Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Riposte to "The God Delusion" [Hardcover]

Before I get started critiquing the book I think that it would be best that I let the reader know where I'm coming from. I'm an unbeliever and have been for a good decade or so. Whilst I am critical of religion and the claims made by theists, I try not to be unfair or dismissive. If you were to look at the bookshelves in my bedroom then you would find hundreds of books on the subject of God and faith with titles like "Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology" and "Faith and Praxis in a Postmodern Age". So, that's me then. Faithless, but not without some sympathy for the theists' side.

So on to the book. If you are looking for a sensible and well-grounded response to Dawkins and the New Atheists then this book definitely isn't for you (instead you might want to try Keith Ward's "Why there Almost Certainly is a God", which is at least fair and clear-sighted). The main problem with "Darwin's Angel" is that it continually misses the point, and wastes time fishing for red herrings. For instance, there is a chapter which begins by correcting a common misunderstanding of Dostoyevsky's book "The Brothers Karamazov" - a misunderstanding that Dawkins had made in passing in one line of "The God Delusion". I can't help but feel that this is beside the point. Dawkins makes one very brief reference to the book, and doesn't even use it as evidence or as a way to buttress his argument. What's the big deal? Anyway, the real purpose of the chapter is soon revealed: to unfavourably compare Dawkins to the character of Alyosha, who espouses a form of spirituality which is not amenable to rational discussion. So, the message of this chapter is that religion is great; that it protects us from nihilism and suffering; and that it is not open to debate on any level. Oh, and if you disagree then you're a simple-minded philistine. I think that there is a great deal that might be said against these claims. Alas, this questionable line of fideistic reasoning might be taken to encapsulate the overall thesis of the book: "religion can't be debated, so there!" Take for example, the following quote:

"For what is religion if not a product of the imagination straining to connect everyday life with the transcendent incarnate, the mystical?" (hardback edition, P11)

But can we not debate the likelihood that there is such an ontologically/metaphysically transcendent dimension, or that it has the characteristics attributed to it by believers (they say that God is a self-aware, and feels love for his creation, for example)? More importantly, can we not legitimately question whether this transcendence is the source of our "mystical" experiences? Is it not possible to point to incoherencies and contradictions in theology as suggestive of their factual falsehood? As if to pre-empt such sensible talk Cornwell elsewhere writes:

"It is interesting that one of the great sociologists of religion, Emile Durkheim, stated boldly in his book The Elementary Forms of Religious Life that "in reality there are no religions which are false. All are true in their own fashion: all answer, albeit in different ways, to the given conditions of human existence." Much the same could be said, of course, of art. Religious rituals and symbols, from the dawning of human history, marked and celebrated birth, growth, age, death and burial, the making of families and communities, the coming together for feasts, husbandry, hunting, journeys, the life cycles of plants, animals, and human beings, the changing seasons, the diuranal, lunar, and annual rounds, the mystery of existence. The great world religions, tried and tested, as sources of flourishing over three millennia, continue to enact and celebrate those cyclical experiences and underlying mysteries." (P45)

Ah, so we're now being told that religion is about everything except God. Also, what's this about there being no "false" religions? Perhaps if we interpret them in a non-realist fashion, or in a strictly utilitarian manner then that might be the case. Unfortunately, that's not how the Abrahamic faiths are generally practiced or understood. I note that Cornwell focuses on celebration and ritual as being emblematic of what religion is "about", and yet he completely ignores the theological and political aspects of religion. What are we to make of the fact that many (if not most) Islamic scholars today still suggest the death penalty for apostates, as well as for homosexuals? Perhaps Cornwell will say that they have misunderstood what religion "really" is, but how then is he to justify his own definition? Surely if most people use the word in a certain sense then that should be the sense that we define it by. It's called a semantic shift. In any case, why bother with the word "religion" at all, when we can just as readily fall back on (admittedly clumsy) phrases like "theism-driven actions"?

Staying with the above quote for a while more, please also note the lack of any mention of the eschatological aspect of the Christian faith. For 2000 long years we've been told that we must be "redeemed" or face eternal torment in the afterlife; this was supposed to be the whole point of Jesus' life and death. And yet, here we have a follower of Christ who talks as though there is no afterlife, no eternal fate to consider, no miracles, no God... All we find here is an insistence that religious traditions are useful to people as "sources of flourishing". In other words, the usual conservative argument that faith is too important to the masses to risk contaminating with criticism.

