ABSTRACT
Alister McGrath, a professor of historical theology at Oxford University, published The Dawkins DELUSION? in 2007 with his wife Joanna C. McGrath, a lecturer on psychology and spirituality at Ripon College. Alister McGrath is one of those psychological and sociological curiosities who traded atheism for Christianity. He now views Dawkins’ atheism as a fundamentalist ideology. Having himself earned a PhD in molecular biophysics, he inhabits the “same” scientific world as Dawkins. How, he wonders, could the two have come to such different conclusions about God? The McGraths describe Dawkins’ The God Delusion (2006) as “often little more than an aggregation of convenient factoids suitably overstated to achieve maximum impact and loosely arranged to suggest that they constitute an argument.” In fact, Dawkins has antagonized atheists and theists alike. In this case, the McGraths correctly identify some of the flaws in Dawkins’ approach but they offer standard theist rejoinders that are hopelessly divorced from the best forms of reason and evidence. We can take “faith” as a good example of a key point of contention between Dawkins and the McGraths.
