The Sean McDowell Show - Coming to Faith through Richard Dawkins

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Why are there so many Christians converting from Atheism from Dawkins? Alister McGrath is a theologian, Christian apologist, and public intellectual gathered other intelligent minds from around the world to share their startling commonality: Richard Dawkins and his fellow New Atheists were instrumental in their conversions to Christianity. *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Why would various Christian thinkers cite Richard Dawkins as instrumental in their journey to faith? Our guest today, Dr. Alistair McGrath, co-edited a book called Coming to Faith Through Dawkins. I was an atheist as a teenager. I was an atheist because of science. But it is important for readers to know that there are many atheists who would say, look, we feel embarrassed by Richard Dawkins because they chose to go into things more deeply, began to realize. Dr. McGrath, I have been intrigued since I saw your book and really looking forward to this conversation. So thanks for joining me today. Well, it's really good to be with you. Thank you for having me. Well, before we get to these fascinating stories, I'm really curious if Dawkins played a role in your own journey to faith. If so, how?

If not, what was your journey? Now, I became a Christian when I started studying science at Oxford University back in 1971. And I was an atheist as a teenager, and I was an atheist because of science. And gradually, I realized this was a misreading of things and I discovered Christianity. But my own encounter with Dawkins really began in the late 1990s, early 2000s at Oxford, when I began to realize that Dawkins was setting out a very aggressive, scientistic way of thinking. I felt we needed to do something about this. In many ways, I was already thinking about him before he achieved this very phenomenal prominence through his book, The God Delusion.

So since you're both at Oxford University, have you met him? Do you know him? Have you seen him around? Do you have a personal relationship with him outside of kind of the book and other public kind of interactions? I wouldn't say it was a relationship. I mean, we have spoken to each other and had some civilized conversations, but we aren't friends. I mean, we understand each other's positions, but we do take very different perspectives on these big questions.

Okay, fair enough. Well, certainly this is a provocative title for a book and it's going to get a lot of attention and create conversation. I'm curious the reason you co-edited this book what are you hoping to accomplish well this book tells stories and i think the the stories it tells are intriguing it's about 12 individuals men women young old across five nations including including Egypt, South Africa, Australia, who found that they were initially drawn to Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, then, because they chose to go into

things more deeply, began to realize this just isn't right. I mean, he's misread things. He's overstated his position. This is something which we can't accept. And we want to find out more about what Dawkins is dismissing. And so they began to realize Dawkins was not in effect a reliable guide to these things began to follow through by themselves. And so we have some very interesting stories here of how an initial interest in Dawkins event, in many cases, an initial commitment to Dawkins gave way to serious doubt because they began to realize this is simply not defensible. This is an overstatement. I think that's really encouraging for us as we think about engaging atheism more generally.

Now, you're absolutely right that these are interesting stories. I was fascinated and hooked from the opening one by Cy Gart, someone I'm familiar with. Some of the other contributors I was not. But you said this is really encouraging to us. So is this book written to Christians, to encourage Christians to not be afraid of the ideas from atheists? Is it written to atheists, hoping that they might pick it up and encounter this? Or is it written to both? I think it's written for whoever would like to read this

i mean it is simply saying look here are these stories make of these what you will but the story is going to raise some real difficulties for new atheists like richard dawkins himself or some of his followers it's also going to be very encouraging to christian congregations who will realize, look, God works in mysterious ways. And in some way, we are beginning to realize that we can challenge the cultural dominance of New Atheism and say, look, it's not that simple. Here are some people telling the stories of how they realize it's just not as simple as Richard Dawkins was saying. So we're going to jump into some of the content of the book, but I'm really curious, where did the idea come from? Was it your idea? Was it a co-author? Was it just noticing a certain pattern? Where did it first come from? The book came from an observation, which is basically that in my own case, people were

keeping coming to Oxford and talking to me and wanting to find out how they could discover more about studying science and faith or going more deeply into their faith. And I thought, tell me your story. Why are you asking me these questions? And quite often these were young people in their 20s who were saying, well, look, I used to be a big fan of Richard Dawkins and then discovered actually he wasn't to be trusted. I mean, I mean, they, they were saying he overstates, he just is not to be relied upon. And we have discovered Christianity instead. And it's really interesting. We want to begin to studying it properly. And after I had several dozen people through my office telling me pretty much the same story, I began thinking there's a pattern here. And Dennis Alexander and I know each other we often talk together and

I happen to mention this in the conversation he said well actually I've noticed the same thing you know people seem to be finding that Dawkins leads them to faith so we kind of sat down and thought wouldn't it be a great idea to try and get together some of these stories and put them together in a volume so people could read them and it it took us a while, but we got there. And the volume really is very exciting and I think very interesting. It's a human interest story, not just a very interesting piece of apologetics. Yeah, that's really true. People aren't just walking through arguments, although they include it.

