Skimming through to the end of the 7th chapter “Is God Personal?” which I read a week or so go, I note I have written in the margin, “but what of the resurrection of Christ?” which indicates an ongoing concern I have with Haught but let me press on and see what nuggets there may be in this chapter.

Haught begins by observing that whilst God is personal is an essential teaching of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (and in the case of Islam he is dead wrong: Allah is not personal), the ruthlessness implied in the theory of evolution has stripped away possible connection between the universe and a caring God. Indeed,

“a God who can answer prayers might interrupt the closed, deterministic continuum of causes and effects that science requires in order to make right predictions.” (p78)

As noted umpteen times, in Dawkins’ version of Darwinian evolution, every reason people had for belief in a loving creator who designed and cares about life in the universe has been swept away. Not only that but in the previous chapter we have seen that for Dawkins that the idea of a personal God is not only intellectually indefensible but morally offensive.

How can you reconcile belief with a personal God with the “randomness, blind selection, struggle, waste, and lethargic unfolding of life on Earth during the last 4 billion years”?

“And if physical laws are to be perfectly steady and free of caprice, then there can be no personal deity that can conceivably act or intervene in the natural world”. (p80)

Haught asks whether a place in intellectual discourse today can be found for a personal God. He says that in order to do this, scientific naturalism needs to be critiqued for it is not science that has dislodged the personality of God from nature, but scientific naturalism.

The first point Haught makes is that since science is methodologically only able to understand an objective, impersonal set of quantifiable properties, this is the only world that can only scientific naturalism knows, ie scientific naturalism ignores the subjective side of nature including our own inner thoughts and experience.

So,

“if everything real or worth talking about is an object accessible to scientific method, then the world of subjects and persons begins to slip out of sight and off the map of reality altogether. If a hammer is your only tool, then everything looks like a nail; if objectification is your only cognitional instrument, then everything looks like an object. The outcome is that the whole idea of “personality” becomes exiled from the realm of what scientific naturalists consider to be real. This banishment includes not only human persons, but also the subjectivity of other sentient beings, and if carried out consistently, the personality of God as well.
….
Once science left the laboratory and became a general habit of mind, the fact of personality gradually became lost to the consciousness of many “experts” altogether. Human organ isms then came to seem like any other set of objects: as vulnerable to engineering, experimentation, and even elimination.” (p83)

The second point Haught makes is that the new atheists think that if biology can explain morality then religion has no place, when everyone knows or should know multiple layers of explanations can exist.

“the new atheists suffer from a bad case of explanatory monism. That is, they assume that there is only one explanatory slot available, namely, the one shaped to look for physical causes, and this is enough. Scientism has shrunk their perspective to the point where it leaves only a narrow slit through which they view the complexity of the real world.” (p86)

Haught’s examines Dawkins in this issue of “explanatory monism”, first noting that Dawkins’ account for life’s complexity basically boils down to

“chance plus blind selection plus deep time—this is all we need.” (p88)

This, says Haught is somewhat akin to a person accounting for a printed page on the basis of a printing press and failing to note that someone having learnt to read and write is attempting to convey a idea on this page, whilst a publisher with alternative purposes may also be involved.

This Haught summarises as follows:

Dawkins’s ideal of explanation begins with an unwarranted decree: There shall be no more than one explanatory slot! Then he tries to force the idea of God to play the role of a hypothesis just like those of science. That way he thinks he can compel theology to compete with and then be defeated by his “simpler” Darwinian explanation. Indeed this completely arbitrary decree of his—let us call it the postulate of explanatory monism—is the fundamental principle behind his uncompromising insistence that God is a hypothesis. It is the fundamental, but false, principle that underlies most of Dawkins’s speculations about faith and God. (p89)

I may be a simple sausage but I find Haught’s analysis and argument deeply compelling – he has placed a skewer through Dawkins’ shallow, single level explanation.

Dawkins may argue that God, if He exists, is an instance of complex design and like any other instance of design, require explanation: we do not need to accept such an inadequate conception of God. To the extent that physical simplicity plus time plus gradual cumulative change could lead to complexity (which frankly I don’t accept to be the case) then we will affirm that God is the ultimate reason that there is any complexity at all.

I find the last chapter, “Christian Theology and the New Atheism” difficult to comment on as Haught and myself and I think the great bulk of participants on this forum come from very different theological traditions.

