As I mentioned briefly on Thursday I was privileged to be able to go down to Atlanta for a large community event with Dr. Ravi Zacharias and RZIM. It was a great opportunity to catch up with my good friends and fellow OCCA scholars, George Hiller and Mark Davies. I had a chance to chat with Ravi for a few minutes and connect with some other friends and colleagues from both RZIM and Oxford, including my fromer professor from Oxford, Dr. John Lennox (who will be debating Christopher Hitchens down in Birmingham, AL next Tuesday--due to the fact that Dinesh D'Souza had to cancel at the last minute) and Ian Smith (the Executive Director of the RZIM office in Oxford and the one primarily responsible for getting me involved in the OCCA program last summer).
The event itself was very well attended (with nearly 4,500 people at the Civic Center). Dr. Lennox was first in the batting order giving his response to the primary question under discussion, "Is faith delusional?". He was then followed up by Dr. Zacharias, and they concluded the evening with a time of Q & A. The entire evening started at 7:00 p.m. and didn't conclude until about 9:30 p.m. And as you can imagine, the rich content was like trying to drink from a fire hydrant. :) Thus, since I wouldn't do it justice to try to bring all of the excellent content to you, we'll just put our Dixie cup up to the fire hydrant and see if we can capture just a few drops. (Given the confines of this post and the fact that I don't expect you to spend the next hour reading it, I'll simply provide a few ideas from my notes. Naturally, there are gaps in my notes that may present an idea in only a limited sense since I'm unable to provide the full context for the comments. Perhaps we'll have more opportunity to get into further discussion on the comment board or in future posts. NOTE: Quote marks represent my personal notes, not necessarily exact quotations from the speakers.)
From Dr. John Lennox:
"Can we ever actually get absolute proof of anything? The New Atheists believe that faith is blind. We can agree with the New Atheists that blind faith is dangerous. But, is Christianity based on blind faith? The argument can be made that it is not."
"The key question in determining just who his delusional: Does God exist? Faith is delusional if God doesn't exist. But what if He does exist?"
"A certain amount of faith is involved in science. Thus, if faith is delusional, then so is science. Scientists have to believe from the beginning that science has an inherent order to it. Otherwise, the study of science becomes pointless."
"How does Darwinian evolution account for religious belief? If it is an evolutionary misfiring, wouldn't/shouldn't it cease to exist?"
"Does there really need to be a dichotomy between either science or faith?"
From Dr. Ravi Zacharias:
"The atheist worldview, based on evolutionary science, ultimately reduces the universe to meaninglessness. The notion of evil correspondingly assumes some notion of good. And good assumes some standard of goodness. From where does that standard come if not from a ultimate moral Law-giver?"
"Quoting Aldous Huxley's idea: 'I have motives for not wanting the world to have meaning...' To assume this world has no meaning frees one to do away with moral restrictions."
"Concerning the existence of God: If you take any physical quantity in the universe and section it, you will never find its origin of existence in itself. This points to the possibility of an external source."
"Whenever you see intelligibility or specified complexity, you will always assume an intelligence behind it. For example, if you saw group of rocks in a field lined up in the shape of triangle, you might be able to reasonably assume that they got through through unintended means. But if, in that same field, you came across a piece of paper with "Dear John, thanks for your letter. Keep in touch.", you will never assume any explanation less than an intelligence behind it."
"Regarding the response to God from the New Atheists: Richard Dawkins has famously compared belief in God to belief in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Certainly, children believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy when they are little. But there comes a time when they cease to believe in such figments of imagination. What is true, however, if that no person ever comes to belief in the Tooth Fairy when they are an adult. Also, It is interesting to note that the anger with which many of the New Atheists speak against (the imaginary) God you would never speak against the Tooth Fairy (which we know doesn't exist). Perhaps that anger confirms in the truth in the back of their minds--that God actually does exist?"
There was much more, but this should suffice to provide us some spirited conversation. :) All in all, it was a great trip. Special thanks to Dave, or first-rate chauffer around Atlanta, as well as, Ryan for the late night conversation Thursday night. It more than made up for the lack of sleep. :)