Product Description

World-renowned scientist Richard Dawkins writes in The God Delusion: ?If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.? The volume has received wide coverage, fuelled much passionate debate and caused not a little confusion. Alister McGrath is ideally placed to evaluate Dawkins? ideas. Once an atheist himself, he gained a doctorate in molecular biophysics before going on to become a leading Christian theologian. He wonders how two people, who have reflected at length on substantially the same world, could possibly have come to such different conclusions about God. McGrath subjects Dawkins? critique of faith to rigorous scrutiny. His exhilarating, meticulously argued response deals with questions such as: Is faith intellectual nonsense? Are science and religion locked in a battle to the death? Can the roots of Christianity be explained away scientifically? Is Christianity simply a force for evil? This book will be warmly received by those looking for a reliable assessment of The God Delusion and the many questions it raises ? including, above all, the relevance of faith and the quest for meaning.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16624 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Review
. . . a fine, dense, yet very clear account, from [McGrath's] particular Christian perspective, of the full case against Dawkins. --New Scientist (Bryan Appleyard)

Publishing News
"God" answers back...SPCK to rush out Dawkins rebuke...a clever piece of
opportunistic publishing...

Publishers Weekly
'The McGraths expeditiously plow into the flank of Dawkins's
fundamentalist atheism . . . and run him from the battlefield.'

Customer Reviews

Pretty Polarising: Atheist Or Believer, This Book Won't Change Your Stance
So, having really enjoyed the celebrated work to which this book is a counter, I thought I'd give Dawkins's nemesis's book a try. After all, it's easy to choose to listen to someone who's arguing from your side; the challenge is to hear the counter arguments respectfully.

I'll give the professor his due; he has a measured approach that makes him far more charming a narrator than is Dawkins. The latter tends to go for the jugular, and I can envision him red-faced, pounding his keyboard at times.

Professor McGrath wisely lets Dawkins hang himself at times; when Dawkins is silly enough to use absolutes ("all religion is evil"), attention is drawn to it.

Nonetheless, writing a rebuttal to this book should also prove easy. After all, whilst it's true that Dawkins deliberately extracted bad bits of the Bible, it's still the case that they are in it, irrespective of whether there heppen to be good bits too.

Likewise, one of the most striking pages of Dawkins's work describes the god that is mentioned in the Old Testament using very negative adjectives based on accounts contained therein. McGrath's answer to that is "I don't believe in a god like that." That may be the case, but it doesn't change the fact that the stories that Dawkins read to come up with such a description are there, and so the professor's rebuttal is not effective.

I don't know. It's hard not to automatically side with the person who espouses one's own opinion, of course, in which case I'd be with Dawkins. But when all is said and done, this is not a cut-and-dried debate, and there is much that is worthwhile in the riposte. I would say, though, that Dawkins didn't totally undermine the case for a god; he undermined the case for organised religion. In a similar vein, professor McGrath's book is more a defence for the religious that Dawkins attacked with such zeal, rather than a matter of making "God" much more a viable concept for me.

This is only a short book. I'm not sure that I'd recommend it, just because there's nothing to it. Anyone that reads Dawkins's work can see that he's aggressive. Reasonable people are well aware that there are fanatical atheists that are just as zealous as their believing equivalents; we don't need to buy a book to realise this.

I'm glad that I bought this book just because I like to practice what I preach, about listening to both sides of the argument. It didn't dissuade me from my own stance at all, but I'm sure for those who share the author's opinions and beliefs, it will come as a welcome defence to Dawkins's affront.

Good Rough Draft of Ideas - where's the rest of the book?
To Alistar McGrath's credit he got me thinking a bit about some counter-arguments to Richard Dawkin's book 'The God Delusion'. He is a very good intellectual writer and puts forth a few good ideas such as - some beliefs may not be proven but justifiable (especially considering that half the world believe in some God), the relevance of a world view, and how evolution is not regarded as being incompatible with religious beliefs. He also tries to provide a balance to some of Dawkins very strong views about the role in which religion plays in our every day lives and how it impacts society. Unfortunately, he never follows through and hence leaves the reader wanting. He does make it clear up front that he did not want to write a detailed book that counters against every anti-religion point that Dawkins makes in TGD but that is precisely what I was hoping he would do (perhaps not with a 400 page book, but with something a bit more than a short high level essay). Like it or hate it, 'The God Delusion' puts forth some very powerful arguments against religion and the perceived irrational thinking that accompanies it. Dawkins does not don kid gloves and attacks religion very aggressively in his book - which was his intention. He was not looking to publish a politically correct book. Hence a strong rebuttal would have been appropriate and potentially very interesting - especially from somebody of McGrath's intellectual caliber. I am an atheist but continue on my quest for answers and I have a good appreciation for rational counter-argument. This was McGrath's opportunity to put forth some solid rebuttals but it doesn't happen. He stops well short of a full rebuttal to almost all of the issues raised by Dawkins so he lost his opportunity to persuade otherwise - which I assume was the reason for publishing the Dawkins Delusion in the first place. In short - had potential but fails to deliver.

Lamentable
This book is far too short to give any serious treatment of the issues it attempts to discuss. It does highlight some ways that Dawkins is misleading or confused (as the Christianity that emerges from Dawkins' writing is rather idiosyncratic), but it altogether lacks depth. He even attempts to turn Dawkins' argument on its head by suggesting that it is Dawkins himself who is deluded. This is not very useful reasoning, and too corrosive (maybe we are all deluded over our beliefs...) It is sad I think that McGrath has got tangled in this debate. It comes accross as petty; and McGrath has for a long time been a very useful and respected theological educator. The book seems to have been written in a hurry. The most eloquent lines in the book are the bits where McGrath cites Dawkins' own work. For those concerned with these issues there are better places to go; Keith Ward springs to mind.