One of the things that Haught does do is subject the new atheists to a theological assessment. Thus he writes:

“The new atheists’ job description for the ideal deity calls for a Perfection purified not only of the vulgarity of tribal existence but also of contamination by human existence as such. The Christian God does not qualify. Christianity’s intuition is that God is incarnate, that the Creator fully embraces the world in all of its imperfections, even to the point of becoming a child, eating with sinners, and experiencing death on a cross. Christian theology’s advice to readers of those chapters in the Bible where God does not seem quite up to snuff morally is always to interpret everything in the Bible in light of its dominant themes of hope, liberation, incarnation, and God’s self-emptying love. As soon as we let these main motifs out of sight we end up reading passages in literalist isolation, as Dawkins does when he comes up with his portrait of the monster God of the Old Testament.” (p99)

I would say that “Christian intuition” rather short changes our position for orthodox Christianity has always been prepared to defend the incarnation, miracles, death and resurrection not simply as faith statements but as historical, verifiable realities. Having said that I believe Haught is right in his analysis of Dawkins’ reasons for rejecting the personal God of the Bible.

The Biblical record of a God who embroils Himself historical and culturally in the affairs of this world is totally offensive to Dawkins et al, for such a record “violates their implicit standards of moral and religious purity”.

“Both of these moralists may have enjoyed the company of (the Gnostic) Marcion, a heretic denounced by the early Christian church for teaching that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures could not possibly be the God of Jesus Christ.” (p102)

I found some of the material in this chapter such as likening the new atheists to the Puritans, literalists, creationists offensive and frankly unconvincing, though I probably need to read it again and may yet find more pearls to gather and consider further.

However I will allow Haught the last word.

“In their instructions as to how a decent God should act, the new atheists demand that either the world be finished once and for all in the beginning, or else there is no role for God to play at all. A morally acceptable God would get things completely right from day one. The universe would be an unblemished, unchanging reflection of its divine engineer. There would be no growing pains, no death, no terrorists. There would be no theodicy problem either, since there would be no evil to reconcile with the existence of God.
Neither, of course, would there be any life, any freedom, any future, any adventure, any grand cosmic story, any opening to infinite horizons up ahead. Nor would there be the opportunity for each of us to develop character and practice virtue. The problem with the new atheists’ magical ideal of creation … is that creation would have nowhere to go.” (p106)

I have now completed this review of Haught’s “God and the New Atheism”.

One of the things I freely admit is that in trying to give the flavour of the argument in each of the books I have reviewed, including the use of direct quotation, I have failed to clearly articulate in summarised form the main points of the argument.

However I do intend doing this together with my own analysis plus what I think we should be doing apologetically with our own people as well as directly confronting atheists (as the early Church Fathers did with their opponents.

I still have several books to read:
1. Keith Ward’s “is religion dangerous?”
2. David Berlinski’s “The Devil’s Delusion”
3. “the argument against Richard dawkins’ the God Delusion”, a project of the Intelligent Community Initiative
4. plus I want to revisit J Budziszewski’s two excellent books on natural theology.

I think this is a project which will take the rest of the year and in the meantime I have other things I must get on with over the next two weeks. All comments gratefully received. Also, following someone’s suggestion I have registered www.answeringtheatheists.org.au and hope to get that going over the next month or two - I will let you know when. I don’t wish to outlive my welcome on this thread.

David P.,

I don’t understand what you mean by “God is subject not object”.  Would you mind explaining that please?

Janice,

Yes, I understand the point of confusion.

An object is something that is studied by a subject.

So if I am so inclined to make a study of Chrysanthemums which I have over many years the Chrysanthemums are objects and I the subject. A painter is the subject and the painting the object being worked on.

Dawkins and colleagues as subjects make their concoction of a god their object that they examine according to a set of presuppositions (and reject). In this instance however they are wrong for God, the maker of Heaven and Earth is never an object to be examined and discarded but is the subject who examines all he has created. ie in relation to God we are objects and He the subject. We bow before Him, not the other way around.

Cheers

David

I was wondering whether it would be good to have some discussion on what we consider might be the vulnerability of the new atheists.

To kick us off here are some suggestions:

The first one, is relevant to Christians only (may be adherents of other religions would come in on the argument, though as a John 14:6 man I have some difficulty at this point – sorry about that, one of my colleagues says that I am the only man in our General Assembly who does exegesis on what I’m saying as I say it!) and it is simply that Christians generally at most times and in most situations enjoy a rich devotional life whether individually or corporately. In this sense the new atheists are arguing against the reality of our experience and therefore in a sense don’t get past first base.

However I do need to qualify that.

Consequentially to the fact that it is not part of our experience to reach out and touch the hand of God or hear his voice, as we might touch and listen to one another, it follows therefore at various times and places for the Christian to experience some some doubt about God. Doubts have never been a big issue in my experience but for some Christians they are and indeed some seemly secure believers are no longer Christians. So to illustrate, the person who led me as a 15 yr old to Christ, last time I met him was a million miles in his own thinking from Christ, at ease in the world.

This raises in my mind, a second point of vulnerability for Dawkins, et al – they allow for no doubt whatsoever.