They're telling their stories and their journeys and their backgrounds, which are really diverse. So you're right about that. It's a unique apologetic book in that sense. Now, some people might say, all right, Alistair, you guys are trolling Dawkins and this is in your face. Now, it doesn't read that way. And I know it's not, but I'm curious,

somebody who picks it up and says, really coming to faith through Dawkins, this is in your face. What would you say to that kind of critique? Well, I would just say, look, this is what happened. And I think it's very interesting. And these stories need to be told because they are in effect raising some very deep questions. These are real people saying, look, we used to think that Dawkins was really credible. Here's why. And then as we read him, as we began to think about things, we began to think this does not make sense.

There are problems here. Here's why. And then we did this about we began to rethink everything. Here's what happened. And in effect, these are 12 narratives of disillusionment, disappointment and then discovery and excitement. So it's a very interesting set of stories. It doesn't prove atheism wrong or prove that Christianity is right, but it certainly says things are much more complex than many people think they are. And it gives some very interesting lines of thought to those who are thinking about how they might talk to their atheist friends about faith. That's really fair. The title is not why Dawkins is wrong. The title is just descriptive. People came to faith through Dawkins. He was instrumental in their journey. Here's their journey. So that is very thoughtfully and carefully framed. Let's jump into it. We won't get into all the content, obviously, for sake of time, but in your opening chapter that kind of frames the book, you talk about five elements of the growing disillusionment about the new atheism that appear to be a part of a larger kind of shifting cultural

mood. Let's take a look at three of these. And the first one is that you kind of point us to a positive assessment that there has been a surge of interest in religion because of the new atheists. So I'm curious what you mean by that, and if you think that level of interest is continuing now, or if it's waned along with the new atheism waning. I think that when a new atheism appeared, which really began in 2006, there was the surge of interest in not just the new atheism but in religion and I think that certainly I found when I talked about science and religion before Dawkins wrote this book you know

I'd get respectable numbers but they went up hugely as a result of the new interest in these things so people really want to think about these things I think that's very important because I think people began to realize as they thought about these things they think that's very important because i think people began to realize as they thought about these things they weren't quite as simple as what christopher hitchens or richard dawkins was saying so i think that is important that people genuinely want to think about these things and therefore it's very important that for example christians like myself are able to say here is the christian way of thinking it merits very close consideration please think about so I think that is an important point is it

still ongoing I'm not so sure but certainly it was there as a result of the new atheism but I think we can still build on this by saying no people are always asking questions what is life all about and they may not now take the new atheism seriously, but there'll be something else. And it's extremely important for Christians to engage with these discussions. It really is interesting to look back at that cultural moment because we also had the Da Vinci Code coming out and the book and the movie, I think around 5-6-08. And somebody joked that every apologist has a job in a speaking gig, and of course that was right around the same time as the New Atheists. At Biola, we had a debate with Hitchens and William

Lane Craig, and I mean, it just packed out our gym, which seats thousands. It was streamed. I mean, there was such a cultural energy, and so as aggressive as the new atheists were, you're absolutely right that it created this cultural conversation and an interest in the God question that in some ways we might just be seeing the fruit from. So that's a really interesting point. you list in terms of the growing disillusionment about the new atheism is that it was many leading atheist philosophers who criticized Dawkins. So I'm curious, who were some of these critics? Maybe what were their critiques? And then I've got a follow-up question about that one for you. Well, I think the best example is the British atheist philosopher John Gray. And in his recent book, Seven Types of Atheism, he makes it very clear, I'm an atheist, and here's the kind of atheism I think is really serious, and then launches into the new atheism. And in effect says, this is an embarrassment for

atheists, because it is lightweight. It's not well argued. It's purely entertainment value. It is, you know, it's intellectually laughable. And one of the points he's trying to make is that simply in effect, a critique of Christianity or religion in general, which seems to be so highly selective, it's like cherry picking. You can't really take it seriously.

And what's really important for john gray is that dawkins and hitchens both ignore the darker side of atheism and grace says how can you do that look at the soviet union look what happened there in the name of atheism you can't airbrush that out of this conversation so in many ways gray speaking i think for many atheists is saying, look, we're embarrassed by Richard Dawkins, because in effect, he presents such a flagrantly biased and superficial account of atheism that makes people think atheists are simply dogmatic people who are rather like religious people in the worst sense of the word. This is not good for atheism. So I think that's a very important point to bring into the conversation. I thought John Gray's book was

absolutely fascinating because having read The New Atheist for a while, when I picked his up, it was like, wow, there's much more diversity within atheism. And he seemed to understand what was really at stake. If we get rid of God, The New Atheist seemed to apply. We can just go along with life as normal. In fact, things are just going to get better. And Gray seemed to raise the question, say, no, there's deeper questions here about meaning, about morality, about purpose, and we cannot ignore those. So if you said he raises a more serious challenge, then why not critique Gray's idea? Some people might critique you and or your book and say

