Atheist Circular Alogic - “Who Designed the Designer?”

I am not here referring to circular logic or illogicality but to alogic which is not merely illogical, not logical, but simply lacking in logic. Furthermore, by alogic I am referring to an argument that is a very popular talking point of certain atheists. There are a plethora of alogical arguments that certain atheists consider devastating, cleaver or “unanswerable” because they are being made and uncritically repeated by atheist who are, apparently, engaging in well-within-the-box-groupthink.

Put any search engine to the task of finding references to “Who designed the designer?” and you will uncover two things:
1) Atheists are all too pleased to repeat this talking point and consider it a fatal blow to theism.
2) Theists, from philosophers to pajama clad cyber-John Does blogging from their mother’s basement are picking this alogical argument apart as the carrion that it is.

Some examples of this alogical pseudo-argument are as follows:

Richard Dawkins (in The Blind Watchmaker) wrote, “To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer.”

Christopher Hitchens (in God Is Not Great) wrote, “who designed the designer or created the creator. Religion and theology have consistently failed to overcome this objection.”

Daniel Dennett (in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea) references Prof. Richard Dawkins’ text and declares that it is an “unrebuttable refutation, as devastating today as when Philo used it to trounce Cleanthes in Hume's Dialogues two centuries earlier.”

And of course, Richard Dawkins (in The God Delusion) quotes Daniel Dennett who is quoting Richard Dawkins and proclaims that Daniel Dennett is correct in approving of Richard Dawkins.

It is rather odd that such self-professed sharp minds are, in their middle ages, promulgating as unrebuttable objection that which Sunday School children rebut in their most tender years.

That Dawkins make this the very center piece of The God Delusion tell you something about what a tel of fallacies that book is. That he prefers referring to “luck” as a viable option is another matter altogether and one that reeks of desperation—well then, carpe despero.

Let us consider two other examples as the physicist Milton Rothman wrote,

All of the God theories collapse when three serious questions are asked: Where did God come from, where did God exist before the universe existed, and how did this God learn how to create?[1]

Stephen Hawking wrote,

Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?...Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him?...So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?[2]

Interesting that the universe could simply be but God would require a maker.

Let us note that these objections are premised upon atheistic atheology. That is to say that they presuppose knowledge of God and demand that their theological presuppositions are met. For example, Richard Dawkins presupposes that the supernatural Designer had an origin and both he, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, etc. presupposes that the designer was designed.

I previously explained how the creator, the designer, is not only uncaused but uncausable in a parsed post entitled: On the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorns, et al.

The point of this essay was merely to point out:

1. That theology has consistently overcome this “objection.”

2. That it is an objection that is premised upon the atheist’s own theological presuppositions.

3. That even if the designer did have an origin and we did not know its origin, did not know who designed the designer, it would say nothing about its existence or lack thereof.

4. That this brand of atheism is quite pleased unskeptically repeating popular talking point but fail to note that there is no field of scientific or philosophic inquiry that uncovers a cause for a certain effect but then rejects the cause when it cannot explain the cause’s origins.

That we cannot explain the explanation and so the explanation ought to be rejected would be an inquiry stopper, a science killer as it would cause scientific and philosophic inquiry to cease. Rather, we either continue our inquiry or we reach a finite regress.

If I hold a ball in my hand and let it go stating, “Gravity did it, gravity caused it to fall” is a perfectly valid explanation even though I cannot fully account for gravity or answer as to what caused gravity. If we find that on the dark side of the moon the words, “Earthling go home!” had been written we could conclude the activity of aliens even if we cannot explain the aliens nor whence they came.

Lastly, let us note that, that which is considered nonsense when promulgated by Judeo-Christianity is considered the utmost in erudition when promulgated by atheists. Here are some examples:

It is ignorant and superstitious to believe that God made everything out of nothing.
It is rational and scientific to believe that nothing made everything out of nothing.

It is ignorant and superstitious to believe that God is eternal.
It is rational and scientific to believe that matter is eternal.

God is an effect and must have had a cause.
Matter is the uncaused first cause.

If God made everything, then who made God?
Matter made everything and nothing made matter.

[1] Milton Rothman, “What Went Before?,” Free Inquiry (Winter 1992/93), p. 12
[2] Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Books, April, 1998), p. 174