Resurrecting Miracles

by Benny Mattis

 In Section X of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, philosopher David Hume presents a famous argument against the rationality of belief in miracles in general, in addition to four additional arguments against the legitimacy of "particular miracle reports" (Garcia). In his "General Argument Against Miracles" (Garcia), Hume begins on the reasonable assumption that "A wise [person] proportions [his/her] belief to the evidence" (X.87); since the evidence for the falsity of miracle accounts will always outweigh that for their verity, says Hume, a wise person will always disbelieve accounts of miraculous events. This argument seems compelling at first, but further inspection of its premises reveals it to be subject to defeat with the help of contemporary Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga. Among Hume's four objections to the verity of particular miracle reports, three of them are little, if at all, compelling; Hume's last objection, however, succeeds in discrediting a specific type of miracle report.

The General Argument Against Miracles

Hume's General Argument centers on a conflict between the propositions

M: A miracle has occurred.

and

L: The laws of nature always hold.

Hume begins with an acknowledgement that "In our reasoning concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise [person], therefore, proportions [his/her] belief to the evidence...the evidence exceeds not what we properly call probability" (87). This is the foundation of his argument, and might be put more formally as such:

1) For any proposition p, any wise person w will believe p if and only if the evidence for the verity of p outweighs the evidence for its falsity.

Hume continues by asserting that "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature" (X.90); if a miracle report is true, it means that the laws of nature are not fully accurate representations of reality. Since wise people presumably do not believe contradictions, it follows that

2) Any wise person will either not believe M or not believe L.

However, as Hume notes, the evidence for the verity of the laws of nature, by definition, is "uniform experience," which itself "amounts to proof" (X.90). Thus,

3) The evidence for the verity of L outweighs the evidence for its falsity.

According to the bi-conditional in (1), it follows that

4) Any wise person will believe L.

A disjunctive syllogism formed with (2) and (4) leads to Hume's conclusion that

5) No wise person will believe M.

According to Hume, no wise people believe in miracles, because by virtue of their own definition they have already been disproven; the evidence for the verity of reports of them is always outweighed by the evidence for that of their falsity. I, however, do believe that there are wise people who happen to believe in miracles, and that Hume's argument, while valid (as the truth of the conclusion would follow from that of the premises), is unsound (as the premises are not entirely true).

The flaw in Hume's argument lies in premise (2); Hume may have thought that M and L are analytically contradictory, but they are not actually irreconcilably opposed. Alvin Plantinga offers possible reconciliation in his book Where the Conflict Really Lies, wherein he argues that "classical science is perfectly consistent with special divine action, including miracles" (90). He shows this by suggesting that the laws of nature are better defined in such a way that they are not, in fact, violated by any occurrence of miraculous events; the laws of nature are more like conditional statements of the form

LN: When the universe is causally closed (when God is not acting specially in the world), P." (88, emphasis added.)

where P is one of the propositions Hume would mistake for an actual law in itself, such as "all men die" (X.90) or "every action has an equal and opposite reaction," allegedly contradicted by a given miracle report. The laws of nature, Plantinga explains,

Apply to closed or isolated systems. If so, however, there is nothing in them to prevent God from changing the velocity or direction of a particle. If he did so, obviously, energy would not be conserved in the system in question; but equally obviously, that system would not be closed, in which case the principle of conservation of energy would not apply to it. (78)

If L only implies of the truth of LN-like conditionals, compatible with miracles, as the body of beliefs supported by uniform experience, then premise (2) of Hume's General Argument, on which its conclusion rests, is undercut.

A reply from Hume to Plantinga, then, would need to show why L should be construed as a collection of simple propositions like P, rather than conditionals in the form of LN. It would be a titanic task to prove that we have uniformity of experience in favor of any P, whereas we do not have uniform experience in favor of the corresponding conditional LN; after all, it is questionable whether empirical inquiry would even be capable of determining whether God were acting specially in the world at any time, since God would be, after all, a supernatural being. Plantinga's interpretation of the results of the scientific tradition, then, is likely un-falsifiable, but this does not change the fact that Hume's interpretation is un-verifiable, and thus un-verified, and thus that his General Argument against Miracles ultimately fails.

