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With Peter S Williams
66 Plays5 years ago
Sometimes we can think of the "new atheists" like Richard Dawkins as the biggest enemies of Christianity today. When we speak about God with our friends, we wonder if they think we're suffering from a "God Delusion". How can we respond in a positive way, or even take advantage of the opportunities the new atheism presents? Andy speaks with philosopher Peter S Williams to find out more.
British philosopher and apologist Peter S. Williams is ‘Assistant Professor in Communication and Worldviews’ at Gimlekollen School of Journalism and Communication, NLA University College, Norway. Peter is a trustee of the Christian Evidence Society, a Montgomery Trust Lecturer and a Travelling Speaker for the European Leadership Forum. His books include: A Faithful Guide to Philosophy: A Christian Introduction to the Love of Wisdom (Wipf & Stock, 2019) and C.S. Lewis vs the New Atheists (Paternoster, 2013). His papers have appeared in journals including Philosophia Christi, Theofilus and Think. See: www.peterswilliams.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Andy Vanister, the director of the Solas Center for Public Christianity, and I am flying solo today. My wonderful co-host, Christy Mayer, is in bed with the flu, unable to speak, let alone respond to emails. So you only have me today, but thankfully you don't just have me. We have a wonderful guest joining us. We have Peter M.
00:00:33
Speaker
Yes, William's joining us all the way from Southampton. Peter is a philosopher, an apologist, an evangelist, a writer, a thinker, whereas various hats, he's the assistant professor for communication and worldview at Gimler Collins School of Journalism and Communication over in Norway, and also does a lot of stuff with the European Leadership Forum, an organization I'm also involved with. Peter, your bio and your list of books goes on and on and on. Quite a resume there. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much, Anthony.
The Rise of New Atheism and Christian Response
00:01:03
Speaker
It's great to be here.
00:01:03
Speaker
So Peter, one of the things that you're known for, and there's many things that you haven't interested, but I think one of the things you're known for is engaging and responding to atheism, particularly the so-called new atheism. And of course, that really kind of hits its height, perhaps in the last decade.
00:01:18
Speaker
with Dawkins and Dennett and others but of course Richard Dawkins has hit the best-selling stands again I was in Waterstones the other day and Richard's new book Outgrowing Gods is there on the best-selling sort of a column shelf there in Waterstones and it's getting reviews and picking up in the media and again people are thinking gosh how do I respond to this so I guess that's an opening question is you know what's going on with the
00:01:42
Speaker
with a new atheism? And how would you encourage perhaps a Christian who perhaps has colleagues and friends, fellow students at the university, students throw this stuff at them? How as Christians do we begin responding to Dawkins and not letting it be an obstacle to the gospel?
00:01:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think in a sense we can take Dawkins and the rest of the New Atheism as an opportunity for the Gospel. I think it's put God and Christianity back on the public agenda.
00:02:13
Speaker
and has opened doors for conversations in a way that 20 years ago, that these conversations weren't really part of the public square in the way that the new atheism has made it. So there was sort of an opportunity there as well, of course, as the challenges that are raised by the misinformation that these folks put out in their books and their documentaries and so on.
Moral Critique of Religion by New Atheists
00:02:40
Speaker
Do you think in anything that Dawkins is writing, is there anything new? Are there new arguments that Christians need to be thinking about? Or is this really a repackaging of critiques and criticisms of the Christian faith that have been around for a while?
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's really a repackaging of very old ideas. When you read Richard Dawkins talking about biblical studies, it's as if nothing has happened since sort of 19th century German liberalism and Rudolf Bultmann, basically, as far as he's concerned.
00:03:13
Speaker
And a few years ago I wrote a book called C.S. Lewis versus the New Atheists, where I pointed out that the kind of atheism that was abroad in the Oxford of Lewis's younger days, when he was at Oxford and being a professor first at Oxford, Lewis was imbibing the kind of atheism that today's new atheists are promulgating
00:03:40
Speaker
and partly because many of today's new atheists did their doctoral studies at Oxford under professors who would have been colleagues of Lewis's back in the 1930s and 40s and 50s.
Debate over Jesus' Existence
00:03:53
Speaker
One of the things that I was particularly struck by, Peter, when I read the New Atheists when they first came out 10 years ago, and I think you still see the pattern today, is the real anger almost and quite viciousness in the way that they go for the Christian faith. I think a lot of people find this online. I meet many Christians who say they're always afraid of sharing their Christian faith, their Christian opinions online because then suddenly
00:04:18
Speaker
you get the kind of online atheism crowd. They're not all like this, but some of them are the Dawkins variety who come on very vitriolically. What is going on there? What's behind the kind of the sort of anger and the style that we sometimes see in some of the new atheism? Yeah, that's what's new, if anything is new about the new atheism, the idea that religion is not only kind of intellectually mistaken, but it's morally bad. It's morally bad for individuals and for society. It's a sort of societal evil that needs to be
00:04:48
Speaker
So there's a sort of element of a sort of political movement to the new atheism. And as we know from any sort of online discussions about any sort of contentious political societal issues these days with the rise of engagement over social media, that can become very fraught and something that generates more heat than light. So we have to tread
00:05:17
Speaker
very carefully and do our absolute best to follow the biblical command to be speaking the truth in love and also to listen to people in love and to have the wisdom to know when a conversation is fruitful and when it's just going nowhere and should be just left behind.
