For further reading

‘The Silence of Finite Space: Naturalism’, The Universe Next Door, James Sire

‘Pessimistic Existentialism’, Lifeviews, R.C. Sproul

‘Rene Descartes: The Father of Modern Rationalism’, The Consequence of Ideas, R.C. Sproul

‘Naturalism’, W.P. Alston, The New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, ed G McGrath

‘Naturalism is a metaphysical view that the universe is all that there is, but science by its job description is restricted to exploring the constituents of the physical universe and regular patterns in their behaviour. Because of that restriction, it can have nothing to say about whether there is anything other than that universe’ the IVP Dictionary of Apologetics p479.

Naturalism is the world view that nothing exists except nature. The chief reason for its popularity is the success of natural science from the 17th Century onwards. But, as Alston correctly observes, though science may have contributed to the widespread acceptance of naturalism it cannot coherently account for it.

Six main propositions summarise the naturalistic world view.

1. Only matter exists eternally

The prime proposition in naturalism concerns the nature of the universe. Matter is all that there is. There is nothing else. Consequently, there is no God. Matter must be eternal since ‘nothing comes from nothing’. Matter is something and so, the logic of naturalism goes, this something must have been around forever. But that something is not a transcendent creator, it’s the material of the universe. What naturalism has thought this matter is has evolved over time as science has investigated the natural world. This is still very much a matter for discussion. What naturalists are clear on, however, is that the universe is not composed of mind and matter. It is one thing; matter. And mind or spirit is to be understood as a subset of matter.

2. The universe is a closed system

The universe is a closed system. It’s not open to being reordered by the activity of something outside that closed system. In fact, since there’s no God there’s no possibility of re-ordering from a transcendent being. But also, since the system is closed the system cannot be re-ordered by autonomous human beings. We’re just part of the closed system. Consequently the only explanation for what happens is a naturalistic one. Miracles, for example, cannot be understood as the space time intervention of a transcendent creator. If the system is closed and held together by cause and effect then reality is deterministic and ‘whatever will be, will be’. There’s no possibility of change. But some naturalists want to have their cake and eat it. They argue for a deterministic universe but also argue that this doesn’t remove our responsibility for our actions. This is a point of incoherence that underlies the inherent weakness of this world view.

3. Human beings are complex machines

Descartes held that human beings were part machine and part mind. The mind was a different substance. Subsequent thinkers tinkered with this. And now the vast majority of naturalists see mind as a function of machine. One writer, Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis put it this way, ‘the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile’. Nice. Since human beings are part of the universe and in the universe there is only matter then we can only be that. The laws of the universe apply to us. We are therefore only matter. We do not stand outside the universe in any way. Our personality is simply an interrelation of chemical and physical properties that we do not yet fully understand. However, naturalists do acknowledge that within the universe human beings are distinct and unique. In general our uniqueness is observed in our conceptual thought, our employment of speech, cultural sophistication and our moral capacity. These make us valuable. But none of them implies a transcendent power or an extra-material basis.

4. Death is extinction

Since we are nothing more than matter when that matter from which we are made ‘gives up the ghost’, we cease to exist. We only exist whilst our constituent elements are organised in a ‘me’. As the Humanist Manifesto II states, ‘As far as we know, the total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context. There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body’. Well, apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ but that’s a point for later! So we’re transitory. We start in oblivion and we end there. Immortality means nothing more than to continue to exist through our offspring and the pervading influence of our lives upon our peers or our culture.

5. History has no overarching purpose

Human history is simply an extension of natural history. One flows out of the other. Natural history begins with the creation of the universe but few naturalists are able to say how it happened. But the presupposition is that the process was self activating. There is no need for a god hypothesis. Whilst naturalists struggle to explain the origin of life they feel more certain on the origin of the species. The theory of neo-Darwinian evolution, brought about by the survival of the fittest through advantageous random mutations, holds sway. The naturalistic interpretation of evolution denies any theistic involvement and teleological goal. The process is entirely materialistic in its origin and operation. G.G. Simpson expresses it this way when he writes, ‘Man arose as a result of the operation of organic evolution and his being and activities are also materialistic, but the human species has properties unique to itself among all forms of life, superadded to the properties unique to life among all forms of matter and of action. Man’s intellectual, social, and spiritual natures are exceptional among animals in degree, but they arose by organic evolution’. We’re just chance accidents. And so our history though it’s a linear series of events linked by cause and effect has no real design, purpose or intended goal.

6. Ethics relates only to human beings

Naturalistic morality is an oxymoron. That’s not to say that naturalists don’t have morality. But that naturalism can provide no grounds for it. It’s parasitical on the theistic account of reality. Naturalists are just living off the residual influence of a once pervasive Christian world view. For a theist, God is the foundation of values. But naturalism killed off God and so values must be manmade. As Sire says, ‘The naturalist’s notion follows logically from the previous proposition. If there was no consciousness prior to humans, then there was no prior sense of right and wrong. Furthermore, if there were no ability to do other than what one does, any sense of right and wrong would have no practical value. So for ethics to be possible, there must be both consciousness and self-determination. In short, there must be personality’ Sire, The Universe Next Door, p71. Naturalists argue that consciousness and self-determination came with the appearance of human beings. That’s when ethics kicked off. But the major issue with this formulation of morality is how on earth this system of thought can justify it. The problem is sometimes formulated like this, ‘How can ought derive from is?’ There’s no rational basis for any ethical obligation within naturalism. Attempts have been made to explain deal with this major flaw. It’s been argued that all people have a sense of moral values derived from intuition, from authority and from convention. There’s something in that because we’re made in the image of God. But naturalists can’t account for it. Naturalist ethicists note that values are not universal. They differ from culture to culture. Apparently this is because what works best in a culture will vary. Whatever promotes harmony is good. Something is deemed unethical if it’s not commonly accepted. And ethics becomes culturally determined. It’s situational. Some attempt to root the ethical cause within the context of neo-Darwinian evolution. Therefore something is deemed ‘good’ if it’s a survival promotion action. But even ‘good’ is a meaningless term in naturalism. The lack of a logical account for morality remains a massive weakness in the naturalistic world view.

