Customer Reviews

The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue

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When you see a title like "The Future of Atheism," that purportedly features a dialogue between two different ideological starting-points, you might well expect just that--a dialogue. Sadly, the main title doesn't capture the general purpose of the book at all well. It would have been more honest to call it "The Future of Atheism is Bleak."

Upon a cursory read, it quickly became apparent that the book had an obvious ideological goal: To convince readers that a goodly number of contemporary philosophers find the atheistic/naturalistic stance (whichever and whatever that may be) to be intellectually indefensible. I give the book two stars because the editor does include the initial discussion between McGrath and Dennett, and because Fales' essay is, as other reviewers have noted, a genuine gem. The editor fails, though, to include any more polished follow-up essays by either cover author, and instead contains a number of rather out of place pieces by an assortment of Christian apologists, several of which (e.g. Moreland's) involve technical disputes in contemporary analytic philosophy which are sure to cause more confusion than clarity for a non-specialist audience.

The work has something of a Gotcha! feel. It promptly displays Dennett's name on the cover, but, beyond his informal debate remarks, contains very little to clarify the project of scientific naturalism and its relation to religion. Worst of all, it attempts to convey the impression that Dennett is a real outsider among the professional philosophical community; and while that is true in some respects (I don't get the impression that he's won over a huge number of adherents to his "theory" of consciousness), among the camp of practicing analytic philosophers, the Christian apologist camp is, despite some recent Plantinga-related growth, still the clear minority. To put the point somewhat more accurately, there are a large number of people in the philosophical community actively engaged in issues in naturalism and the philosophy of science who (professionally, at least) neither say nor apparently care much one way or another about religion, which is just what anyone would expect from a highly specialized, mostly secular community of experts.

The imbalance probably has something to do with the setting of the initial debate, the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum. Readers would do well to preview their wares at their web site.

For readers interested in the contents of the debate, I would recommend downloading freely available debates or debate transcripts featuring the speakers. (Notably, it appears that a number of previously available online mp3 copies of this debate have been deleted, no doubt in response to this book's publication.) Both Dennett and McGrath have widely debated the same topic, and their thoughts are but a google or you-tube search away. For readers who are genuinely interested in the outlines of a naturalistic approach to religious belief, Andy Thomson has an excellent talk about the ways in which religious belief makes use of regular (indeed, mundane) and well-studied cognitive processes. The talk is both informative and accessible in ways already mentioned.

The initial part of this book is a transcript of a dialogue between Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett on the present status of atheism, including some questions from the audience at the event. This part is actually fairly short and the book then contains seven additional essays by various thinkers (mostly Christian), purportedly on the future of atheism but sometimes wandering off into other, although interesting, directions.

The introduction of the book was excellent in setting the scene and there was a real gem of a paper, by Evan Fales, that made me instantly turn back to its beginning and read it again.

I felt that there was a missing thread in some ways, that despite containing much interesting food for thought it wasn't particularly coherent as a whole, but it is an excellent resource for considering arguments for and against atheism and religious belief away from the shrill, shouty manner of some of the more well-known atheists and Christian apologists in the media.

The future of Atheism is a great book. It is brief, thought provoking without going too far into the direction of technical philosophy, and well written throughout. The book is based on a 2007 conference given at the New Orleans Baptist Theological seminary, and includes the dialogue that occurred, as well as papers that were presented at the event. There are also a few papers included as a sort of postscript to the event. The introduction by Robert Stewart is to introduce the dialogue and occasionally introduce elements of the debate that he thought were either insufficiently covered or poorly argued. This is followed up by the discussion that forms the subtitle of the book and that is the discussion/debate between Daniel Dennett and Alister McGrath. Their talk was interesting throughout, cordial between the two gentlemen, and on occasion genuinely funny. Much of the debate hinged on the concept and explanatory power of memes, if you are looking somewhere to see the subject debated this is a good book to start with.

The book then takes the direction of a series of papers, usually alternating between an atheist and a theist.
Keith M. Parsons' article is a critique of Alister McGrath's work in the debate as well as his written work.

William Lane Craig presents his takes on the Kalaam and Leibniz versions of the Cosmological argument as well as the teleological, axiological, and ontological arguments. Much of this article is just a word for word reprint of the information contained in the third edition of Reasonable Faith.