Throughout his book Cornwell tries pathetically to slander Dawkins one way or another. He boldly claims -without any reason or evidence- that Dawkins would "applaud" the nineteenth century vogue for Social Darwinism ( p71). Anyone who's actually read Dawkins' work will know that he has vociferously denied that Darwinism should be used as an excuse for ruthlessness in society (he reads and writes for The Guardian, for pity's sake!). Likewise, on page 34 Cornwell reaches a crescendo of self-satisfied smugness:

"You are also disturbed by the dimension of imagination, aren't you? It's so close to art, music, poetry - stuff that's made up rather than facts that can be reducible to physics, chemistry, and biology." (P34)

Oh, please! There's actually a chapter in "The God Delusion" which deals with the value of the Bible as literature. Incidentally, I wonder if Cornwell knows (or cares) that Dawkins is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He's also written at least one book which deals with the compatibility of Darwinism with a sense of awe and wonder at the universe ("Unweaving the Rainbow"), as well as another book which was inspired by "The Canterbury Tales". More recently he's written a piece which was modelled on the style of "Jeeves and Wooster". I could go on. Another straw man bites the dust.

On and on it goes, with Cornwell consistently missing the point, fudging the issue or -on the few occasions when he's at his best- just leaving us with some inconclusive and underdeveloped musings.

*Dawkins misunderstood Dostoyevsky!
So what? You misunderstood Dawkins.

*The meaning of the word "religion" is contested!
So long as we are clear on what Dawkins is attacking - (1) an unfounded and irrational propositional belief in the existence of a deity who wants his followers to do his will on earth, and (2) a willingness on the part of the believers to act upon this perceived masterplan- then the signifier that we attach to this phenomenon is irrelevant.

*You can't use Darwinism to explain everything that people do!
Dawkins never said that we could. If you had gotten to the end of "The Selfish Gene" then you would know this already. Do your research.

*You can't have a theory that explains everything!
So what? That doesn't justify fideistic faith in Yahweh.

*Belief in God doesn't need to be defended, because it's a spiritual experience!
Religious people often make factual claims about miracles, providence and all manner of other things. As I mentioned before, religious people of the Abrahamic tradition have historically tended to make claims about the afterlife, such as that the majority of the world will burn in hell - "for the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few." (Matthew 7:14) Can we not discuss the reasonableness of such claims, or of their cultural and political implications? Actually, to be fair, Cornwell's quasi-fideism comes and goes. There are some points where he appears to be on the verge of thinking clearly (such as his chapter "Does God Exist?"), but he always stops short of admitting the vulnerability of traditional theism to criticism. He frames religious beliefs in the most minimalist sense possible, so as to avoid defending any specific doctrines.

There's also some irrelevant stuff about memes and atheistic regimes. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

I found very little to like about this book. If you're looking for a decent defence of theism then try either "The Existence of God" by Richard Swinburne, or his more accessible "Is there a God?"; alternatively, you could try "The Agnostic Inquirer" by Sandra Menssen and Thomas D. Sullivan, which is another fair and sensible work that deserves respect and consideration. For a decent stab at rebutting Dawkins head-on then I'd recommend Keith Ward's "Why there Almost Certainly is a God". I may disagree with Ward on many points, but he at least grapples with the issues fairly and clearly, which is more than can be said for Cornwell.

This book has a good contents comprising a preface and chapters (1. A summary of Your Argument; 2. Your Sources; 3. Imagination; 4. Beauty; 5. What is Religion?; 6. Is God Supernatural?; 7. Celestial Teapots; 8. God's Simplicity; 9. Theories of Everything; 10. Dawkins versus Dostoyevsky; 11. Jesus, the Jews, and the "Pigs"; 12. Dawkins's Utopia; 13. Fundamentalism; 14. Is Religious Education Child Abuse?; 15. Life after Death; 16. Religious People Less Clever than Athiests?; 17. Does Our Moral Sense Have a Darwinian Origin?; 18. The Darwinian Imperative; 19. Religion as a Bacillus; 20. Does God Exist?; 21. Being Religious and Acknowledgements). An index, endnotes, footnotes or bibliography of references have been omitted.

I bought this book because of the subtitle, An Angelic Riposte To The God Delusion, I reall wanted to read a riposte to the God Delusion because of some of the material I have read associated with that book about memetics, ie culture and ideas reproducing themselves in a viral fashion through mimicry, I felt really needed a reply or at the very least a learned deconstruction.

In this respect this book disappoints, chapters are short, a couple of pages at most, with block quotations from Dawkins and others, some of which do comprise logical inferences from the more absurd or facetious points Dawkins has made and which I dont believe have been misrepresented here. For instance Dawkins suggestion that the abscence of religious individuals from academic or learned science circles and intelligence.

However, while it is definitely better than some religious replies to Dawkins, not holding creationist, biblical literalist or other perspectives and therefore not mirroring the pretty myopic or blinkered perspective of Dawkins himself, it can feel like a "Dearest Foe" read. In fairness I guess it is a riposte and doesnt aim to develop its points.

