Reasonable Faith

Kevin Harris: Bill, it's the 20th anniversary of Richard Dawkins' best-selling book, The God Delusion. You know, I think it's rather ironic that we're also celebrating the 20th anniversary of Reasonable Faith. That may be a God thing. That may be a divine thing. I don't know. Uh many commentators credit The God Delusion as being the largest catalyst of the New Atheist movement. And that you know that may be true, but we can confidently say that movement is done. You can put a fork in it. But what do you recall about the publication of this book, Bill? I I know you dove into it and immediately hoped to engage Dawkins on the content.

William Lane Craig: Well, I was very impressed with the breadth of the book. It launches a broadside against the Christian faith. And in order to answer all of the allegations and objections in the book, you would need to be at once a philosopher, a scientist, uh a historian, an Old Testament scholar, a New Testament scholar, uh which no one can do. And so I could understand why the book would be so destructive. Even if in your area of specialization you saw its many flaws, it's so broad in its attack on Christianity that it might appear to be very uh potent.

Kevin Harris: I want to cut to the chase and spotlight and we've done this in the past, but I want to spotlight again Dawkins's main thesis of The God Delusion. Uh here he is speaking at Berkeley. I think this captures it.

Richard Dawkins: There are many people who simply don't know what Darwinian natural selection is. And therefore the only alternative to chance that many people can imagine is design. The English astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle dramatized his own version of that misunderstanding. He suggested that a hurricane blowing through a junkyard would be as likely to assemble by luck a Boeing 747 as that natural selection could put together life as we know it. Even before Darwin came along and gave us the answer, the impotence of the argument from design was glaring. How could it ever have been a good idea to postulate as an explanation for the existence of complex, improbable things?

A designer who would have to be even more complex and improbable than that which he's being invoked to explain. The entire argument is an obvious logical non-starter.

Kevin Harris: Okay. So any designer capable of creating a complex universe would have to be even more complex and improbable than the universe uh itself, leading to an infinite regress perhaps like who designed the the designer and that designer and that designer. Uh is that Dawkins's main contention in the book, Bill?

William Lane Craig: Well, I do think it's one of the most important, Kevin, but it is not the central argument. Uh this is just his response to design arguments for a designer of the universe. Dawkins himself summarizes his central argument for atheism in the book in a series of about six statements from which he says it follows that God almost certainly does not exist. And what is so jarring about this is that even if every one of those statements were true, the conclusion doesn't follow logically from them. So that the central argument of his book is a clear non sequitur.

Now, as for his response to the design argument, I want to ask you, Kevin, when was that clip uh filmed? Is that recent?

Kevin Harris: About uh you know it went on YouTube about a year ago, but it may maybe even older uh as far as a recording, but uh um

William Lane Craig: Okay. Well, I asked because I think that this clip reveals dramatically how stuck in the past Dawkins is. He still thinks that the so-called modern synthesis is fully explanatorily adequate for the origin of biological complexity. But evolutionary theory since the late 1980s has moved on and uh is groping to discover an extended evolutionary synthesis that regards the modern synthesis espoused by Dawkins as explanatorily deficient and it's exploring mechanisms beyond genetic mutations and natural selection. Now, don't believe me. Just get yourself a university textbook on evolutionary biology like this one by Douglas Futuyma, eminent evolutionary biologist.

If you turn to pages 26 and 27, you'll find that Futuyma uh summarizes in 20 points the main theses of the modern synthesis that Dawkins espouses. And what he points out is that a great many of these theses have now been called into question and evolutionary biologists have moved beyond the modern synthesis. And I find this so ironic, Kevin, because what it shows is that Dawkins is not merely philosophically uninformed, but that he is misleading people about evolutionary theory in which he is supposedly expert. He is sharing outdated, obsolete information uh about evolutionary biology that is amounts to disinformation today.

Now, as for his objection to the design argument, he does not understand that simple causes can have complex effects. In a wonderful uh video of a dialogue with Anthony Kenny, uh a famous philosopher, Sir Anthony Kenny uh used the example of a straight razor compared to an electric razor. The electric razor is vastly more complex than a straight razor. And yet you can only do one thing with it. You can shave. But with a straight razor, Sir Anthony pointed out, you can do on on a numerous things like slit somebody's throat. So in the case of a cosmic designer, a mind is an immaterial entity not composed of parts.