Against Miracle Reports

In the second part of his attack on miracles, Hume presents four attempts to show that it is never the case that the evidence for the verity of a miracle claim outweighs the evidence for that claim's falsity; "there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence" (X.92). First is his assertion that "there is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good-sense...as to secure us against all delusions in themselves" (X.92). Because we do not have "full assurance in the testimony of men" (X.92) that report the occurrence of miracles, then, we do not have a reason to believe in the truth of such marvelous claims.

Hume continues in bringing attention to the fact that "if the spirit of religion join itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common sense; and human testimony, in these circumstances, loses all pretensions to authority" (X.93). As Ernesto Garcia paraphrases Hume, "it's a universal weakness of human nature that we sensationalize/want to believe in extraordinary things," and this fact serves as a "psychological undercutting defeater for miracle beliefs." The popularity of miracle beliefs, says Hume, is not strong evidence for their verity, because it can be explained just as well by psychological mechanisms that are not truth-oriented.

Hume's first two objections to miracle reports may all succeed in undercutting those reports, but it is a different question entirely as to whether they show that the reports in question are not more likely true than false; if these problems for belief in miracle reports are also problems for disbelief in those same reports, then they do not serve well in achieving Hume's goal of proportioning belief to evidence. Indeed, we may not have "full assurance in the testimony of men" (X.92) who report miracles, but we have "full assurance" in the testimony of very few people, if any. For his first objection to work actively against miracle reports, Hume must show that, for any given miracle report, we do have full assurance in the testimony of men who assent to its negation. Hume's psychological explanation of miracle beliefs faces the same problem: while miracle beliefs may be formed by mechanisms other than truth-oriented rational investigation, so might the belief that miracles do not occur; people can, after all, ascribe religious wonder to scientific theories and the order of the universe in the same way that they might to miracle reports and the possibility of the suspension of physical laws, and so it seems the negations of particular miracle claims also could have arisen from similar non-truth-oriented belief-formation mechanisms. Hume's first two objections to particular miracle reports also diminish the evidence of negations of those reports, so they do not support his claim that the former will always have less evidence than the latter. Hume might respond by showing that his objections apply more to miracle reports than their negations, but it is not clear that this is the case.

Thirdly, Hume believes that "it forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given any admission of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors" (X.94). Hume thinks that all miracle reports originally come from ignorant people, and, since ignorant people are not trustworthy, miracle reports are not to be taken seriously. This is an ad hominem attack on those who report miracles, and the weakest of Hume's arguments against miracle reports. To weigh the evidential scales against miracle reports, Hume would have to show that most or all such reporters are ignorant in a relevant respect, such that they would tend to provide false reports, and ignorant in such a way that the deniers of those reports are not.

The Humean Argument From Inconsistent Revelations

Hume's final argument against miracle claims is also his strongest, and focuses on "the support that a miracle report offers for any one specific religion as opposed to another" (Garcia). Hume begins with the initial (reasonable) assumption that "in matters of religion, whatever is different is contrary; and that it is impossible the religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of ancient Siam, and of China should, all of them, be established on any solid foundation" (X.95). He then notes that the miracle reports on which various religions are founded (or "foundational religious miracle reports," as I will refer to them) "are to be regarded as contrary facts, and the evidences of these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other" (X.95). Foundational miracle accounts counting as evidence against each other's respective religions, then, Hume concludes that "in destroying a rival system," any given religion or group of religions "likewise destroys the credit of those miracles, on which that system was established," and so consistency in our epistemic standards for belief would lead foundational religious miracle reports to amount to irrationality (X.95). Hume's argument can be formalized as follows, for any two distinct religions x and y with respective foundational miracle claims m₁ and m₂ (for the purposes of this argument, we can stipulate that "compatible" religious world views are not "distinct" in this sense, as indicated in the opening premise):

1) It is not the case that both belief in x is rational and belief in y is rational.

