Since I recently finished John Lennox’s book God and Stephen Hawking I thought I would listen to one of his debates. I chose the one he did against Peter Atkins. Atkins is a British Chemist and was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Lincoln College. He’s a prolific author with over 60 books to his credit.

As debates go this one was a little more informal than most I’ve seen. What I was not expecting was the arrogant and condescending attitude displayed by Atkins. The moderator mentioned the recent conversion of Anthony Flew from atheism to theism and quoted from Flew’s book on the matter of the evidence of the DNA as being one of the things which persuaded him. Atkins responded with this: “Well, he’s a philosopher and philosophers don’t really understand the nature of the world. I mean, scientists understand the nature of the world.” Later he opined that “These are the musings of a senile philosopher or the meanderings of a lazy mind.” Atkins repeatedly said philosophers and theologians were lazy thinkers. They are too content to stop with God as an explanation for things rather than pressing forward to find a scientific answer. Lennox then asked Atkins what he thought of Nobel Prize winning scientists who were believers in God. Atkins said he found it “extraordinary.” He said Lennox had “hit on the second mystery in the universe. Why, seemingly intelligent, well-informed, scientists can still believe in the nonsense that theology, belief in God . . .” (Lennox interrupts him here so I can’t make out his full response.) Atkins said these scientists are “incomplete scientists” whatever that should mean. Later the subject came up of notable atheists who had converted to theism based on their research. Lennox mentioned C. S. Lewis and Francis Collins. Atkins said that “in their case it’s early stage of senility.”

Still later Atkins quipped that it was important to be clear in our thinking but conceded that “this is a theological discussion so we don’t need to be clear.” Lennox quickly responded that the comment was very unfair since some of the greatest minds in history have been theological minds. Atkins response: “Wasted, I’m afraid. St. Augustine, a fantastic mind, totally wasted.” The repeated dismissal of philosophers and believing scientists (he had no regard for theologians) was arrogant, disrespectful and ignorant.

In the end I think Lennox was more persuasive. Atkins could have made a better showing if he would drop the hubris and stick to presenting a cogent argument. His blatant disregard of philosophy is made more than obvious since he has to continuously resort to labeling people has lazy or senile rather than deal with the evidence which he asserts over and over again that there isn’t any. He doesn’t see any evidence because he won’t even listen to those poor senile lazy thinkers who in many cases possess an equal if not superior education to his.