The show went well and despite the format, the issues were engaged. (If you’d like to see the interviews they are now posted on YouTube.) I argued that it is reasonable to ask scientifically about the cause of the universe. Effects require causes, so what is the cause for which the universe is the effect? It seems unreasonable in the extreme to say that even though nature had a beginning, somehow nature is the cause of itself. So God is the name we give to the supernatural being that is the cause of nature as a whole.But who said God was complicated? God has always been presented as a unity. Even a child would understand this.
In his segment that followed, Dawkins responded this way: "This leaves open the question of where did the creator come from?" Since the creator is this "great big complicated thing," what good does it do to invoke one complex thing to explain another? "If you postulate a designer you haven't explained anything." Basically what Dawkins is saying is that there is no point in using complex explanation A to account for complex phenomenon B if you cannot account for A.
In the Christian tradition, God is presented as a Person (actually Three Persons in One). But all complexities enfold into a unity. In the same way, your friend may be a complex person but you perceive that person as a unity, not as a bundle of complexities.
I think that Dawkins would be smart to retire. It's all just not working any more for atheistic materialism.