Conclusion

And yet, with all its weaknesses, naturalism has proven to be a very persistent world view. There are two dominant reasons for this. First, it gives the impression of being the inevitable consequence of scientific enquiry. It’s based on observable facts not speculative theorising. Secondly, to a vast number of people it appears make logical sense of the world. Therefore it’s very attractive as an explanation of the world as we experience it. But, as I’ve suggested, it’s not without its problems. It’s internally inconsistent. It fails to provide an adequate reason for the uniqueness of human value because everything in nature is, in one sense, unique. It also fails to account for the capacity of human thought. If I’m just a thinking machine and my human consciousness is in no way transcendent from the matter from which I’m constituted how can I trust my thinking? I don’t see how I can.

The Myth of the Immoral Bible

The ninth letter is found online here.

‘There are two ways in which scripture might be a source of morals or rules for living. One is by direct instruction, for example through the Ten Commandments, which are the subject of such bitter contention in the culture wars if America’s boondocks. The other is by example: God, or some other biblical character, might serve as – to use the contemporary jargon – a role model. Both scriptural routes, if followed through religiously, encourage a system of morals which any civilized modern person, whether religious or not, would find – I can put it no more gently – obnoxious’ p268 TGD.

Nothing like starting out with an open mind then Richard! And that’s nothing like starting out with an open mind! And that’s one of his problems. Everything is prejudged from the outset. Before we even start to look at the Bible’s teaching we’re told that it’s obnoxious. As Robertson puts it, ‘your understanding of scripture is extreme in its condemnation and seems governed more by your atheism than by any knowledge or understanding of the text’ p101 TDL. How can Christians come back from that sort of accusation? Robertson accepts that there’s nothing he can say to people who share those presuppositions. But for the sake of those who feel less inclined to ‘accept at face value your distorted and sour-grape-picking version of the Bible’ he takes Dawkins to the cleaners on the following three issues.

1. Dawkins doesn’t understand how important Biblical interpretation is

Dawkins’ ignorance of the basic principles of biblical interpretation would prohibit him from teaching in our Sunday school. Clever he might be but competent to teach the Bible? Not on your life. Dawkins doesn’t know how to approach the Bible. It’s not rocket science and so you’re left to wonder why his version of the Bible is so warped.

a. Dawkins fails to read the Bible in context. He pays scant attention to the historical, literary, theological and biblical context. And so he ends up misreading it.

b. Dawkins fails to recognise that the Bible is descriptive. Much of what’s recorded in scripture isn’t prescriptive but descriptive. It’s telling us what happened in the lives of its flawed human heroes rather than using their lives as an example of how to behave.

c. Dawkins fails to read the Bible as literature. Detractors from Christianity are often fond of asking whether we understand the Bible literally. It’s usually the precursor to mocking our simplistic fundamentalist take on the nature of reality. Dawkins is no different. We read the Bible as literature and so we pay attention to the interpretive rules of the game. We recognise that prophecy, poetry, history, letter and law are supposed to be understood differently. Not to do so would be foolish.

d. Dawkins fails to recognise the Bible is progressive. Therefore as Robertson puts it, ‘some aspects of earlier revelation are superseded by the later’ p105 TDL. On the issue of biblical authority and interpretation Robertson’s honesty is winsome. He writes, ‘I believe the Bible is the Word of God; as such it is true, without error and communicates all that God wants it to. That does not mean it is without problems but I would like to suggest that if you read it bearing in mind the basic principles above, then 90% of the problems you cite will disappear. However that leaves the other 10%. It would be foolish to deny that there are major difficulties within the Bible. There are parts of it that make me feel distinctly uncomfortable and that I struggle with. But who am I to sit judgement upon the Bible?’ p105 TDL. Robertson doesn’t shy away from admitting that the Bible does pose questions for Christians. We don’t get everything. We haven’t got it all figured out. But the correct approach to the Word of God is humility and not judgement.

2. Dawkins doesn’t understand how wonderful atonement is

Dawkins writes, ‘I have described atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sadomasochistic and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity which has dulled our objectivity. If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them?’ Ah, that old chestnut! Dawkins seems to be ‘channelling’ Rousseau who first claimed that forgiveness was God’s job. It is but He does it through atonement. As Robertson points out few people are willing to accept that we have done anything so bad as to deserve death. The reason for that is that we have an insufficient understanding of depths of the wickedness of our own hearts. If we’re willing to accept the Bible’s assessment of our radical depravity then the doctrine of the atonement comes like a breath of fresh air. It is a wonderful thing to discover that the Son of God willingly stood in my place and took the punishment that I deserved. As Robertson says, ‘It’s the best bit of the whole Bible’ p 107 TDL.

