Risto

Recently, Big Ideas presented a lecture by Christian theologian Alister McGrath, entitled "Deluded about God? Responding to Richard Dawkins' God Delusion".

McGrath is an atheist turned apologist. In this lecture he sets out to rebuke the logical foundations of Dawkins' atheist argumentation, as put forth in The God Delusion. McGrath's predominant character during this lecture was one of respect, whether presenting theist or atheist viewpoints, an admirable trait that McGrath shares in common with Dawkins. As Dawkins himself has noted, I don't think the adversarial format is well designed to get at the truth ¹ - although there is much debate over Dawkins polite dialectical theory and his fiery dialectical practice. At any rate, Dawkins and McGrath are gentlemen when speaking with each other in person.

At times McGrath's lecture was incisive, however the more penetrating observations that he presented were often the result of deliberations that were not his own. McGrath's goal was the systematic deconstruction of Dawkins' logic, though McGrath's own arguments during this lecture positioned him as a sophist, not a scholar. McGrath's mistakes are not minor and there are no simple fixes for the illogical equivalencies and conclusions that he draws, the problems with McGrath's arguments lie in their foundations.

McGrath's opening comments set a tone of ambiguity, as he states:

atheism and theism are both faiths; neither can prove their case with total certainty

This comment is not sufficiently expanded upon, and thus remains inconsequential; this is rhetoric veiled as philosophy, a reduction inspired by idealist epistemology that serves no purpose, left to circle the philosophical entrypoint: Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it? ². Doubt alone does not provide meaningful insight or direction, and McGrath's subsequent statements lack progress, as he attempts to portray the scientific method as unjustifiable conjecture:

If the sciences are inferential in their methodology, how can Dawkins present atheism as the certain outcome of the scientific project? Now the point I'm making here simply is this: over the years science has changed its mind on a number of things. For example, the transition from classical to Einsteinian physics, is a very good example of this. What happens is that new theories begin to emerge, which certainly take up what was known in the past, but very often take it in new and unexpected directions. And you may know Micheal Polanyi, the very famous Hungarian chemist who became a philosopher who wrote a book called Personal Knowledge, and in his book he simply made this point: scientists believe many theories to be true, but they know that some of them will be shown to be wrong, the difficulty is they don't know which ones those are. So you see there's a real issue here, the provisionality, the tentativeness of scientific knowledge: this may be the way it seems today, but in years to come people may change their minds. Now Dawkins knows this ... how can Dawkins base his atheism on the tentative present state of science?

One wonders how life might proceed in a McGrathian environment when a child begins to question belief in the existence of Santa Claus; would it be possible to go forth and lead a life of observation, investigation, and mental evolution? Or is the only option to live in an enclosure of mental protectionism, forever holding certain 'untouchable' beliefs as true, maintaining ideas in the same form as they first occur, obtaining answers only by working backwards from the conclusion. For a response, I turn to a logical construct from Dawkins:

Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence. It really is a very different matter. Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence. When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn't happen with holy books. ³

McGrath continues, characterizing scientific progress as nothing more than speculation and defending the written word of the Bible as indisputable divine revelation. For a trenchant criticism of divine revelation I will turn to a remark from textual analyst Bart D. Ehrman: in his book "Misquoting Jesus", Ehrman divinely reveals the essence of divine revelation thus:

Texts do not simply reveal their own meaning to honest inquirers. Texts are interpreted, and they are interpreted (just as they were written) by living, breathing human beings, who can make sense of the texts only by explaining them in light of their other knowledge, explicating their meaning ⁴

Turning our attention back to McGrath and his target: there is a marked difference between Dawkins linear ratiocination and McGrath's comments, which begin to approximate FUD. I do not believe that McGrath knowingly or maliciously disseminates FUD, as he appears to believe that his positions are rational. FUD simply happens to best describe the scheme he is operating under during this lecture. Perhaps McGrath's particular brand of FUD might be best described as I-didnt-know-it-was-FUD.

Moving next to the questions of genesis and the meaning of life, McGrath examines the following statement from Bertrand Russell:

While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know. ⁵

McGrath responds:

There's all the difference in the world between saying "science cannot answer this question therefore there is no answer" and saying "science cannot answer this question therefore we look for an answer somewhere else".

Russell's statement has not simply implied that "there is no answer". Ethics are a sociological phenomenon, and not a universal force, such as gravity. As such, specific values vary with the society being studied, and accordingly they do not adhere to a single, incontrovertible universal ruleset that can be discovered by natural science or revealed by religious interpretation. I won't attempt to deduce the full set of Russell's intensions, however, one interesting idea that arises from the latter half of Russell's statement is that there may exist phenomena that human senses are restricted from perceiving, let alone formulating abstract conceptions of. It is theological vanity to presume that all beliefs, principles, and phenomena are predetermined, and are accessible to humans via Biblical analysis. This fatuous reasoning is a considerable misstep for McGrath, and he repeats the mistake when attempting to invalidate psychological explanations for atheism. McGrath summarizes the psychological diagnosis of atheism as follows:

• basic idea is that belief in god is a "projection" of human longings

• there is no god - so we invent one

• later developed by Freud into the idea of god as a "wish-fulfillment"

McGrath then replies to these points, stating:

It's a very influential argument, but of course there are some difficulties. Let us reflect on this; let's agree that nobody would say that just because we want something to be true, it is true. I mean we might all wish that there were a pile of fifty dollar bills here to my side and you can wish as hard as you like but I don't think it's going to happen. No.

Here McGrath pauses for effect, glancing at the floor in search of phantom riches, and then adopts a knowing smirk when they do not appear, as though he's delivered the single most devastating argument of all time. Continuing:

But here's my question to you, just because we do wish something to be true, does that mean that it's not true? Things don't exist because we want them to - but it is nonsense to say that because we want something to exist, it cannot exist for that reason!

