Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins
by Keith Ward
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List Price: ££7.99
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Manufacturer: Lion Hudson Plc
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 210
EAN: 9780745953304
ISBN: 0745953301
Label: Lion Hudson Plc
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 160
Publication Date: 2008-08-01
Publisher: Lion Hudson Plc
Studio: Lion Hudson Plc
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Another Christian apologist apropos Dawkins
Comment: In this post-Dawkian world of militant, bulldog Atheism, we've seen a whole host of Christian apologists spring up with varying degrees of success, trying to claw back some of the authoratitive ground they once so fondly held. Ward's book attempts to find answer to just the philosophical arguments contained within THE GOD DELUSION (chapters 2 - 4) and therein lays both its strength and weakness.
WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS A GOD shows less of the certainty of faith, at least in its title, than was possible before the arrival of the intellectually pugnacious Dawkins - although by the end Ward, who remembered initially "how important it is to be critical of all our beliefs" at least has the graciousness to admit that finally, what he's just toured the patient reader through "must seem like a wish-fulfilling fantasy ... (which is) not just a question of evidence ... (but of) basic forms of perception and action". The trouble is, for this reader at least, is that a good deal of Ward's "perception", being necessarily of the philosophical variety, comes across unduly complex and wishy-washy at the same time. It consists neither of Dawkins' wide appeal for the common reader, gained through a wide marshalling of arguments which give the impression of overwhelming probability in his favour, nor the arch atheist's clear and hard-hitting prose style. For Dawkins, evolution provides an excellent escalator of natural events which necessarily precludes the 'sky hook' offered by one's Invisible Magic Friend. It's an independent process which leads to increasing complexity. Whether or not he accepts the imperatives of evolutionary biology, Ward falls into the believer's habit of offering up that old stand by, faith, by way of alternative, suggesting that because something can't be proved not to be, so it really *has* to be as he thinks so. The result is a lot of wishful thinking, dressed up splendidly in verbiage.
For instance his insistance that mind can exist entirely outside of mechanical process: "This may seem rather odd, but it seems to be a possibility. There could be minds without matter.." so consciousness *might* be achieved by, er, well nothing tangible really as it happens... If I am simplfying Ward then that's because, stripped down to essentials, it's the same old special pleading for something unproveable. And of course he being a professional philosopher, he must know what he is talking about .. even though there's no independent verification of anything he hopes is the case.
Incidentally Ward does not discuss exactly just how it is pure mind can create matter or thought from nothing - indeed the exact connection between the two is one of his book's more fuzzy moments. Just because we have obviously thought and feelings, it seems, this is an argument for God who can also exist 'separately' from physicality - a dubious idea, given the necessarily mechanistic origin of those thoughts and feelings in the first place. But anything else it seems, is consciousness "explained away".
In short, this fairly short book is full of academic special pleading within a very short range. The denseness of argument here certainly proves that a. Dawkins is no professional philosopher in TGD ... but also shows b. that that wide-ranging book, though not without faults, has enough impact to remain impressive. Dawkin's broad assault on belief, built on the foundation strictures of evolutionary biology, creates an overwhelming sense of probability of world reality, one which makes Ward's necessarily narrow attack seem little more than more wishful thinking from an academic, and with none of the same impact.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Elegantly dismantles Dawkins
Comment: Ward does a good job picking apart Dawkins's attempts at philosophy. This is neither surprising nor particularly impressive considering Dawkins's book on God is a bit of jumble and should really be called 'Meditations on theology, history, American society and Constitutional Law, the Gnostic Gospels, and the thought processes of Pat Robertson by an OXFORD UNIVERSITY expert in the behavior of chicks at feeding time'. Even the ardent evolutionist Michael Ruse said it made him embarrassed to be an atheist. What's really good about Ward's book - and the reason I've given it 4 stars - is that it is a lucid, concise and penetrating introduction to theistic argument. I've withheld the fifth star because the passages on evolutionary biology could have been fuller. For a fuller critique of scientism in general with particular focus given to Dawkins, consult Peter S Williams's book 'I Wish I Could Believe In Meaning'.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Doubting Ward
Comment: With such a preponderance of books attacking Dawkins tending to uncritically recommend each other, it is hard to choose which makes the best case for theism to read as a foil to Dawkins. While the evangelism of John Lennox (or even the heartfelt sermonizing of David Robertson) might appeal more to committed Christians (and atheists playing "spot the special pleading"), this book comes closer to addressing Dawkins directly. More challenging than McGrath's rushed polemic, Ward describes his underlying position with clarity.
Having written books attacking fundamentalism, Ward shows himself a more reasonable apologist than most with statements such as "The judgment as to whether or not the resurrection happened as recorded in the Bible is likely to depend on whether or not you already believe in God." Unfortunately the same is likely true for the claims of this book. Key claims such as the fundamental validity of personal explanation are justified briefly by (tenuous) analogy, a "most philosophers agree that..." assertion, and the implicit "trust me, I'm a much nicer guy than Dawkins". More space is devoted to Ward's musings on consciousness and quantum mechanics.