3) If belief in miracle report m₁ is rational, then belief in x is rational.

4) If belief in miracle report m₂ is rational, then belief in y is rational.

5) If consistent belief in foundational religious miracle reports is justified, then belief in miracle report m₁ is rational and belief in miracle report m₂ is rational.

6) If belief in miracle report m₁ is rational and belief in miracle report m₂ is rational, then belief in x is rational and belief in y is rational. (3, 4)

7) Therefore, it is not the case that consistent belief in foundational religious miracle reports is justified. (Multiple Modus Tollens 1, 5, 6)

The super-naturalist will likely respond that there is ambiguity in (7), and, thus, in its negation, which can be construed as either

~7A) Consistent belief in all foundational religious miracle reports is justified.

or

~7E) Consistent belief in some foundational religious miracle report is justified.

They may claim to accept (~7E), but deny (~7A). Hume would likely reply that such epistemic preference to particular reports is not really consistent; after all, he is aiming to be like an objective arbiter (X.95), treating witnesses with impartiality.

A final objection that may be brought against Hume is that the mere fact that a miracle is ascribed to a religion, and the religion is falsified by the same maxim that led to belief in that miracle, does not imply that the miracle report itself is falsified, as the miraculous event in question could have occurred due to other causes. There could be an explanation for all of the miracles in question, which is itself not self-defeating; one might posit, for example, a dystheistic trickster god misleading humans to false religions with dissonant miracle messages.

Such an explanation would simply show the miracle in question not to be properly foundational. Read charitably, Hume is not talking about all beliefs that have been ascribed religious significance, but specifically those "on which [a religious] system was established" (X.95); thus, their respective religions must have been the best explanation for such occurrences in the first place, all things (including dystheism) considered. Hume is talking about competing foundational miracle reports for distinct religions; miracles unified under a single theory of the supernatural are not his target here.

Conclusion

The majority of Hume's attacks on miracles may have been weak, but his last argument is quite strong. Unless the super-naturalist is willing to grant subjective preference to certain miracle reports over others, they are left with the epistemic possibility of miracles only on the condition that such miracles do not constitute evidence for a specific, exclusive religious sect. Miracle reports as such survived Hume's onslaught intact, but foundational religious miracle reports appear to be refuted for good.

Sources

Garcia, Ernesto. "Class Lecture 11/15." University of Massachusetts Amherst. Bartlett

Hall, Amherst, MA. 15 November 2012. Lecture.

Plantinga, Alvin. Where the Conflict Really Lies. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2011. Print.

Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Public Domain. Kindle

file.

Problems with Plantinga

by Benny Mattis

The Two-Way Street

In his book Where the Conflict Really Lies, Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that any actual conflicts between science and religion are merely superficial, justifying his claim with the following reasoning:

1. Scientific theories that are inconsistent with Christian belief “do not constitute or provide a defeater for the Christian beliefs with which they conflict” (xiii).
2. If (1), then (3).
3. Thus, the conflict (if any) between Christian belief and the theories in question is superficial.

Plantinga rationalizes the first premise of this valid argument compellingly in the section of his book entitled “Superficial Conflict,” but seems to think that (2) does not require justification; in fact, the premise is not explicitly stated anywhere in the relevant section of the text, despite its importance in his main argument.

Some might find the verity of (2) self-evident, but this is not the case. Consider, as a counterexample, the case where Christian belief constitutes or provides a defeater for the scientific theories in question. In this case, (3) would seem to be false, though (1) would still be true. The conditional in (2), therefore, does not seem to hold. Without rationales for deriving (3) from (1), Plantinga’s assertion of the superficiality of the conflict (if any) between science and religion remains insufficiently justified.

This is not to say that Plantinga provides no argument against the existence of deep science/religion conflict. Premise (1) presupposes that the theories in question are indeed proper science, but Plantinga notes this may not be the case (163). He suggests that the theories in question do not really constitute claims about the actual world, but rather claims about how things seem from a certain perspective (182), in which case there would only be an apparent conflict (that would be appropriately called “superficial,” but also merely “alleged”). These solutions, however, require Plantinga to deny his given premise that they are, in fact, real conflicts between science and theistic belief.

