Dawkins

Robin Harold-Barry's thoughts on "A Catholic Replies to Professor Dawkins" by Thomas Crean O.P. (of the Priory of St Michael the Archangel, Cambridge), 2009

Although I have only just read the first chapter of ”The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins on the internet, and feel unqualified to offer an opinion, it seems similar in its logical flow to some of his other books which I have read: “The Ancestors' Tale” 2004, “Unweaving the Rainbow” 1998, “Climbing Mount Improbable”1996 and most importantly “The Selfish Gene” 1976 & 1989. These I found interesting, well argued and logical.

On the other hand, since I was brought up as a Catholic, I was disappointed to find "A Catholic Replies to Professor Dawkins" by Thomas Crean O.P., to be so poorly argued. I think his statement on page 115: “[Dawkins'] arguments [are] extremely muddled” is false. I found the complete reverse to be true.

Fr. Crean (p11) agrees that the complexity of the universe demands an explanation, and that its designer (p13) would need to be very complex and so could not be the First Being because He, Himself, would also need to be designed. He goes on (p15) to equate a design with an idea, and since an idea does not have parts it must be simple. Therefore God must be simple. I don't follow his logic! I concede that this summary may not be fair, but there are too many unsubstantiated sentences to say his opinion is logical.

Fr. Crean in chapter 2 introduces the two paths to God. The first complicated, as argued by Aristotle and St Thomas Aquinas which I do not understand. The second spontaneous: “there must be something behind it all”.

There is a lot of interesting material in chapters 3 on miracles and 4 on Gospels but no proofs that I saw.

I was particularly interested in chapter 5 where altruism and duty are discussed: our duty is to be good and obey the law of God as interpreted by the Catholic Church. Fr. Crean does not, in my opinion, answer Dawkins' logical argument. I think that the evolution of altruism wins! Fr. Crean makes many statements, as examples, which are not true such as (p96) ”the presence of one colour … prevents the simultaneous presence … of any other colour”. Our eyes can generally see three overlapping colours and all three combine to make what we see as white! Bees, I understand, in addition to being able to detect the direction of polarisation of light, can also see three colours and over a greater bandwidth into the ultra violet because their need is greater than ours. Some of us can see only two, which, since 10% of us survive on being “colour blind” is not too great a disadvantage.

Unfortunately, in chapter 7, his extreme (unquestioning?) devotion to Catholicism makes me squirm. As a young man I accepted the teachings of the Church because I reasoned that 2000 years of learning must have produced a better answer than I could think of; and anyway I was too busy learning other things. Now, I like listening to other points of view particularly if they are logically expressed.

I am sure Fr. Crean is a very sympathetic and likeable man but I conclude that "A Catholic Replies to Professor Dawkins" has not done the Catholic Church any favours because it is based on blind faith rather than on sound argument.