Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins
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A witty and engaging addition to the ongoing debate between atheists and Christians, written by a reputable author, broadcaster and academic --The Guide
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Richard Dawkins recently claimed that 'no theologian has ever produced a satisfactory response to his arguments'. Well-known broadcaster and author Keith Ward is one of Britain's foremost philosopher- theologians. This is his response. Ward welcomes all comers into philosophy's world of clear definitions, sharp arguments, and diverse conclusions. But when Dawkins enters this world, his passion tends to get the better of him, and he descends into stereotyping, pastiche, and mockery. In this stimulating and thought-provoking philosophical challenge, Ward demonstrates not only how Dawkins' arguments are flawed, but that a perfectly rational case can be made that there, almost certainly, is a God.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
110 of 146 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
26 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Like the curate's egg this book is good in parts in that it partially succeeds and partially fails in its intention to show 'Why there almost certainly is a God'. One of its successes is to highlight some of the philosophical weaknesses in 'The God Delusion'. It is, however, not surprising that a professional philosopher and theologian should score some points over a zoologist on this account. In my view as a lay reader of philosophy and serious sceptic of the existence of God, Ward fails to convince that there almost certainly is a God other than through the acceptance of premises that are far from secure. What he does do is to show that it is possible to construct a coherent and rational argument for the possible existence of a God but is it the God that many adherents of monotheistc religions would recognise? For people interested in reading accounts on both sides of the current battle between theists and atheists, this is a worthwhile contribution to look in to. It is not an easy read though and probably requires some familiarity with analytical philosophy to fully appreciate.
45 of 63 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The previous book which I read by Keith Ward was both balanced and stimulating. There is very little which I can find to say about this book which is positive. Maybe the only thing to his credit is that he appears to have completely abandoned any attempt to defend the ontological argument.
However, he does attempt to resuscitate the argument from design by renaming it as the 'new argument for design'. The argument from design is unusual in that it can be cast in mathematical terms and be shown to be unsound. Essentially, it reflects a flawed understanding of the relationship between probabilities and their inverses. For anyone interested, there is a good treatment of it in 'Logic: A Very Short Introduction' by Graham Priest.
What Ward seems to be describing as the 'new' design argument involves a dash of fine-tuning with a dash of probabilities. His understanding of probabilities appears to repeat the same misunderstanding which is buried in the more usual formulation of the argument from design. And he does not appear to appreciate that the fine-tuning argument is a powerful argument _against_ the existence of an omnipotent creative deity (who would have no need to 'fine-tune' anything!) The philosopher Gilbert Fulmer has argued that the fine-tuning argument is logically incoherent anyway.
His discussion of consciousness was, in my opinion, little short of an embarrassment. He was dismissive of Daniel Dennett and appears to have little appreciation of how much research has been done in this field. He seems to think that it is a problem which is 'so difficult that no one has any idea how to begin to tackle it, scientifically'. Although it is true to say that it is a difficult problem, and it is very early days, Ward seems to be unaware of the research which has been done by neuroscientists over a period of 60 years or so. There are a number of popular books available on consciousness and there are already valiant attempts to deal with the problem of qualia. ('Seeing Red' by Nicholas Humphrey, for example.)
His conclusion on this is, roughly: we have no evidence for disembodied consciousness but it *might* exist. And then, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he concludes that, if we can imagine this, we can imagine 'God' as the ultimate form of disembodied consciousness.
He discusses cosmology and, for such a short book, I found this section appeared deceptively long. At times, I had to pinch myself as a reminder that this was supposed to be addressing 'The God Delusion'. And reflecting that there are other writers who deal with cosmology in a much more engaging manner.
I awaited, in vain, for the 'clear definitions' and 'sharp arguments'. Coming in at around 143 pages, I was reminded of Woody Allen describing the two ladies discussing the food at a mountain resort. The first lady says, "The food in this place is really terrible." To which her companion replies, "Yes, and such small portions." Well, this more or less sums up my opinion of this book.
