Home | Philosophy

A Theist’s Response to Roger Montague’s ‘Dawkins’ infinite Regress’
By: jme

A Theist’s Response to Roger Montague’s ‘Dawkins’ infinite Regress’

JME

In his book, The God Delusion [1] , Richard Dawkins presents two arguments against the theory of intelligent design, concluding: (a) that evolution by natural selection adequately explains complexity in nature; and (b) that intelligent design theorists, who maintain, rather, that the supernatural intelligent designer (Sid) does so, are faced with an argument to an infinite regress which, he thinks, supports the idea that the existence of such a being is highly improbable. Roger Montague believes that Dawkins is essentially right, but that his running these two arguments together weakens his position, or at least makes it less clear than it might be. In his paper, ‘Dawkins’ Infinite Regress’ [2], Montague presents a two-pronged support for Dawkins, in recommending that his two arguments are disentangled, at least for the sake of clarity; and by trying to show that Dawkins’ argument to an infinite regress entails the impossibility, as opposed to the high improbability, of the Sid. If successful, this would make the theist’s claim, that there exists a single entity – Sid or God, who is the proper object of thanks, praise and worship – that is responsible for designing or creating nature, a logical impossibility.

In this piece, I shall try to establish a rather negative point. I shall not attempt to show that the theory of intelligent design is true; but I shall try to show that Dawkins’ argument to an infinite regress, supported by Montague, fails to establish that the theory is false. This is because the type of regress Dawkins has in mind cannot be infinite [3] . He might wish to remodel his argument on a different kind of regress that can be, but I shall suggest that such a move would not improve his position. The result is that the theist can, if he wishes, still explain nature in terms of a Sid, without Dawkins’ objection blocking him.

PART I

The theist (or creationist) believes that complexity in nature, as manifested in, for example, a wing or an eye, is explainable only in terms of the Sid. In his paper, Montague writes:

'To this creationist premise about complexity [in nature] needing a designer, Dawkins adds a premise of his own: the designer must be more complex than the thing designed. If there were a supernatural intelligent designer – let’s call him Sid – he would be very complex . . . But being so complex, he would also need a designer. Then the Sid’s designer, being even more complex, would need a Sid’s designer’s designer, and so on. The regress is under way, and can never be stopped.' [4]

The premise that the designer is more complex than the thing designed is one to whose truth experience readily testifies. After all, a table is never found designing a carpenter, or a horseshoe a blacksmith. Indeed, anything imaginable that is a product of design seems to emerge from the workings of a designer that is more complex than the thing itself. Hence, the premise seems to be true without exception, and Montague believes that Dawkins’ position is strengthened, or at least made clearer, once it is accepted that the premise is necessarily true:

'Dawkins’ own regress argument looks as if it would make the Sid impossible. So the Sid couldn’t and therefore wouldn’t exist, if Dawkins’ argument holds. The regress argument . . . turns on Dawkins’ premise, that a designer must be more complex than the thing designed . . . If there were a supernatural realm, then any designer there must be more complex than the thing designed. This commits him to the idea that any conceivable designer is, and must be, more complex than the thing designed. This idea becomes true by definition.' [5]

Allegedly, then, the theist’s assumption, that a single Sid adequately explains complexity in nature, appears threatened by the spectre of an infinite regress. Montague illustrates how an infinite regress arises in a different situation, but presumably, one analogous to the infinite regress of Sids he believes the theist is forced to admit. On this, he writes:

'A typical infinite regress argument goes like this. Say Fred puzzles over what a mind is, and thinks (crudely) that it must be a little person pulling levers inside the head. Then that little person must have a mind too, otherwise Fred would be trying to put forward an inanimate puppet to explain what a mind is. But then the little person has a mind, which on this crude theory means that there is another even smaller person inside that one, pulling its levers; and so on for ever.' [6]

Are the two regresses relevantly similar? It is natural to suppose that, on Fred’s crude theory of mind, his attempting to explain, say, the deliberate moving of his arm (or, perhaps, his decision to move it) in terms of the first homunculus entails his admitting an infinite series of homunculi, so that, even in the long run, an adequate explanation seems impossible. If there is no homunculus that terminates the series, then there is none in which the explanation ultimately resides. Consequently, the emergence of a supposed infinite series of homunculi establishes that this crude theory of mind is false, because it seems unable adequately to account for anything that minds are generally held to account for.

