Dawkins makes a concession

John Lennox and Richard Dawkins met in debate again at Oxford's Natural History Museum on 21st October 2008. Justin Brierley, from Premier Christian Radio, attended the debate and has written a brief account of it and of his interview with Richard Dawkins afterwards. His radio programme provides further details about the debate, the following press conference and also contains his subsequent interview with John Lennox.

A surprising statement by Richard Dawkins was the following:

A serious case could be made for a deistic god.

This seems to be a major concession by Dawkins, who appears to be admitting that serious arguments and evidence can be made for a god who created the world (but then left it alone to take care of itself). If it is a 'serious case', then Dawkins must be admitting that it is a case where the evidence and the arguments need to be seriously thought through and cannot (and should not, as a good scientist) be instantly dismissed.

Melanie Phillips, writing in the Spectator, asks the question: Is Richard Dawkins Still Evolving? and goes on to say that Dawkins acknowledged that he is open to the belief that life on earth arose from extraterestrial intervention.

How serious are Dawkins' concessions? Where will it lead him? At the very least, we must applaud his intellectual honesty in such an admission. It would seem that a successor to The God Delusion could be on the way. Perhaps after the children's books he is planning to write, a follow-up to The God Delusion might be on the way, outlining that 'serious case ... for a deistic god'?