Dawkins' God

Alister McGrath is the professor of science and religion at Oxford, author of more than 20 books and trained both as a theologian and biophysicist. This is probably the most intelligent, comprehensive and articulate book addressing the extensive writings of Richard Dawkins on God and atheism. The author expresses his admiration for Dawkins as a scientific populariser, but also his dismay as he gradually evolves into crusading atheist fighting the straw man of blind faith as he defines it. McGrath's knowledge of Darwinism and theology is exceptionally thorough, so he is able to describe the rise of Darwinism as a scientific theory and the selfish gene view introduced by Dawkins in 1976. Then chapters on faith in relation to evidence, proof and rationality in both science and religion, the blind watchmaker and the question of design, Dawkins' use of the meme cultural Darwinism, and finally a critical analysis of his book The God Delusion. He shows that Dawkins has caricatured faith in a way unrecognisable to sophisticated theologians, that science itself has limits and that it does not necessarily lead inexorably to atheism or even agnosticism. The inventor of this term, TH Huxley, insisted that 'the God question could not be settled on the basis of the scientific method', hence his anti-dogmatic position. Anyone wishing seriously to engage with the new atheism should read this very thorough book.