Richard Dawkins received international acclaim for his book, The God Delusion. In it, Dawkins asserts that belief in God is a dangerous and absurd superstition. Dawkins abhors all religion. But he is not concerned with the scourge of Buddhism. His major target is Christianity.

His Oxford Colleague, Alister McGrath, answered with Dawkin’s God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life. One of his observations is that Dawkins possesses a shallow understanding of Christian Theology.

To this criticism, Dawkins responded, “Yes, I have, of course, met this point before. It sounds superficially fair. But it presupposes that there is something in Christian theology to be ignorant about. The entire thrust of my position is that Christian theology is a non-subject. It is empty. Vacuous. Devoid of coherence or content. I imagine that McGrath would join me in expressing disbelief in fairies, astrology and Thor’s Hammer. How would he respond if a fairyologist, astrologer or Viking accused him of ignorance of their respective subjects?”

Most of us intuitively sense the dangers of writing about a subject with which we are ignorant. People who write cook books first study cooking. People who write computer books study computers. People who write books about birds first study birds. This rule applies to people who have both praise and disdain for the subject of their books. People who both admire and write about Reagan are at an advantage, because they have affection for their subject. But this does not excuse people who hate and write about Hitler from studying the facts about him.

People study the subject of their books because they want to be able to inform their readers. They also do not want to look silly. Unfortunately, Dawkins’s ignorance of Christianity causes him to make some silly statements.

Dawkins butchers both logic and the English language. Dawkins cannot distinguish between his disbelief in the subject of Christian Theology and recognition that Christian Theology is a subject. It is a subject that has influenced virtually every aspect of Western Civilization.

Christian Theology inspired western art for over a thousand years. It has, of course, influenced the content of what artists create. Consider the large number of works that are populated with biblical characters. Works that do not contain biblical characters, often possess Christian themes. But it also influenced the way western art was created. Consider the scripture “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Consider the way Western artists have used light to convey themes like virtue, truth or liberty.

Christian Theology inspired Bach, Haydn, Handel and countless others to create exquisite works that glorified God. Where would Western music be without these works? Christian Theology teaches us to make music of great joy, “Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!” (Psalm 47:1). Western music is brimming with Joy inspired by the worship of Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the most quoted work in all of Western Literature. No other text comes close. Christian symbolism is so prevalent that it even inhabits films produced by secular Hollywood. Consider the number of times the symbol of the cross appears in films as disparate as “Dances with Wolves” and “Alien 3”.

There is no area of Western art, architecture, culture, city planning or history that Christian Theology has not influenced. Dawkins’s dearest and most atheistic friends should encourage him to learn something about Christian Theology. Even if he did not embrace the faith, he could better understand some of the most beautiful works of Western Civilization.

Dawkins finds Christian Theology devoid of content. Has he never read C. S. Lewis? Has he not read Thomas Aquinas? Thoughtful Christian theologians span the centuries from St. Augustine in the fourth to William Lane Craig of the 21st. Dawkins presumably disagrees with these men. But these men are, by any measure, towering intellects. To call their writings vacuous reflects poorly on Dawkins’s intellectual honesty.

Finally, Dawkins once again butchers analogy. Dawkins’s ignorance of Christian Theology is not analogous to McGrath’s ignorance of Fairyology. In order for an analogy to work, the writer must show that two things are alike or analogous. The author and the audience must agree on the first thing. Their agreement on the first thing must illuminate confusion the audience may have about the second thing.

McGrath has not written a book about Fairyology. Dawkins can therefore not complain that he is ignorant of the subject.

More importantly, Christian Theology is not analogous to Fairyology. The source of Christianity, the Bible, is the most studied work on the globe. Christian Theology is one of the most exhaustively studied subjects in world history. Fairyology is so obscure that I have never met anyone who studied it. I am unaware of one book ever written about Fairies that even purported to be a serious study.

Finally, Fairyology is known by all parties to be untrue. Christian Theology is the most popular faith in human history. For this reason the analogy has no strength. Dawkins and his Christian audience cannot agree that Christian Theology and Fairyology are anything alike. What started as an argument is reduced to a crude and clumsy insult.

Dawkins wishes to prove that Christian Theology is untrue. He cannot. How could he? He doesn’t know anything about it.