Alvin Plantinga's Adequatio Intellectus Ad Intellectus

In the section entitled "Deep Concord" of his book Where the Conflict Really Lies, Alvin Plantinga counts Hume's problem of induction (that is, the apparent lack of logical justification for inductive inferences about the future based on the past) as not a problem for inductive reasoning, but rather an example of the adequatio intellectus ad rem, or curious fit between human understanding and reality, of whose existence theism is presumably a better explanation than naturalism. "Its success is one more example of the fit between our cognitive faculties and the world," Plantinga claims (295), implying that "the world is in such a way that inductive reasoning is successful" (296). His logic appears to be as follows:

1) "The world is in such a way that inductive reasoning is successful."

2) If (1), then (3).

3) So, there is a "fit between [inductive reasoning] and the world."

This argument is valid; in fact, it may even be sound. However, it is also trivial; in speaking of induction's "success" in general, Plantinga appears to be begging Hume's question of whether, in fact, "there is a fit between [inductive reasoning] and the world." The only apparent rationale for (1) is itself based on inductive reasoning, as follows:

1a) There have been instances where inductive reasoning was successful.

1b) If (1a), then (1c).

1c) There is a "fit between [inductive reasoning] and the world."

Premise (1b), an inductive inference from past instances to the state of the world at all times, is only justified given (3). The conclusion of Plantinga's argument is necessary to justify his premises; he is begging Hume's question. Plantinga here merely shows a fit between intellect (induction) and intellect, rather than between intellect and reality.

Plantinga's Mission: Impossible

In Where the Conflict Really Lies, Plantinga suggests that, even if each instance of content in a mental belief has a neurophysiological (or "NP") property equivalent to it "in the broadly logical sense," it is still rational to speak of specific consequences of hypothetical scenarios wherein "belief B had the same NP properties but different content" (337-338). He appears to justify this by analogy:

1) There are instances where "Philosophers regularly and quite properly use counterpossibles in arguing for their views" (338).

2) If (1), then (3).

3) Therefore, Plantinga's use of a counterpossible in his response is rational.

This argument is valid, and Plantinga justifies (1) with the example of the dualist-materialist debate; either dualism or materialism is necessarily false, but debaters on both sides rationally discuss what would happen if their opponents were correct (despite thinking that such situations are counterpossible) (339). The verity of premise (2), however, is dependent on whether Plantinga's use of a counterpossible is relevantly similar to such examples, and, in fact, it is not.

Given dualism, it would be a direct contradiction to speak of what happens given materialism, and hence irrational. Debating with materialists, however, the dualist must argue as if dualism were not given--to do otherwise would be begging the question. Likewise, given that content is equivalent to a neurophysiological property, it is as rational to say "the same content but different NP properties" as it is to say "the same content but not the same content," from which anything follows. However, the materialist does not have to argue as if this equivalence were not given, because it is not what is up for debate; what is up for debate in Plantinga's discussion is the probability of certain states of affairs given materialism, naturalism, and evolution.

Plantinga attempts to clarify his point by succinctly asserting that "clearly...it is in virtue of its neurophysiological properties that [a belief] B causes [an action] A...It isn't by virtue of having that particular content." However, given that content is logically equivalent to its actual correlative NP properties, then once again, Plantinga's rationale for (1) is an outright contradiction.

The Indication of Belief

Premise (1) of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) depends heavily on his assertion that, as he writes in Science and Religion, "indication is not belief...and accurate indication need not be accompanied by true belief. As long as the indication is accurate, the belief content can be anything whatsoever" (70). Plantinga defends these claims with examples, including one involving a frog that reflexively flicks its tongue out to catch a nearby insect:

1) Accurate indication is necessary for the frog's survival (69).

2) True belief is not necessary for the frog's survival (69).

3) So, "indication is not belief...and accurate indication need not be accompanied by true belief." (70).

