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Christianity Today, November, 2007 |

Deconstructing Dawkins

Alister McGrath's challenge of famous atheist is bracing—but does not go far enough.

Logan Paul Gage | posted 11/16/2007 04:26PM

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 ...

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Doug Indeap

Posted: November 23, 2007 1:39 AM

I haven't yet read McGrath's book, but if his critique of Dawkins' probability argument is as described above, he has plainly missed the mark. Dawkins did not posit the improbability of god as a reason to doubt his existence. Rather Dawkins pointed out the illogic of theists' argument that the improbability of something as complex as the universe spontaneously coming into existence is so great that it must instead have been created by a god. Dawkins simply observed that as improbable as that may be, the improbability that a being even more complex than the universe spontaneously came into existence must be greater. That the universe exists, thus, reveals that its improbable existence actually came to be, but says nothing of the even more improbable existence of a god.

Joseph Cejka

Posted: November 21, 2007 1:29 PM


Ah, golly, this is an awful review. Th author peppers the review with his own biases and misses the weakness of Dawkins and the strengths of McGrath. It would be better for CT to have had a theologian or philosopher review McGrath's book. Instead, the reader was granted an ill-informed polemic in this review.

Jack Knife

Posted: November 21, 2007 12:24 PM

Oh Lord! Enlighten the unbelievers with a sign of your presence! Test the faith of your servants Richard & Lindsay Roberts, Benny Hinn, Kenneth & Gloria Copeland, Joyce Meyers, Paula White, and Creflo Dollar as you did with your servant Job! Allow Satan to take away their riches, houses, cars, and planes, and smite them with dreadful boils. When they, as Job, refuse to curse your name, the unbeliever’s eyes may then be opened!

just wondering

Posted: November 21, 2007 9:20 AM

I find it interesting that some of you are so sure of evolution, the Darwinian type, but I have yet to find someone who can explain how something so complex as an eye can evovle. Your mutations idea seem to be quite a stretch. Taking an HONEST look at the evidence, it makes a lot of sense why many believe creationism or intellligent design over macro-evolution. What about when new species appear? I know, I know. Your mutations created these new creatures. It's interesting that these mutations always seem to have positive results- but that's not what science shows us. Just Wondering.

Stephen Kennel

Posted: November 20, 2007 1:25 PM

As per Logan Paul Gage, policy analyst, Discovery Institute (above), "The words random and natural are meant to exclude intelligence.". How we love to limit God's scope. So God could not have created a universe with an inherent natural charactaristic for some randomness, like freedom of choice ! A farmer who selectively chooses breeding stock is no different than a Lion culling the weak from the herd, both are natural selection.

Keith S. Andersen

Posted: November 20, 2007 4:52 AM

Gage notes McGrath's scientific credential, and also name checks Francis Collins, both of whom are theistic evolutionists that reject intelligent design, but then goes on to say that there is "mounting scientific evidence" for intelligent design. Really? Then why is it that the movement has absolutely no credibility in the scientific community? It isn't b/c the scientists are in love with outdated dogma; the nature of science is progressive, and most scientific minds are attracted to disruptive ideas. Its because ID is horribly unscientific. Why cling to such a narrow role for God? To jump in here and there and "fix" his creatures by "intelligently" inserting mutations? Sounds sloppy and silly. How much more grand in scope, and fitting of God, to have set everything in motion once, as described in Genesis, having also created the natural laws that would allow everything to unfold. Consider prophesy: God obviously is comfortable w/ future events, and needn't be clumsily intervening.

Nance

Posted: November 19, 2007 11:18 PM

I think that there is a confusion in the language when we start trying to insist that God is *intelligent*; God is certainly supernatural, and intelligence is a measuring stick for the natural created order, not for someone of a wholly different manner of existence. This would seem also to be the problem with Dawkins's argument against God. He's using the natural sciences to make ontological conclusions about a God that is understood to be super-natural... you must either go at the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob qua the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or not at all. Otrherwise you're spending yourself in a war on some god that know one's really familiar with, some strawgod you've mis-understood from a few cursory examinations of doctrine.

