on Lennox vs. Dawkins 10/21/08

I fear I may never finish this, so I will post it as incomplete:

This is a commentary on the debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox at The Natural History Museum in Oxford on 21st October 2008. I used the youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0UIbd0eLxw&NR=1&feature=endscreen and will use time stamps on some of my comments.
I actually already commented on part of this debate in section (3) of my previous post "thoughts from 4 atheist talks".  As a general comment, I must say that Dawkins proves quite adept and showed how some of my arguments were invalid (as far as we can tell).


6:45 Dawkins opens by saying that God's method of forgiving sin though crucifying Jesus was unnecessary and stupid. See my previous post "thoughts from 4 atheist talks" for a reply to this.
9:00 Lennox opens with a reference to the design argument. I don't think design argument are very useful in their pure form because they deal with possibility/probability and suggestion. However, Dawkins responds in way that brings about useful points which I will exploit, though Lennox does not.
10:50 Dawkins responds by asking for an explanation of how the creator "came into existence". I like the way he phrased that because it hints of time, of which God is independent. God doesn't "come into existence" if he always was, or saying without time, is the I AM.
11:20 He continues by saying that God is more complicated than the universe (which makes the universe preferable when we consider coming into existence), which he phrases as "a few physical constants". I have said before, people may see it different, but I see the universe as an uncountable number of individual particles, whereas God is a single, infinite being who creates the universe. Granted in a sense he is more complicated, as the human spirit is complicated, but he is one being, whereas the universe is many.
12:20 Lennox diverts the discussion a little and says that an minds developed according to natural selection do not find truth, only reproduction, such that accepting the concept of natural selection undermines the thinking that brought it forth. I think this argument might work if the correspondent definition of truth was used (The three definitions of truth are longstanding philosophical concepts), which poses truth as what actually exists. To this Dawkins could respond that correspondent truth is impossible to acquire given the limits of perception, and some counterarguments could be made. However, Dawkins uses the pragmatic definition of truth and handles the question quite well.
13:15 Dawkins responds by saying that natural selection tends to choose brains that deal with truth. He goes on to say, without labeling it, that he is using the pragmatic definition of truth, that truth is what works, an understanding of the universe that allows us to deal effectively in it.
15:30 Again Lennox diverts and says that the design of the natural selection system itself points to God. I think I can see why Dawkins didn't get this question at first and dismisses it quickly once he does. He takes the universe as a given, assumed, the starting point, and therefore takes the laws of science as simple results of the universe, with no designer. However, Lennox takes God as a given (based on arguments to support Gods existence, I'm sure), not the universe. So in a sense, if Lennox understands Dawkins position thoroughly, this is a fruitless question. Instead he should move to the choice of which to hold as absolute before everything else, the universe or God?
16:20 Here Dawkins responds in an effective but perhaps inaccurate way. He describes how the process of natural selection is blind, not designed. Really, the question was raised about the design of the process, not the nature of the process itself. Dawkins may have addressed the question properly when he said "what survives, survives" alluding to the idea that natural selection a natural function of the universe and does not really beg a designer.
[We have now moved into the part of the video that I commented on in my previous post]

17:45 Lennox sees that Dawkins may not have grasped his question and restates it.
18:30 Dawkins fails to understand the question correctly again (or so it seems).
18:50 Lennox states his question for the third time, clarifying that he sees God as an design agent in building the mechanisms of the universe, not that he put design into the mechanism itself.
19:45 Here Dawkins understands and responds that God as an agent is superfluous to the mechanisms of nature, demonstrating the emptiness of the question (from his perspective), if you'll remember, of who designed those mechanisms. He does well, I think, in honing down to the question Lennox really should have been asking: the universe or God (+ the universe)?
20:25 Lennox responds by honing down as well, saying that evolution doesn't deal with the origins of the universe. The universe that Dawkins assumes is so well made, it calls for a designer.  Personally I might add in explanation that this universe that we are discovering is not a chance set of laws and mechanisms, chance would not have produced such a well-working universe. (Of course, now I bring in the issue of chance, and responses may be made to that)
20:55 There is some back and forth. Dawkins asks if Lennox is trying to move on from evolution. Here is a matter of form in debate (like Peter Pan would say 'bad form!' in fencing). It is fairly true that we are no longer dealing with evolution, and perhaps Lennox should have tried to attack the internal structure of evolution. But perhaps evolution inside itself is pretty good. If you take a lot of lies as assumptions, you can use proper reasoning to come up with a large body false ideas that are internally sound. But when you consider a concept, you ought to also consider its implications, who thought of it, its origins, etc. So Lennox is simply moving to its origins.
21:05 Lennox suggests that Dawkins holds, as a principle, that things move from simple to complex. This is a very philosophical, general observation that I find interesting because it deals with Occams razor and design. I don't have much to say on it yet, though.
21:15 Dawkins denies it, I think. He says we need an explanation when things go simple to complex, which is evolution.
21:25 Lennox dives into the origin of life. He says that life has a language (DNA, I think), and the only thing that can produce language is mind (implying God). I thinks he is sloshing around in definitions and categories too much, bending the boundaries of the categories.
22:00 Dawkins points out one of the jumps Lennox made, namely that DNA is not human language, so DNA could be produced by non-mind.
22:15 Lennox clarifies a little, saying that such a complex thing as DNA could only be produced by mind.
22:50 Dawkins says, basically, you don't believe it can work, so what? This begs Lennox to make a more specific attack on evolutionary processes.
23:00 Lennox now attacks the basic movement from simple to complex, saying that the theist view, of starting with something very complex, makes more sense. Dawkins asks where did God come from, and Lennox says he existed since eternity.
23:30 Dawkins says "Well then, in what sense is it an explanation?" This sparked a huge thought process for me. I apologize, I wrote it down somewhere but misplaced it so this is a recycled version. Basically, Dawkins will only accept an explanation (e.g. God) if it itself can be explained (where it came from). Well then this defeats all of science! Suppose that we are some years in the past and have only discovered atoms. We can't explain where atoms came from or what they're composed of, so...do we not accept atoms as an explanation? NO! That's silly. This argument could be turned on nearly every construct of ideas ever posed. To attack the atheists, where did the universe come from? Where did the material from the big bang come from? Etc, etc. In the end, you need to finish with something that does not require an explanation. 

TO BE CONTINUED?