However, the theist’s explanation of nature in terms of the Sid seems rather different, since it is not quite so obvious how the proposed infinite series of Sids would get under way, if it does. Adding the premise that the designer is more complex than the thing designed might appear functionless in this regard, because, being so evidently true and innocuous, it is, at first blush, something from which no theist would be likely to recoil or seek to deny. For he readily accepts that the Sid is more complex than the things designed; but why should this acceptance, of itself, entail a commitment to an infinite series of Sids?

It seems that Montague’s argument turns on what is to be understood by ‘thing’ designed. It is natural for this term to be construed as ‘object’ designed, as in table, horseshoe or St. Paul’s; and it is plausible that the designers of these are, to some extent, more complex than the things themselves, even very complex things like cathedrals. However, for the theist, ‘thing’ in this context also includes intelligent beings such as carpenters, blacksmiths and Sir Christopher Wren, whom he believes are designed or created by the Sid. Consequently, Montague’s premise, that the designer is (necessarily) more complex than the thing designed, may be taken to cover designers that are designed as well as objects that are, which, in turn, may make it appear that any Sid that exists must be explained in terms of a Sid’s designer of greater complexity than itself, thereby suggesting the inevitability of a series, possibly infinitely long, of such designers.

It may seem, therefore, that the theist is no better off than Fred, in the sense that neither he nor Fred can provide the explanation he seeks in terms of a single entity in which it would dwell.

So, is this the final word for the theist? Well, Montague tentatively offers him a lifeline:

'But now the theist can offer an answer to the regress of designers. He says that his concept of deity is among other things a concept of an infinite being. And so, as far as the concept goes, the deity could contain actual infinities. Part of the theist’s idea may be that his deity, if it existed, would have already lasted for an infinite time. He would want to say that his idea of deity is of something that does contain the idea of this actual temporal infinity and of other infinities too.' [7]

but then, he suggests why this offer might not be acceptable:

'It would make the deity a creator only via an infinitely long chain of subordinate designers of lesser complexity. This may seem to be an imperfection compared with the idea of a magnificently infinite creation springing unmediated from the divine will. And the idea of a deity is at least the idea of a being with no imperfections.' [8]

For the theist, the choice between accepting this lifeline and sinking would be a hard one. If the argument to an infinite regress holds, then ‘the deity’, as traditionally regarded, would seem impossible; for it would be, not an individual, but a class of an infinite number of individuals of ever greater, or lesser, complexity, to which the notion of ‘a being than which no greater can be conceived’ could not properly apply to any one of them, or to the class as a whole.

But does the argument to an infinite regress hold? I shall now argue that it does not.

PART II

Two different types of causal series seem appropriate to Montague’s proposed infinite regress. In one, the members are ‘essentially ordered’, and in the other, they are ‘accidentally ordered’.

In essentially ordered series, the causal activity of later members is dependent on that of earlier members, such that without the earlier members, there would be no causal activity among later ones. The causes throughout these series act simultaneously on one another, as exemplified by a line of railway trucks being pulled along a track. The trucks towards the end of the series clearly depend for their motion on trucks nearer the beginning, in such a way that if the latter did not exist in order to transmit their motion, the former would not be caused to move at all. Characteristically, members of essentially ordered series behave as ‘instruments’, each being acted on by a predecessor, while, at the same time, acting on a successor (but not, of course, in the case of the last member of the series, if there is one). Each is ‘instrumental’ in conveying causal activity along the series, no matter how far it might stretch.

In accidentally ordered series, the relation between members is different, and no member is ‘instrumental’ in the way railway trucks are; for while each has a cause, it also has causal powers of its own which are quite ‘accidental’ to, and not necessarily simultaneous with, those of earlier members in the series. Ancestral lines illustrate series of this kind. For example, Homer Simpson is both caused by Abraham and is the cause of Bart; but should Bart so desire, he can use his own causal powers to skateboard or design a website, quite independently of anything that Abraham and Homer might be doing at the time; independently, even, of their remaining in existence to be able to do anything at all.

