I first purchased this debate because I wanted to know how well Richard Dawkins could stand against scrutiny. It is one thing to write a book, it is another to defend it against another well educated opponent. The God Delusion sparked many to believe that science has made God obsolete. Professor Dawkins seems to be leading this crusade, but how well did his claims stand up against the likes of John Lennox?

Everyone will have there own opinion about who won the debate. I was very pleased that the Fixed Point Foundation did an excellent job of keeping the debate as unbiased as possible. They are a Christian ministry but they simply let the pieces lay where they may and in what struck me as a very generous gesture they gave Professor Dawkins the last word.

Having said that, I give kudos to Dr. Lennox for pointing out some of the obvious flaws in Dawkins’ argument. I think one of the finer points that was demonstrated quite well to the embarrassment of Professor Dawkins was that his idea of faith in general is flawed or perhaps he skews it for his own means. This will contain a few spoilers so if you do not want some of the finer points to be given away, stop reading.

When Professor Dawkins spoke of faith, he spoke of blind faith. He spoke of those who would not allow skepticism or other ideas to presented to them. Those who would deny rational explanations based on blind faith. However, he did not call it blind faith, he simply called it faith and when Dr. Lennox pointed that out, Dawkins replied that faith cannot have evidence or it is not faith. Dr. Lennox followed with a brilliant question. He asked Mr. Dawkins if he had faith in his wife. Dawkins replied quickly with “Yes, of course.” Then Dr. Lennox asked if there was any evidence for his faith in his wife. Without thinking Professor Dawkin says “yes” and goes into examples of the evidence for having faith in his wife.

The crowd noticed instantly the contradiction in his own ideology that he had just displayed.

Later in the debate he does say that it is not possible to disprove God’s existence but we can say that it is highly unlikely. I think this is why is definition of faith is what it is, because if it was the definition that both Dr. Lennox and myself share, then he would essentially be saying “I have faith that God does not exist.”

The kind of blind faith that Dawkins puts forth is a very dangerous faith and is not promoted by Christianity as Lennox pointed out. We have evidence for our faith but that does not negate faith.

And I think that is one of the biggest things I got from the debate. Surprisingly, Professor Dawkins and Dr. Lennox actually agreed on many points. The problem was that Dawkins could not accept that a Christian could be skeptical or ask questions. Dawkins cannot see that science was actually founded by theists.

In Lennox’s closing statement he mentioned Dawkins’ quote from Douglas Adams about appreciating the beauty of the garden without believing in faeries underneath. Lennox went on to say that the Christian perspective is not that there are faeries underneath but simply that there is a gardener. Who sees a garden and does not believe there is a gardener?

Dawkins, I believe, ended with a very weak explanation of this. He concluded that if someone sees a garden then of course they believe there is a gardener, but we now know that through Darwinian evolution that the complexities of the universe show that unguided processes can create highly complex organisms and galaxies. In other words, this particular garden has no gardener. How this seems like a rational conclusion is beyond me.

I would like to thank Professor Dawkins for strengthening my faith in Jesus. If he is the elite of the atheists I have nothing to fear.

Tags: Blind Faith, Christian Ministry, contradiction, Crowd, Crusade, Embarrassment, Generous Gesture, god delusion, having faith, John Lennox, Kudos, Last Word, Opponent, Point Foundation, Rational Explanations, richard dawkins, Science?, Scrutiny, skepticism, Who Won The Debate