You gotta love Richards Dawkins. Seriously, nobody in the last quarter-century has been a more creative, persistent, and grumpy advocate for Darwinism than the famous evolutionary biologist from Oxford. Thomas Huxley--Darwin's own "bulldog," who aggressively defended and promoted the theories of natural selection and common descent to a 19th century audience--has nothing on Dawkins. If you put Huxley and all of Darwin's 21st century defenders in a big pile, it would be dwarfed by the single pile that is Richard Dawkins.

You have to admire Dawkins. He is almost single-handedly taking on his (and Darwin's) arch nemesis, the theory of intelligent design. Other prominent Darwinists, such as Michael Ruse, seem reluctant to endorse their colleague (Ruse is quoted as saying, "Dawkins makes me ashamed to be an atheist"). So Dawkins stands apart, not just for his ability to stir up media attention and capture readers (his book, The God Delusion, is an international best seller, even though most scientists think his arguments are weak and somewhat spurious), but also for his absolute refusal to consider the possiblity that the universe got here by supernatural means.

In an editorial published in the Los Angeles Times in response to the just-released pro-intelligent design film, Expelled, Dawkins rolled out his argument that it's ridiculous to believe that the universe and everything in it could have been caused by an "uncaused" mover. "Gods, if they are complex enough to be capable of designing anything, are by virtue of their very complexity, not in a position to design themselves."

The problem with Dawkins' statement is that his alternative to "Gods" designing and creating the universe is natural selection, "the only ultimate explanation we know for complex, improbable things."

Oh yeah? Since when does natural selection have the power to create? The theory of evolution is a legitimate theory of change, but it is an inadequate explanation for origins. It certainly doesn't answer the question every scientist, philosopher, and theologian must answer: "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

At first glance that may seem like a dumb question, but the answer leads to all kinds of serious implications, so we have to start there, whether you’re talking about something as basic as a chair or as vast as the universe. If you consider a chair, you might say, “Well, the chair is there because I bought it at Target.” That may explain how the chair came to be in your living room, but it doesn’t explain how it came to be.

After thinking a little more, you would probably trace the chair’s origin back to a chair designer and builder, who got the pieces of wood from a lumber mill, which in turn got its raw material from a tree that grew in the ground, which was made possible by seeds and dirt and water. Then you would have to ask, “Where did the seeds come from?” (which may actually prompt you to open your high school biology book). You get the point. The chair, which exists in your living room, is there because of a series of events and things, each one dependent on the one before it. This has to do with contingency.

As it relates to the universe, contingency means dependency. Everything in the universe—a chair, a tree, a sunset, you—is contingent on something else. And here’s something about contingent things that may surprise you. Something that is contingent is not necessary. In other words, a chair doesn’t have to exist. Neither does a tree. Neither do you. Every thing that exists, including the universe itself, depends on something else for its existence. As such, everything is contingent, and therefore not necessary.

But there’s a big problem in this idea of contingency. You can’t have an endless series of contingent things. At some point, you have to arrive at a starting point, where there is something that isn’t contingent. If not, you would never arrive at the present moment where the chair, the tree, the sunset, and you exist (philosophers call this "the Impossibility of crossing infinity").

If the universe and everything in it is contingent on something else, then there has to be a “something else” that is not contingent. Philosophers call this “something else” a necessary being. By definition, this being must exist; it cannot not exist. This necessary being stands in contrast to contingent beings, which don’t have to exist. By necessity, this necessary being must also be by definition self-existent, eternal, and uncaused. Mmmm, sounds like a pretty good definition of God.

Philsophers and the vast majority of scientists don't dispute the possibility that a necessary being is one explanation for the origin of the universe, even if they don't consider that being to be personal and transcendent. But Dawkins isn't a philosopher, and he isn't among the vast majority of scientists, so he strongly disagrees, and considers anyone who believes in that nonsense to be deluded. For his part, Dawkins will continue to promote his theory that the only explanation for the origin of life is natural selection. Case closed.

You gotta love Richard Dawkins, and I means that literally. After all, that's what the necessary being called God says we should do.