The God Delusion

Dawkins addresses Aquinas’s first three arguments, noting that they all rely on the concept of an infinite regress and terminate it by invoking God. Dawkins argues that this approach is unwarranted and arbitrary, questioning why God should be immune to the same regress.

Dawkins discusses the Argument from Degree, which posits that the existence of varying degrees of qualities like goodness implies a maximum, identified as God. He ridicules this argument by comparing it to asserting that a perfect maximum of any quality must exist, such as a supreme stinker for smelliness.

The Teleological Argument, or the Argument from Design, suggests that the complexity and apparent design in the world indicate a designer, identified as God. Dawkins counters this by highlighting Darwin’s theory of evolution, which provides a natural explanation for the complexity and appearance of design in living things without invoking a designer.

Moving on to the Ontological Argument, originally proposed by St. Anselm of Canterbury, Dawkins translates the argument into simpler terms, exposing its logical flaws. Anselm’s argument suggests that the very concept of a supremely perfect being implies its existence, as a being that does not exist cannot be supremely perfect. Dawkins dismisses this as a playground-level argument, likening it to a word game without any real-world data to support it.