Friday, 15 April 2011

Just finished reading...

1. Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicut McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion?, 2007 (ISBN 978-0-281-05927-0)
2. Alister McGrath, Why God won't go away. Engaging the New Atheism, 2011 (ISBN 978-0-281-06387-1)
3. Alister McGrath, Surprised by Meaning. Science, Faith, and How We make Sense of Things, 2011 (ISBN 978-0-664-23692-2)

Overall, I enjoyed reading these and am glad I did. Stimulating, they outline and critique the fundamental tenets of the "New Atheism" clearly, simply, persuasively. I would have liked to see a recognition of metaphysics as a legitimate science with its own degree of abstraction and certainty, with its capacity for deductive proof distinct from that of mathematics. Such a discussion may have been beyond the scope of these volumes and disrupted the accessibility of the text.  Nonetheless, it would be regrettable if a reader were left with the impression that the philosophy of science trumps other philosophical sciences, and that mathematics alone enjoys an a relatively unassailable degree of certitude.  In short, I am left wondering about some epistemological pre-suppositions in the books. Having expressed that one, personal un-ease I have, I must say again that the books are a great read, and I would recommend the second one the most of all.

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