“God is No Delusion:  A Refutation of Richard Dawkins” 

      I do not know who Fr. Thomas Crean is except that he is a Dominican friar of the Priory of St. Michael the Archangel in Cambridge, England, but I am ever grateful to him for his book God is No Delusion.  It is, as the extended title says, a refutation of Richard Dawkins and his bestseller The God Delusion, an atheist tract and confused diatribe against any belief in God and in particular against the Catholic Faith.  I read Fr. Crean’s book this past week, and even as I picked it up and started the adventure of exploring this Dominican priest’s answer to biologist Dawkins’ book, I wondered:  why are the Christian answers to atheist publications never – or rarely – “bestsellers”?  Millions read Dawkins’ book, but who will read Fr. Crean’s answer?  Well, I did… not that I really needed to, because I’ve read most of Dawkins’ book, and I cannot understand why it is taken so seriously as to be a “bestseller,” except that there is something seriously suspect about the buyers of “bestsellers.”  Dawkins is undoubtedly a very knowledgeable biologist, but when it comes to metaphysics, philosophy, logic and even history, he reads like a college freshman.

       But again, why does such a book as Dawkins’ attain to “bestseller” status?  Could it be that a lot of people are eager to disbelieve in the existence of God?  It is one thing to be literate – as the proportion of people able to read has increased in the modern age – and another to be able to really think.  The latter skill, I suggest, is in serious decline, as is evidenced by the popular acclaim that such books as Dawkins’ have received.  Fr. Crean, in a remarkable and charitable fashion, makes this evident:  Dawkins is not very difficult to refute on the lines of logic, philosophy and history, and so the temptation to be brutal to the author of such a pretentious tract against belief in God must have been tempting indeed.  Nevertheless, Fr. Crean’s answer, as gentle as it was intended to be, is brutal; for it exposes Dawkins as the clown he is when it comes to fishing in waters not his own.

      For Dawkins is no philosopher, not even a logician, however accomplished he is in the area of biology.  He tackles theology, inadequately, and as if to cover up his lack of fluency in a subject he despises, he whines about the obscurity of theological language.  One would think that if he’s going to write a serious refutation of religion, he might have taken the necessary preparatory steps of understanding his object of refutation; but, evidently, that’s not necessary if what one wants to do is merely publish a “bestseller.” 

      But where lack of knowledge and logical procedure is evident, Dawkins supplies bravado:  he often argues by mere bold assertions, which are fashioned so as to say, “Well, everybody knows…,” when what everybody is supposed to know is exactly what’s being debated.  An example of this Fr. Crean deals with in detail:  the question of the authenticity of the Gospels of the New Testament.  He quotes Dawkins, who, as is so typical, never cites any authorities, 

Ever since the nineteenth century, scholarly theologians have made an overwhelming case that the gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world.  All were written long after the death of Jesus….  Although Jesus probably existed, reputable biblical scholars do not in general regard the New Testament… as a reliable record of what actually happened in history….  No one knows who the four evangelists were, but they almost certainly never met Jesus personally.  Much of what they wrote was in no sense an honest attempt at history (pp. 62, 63). 

Fr. Crean answers this assertion,  

[H]as [Dawkins] the slightest acquaintance with the science of textual criticism, and with the findings of this discipline in relation to the books of the New Testament?  Does he know, for example, that the gospels are immeasurably better attested than any other historical, literary or philosophical work of antiquity? (p. 63). 

      I leave it to you to investigate the details of this, all of it available in Fr. Crean’s book or in any reputable history of the ancient world.  My interest and question, though, is, Why would anyone – as so many have seemed to do – place such a trust in Dawkins’ assertions, when real scholarship is so against him?  That is, how is it that an Oxford biologist is now a chief source of refuting what history so clearly says to the contrary?  Or, put even more simply, Why will people not think and investigate the dogmatic proclamations of some modern scientists, even as they so willingly question almost everything of what was once considered common sense? 

      Is there a God?  Most people, following, even if inarticulately, common sense, have said “yes.”  And they have every sound reason for doing so… until a Dawkins comes along to urge them otherwise.  But what “reasons” for disbelief does he offer us?  Fr. Crean says none worth paying attention to; Dawkins, rather, seems to have a deep-seated, personal dislike of the idea of God, and musters any and every bit of seeming evidence against this One who is supposed to not exist. 

      But don’t take my word for it; get Fr. Crean’s book and see for yourself:  that theism – and Catholicism in particular (which Dawkins singles out for special condemnation) – is not only coherent but all the more so in the “light” of such diatribes against it as is Dawkins’.  Poor fellow – to be so bright in his own little corner of the scientific world, and such a fool in the world where people really live and move and have their being…..