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Why there almost certainly is a godDoubting DawkinsWeaknesses of Dawkins’s logicWHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS A GOD This is a Christian philosopher-theologian’s riposte to Dawkins’s The God Delusion. Authored by a former Oxford Professor of Divinity, it is clever, courteous, and conclusive — well ‘almost’! The author takes apart chapters two to four of Dawkins’s book, and demonstrates the weaknesses of Dawkins’s reasoning. He hits clean, but hard. He rightly exposes the hidden faith and assumptions of materialistic philosophy embedded in many of the modern atheist critiques of Christianity. He exposes fallacies galore. He argues strongly for the powerful reality of consciousness and ‘mind’, which is not simply reducible to brain chemistry. He shows how this points to an ‘ultimate mind’, as so many of the great thinkers down the millennia have concluded. He harnesses the power of the argument that ‘the final explanation’ of all things is a ‘personal one’. Some of it will make you dizzy! His description of exactly what matter ‘is’ is fascinating. His thinking about ‘all possible universes’ may be hypothetical and mind-stretching, but he has effectively engaged with modern atheists as they run into the tunnel of parallel multi-universes in their flight from God. He shows how even this ‘rabbit hole’ brings you back to someone who alone can ‘hold all this’ in his infinite mind. Weaknesses? A lack of robust biblical grounding stands out, although, to be fair, his brief was to examine only one, somewhat obtuse, strand of the ‘evidence that points to God’. Theistic evolution is assumed, and a less than evangelical view of human sinfulness and accountability to God is propounded. Conclusion: if you are beavering away with people who read and believe Dawkins, this may help you and them. But it is not a simple read — you will have to think; and not a biblically satisfying read — you will have to be discerning. Dr. Ray Evans, © Evangelicals Now - December 2008 |