ASU Report - October 28, 2009
"The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science, especially in the schools of America. I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organized ignorance. We even have to go out on the attack ourselves, for the sake of reason and sanity."
Such is the thoroughly religious mission of the new atheists, whose hope is not simply to sing the praises of science but to herald the end of faith. From the vitriolic rants of Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett to the harangues of Richard Dawkins, who made the above statement in the Sunday Times in 2006, the so-called new atheists are indignant at the mere suggestion that faith could be anything more than fanciful delusion. “Faith is the great cop-out," notes Dawkins, "the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence…Faith is not allowed to justify itself by argument.”
Following through on his promise to reach the American university with time and resources, Dawkins has spoken twice on the campus of Arizona State University since his pledge in 2006. Mechanical engineering student Susanna Young attended the first Dawkins symposium and was even recognized by Dawkins after his lecture on "The God Delusion." But Young, and countless students like her, was excited to hear of another open forum to be held October 28, 2009, bringing an entirely opposing view to campus in the same year. "[B]ecause intellectual diversity gives students the opportunity to think critically," Young said. "I am pleased that there has been and will be forums where both Christians and skeptics will be challenged.” That opposing view was gladly offered by a team from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and was presented to a sold-out crowd of nearly 8,000 students, faculty, and community participants. John Lennox, Michael Ramsden, and Ravi Zacharias each spoke pointedly to the question "Is Faith Delusional?" answering the accusations of Richard Dawkins, correcting erroneous dismissals, and depicting ignored evidence.
At a university that has made significant contributions within the field of science, Oxford Professor of Mathematics John Lennox began with the vital reminder that the difference between Richard Dawkins and himself is not in science, but in their worldviews—between philosophical naturalism and theism. The battle is not between science and theology, as Dawkins presumes, but between these two opposing zeitgeists. And the big question is then: within which of these worldviews does science sit most comfortably? Richard Dawkins thinks that faith in God is a delusion—a delusion being a persistent, false belief that is held in the face of strong, contradicting evidence. "I think that atheism is a delusion," Lennox states to the contrary, "and that science points toward God."
With this critical starting point, Lennox, Ramsden, and Zacharias compounded a mosaic of compelling evidences toward this end, leaving the audience with an image far from delusion and the assurance that faithful thinkers will indeed remain in the conversation for the sake of everyone in it. In the concluding words of Ravi Zacharias, "We report; you decide."
The field of apologetics exists because there is indeed a conversation to be had. We come to university campuses because there are questions that are not dismissed with the dismissal of faith. We come because there are difficult questions that the church itself must be willing to answer, and questions we must be willing to admit are exceptionally difficult to resolve in and of ourselves. But unlike Dawkins, we do not come to the university presuming to have all the answers, nor do we come simply to argue. We do not come on the attack. Though apologetics in the minds of some is a tool precisely for such a task, we do not come defensively hoping to secure our own beliefs, but rather, with a hopeful defense of the one who secures us. For if Jesus is who he said he is then Christianity is far from a matter of preference or pedigree. But this is hardly to suggest that theism is void of questions that are difficult to answer or existential struggles wholly unsatisfied by human thought. The apologist who remains at the level of words and arguments is no more instructive than the religious leaders who wanted to pelt the crumbled adulterer with stones. When our truth is as flat as a formula, a set of rituals, or words, our discipline is indeed a delusion, as Jeremiah once said, our god something less than God. And we fall miserably short of being ready to give the truest account of the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15).
The apostle Paul's description of Jesus is indeed as full of inscrutable truths as it is compelling evidences: "He was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory" (1 Timothy 3:16). Evidences of the heights and depths of this divine truth can indeed be received as factual, definitive fingerprints. But so they are clues that point to a multi-dimensional, inexhaustible Person full of grace, and truth, and beauty. It is this Person that we come to give evidence of on campuses around the world. Is it delusional to testify to a creator behind all of creation? Is it fanciful to postulate God as the first cause? Are we mistaken to recognize intelligence behind the staggering complexity of a meaningful strand of DNA? Is faith itself delusional? For one ASU student, this was exactly the question she needed answered. To the professor who offered her the free ticket to the event, she exclaimed, "Wouldn't it really be great if one of these speakers can really answer that question?" Indeed, it is a great thing to speak to such answers. It is a serious undertaking to confess to the one who illumines the universe, the one who dispels false gods, empty theories, blind allegiances, and delusions. It is a great thing to proclaim a faith and a hope that makes sense. It is even greater to proclaim a worldview that brings good news into devastated places, beauty into ashes, clarity into confusion.
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