this is just low hanging fruit. Well, I think the simple answer is that Dawkins is the one who generated this interest. And these people are all responding to Dawkins because in telling their stories, Dawkins is the central character. And I haven't yet met someone who wants to talk about John Gray, although I very much look forward to doing so. But if I can put it like this, there's real cultural interest in talking about Dawkins. And that's why the book has this focus. But it is important for readers to know

that there are many atheists who would say, look, we feel embarrassed by Richard Dawkins. So I think we just need to say that so people are aware that we can't kind of we portray atheism as absolutely homogenous. There are different kinds of atheism. But Richard Dawkins kind of atheism got the headlines, it got the public interest. And that's why I think it's fair to be able to respond to this kind of atheism. And that's why the book is not about coming to faith through atheism. It's very specific, coming to faith through Richard Dawkins. So is it fair to say this is more of a popular

level book? And I ask because I've written my dissertation on the fate of the apostles, written that in an academic book, also done some popular level books. And sometimes people will critique the popular level books. And part people will critique the popular level books. And part of my response is I'm writing to a popular audience. That's the goal here. So in critiquing Dawkins and telling these stories, is this more of just a popular level book? You're not claiming or pretending to critique the highest level of atheism, but just sharing human interest stories of which Dawkins seemed to play a pretty key role. Is that fair?

I think that is fair because what we are doing here is telling 12 stories, relying these people to say, here's what happened to us. Here are the lines of thought we had in saying Dawkins is wonderful. Okay. And then how this developed saying this is not to be taken seriously. So that's very important. But the point i think i need to make is that some of these people in effect begin to engage with dawkins and actually

quite a high level some engage at a different level and what's so attractive about this book is whatever level you want to engage with you know academic popular it's all in the book because we have 12 different people who are responding to talkers in different ways and saying, look, in our way, at our level, this is how we came to feel this does not work. There has to be something better than this. So if you like, this is a sort of mixed book. It offers a number of different levels. And that's why we think it'll be really quite a popular book, because everyone will find someone in this book who writes and thinks at their level.

That's an interesting way to think about it. Now, the last one in the intro before we jump into some of the content, specific content in the book, is these, again, are the five elements of the growing disillusionment with the new atheism. You make the point that the new atheists showed the same habits of thought and behavior that Dawkins himself attributed as characteristics of religious organizations. So what's that behavior you're referring to and maybe an example or two of how it was demonstrated from the new atheists? Well, I think one of the things that Dawkins accuses religious people of is what he calls blind faith. In other words, holding beliefs that cannot be proved to be true. But one of the themes in this book, and more generally, is that Dawkins in effect seems to use different criteria to judge religious people which he ought to apply to himself in other words you know he says to me prove that you are right you know i could perfectly well say well look you

prove you're right and you said i don't need to do that i'm just so obviously right and there is this real problem that atheism is simply assumed to be valid in In fact, Dawkins presents himself as someone who is right, judging people who are wrong. It's obvious, in fact, of course, that Dawkins is simply judging Christianity from his own perspective, from his own belief system. And that's a point that I try to bring out. The other point which I think is really important here, where again, Dawkins seems really quite close to um a religious system is that um as many atheists who've walked away from new atheism have told me it's almost as if the new atheism has its infallible prophets and its infallible text you know within the movement

you're not allowed to critique richard dawkins or christopher hitchens you're not allowed to critique Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. You're not allowed to critique or say there might even be some mistakes in the God delusion or God is not great, because in effect, these have become the sacred books of the new atheism. So it's really interesting. If you're a sociologist, you're going to have such fun here, because in effect, it's all about Dawkins objecting to religion and then in effect, developing almost a new religious movement focusing on himself. You know, it's interesting that your point is not that atheists always do this, but that the new atheism kind of had this religious component to it. And it's probably been 15 years ago or so. My wife and my pastor and I went up to this atheist group near where I live in Southern California that was kind of rooted in new atheist way of thinking and doing things. And I thought, well, they had kind of refreshments and fellowship before. They had announcements. They passed

around a hat to take a certain amount of money. They had events. They had all of the trappings of religion. And I didn't say anything because I reflected back. I'm like, this is functionally a religion and has so many of the same elements they believed, in this case, blindly, again, not all atheists, that the new atheists raised in critique against religion. inconsistencies started to emerge, at least within that movement. That's fair. Now, one of the things that's interesting is some of these stories are totally different and diverse, but there's also some common threads that seem to tie many of them together. And one of the threads seemed to be that there was this focus in The New Atheist on the warfare model of the relationship between science and faith. What is that model, and why do you and many of the relationship between science and faith. What is that model? And why do you and many of the contributors think it falls short? I think that's right. It's a leading theme, certainly in Richard Dawkins, Wolfstein and Christopher Hitchens. But of course,

because Dawkins presents himself as a thinking scientist, the mainline media took this very, very seriously and in effect took this warfare model as if it were completely factual and the only option available. So let's talk about that because I think it's a very good point to make. Up to about 1800 the idea that science and religion were at war would have made no sense at all because you know many of the greatest scientists were religious thinkers and vice versa. So in effect, we have almost like the idea of what's sometimes called the two books, the book of scripture, the book of nature, and to be an educated person,