If they were really rigorous, really rational, really scientific, then I think (might this be Karl Popper whispering in my ear?) they would need to give consideration to God existing, to the resurrection of Christ, the reality of spirit as well as matter, bound inseparably together (just this point raises the vulnerability of their dualism as Gnostics as an additional point). Essentially, they remain foreigners to the thing they seek to destroy which causes them a) to take gross liberties (especially concerning God, the Bible and the history of Christianity) that fall away under examination (without excusing the actions of Christians at various times and places), b) to ignore the virtues of God, the Bible and Christianity and c) to be aggressively rude, nasty, intolerant, in fact demonstrate the stuff of wars.

A third major vulnerability is Haught’s point – they are soft core, socially compliant atheists who have never plumbed the depths of real hard core atheism, like a Nietzsche, Sartre or Camus. They are spectacularly easy on themselves.

A fourth vulnerability, again as Stove shows so brilliantly (and Lennox in a more pedestrian, though factual way) is that their alternative meta narrative, Darwinian evolution, at least as far as man is concerned (and I would argue a lot further), has holes big enough to drive tractors through and regardless of their deceptions is as much faith based as they allege religion to be.

A fifth vulnerability follows and that is their unconvincing attempt to separate between faith and reason.

And it’s just about time for church.

Any more thoughts?

Atheism seems to have a weakness in that it describes itself in terms of what it doesn’t believe in ie God / gods / theism.

I also wonder how post-modernism connects with the new atheists. The old atheists sought to understand reality in material terms in a modernist framework. The new atheists perhaps don’t seek the truth in the same way as the old, because the popular understanding of reality and truth has changed.

But Derek, that is all atheism is: The Answer to a question -

“Does God exist?”

...

No

There would be no identifiable group as such if the actions of the religious did not impact upon the lives of the rest of us.

Atheism is merely a response:

Not an answer.

David said:

Complementing all of this is their sheer hatred of Christianity, including often thinly veiled hatred of Christians, that I grew up with as exemplified by my own father, who could never fail when observing a religious figure (back in the days when nuns wore habits and parsons clerical collar) to give utterance to blasphemy and anti religious bigotry which I grew to know off by heart (and thank God and according to the sovereign purposes of God rejected by my mid teens).

David,

I commend your honesty and openness; it is always interesting how one’s upbringinging influences our views (as indeed it must) - but just as you would recuse me if I painted all Christians with the same brush - please do not make the same mistake.

I dont hate Christianity, nor God (How could I?) - and I certainly have no animus toward the people here - on the contrary; I have a great affection for many of them ( and that is sincere - whatever you may believe)

I am somewhat bemused by your admiration for Neitzsche, Satre and Camus - to my knowledge, Neitzsche made no comprehensive refutation of Christian doctrine - rather, he simply wrote it off.

There is no evidence of Christ’s resurrection. All there is, is that someone wrote, that someone said, that they saw him.

The strongest part of ‘The Jesus Chronicles’, was the recognition that Christian scholars had altered the words of Josephus to promote their cause.

There are many myths from that period, from all round the world, which are contrary to what we now understand about how the world works.

Perhaps the greatest evidence - is that the vast majority of Jews did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

It’s success is largely due to it’s arising at the height of the most influential empire in history and Paul’s (?) decision to take it to the gentiles, at a time when there were more slaves (removed from there usually localized mythologies) than freemen.

Social Darwinism was used to support slavery? Really? Not Christianity? After all the bible does support slavery.

I’ll finish with an extremely expired equine

David,

There is not, has not; and to my knowledge has never been any ‘crisis’ in Darwinism.

On the contrary, the more we learn, only strengthens the doctrine.

You might find, that even your beloved Denton is now an evolutionist.

I work for a firm which distributes the bulk of research materials to Hospitals, Universities and BioMed Companies around Australia. Everyday I deal with geneticists, microbiologists, and biochemists: on occasion when I’ve mentioned ID, they’ve either been completely unaware or have a comment such as: “Isn’t that one of George Bush’s crazy ideas?”.

Some academics view it as a threat, because it is being heavily peddled by the ignorant to the young and gullible.

The point is you need to believe that evolution is false - otherwise the basis of your faith would collapse.

I dont need to not believe in God.

It’s simply that a contrary view

does not make sense.

Rob

PS. You didn’t answer my question about Christians who accept evolution: Are they misguided, deluded, or just plain wrong?

Hi Rob
I appreciate your comments and the gracious way you make them.

I’m wondering what you meant here:

Perhaps the greatest evidence - is that the vast majority of Jews did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

I’m assuming you mean the greatest proof that the resurrection did not happen, or that Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah.

But most people are religious, in one way or another. Most people are also not atheists.

Wouldn’t this, according to your logic above, be proof that atheism is not true?