However, he does attempt to resuscitate the argument from design by renaming it as the 'new argument for design'. The argument from design is unusual in that it can be cast in mathematical terms and be shown to be unsound. Essentially, it reflects a flawed understanding of the relationship between probabilities and their inverses. For anyone interested, there is a good treatment of it in 'Logic: A Very Short Introduction' by Graham Priest.
What Ward seems to be describing as the 'new' design argument involves a dash of fine-tuning with a dash of probabilities. His understanding of probabilities appears to repeat the same misunderstanding which is buried in the more usual formulation of the argument from design. And he does not appear to appreciate that the fine-tuning argument is a powerful argument _against_ the existence of an omnipotent creative deity (who would have no need to 'fine-tune' anything!) The philosopher Gilbert Fulmer has argued that the fine-tuning argument is logically incoherent anyway.
His discussion of consciousness was, in my opinion, little short of an embarrassment. He was dismissive of Daniel Dennett and appears to have little appreciation of how much research has been done in this field. He seems to think that it is a problem which is 'so difficult that no one has any idea how to begin to tackle it, scientifically'. Although it is true to say that it is a difficult problem, and it is very early days, Ward seems to be unaware of the research which has been done by neuroscientists over a period of 60 years or so. There are a number of popular books available on consciousness and there are already valiant attempts to deal with the problem of qualia. ('Seeing Red' by Nicholas Humphrey, for example.)
His conclusion on this is, roughly: we have no evidence for disembodied consciousness but it *might* exist. And then, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he concludes that, if we can imagine this, we can imagine 'God' as the ultimate form of disembodied consciousness.
He discusses cosmology and, for such a short book, I found this section appeared deceptively long. At times, I had to pinch myself as a reminder that this was supposed to be addressing 'The God Delusion'. And reflecting that there are other writers who deal with cosmology in a much more engaging manner.
I awaited, in vain, for the 'clear definitions' and 'sharp arguments'. Coming in at around 143 pages, I was reminded of Woody Allen describing the two ladies discussing the food at a mountain resort. The first lady says, "The food in this place is really terrible." To which her companion replies, "Yes, and such small portions." Well, this more or less sums up my opinion of this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A REAL philosopher shows Dawkins how to do it.
Consistent, coherent and, above all, conversant with philosophical method, this book demonstrates the many shortcomings of Dawkin's materialism. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Bobby Davro
Hard going
Clever philosophical argument is, well ... clever. But it isn't evidence. I wouldn't want a philosopher testing new medicines, so I'm not sure why I would want to rely on a... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Eric Ambleside
'almost certainly' is a bit of an oxymoron isn't it perhaps?
This is a well written book but is quite difficult to read because it is too philospohical for the average reader. Read more
Published 13 months ago by dand
More fallacious arguments for theism
I thought long and hard about how to write a review of Keith Ward's book, 'Why there almost certainly is a God? Read more
Published 20 months ago by C. Collins
Zen Paradox
Is there a God? Is there no God? How about this from Zen Buddhism: All is God and there is no God. Sheesh!
Published 21 months ago by Robert Bishop
Doubting reality
Reading this book I was reminded of the line in Frasier where his production assistant Ros calls him "the dumbest smart guy I ever met". Read more
Published 21 months ago by William Robertson
Great book
I've never really liked Dawkins since I was made to read "the Selfish Gene" as part of my degree course. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Guy Incognito
Surely someone can do better than this?
I purchased this book because the reviews seemed to indicate that it was the best of the responses to 'The God Delusion'. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Rob Salem
The greatest and most succinct response to the 'new atheists'
Being very much of the sceptical persuasion myself I've been moved to add my own review because I'm so shocked at how good it is! Read more
Published on 5 May 2010 by Mr. Peter T. Hardy
Persuasive critique of Dawkins
Ward is one of the most deeply thoughtful and widely read of contemporary Christian theologians, and no-one has done more over the past twenty years to bridge the gap between... Read more
Published on 12 Mar 2010 by Dean, London
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