richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

W H Y T H K R K A L VI O S I C E R T A I N L Y IS NO (,()]) 149
simpler explanation than one which postulated only one
cause. Theism is simpler than polytheism. And theism
postulates for its one cause, a person [with] infinite power
(God can do anything logically possible), infinite
knowledge (God knows everything logically possible to
know), and infinite freedom.
Swinburne generously concedes that God cannot accomplish
feats that are logically impossible, and one feels grateful for this
forbearance. Having said that, there is no limit to the explanatory
purposes to which God's infinite power is put. Is science having a
little difficulty explaining X? No problem. Don't give X another
glance. God's infinite power is effortlessly wheeled in to explain X
(along with everything else), and it is always a supremely simple
explanation because, after all, there is only one God. What could
be simpler than that?
Well, actually, almost everything. A God capable of continuously
monitoring and controlling the individual status of every
particle in the universe cannot be simple. His existence is going to
need a mammoth explanation in its own right. Worse (from the
point of view of simplicity), other corners of God's giant
consciousness are simultaneously preoccupied with the doings and
emotions and prayers of every single human being - and whatever
intelligent aliens there might be on other planets in this and 100
billion other galaxies. He even, according to Swinburne, has to
decide continuously not to intervene miraculously to save us when
we get cancer. That would never do, for, 'If God answered most
prayers for a relative to recover from cancer, then cancer would no
longer be a problem for humans to solve.' And then what would we
find to do with our time?
Not all theologians go as far as Swinburne. Nevertheless, the
remarkable suggestion that the God Hypothesis is simple can be
found in other modern theological writings. Keith Ward, then
Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, was very clear on the
matter in his 1996 book God, Chance and Necessity:
As a matter of fact, the theist would claim that God is a
very elegant, economical and fruitful explanation for the