And therefore it is definitely simpler than the complex universe. And yet a mind can have very complex ideas and complex effects uh despite the fact that as an immaterial entity, it is a very simple uh substance. It seems, I think, that Dawkins um must think of God as himself a physical entity composed of parts, which of course no theist believes.

Kevin Harris: Yeah. Well, Dawkins was on the Piers Morgan show. And um again this is uh this is old footage, older footage that we're going to look at. Uh he was invited back for the 20th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, but he uh declined. Um but here's one of the things that he said last time he was on Piers Morgan show. And it's pretty much the new atheism in a nutshell. Here it is.

Richard Dawkins: There has to be something more difficult to understand than the human brain can understand. I accept that, but it doesn't have to be God. It doesn't have to be the kind of God who oh I don't know forgives sins and listens to prayers and and things like that. There is something very mysterious and I don't understand it and you don't understand it and maybe we never will. I think it's not clear whether physicists understand it. Some do, some don't, but it's obviously going to be very mysterious. But God is not that that interesting mystery. God is just a a personification of human desires, a father figure, something like that, some somebody who looks after you.

You said at the beginning that it was comforting for you. A God is somebody who listens to prayers, who uh forgives sins, who takes action for the benefit of humanity or not as the case may be. We're not talking about that. Now, we're talking about deeply deeply mysterious, profound things which physics is working on and it's very difficult very difficult to understand. And the fact that you don't understand it and I don't understand it is not a good ground not good grounds for suddenly invoking a supernatural sky daddy.

William Lane Craig: Sky daddy. Yeah, the several things for your response there, Bill. And uh by the way I am glad that we recently did a podcast on Ludwig Feuerbach and uh on wish fulfillment and God as mere father figure and some of the things that he was saying there. Right. I would refer our listeners to that earlier podcast on the theory that God is merely a human projection. But I want to say that as a philosopher, I find the concept of God to be tremendously interesting, to be mind-boggling and mind-expanding in uh volume two of my Systematic Philosophical Theology on the concept of God.

I talk about what it means for God to be an incorporeal, self-existent, necessary, eternal, simple, uh omniscient, omnipresent, perfectly good being. Uh and this is a subject of exploration that can last a lifetime tremendously uh interesting. What Dawkins is rejecting is his own superficial misunderstanding of God. He's really talking about God as a kind of finite material being. It's which is just idolatry. And at the expense perhaps of losing some of our listeners, I can't resist sharing the remark by my philosophical colleague David Hunt that he thinks that God is a lot more like Plotinus one than like Zeus.

And that remark struck me so forcefully. Zeus is a finite, material, limited being cavorting about the universe, but Plotinus one is the source of all complexity, the source of the universe, uh the embodiment uh and source of all the divine ideas, uh a very transcendent and magnificent concept. And I'm afraid that for Professor Dawkins that God is a lot more like Zeus.

Kevin Harris: And by the way I want to take a quick little side road here, Bill. Uh the God Delusion is dedicated to British novelist Douglas Adams, who's most famous for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Uh and he is also famous for his puddle analogy. We've got a clip of that. I want to check it out real quick. Here it is.

Douglas Adams: We always ask ourselves why? Because we look for intention around us because we always intend we do something with intention. So we we look at the rocks and we look at the trees and we wonder what intention is here even though it doesn't have intention. So we think so what did this person who made this world intend it for? And this is the point where you think well, it fits me very well. You know the caves and the forests and the stream and the mammoths, he must have made it for me. I mean there's no other conclusion you can come to.

And it's rather like a puddle waking up one morning and thinks this is a very interesting world I find myself in. It fits me very neatly. In fact it fits me so neatly. I mean really precise, isn't it? It must have been made to have me in it. And the sun rises and he's continuing to narrate the story about this hole being made to have him in it. And the sun rises and gradually the puddle is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. And by the time the puddle ceases to exist, it's still thinking. It's still trapped in this idea that the the hole was there for it.

Kevin Harris: Okay. So uh a sentient mud puddle is amazed at how his water perfectly fits the hole he's in. And uh Adam says that that's what we do when we think the world was designed for us. This is uh I guess supposed to rebut design arguments. What's your response to that, Bill?

William Lane Craig: Well, the analogy simply shows that Adams doesn't understand the design argument from fine tuning. The hole in the ground is not fine tuned for the puddle's existence. The puddle could fit in a wide variety of holes of different shapes and sizes, but cosmologists have discovered that the universe was fine tuned for our existence from its very inception, that the existence of embodied conscious life of any form depends upon a conspiracy of initial conditions which must be fine tuned to a delicacy and accuracy that is literally incomprehensible. If even one of the constants or fundamental quantities were to be altered uh even slightly, any sort of embodied conscious life could not exist.

