Response to Alister McGrath's "There is nothing blind about faith"

In the past few months in particular, I've seen a string of articles written by religious apologists seeking to discredit so-called "New Atheism" and "New Atheists". I'm getting more than a little tired of the baseless attacks and painfully-fallacious reasoning, so I'm going to shred the latest instalment. Note that I'm not attacking belief or believers here - I support absolutely the right of anyone to believe anything (or nothing), and I'm not going to argue against that. In this essay I am merely responding to an unfair and deeply flawed attack on nonbelievers. Intelligent response is actively welcomed, especially if you disagree with me and can coherently explain how and why you disagree.

The article in question is There is nothing blind about faith by Alister McGrath (who has written a series of similar articles prior to this one). I shall quote as necessary, and respond fairly thoroughly.

The great Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero had plenty of advice for those who wanted to win arguments. Cicero was far too skilled in matters of rhetoric to limit himself to evidence-based argument. Nothing convinces like conviction, he remarked. An orator's passionate conviction in his beliefs was essential to winning others to the cause.
Yes, passionate conviction does tend to sway people. This is due to a weakness in human psychology, and has no bearing on the actual truth (or otherwise) of a position. To take an extreme example: Hitler was a highly skilled rhetoretician who certainly followed Cicero's advice, but I contend that his rhetorical skill did not in any way constitute rational evidence supporting his positions. Oh, and just so we're clear: I am not saying that Christians (or any theists) are "as bad as Hitler" or any such nonsense - I am merely pointing out that rhetorical skill has no correlation with factual accuracy.

Furthermore, [Hitchens'] assertions seem accepted as oracles of truth by his devotees. Perhaps this helps us understand how the New Atheist notion of faith has achieved such prominence, despite its obvious inaccuracy.
1. Oracles were people who spoke prophecy, generally under the influence of psychoactive drugs of some sort. It makes no sense to refer to statements as oracles of any kind. I would normally avoid pointing out a language error in this sort of context, but I feel this one demonstrates that McGrath is using concepts which he does not grasp. This contributes to my overall charge of proof by verbosity, which seems to be the primary tool of apologists like McGrath.
2. The "obvious inaccuracy" is a bit surprising, given that the definition which McGrath takes from Dawkins is a loose paraphrasing of a Bible verse. Let's compare the two:
-'faith is "blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence."' - Alister McGrath, quoting Richard Dawkins
-'faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see' - Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

The only possible objection is to "in the teeth of evidence". Offhand I can't produce a Bible verse specifically supporting this, but history is full of Christians clinging to false positions on the basis of faith even in the teeth of evidence. This is not an exclusively Christian phenomenon, and it's not even exclusively a theist flaw (eg. there are instances of respected scientists vigorously and even unscrupulously defending out-of-date theories in the teeth of new evidence), but it is certainly a very common feature of theism throughout history.

no Christian theologian I know would accept this notion of faith. It is Dawkins's own invention, designed with his own polemical agendas in mind.
That would be the "notion" that is explicitly supported on most points by the Bible, and supported on the remaining point by the weight of history and current events. I wonder about the Christian theologians that Prof. McGrath knows.

the simple reality of life is that all of us, irrespective of our views about God, base our lives on beliefs - on things that we cannot prove to be true, but believe to be trustworthy and reliable.
I'm disappointed that McGrath doesn't give any examples here, because I am genuinely unsure of what he means. My best guess is that this is an indirect form of the logical fallacy known as equivocation - using a single term for two different meanings and implicitly conflating the two. He equivocates belief as "holding to be true" with belief as "unshakeable conviction", and also equivocates prove as "establish sufficiently high likelihood for practical use" (or even "establish beyond reasonable doubt") with prove as "demonstrate beyond any possible doubt".
We rational atheists do arguably base our lives on beliefs, but these beliefs (in the "hold to be true" sense) are supported sufficiently by rational evidence. I believe that I will die if I jump off a tall building, for instance - technically I can't prove it absolutely, but I believe it strongly enough that I don't jump off tall buildings. I used to believe that glass was technically a liquid, because that was the most plausible position based on the information I had. I no longer hold that belief, since I now have more and better information. That's the key difference between the two meanings of "belief" here - one is always open to revision or abandonment based on new information, whereas the other is clung to all the more tightly "in the teeth" of new information.

The New Atheism seems to have some kind of aversion to using the word "faith," believing it denotes some kind of intellectual perversity reserved for deluded religious fools. Faith, we are told, is invariably blind faith.
I try to avoid using the word "faith" in contexts like this, because it is so readily (often wilfully) misinterpreted. The word has multiple meanings, and a statement I make intending the word in one meaning may be used against me unfairly by assuming another meaning. Precisely this has been done to people such as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, for instance, by those Christians who take instances of the word "God" in the writings of those non-Christian men and assume that it refers to Yahweh.


