history or deal out punishments and rewards. Jammer quotes Einstein again, as stating,

"...the man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events—provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the single reason that a man’s actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God’s eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motion it undergoes" (Einstein and Religion, p. 78).

Similarly, Spinoza believed that the ‘laws of nature’, and nature itself, are necessary reflections of – indeed, emanating from – the nature of God, so that distinguishing when ‘God’ ends and ‘nature’ begins is not possible. In short, Spinoza objected to the ‘dualist’ conception of reality at the heart of traditional theism (both religious and philosophical) as ‘God and nature’. Instead, nature emanates from God and God suffuses nature. The two are interconnected, so that reality is monistic, rather than dualistic. God could no more choose to alter the laws of nature than, choose to alter ‘his’ own nature. God could not punish evil, because people's behaviour is determined - they do not actually control their own actions. In order for God to want to ‘interfere’ in history, God’s will would have to be at odds with God’s own nature, which is impossible. Indeed, the idea of God even desiring to do so would be incoherent, as God would be desiring to do something contrary to 'his' own nature. So a truly divine being would not – could not – intervene to change history, in the way that we humans desire to do.

In the end, Spinoza’s, and Einstein's, opposition to ‘anthropomorphism’ was, at least in part, a consequence of his metaphysical determinism. Einsteins' reference to believing in 'Spinoza's God' can, therefore, be understood as a reference to Spinoza's determinism, and not necessarily his pantheism. But there is another reason why it is unlikely that Einstein was a pantheist...

Secondly, finally – and most importantly, I think – Einstein himself denied being either an atheist or a pantheist. Interestingly, I found this quote in Max Jammer’s Einstein and Religion, a book that Dawkins implies he has read, as he quotes from it directly and references it by name in the text of The God Delusion. Dawkins’ describes it as “my main source of quotations from Einstein himself on religious matters” (p. 16). Dawkins however, ignores this crucial quote:

I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations (Einstein and Religion, p. 48, emphasis added).

This passage clearly contradicts Dawkins’ interpretation of Einstein, yet Dawkins fails to discuss it or even acknowledge its existence, despite using Jammer’s book as his main source on Einstein's religious views. One might dismiss this as an accidental oversight on Dawkins part. This, I think, is too generous. The above quote is taken from the page directly above the page where Dawkins’ own quote about Einstein believing in ‘Spinoza’s God’ (p. 49) came from in Einstein and Religion. It seems unlikely that Dawkins caught the brief quote about 'Spinoza’s God' on page 49, but missed the quote that covered almost the entire previous page! Did Dawkins read the relevant chapters through thoroughly, or did he just cherry-pick certain quotes that fit with his a priori view of what Einstein ‘must have’ believed? Is this wilful ignorance or incompetent research?

It gets worse, for Dawkins ignores Jammer’s own detailed assessment of Einstein’s religious philosophy (Einstein and Religion, Chapter 2), including Jammer’s conclusion:

After having gained what he called “a better insight into the causal connections,” Einstein always protested against being regarded as an atheist. In a conversation with Prince Hubertus of Lowenstein, for example, he declared, “What really makes me angry is that they [“people who say there is no God”] quote me for support of their views.” Einstein renounced atheism because he never considered his denial of a personal God as a denial of God. This subtle, but decisive, distinction has long been ignored… In fact, when Einstein declared that “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind,” a statement that summarizes his religious credo, he did not use the term “religion” to mean “atheism.” (Einstein and Religion, pp. 150-1, emphasis added).

Dawkins does not even acknowledge Jammer’s assessment, nor does he attempt to refute it. But he cannot have cherry-picked the quotations he uses in his own book without having read through at least some of Jammer’s own assessment. Conclusion: Dawkins just ignores what he doesn’t agree with in Jammer’s book, which is pretty much typical of Dawkins’ approach to ‘dealing with’ any scholarly view that differs from his own.

So, as we have seen, (1) Einstein believed in some kind of ‘God’, that is not identical with ‘Nature’, and (2) rejected religious theism as it is typically propounded, because religious theists believe that God is a personal Being that ‘interferes’ in nature and human history. So, exactly how should we understand Einstein's view of God? Was his idea of God deistic like Voltaire, or more akin to the classical theism of Aristotle? Each of these is broadly consistent with Einstein's numerous brief summaries of his idea of God. Or did he believe in some kind of self-existent, immaterial ‘force’ that maintains the universe in being, but lacks intellect and other God-like qualities, i.e., like some far eastern conceptions of God?

Well, Einstein, in the quote above, does mention the idea of a ‘force’. However, other Einstein quotes talk more explicitly about an ‘infinitely superior spirit’, a ‘superior mind’, a ‘rationality’ behind the universe, and a ‘superior reasoning power’ that permeates the cosmos. For those interested in a more in-depth analysis, I would recommend Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese’s book There is a God, Chapter 5; and Jammer’s book Einstein and Religion, Chapter 2.