Jay	Posted: November 19, 2007 8:51 PM

I don't mind believing in some sort of evolution, as it is the best theory we have so far. ID will be much stronger and more compelling once more research is done. You can't expect an idea like that to be taken seriously by the academic community without mountains of data behind it. On the other hand, why do we bother with a monkey-tinkerer like Dawkins? Plantinga already showed him the epistemological door a few issues of CT ago. His strongest argument, that God is improbable, is very weak because God only has to occur once to be true! As long as God is not impossible, Dawkins is a dope way out of his league. Let call him what he is.

Roy Tallon

Posted: November 19, 2007 6:49 PM

I'm surprised Paul Gage believes "Random" and "Natural" exclude "Intelligence". That's like saying a computer programmed to produce random numbers and to select the desirable ones can't have had an intelligent designer behind it. The Intelligence in Creation by Evolution lies in the brilliance of the concept and of the building blocks required - notably an information and reproductive system capable of evolution, and a system of Physics, with its laws and precise strengths of fundamental forces, which enables all this to happen. Theists probably now accept that the evolution of the inanimate Universe does not need God's continued intervention; why then should Theism require His continued fiddling with the process of bilogical evolution. I'm sure God had, and continues to have, great pleasure and intimate involvement as He's watched Creation unfold exactly as He's planned.

Raymond Takashi Swenson

Posted: November 19, 2007 6:32 PM

The Discovery Institute publicizes information about scientific arguments for the existence of an intelligent designer for aspects of the universe and life. It does NOT rely on a literal reading of Genesis, and its participating scientists generally REJECT the efforts of Young Earth Creationists to try to show that cosmology and geology and paleontology are mistaken as to the age of the earth and universe. ID does NOT try to derive any characteristics of the designing entity other than its intelligence and necessary existence, since the claims that random processes could account for the finely tuned life-supporting nature of the universe, or for the initiation of life or its diversity, are scientifically and mathematically untenable. The simplest rebuttal to Dawkins is to point out that he and other scientists have absolutely NO theory that holds water about how life came into existence, from inanimate matter to living cells that can undergo a Darwinian mutation.

Steve Skeete

Posted: November 19, 2007 5:24 PM

The last sentence of Mr. Gage is completely accurate. This new breed of atheist polemicist that Dawkins so pugnaciously represents are as gentle as stampeding bulls, and just as knowledgeable, about religion generally and Christianity particularly. Dawkins is not sloppy, he is cavalier in his disrespect for religion and exhibits a blind disregard for anything or anyone of faith. It is sad really, because his rantings can be so easily taken for ignorance and may lead to him being written off as bellicose and intolerant. His writings are so hostile and he protests so much that it make one wonder what is it of which he is so afraid. It also lead one to wonder what make him believe that this confrontational and combative approach will work. If atheism is, as he believes, the default belief why the aggression? He and his camp are making people of faith like McGrath look extremely good. Eventually they will see that the substitution of venom for logic is untenable.

Darren King - PrecipiceMagazine

Posted: November 19, 2007 4:27 PM

This person who wrote this article belongs to the Discovery Institute. This "Institute" was recently mentioned in the PBS documentary about the Dover "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design" debate. Apparently, the Discovery Institute argues from a literalist interpretation of Scripture- across the board. For anyone with a nuanced understanding of Scripture, such a one-dimensional interpretational position is simply not tenable. In speaking of Darwinism, this author says: "the materialist story is false and, further, is contradicted by mounting physical evidence in physics, chemistry, and biology." Mounting evidence? Please… The exact opposite is the case. As time goes on the Darwinian hypothesis is proven correct- time and time again. It is intellectually dishonest to say otherwise. In truth, it is actually "unbiblical" to apply the Bible (or more specifically, various genres and books of the Bible) in ways that fundamentally distort the original intent.