It isnt what I would consider a very spiritual book either, less than other historically researched books by Karen Armstrong on God, Religion and Scripture and definitely much less than books by CS Lewis such as Mere Christianity.

The writing style and pace can mean its a bit of a struggle, some points stop short, some are laboured, I had a feeling that the author felt some sort of urgency and a need to let no point go unanswered. In the main I felt it roundly sumed up a lot of what there is in Dawkins to dislike, without really providing persuasive counterpoints or really undermining his theorising. It certainly does showcase some really bitter athiesm and anti-theism but then if you want that you could read Dawkins first hand.

I approached this book with some glee; it has generally had good reviews and I had high hopes of it. There have been several previous books, attempting serious criticisms of Richard Dawkins's highly popular (currently 51 weeks on the US `Bestseller list') The God Delusion. These earlier books disappointed me; they either failed to rebut Dawkins, they misrepresented him or, it appeared, their authors had not read TGD. So, how does Cornwell's Darwin's Angel compare? Unlike other writers, Cornwell has clearly read TGD; but to what effect? I had some surprises. The seraph writes:

Two natural philosophers, Diderot and d'Holbach, invoked atheism in reaction to theology's continued sway over physics, mathematics and medicine. These philosophers... were convinced that the autonomy of the sciences must be achieved by denying the existence of God. (DA, p. 158)

This misrepresents the French Enlightenment. The philosophes railed against the Church (not `theology') for its stifling of rational inquiry and it's cruel, authoritarian nature. In writing the Encyclopedie, the attempt to record the sum of human knowledge at the time, the philosophes did not `deny the existence of God' to achieve the autonomy of science; some may have concluded `there is no God' but others, perhaps the majority, were actually Deists and believed in a non-interventionist, non-personal God. And the Encyclopedie was about far more than science.

You may not see this as important and think that such differences do not matter. But they do. It is an example of how Cornwell twists things. Virtually the whole of Chapter 10 is a mis-representation of Dawkins's writing about Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

Then there is Chapter 4, the `Beauty' argument. Here, the seraph again wilfully misunderstands Dawkins's position but, as for Chapter 10, you would have to read TGD yourself to understand. Here's just a snippet, where you can see that Cornwell doesn't give the whole picture:

It seems perfectly understandable, doesn't it, that an artist should be moved by a religious story without necessarily adhering to orthodox beliefs. Could anyone doubt that...the music of Mozart's Requiem was influenced by the liturgy of the Mass of the Dead? (DA, p. 18)

Well, you also have to understand patronage. Forget Amadeus here. Because Mozart - an Enlightenment figure par excellence - was hard up at the time, he was probably more influenced by the promise of a large fee from Count Walsegg-Stuppach who commissioned the work.

Finally, here's some more and obvious mis-attribution. Dawkins writes of the Amish, parodying and ridiculing an implied legal opinion thus:

... you quaint little people with your bonnets and breeches, your horse buggies, your archaic dialect and your earth-closet privies, you enrich our lives. Of course you must be allowed to trap your children with you in your seventeenth-century time warp, otherwise something irretrievable would be lost to us: a part of the wonderful diversity of human culture. (TGD, p.331; DA, p.107)

Cornwell's seraph put these words into Dawkins's mouth when it is perfectly clear from the text that Dawkins is attributing that naïve view to the US Supreme Court that decided that children from the Amish community need not have a proper education.

The seraph, with extraordinary effrontery, then holds up the Amish as paragons of resource conservation. In this respect, the Amish and the Unabomber (remember him?) have a lot in common. His manifesto begins: `The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.' If one really wants to preserve the Amish lifestyle, why not consign it to the Epcot Centre in Disneyworld? There is a museum, `Blists Hill Victorian Town', at Ironbridge in Shropshire UK, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. Costumed people greet visitors and point out primitive aspects of their ancestors' lives. But they take off their costumes and return to a proper life in the evenings. The Amish children do not have this choice.

In his preface, Cornwell is explicit that he intends `...not so much to pick a fight...as to offer a few `grace notes'...and...glosses in the interests of sharper logic, closer insight, and factual accuracy' (DA p. 18). Well, phooey! If logic equals caprice, insight equals obfuscation and factual accuracy equals willful misrepresentation, then he's on target. His seraph is facile, ethereal and dishonest. If you read Darwin's Angel, you will find a travesty of Dawkins's views and, if you accept Cornwell's misrepresentations, you will find yourself very badly informed by his perversions. Dawkins is vulnerable in several areas: the supposed evolutionary value of religion, the nature of `evidence', and the diverse nature of faith, for example. He draws no distinction between `reasonable faith' and `blind faith' and his reasoning for conflating them, particularly in relation to terrorism, is incomplete. If you want to be able to refute Dawkins's arguments, you would be wiser to buy The God Delusion instead and make your own judgements.