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As Oxford professor and arch-evangelist of atheism Richard Dawkins continues his crusade against religion, we finally have the first book-length critique of The God Delusion: Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath's The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine (InterVarsity Press).

One could hardly think of a more contrasting figure to Dawkins or a better apologist for theism than Alister McGrath. This atheist-turned-Christian, also of Oxford, is a professor of historical theology. But as a student of molecular biophysics, he possesses the dual credibility in science and religion that Dawkins lacks. Further, McGrath authored Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life in 2004, and is thus thoroughly familiar with Dawkins's other writings. This is especially helpful for calling Dawkins to consistency.

For example, Dawkins's central argument is that God's existence cannot explain the world because he must be at least as complex, and therefore as improbable, as the world itself; and such an improbable entity would also require explanation. Recalling Dawkins's earlier work Climbing Mount Improbable, McGrath notes Dawkins's admission that humanity's existence itself is overwhelmingly improbable. But of course we exist. "We may be highly improbable—yet we are here," writes McGrath. "The issue, then, is not whether God is probable but whether he is actual."

Although McGrath's response is provocative, it is precisely at such points in The Dawkins Delusion? that one wishes McGrath had plumbed the depth of Dawkins's philosophical naïveté. In asserting that God is improbable, the zoologist is out of his habitat. Probability theorists have developed complex equations to tackle exactly this sort of problem.

Suffice it to say that if Dawkins's argument (i.e., God's existence cannot account for the design of the world because his existence is improbable) is correct, God's trial is over before it begins. In other words, Dawkins does not have to counter specific empirical evidence for purposeful design.

Dawkins next proposes that evolution shaped human brains to believe religious hypotheses (even though religion is itself not evolutionarily beneficial). McGrath is at his finest here, observing that while Dawkins is a scientist writing about religion, he fails to study religion scientifically. In fact, Dawkins does not even offer a rigorous definition of religion.

Like watching one schoolboy do another's work, McGrath's true gift is pointing out what Dawkins is obliged to show in order to make his case. Different propositions are, unsurprisingly, processed differently by the brain. So if Dawkins is to proffer religious belief as a byproduct of our evolution, it is incumbent on him to tell us what category religious statements belong to, what other sorts of statements religious thoughts may piggyback on, and how the brain processes them—none of which Dawkins seems aware he should provide.

As McGrath rightly points out, "There is nothing specific to religion here." All of our thoughts (including atheistic thoughts) are brain-dependent. What is worse, Dawkins presupposes a reductionist approach in which mental states have a one-way relationship from the physical brain rather than a more complex approach in which mental states—depression is McGrath's example—have a multiplicity of causes, both physical and social. And McGrath can't resist noting that while love has physical correlates in the brain, this should not be taken to prove that one's beloved does not exist!

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November 2007, Vol. 51, No. 11