Who Are The God Experts?
A new book, The Dawkins Delusion?, critiques Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Philosopher Michael Ruse says
The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGraths show why.
while astronomer Owen Gingerich says
[McGrath] clearly demonstrates the … surprising lack of depth in Dawkins’ arguments.’
The official book synopsis says:
Alister McGrath … 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.
A review in the latest New Scientist says
Impressive essays by … Robinson, … Eagleton and … Orr set out to tell Dawkins how wrong he is. … McGrath … covers some similar ground … analysing the extent of Dawkins’s ignorance of theology. … from Dawkins’ perspective at any rate, is that it is no attack at all. For him, theology is a non-subject about nothing. … All four critics … charge that Dawkins is unqualified by asking why he should write this book at all. The idea that science necessarily entails an assault on religion has long been rejected by theologians and by scientists such as Stephen Jay Gould and Francis Collins.
I heard the same story twenty years ago in a class on Science and Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School, that only ignoramuses don’t know that relevant academic experts long ago rejected the idea that science and God conflict. This topic illustrates a general problem with deferring to experts: which criteria should count how much in choosing "the real experts"?
Some look at "prominence", i.e., attention, in news coverage, books, journals, blogs, citations, awards, and so on. There are also honored positions such as professorships, editorships, grant review boards, ad hoc committees, government agencies, and so on. Media attention can be in media overall, in general academic media like Science or Nature, in academic media of broad fields like biology or philosophy, or in narrowly defined fields close to the topic. And it may not be obvious which fields are how "close" to the topic.
One can also focus on indicators of how expert a person is on a particular topic. One can look at how many years he has focused on this topic, how many people worked for him, how many pages he has written or published, how many citations he gives, how much precise terminology he uses, how clear his writing seems, how many tables of data, how many equations or statistical tests he gives, or how many errors others can point out in his writings.
Dawkins wins on some of these criteria and loses on others. To my mind most discussion misses the key distinction between these two claims:
A great intelligent power influenced the structure of our universe.
Such a power intervenes in your life, e.g., answering your prayer.
Relevant experts do indeed consider the first claim to be within reason, but only a minority consider the second claim to be reasonable. Most academic debate is on the first claim, but the second claim is what interests most people. Maybe part of the problem is that we have a word, "atheist," for skeptics about the first claim, but no such moniker regarding the second claim. Suggestions?
What begs the question is this:
>Using Swinburne's distinctions, we could say that an "atheist" is someone who >thinks that "no reason" is a better answer to this "fundamental question" and a >"theist" is someone who thinks "God" is a better answer
What answer is God? If we follow that the majority of those who posit God only believe in a first mover, a creator, but not someone who influences our daily lives, the word God is empty of any meaning; a word shell which means essentially the same thing as "no-god".
Only an active God would be "of use" to people - and positing such a God is indeed at odds with science, and leads to a path of darkness.
Robin asks which criteria should count how much in choosing"the real experts"?
Dawkins ask whether theology is a waste of time. Thisquestion does not fit the usual frame work of the "choose anexpert" problem.
In the usual framework there is a family of problems and agold standard. The competing experts answer yes or no toproblems in the family and for some of the problems enoughgold is found to pay for the unveiling of the trueanswer. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, the true answers permitthe chooser to score the experts. Who said yes when theanswer was no? Who said no when the answer was yes? Whopassed?
Theologians are perhaps important people. One faces a moraldilemma and hopes that a theologian can offer guidance aboutGod's wishes. One would like a gold standard by which onecan check who is the wisest theologian. Imagine anexpedition to Hell. One surveys a 100 inmates and returnswith valuable data. Comparing what the dead really did withwhat theologians say about sin offers a basis for choosingthe theologian most in touch with God's will.
Some people will feel that the idea of an expedition to Hellis childish and doesn't take religion seriously. Others willtake the exact opposite point of view. This is the point atwhich they decide that religion is a word game withoutreferents and refuse to play.