BYU Studies on The God Delusion

The latest BYU Studies (Vol. 47 No. 1) contains a review of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. The article is "The God Delusion: Selling the Soul of Science for a Pot of Message," by Steven C. Walker.

Let's start with my favorite part of the review.

I do not suppose Dawkins could ever agree that I have seen what I have seen, even though I am perfectly willing to agree he has not seen what he has not. Even as agenda-driven a thinker as this deliberately blindered scientist might be, I would hope he might agree that negative evidence can be less persuasive than positive evidence. Even a scientist might admit, were he willing to think about it beyond his usual dismissive range, that the experience of a person who claims to have experience with another Person does more to establish the existence of that Person than the lack of experience of another person does to deny it.

It does seem that some critics of religion don't have the capacity to even imagine why intelligent people believe in God. For many that belief is ultimately rooted in some kind of religious experience that is in turn rooted deep in the heart, and I think it is unfair and unrealistic to expect such people to betray that experience based on a few arguments, however compelling they may seem. After all, we don't know what we don't know.

Having said that, overall I am not wild about this review for several reasons.

1. There is much lamenting about how little Dawkins knows about theology. However, what bearing theology has on the issue or how it refutes Dawkins is not made clear. It seems to me that the best theology can do for you is to put a particular belief into a context of surrounding beliefs that make it seem more reasonable and respectable. You may be able to paint a pretty picture with theology, but that does nothing to establish whether such beliefs are grounded in reality. You may explain to Dawkins all the theological reasons for the death and resurrection of Jesus, but that does nothing to establish his existence or the many miraculous things attributed to him.

2. I don't think that Walker is entirely fair with his quotations of Dawkins. Having returned the book to the library, I can't thoroughly check the quotes, but let's take one example that I dug up. Walker wrote:

When we hint that it appears to us sometimes that scientists could be the worst group in the world to look to for ethical, let alone moral, insight, he assures us that sufficiently moral for his purposes, purpose enough for his life, is—I kid you not—“a good lunch” (100).

Now here is the passage from The God Delusion:

In my interview with [James] Watson at Clare, I conscientiously put it to him that, unlike him and Crick, some people see no conflict between science and religion, because they claim science is about how things work and religion is about what it is all for. Watson retorted: 'Well I don't think we're for anything. We're just products of evolution. You can say, "Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose." But I'm anticipating having a good lunch.' We did have a good lunch, too.

So first of all it's James Watson, not Dawkins, who made the comment about lunch. But more to the point, isn't it obvious that Watson is saying--in a dry understated way--that life has the quality you give it? I don't see any pronouncements on ethics or morality here, and I don't take either of them to be as shallow as Walker implies.

3. Walker seems almost to approach postmodernism in his criticism of science. Science, you see, is based on human observation and interpretation and is fallible. Therefore, it should not necessarily be privileged over other ways of seeing the world.

...though there are better and worse ways of thinking, there is no infallible way of thinking—even if it thinks itself divinely sanctioned, and even, heaven help us, if it thinks itself scientifically self-evident. Most ways of thinking—whether scientific or religious, idealistic or pragmatic, legal or logical, psychological or philosophical, mathematical or metaphorical, hyperbolic or hallucinogenic or however otherwise demented—have weaknesses as well as strengths, with limitations that allow concentration in particular areas.

Alright, but if we are trying to understand how the universe works, isn't science the best way of thinking?

Science is superbly focused on the world of physical fact. That need not be a problem unless a scientist somehow convinces himself physical fact is all there is. The crippling limitation of materialistic focus is manifest in how many scientists have persuaded themselves that the world of physical fact is the total extent of reality.

I'm not arguing for strict scientism, and I'm not trying to carry Dawkins's water for him, but what does that mean and where does it take us? And this may be a matter of semantics, but if there is no such thing as immaterial matter, and all spirit is matter, where does the domain of science actually end?

I think that Walker's main point is something like the following: "I have experienced God in a way that validates my commitment to my religion and its sacred texts and teachings. One of those teachings is that life is a test, and as part of that test, God has purposefully removed himself from our scientific inquiry." I can accept such a statement and still agree with Dawkins that the existence of God is a scientific question in principle, though perhaps not in practice.

Coincidentally or not, Walker's review is very similar to evolutionary biologist Allen Orr's review in the Feb 2007 New York Review of Books, which resulted in some back-and-forth with Daniel Dennett (the page is laid out in reverse chronological order).

So now The God Delusion has been reviewed in BYU Studies and The FARMS Review. Do you think they are effective reviews? I am particularly interested to hear from people who have read the book, though others are welcome too.

---