Hi Rob
Your point that atheism is a response is fair enough. And your comment that it is not an answer - presumably to the deep questions of life - shows its limitations. Does it seem reasonable then that people wanting answers will not be satisfied if they look to atheism to answer the questions of meaning that they have?

The point is you need to believe that evolution is false - otherwise the basis of your faith would collapse.

I am sure that the reverse can be argued as well of course - that atheists need evolution to be true, in an attempt to make their world-view coherent.

So Rob what do you find appealing about being an atheist if as you said it is not the “answer”. Is it that you see no better alternative? I also note you like coming back to this forum, so there must be something attractive you find here.

rgds

deleted due to double post

David McKay,

Thank you,

I am always reticent in making honest replys on threads such as this, because whilst I may wish to challenge many of the assumptions - I am always somewhat reluctant…

And Derek: Havent you worked it out yet?

I like you guys (However misguided you may be ;-) )

I’m primarily concerned that the ‘Davids’ seem to be taking over - even more so than the ‘Craigs’ (I blame Dave L)

David M,

For most of civilization, people have excepted that the Universe orbited the Earth; and that the movement of the stars determine our future (and still do *#!?).

Imagine if three days after disappearing, Harold Holt had walked out of the surf:

How could the vast majority of Jews not believed ?

Derek: I have no answers.

Except that personally, the meaning of our lives is in how we live them.

And from where I stand,

Yours is pretty darn good.

Rob

Dear Rob,

Nice to hear from you.

I must be brief, off early to spend some time with my parents in Sydney.

I work for a firm which distributes the bulk of research materials to Hospitals, Universities and BioMed Companies around Australia. Everyday I deal with geneticists, microbiologists, and biochemists: on occasion when I’ve mentioned ID, they’ve either been completely unaware or have a comment such as: “Isn’t that one of George Bush’s crazy ideas?”.

I think this statement kind of says it all. The reason these people who of all people should be pro evolution and outraged by creationists/ID, etc are ignorant of the controversy is because evolution is of no practical value in their work.

There is not, has not; and to my knowledge has never been any ‘crisis’ in Darwinism.

Perhaps you need to broaden your reading. Start with Lennox who I recommended to you some time ago and then read Stove.

(I note that you say that Denton is now an evolutionist. It is 20 yrs since I read “Evolution: a Theory in Crisis” - my memory was that he was an evolutionist who had discovered big holes in the theory and argued for the inclusion of some design element but was careful to exclude any notion of God, not being a Christian. The book you refer us to I haven’t read, so cannot comment, I believe it was published 10 years ago and I have found no reference to it either from the evolutionist or non evolutionist side????)

PS. You didn’t answer my question about Christians who accept evolution: Are they misguided, deluded, or just plain wrong?

It’s a bit more nuanced than that isn’t it? I have previously described myself as an undogmatic old earth creationist who allows a place for evolution at least at the micro level. Some may choose on the basis of their own investigations to include rather more under the umbrella of evolution. What remains true is that if we are Christian, whatever our view might be on evolution, we affirm all that was, is, and ever shall be, is from the hand of the personal, loving God, “maker of heaven and earth”.

Got to go, however.....

I dont hate Christianity, nor God (How could I?) - and I certainly have no animus toward the people here - on the contrary; I have a great affection for many of them ( and that is sincere - whatever you may believe)

I believe you, but that does call into question your atheism, at least as far as Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens are concerned!

There is no evidence of Christ’s resurrection. All there is, is that someone wrote, that someone said, that they saw him.

The strongest part of ‘The Jesus Chronicles’, was the recognition that Christian scholars had altered the words of Josephus to promote their cause.

With the greatest of respect, wrt to Jesus’ resurrection, this is not good enough. If we applied this kind of logic, we would be unable to believe most of ancient history, and might in fact believe we popped out of the ground like mushrooms. May I suggest you buy yourself a copy of The Christ Files - a DVD put out by Sydney Anglicans addressing questions like these. To me you appear willing to make assertions without demonstrating the necessary research that entitles you to make the assertions that you do. For example on The Christ Files, the presenter, John Dickson addresses your reference to “The Jesus Chronicles”.

After all the bible does support slavery.

Thanks Rob, this is a wonderful truth. The more I understand Biblical OT slavery, the more wonderful it seems to me. It’s far better for all than our current penal system. Slavery, or serfdom to use an unloaded word, was a social welfare system with very high rights for the slaves, and if they were ever abused, the whole system was voluntary so they could leave.

David P.,

I’m glad to know that you have your priorities straight - I trust your parents are well and that you may have the opportunity to catch up with some of the local members (Sydney’s a great place to visit… but we all know which is the most liveable city!)

Danni, Danni, Danni,

I trust you’re competent in all the domestic chores? I can provide you with half a bowl of gruel,

a day.

Rob

PS: David, with regard to last Sunday: You just didnt pray for Johnno hard enough!