The first clause of (3) seems to follow from (1) and (2), but it does not follow from that fact that accurate indication could be accompanied by false beliefs, or that the naturalist has any reason to think that beliefs in general on naturalism are not truth-aimed.

Premise (3) is also vague. Plantinga's claim that "indication is not belief" can mean one of two things:

B1) All indication is such that it is not belief.

B2) Not all indication is such that it is belief.

(B2) follows from (1) and (2); (B1) does not. The principle of charity thus demands us to assume that Plantinga was referring to (B2). Now consider the proposition that belief is actually a type of indicator:

B3) Some indication is belief, and all belief is indication.

This proposition is perfectly compatible with (B2), the conclusion of Plantinga's thought experiment with the frog. However, if beliefs (and the other cognitive faculties in question) are a type of indicator, and indicators in general tend to be accurate given evolution, then the reliability of our cognitive faculties, given that we have cognitive faculties, is highly probable given naturalism, materialism, and evolution. This does, in fact, seem like a quite sensible way of looking at beliefs--it appears, then, that the naturalist really ought to believe in the reliability of their cognitive faculties, even given their unguided origins.

Work Cited

Plantinga, Alvin. Where the Conflict Really Lies. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2011. Print.

Dawkins and Plantinga on Design

by Benny Mattis

 In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argues that the "argument from improbability" (a type of argument that infers metaphysical truths from the existence of high levels of complexity in the world, usually enlisted in the defense of theism and named the "Argument from Design" or the "Design Argument"), "properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist" (137). "It is indeed a very strong and, I suspect, unanswerable argument," Dawkins claims, "But in precisely the opposite direction from the theist's intention" (137). Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, on the other hand, shows in Where the Conflict Really Lies that the Design Argument is actually not very strong, due to the weakness of its premises, yet still considers it ultimately a case of "concord" between religion and science (264). Dawkins succeeds in showing that the argument from improbability best functions as support for atheism, but Plantinga succeeds in showing that the argument is not very strong in the first place.

Undercutting Theism

Before addressing the strength or weakness of the argument from improbability, it would be constructive to present the most common historical instance of it (as the Argument from Design for theism), and whether it actually supports theism or atheism (in the latter case as Dawkins' "Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit"). As for the former question, Dawkins lays out his interpretation of the argument with characteristic scorn:

Creationist 'logic' is always the same. Some natural phenomenon is too statistically improbable, too complex, too beautiful, too awe-inspiring to have come about by chance. Design is the only alternative to chance that the [Creationist] authors can imagine. Therefore a designer must have done it. (146)

This interpretation of Dawkins' might be put more formally as such:

1) There exists a being x such that x is too complex to have come about by chance.

2) For any x such that x is too complex to have come about by chance, there exists an explanation y such that (y explains how the level of complexity in x obtained in this world) and (y posits the existence of a designer for x).

3) So, there exists an explanation y such that y posits the existence of a designer for x.

Dawkins takes issue with (2); indeed, given (1), (2) directly contradicts Dawkins' belief that designers in general are not explanatory of complexity:

(NE) For any being x, there does not exist any explanation d such that (d posits a designer of x) and (d explains how the level of complexity in x obtained in this world).

This is because, as Dawkins states, design "raises an even bigger problem than it solves: who designed the designer?" (147). "Design doesn't explain organized complexity," Plantinga says in summarizing Dawkins' point; "It presupposes it, because the designer would have to be as complex as what it creates" (26). An explanation that presupposes what it explains is not explanatory at all; hence, Dawkins' assertion that design hypotheses are not explanatory of high levels of complexity.

