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The God Delusion Debate

Richard Dawkins & John Lennox

Head-to-head with Dawkins

THE GOD DELUSION DEBATE (DVD)
Richard Dawkins & John Lennox
Fixed Point Foundation (http://www.fixed-point.org)
112 mins. approx. £12.99

In 2007, the Fixed Point Foundation, a US Christian ‘think-tank’, brought together atheist Professor Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, and Christian Dr. John Lennox, who teaches mathematics at Oxford University, at the University of Alabama to debate the six main theses of Dawkins’s book.

This is the DVD of that debate and it is well worth spending the hour and three-quarters to watch and listen to the cut and thrust of argument. Here we have the leading spokesman for the ‘New Atheism’, which has gained momentum since the terrible events of 9/11, engaged in argument with a Christian who is well thought through in his faith and is of at least the same intellectual stature as Dawkins.

After each man gives a brief biography, the six theses are addressed in turn by both debaters, with Dawkins going first each time. The six theses from The God Delusion are as follows: faith is blind, while science is evidence based; science supports atheism not Christianity; design makes you ask ‘who designed the designer?’; Christianity is dangerous (here Dawkins particularly indicts teaching children to be gullible rather than to always ask questions); we do not need God in order to be good; Christian claims about Jesus are not true.

Lack of time

The structure imposed on the debate by Dawkins kicking off each topic and then Lennox responding does get in the way a bit. Often Dawkins wanted to come back at Lennox’s answer and then Lennox wanted to reply again; but actually they were meant to move on to the next of the theses. They do both, thankfully, break the rules and give answers to each other’s replies and that enables us to get further into the various questions. However, that, of course, meant there was less time to discuss the next subject. I won’t attempt to go through the arguments given from the different protagonists, but, suffice it to say, that if, as a Christian, you have been disturbed by The God Delusion you will find some very robust answers to Dawkins’s claims here. The professor is made to look extremely uncomfortable at many points and, sadly, by the end he is reduced to yet another bout of simply ridiculing Christianity without at all engaging with the argument or the evidence.

John Benton