00:05:40
Speaker
You know, it's interesting that a minute or two ago, you mentioned C.S. Lewis because you didn't engage with him in your book on C.S. Lewis and the new atheist. And I think it's interesting, of course, because not many people are aware that Lewis was an atheist for a large chunk of their life and the Christian. And one of the myths I think we hear a lot in the secular world today is that people don't do that. You know, people people leave the Christian faith and abandon
Transition from Atheism to Christianity
00:06:01
Speaker
their faith. But the fact that somebody who's a thinking atheist might go the other way is that idea sort of
00:06:07
Speaker
sort of a blast from the past. Is Lewis, that was fine back then, but today, atheists stay atheists? Or is it actually the case that people who are thinkers and perhaps quite skeptical can actually change their position?
00:06:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think people at all various levels of depths of thinking about these issues change from one side to another in both directions. Of course, I don't have any statistics to tell you exactly how many in which direction at any particular time you need to go and ask a pollster.
00:06:41
Speaker
about that sort of thing. But I can certainly think of names of intellectuals or philosophers and scientists and so on who have been atheists and have become theists or Christians over the years since Lewis is by no means the only example. Yeah, that's encouraging to hear because I say I think sometimes, you know, Christians can be put quite off by the idea that actually there's, you know, the intellectual battles being lost when it when it really hasn't.
00:07:10
Speaker
Another question I'd really like to ask you about is one of the other threads I've seen running through the new atheism over the years has been their view of Jesus is fascinating. I mean, I found fascinating actually how in his, you know, famous book, The God Delusion, I don't actually think he fully knows what to do with Jesus. It sort of makes a fantastic horizons in places.
00:07:31
Speaker
But one of the things that some of the new atheists have popularized is the idea that actually Jesus never existed. And I remember being sort of quite surprised, even relatively recently, I was doing an event at a university down the coast from where I live here in Dundee in Scotland. And, you know, afterwards got talking to an atheist who launched straight into the, well, Jesus never existed, which is a very surprising view to hear because actually it's not held that widely in academia.
00:07:59
Speaker
I wonder if you had some comments on that, because I know you've done work in that area, particularly on how the new atheists... What is going on with Jesus and the new atheism? And again, how as Christians can we respond to some of this Peter?
00:08:13
Speaker
Well I think by quoting the New Atheists themselves would be a good place to start because although I mean folks like Dawkins sometimes kind of skirt around the issue of the historicity of Jesus or give the impression that you know there's a good academic case to be made that he didn't exist.
00:08:31
Speaker
Even Dawkins frankly admits that Jesus probably did exist. Or you look at someone like Lawrence Krauss says that Jesus was a real historical person, or Sam Harris.
00:08:47
Speaker
talks about Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu and the other saints and sages of history. So the neotheists themselves by and large actually admit that there was a historical Jesus. Their real issue is over how much can be known about him historically speaking.
Equipping Christians to Engage with Atheism
00:09:06
Speaker
So I guess on that question, suppose someone listening to this has a conversation with a friend at university or work and their friend says to them, we really can't know much about the historical Jesus. How should they respond? What's a good pushback on that to open the conversation out? Because I guess you would take issue like I would with the idea that we can't know much about the Jesus of history.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So one thing, again, like suggesting quoting the new atheists back on that issue is to quote non-believing scholars, to quote atheist diagnostic New Testament scholars say,
00:09:45
Speaker
on issues of, you know, there are certain things that we are very sure about, about the historical Jesus. So I think it's the new atheist, the atheist New Testament scholar, Gerd Ludeman, who says that the fact that Jesus was crucified is one of the most sort of securely established, most certain facts of ancient history.
00:10:10
Speaker
So you can quote scholars that won't raise the issue, and it's a canon of an issue, but you will sometimes hear this of, you know, you're just quoting Christian scholars and they're biased and so we can't trust them.
00:10:29
Speaker
You don't even raise that issue if you can quote agnostic and Jewish and atheist New Testament scholars and historians and classists talking about there's a certain range of data about the historical Jesus that is very commonly accepted within academia.