Despite his apparent understanding of Dawkins' undercutting defeater for design hypotheses, however, Plantinga challenges Dawkins' logic with an anecdote involving a science fiction scenario:

Suppose we land on an alien planet...and discover some machine-like objects that look and work just like a 1941 Allis Chalmers tractor; our leader says 'there must be intelligent beings on this planet--look at those tractors.' A sophomore philosophy student on the expedition objects: 'Hey, hold on a minute! You have explained nothing at all! Any intelligent life that designed those tractors would have to be at least as complex as they are!' No doubt we'd tell him a little learning is a dangerous thing and advise him to take the next rocket ship home and enroll in another philosophy course or two. (27)

Plantinga here appears to be likening the Design Argument's proponent's reasoning with that of the space expedition's team leader, and Professor Dawkins' reasoning with that of an exceedingly foolish undergraduate. To make this analogy more complete, we need only consider the space expedition's resident theologian, who, upon seeing the tractors, confidently proclaimed that they constituted evidence for God and, indeed, "concord" between space travel and theistic religion.

"The point is we aren't trying to give an ultimate explanation of organized complexity," explains Plantinga, "and we aren't trying to explain organized complexity in general; we are only trying to explain one particular manifestation of it...it is perfectly proper to explain one manifestation of organized complexity in terms of another" (28). Indeed, the expedition leader could so properly explain the occurrence of those tractors as such by appealing to a designer, but Dawkins also allows that the occurrence of particular complex biological machines we see on earth might be discovered to be best explained by a designer. "It may even be a superhuman designer," imagines Dawkins, "but, if so, it will most certainly not be a designer who just popped into existence, or who always existed" (186). Such an unexplained being would in some sense explain the occurrence of the complex tractor, or a complex biological machine, but not the occurrence of their particular levels of complexity as such (because to posit their existence would require presupposing even greater levels of complexity, begging the question), and this is "the problem that any theory of life must solve" (145). We are not trying to explain tractors as such in the way the expedition leader did, or complexity "in general" as Plantinga suggests, but rather the level of complexity as such instantiated in the tractor, i.e., why a particular observed level of complexity has obtained in this world.

In another attempt to prevent Dawkins' undercutting defeat of the Design Argument for theism, Plantinga suggests that God is not, in fact, complex. Disputing Dawkins' argument in The God Delusion, Plantinga digs up Dawkins' definition of complexity from The Blind Watchmaker: "Something is complex if it has parts that are 'arranged in a way that is unlikely to have arisen by chance alone.' Here he's clearly thinking of material objects" (29). Plantinga then lays out a clear logical demonstration of God's simplicity:

1) "Immaterial objects, e.g. numbers, don't have parts."

2) "God is...an immaterial spiritual being."

3) "Hence God has no parts at all."

4) If something has no parts, then it is not complex, according to Dawkins' definition of complexity.

5) So, God is not complex, according to Dawkins' definition of complexity. (27)

This argument is simple enough, but any logician will immediately notice the vagueness of (1); while it is evident that some immaterial objects don't have parts, Plantinga presumably intends to claim that all immaterial objects don't have parts, which is certainly not sufficiently justified by the single example of numbers (unless, of course, all immaterial objects are numbers, but this option would be less than helpful to Plantinga).

Setting aside the question of whether an immaterial entity could have parts, it is worth pointing out that Dawkins clearly does not intend for his definition of complexity (presumably based in biology) in The Blind Watchmaker to be applied in The God Delusion as well; indeed, Dawkins even refers to theologian Keith Ward's statement that "It is quite coherent...to suppose that God, while internally indivisible, is internally complex," indicating a broader concept of complexity than in his preceding writings on biology (179). "God may not have a brain made of neurones," insists Dawkins, "or a CPU made of silicon, but if he has the powers attributed to him he must have something far more elaborately and non-randomly constructed than the largest brain or the largest computer we know" (184). Even if God is an immaterial substance (as God presumably is a concrete person, and not an abstract entity such as a number), as a designer capable of intending the entire actual world he would have to be (in some way) more complex than the actual world itself, since his own intention would be as complex as the world is insofar as it is designed (i.e., insofar as God intends it). Even an immaterial God, claims Dawkins, would not be a legitimate explanation for the levels of complexity we observe in the world; in this Dawkins brings an undercutting defeater to theistic belief based on the Argument from Design for theism.

