Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Plantinga on Dawkins

Alvin Pantinga, arguably the greatest modern philosopher, critiques Dawkin's most recent book, The God Delusion, in this months Christianity Today. Here's a brief excerpt:

Richard Dawkins is not pleased with God:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal….

Well, no need to finish the quotation; you get the idea. Dawkins seems to have chosen God as his sworn enemy. (Let's hope for Dawkins' sake God doesn't return the compliment.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I do not agree with what this Richard Dawkins man says about God and His character, but as I have been reading through both the Old and New Testament the past 2 months, I see why Richard might think this way about God. My eyes and mind have been opened to the reality of how serious God is about His laws and His people, especially in the OT, which I never dove into until this year. Why do we as Christ's followers today obey some laws and practices in the Old Testament(like obstaining from sex before marriage, loving God and our neighbor first, not practicing homosexuality, obeying the 10 commandments, etc.), but not others (like stoning people when they murder, rape, commit adultery, etc.). I don't know. The more I read the book of Leviticus, the more I want to know about God, why He made all of those laws and rules in the Old Testament, His people, and what I am sapposed to do with what I read in the OT. Any insight or wisdom on this?
-sem