3. Dawkins doesn’t understand how misplaced his confidence in humanity is

Robertson thinks that this is the most disturbing part of the chapter. That’s some claim when you consider how Dawkins has ridden roughshod over the Bible. But this section exposes the rampant optimism that Atheists have in the upwards evolutionary development of human kind. Robertson exposes that assertion for the myth that it is. It simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Or as Robertson puts it, ‘I suspect that only a nice middle-class Western moralist could be so confident and glib about the greatly improving moral situation with humanity. I had thought that such liberal utopianism had received a mortal blow after the First World War and was killed off after the Second. But apparently not. You are once again teaching that the human race is evolving to moral perfection and that the only thing that is preventing us from realising this is the evil of religion’ p108 TDL. Robertson argues that biblical morality not the atheistic zeitgeist has contributed more to the social and moral reformation of the world. He cites numerous examples of where Biblical morality has effected change for the better. And, more alarmingly, he exposes the immoral statements of social Darwinian evolutionary thinking.

Conclusion

Robertson concludes by responding to Dawkins’ material on Hitler. This is something of an area of expertise for Robertson. His closing comments are worth quoting in full because they expose where Dawkins’ position can take us. ‘Hitler clearly did not go to war because he believed in God or because he wanted to spread Christianity. He hated Christianity. On the other hand he did believe that religion was a virus (where have I heard that one before?) and that the Jews especially were vermin who should be eradicated in order better to preserve the species. It was all perfectly logical, Darwinian and godless. Perhaps the atheist zeitgeist has moved on. But meanwhile, until it is proven otherwise, I would prefer to stick with the tried and tested morality of the Bible’ p112 TDL. And me!

The eighth letter is found online here.

‘My fear is that once society as a whole accepts your basic presuppositions (that there are no absolutes in morality, that morality changes and that human nature is genetically determined) then it is a slippery slope to the kind of atheistic societies that the world has already seen (such as Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China)’ p96 The Dawkins Letters.

With this quote Robertson takes us to the heart of his eighth letter. This is no detached philosophical reflection. This is reality. At least it could be. And that’s the point. Atheism has nothing to say to stop it. In attacking the myth of godless morality Robertson makes two telling points.

1. The atheistic account of morality is woefully incoherent

The atheistic case for Darwinian morality rests on three pillars.

a. Being moral or being good is defined as being altruistic. We’re genetically pre-programmed to be altruistic to people who are genetically most like us.

b. We’re also altruistic because that way we end up in a virtuous circle where the recipients of our altruism end up reciprocating our altruism.

c. We gain superiority over our peers when we gain a reputation for altruism. Robertson suggests that there are four problems with this moral framework.

1. it’s selfish

Fundamentally this version of morality is all about me. The Bible locates the heart of the human problem in the self centeredness of the human heart. But it nowhere argues that this should provide the basis of our moral reasoning. On the contrary, the Bible’s moral teaching aims to deliver us from the selfishness of human appetites and decision making. But the basis of atheistic morality is selfishness.

2. it’s deterministic

Atheism argues that we’re only good because we’ve been genetically pre-programmed that way. There’s no room for decision, volition and responsibility. It’s not really me making a moral decision. It’s my genetic pre-disposition. And I can’t be blamed for that. Take it up with my genes. So if this were the case then there are no grounds for human accountability. Of course, we don’t want to be naïve and deny that our genes have some influence on our decision making. But we do make decisions for which we are culpable. The trouble with the atheistic model of morality is that it doesn’t accord humanity with the responsibility that we observe or require for ruling some behaviour illegitimate.

3. it’s relativistic

Atheistic morality is secular. The moral standards of atheism are not absolute. Therefore everything is ‘up for grabs’. That’s pretty frightening. As Robertson notes, ‘if there is no ultimate standard then we are left with anything goes, might is right, or the whims of a changing and confused society’. That’s not an entirely inaccurate description of where UK Government legislation is currently heading. The chickens are coming home to roost.

4. it’s illogical

Darwinian philosophy cannot logically and consistently argue for morality because there’s no such thing as good or bad. Read these words from Dawkins’ the Blind Watchmaker, ‘In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference’. Read that again. It’s chilling. But it’s also illogical. Neo-Darwinism has no rational basis for being good. Atheistic philosophers realise this and so they’re running around like ‘blue-arsed flies’ trying to plug the gap and come up with a rationale for godless morality. But it’s an exercise in futility.

In contrast to the incoherence of the atheistic morality there’s Christianity.

2. The Christian account of morality is compellingly coherent

Presumably Dawkins knows that the incoherence of the Neo-Darwinian account of morality is atheism’s Achilles heel. And he tries to conceal that with a vehement attack on the Christian account of morality. Tactically it’s astute. In all honesty it’s deceptive. His biggest issue with Christian morality is the Bible, which he deals with in chapter 7 of TGD. But it’s not his only issue. He cites the example of immoral acts by Christians which discredit the claim of morality. There are two easy counters to this argument. First, Jesus would not have us be immoral. Secondly, the immoral acts of some who profess faith shouldn’t tarnish everyone who does. But Dawkins also has an issue with Christianity’s big stick approach to keeping us on the straight and narrow. He doesn’t put it in those terms of course. He’s an academic and so he cites Einstein who said, ‘If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed’. I prefer my version. Robertson points out that, ‘The Bible recognises that human beings are complex and that we need a system of checks and balances to help us’. And so he asks Dawkins a series of rhetorical questions. ‘Would you like the police to be removed from Oxford? Do you think that students at your university should be threatened with punishment if they cheat? Or should they be given higher degrees if they do better than their peers? Surely if your students are only studying and not cheating because they fear punishment or have hope for some reward they are a sorry lot?’ If Dawkins was opposed to the threat of punishment as a means of motivating behaviour then he’d answer in the negative. But of course he won’t. Once again he’s hoisted on his own petard. Having defended Christian morality against false charges Robertson then goes on the attack and shows its strength.