Rebutting Theism

It seems that a designer capable of intending every designed aspect of the world would have to be at least as complex as the world is insofar it is designed; this is why positing the existence of such a designer is not explanatory of the high level of complexity in the universe. Dawkins, however, does not stop with this mere undercutting defeat, but rather continues on to say that "The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist" (137). This proper deployment, intended as a rebutting defeater for theism, is what Dawkins refers to as the Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit.

Dawkins credits Fred Hoyle with positing a Boeing 747 as the archetypal example of organized complexity (138). According to Dawkins' reasoning, any possible designer of a being as complex as a 747 (let's call the 747-like object B_n, where B_n+1 is more complex than B_n, which is more complex than B_n-1, and so forth) would have to be more complex than the object itself (that is, it would correspond with B_n+x, where x is some number greater than zero). If God existed, then presumably, God would be the designer of all of the other designers in the universe; thus, he would quite properly be called the ultimate designer, or the Ultimate Boeing 747, as Dawkins suggests (138). However, the logical end of the Design Argument, unaided by the possibility of unguided evolution, "presents an infinite regress from which [God] cannot help us escape" (136).

Dawkins has shown the incoherence in premise (2) of his Design Argument (i.e., the failure of intentional explanations to explain complexity as such), but it can still work if we replace it with

2') For any x such that x is too complex to have come about by chance, there exists an explanation y such that (y explains how x occurs in this world) and (y posits the existence of a designer for x).

This crucial update to the Design Argument might be summed up essentially in a single premise, where B_n+1 is more complex than B_n, which is more complex than B_n-1, and so forth:

DA) If there is a complex being B_n, then there is a being B_n+1 that designed B_n.

The infinite regress only needs a 747 to be put in motion:

B1) There is a complex being B_n (for example, a Boeing 747)

B2) There is a being B_n+1 that designed B_n (Modus Ponens DA, B1)

B3) There is a being B_n+2 that designed B_n+1 (MP DA, B2)

B4) There is a being B_n+3 that designed B_n+2 (MP DA, B3)

...

BU) There is a being B_U that designed B_U-1 (MP DA, B(U-1))

Where BU is an 'ultimate' designer, i.e. the Ultimate Boeing 747. Of course, given (DA) as it is, U will be a limit towards infinity, rather than a determinate quantity P. This can be shown easily enough via reductio ad absurdum:

A1) Suppose there is a complex being B_P such that B_P is the ultimate designer.

A2) There is a being B_P+1 that designed B_P (MP DA, A1)

A3) If (A2), then B_P is not the ultimate designer.

A3) So, A1 is false, and there is a complex being B_P+1 such that B_P+1 is the ultimate designer.

The existence of an ultimate designer B_U is preserved from (A1) to (A3), but U continuously increases greater than any finite quantity assigned to it. Since U is a limit towards infinity, and B_U would be the ultimate designer, it follows from the necessity of greater complexity in designers (and the significance of our subscripts stated above) that B_U's complexity is a limit towards infinity, and thus that an ultimate designer would be infinitely complex. This is why, as Dawkins claims with his Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit, "There almost certainly is no God" (137).

Given the reasoning behind the Design Argument, the existence of God would be infinitely unlikely, as God would be infinitely complex. However, without the possibility of ultimate designers (which demand explanation) arising from primeval simplicity (which does not demand explanation), it also remains utterly mysterious and itself apparently vastly improbable. This is where evolution comes in: the theory of evolution reveals how high levels of complexity could arise in such a universe, because it replaces (2') with

2'') For any x such that x is too complex to have come about by chance, there exists an explanation y such that (y posits a designer for x) or (y posits the evolution of x through evolution by natural selection, explaining its level of complexity).

and replaces (DA) with

DA') If there is a complex being B_n, then there is a being B_n+1 that designed B_n, or B_n evolved out of primeval simplicity.

(DA') does not lend itself to a necessary infinite regress, but allows for an ultimate designer B_U, as long as it evolved out of primeval simplicity. The God of theism would not have evolved out of primeval simplicity, so this still means that any ultimate designer would not be the God of theism. Thus, evolution on atheism provides an explanation for high levels of complexity in the universe, whereas no such explanation can be given on theism regardless of its compatibility with science; all else being equal, the argument from improbability suggests that evolution constitutes evidence for atheism. Dawkins succeeds in showing that the reasoning behind the Design Argument best serves atheism, rather than theism.

