Criticism In Richard Dawkins's Critique Of Religion

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In his critique of religion, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins makes several fundamental flaws in his reasoning for disputing the arguments in Thomas Aquinas’s Five Ways, particularly the Third Way: The Argument From Contingency. Dawkins writes of this argument, and the others, in a condescending, blatantly contemptuous manner. It is clear that he did not make an attempt to thoroughly understand the points that Aquinas makes, and in his rush to refute them, he overlooks a few errors of his own. Dawkins seems to have misunderstood the Third Way particularly egregiously. He misinterprets this argument, and then criticizes his misinterpretation for being false using faulty logic, and unfounded statements. According to Dawkins’ interpretation, …show more content…

In the text, the Third Way can be considered as a two separate things. Namely, an argument that is entirely secular, which reaches an entirely secular conclusion, and an objective truth about the catholic faith. The secular argument concludes that something must exist which is necessary for all other things to exist, but is not contingent on any other thing to exist. The objectively true statement that immediately follows is that Aquinas and the Catholic audience he is writing for call this thing on which everything depends God. This statement, the only reference to God of any kind in the argument, does not assume anything at all about the nature of God. It is a fact. The Third Way combines this fact with the secular argument and conclusion preceding it, and concludes that the thing which Catholics call God must exist in some capacity. Dawkins has already conceded that the only assumption made in the primary argument is true. Therefore, unless Dawkins considers a fact an unjustified assumption, the Third Way does not make any unjustified …show more content…

He states that the big bang, or some other, possibly unknown, physical thing would be a much better explanation for the thing that all other things depend on to exist. In fairness, the big bang theory is widely accepted as the origin of the universe as we know it. According to this theory, all matter and energy was once infinitely compressed into a single point, called a singularity, which then expanded into the universe we know. However, saying that the infinite regression described in the Third Way can be terminated by a singularity is, frankly, completely absurd. By Dawkins’ own definition, the regression described in the Third Way cannot be terminated by a physical thing. No physical thing can rely on itself, and nothing else, to exist. A singularity, composed of all the matter and energy that has ever existed, and will ever exist, is still a physical thing. Putting the main principle of the Third Way into his own terms, Dawkins says “there must have been something non-physical to bring them into existence.” (77) A better argument might have been made by refuting the assertion that all things rely on something that is non-physical to exist in the first place, but while Dawkins implies that this is wrong, he never provides evidence, or elaborates on his alternate explanation in any

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