1. Christian morality explains evil

The Bible tells us what we already know to be true of ourselves; we’re messed up. The real issue in the morality debate is why people are evil. Christianity has an answer; the answer. But Dawkins’ version of morality is naively optimistic. He assumes that we’ll all end up like middle class Oxford dons. But he can’t explain why we shouldn’t end up like middle class German Nazis. The Bible does, and it calls it sin.

2. Christian morality explains the universe

Quoting CS Lewis’ essay ‘Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe’ Robertson argues that atheism cannot account for the universal moral impulse and a universal sense of moral guilt. Lewis asks where we get this awareness of wrong and right from if it’s not from the divine creation of the universe.

3. Christian morality explains me

The GK Chesterton quote is wonderfully evocative. I think I heard it every year at Christian summer camp. In a letter to the Times newspaper he wrote, ‘Dear Editor: What’s wrong with the world? I am. Faithfully yours, GK Chesterton’. It makes the point that the Bible explains that the evil that caused the holocaust is present in each one of us. Robertson’s point is that atheism has no grounds for morality. Christianity does. But is there’s no such thing as absolute right and wrong then nothing is ruled out and everything, everything is permissible. That this is the case is supported by some of the central figures of atheistic ethics and philosophy.

Peter Singer, the Professor of Bioethics at Princeton, argues that mentally impaired babies have no greater rights than certain animals.

Bill Hamilton, a Professor of evolutionary biology at Oxford, argued for a radical programme of infanticide, eugenics and euthanasia in order to save the world.

Konrad Lorenz, the Austrian zoologist and animal psychologist who founded ethology or the study of animal behaviour, was an enthusiastic Nazi.

J.B.S Haldane, geneticist and evolutionary biologist who was one of the founders of population genetics, was a committed Stalinist.

R.A. Fisher, the evolutionary biologist and geneticist who created the foundations for modern statistical science, argued that civilization was threatened because upper class women weren’t procreating at a sufficient rate.

These are not peripheral figures or straw men constructed in order to caricature a position with which Christianity takes issue. These guys are front and centre. They were advocates of extreme social views. Dawkins ignores them.

Conclusion

But before we move on from this we must be clear on one thing. Christians are not moralists. We believe in morality because the Bible does. But the Bible doesn’t give us a set of laws to observe. It gives us a saviour to trust. We know that our moral transformation comes not through our behaviour but through our belief in Jesus Christ. He dealt with our immorality on the cross and he deals with our morality with His Spirit.

The Myth of the Inherent Evil of Religion

You can find this letter online here.

Dawkins’ chapter five, ‘The Roots of Religion’ is his attempt to explain why there’s a pervading religious presence in the world if there’s no God in the universe. Dawkins’ chapter eight ‘What’s Wrong with Religion?’ provides his rationale for attacking theism in all its forms. Robertson deals with them together in this letter. He tees us up nicely for what to expect in Dawkins’ treatment of this matter when he writes, ‘I find your analysis in these two chapters hard to respond to because they depend on the failed thesis that God has been proven not to exist and, because your treatment of religion is imbalanced, distorted and reflective, not so much of objective analysis but rather of your own subjective anti-God feelings’ p77 The Dawkins Letters.

Robertson has two essential issues with Dawkins.

1. Dawkins has a simplistic view of the prevalence of religion

C.S. Lewis once wrote, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in the world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world’ quotes on p87 The Dawkins Letters. That’s one answer for the prevalence of religion. There are alternatives. Dawkins’ answer is that religion is an unexpected spin off from natural selection. His argument is that the memetic proliferation of dependent trust, fostered in children towards parents, strengthens the case for evolutionary survival. It’s advantageous in evolutionary terms to be trusting. The problem, as Dawkins sees it, is that some just don’t know when or who to trust. It makes them susceptible to gullibility. Religious faith is a parasitical virus that infects the gullible. It is as Alistair McGrath puts it in his book Dawkins’ God, people do not believe in God because they have given long and careful thought to the matter; they do so because they have been infected by a powerful meme’. But there are three significant problems with this meme hypothesis!

a. There’s absolutely no evidence for such a theory. That means that this theory is an unsubstantiated piece of speculation! Robertson says it’s ‘just making things up as you go along in order to fit everything into your all encompassing evolutionary theory’. He calls it ‘science of the gaps’. Do you see what he’s done there?!

b. If this hypothesis was correct then neo-Darwinian ideas would be simply be a meme.

c. Memes can be neutralized and eradicated by some mental exercises. In fact, to be consistent, since they’re viruses that infect the mind they ought to be. Robertson quotes Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary Paleobiology at the University of Cambridge who in his book Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe says, ‘Memes are trivial, to be banished by simple mental exercises. In any wider context, they are hopelessly, if not hilariously, simplistic’. Ouch! I think that pretty much discredits the idea of memes.

