A few weeks ago I found myself on a TV Sunday morning programme where Richard Dawkins was a fellow panel member. He probably won’t thank me for saying so, but I found myself more often agreeing with his responses than with some of the wilder Christian members of the audience, not least over the casting out of supposed demons from children. I was reminded of the new King William of Orange’s answer to the person asking for the traditional sovereign’s healing on Maundy Thursday, “May God give you better health and more sense.”
But the strange fact is, that it’s often writers like Dawkins and Philip Pullman who would regard themselves as atheist who touch on some of the most profound and basic religious questions. In Dawkins’s case the necessity or otherwise of a divine creator of a wondrous and awesome universe; in Pullman’s case the tension between human free-will and social control or the interface of parallel universes.
I don’t think Richard Dawkins asks questions with any great theological sophistication. Not because he is an atheist but because he is purposefully theologically ignorant.
Terry Eagleton, who as far as I know is still an atheist, has it better than Bishop Butler, in his [url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html]review[/url] of the God Delusion.
[blockquote]Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.[/blockquote]
This is abysmal from one who claims the name of a Christian bishop. Little wonder he has tried to drive evangelicals out of the diocese of London if he imagines that ‘all shall be well’ for atheists and believers alike. On what grounds does he say this? Would he aver the same for Robert Mugabe or Saddam Hussein? Why bother believing and obeying?
Like an artesian well — deep subject for such a shallow mind as Butler’s.
I’ve met Tom Butler a few times – not recently – in the dealings I had with him I always respected him. He is a straight talker and straight dealer. Southwark is an historically very liberal diocese. Bishop Butler always struck me as a broad church liberal catholic and I would guess amongst the “progressive” bishops in the COE. If anything, it is the issues he has had to face as Bishop of Southwark (the diocese of Giles Fraser, Richard Coekin, and one time diocese of Jeffrey John) that have impelled him to define a more publically progressive stance.
Though I understand the impulse – the broad church desire to win the approval of the “secular” commonweal has, I think, proved largely fruitless over the last century or so. Thus, Richard Dawkins may now personally respect Bishop Butler (as did does the former Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries) but his ignorant diatribes against christians will doubtless continue. Bishop Butler’s words, in a sense, give him the role of enabling Dawkins’ rhetoric.
I think that any commendation of atheist writers’ critique on Christianity should include some mention of Brendon O’Neill’s on Rowan Williams, [url=http://www.vulcanhammer.org/?p=451]as I did early this year[/url].
driver8 is correct: Butler is engaged in a fruitless exercise and I doubt he has the apologetic or intellectual depth to do it. His own agenda is well known. Here’s a video of a Christian academic debating Richard Dawkins:
http://www.dawkinslennoxdebate.com/
Dawkins is free to ask the questions – which he does. The problem is in his answers, which are sophomoric at best, and commonly are merely loud, like a a man talking to a non-English speaker, who thinks that shouting will make him more comprehensible.
This is a silly [article, but I have to admit that talking to clerics is often like talking to a marshmallow: Everything is bland, soft, malleable, sweet, and devoid of nutrition. Larry
Yet the underlying point is correct:
Athiests and other non-believers DO ask good questions that Christians have to answer. “Be ready to give a defense of your faith of all that ask you of it” is Scripture.
By asking these questions, God is working to get us to really examine our relationship with Christ and increase our knowledge of Scripture and Church Tradition through our Spirit-led reason.
We shouldn’t avoid these questions, but welcome them. Who knows? God may lead an unbeliever to faith through our answers — or our struggle to find answers.
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
Amen Library Jim. Let them bring it to us. If we cannot answer well, we deserve what we get. Larry
#4, what is a “broad church liberal catholic”?
#10, a unitarian universalist who’s bad at directions.