you had to read both of them. And by reading them both, you kind of had a deeper and richer understanding of what things were all about. But in the 19th century, in other words, quite recently, everything began to change. And that's when the warfare model really becomes established. And it reflects a number of things. But the main thing is not actually, as you might expect, Charles Darwin. It's much more to do with scientists wanting to demonstrate their complete independence of everyone else, including religious people. And so, in effect, asserting this gap, this gulf between science and religion was a very important way of credentializing science and

saying we don't need anybody to validate us. We, in effect, are right in our own terms. So there's been a huge amount of scholarly work done on this whole phenomenon of the warfare. And it is quite a recent development. In effect, we are now seeing it's much more complex than that, that yes, there are some who say science and religion can at points be intention. That's absolutely right. But other points, they're in synergy. That's the important point is not, it's not simple. And my real concern about Richard Dawkins is he gives us incredibly simplistic reading of an incredibly complicated intellectual landscape and says,

that's the way it is. Well, it's not. So I think we need to just put that on the table. This is something that is clearly wrong. And many of our contributors who are scientists see that and want to point that out. So there's a lot of layers to this question. There's the philosophical layer, there's the historical layer, there's theological questions. You partly may have answered this, but given that you teach on topics of religion and science at Oxford, is there a scholarly sense about the relationship between science and faith that differs from the New Atheists, or are scholars literally just all over the map and the warfare model is one of them, but not the only one? I think it's fair to say that

scholars for example at oxford where we have a very big group of people working in this field the scholars will say look um there is no single model that adequately describes this complicated relationship between science and religion there are are points of tension, there are points of synergy, but you cannot say they're at war or they are identical. They are clearly different and their relationship is complex. And so if you like, it's saying, it's recognizing that there are points at which science and religion are in tension. But very often, you know, scientists and theologians who are ined can talk quite quite intelligently about these differences and what they mean so i think that the real concern for many scholars is that the new atheism doesn't simply use the warfare metaphor it depends on it for its very existence

because if the warfare metaphor is wrong then one of of the key themes of new atheism simply evaporates because it's no longer intellectually credible. Last question on this, then we'll keep moving forward, is you've written a book on fine-tuning a few years ago in which you talk about kind of the cosmological or fine-tuning of physical parameters. And then you get down even into chemistry. That was a very unique part of that book that I remember. Is there an openness? Is there an eagerness within kind of the academic world to those kinds of questions? How are arguments like that received? Well, I think the answer is that most people find these profoundly interesting and profoundly puzzling. You know, there's clearly something here.

I remember my one of my old Oxford tutors in chemistry going back now a long long way who died about 10 years ago but remember he said to me shortly before he died said Alistair you know these cosmic constants I just don't know what's going on here but there's something clearly um happening here I'm not a religious man but this sort of thing might one day make me religious. And he was saying, there's something there. And I think that's a very important point that people can recognize that this is actually quite strange, puzzling, and wondering what the best explanation of it might be. And just saying, hey, it's an accident,

doesn't really give you a very satisfactory answer. Yeah, that's interesting. That's fascinating. Now, one of the other kind of threads that ties the book together is a lot of talk about this model of the seeming warfare between science and faith. But another big topic that came up amongst a number of the contributors was Dawkins' approach to the question of morality. What is it? Where does it come from? So what was it that many of the contributors found unsatisfactory in Dawkins' views? I think this is a very important question because in fact, what Dawkins is saying is that we don't need religion. It's's nonsense we can develop a perfectly adequate moral system without reference to religion so the obvious question is how are you going to do that

and the point that a number of contributors in the book make very very clearly is that in effect Dawkins lacks any secure foundation for developing a moral system. And as he is saying that religion is bad or evil, you know, he has to have some viable moral position in order to stabilize those ideas. So, for example, you know, Dawkins says the evolutionary hypothesis is really important. One of the contributors says, well, then, you know, can you use this to establish a morality? And of course, Dawkins is quite clear, actually, no, you can't. So what can you base morality on? And one of the points that I think the contributors are just emphasizing and is really important is that Dawkins asserts a morality, but doesn't, in effect, give a

justification for that morality. You say I'm moral, I do this, this and this. So if you then say well tell me why you do this and why you believe this to be moral, well there's no foundation to really base that on. I guess you know if you take the philosopher David Hume seriously you would say that's exactly what you'd expect. If you in effect remove any transcendent ground for morality as for example in in belief in god then you are left with what is in effect the the the influential viewpoints of a number of people but they're not rooted in anything and a

number of the contributors said look this really worried us because dawkins in effect invested so heavily in saying we don't need god to be good but dawkins writings don't actually bear that out so it's a very important point we see sam harris wane into this he wanted to and wants to embrace an objective form of morality of course hitchens in, you know, when he says the subtitle is how religion poisons everything is that religion is bad. But of course, you can only say something's bad if you first have a standard of objective good. I think that tension runs all through Dawkins. So that's interesting that that's a key point that many of the contributors ultimately found unsatisfactory. Were there other common point that many of the contributors ultimately found unsatisfactory.