When Montague speaks both of Fred’s crude theory of mind and Sid’s designing nature, it is essentially ordered series of causes he appears to have in mind. For just as each of Fred’s homunculi causes the next in the series to pull its levers, and each Sid to design another of lesser complexity, we picture two parallel chains of ‘instruments’, each receiving its causal power from the previous member of the series, and communicating it simultaneously to the next. Schematically, for any member, a, we choose of Montague’s series, there is a previous member, b, that pulls its levers, or designs it. But because there is another member, c, that pulls the levers of, or designs, b, then, by simultaneous transmission of cause, c effectively pulls the levers of, or designs a, as indeed do d, e, f and so on, along the entire length of the series.

Consequently, in such series, there are many true propositions explaining a because of this type of causal transmission: for example, ‘b pulls the levers of/designs, a’, ‘c pulls the levers of/designs, a’, ‘d pulls the levers of/designs, a’ and so forth. But, crucially, if the series is unending (or un-beginning, or both), no adequate explanation of a would seem to be available; for it would not be possible to cite any single member whose ultimate causal responsibility it is for a. In terms of explaining design in nature, Montague, as noted, has tentatively proposed invoking the entire series of Sids, but, for the theist, this is not acceptable, not only because it implies imperfection, but also because he seeks an explanation in terms of one ultimate being, or member of the series, that he regards as (among other things) the proper object of thanks, praise and worship, and no series of them, much less one containing an infinite number of members, is capable of answering to a description of that object.

But do essentially ordered series contain an infinite number of members? Fred’s crude theory of mind suggests that perhaps they do, for it is not immediately obvious what reason there could be for invoking a particular homunculus, or cause, in order adequately to explain, say, the deliberate moving of (or the decision to move) his arm.

But this cannot be right, for there has to be such an explanation. Suppose that Fred (perhaps through spite) moves his arm in such a way as to spill black ink over Freda’s new white blouse. Angered by Fred’s action, she immediately seeks financial recompense. But Fred invokes his crude theory of mind in order to avoid the possibility of Freda’s identifying a cause against which she could make her claim. Whatever homunculus, n, she picks, Fred invokes homunculus n+1 who pulled n’s levers, such that an identification of the cause of the ink’s being spilled is deferred for as long as the series of homunculi runs, which, Fred hopes, is for ever.

Fred’s avoidance of Freda’s claim rests, effectively, in his denying that the spillage of ink has a cause; that there is a terminating member of the series that Freda could cite as being responsible for her blouse’s being ruined. But to deny the cause, as Fred has done, is, of necessity, to deny the effect. Yet we know that Freda’s blouse was ruined, and that Fred deliberately moved his arm with that purpose in mind. Consequently, we also know that there must be an adequate explanation of Fred’s deliberate action. What we may not know is which particular homunculus terminating the series affords that explanation; but we do know that there is one. [9]

By similar reasoning, the theist can argue that nature can be explained in terms of the Sid. While there might, indeed, exist a series of Sids, there is one among them, namely, the Sid that happens to terminate the series [10], which adequately accounts for the existence of nature.

But then, why postulate series of Sids in order to explain nature when one is sufficient? Freda is justified now in believing that there is a cause responsible for her annoyance, and the theist, that there is also one responsible for nature. An explanation in either case employing the minimum number of entities has to be the preferred one. It would simply be ontological extravagance to invoke entities or causes that are unnecessary add-ons to an explanation that is already adequate.

Of course, the theory of intelligent design might be false, just as Fred’s crude theory of mind undoubtedly is. But if the foregoing is correct, then an argument to the effect that they are disprovable by appealing to a supposed infinite regress of essentially ordered causes is not among those that can be adduced to establish their falsity.

But would Montague’s position be improved if his argument to an infinite regress involved a series of accidentally ordered causes?