The book starts inevitably with praise for Dawkins' previous works followed by castigation of his temerity to comment on faith and a list of historical theist philosophers, with more barbed insults popping up throughout. For a book directly addressing Dawkins, Ward needs understand what he criticizes more carefully. For example he seeks to characterize "the ultimate nature of reality", and assumes Dawkins is attempting to do the same. Ward is brave to tackle Dawkins on evolution, and does make some interesting points on probability and complexity which challenge rather than undermine Dawkins' more accessible writing.
Ultimately, Ward's view of God will be too abstract for many: "Could there be an unembodied mind, a pure Spirit, that has knowledge and awareness? I can see no reason why not." So where's the evidence? Ward has an answer: "So it seems that God does make a difference, but it is not a neutrally testable difference that could be settled by experiment." More work is needed to show that he is describing something more substantial than metaphor - if indeed he is.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Ward to the wise!
Comment: This deceptively slim volume of 159 pages is a book of three parts and eight chapters. It has been primarily written as a refutation of the arguments to be found in chapters 2 and 4 of Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion'(chapter 4 from which the book takes its slightly ammended title), as Ward explains (p10):"...because those are the chapters in which he enters into the territory of philosophy, of arguments about God and the ultimate nature of reality. That is my territory...". The book however goes well beyond the bounds of its remit and quickly builds into a comprehensive, sophisticated and nuanced defence of theism as a rational worldview whilst simultaineously critiqueing and exposing the philosophical weakness and naivity of the reductionist materialist position of the Neo-athiests. This is not a defence of christian doctrine or beliefs (we are not in C.S.Lewis territory here!) but of the rationality and cogency of theism, as Ward states(P137): "In this book I am not discussing the topic of revealed religion or defending the Christian faith specifically.I am concerned with general reasons for believing in God, or for accepting the God hypothesis. Those reasons hold good for any theist, Jewish, Christian ,Muslim, Hindu or Sikh...".
Keith Wards arguments do not lend themselves to simple synopsis but they cover areas such as: the New Design Argument, Causality, Certainty(practical and theoretical), Chance(two meanings of), Common Sense, Complexity and the improbability of God, Conciousness, The Cosmological argument, Eternal things and causality, Eternity of God, Evidence for God, Faith, Final explaination, First cause argument, Five Ways of demonstrating God, the God hypothesis, Goods(objective and intrinsic), Idealists and idealism, Immortality, Intelligence, Materialism, Matter, The difference between the scientific and metaphisical hypothesis, Mind, Morality and reigion, the Multiverse, Necessity and contingency, Occams razor, the alleged paradox of Omniscience and Omnipotence, Ontological argument, Personal explanation, Probability, Proofs of God, Purpose in the Universe, Reductionism in science, Relationship as an intrinsic good or perfection, Revelation, Self-transcendance, Simplicity of the laws of nature, Simplicity (three senses of), Simplicity,complexity and probability, "Skyhookery", Theory of everything, Timelessness of God and Transcendance.
Philosophers and scientists engaged with include: Anselm, Aquinas, Aristotle, Peter Atkins, A.J.Ayer, Martin Buber, Paul Davis, Daniel Dennet, Descartes, Einstein, Bernard d'Espagnate, Hugh Everett, Stephen j.Gould, John Gribbin, Steven Hawking, Hegel, Fred Hoyle, David Hume, Kant, Gottfried Liebniz, Lock, Simon Conway Morris, Isaac Newton, Rudolf Otto, Roger Penrose, Alvin Plantinga, Martin Rees, Thomas Reid, Matt Ridley, Jean Paul Satre, Spinoza, Swinburne, Richard Taylor, Max Tegmark, Steven Weinberg and E.O.Wilson.
As I said, a deceptively thin volume! But one which covers an immense area of philosophical and scientific ground. And although a refutation of the arguments of a notoriously splenetic and ill mannered adversary 'Why there almost certainly is a God' is a measured, dispassionate and gracefully written riposte (-and then some!). Recommended to the more philosophically inclined Christian reader.
Possible further reading:
Gods Undertaker by John Lennox.
Dawkins God by Alister McGrath.
Creation and the world of science by Arthur Peacock.
Science and Creation by John Polkinghorne.
Reason and Reality By John Polkinghorne.
The Existence of God by Richard Swinburne.
The Coherence of Theism. ""
The Existence of God. ""
God, Freedom and evil by Alvin Plantinga.
God, Chance and Neccesity By Keith Ward.
The Big Questions in science and Religion By Keith Ward.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very closely and convincingly argued
Comment: In this book Keith Ward takes each of Richard Dawkins' points in turn, and, for me at least, convincingly refutes them. A very closely argued, highly respectful and erudite work.
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