At one point in Dr. Richard Dawkins' interview with Dr. Alister McGrath, Dawkins proposes a scenario: A disaster of some sort occurs where 1000's are killed, but one child survives. Dawkins asks McGrath if God saved that one child, and McGrath affirms that yes, God did save that one child. Dawkins is perplexed by this, because the natural question that arises from McGrath's answer (that God saved the one child) is: Why God did not save the other children?

That particular question could be addressed by appealing to God's transcendent knowledge and so forth. However, my answer to Dawkins' inquiry would've differed from McGrath's response. I might have said something like this … well, if I was quick enough to respond somewhat articulately in the heat of the moment, that is:

No, I don't think we can say that God saved that one child. Neither can we say that God did NOT save that one child. While God has the power to supersede the natural order, unless there is evidence that He has done so in a particular situation we should not automatically conclude that He has done so. In this hypothetical scenario, there just isn't enough information given to make that decision. The issue we're really talking about here is whether a certain event was caused by miraculous intervention by God or not. I would not claim that God miraculously intervened unless the context of the event supported this conclusion.

A similar example of this came up earlier in their discussion, regarding the issue of Jesus' resurrection. If claims existed that Karl Marx had been raised from the dead, these claims would differ from the resurrection accounts because (among other reasons!) there was in the first century socio-religious context present to make sense of the meaning of Jesus' resurrection. It was not simply a curious event that had no greater meaning; it was in fact triumphantly meaningful.

Of course, McGrath's reply that it is right and proper to be thankful for the blessings we receive is correct; however I would just be more hesitant to say that God had worked a miracle in a particular situation.

Yesterday I stumbled upon this interview, which was not included in Richard Dawkins' "Root of All Evil?" movie. Here Dr. Dawkins interviews Dr. Alister McGrath, who currently teaches at Oxford University, the same school as Dr. Dawkins. Dr. McGrath has earned two PHDs from Oxford, one in molecular biophysics, and the other in theology. Here it the interview (provided by Dr. Dawkins himself) in its entirety:

You can also download the video in .MOV form (88mb)

Dr. Dawkins comes off relatively well in the video. Although he refers to some of his critics as "fleas" on his website, he does seem to have a certain respect for Dr. McGrath. It was refreshing to see an exchange between a prominent atheist and theist done in a respectful manner, but I would have much rather seen a real discussion between the two, instead of Dr. Dawkins posing all the questions (and his own views) with Dr. McGrath continually forced to be on the defensive.

I must comment that, although I thought Dr. McGrath handled the interview quite well, I don't entirely agree with some of his responses. There were just a couple times where, as I watched and listened, I thought "No, no! I think I have a better reply than that!" While it no doubt seems rather presumptuous of me to disagree with someone like McGrath who holds two PHDs and has published dozens of books and academic articles, nevertheless I'll try to make a few follow-up posts to this entry where I give my own responses to some of Dr. Dawkins' questions.

Related Reading:

• The God Solution: A Reply to the God Delusion – One of my professors wrote this upcoming book (release date July 10 2007) that proposes a response to Dr. Dawkins' popular book The God Delusion.