Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 06:1 (May 2007)
Article: A Note From Our Editor: The Irrationality Of Richard Dawkins
Author: Anonymous

A Note From Our Editor: The Irrationality Of Richard Dawkins

We are now in France, but in order not to lose our English connections we have managed to obtain by satellite the five main channels of U.K. television—and this without my wife’s having to stand on the roof of our house with the TV antenna in her upraised hand.

Is this additional programming necessarily an advantage? We are not sure after seeing evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins ‘two programmes (early January, Channel 4), titled, “The Root of All Evil?” That root, needless to say, is for Dawkins not the love of money, but religion in general, and more particularly orthodox Christianity.

To be sure, Dawkins has received lengthy critiques of his dogmatic unbelief, e.g., Alister McGrath’s Dawkins’ God (2004). But such criticism really takes Dawkins too seriously. What we wish to do here is to provide, in a few paragraphs, reasons to regard Dawkins’ dismissal of historic Christianity as on the same embarrassing plane as Bertrand Russell’s simpleminded essay, “Why I Am Not a Christian.”

Dawkins’ central point is that religion involves faith, and faith by nature is opposed to evidence. In a letter he wrote to his ten-year-old daughter (“Good and Bad Reasons for Believing’), Dawkins writes: “Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, . . . belief that Jesus never had a human father, . . . –not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence. . . .Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: ‘Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority, or revelation?’”

Clearly, Dawkins has never encountered the classic theological formulation that fides (“public profession of faith”) and fiducia (“personal, saving commitment”) must always be grounded in notitia (“factual knowledge/evidence”). Has he never heard of, much less read, the classical apologists (e.g., Pascal, Grotius, J. H. Newman ) or contemporary defenders of the faith ( C. S. Lewis , et al.)?

The first point, then, in evaluating Dawkins’ abysmal failure to criticise biblical Christianity rationally is his out-of-hand dismissal of the evidence for the facticity of the historical claims presented in the Christian Scriptures. One cannot rationally dismiss a given revelation-claim as non-evidential when one has a priori and by fiat refused to investigate the evidence offered for it! Here we are presented with invincible ignorance—nothing more, nothing less.

Secondly, we meet Dawkins’ claim, as expressed in the title of his article in the London Times ( 21 May 2005 ), “Creationism: God’s Gift to the Ignorant”—subtitled, “Ric...