00:10:50
Speaker
Now Peter, one thing I'm very conscious of is you and I have this conversation and you and I are both academics. We're both philosophers and dabbled and other things as well. And somebody listening to this might say, well, it's okay for you gentlemen, you are so incredibly widely read. All of the literature, some of this is going over my head. How can the ordinary Christian, for once in a bed of words, who hasn't got a doctoral degree in this stuff, begin getting themselves equipped
00:11:18
Speaker
Not so they can necessarily take on a Dawkins, but so they can engage well at work, at home, at school. What's a good way in to some of the things that you've talked about for someone who's new to some of this? Yeah, I would say some of the good ways in are to look at good material on YouTube.
00:11:38
Speaker
For example, watch some of the debates between say Christian philosopher like William Lane Craig and the atheists that he debates with. Go and look at the material on his reasonable faith website will lead you to his debates or you can look him up on YouTube or to listen to debates on Justin Briley's unbelievable question mark program on the Premier Christian Radio, where he hosts debates between believers and non-believers.
00:12:10
Speaker
Also, to just begin reading some sort of entry-level apologetic material. I'd recommend, for example, reading some of the books by the American journalist Lee Strobel, who he himself was one of those guys who was an atheist, applied his journalistic training to thinking about the God question, the Jesus question, and eventually became
00:12:34
Speaker
a Christian in his written a series of books in which he sort of retraces that journey from atheism to Christianity and instead of just you know reading the material that he read at the time he goes and interviews the scholars so they're very nicely written interviews with people as a nice entry-level way of getting a breadth of information about some of these issues.
00:13:00
Speaker
That's really helpful advice. Peter, it's interesting. I always often point people to 1 Peter 3, 15 and 16, where it talks about always being prepared to give a reason. We live in such an age now where there's such great resources. And Lee Strobel, who you mentioned, and others, there's a great way in. So I think for somebody who's new to this, there are great ways to dabble their feet in the water.
00:13:23
Speaker
On the other hand, there are also people who are called to the life of the mind. I mean, you know, many brilliant young men and women who are Christians, who are students in our universities. For those who want to go deeper, I think one of the questions, you know, they often face is, you know, how do, as a Christian, you sort of balance the life of the mind and the life of being faithful to Christ? And I was just looking up your prolific in terms of your writing, and your latest book is called A Faithful Guide to Philosophy.
00:13:52
Speaker
which I think is a great title. So I guess a sort of question, perhaps slightly from left field I wanted to put at you, is how do you as a Christian do philosophy faithfully? How do you engage with a world of ideas that the real challenge is to the Christian faith? It's not easy, I think, as a Christian going into philosophy. I know I've had friends studying philosophy who say that before they studied philosophy, their past has warned them off it. You know, don't as a Christian study it, you'll lose your faith.
00:14:17
Speaker
which I think you and I would disagree with. How as a Christian can you really engage well for those of us who are thinkers and do that faithfully?
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, well this comes back to, you know, Jesus's answer to the question about what's the greatest commandment, where he basically says, you know, love God with everything you are. He talks about loving God with your heart and with your strength, but also he talks about loving God with all of your mind. And I think Christian students particularly have a calling to love God with their mind and to think about their faith.
00:14:49
Speaker
as much as at the same level as their academic studies and to try and think about the the relationship, the integration of those things together. So in terms of philosophy, I mean obviously literally the
00:15:07
Speaker
The subject name means the love of wisdom from the Greek Philo and Sophia, love of wisdom. And the Bible has a lot to say about wisdom, loving God with our minds, living life wisely and so on.
Faith and Philosophy Integration
00:15:26
Speaker
and it certainly was my experience as a Christian going to university and studying philosophy that although I found one or two of my philosophy professors antagonistic I also found other professors who were encouraging to me in the process of integrating my faith and the subject matter of philosophy and a lot of the
00:15:50
Speaker
the philosophers that we studied in class were of course believers at least in God or indeed explicitly Christian believers. So you may have an atheist professor but the class that he's teaching is leading you to read folks like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and Rene Descartes and John Locke and
00:16:15
Speaker
You think, okay, the guys we're studying here actually many of them are believers.
Spiritual Curiosity Beyond Materialism
00:16:21
Speaker
One last area I wanted to ask about as we sort of head towards the end of the podcast. You know, I'm very conscious, very easy when we talk about the new atheism as we just did for a bulk of our conversation. So I think that the world out there is incredibly atheistic, that it's incredibly secular. And I think Christians often run away from that and are quite frightened. On the other hand, I think what I see all over the place, and I think you do too from comments you've made sort of elsewhere, that actually in the one sense, we live in a race spiritually.