Were there other common objections that some of the contributors kind of had to overcome, not only in terms of just criticisms of Dawkins' views, but others about Christianity that were big for them? Maybe the problem of evil, maybe pluralism. Were there some common objections they had to overcome, or were their stories really unique once they shed some of the ideas of Dawkins? I think that there are some common threads. You've mentioned morality. Another is the aggressiveness, the rhetorical aggressiveness of Richard Dawkins. I'll come back to that later. But actually what I noticed is that in effect each of these contributors is telling their own story, which they picked up on things that really mattered to them. They were drawn to

Dawkins, perhaps slightly different reasons, and then began to realize he was not what they were looking for, for various reasons. But I welcome that diversity, because we will have a diverse readership for this collection of essays. And I think this means that many people as they read this book will say, that person speaks for me. That's exactly the way I feel too. And I can now work out where I go with this. So I think that there are a number of prominent themes

that come up. You mentioned one of them. I think if we pick up on the next one, which is rhetorical exaggeration, I think that's a very important point. And a number of the contributors say, in effect, there's a really significant degree of overstatement here. That in effect, something that is, yes, it's important, is made absolute. I think that that is quite significant. The real problem Dawkins has, as many of these contributors point out is in effect he

says look um science is all about proof so if you then come back and say well prove that you are right about God in effect he cannot prove by his own criteria that Christianity is wrong or that there is no God and certainly for many people i've talked to and we see this concern being mentioned in this book um dawkins in effect believes that there is no god but he does not know that there is no god he presents a belief that there is no god as if it's self-evidently correct and again people people notice this they begin to, this is just not consistent. We need to challenge you here. And that's a theme that comes up again and again, that Dawkins overstates. I'm curious what you'd say if maybe an atheist said, you know, we're going to write a book coming to atheism through McGrath or coming to atheism through William Lane Craig or Lee Strobel or McDowell, whoever it is, what would your response

be? And do you think people could write such a book or do you think this is probably tailored uniquely to Dawkins? I think that I'd be very surprised if anybody wrote such a book because I don't think anybody would be very interested. I think the appeal of this book really is here is someone who has allowed himself to be projected as a cultural authority, as a prophet, as in effect a celebrity atheist, and therefore is attracting a lot of public attention. When you do that, in effect, you are asking people to engage with you. I think that's the point I want to bring out very clearly here,

which is, in effect, that Dawkins, by writing these books, in effect, is presenting himself and saying, I am telling you, you are wrong and I am right. And I think that that, in effect, means people are perfectly entitled to say, well, if that's what you're saying, we want to say there's another side to this story now one of the contributors to this um uh collection makes a very important point which picks up on William Lane Craig he you know challenged all and says why have you not debated William Lane Craig because he's such an obvious person he is someone who is a public speaker,

who stands up for Christianity, who has clearly thought about these questions. Why aren't you debating him? And Dawkins gave what I have to say was a very inadequate response. I think that for a number of people really has shaken them, that in effect, Dawkins is very selective about who he engages with, if I can put it like that. And that suggests weakness on his part. gave a little bit of pause. Now, one of the positive things you point out about the new atheism that we discussed earlier is just the attention that was driven to the big questions of religion. One of the other positive things was the new atheists, including Dawkins, are not postmodernists. They believe there's such a thing as truth, and we can know truth. Now, we might differ with them about how we know truth. There's a high emphasis on

science itself being the primary. Sometimes you get the impression almost the sole means of knowing truth. But are there any other positives you can think of that came out of Dawkins and the New Atheism besides the interest in religion, the focus on there being such a thing as truth? I think one of the most interesting things about this is that certainly here in the united kingdom what many people expected to happen was that young people would in effect be energized and excited by the new atheism but they weren't and again people are still reflecting on this but one of the the themes is that they felt that Dawkins and Hitchens, in effect, were speaking from the past, from the 17th or perhaps the 18th century.

In effect, they were taking a very modernist worldview, which they did not relate to. And that's interesting because it reminds us that if we're doing Christian apologetics, we have to engage with different groups of people using different approaches. And one of the points that a number of sociologists have made is that actually, in many ways, what Dawkins and Hitchens and I think Daniel Dennett as well are presupposing in their audience is in effect an acceptance of what you might call a sort of a view of truth, which is not just, you know, about what prominent individuals think. It's about something called truth, which really is true. And again, I actually share that view of Richard Dawkins. We do disagree

about what that truth is. But it's very interesting note how um we can have that very good argument about what really is truth but also a lot of younger people would say well look these people are just are just a relic from the past which we don't really take very seriously so that's an interesting sideline on that whole debate i think so there's 12 stories in the book we won't go through all of them but is there one story that maybe just jumps out to you that was maybe an interesting one, one that you remember? Give us a sense of the kind of story that people who pick up this book, again, it's called Coming of Faith Through Dawkins, provocative, fascinating title. Maybe just give us a sense of one story that jumps out to you that you think folks might find interesting. Well, thank you uh that you think folks might might find interesting