The model for this kind of series, an ancestral line, indicates their general form to be ‘d causes c’, ‘c causes b’, ‘b causes a’ and so on, throughout their length. Each member is causally related to the ones preceding and (except in the case of the last member of the series) succeeding it, but not transitively. In the general form, there is only one true proposition that explains a, namely, ‘b causes a’, and so only one true proposition explaining the existence of any member of such a series. Therefore, in the general form, the propositions ‘c causes a’ and ‘d causes a’, etc., are false. It is only Homer who causes Bart after all, and not Abraham – although Homer might not have existed to be the cause of Bart if Abraham himself had not existed.

As far as demolishing theories by means of an infinite regress is concerned, paying allegiance to series of accidentally ordered causes appears tempting because they can involve infinitely long chains. For example, if, as might be imagined, the world is eternal, and everything in the world has a cause, then whatever exists at this moment must be the result of a chain of causes that stretches backwards in time for ever.

Nevertheless, it is not necessary to explain something existing at this moment in such long-winded terms. An adequate explanation of Bart Simpson is Homer (or something that Homer and Marge accomplished between them) and it is not necessary to extend the explanation backwards any further than that – so as to include Abraham, for instance. In any case, the proposition, ‘Abraham caused Homer’ does not explain Homer’s causing Bart; and the proposition, ‘Abraham caused Bart’ is false.

For the sake of argument, let us provisionally grant Montague’s infinite series of accidentally ordered Sids, and hypothesise that one of them, Sid-a, is the one that caused, or designed, nature. This type of series allows for this, as it does for any member’s exercising its own powers independently of the activity of its causal ancestors. As stated before, Bart’s skateboarding or designing a website independently of Homer’s and Abraham’s causal powers, is an instance of this.

Now, while, on this view, it remains true that Sid-b causes Sid-a, Sid-c causes Sid-b, and so on, the relationship between causes in this series means that an adequate explanation of nature need involve only Sid-a. Other Sids in the series might well explain subsequent Sids, but not nature. Only Sid-a explains that, since ‘Sid-b explains nature’, ‘Sid-c explains nature’ and so on, are false. Therefore, the remaining Sids in the series are non-essential to the explanation the theist seeks.

But if Sid-a adequately explains nature by itself, then why hypothesise, as Montague’s tentatively-offered lifeline does, a series of Sids to explain it, whether they would differ in terms of complexity or not? Occam’s razor applies once more: if this multiplicity of Sids is unnecessary to the theist’s explanation of nature, then the idea of this multiplicity of designers is superfluous and should be rejected. The result is that a magnificently infinite creation may indeed spring unmediated from the divine will.

Now, Montague might be immovable on this and demand an explanation of Sid-a in terms of his series of Sids of ever-greater complexity. If so, then the theist might have to seek an explanation of that. In the meantime, it seems that he is able to claim what he originally wished to claim; namely, that there is an explanation of nature in terms of the Sid. How this particular Sid might have come into existence, if indeed that is what it did, is the topic of a future debate.

Bibliography

1 The God Delusion, Dawkins, R., Bantam Press, London, 2006
2 ‘Dawkins Infinite Regress’, Montague, R., Philosophy 83, 2008, pp 113-115
3 I mean “‘infinite’ regress” in the sense of being one that is incapable of generating an explanation. Some may call such a regress ‘vicious’, as opposed to one that can yield an explanation, a ‘benign’ regress. Montague’s regress is, I shall argue, benign, in this sense.
4 ‘Dawkins Infinite Regress’, Montague, R., Philosophy 83, 2008, p. 113
5 Op. cit., p. 114
6 Op. cit., p. 115
7 Op. cit., p. 115
8 Op. cit., p. 115
9 The ‘Un-pulled Puller’, pulling levers but requiring none of its own.
10 Similarly, the ‘Un-designed Designer’; the Sid that designs but is not itself designed.

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Philosophy Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Philosophy
Sign Up as an Author.
Submit Articles
Member Login
Top Authors
Most Popular Articles
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
New Stuff
Forum
Link to Us
Contact Us

Powered by Article Dashboard