A review of "Dawkins' God: genes, memes and the meaning of life " by Alister McGrath

In 2004 Professor Alister McGrath published "Dawkins' God: genes, memes and the meaning of life". Published about 2 years before Richard Dawkins published "The God Delusion", but after the TV series "The root of all evil?", it sets outs some counter arguments to professor Dawkins' firmly and uncompromisingly atheist and materialist views.

In his introductory chapter "Encountering Dawkins", Professor McGrath tells us how his reading of all Professor Dawkins' books made him feel that Professor Dawkins had gradually moved away from "writing about science for a popular audience to waging an all-out attack on Christianity". He goes on to tell us that the real issue for him is how "Dawkins proceeds from a Darwinian theory of evolution to a confident atheistic world view".

Professor McGrath has given us a relatively short book which is quite easy to read. A prior knowledge of Professor Dawkins' writings on "the selfish gene", "memes" and other matters is not really necessary, since the book explains these things as required. In fact chapter one gives us a potted history of evolutionary theories and ideas, including Dawkins' "selfish gene". In the following chapters we then go on to discussions of "The Blind Watchmaker", "Proof and Faith", "The Curious 'Science' of Memetics" and finally "Science and Religion: Dialogue or Intellectual Appeasement?".

These are intriguing chapter titles, and perhaps they raised my expectations too much, because in some ways I was expecting more than I sometimes found.

Professor McGrath does warn us early on in his book (page 13 in my copy) that he feels that Dawkins' writings on religions involve "a pugnacious, no holds barred debate, without having to worry about the stifling conventions of rigorous evidence-based scholarship", and implies that he will respond in kind. Perhaps this is why I felt that within this book there is often an over-reliance on mere rhetoric.

Prior to the main chapters listed above we get an interesting introductory chapter in which Professor McGrath sets out his academic credentials, which are impressive, gives us some biographical details and sets out his reasons for writing this book (after some initial reluctance we are told). He describes how he was an atheist during his early years, but converted to Christianity during his first term at Oxford University. However he does not define what he means by "atheist", and this brings me to a problem which I often find in writings about "God" and "religion".

Professor McGrath uses some important words without, in my view, always defining them adequately in their context, particularly "God", "Religion" and "Atheism". This is an aspect of words of which Professor McGrath is clearly aware, since he notes (P 97) that "As Wittgenstein pointed out, precisely the same word can be used in a large number of contexts, with different meanings in each."

In fact Professor McGrath does briefly draw attention (P 73) to some of the possible meanings of the word "god". I was particularly taken with his statement that Voltaire "set out a strong defence of the existence of a supreme being who was inadequately and falsely represented by the great positive religions of the world".

I found this a good moment in the book since - let me declare my own interest - that is pretty much how I feel (so long as one does not try to anthropomorphise this "supreme being").

But back to "God" and "religion". By and large when he uses these words, we seem to have to assume that Professor McGrath is thinking of the Christian God and the Christian religion, though this is generally not stated explicitly, and often leaves the meaning somewhat vague.

The use of words may be particularly relevant when Professor McGrath says (P 84) that Professor Dawkins has not substantiated his assertion that Faith "means blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence". Are we then talking about Christian faith here? I guess that we are.

In support of his assertion that faith is not just "blind trust", Professor McGrath gives us (P 86) a definition of faith by W. H. Griffith-Thomas1, which he says is "typical of any Christian writer". But what else does he expect Christian writers to say? This appeal to authority is just one example of the use of rhetoric in the book.

I'm not sure that I agree with Professor McGrath when he says that Professor Dawkins does not explain the sort of things in which Christians have blind faith. I think in fact it's pretty obvious what Professor Dawkins means, but just in case here are some of my own:-

1. Much of the content of the Gospels.

2. Jesus was God incarnate (including the later elaboration of the doctrine of the Trinity)

3. Jesus died and was resurrected to save us - whatever that means

The evidence for these is such that one can only accept them on blind trust. Note, I have said nothing about a six day creation, Noah's ark etc., because I imagine that Professor McGrath would quite probably not be one of those who take Genesis quite literally. It's pretty clear though that many fundamentalist Christians do take these literally. This is why we get so much emphasis on Darwin v creationism in educational syllabuses in the US (and increasingly in the UK). Darwin is a major problem to a great many Christians.

Darwin though, is not the ground on which religious debate should be conducted. Professor McGrath does substantiate in this book quite convincingly that Darwinism (or indeed science in general) cannot in itself logically lead to atheism (however defined).

Professor McGrath also puts forward a case that atheism is itself an irrational belief system. However this case is valid only if you define atheism as the rejection of the possibility that anything exists beyond what is shown to us by our senses. If one merely defines atheism as rejecting the rather limited view of God given to us by existing religions such as Christianity, then clearly this atheism is not irrational. As I suggested above, this failure to be clear about the meaning when using words such as "god" or "atheism" allows a lack of precision in the discussion.

I felt that this book did not counter my personal belief that Christianity is also, in its "mystery religion" elements, an irrational belief system. In fact the general tone of the book, if anything, reinforced my view. I thought that, in a way we were almost invited to see Christianity and atheism as opposite sides of the same coin. But surely is there not a middle way; a middle way in which one does not have to accept either that the material world is all that there is, but at the same time does not have to try to squeeze "god" into the strait-jacket of Christian dogma?

In my own view, Christianity does god an injustice by trying to define "him". I believe that if "god" exists then "he" is far from constrainable within any human definition such as the Christian creed.

So really speaking (and using the word "god" (with a small g) in the loosest possible way) that one could say that Professor McGrath has made an excellent case for the possibility of a god, but no case at all for the specifics of Christianity. Professor Dawkins has made an excellent case for the fact that scientific reasoning does not require a god, but no case at all for the possibility that there is no god.

As Professor McGrath points out, Professor Dawkins' views had for some time been short of a specifically Christian published response, and McGrath's academic background well qualifies him to make this response. I think where this debate now rests is about as far as manoeuvres on this particular battle-ground can take it.

Perhaps the real debate now should centre on the extent to which one has to accept the Christian dogma in order to lead a Christian life.



Footnote:

1  "[Faith] "affects the whole of man's nature. It commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate [sic] evidence; it continues in the confidence of the heart or emotions based on conviction, and it is crowned in the consent of the will, by means of which the conviction and confidence are expressed in conduct."  W .H. Griffiths-Thomas, The Principles of Theology. London: Longmans, Green, 1930, xviii."
"[Faith] thus includes "the certainty of evidence" and the "certainty of adherence; it is not blind but intelligent" (xviii-xix)".