well thank you i mean there are 12 very interesting stories here um the one that struck out for me actually is by an australian student called sarah stonebracker wrestling with life's biggest questions now she is interesting because she's kind of where humanity's person but she knows something about science and in effect you know her initial inclination say well the dolphins are saying some very intelligent and reasonable things and then began to rethink now there were several factors that made her rethink one of them actually was coming to Oxford and discovering there's some quite intelligent people there who took very different views to Dawkins and in fact that almost gave her intellectual permission to say this debate is not

done and dusted there's a kind of uh there's a conversation that needs to be had but also I think she does really bring home this point that you were mentioning earlier which is that there are some big problems with Dawkins is saying if he he is right, how do we account for morality? And the reason that she's so interesting is that she did a lot of work with or engaged with Peter Singer, who, of course, has a very distinct view of morality. So for her, this was a real live question. And she just felt that actually what Dawkins seemed to be saying is this is what I think, but did not give her any reasons to think this is something that everyone could think. Because in effect, Dawkins did not give publicly accessible or publicly defensible understandings of what morality is all about. So for a lot of people, that's an extremely important point.

I mean, many people in this book are talking about the science. I think that's very important. But there are other questions which really trouble people. And one of them is, what about morality? We need some objective basis for morality. If we don't have that, we just make stuff up. And Dawkins seems to fall down at that point. I have to say that it is a real vulgar ability. People haven't just invented this saying that we're imposing this on Dawkins. It is there and it really needs to be brought out clearly. One of the reasons I remember, he probably answered this question a few times. He didn't want to debate William N. Craig as he made a reference at one point to his view embracing

genocide in the Old Testament, and he wouldn't share a stage with somebody who held that view. And of course, that's a moral condemnation. That's saying it's objectively wrong. But then he has statements talking about morality, just us dancing to kind of our genes and DNA, which is like, okay, wait a minute, you can't have it both ways. And I think some of these inconsistencies are what bubble to the surface and these contributors are pointing out. Now, by the time you co-edited this book, you said you'd had dozens of conversations with a lot of young people and others who came to you about this. Was there anything that surprised you in editing this that just jumped out and thought, oh, I didn't expect people to say this or to approach it this way or to critique this in Dawkins?

Or by the time you wrote, was it kind of like, I've heard these stories and I just want everybody else to hear them? I had heard stories similar to some of these in the people who came to visit me in Oxford and talked about the transition from atheism to Christianity. But there were some fresh points or perhaps sometimes familiar points made in a fresh way. And that's one of the reasons why I just valued these essays so much because Dennis Alexander and I basically said, look, tell your story. We didn't give them a template or anything like that. Oh, interesting. The way they tell their story, the points they make, the way in which they get this across varies from one author to another.

And I think that's very rich and very diverse. But I think one of the things that did surprise me to begin with was that there were so many of these people. I tried to persuade some of the younger people who came and talked to me to put their thoughts down. They didn't want to because they said, look, we have a career ahead of us. We just don't want to do anything that might make things difficult for ourselves. And I accepted that. I could see that that was a real problem. And that may have been a reason why it took Dennis and I quite a long time to assemble this group of 12 people who I want to praise for being willing to

actually commit their ideas to paper. But the basic, my basic reaction to these essays as they came in was my goodness, these are very good. And they are very well written, they're extremely reflective. And once or twice, I'd say, Oh, gosh, I wish I'd said that it's so good. It is a it's a rich feast. And as I said earlier, I think you'll find that different individual readers will pick up on different bits and say that that's me that that person is talking to me there. And that's what's so important. Everyone will find something that will say that helps me move on in my own personal journey i've edited a

number of books and often try to give a certain template so authors are on the same page but it makes sense in this setting you say just tell your story and let people approach it uniquely and they do read very differently which you know as you as you look at it, that's a strength. Now, I know some people were hesitant to contribute, but could you have done something, come into faith through Dawkins, 50 essays on the pathway? If people were willing to,

could you have come up with 50 such people? How many are behind this that you could have had if they were willing to and available? Or is it kind of impossible to say? I think it's impossible to say. I mean, we know they're out there. But there are two issues. One is getting them to come forward and tell us their stories.

And also, as these came in, we were just so impressed by their caliber. We thought, let's quit while we're ahead. You know, in other words, yeah, got good connection here. Let's draw a line and say, Look, we know there are more stories like this that will be told. But it's important to get this out. And that's really why this book is there. It's because we felt we had enough to give a very good range of perspectives on this whole question.