In summary, then, Einstein’s God is:

(1)   a rational intellect, and

(2)   a ‘spirit’, i.e. immaterial being.

Insofar as Einstein considered rationality and immateriality to be two core aspects of 'God' - and 'God' to exist at the most fundamental level of of reality - Einstein's religion, while incompatible with traditional religious theism, is equally incompatible with the atheistic materialism of Dawkins and his fellows. To this we can add that Einstein regarded our primary source of knowledge about God as coming, not from religious texts, but from a deep understanding of the fundamental order of nature. Through studying the laws that govern the world, we can gain some very limited understanding of the divine. Indeed, it appears that the very accessibility of the world to the human intellect was the primary reason for Einstein's belief in a 'superior reasoning power':  "Whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances in this domain [science] is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence . . . the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence" (cited in There is a God, p. 102). So, Einstein would have completely disagreed with Dawkins' claim that 'religion', i.e., belief in God, is incompatible with science, even while agreeing with Dawkins' opposition to miracles and other similar religious beliefs.)

Other quotes make Einstein's belief in a compatibility between 'true religion' and science even more clear, e.g.:

"Every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble" (cited in There is a God, p. 102).

and

"My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit who reveals himself
in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God" (cited in There is a God, p. 102).

Unfortunately, Einstein typically doesn’t get much more explicit than that. Jammer notes that Einstein's discussion of his belief in God was never evangelistic - he never intended to persuade others of his beliefs - either of his acceptance of God's existence or of his scepticism regarding traditional religion. Indeed, it may be that it was Einstein’s intention to leave his views obscure. He often made reference to humans’ ‘limited minds’ and our limited ability to comprehend the cosmos, which he regarded as fundamentally 'mysterious': “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science . . . it is this emotion that constitutes true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man” (cited in Einstein and Religion, p. 84). He, therefore, believed that our limited minds, which ultimately find the cosmos a mystery, could not say much about the nature of the intellect that pervades the cosmos. Here he would be in agreement with another great Jewish thinker: Maimonides. Again, Jammer comments:

[Einstein] greatly respected Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon), the foremost Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. He once said of Maimonides that he “exerted a crucial and fruitful influence on his contemporaries and on later generations.” Maimonides devoted a whole chapter of his Guide for the Perplexed to the problem of how to conceive of God and concluded that “our knowledge [of God] consists in knowing that we are unable to comprehend Him.” Spinoza also regarded God as beyond description and imagination. In a letter to a friend, he explained it geometrically: “On your question whether I have a clear idea of God as I have of a triangle, I would answer in the affirmative; but on your question whether I have a clear image of God as I have of a triangle, I would answer in the negative. For of God no image can be made.” (Einstein and Religion, pp. 74-5).

Actually, this makes perfect sense from the perspective of classical philosophical theology. We are finite beings trying to comprehend Infinite Being; our speculations are bound to fall short of a full understanding of the divine. [For a fascinating discussion of this topic, see David Burrell’s Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas (University of Notre Dame Press, 1986).]

The greatest difficulty of Einstein's philosophy for religious theists is, therefore, not that it is basically indistinguishable from atheism, as Dawkins claims it is, but rather that it is deterministic. As Jammer notes:

"Einstein’s insistence on an all-pervading unrestricted causal determinism was the main reason that, in general, the clergy, regardless of denomination, rejected the philosophy of cosmic religion. For the supreme reign of such a determinism denies not only the possibility of a divine interference—even if the existence of a personal God were admitted—it also deprives man of his free will and, as a consequence, of his moral responsibility. For if man’s actions are dictated by this determinism, he cannot be held responsible and hence cannot be punished or rewarded for what he does" (p. 85).

Indeed, I would go further than this. I would argue that if everything is determined, then all our thoughts and beliefs, and not just our actions, are determined, so that everything we believe - including our beliefs about science - would be determined, so that it could not be that our ideas are truly 'rational'. Even if our beliefs happened, by some miracle, to be true, we could never know that they are true in a purely deterministic reality. The very rationality of our ideas presupposes that we come to these ideas through a free process of reasoning. Eliminating free will from human reasoning eliminates the possibility of truly rational thought. This is the basic problem with physical determinism, which is believed by many 'scientific' atheists, and is the logical consequence of the materialism and scientism that are at the heart of the new atheism.

For these reasons, I would reject Einstein's deterministic metaphysics. Nevertheless, his reasons for belief in God - the order or rationality inherent within nature and our capacity to understand nature rationally - can appeal to a wide range of theists, including religious theists, classical philosophical theists, and deists.