00:16:50
Speaker
intrigued world. I know you've talked about things like the argument from desire and argument from beauty, which are arguments that speak into that. What do you think is actually going on in Western culture right now? Are we becoming increasingly secular or is it just that we live in a spiritually but confused age? And if spirituality is the thing, how as Christians do we connect into that and find that as a bridge to the gospel piece here?
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, wow, that's a short question. A short question to end our time with. You've got three minutes, so you've got no questions. Christianity is actually growing at a global level.
00:17:29
Speaker
Christian dedication is shrinking in the circularized West. And as you say, by circularized here, we don't have this old picture that sociologists used to have of, you know, religion would just decline in Western societies and we'd become more and more sort of atheistic and materialistic and so on.
00:17:54
Speaker
But rather what we're finding is that religion and spirituality is still very important to people who no longer consider themselves to be Christian or traditionally religious or committed to particular sort of religious traditions with the growth of what's been called the so-called nuns, the people who are on censuses say none of the above. But the nuns are
00:18:22
Speaker
overwhelmingly interested in spiritual issues and spirituality, various religious practices and so on. They're not becoming secular humanist materialists like Richard Dawkins. That's still a very small, although slightly growing percentage of society it would seem in places like America.
00:18:45
Speaker
and the UK. So there is still a thirst and an interest for the meaning and purpose of life and the more to life than you can fit within the materialistic, naturalistic description of reality.
00:19:03
Speaker
But people in our society have certainly moved away from Christian and other traditional ways of looking at that, but they're not by and large moving into the naturalistic box.
Holistic Gospel Engagement
00:19:18
Speaker
I think what's interesting is that you, I agree, and I think you see that all over the place. I mean, I'd be very struck by the fact that some of our, you know, sort of leading public intellectuals are writing books around these themes. I mean, Tom Holland's big book, Dominion, that came out in the last year that's made a lot of splash in the press, really looking at how, you know, the Christianity just underpins so much of what we take for granted in the West. And then most recently reading some of Douglas Murray's work, and Douglas is an atheist, he's gay, he's a
00:19:48
Speaker
conservative sort of philosopher and journalist and again this longing for spirituality that comes through so I guess it's just the final question really Peter just to press into if that if that if that's there as you reckon as you recognize it is the case I think I very much agree with you how do we tap into it how do we how do we use that
00:20:07
Speaker
as a bridgehead to the gospel, recognising it's there. What's a great way for Christians listening to this when they hear their friends perhaps express some of these longings to then try and use that to nudge them towards Christ? What would your advice be?
00:20:22
Speaker
advice would be not to abandon the traditional notion of apologetics as involving giving people reasons and evidence for believing Christianity to be true, but to supplement that, to think very carefully about how we present that information and engage with people at the level, not only of truth, but also of goodness and beauty, so that we have a rounded holistic
00:20:50
Speaker
message because the gospel we have to share is a rounded and holistic message, you know, Christ calling us to love God with all of our hearts and souls and minds and strength and calling himself, you know, he is the way, the truth, the life, saying he's the good shepherd and using a Greek word there that doesn't just mean, you know, morally good, but attractive. He's a Greek word callous. I am the sort of the beautiful good shepherd.
00:21:18
Speaker
So we want to do justice to the gospel that we have by engaging people on all of those levels and showing people that we have a message about a saviour who is not only the truth, but who is good, who offers a beautiful way of life and so on. And I think by emphasizing the true, the good and the beautiful aspects of Christ, we can
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:21:47
Speaker
engage people at a more sort of holistic level. I think that would be a good thing for us to learn and to focus on trying to do more.
00:22:00
Speaker
Peter, that's a wonderful place to end, just on the way that the gospel speaks to so much in life, both the heart and the mind and the soul. Thank you for taking us there at the end of the interview. It's been a real privilege to have you on the podcast. Peter, thank you for joining us. Thank you. And I hugely encourage people listening to this. You've enjoyed what Peter has said. Do check out Peter's website. There'll be a link in the show notes where you can find all of Peter's books and articles and much more content. So Peter, again, blessings to you. Thank you very much, Andy.
00:22:35
Speaker
Hello everybody, I just wanted to take a moment to let you know if you weren't aware that the PepTalk podcast is produced by the Solas Center for Public Christianity. As an organization, we're committed both to sharing the gospel outside the four walls of the church, but also teaching and training and equipping Christians for evangelism with great resources like this podcast. You can join with us and help us do more of this hugely important work by supporting Solas.
00:23:01
Speaker
just visit the Solas website at solas-cpc.org, click on the donate button and you can become a monthly donor for as little as £3 a month and as a thank you for your support. We will send you a copy of my book, The Atheists Didn't Exist or you can choose a copy of Christy Mayer's book, More Truth and you can get behind the work that we do both in terms of training and evangelism. Hope you enjoy the show and look forward to seeing you next time.