RICHARD DAWKINS’ THE GOD DELUSION: AN ATHEIST SCIENCE CONFRONTS A SUPERSTITIOUS FAITH
Abstract
Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion challenges theology to take the method and mandate of science seriously (1 Cor 9:19-23). His argument is based on a naturalistic metaphysic heavily biased against transcendence. Going through various stages of emergence, cosmic evolution has led to a creature faced with options that have consequences and demand accountability. A transcendent frame of reference that provides meaning, criteria of acceptability and authority is indispensable for human life. His theory of evolution is, therefore, deficient in terms of an experiential approach to reality. But it also challenges theology to integrate best science or lose its plausibility. The Christian faith assumes that its notion of God, though provisional, partial and problematic, reflects the self-disclosure of the creative and redemptive intentionality of the ultimate Source and Destiny of reality, the very reality that we experience and which the sciences explore.Downloads
Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this Journal.
This is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors’ publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal webpage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: “This is an electronic version of an article published in Scriptura, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX–XXX”, DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://scriptura.journals.ac.za/pub) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University’s’ Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
