At his blog:
Recently I was interviewed by Matt Fradd for his Pints with Aquinas podcast. We talk a bit about Five Proofs of the Existence of God, but our main topic is Richard Dawkins’s critique of Aquinas’s Five Ways in The God Delusion.
We work through each of the objections Dawkins raises and discuss where they go wrong. Matt is posting the interview in two parts, and the first part has now been posted. (podcast)
If you think that anyone born after the invention of the Bomb must be smarter than the Angelic Doctor (Aquinas,1225–1274), fetch a mug and sit down and listen.
Note: Aquinas points to ponder.
See also: How naturalism rots science from the head down
A philistine like Dawkins up against one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived? Please.
Agreed. Dawkins is highly overrated as an a/mat philosopher. There are some good a/mat philosophers…but he is not one of them.
Elsewhere Feser does a good job explaining the difference between an accidentally ordered series and an essentially ordered series. Below I have summarized some key points of Feser’s argument.
https://vimeo.com/60979789
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp.....existence/
Unfortunately atheists like Dawkins are so blinded by their own conceit and smugness that they don’t understand the logic behind the argument.
Dawkins is a biologist playing at being a philosopher. He should stick to his knitting.
Here is a more concise explanation “on the difference between an accidental series of causes, and an essential series of causes.”
https://agellius.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/the-first-cause-argument-misunderstood/
Again this is the distinction that Dawkins was completely oblivious to in his book, The God Delusion. Is it because he is stupid or is it because he is so filled with contempt for anything that challenges his dogmatic world view that he refuses to understand the argument. Is that kind of closeminded arrogance what atheists mean by reason?
john_a_designer @
Thank you for unpacking the argument. I too prefer Aquinas over what can be named ‘Craig’s cosmological argument’, although I believe that both are strong arguments for an uncaused cause.
The reason I prefer Aquinas’ version is that we can ignore time and space. We are simply focusing on the foundation of being. What is true foundational being, what does it look like?
The problem with Craig’s argument is, perhaps, the complicated role of time and space. It leads to easy questions and difficult answers. Was there time and space before the big bang? No. So, the first cause is outside time and space? What does that look like?
To be clear, I am not saying that there are no answers, but, to my knowledge, no easy ones.