Is there a landing page for the book where other people could come on and tell their stories? It might be interesting for people to just come on unfiltered and add their stories. If it's like coming to faith through Dawkins.com or something like that. I have no idea where people could just weigh in, share their stories. And of course, you can't really vet them. So maybe some people would make up stories but that might be something interesting have you guys thought of a way for other people to just weigh in and share their stories on top of this well that's a really good point we haven't thought of that but actually now that you've mentioned it

it is it is a rather good idea um dennis and i are are meeting regularly to talk about these things and certainly i'm going to make this point to him and see if we can find a landing page. So we get to hear more of these stories. Because as you rightly say, there are going to be a lot of them. And I think this book will encourage people to tell theirs. So we might well have almost like a visitor's book, you know, where in fact you'll tell their stories. And again, that might be very interesting. So I like that very much.

Thank you. Yeah, if you do send me the link, I'd love to share it with my folks. Now, let me go to your story a little bit. If I was to say to you, okay, Alistair, why are you a Christian? What would you list as some of the key ideas that you're, or maybe it's arguments, maybe it's experiences, maybe that's not the root of your faith. But what are so I guess it's two part question. Why are you a Christian? And then on top of that, what do you find some of the most compelling facts? Maybe just two or three in favor of Christianity.

Thank you. I think that's a very good question. When I was an atheist, I think my view was that atheism makes sense of things. And I began to realize an awful lot of things did not make sense of, but Christianity did make sense of. And I think going up to Oxford University where you encounter lots of intelligent Christians, you begin to realize that actually Christianity gives you this wonderful big picture of reality. And discovering the writings of C.S. Lewis, who was really helpful to me as I grew in my faith, was very important to me.

So I think for me, Christianity makes sense of things. If you like, it lights up the intellectual landscape so you can see things more clearly, so that in effect you really know what things are about, and it reassures you you are not alone in this world. You are in the presence of a living and loving God, and you matter to this God. I think that's an extremely important point, that actually it's not just seeing things rightly. It's knowing that you are loved, knowing that you are important for some reason, and there's something that God wants you to do.

So all these things flow together in my understanding of what Christianity is. I guess the simple answer to your very good question would be, look, Christianity gives me a reason to live, to hope. I think that's just so important because I'm just aware there are so many people who are just lost in life because they don't know what it's all about. Justin Brierley has a recent book out on the surprising rebirth of belief in God, and he talks about how the shift from the new atheism to a different kind of conversation, and that there's a number of thinkers, he points to people like, say, Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, who have a different approach to religion, kind of an appreciation for it. Maybe people like Tom Holland, who aren't quite Christians yet,

but either they believe in some version of God and they appreciate Christianity on some level. Given that you said earlier that some of the fervor for the new atheism doesn't seem to have continued, how would you assess the current debate about God? Would you agree with Briarley, or would you look at some of the numbers culturally where those who identify as Christians, at least in the West, in your country and in mine, seems to be shrinking and saying, even though the new atheists have faded, secularism is on the rise? Like how would you assess the debate, I guess, is what I'm getting at. I think it's complex. And I think that when you look at, for example, religious nuns who will say, you know, I do not wish to be thought of as a religious person,

what you will notice is that very often they still have beliefs that actually are really quite surprisingly religious. You know, very often they'll be talking about meaning and value, some of the things we talked about earlier, in fact, in this conversation. And what they seem to be doing is realizing how important these are, but not really making the connections between these important things and God. So I think we do have a lot of work to do to reconnect belief in God with some of these very important things in people's lives. But I think you're right. I think the tone of things has changed. That actually people have got rather tired of the aggressive dismissals of the new atheism.

They want a dialogue, a discussion, in effect to hear both sides of a complex story. And certainly there are writers like, when you mentioned Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland, who clearly are saying, look, don't agree with it completely, but there's something there. You know, that's actually really quite important. And we need to be able to engage these people and see if we can use them to kind of move

people along and thinking about what the Christian faith is and what it's all about. If you like, we need to regain cultural confidence and just find a way of reconnecting with these conversations and seeing where they take us. So a couple last questions for you. And the first one I'm just curious, just as a professor, also a public intellectual and a researcher, what are some of the common or biggest objections you're hearing to the Christian faith? So people come to you and share their stories about Dawkins and the New Atheists from the maybe earlier 2000s. And with that would come certain common themes and questions that might emerge, like you said,

about questions of the origin of morality, the relationship between science and faith, et cetera. What are some of the big questions or barriers you're hearing from, say, Gen Z or younger generations today? I think there are two that I would mention. One is, as you might expect, people are saying, well, look, I'm just very much aware of how much suffering and injustice there is in this world. I find that problematic, and I don't quite see how Christianity resolves that. I can understand that, although I do want to make the point that unless you have a good idea of what is right, you can't really say this is wrong.

You know, it's a very important point. That's a point C.S. Lewis made, you know, in explaining why he moved away from atheism. He realized he had this gut sense that suffering is wrong, but he did not have a a moral framework a viable moral framework that allowed him to say it was wrong so i think that's certainly something that people want to talk about and one of the things i've discovered is that for a lot of younger people they don't as much want to talk about an intellectual explanation of suffering they want to know how christianity helps you to live to cope with suffering that's that's a different thing and actually christianity is very helpful in that way. But the second thing, I think this is probably really quite important. A lot of people simply say to me, we don't get it. We just can't make sense of it.

