Dear Sir,
At the end of September I attended a Faraday Institute lecture given by Alister McGrath, entitled ‘Darwin, Dawkins and the Divine: Why is Biology at the Heart of the New Atheism?’ This lecture (open to the public) aroused great expectations in myself and no doubt other attending Christians. It would be fair to say that the title and sub-title suggested at the very least some sort of spirited defence of religion and, by extension, Christianity. Alister McGrath, a highly respected scientist turned Christian, has written over the years a plethora of helpful and timely Christian books defending and intelligently examining the faith in the light of various issues, particularly those belligerently raised by the neo-Darwinist, Richard Dawkins.
However, there was (in my opinion) a clear failure to address the lecture mandate in terms of its tri-partite main title. That is, Darwin and Dawkins were constantly referred to, but the ‘Divine’ was never seriously addressed. McGrath began by making the obvious point that the assumption of a warfare between science and religion is unhelpful. The relationship between science and religion is far more complicated.
He flagged up five popular cultural assertions. Firstly, that: Evolution destroys any argument from design. McGrath felt that Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker) rightly demolished William Paley’s design arguments (e.g. Natural Theology, 1802). McGrath left the question of design open as an option, suggesting that Paley’s failure in this regard was an overly rationalist approach.
Secondly, he suggested that another prevailing assumption is: Evolution eliminates any notion of purpose. This view is boosted by Dawkins’s contention that the universe is blind, pitiless and indifferent. McGrath noted that Thomas Huxley did not believe Darwinism ruled out the notion of teleology. McGrath added that later modern views suggest chemical elements could have developmental properties and teleology might even be wired into biology. third The popular assumption is that: Darwinism entails an atheist worldview. This view again is boosted by Dawkins’s espousal of ‘universal Darwinism’ which supposedly explains all natural processes. McGrath felt that Darwin should not himself be blamed for being used as a worldview theory. Again, hoisting up Darwinism as a worldview can, in McGrath’s (correct) opinion, only continue to promote hostility between science and religion. fourth The point McGrath indicated seemed to me merely an unnecessary extension of his third point, namely the popular assumption: that Darwin was an atheist hero. Clearly, Dawkins and his ilk see Darwin in this way. McGrath suggested that Darwin was in fact an agnostic or Deist rather than an atheist. However this may be, Darwin admitted, as a divinity student, that he had never experienced the Holy Spirit. Further, he also once admitted in a letter that he could not understand why the Creator had chosen such a harsh, clumsy way (natural selection of the fittest) to order the natural world.
The final assumption McGrath considered was: ‘Biology like any science only believes that which can be proved (unlike religion!). McGrath agrees that science does force us to engage with evidence. However, as he points out, there are multiple interpretations that can be applied to the evidence available. Science does have rival views. We should expect science itself to be fluid, as its theories and ideas will be overturned in the future.
As can be seen, there was in this lecture little specific reference to Christianity. At no point did McGrath engage in any real explanation of why the New Atheist biology is or might be wrong. For Christians there was little to take home from this lecture. Even the question time was dominated by science; religion or Christianity was not mentioned. It would appear that McGrath was intent upon steering a careful avoidance course in terms of religion. The nearest McGrath actually got to anything beyond scientific talk in this lecture was use of the word ‘teleology’ (as previously noted). But this was never expanded into any Christian basis.
I feel that McGrath was being over-conciliatory to the many science-based, media personnel who were gathered at this lecture. But worse, Christians may well have thought they were attending a Richard Dawkins appreciation society!
Yours sincerely,