Deflecting Dawkins

The argument from improbability against theism, in the form of Dawkins' Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit, suggests that theism is almost certainly false. Its premises, however, are weak, and Plantinga demonstrates this in his critique of Dawkins as well as his critique of theistic applications of the argument. The premises of his Gambit can be formulated as such:

1) There exists a being x such that x is too complex to have come about by chance.

2'') For any x such that x is too complex to have come about by chance, there exists an explanation y such that (y posits a designer for x) or (y posits the evolution of x through evolution by natural selection, explaining its level of complexity).

3) If (1) and (2''), then God's existence is infinitely improbable.

4) So, God's existence is infinitely improbable.

Dawkins claims that his Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit "does not depend on subjective judgment" (136), but this belief of Dawkins', as Plantinga demonstrates, is manifestly false.

Premise (2) and its derivatives (2', 2'', DA, and DA') are where the subjectivity really lies. Dawkins never justifies the notion that there simply must be an explanation for the occurrence of a given level of complexity; he simply assumes that it "is one thing on which we can all agree" (145). He vaguely motions elsewhere that "sometimes the language of information theory is used" in justifying the principle that complexity must have an explanation, but seems to take the principle as self-evident throughout his argument (138). Unfortunately, Dawkins' justification for (2'') is at best inter-subjective, and inter-subjective in a consensus that does not include a certain prominent Christian philosopher.

"Explanations come to an end," Plantinga writes, and "for theism they come to an end in God" (28). So, even given that "mind would be an outstanding example of organized complexity" (27), according to theism there is no explanation for the existence of a mind (28), and so there is no explanation for why that level of complexity obtained in the world. Plantinga points out that "the materialist...doesn't have an explanation for the existence of elementary particles" (28). Dawkins predicts this rebuttal to (2) by suggesting that "Some kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology" (188). Realizing the unconvincing nature of this response, Dawkins adds that "the anthropic principle entitles us to postulate far more luck than our limited human intuition is comfortable with" (188). Until such a multiverse theory is explicated, however, Dawkins' justification for the expectation of explanation of complexity remains a mere 'reason of the gaps.'

Plantinga also brings up the common notion that "It is not so much as possible that there is no such person as God...[Dawkins] owes us an argument...that there is no necessary being with the attributes of God" (30). Presumably, Plantinga is not suggesting that Dawkins seriously consider whether God necessarily exists, when the question of God's existence is what is up for debate in the first place; the most charitable interpretation of Plantinga here would take this comment as an objection to (2''). Plantinga might be suggesting that theism actually offers another way out of the infinite regress mentioned above, because it actually posits

(2''') For any x such that x is too complex to have come about by chance, there exists an explanation y such that (y posits a designer for x) or (y posits the evolution of x through evolution by natural selection) or (y posits that x exists necessarily).

Some instances of complexity, and thus some high levels of complexity as such, might not be contingent on designers or evolution; indeed, they might be necessary occurrences or brute fact.

Plantinga succeeds in undermining Dawkins' rationales for (2) and its derivatives, showing them ultimately to be based on little more than personal opinion. Since Dawkins "can't get excited about personal opinions" (136), perhaps he should not get too excited about his argument from the improbability of complexity (the "Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit"), either.

Conclusion

The argument from improbability, historically presented as the theistic Argument from Design, has been used throughout the ages to convince skeptics of the existence of God. Richard Dawkins claimed that it is a strong argument, but rather a strong argument against theism as the Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit; Dawkins succeeded in demonstrating his latter point, but Christian philosopher of religion Alvin Plantinga showed that the argument from improbability is not strong in the objective sense that Dawkins intended. A commitment to impartiality turns the Design Argument against theism, but also reveals it as ultimately based in subjective intuition.

Sources

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Great Britain: Bantam, 2006. Print.

Plantinga, Alvin. Where the Conflict Really Lies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.