It's something strange, something other that we don't really understand. And I think that does point to the need, not simply to try and explain what Christianity is, but to try and model the way in which it changes lives, gives meaning, gives value, all these things. And that's one of the reasons why I think there's a good case to be made for saying apologetics is not simply persuading people things are true, but actually showing them how these beliefs make a difference to life and enable you to live meaningfully, what very often seems to be a rather complicated

and pointless world. So I think that's something to think about. I get still some questions on the relationship between science and faith with this generation, although it looks different than the new atheists and we're in an era of fake news, but there's still an authority in my experience that science has, and this generation wants to know that relationship. I think you're right. Questions about problem of evil and suffering, that's really a timeless question that might incarnate itself differently with individual generations. But of course, that goes back to the book of Job. A lot of the other questions I get are on sexuality and gender, which were not nearly as big of questions during the new atheists. They did not touch on that as much.

Is that a common question and barrier you're seeing in your own research and your experience with this generation? It's certainly being talked about. I think people are very, very concerned about their own individual identities, how they understand themselves, and what happens is they often construct a sense of who I am. And if that is challenged or critiqued in any way, they find that as deeply destabilizing and anxiety provoking. So i think we are seeing something which i don't remember from my own youth i don't indeed remember from my own days as a student or at oxford these are new questions but it does remind us i think that um that every generation seems to have his own particular agendas and concerns and that's one of the reasons why you've got to be able to

have people who understand the concerns and are able to respond to them. And I think that one of the things I've noticed is I'm just too old now to understand some of these things. I really have to say, thank goodness there are all these young people coming up who are able to give good answers to these questions because I'm not sure I'm the best person to do this. Last question. Maybe give your encouragement to apologists today. And I would say, for example, you know, telling stories. Obviously, Jesus told stories. C.S. Lewis did this like just about a century ago really well. And in your book, it's doing apologetics, but it's through the lens of story. So I'm guessing that's obviously an intentional strategy as well. You didn't write a book where you told people, give me the facts and reasons why. You said, tell me your story and maybe include within your story some of the reasons.

But this is more about your story than it is about the facts. So do you say that's one important way to do apologetics today? And if so, what are some other words of advice you might give to apologists or pastors or evangelists who just want to engage non-believers today? Well, this is a great question to end with. Stories are really important. When I tell you the story of my own faith, my own conversion, I'm saying two things. Number one, I think this is right. But number two, it's real. This changed my life. In other words, it's not simply a set of ideas. It's something that has taken hold of me. It's changed me. I think that's why stories are so important, because what you're saying is this is not simply an idea.

It is something which has the power, the potential to, in effect, give you a new sense of who you are, what matters. And that's one of the things I think that really matters, because you're saying Christianity is real. This is not just a set of ideas. It's about a living, loving God who transforms you. And you know, that's really very special. Well, Dr. Alistair McGrath, really appreciate you coming on and joining me today. I've been following your ministry for a long time and appreciate your tone and your content. Want to encourage viewers to check out Coming to Faith Through dawkins and i could imagine people just reading this themselves for interest and growth i can imagine somebody if they had a friend who's not

a believer saying hey check this out tell me where you agree with the critique of dawkins tell me what you think is a better atheist response to this and let's have a dialogue so this book even though you're critiquing dawkins there's a charity that goes through it and the way it's written I think is great given that you're publicly critiquing Dawkins I can see people using a small group just kind of going chapter by chapter and discussing and dialogue

so there's a lot of fruit from this and I hope it gets the wide readership that it deserves and if you make that website send it to me I'll list it here in the video I will tweet it out to my folks. It would be interesting to see how many other stories emerge. And then maybe at some point, somebody

could do a doctoral dissertation on the effects of the new atheist five or 10 years removed by tracking these down and taking what you started even into more rigorous depth. That would be a fascinating analysis. And I think you've given us a model of what that could potentially look like. Before you click away, those of you watching, make sure you hit subscribe. We've got a range of other videos coming on.

And like Dr. McGrath said, one of the things I do in this channel is dialogue with people who have a different worldview, just have a conversation, not a shouting match, as we often saw in the era of the new atheists. So if you want some of those kinds of conversations with other progressive

Christians, atheists, agnostics, make sure you hit subscribe. If you want to study apologetics, we'd love to have you with us at Biola. We have a full distance program. And Alistair, as you know, we have students from the UK who study from all backgrounds, just like your book has people from a range of backgrounds and continents around the world. Our students are as well. If you're not ready for an MA, we have a certificate program below, significant discount. Check that out, and that could be helpful. Dr. McGrath, again, really appreciate you coming on. I'll be tracking this and eager to see and just hoping it gets the wide readership that it deserves.

Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll do it again. That's good.