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Dawkins, complexity, the binding problem, simplicity

Dawkins' central philosophical argument against theism can be paraphrased thus:
1. a being that can do what God purportedly does must be very complex, and
2. such a being must have evolved, and
3. no being that has evolved could be God.

The first claim can be dealt with by looking at the arguments for the divine simplicity (Q. 3 in the Summa theologiae).  Those arguments hinge upon the five ways, which Dawkins either ignores or (in the case of the first way) misreads in a way that is almost comical.

But of course, one who misunderstands human nature will not be able to take the arguments in Q3 seriously.  So the preamble to these arguments must be philosophical anthropology: namely, the contrasting of the binding problem that besets materialism, with the notion of the soul as the first activity of the body.  Once once recognizes the need for an activity (the soul) that is, with respect to the body, simple, one is able to appreciate how God could be simply immaterial.

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