2. Dawkins has a fundamentalist approach to the validity of religion

Robertson then deals with Dawkins’ rant against religion in chapter eight. He calls him a fundamentalist. Robertson’s beef is summarised in these words, ‘Whilst it would only be a fool who denies that some aspects of religion and some religious people have caused a great deal of harm in the world, it is equally foolish to make the kind of irresponsible sweeping statements that you do here – in order to foster the myth that religion is harmful. This is an atheist half-truth which is erroneously but widely accepted’ p80 The Dawkins Letters. But Dawkins doesn’t like being called a fundamentalist. He’s a self professed despiser of religious fundamentalism and so he recoils at the suggestion that he’s an anti-theistic fundamentalist. But Robertson suggests that Dawkins attracts this unwelcome description for the following three reasons

a. The logic goes something like this. Dawkins is passionate about what he believes. Fundamentalists are passionate about what they believe. Therefore Dawkins is a fundamentalist. Passion is bad. Apparently. Well, in the wider social context it’s viewed with suspicion. Dawkins falls foul of this and therefore attracts an unwelcome label. Welcome to the club Richard! But there is a downside to his passionate hatred of religion. He must share some concern for the way his vitriolic verbal attacks have consequences as his words are implemented by his devotees in ways that he would not approve.

b. Dawkins doesn’t debate and this simply reinforces the view that his view is right and that there’s nothing really to discuss. I’m not sure that this is still the case. He’s debated Alistair McGrath and John Lennox in recent months. But Robertson is right to say that Dawkins verbally hammers anyone who disagrees with him and lauds those who don’t.

c. Dawkins resorts to caricature, mockery and misrepresentation of those who disagree with him. Chapter eight is littered with this sort of treatment. Dawkins cites the extreme example of Pastor Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church of ‘God hates fags’ infamy. We’re supposed to believe that this is typical and representative of American Christianity. But as Robertson points out anyone could produce a list of fringe mentally imbalanced people on any subject but that doesn’t invalidate the subject. It’s the tactic of the fundamentalist to caricature his opponents, mock them and dismiss them. Robertson writes, ‘You have a good reason to equating Christianity with the unbalanced fringe. It suits your purpose to agree with them as to what Christianity is. That’s why you interview extremist. You set up straw men and then it makes you look so much more reasonable. But that is the tactic of the fundamentalist who is out to prove that he alone has the truth, rather than the scholar or the seeker after truth’ p84 The Dawkins Letters.

Dawkins justifies his heavy handed approach to religion and the lack of refinement in choosing his targets because he thinks that ‘mild and moderate’ religion helps to provide a climate in which extremism can flourish. But of course, the same could be said of ‘mild and moderate’ atheism.

Conclusion

Robertson’s task has been to defend Christianity from the unfair attacks of an anti-theistic fundamentalist. In my view, he’s done a pretty good job. Dawkins has not accounted for the prevalence of faith and he has failed to show that religion inevitably produces extremism.

An extract from the 2008 God Confusion Mission Handbook

Dear Friends

Welcome to ‘The God Confusion’ mission handbook! We hope that you find it useful. It’s a collection of news, reviews, resources and articles to help us get involved in the range of events that we’ve planned. As you’ll have worked out by now, the mission is named after Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion. We’re aiming to interact with some of the material in that book and especially the case for atheism.

According to Wikipedia, as of November 2007, the English version of The God Delusion had sold over 1.5 million copies and been translated into 31 languages. It’s a popular book. And the passage of time has not lessened its influence. If anything this book has led to an avalanche of impassioned hostile attacks, on Christianity in particular. It’s been in the Sunday Times best selling list for hardback non fiction and paperback non fiction for as long as I can remember. It’s fiction. But that’s a rant for another time! And even if people haven’t read it, many are proud to own a copy. It’s their atheistic Bible. They assume that because it’s a big book written by a clever man it contains all the reasons they need to justify their godless lifestyle. David Robertson in The Dawkins Letters, his collection of letters written in response to The God Delusion, accuses Dawkins of colluding with an anti-God addiction when he writes, ‘when someone like you comes along and provides what seems to be a cast-iron intellectual justification they seize it like an alcoholic seizes the bottle’.

Richard Dawkins’ own web site says of his book,

‘A pre-eminent scientist – and the world’s most prominent atheist – asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11. With rigour and wit, Richard Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favoured by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, forments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong, but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe’s wonders than any faith could ever muster’.

Heady stuff. And it’s possible that in the face of such vitriol many of us just want to run for cover, curl up into the foetal position and wait for it all to go away. Just me then! But we can’t. We have an obligation to our friends to tell the truth and to Christ to defend His honour. Wonderfully we don’t have to do that alone. Ultimately the Lord stands with us and we’ll know His presence as we ‘speak up for Him’. But He’s also raised up a horde of able writers and apologists to help us out. We’ve been able to recruit some of them for ‘The God Confusion’. One of the resources that will help is the little book by David Robertson. If you read nothing else in preparation, read that. Throughout his book Robertson provides a rationale for response. His major contention is that Dawkins appeals not to people’s intelligence but to their ignorance. Most people do not understand the case for God. And so when someone like Dawkins tells them it’s a delusion they assume its non existent. But that’s where we come in.

The sixth letter can be found online here.

‘Why there almost certainly is no God’. That’s the title of Dawkins’ fourth chapter. We’re getting to the heart of the matter. If the rhetoric is to be believed then Theism ought to be in for a rough ride. In fact Dawkins writes, ‘If the argument of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise of religion – the God Hypothesis – is untenable’ p189 TGD. If he gets this right then we can close down the churches, free up our Sundays and I’m seeking alternative employment! There are bigger casualties. But that’s for another post.

Let me summarise Robertson’s critique of this material with the following four headings.