Freud's theories postulate that mankind's belief in God is a result of basic and feral components of human consciousness. However, rather than addressing Freud's theories, what McGrath has done is to rephrase Freud's ideas in a nonsensical manner, and then attack his own weak reconstruction. Once again, McGrath is countering an argument that was never made, and has entirely missed the mark of the statements being examined. This speaks nothing of atheism, and serves only to further reveal McGrath's I-didnt-know-it-was-FUD based framework. McGrath continues to argue from inaccuracy, as he miscalculates the meaning of Dawkins' phrase "virus of the mind":

Belief in God is a virus of the mind. What does Dawkins mean by this? Basically the argument is that people believe in God not because there is a God to believe in, or because they have thought this through rationally and discovered that there is a compelling evidence for belief in God. But rather in some way you have picked this idea up from other people or from the culture and therefore there is almost an epidemiological reason for belief in God. It's something you've picked up in the same way you might pick up a flu virus or something even worse. Real viruses can be seen - for example, using cryo-electron microscopy. Dawkins' cultural or religious viruses are simply hypotheses. There is no observational evidence for their existence.

The main problem is simply this: where is the science that actually gives us any reason to think this might be true. If belief in God is in some way caused by an alleged virus of the mind, well, where is the evidence for that. After all if we look for example at how flu or other viruses are transmitted you can establish their genetic makeup, their mode of transmission, there are all sorts of things you can do to clarify precisely how this works. But the major problem here is that these viruses of the mind - these so called viruses of the mind - remain remarkably elusive.

Dawkins holds that belief in God is a virus of the mind. But there are many other beliefs that cannot be proven, including atheism. Dawkins ends up making the totally subjective, unscientific, argument that his own beliefs are not "viruses", but those he dislikes are.

Let's take a look at Dawkins own words:

I made the comparison between falling in love and religion in 1993, when I noted that the symptoms of an individual infected by religion 'may be startlingly reminiscent of those more ordinarily associated with sexual love. This is an extremely potent force in the brain, and it is not surprising that some viruses have evolved to exploit it' ('viruses' here is a metaphor for religions: my article was called 'Viruses of the mind'). ⁶

Dawkins has used the phrase 'virus' as an analogy, in order to increase the accessibility of his argument - it's interesting to note that the dictionary lists one of the definitions of the word virus as 'a corrupting influence on morals or the intellect' - however McGrath has confused this as a literal term describing a molecular organism, as displayed by his reference to microscopy. Again, McGrath argues against his own misreadings, and not against the statements of Dawkins. (NB: McGrath may have been referring to some of Dawkins other writings and ideas, for example the sections 'Psychologically Primed For Religion' or 'Tread Softly, Because You Tread On My Memes' as found in the God Delusion, however McGrath's use of the phrase 'virus of the mind' points rather directly to Dawkins article 'Viruses of the mind')

In closing, McGrath questions the purpose behind the release of The God Delusion, and asks:

Who is this book written for? I think it might be written for atheists who are alarmed at the persistence of religion when it ought to have died out years ago, according to those great secular prophecies of the 1960s. It hasn't. That in itself is a credibility issue for atheism. I think the God Delusion is best seen as a late attempt to re-establish the legitimacy of atheism primarily for atheists who are wondering will they have made a mistake.

The fact that religion has not disappeared is a credibility issue for atheism? The same meaningless reasoning dictates that the fact that atheism has not disappeared is a credibility issue for religion. The only possible gain he may have made from delivering this sentence is to connect atheism with lack of credibility in the mind of an uncritical listener. Here, as elsewhere, McGrath has ignored (hidden?) the facts; the preface to the God Delusion openly states Dawkins' purpose:

I suspect - well, I am sure - that there are lots of people out there who have been brought up in some religion or other, are unhappy in it, don't believe in it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents' religion and wish they could, but just don't realize that leaving is an option. If you are one of them, this book is for you. It is intended to raise consciousness - raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled. ⁷

McGrath borders on arrogance when questioning and ridiculing the readership of The God Delusion: it is of exceptional importance that education is expansive, including ideas from all disciplines, and not limited to - or by - any single mode of thought. It is just as important to know what you do not think as it is to know what you do think, and to understand the reasons for both. You can't really understand what you think until you understand why a rational person might think differently. ⁸ When researching a topic, do not make the mistake of thinking that you waste time reading sources that turn out to be irrelevant. In fact, when you read ... more than you use, you build up a base of knowledge crucial to the exercise of good thinking. Good thinking is a skill that you can learn, but you can exercise it only when you have a deep and wide base of facts, data, and knowledge to work on. So read sources not just to answer the question you ask today, but to help you think better about every question you'll ask for the rest of your ... career. To that end, everything you read is relevant ⁹. In addition, when examining this final statement of McGrath's, I am loathe to point out that there almost certainly does not exist a group of atheists, significant enough in size to warrant the mass publication of books targeted solely at them, whose primary motivations lie in the incredible hope that religion would fade from earth in the span of a few decades. Once again, a vague, I-didnt-know-it-was-FUD encrusted, unsubstantiated insinuation. Note that all statements above, from both McGrath and Dawkins, are premeditated and highly edited, neither is speaking off the cuff, a fact which proves damaging to McGrath's credibility in light of his untenable logistics.

At this point I'm unsure how to classify McGrath: faith based preacher, FUD based politician, or some mixture of the two. He certainly appears to be sincere in his delivery, and must be awarded points for diplomacy. The devout character of his rationale leaves me inclined to place him in the faith based preacher category. For the moment I'll recommend that if your interested in apologetics then you can be secure in the knowledge that time devoted to the works of C.S. Lewis is time well spent.