So the question is really very simple. Is the fine tuning of the universe more probable on naturalism or on design? That argument cannot be dismissed by misleading analogies like the puddle illustration.

Kevin Harris: Okay. Okay. Here's an interesting development. Just in time for the God Delusion's 20th anniversary, our friend Peter Byrom is releasing a book on how Dawkins's book actually led him to Christ. And here's a promo clip of that. Check this out.

Peter Byrom and Sarah Irving-Stonebreaker: Happy anniversary, Professor Dawkins. It's been 50 years since the publication of The Selfish Gene and 20 years since the publication of The God Delusion. I've still got my copy after all this time. My name's Peter Byrom. I'm the operations manager for Justin Brierley. And today is actually an anniversary for me, the very day that this video is going out, the 19th of October, because 15 years ago I went from this to this. Reading The God Delusion at university helped put me on the road to becoming a Christian. And I tell that story in chapter three of this book, Coming to Faith Through Dawkins.

I had very much given up on the idea of God at university. I'd become very apathetic about it, but when I read The God Delusion, you exhorted me in that book to take truth seriously. Truth really matters. And you really really made the case for looking for evidence instead of just relying on vague intuitions or blind faith. And that kicked me out of my apathy. Eventually it led me to discover Christian thinkers such as John Lennox, Keith Ward, Richard Swinburne, N. T. Wright, and William Lane Craig, the man whose Kalam cosmological argument is in the words of the atheist philosopher Quentin Smith, the most studied argument for the existence of God in contemporary Western philosophy.

And in 2011 during William Lane Craig's tour of the UK, I decided that the evidence for Christianity was strong enough and that the issue was important enough for me to become a Christian. And then in 2012 I was baptized. So I have to thank you because even though it won't seem that way to you, you have done me a world of good in setting me on this road. So Professor Dawkins, on this anniversary of your two books, thank you and God bless you. I wish you well and good health.

Kevin Harris: I'm sure it's a very gratifying, Bill, how instrumental you were in Peter's journey to Christ.

William Lane Craig: It's a wonderful story and I want to assure our listeners that Peter here is not being disingenuous. He's not trying to to just stick the knife in Dawkins's back. He is sincerely grateful that Dawkins's book promoted his quest for truth and put him on the path that eventually led him to making a a Christian commitment. So those expressions of thanks are uh sincere and heartfelt.

Kevin Harris: I got the same impression. He wasn't trying to be facetious. Uh he was very complimentary. You know. Well, let's look at one more testimony from a contributor to Peter's book. Check this out.

Peter Byrom and Sarah Irving-Stonebreaker: Hi, I'm Sarah Irving Stonebreaker. I'm an academic historian and a contributor to this book, Coming to Faith Through Dawkins. My journey from atheism to Christianity took place in the fairly unlikely context of some elite universities through the University of Cambridge and then Oxford. And far from being led blind into the Christian faith, I actually had to explicitly engage with atheist philosophy. I'd always believed in the innate equality of all human beings, all people, black or white, male or female, able-bodied or disabled. I assumed that this was something that all reasonable people simply agreed upon. And moreover that it was something that my atheism could ground.

But when I read the work of a number of atheists including Richard Dawkins, it became clear to me that atheism simply cannot ground that belief. In River Out of Eden, Richard Dawkins argued that there are no objective moral values including therefore the idea of human equality because the universe is a giant cosmic accident. What I discovered was that atheism couldn't provide adequate answers to any of life's most important questions and that it couldn't make sense of what I saw as an academic historian and experienced of the human predicament. Moreover it was becoming clear to me that all the concepts and the categories that I'd used to make sense of life were actually ultimately grounded on biblical truths just like the conviction of the inherent equality and dignity of all human beings.

I'd always believed for example that human beings are yearning for some ultimate good which this world simply can't satisfy. That the condition of the world is not as it ought to be. That truth would liberate us from ignorance and that there must be some ultimate purpose to human life and history. And yet as an atheist I couldn't ground any of it. And yet when I finally opened my mind and my eyes to the Bible, opening out in front of me was a biblical story which made profound but confronting sense. That condition of humanity, that existential longing was actually a longing for God.