1. Dawkins expects us to be convinced by one killer argument

Dawkins does not engage in a systematic cumulative dismantling of the case for theism. He thinks that’s unnecessary because he’s found the silver bullet. To add another metaphor, Dawkins thinks that he’s found theism’s Achilles heel. Theism stands or falls on the truth of this argument. Robertson summarises the killer argument like this, ‘Evolution is true. Evolution explains the illusion of design. The design argument is the main argument for God. Therefore there is no God’. It’s an argument. But is it a good one? We need to know why Dawkins thinks that the argument from design is so shabby. There’s no design he says, because there’s no designer. And why’s there no designer? Because there’s no one who designed the designer. No really, that’s it. According to Dawkins, there can be no God because we can’t think of anyone who created Him. Robertson is scathing in his assessment of Dawkins’ case. He writes, ‘When I read it [your argument] I was genuinely shocked. Not because of its originality, killer force or overwhelming logic, but rather because of its banality’. And this is the intellectual foundation for Dawkins’ atheism. Consequently, if we can show that this foundation is shaky then the house of atheism as propounded by Dawkins ought to come tumbling down.

2. Dawkins exercises incredible faith in evolutionary theory

On the back of his unwavering faith in evolutionary theory Dawkins dismisses the case for a created God and He dismisses the case for an uncreated God. Anyone would think that he has it in for God! He dismisses the theistic case for God because he puts all his eggs in the neo-Darwinian basket. Because he’s absolutely convinced that evolutionary theory by natural selection accounts for life he must assert that things evolve from the simple to the complex. Complex comes at the end. Simple comes at the beginning. But the notion of a theistic God requires complexity to come at the beginning; to make the simple. And that he can’t or won’t accept. At a very superficial level we can grant that this is the case in biology. But it’s a massive leap into the dark world of scientific speculation to take a principle from biological science and assert its universal applicability. And then, Dawkins just asserts that God cannot be uncreated. But that’s a presupposition that he brings to the table. And so he ends up in a circular argument. There is no God because there can never be anything uncreated and so God can’t be uncreated and so there is no God. Neat, but circular. And it doesn’t prove anything except that circular arguments leave you going round in circles.

3. Dawkins evades the persuasive theistic case for human existence

Dawkins fails to account for two things. First, he cannot explain the origin of matter. Secondly, he cannot account for the conditions of life. For atheism to be persuasive we need to know why there is something and not nothing. There are only three alternative explanations for the origin of matter. Either something came from nothing, or something was eternal, or something was created. There’s no other alternative. If something came from nothing, then as Robertson puts it, ‘At one point there was no universe, no matter, no time, no space. And out of that big nothing there came the Big Bang and our vast universe, tiny planet, evolution and the human species’. But that makes no sense at all. If something was eternal then as Robertson puts it, ‘There is a lump of rock, or a mass of gas or some kind of matter which had no beginning and will probably have no end. And at some point that matter exploded and we ended up with the finely tuned and wonderful universe we now inhabit’. Or we say that something was created out of nothing. But to do that you need an incredibly powerful and intelligent uncreated being. Whether we believe this God exists or not is dependent on which one of the alternatives we find most convincing. Secondly, he cannot account for the conditions of life. We live in a finely tuned universe. Apparently if the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by been one part in ten thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present state. And if it had been greater by one part in a million then the stars and planets would not have been able to form. There are fifteen such constants without which the conditions for life would not be possible. It all begs the question how someone who so prizes intellectual logic can be an atheist. And so we end up with the illogicality of unbelief. As Robertson observes in his concluding paragraph, ‘In bringing up the argument of the origin of matter abd of the universe you have in fact scored an enormous own goal. Instead of proving that there almost certainly is no God, you have demonstrated that there almost certainly is’.

4. Dawkins engages in fantastical speculation rather than accept the evidence 

Somehow Dawkins has to explain the origin of matter and the conditions for life. To do this he must explain how we get the conditions for evolution. Mathematically the probability that there’s life is infinitesimally small. The fine tuning of the universe is utterly improbable. The suggestion that we just got lucky doesn’t exactly satisfy the criterion of rationality! But then I suppose it’s possible to postulate the multiverse; the notion that there are billions of universes and the odds are that one of them will have the conditions for life. Robertson smells blood and goes for the jugular, ‘You keep telling us that science is about what we can observe, that it is about fact and empirical evidence. The multiverse notion is a ‘sci-fi’ nonsense for which there is no evidence whatsoever. One almost gets the impression that you would accept any theory as long as it did not involve the possibility of there being a God!’ But Dawkins’ speculative theorising reaches its climax with his approval of Deutsch’s proposal that there are a vast number of rapidly growing universes that exist in parallel in which we live different lives!

Conclusion

Robertson brings his letter to a close with two justified observations

a. Dawkins cannot claim to be acting scientifically when he propounds atheism since he has offered no substantive scientific reasons as to why we ought not to believe in God.

b. Dawkins ought to stop misrepresenting his dissenters as those who have settled for a God of the gaps; filling in until science makes the discovery.

He summarises his issue with Dawkins in these words, ‘You like to suggest that your position is a logical one caused by the fact that Darwin has raised your own consciousness and you seem to think that those who do not agree with you are not so highly evolved (at least in consciousness). Your position is the scientific one and you set up the debate so that it is always the forces of reason and science against the blind irrationality of faith. I’m afraid that that just does not square with the facts’.

