Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5
Enjoyability: 4 of 5
This is one of several books written as a direct response to the Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion." In that book, Dawkins succeeded in showing that he had a very poor knowledge of Christian theology, restating the old atheist arguments in, if anything, a more high-vocabulary, but still less intelligent way. By no stretch of the imagination is it the kind of book that could hold up under critical analysis, nor is it an intellectually-sophisticated or convincing argument philosophically or theologically. For the most part, it was little more than a diatribe against religion by a very biased individual.
This book; the Godless Delusion does fare a bit better in that respect; giving fair arguments against atheism, which prove the logic incoherence of the position, as well as the damaging effect that widespread atheism is guaranteed to have on human society. However, you need to be patient to get to the good parts.
When forming a logical argument against the view of your opponent, there are certain rules that it's usually wise to follow.
1. The first is to present your own argument with whatever positive proofs your possess.
2. The second is to criticise the logical fallacies which are or seem to be inherent to your opponent's position, always remembering to take into account the arguments that the opponent has brought forth as well, for the purpose of refuting them.
3. The third rule is that when citing sources for an argument against an opponent, if at all possible, try to be certain that the sources have no other reason for working against the opponent. This is why, for example, Josephus' testimony on the life of Jesus is considered so important by historians. Josephus was anti-Christian, and yet, his writings confirm many Christian claims. Because of this, his words are that much more convincing to an atheist than, for example, the Gospel according to John.
In all three of these areas, there are slip-ups in this book.
1. With regard to the first, the book doesn't start out with a positive argument for Christianity, although there are certainly a great many defensible ones right now (the five proofs of Thomas Aquinas, the Ontological Argument, the Kalam Cosmological argument, etc...) In fact, I don't think a single positive argument for God's existence is ever really proposed in this entire book, except that it's logically-dishonest to make use of faculties if you don't believe they have a source, which is a much weaker argument, and much more easily argued against. Instead, the book simply takes it for granted that the reader believes in God already and doesn't need convincing, then goes on and on for over fifty pages about how dangerous and debilitating atheism is, as a worldview, making only a few good points in the process. As I said, the beginning takes patience to get through, and comes off largely as a counter-diatribe, very reminiscent of the work of Dawkins in some respects.
2. The slip-ups in the second category are much rarer, fortunately. The big one that I can point out right now is that midway through the book, the authors claim that the atheist argument of "evil exists, so God cannot" is self-contradictory. Since "evil" is merely the absense of good, and good is the same thing as God's nature, for the atheist to make any claims about evil existing is a contradiction, in a certain sense. The problem with taking this tack is that you run the risk of running into someone who really doesn't believe that evil or good exist, and is just "posing the question" in the framework of Christian thought, to try to imagine up a contradiction there. When a person argues against their opponent from the perspective of their opponent, and does it well, that's not contradiction or dishonesty; it's a technique for remaining consistent in one's arguments against another worldview. Unfortunately, it seems this pivotal point was missed by the authors of this book.
3. However, I think that probably the most damaging problems with this book arise from its tendency to incessantly quote the bible, the catechism, and other strongly Christian sources when criticizing atheism. Of course Christian sources criticize atheism. That's not news. Atheistic sources criticize Christianity too. So what?
All that having been said, while these weaknesses do exist, the book also has many strengths as well. It points out several logical inconsistencies within the atheist worldview (such as the denial of, and simultaneous reliance on, the objective standard of right and wrong,) derives some of its arguments from strongly atheistic sources, pointing out the inconsistencies within them, and puts forth a fair number of logical methods that can be used by Christians to both defend their own faith and argue against the self-delusions of the atheist mindset. I was also impressed that at no point in the book does it say anything contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, which may have influenced the score I gave it somewhat.
On the whole, an interesting read, with strong logical grounding, though the book makes a few mistakes in using that grounding. There are better books on the subject, but you could do a lot worse as well.
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