The terrible brokenness I saw in human civilization throughout history, that was sin. And sin made sense of my own failings, my own selfishness, my own brokenness. I remember reading in John's Gospel, The truth will set you free. There is indeed a truth that liberates, but that is not an ideological truth. No, truth is a person. Truth is Christ, God who became flesh, who came to dwell with his people to bring those who are far off near to seek and to save the lost, to set the captives free his heads. This is Jesus who ate with the most marginalized of people who held the weeping limbs of lepers and whose invitation to follow him and to be reconciled to God is open to every human being.

So on the 20th anniversary of The God Delusion, Professor Dawkins, I wonder do you find anything beautiful, anything compelling about Christianity? In John's Gospel, Jesus says that anyone who comes to him, he will never cast out. And so, Professor Dawkins, would you come to him?

Kevin Harris: Wow. You know Bill, I I sense the same uh affection. Both Peter and Sarah are from the UK and they they kind of grew up with

William Lane Craig: Yeah.

Kevin Harris: uh Richard Dawkins and I've seen him as is the the professor and the you know popular and influential. And she makes a heartfelt uh call for him to come to the Lord. Uh and she says she saw that atheism could not ground morality nor any of the most important questions of life, Bill.

William Lane Craig: She's a rare example of someone who thinks beneath the surface. So many people just accept uh the liberal moral values uh in our culture, but never look below the surface to ask how these are grounded. And Dawkins awakened her to the threat of moral nihilism that awaits someone who denies the existence of God. And what I like about uh Sarah is that you just see the radiance of Christ in her face. Uh such a joyous person. It's wonderful to see this transformation.

Kevin Harris: Bill, she said something in that clip that reminded me of uh Dr. Doug Geivett's definition of evil. He said basically that evil is a departure from the way things ought to be. It's a disruption or corruption of an intended order. So intuiting how things ought to be implies a design plan or standard. And as you know, Bill, Doug just recently went to be with the Lord. Um you know could you comment on that definition uh and perhaps say a few words about Doug Geivett?

William Lane Craig: Yes, I'm glad, Kevin, that you reminded me of his very novel version of an argument for God from evil. Um it's a kind of uh combination of uh a moral argument and a design argument. What Doug points out is that evil is a departure from the way things ought to be. But it makes no sense to talk about how things ought to be apart from some sort of a purpose for things. And that requires an intelligent designer. And therefore the reality of evil actually implies the existence of some sort of cosmic designer uh uh uh to be a basis for how the world ought to be.

Uh Doug recently perished in a boating accident on the Great Lakes. Uh I think he was only 67 years old. And Doug uh helped to recruit me to come to Talbot School of Theology when Jan and I returned from Belgium in 1994. He had joined Scott Ray and J. P. Moreland in the philosophy department there just the previous year. And he and J. P. both encouraged me to come and teach at Talbot. And so I visited Talbot and taught a two-week course. And I was so impressed with the students and with the department that I very much wanted to be a part of what God was doing at Talbot School of Theology.

And so for the next 25 years I taught annually in the philosophy department at Talbot. And Doug was always uh very kind, very thoughtful having me over to his home and introducing me to his family. He was uh to me a wonderful colleague.

Kevin Harris: I encourage our listeners to keep his family in your prayers uh especially during this upcoming season. Bill, as we wrap up it's rather unfortunate how so many people have used your name like a hammer when talking to Dawkins. Why don't you debate William Lane Craig? What about William Lane Craig? Well, William Lane Craig. You know I suspect that is um just made him defensive, but I'm still holding out hope that you and he will be able to dialogue. You've never had that chance, I don't think. Um I encourage the listeners to check out the many responses you have to Richard Dawkins's views.

Um any further reflection on the podcast today and the 20th anniversary of The God Delusion?

William Lane Craig: Dawkins and I actually were together in a six-man debate in Mexico City a number of years ago that also included Doug Geivett and a young rabbi on the theist side. Uh and it was there that I had my first memorable uh personal meeting with Dawkins at a cocktail party in connection with a conference. Uh Dawkins and I almost had a dialogue this fall in uh London, but the arrangements fell through. Um my reflections, I honestly don't think that the book The God Delusion is anything to be uh proud of, anything to crow about. It's substandard both philosophically and surprisingly as I said scientifically uh mired as it is in the discarded modern synthesis.

But of course I am thrilled at the way the Lord has used it in the lives of many people to bring them into a relationship with Christ.