It was whilst watching the West Wing that I first realised that what we thought about creation had become politicized. Others have written about that here and here. Whilst on the campaign trail Presidential hopeful, Congressman Matthew Santos is asked whether he believes in Intelligent Design. He replies, something along the lines of, ‘I believe in a designer and I’m pretty sure He’s intelligent’. I’m right with him. But I’ve been wondering what I’d say if I was asked to give an opinion on Intelligent Design. In the process of thinking that through I came across this helpful article from John Frame. Much of what follows is shaped by what he says.

Intelligent Design (ID) is the view that the universe gives evidence of being the product of an intelligent designer. Biblically that’s not hard to establish. Psalm 19:1 says, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. In Romans 1:18-20 Paul argues that the inexcusability of humanity’s truth suppression concerning God is established by the universal declaration that God exists. He writes, ‘18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse’. ID underpins the philosophical argument for God’s existence known as the Argument from Design or the Teleological Argument. Whilst this approach fails to establish the existence of God indisputably, it does nevertheless demonstrate its plausibility. But the popularity of this argument has undergone something of a resurgence through the influence of an American lawyer, Phillip Johnson, Darwin on Trial. Along with scientists Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, and William Dembski, Intelligent Design. They have been instrumental in challenging the supremacy of the neo-Darwinian account of the origins of life. Neo-Darwinism, or evolutionism, argues that natural forces such as natural selection and genetic mutation are a sufficient explanation to account for life. After Laplace, evolutionism feels no need to invoke the God hypothesis. That’s the point of contention in a nutshell. ID says that you can’t account for the world without God but neo-Darwinism says that you can.

In thinking about ID and the connection between science and religion Frame makes the following three points.

1. Science is religious

It’s assumed that ID is religious and science isn’t. But that’s nonsense. Science is not religiously neutral. In one sense it’s parasitical of biblical teaching about the nature of creation. In terms of the worldview it assumes and the methods it employs it presupposes many things that it cannot prove. It assumes but cannot prove the uniformity of nature, the correspondence of thought with reality, the universality of physical laws and the values required for the honest pursuit of truth. But Frame argues that there’s another sense in which science is religious. Like religion you need to sign up to orthodox views to really be a part of the community. I’m no scientist but I suspect it’d be hard to argue against the view that neo-Darwinism has become the default position for those wanting to be accepted by the scientific community.

2. Science is more than observation and experiment

It’s assumed that ID isn’t science because it’s not based on observation and experiment and science is. But that’s nonsense. Scientists don’t simply gather data. They do things with it. They hypothesise. Then they investigate. And then they deduce consequences from their hypotheses. And so the work of science isn’t only observational and experimental; it’s also imaginative and logical. That’s where ID makes its biggest contribution to science. Primarily it interprets data rather than accumulates it. And so it evaluates the conclusions made by evolutionary theory and directly challenges whether neo-Darwinians have established a naturalistic basis for the origin and development of life. In challenging the underlying irrational opposition to ID, Frame’s concluding quote is brilliant, ‘Why should the denial of theism be considered science, while the affirmation of it is considered ‘religion’? It is no less scientific to deduce intelligent design from the data than to deduce an unintelligent origin. So Darwinism, in some senses, is religious, and ID is scientific’.

3. Science must be open to all truth

It’s assumed that ID isn’t science because it allows ‘religious truth’ to tarnish its conclusions. Science is immune to these influences. But even if it is, is that sensible? Science cannot set itself up as a self attesting standard of what’s true. Truth is not limited to what science decides is true. Science cannot justify ignoring or denial the assertions of scripture if it’s a source of truth. Scientific Naturalists deny that the Bible has no place in this discussion. But if they’re wrong, as I think they are, they’re guilty of wilfully ignoring significant data that ought to be considered. That’s bad science. The issue of whether or not the Bible is true matters to science. Science cannot be immune to these issues. What this means is that ID writers and scientists don’t have to distance themselves from the Bible to establish their scientific credentials. With our view of the Bible it’s an argument in favour of ID.

Conclusion

Should ID be taught alongside evolution in schools? Probably. It’s a faith perspective but so is science. The church needs to teach it, that much is clear. But shouldn’t our kids be exposed to the opposing views, even in a secular education system.

Will ID be taught alongside evolution in schools? Not in my lifetime!

I’m no expert in inviting friends to events. I’ve had some success in the past. More often than not I chicken out and end up feeling guilty; as I should. But it seems to me that the success of any invitation is a combination of at least three factors.

First, there’s the quality of friendship that we enjoy with the person we’re trying to invite. The better the friendship the more predisposed they’ll be towards listening to what we say and sharing in the things that define us.

Secondly, there’s the enticement provided by the talk itself. The more tailored the talk is to where the person is coming from the more likely they’ll want to pitch up. In other words if my issue is atheism and there’s a talk addressing specifically that issue I’ll be keen to hear what’s said. That might especially be the case if the speaker is also someone who can speak with authority and ability on those issues.

Thirdly, there’s the unseen work of God preparing someone’s heart to consider spiritual issues. If God is at work behind the scenes then there’ll be a divine impulse attracting someone towards the truth. They might not know it and they certainly won’t be able to explain it. But when God irresistibly draws us to Himself we’ll find ourselves wanting to consider things that we used to think were irrelevant or worse!

Rarely will we be able to get all three working in symbiotic perfection! We might get two out of three, which isn’t bad. But sometimes we just have to work with one and pray that’s sufficient. But take heart because that’s all God needs.

Sometimes we can persuade someone to come to an event even if we don’t know them that well and the talk isn’t quite their cup of tea simply because God has been preparing the ground. But if we don’t ask we’ll never know!

