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Entry: Hitchens' Hubris Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/hitchens_hubris#2765 Post contents: <i>I would also direct everyone to the article from Christianity Today linked to above, which deals with the philosophical confusion of Dawkins et al.</i> Plantinga's arguments are also confused, I'm afraid. He argues: 'Dawkins says God is complex [using the word in a scientific sense], but classic theology says He's not complex [using the word in a non-scientific sense]. One in the eye for Dawkins!' Plantinga commits the gross error of failing to distinguish between the two different senses. Then: 'Dawkins says complex entities have parts, but God is immaterial, therefore has no parts, therefore is not complex. One in the eye for Dawkins again!' No, faultily reasoned again: it's proof by definition. If by 'part' one means 'a distinct portion of a material entity', then of course God has no parts. But why must it be an material entity? To take a simple example: the digits of pi are 'parts' of pi and if nothing existed but God, he would still know all the digits of pi. Therefore parts exist within God and he is indeed 'complex'. Infinitely so, in fact. That's quite beside the question of the 'mind' whereby God knows pi, which again must be infinitely complex. <i>As you point out, the multiverse is a theory taken on blind faith, a theory that has arisen because the big bang is uncomfortably close to the creation ex nihilo that atheists have always denied.</i> If Dawkins & Co say the multiverse DOES exist, they have blind faith. They don't: they offer the multiverse as a possibility, as the steady state universe was previously offered as a possibility. Theories aren't dogmas. Sent at: 2008 07 24