Brent

Posted: November 19, 2007 1:28 PM

The writer has a simple, incomplete understanding of evolution. True, random mutation is at the heart of evolution as this is the process that underlies individual variation, but competition at the level of natural selection guarantees a non-random direction of the evolutionary process as a whole - namely, increased complexity. Evolution has had a clear direction over time in that some new species that develop gain their advantage by being more complex than their predecessors. This drive toward complexity is what has ultimately produced humans - the first species complex enough to comprehend the process of evolution itself. Theologians like Tielhard de Chardin and Washington Gladden as well as contemporaries like John Haught have argued this clearly non-random direction to evolution has deep theological significance. McGrath actually understands evolution & so isn't willing to make arguments where none are to be had. More deceptive, misleading info from the DI. CT should know better.

Bill	Posted: November 19, 2007 1:22 PM

In spite of these possible weaknesses by Alister, he is certainly the type of person we need in debating these issues. I studied under him a couple of years ago in Oxford and was amazed how humble, gentle, and caring he was. He has not only been blessed with an incredible mind, but the character of Christ to go with it. Although we often joked around that he was writing books in his mind as he taught us, he is definitely a man of God in the trenches. I truly thank God for people like him in the church even though we may have our differences such as the theistic evolutionist idea I oppose.

KJ	Posted: November 19, 2007 1:21 PM

Mr. Gage says, "Can an intelligent being use random mutations and natural selection to create? No. This is not a theological problem; it is a logical one." Christians should not dismiss the possibility that God uses seemingly random processes to accomplish his divine world. Look at the apparent randomness that swirls around each human's life (weather, accidents, health, etc.). But we believe (correctly) that God has a specific plan for each human being. Are those plans not accomplished through what a scientist would observe to be a series of random events? For example, a scientists would say there is a certain probability that a cancer patient will survive the cancer. Christians believe that God some times answers prayer by healing cancer patients. Does the apparent randomness of cancer veto God's ability to implement his divine will for a particular cancer patient? Similarly, I don't believe that the apparent randomness of natural selection overrides God's power to create.

Kelsey

Posted: November 19, 2007 1:05 PM

Actually, a random element is sometimes useful in design by humans. Computer science can produce many examples; a simple one allows for lots of random generation followed by intelligent selection and intervention in breeding. Presumably, this is only a useful shortcut for limited beings, though, so if you think God has truly limitless intelligence, there should be no need (though perhaps second-guessing the way God chooses to create would be prideful).

Robert

Posted: November 19, 2007 1:03 PM

This review seems to indicate McGrath fails to understand Dawkins' argument that God's existence is improbable uses the mechanics of evolution to reach his conclusion. This is incompatible with Dawkins' assertion else where that the evolutionary process began with the big bang. One cannot prove God's non-existence using evolution since God's existence would pre-date, and not be subject to mechanism, evolution or other that he used to create the universe. But this is doing apologetics backwards. A decent apologetic should not take a page out of the books of pagan philosophers to prove the existence of an abstract creator which is then identified with the God of the Bible (this is not what Paul did on Mars Hill!), but with God's revelation of himself in history via the person of Jesus. This is not an evidence based approach that fails defend against naturalism or modernism, but a Biblical approach based upon God's culmination of his prior revelation/promises to Abraham, et al.

Carl T. Fynboe

Posted: November 19, 2007 12:59 PM

Your article on McGrath's "Deconstructing Dawkins" is excellent. I sincerely wish I had time to read all of the books and articles relating to Darwinism and Intellectual Design, but life is fleeting. I really appreciate the daily internet from Christianity Today. Approaching eighty one years of age I am fascinated about how God keeps increasing our knowledge of his universe and His Master Plan. In recent years I have mused, or speculated, that Darwin as a Theist in reading the first chapter of Genesis must have had one of those inspiring moments, or revelations, as he realized, "I believe I can develop a theory of evolution from these inspired Truths of the Creation of the Universe and His Creation of Man and Woman".

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