On other occasions even though the talk is not obviously relevant and our friend has shown no particular interest in spiritual things they’ll come to something because they so value our friendship. Friends like that are hard to find and we should return their commitment to us by trying to put them in the way of the gospel.

It might be that our friends show no few signs of an interest in Christian things and we’d only regard them as passing acquaintances but nevertheless they’re mustard keen to come because the issue is right where they’re at. The simplest way to find that out is to talk to them about what makes them tick and what they’re objections to Christianity are. Apologetic talks are ideal at helping people think these things through.

In other words, all of this is an encouragement to get involved in the mission not simply by praying, not simply by volunteering but by inviting the very people this week of events is intended for; namely those who don’t agree with us!

The fifth letter can be found here.

Dawkins’ basic problem in this chapter is that he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. At least that’s Robertson’s take on things. Here’s a collection of his comments.

‘Your understanding of Christian theology is shockingly bad!’ p53

‘I can hardly believe that a professor at Oxford wrote such a juvenile argument!’ p53

‘You state this argument really badly’ p55.

The fact that you neither understand nor agree with it hardly constitutes a rational argument against it’ p56.

‘You also seem to be having enormous difficulty with this argument’ p56.

‘Furthermore you completely misstate the argument from personal experience’ p57.

‘You also illustrate the truth of the saying that ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing’ p59.

‘In this regard I am astounded at how out of touch you are with modern biblical scholarship’ p60.

These are not minor quibbles! And it’s disastrous to Dawkins’ cause because this is the chapter where he wants to undermin the theistic arguments for God’s existence. If he’s refuting the wrong arguments then it’s an exercise in atheistic futility!

In passing it’s worth saying that Robertson is unpersuaded by Anselm’s Ontological Argument and he says nothing about Aquinas’ proofs. He reckons it’s philosophically neat but hardly conclusive proof of God’s existence.

But what’s got under Robertson’s skin to cause him to point our Dawkins personal intellectual inadequacies in the area of theology?

1. Dawkins misrepresents the Argument from Beauty

Robertson contests that the appreciation and creation of beauty is insufficiently unaccounted for by atheism. It’s not enough to say that our sense of beauty is a chemical reaction. He argues that, ‘Beauty is part of consciousness and it remains one of the great unanswered questions in evolutionary philosophy - where does consciousness come from?’ p55. Robertson puts great store by this argument. He reckons that, ‘the argument from beauty remains one of the most powerful arguments for God’.

2. Dawkins misrepresents the Argument from Personal Experience

This section doesn’t begin promisingly because as Robertson points out ‘personal experience’ appears to be limited to be voices and visions. The vast majority of Christians are not believers because they heard a voice or have seen a vision. They’re believers because as C.S. Lewis put it, ‘I arrived where I now am, not by reflection alone, but by reflection on a particular recurrent experience. I am an empirical theist. I have arrived at God by induction’. Robertson rightly tries to expand what’s included under the rubric of ‘personal experience’ so that it’s not so limited. He broadens the scope of the definition to include answered prayer, being filled with the Spirit, living by the Bible, the sense of the presence of God and so on. And then he concludes with this wonderful sentence, ‘I for one would not argue that I believe in Jesus Christ solely because of any one of them. But the accumulation of these experiences in addition to the truths of the Bible, and the observation of history, creation and society, add up to a very powerful personal apologetic’ p58.

3. Dawkins misrepresents the Argument from the Bible

Robertson will return to this in chapter nine. But he can’t let some of the stuff Dawkins comes out with fly by without having a swing. Dawkins states that ‘there is no good historical evidence that he ever thought he was divine’. What!? As Robertson states, ‘the historical evidence for the claims that Jesus made is quite clear. The Gospels make it explicit. And it was after all the reason he was crucified - because he ‘blasphemed’ by claiming to be God’ p59. And he doesn’t stop there. After taking Dawkins to task for ignorance of the two census solution to Luke’s material he continues, ‘The problem is that you, with all the certainty of the fundamentalist delighting in proving his opponents wrong, seize upon the flimsiest of evidence and, without any further investigation, make sweeping statements that this proves the Bible wrong’ p59. In order to prevent Dawkins making an even bigger fool of himself in the area of New Testament scholarship Robertson encourages him to go and have a word with Alistair McGrath becaue ‘I am sure it would be enormously helpful and prevent you making the kind of gaffes that you pour out here’ p60. The overwhelming view of modern biblical scholarship is how reliable the Gospels are as sources of reliable history. But don’t expect to hear that from Richard Dawkins.

4. Dawkins misrepresents the Argument from Scientists

Dawkins seems to think that Christians use the existence of eminent Christian scientists as sure proof that God exists. He argues that these scientists only continue as believers for social or economic reasons. Robertson points out that Christians do use the existence of eminent Christian scientists to attest that science and Christianity need not necessarily be in conflict with one another but indeed can be complementary ways of understanding the universe.

Conclusion

Robertson concludes with a warning. He argues that the alliance of science and atheism is potentially catastrophic. Without God there’s no way to account for evil and there’s no way to defend against it. But it’s his conluding paragraph that undermines almost everything that Dawkins asserts in this book. Any old idiot can assert that God’s a delusion if they won’t deal with Jesus Christ. Or as Robertson puts it, ‘Let me finish by pointing out that you missed out the most important argument of all for the existence of God - the person and work of Jesus Christ. By far the number one reason I believe and trust in God is becasue of Jesus Christ’ p63. Amen.