Evan Fales' article is a well crafted treatise on what are the implications of how an atheist ought to behave in light of atheism, it was well written and builds masterfully, the other reviewer is quite correct that this is one of the stand out articles within the book.

Hugh J. McCann article is on how science and religion could be brought together in a sort of compromise to test miracles, but not religious experiences.

My personal hero J.P. Moreland responds to an argument by Nagel that rationality is a brute fact that cannot be understood in a naturalistic framework but exists there nonetheless.

Paul Copan spends a lengthy time on the axiological/moral argument as well as addressing the Euthyphro dilemma.

Finally, Ted Peters analyzes the New Atheists (or as he prefers evangelical atheists) claims about religion in general or that a new enlightenment could bring about a more peaceful utopian world.

A great, quick read with lots to reflect upon, for those interested in Philosophy of Religion and have some familiarity with the arguments (I think Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism was raised no less than three times in the articles) you will find much to enjoy here.

Blinn E. Combs' review (June 22, 2009) of this book is careful and accurate. I, too, had hoped to find a selection of agenda-free essays dedicated to exploring the respective territories of theistic and atheistic thought. A browse to the publisher's website, Fortress Press, which is the publishing ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, would have disabused me of that notion.

Except for Dennett's comments, atheistic thought is underrepresented while the majority of the contributions are theistic in escalating degrees of evangelical zeal. The dialogue between Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in the book's subtitle forms a very small portion of the work.

The chapters following the McGrath-Dennett dialogue don't begin too badly. Keith Parsons' chapter, "Atheism: Twilight or Dawn?" seems balanced enough. And Evan Fales' chapter, "Despair, Optimism and Rebellion" openly states that it will not predict the future of atheism; rather he explores the three attitudes in his chapter title as he finds them in society and concludes with the question of whether God can see the face of suffering humanity and live.

After these few chapters, the all male Christian apologists more fully armored of God get to work. The rhetoric is cloaked in philosophical terms, but the writers' lapses into street language give their biases away. For example, "...[Thomas] Nagel's specific version of a dismissive strategy is a complete failure" (J.P. Moreland, page 132), while "Plantinga wisely focuses his arguments on a hypothetical population..." (J.P. Moreland, page 138). And "Dennett and his ilk" (Paul Copan, page 149). And "For all their huffing and puffing, naturalistic moral realists are mistaken..." (Paul Copan, page 160). And "...the new breed of aggressive atheists..." (Ted Peters, page 181).

For any reader looking for essays in which those with an opposing position are not represented by a few elliptical references but are fully permitted to speak for themselves, this is the wrong book.

Though not without its flaws, Stewart (the editor) has assembled an excellent collection of essays in addition to the central exchange, which is well-managed and productive. Stewart and Fortress Press (the publisher) come from the theist standpoint - the latter being a publishing house of the Evangelical Lutheran Church - yet there's an honest attempt to engage with, and avoid misrepresenting, the positions of atheist critics. One does sometimes get the feeling that McGrath wants to debate Richard Dawkins rather than his actual interlocutor, but he's too serious a thinker not to tailor his commentary directly to Dennett's points once the real exchange begins. Dennett, as usual, offers a much better (and less stridently uncomprehending of belief) atheistic perspective than most of his compatriots.

There's an interesting criticism of Christian ethics that I'm not equipped to evaluate but suspect to be somewhat irrelevant to most Christians' experience of morality informed by faith. William Lane Craig's update to traditional proofs of God's existence in response to modern criticisms strikes me very much as an unconvincing set of question-begging patches. Even where they (apparently) fail, however, the essays seem highly illustrative of where modern theology stands relative to reasoned unbelief in the 21st century West.

This book is a welcome civilized debate between Christians and Atheists. The articles are fascinating, well informed, and well written. McGrath and Dennett are well known and both lead their side well.

The supporting articles add greatly to the opening dialogue. The book is a great overview of the current best arguments for and against both Christianity and Atheism.

Needless to say no definite conclusion either for or against either side is reached. However what this book shows is that each side of the argument needs the other to stimulate and sharpen their own thinking. There are lazy default positions on both sides, none of which will be happy being challenged by the powerful thinkers in this book.

Perhaps the conclusion of this book is that the future of Atheism is about as good or bad as the future of Christianity.

The perspective of this book is very much Western world, and in future I suspect the Islamic world will want a strong foot in the debate too.