Definition
The God Hypothesis is Richard Dawkins's term for the claim that a supernatural intelligence created the universe and everything in it. By calling it a hypothesis, Dawkins frames the existence of God as a proposition about how reality actually is — a claim that, like other claims about the world, can be weighed against evidence and argument.
The label is deliberate. Dawkins contrasts the God Hypothesis with the view that religious belief lies outside the reach of rational inquiry. On his account, an interventionist creator who acts in the world makes a difference that could in principle be detected.
Why it matters
How it works
Dawkins distinguishes the God Hypothesis from a more diffuse, metaphorical use of the word "God" — such as Einstein's use of the term to mean the lawful order of nature. The God Hypothesis specifically concerns a personal, supernatural designer. Treating it as a hypothesis, Dawkins argues that the evidence makes such a being very improbable, though he stops short of claiming certainty.
Defenders of theism counter that a hypothesis is a candidate explanation within nature, judged by natural methods, whereas God is offered as the explanation of nature itself — a different category of claim.