I have no doubt that some religious people do have blind faith ... followers are being encouraged simply to echo the views and actions of their gurus.
Indeed, some atheists do have blind faith in what the "superstars" of atheism say. Atheists are not all purely rational and highly intelligent, any more than theists are all totally irrational and profoundly stupid. It is also true to some extent that the cult of personality is in play, but I fail to see why McGrath should be concerned; such a phenomenon does not bear on the validity of atheism, but only (potentially) weakens its self-promotion. I see this point as another version of the "strident" argument (bizarrely often leveled against Dawkins), which itself is merely a reworking of the "uppity" argument used successively against women and black people. Members of a disadvantaged group lobbying for better treatment should always be suspicious of advice coming from those who are perpetuating the disadvantage, particularly if (as in this case) the advice boils down to "shut up". Shall we argue that there was no cult of personality around Paul Robeson or Martin Luther King Jr, for instance? Note that I am not saying atheists are being persecuted anywhere near as badly as black people and women once were; my comparison is one of concept, not of degree.

For example, the secularist group, "Freethinkers" - which is "guided by reason and logic" - has on sale a T-shirt printed with advice on how to tackle life's great ethical questions. Just ask: "What would Dawkins do?" Neat, eh?
McGrath is apparently unable to understand a simple joke at the expense of the ubiquitous "What Would Jesus Do?" merchandise. Awkward.

The simple truth is that belief is just a normal human way of making sense of a complex world. It is not blind - it just tries to make the best sense of things on the basis of the limited evidence available.
Again, this is equivocation. In the statements "I believe that Jesus of Nazareth literally rose from the dead" and "I believe driving a car will improve my life overall", for example, the word "believe" is not consistent - it refers to two different concepts, and these should not be confused. I support absolutely the right of any person to believe anything they choose, but I will say this unambiguously: on the basis of the information available to any educated person today, the core dogma of Christianity is not rationally defensible. I do not raise this as an argument against belief (since most believers I've known have held up that irrational faith as a virtue), but rather as an argument against McGrath's fuzzy thinking.


For example, consider the current debate within cosmology ... nobody thinks they are deluded, mentally ill, or immoral for believing such things.
Equivocation yet again. They (and I) hold as true the multiverse theory, but they (and I) will cheerfully change our minds if further evidence renders that theory implausible.

It is immoral to rape people. Democracy is better than fascism. World poverty is morally unacceptable. I can't prove any of these beliefs to be true, and neither can anyone else.
His examples are uncontroversial, but his argument is false. I can indeed "prove" these beliefs to be true, albeit not to the absolute standard which McGrath seems fixed upon. The argument is as follows:
1. I propose this as an axiom: "suffering is bad". All religions and all modern societies seem to agree on this basic idea, though the details of interpretation and application vary wildly. I'm using "axiom" here in the formal sense, as something which for the purposes of the argument cannot be justified by other means and must simply be accepted by all parties. Anyone who wants to attack this axiom, feel free.
2. Raping someone causes suffering. Therefore, rape is wrong. Any argument against this would need to provide compelling reasons why banning rape would cause greater suffering.
3. Democracy is believed to cause less suffering than fascism. Therefore, contingent upon that belief, democracy is better than fascism.
4. "World poverty is morally unacceptable"? To whom? The widespread poverty in places like large parts of Africa exists largely because of the actions of some (generally very rich) people in the First World, and these people could at least significantly ameliorate the problem if they so chose; clearly it is not unacceptable to them. I would certainly agree that world poverty is bad, however, because it causes great suffering.

Should anyone wish to question the legitimacy of axiomatic reasoning itself, I invite a careful consideration of modern mathematics (which ultimately rests on 5 unprovable axioms).

Hitchens's anti-theism rests on certain moral values (such as "religion is evil" or "God is not good") which he is unable to demonstrate by reason.
1. These "values" are the conclusions, rather than the premises, of Hitchens' arguments. His morality does not rest on them; rather, they rest on his meticulous arguments (which ultimately rest on the axiom I proposed above). It is simply false to say that Hitchens is "unable to demonstrate [them] by reason" - he has done so at great length and with greater care.

When he is called upon to prove them - as he regularly is in debates - he seems unable to do so.
I call foul, Prof. McGrath. That is, I contend that your statement is factually incorrect (whether wilfully or not).

Christianity holds that faith is basically warranted belief. Faith goes beyond what is logically demonstrable, yet is nevertheless capable of rational motivation and foundation.
1. "Warranted belief" implies "rationally warranted", which is simply not applicable to the core Christian dogma (to take but one example). Failing that, it means nothing.
2. Faith is indeed "capable of" rational foundation - I myself based my own Christian faith on the (very limited and skewed) historical information known to me at that time. Any faith which is based on a rational foundation, however, must by definition be falsifiable unless it is based only on abstract logic - any rational foundation can in theory be destroyed by new information, and of course any faith based on that foundation would thereby be toppled. Thus my own faith was destroyed when I became aware of broader and more reliable information and demolished my faith's "rational foundation" therewith.

It is a relational idea, pointing to the capacity of God to captivate our imaginations, and to accompany us on the journey of life.
I fear Prof. McGrath misunderstands the basic atheist position. The core of our argument isn't "God is undesirable"; rather, it is "God is implausible". Santa Claus also has the capacity to captivate imaginations, for instance, but we don't consider that a good argument for his existence. And what exactly does it mean to say that any god "[accompanies] us on the  journey of life"? Anyone who sees or hears any god directly is liable to be committed to a psychiatric facility, and yet theists persist in talking about a personal relationship with their particular never-seen and never-heard deity as a close personal friend.

(EDIT: Fixed a typo, and simplified my axiom. )