Richard Dawkins vs. William Lane Craig: Is Dawkins afraid of debating Craig?

One of the rules of scholarly discussion and truth seeking is engaging with your opponent's best formulation of the latter arguments. The reason is that if your position stands to the best objections of your opponents, you'll be reasonably sure that your position is good and strong.

One of the best defenders of Christian theism is William Lane Craig; and one of the best (or at least, better known) defender of contemporary "new" atheism is, for many people, Richard Dawkins.

So, you would expect that a debate between Dawkins and Craig would confront the best arguments of both of them, enabling the public to know which position is stronger.

In the above video (with funny additions by a Craig's fan), Dawkins was asked if he has considered debating Craig, and his reply was that he doesn't want debate creationists. However (and this is another evidence of Dawkins' logical inconsistency and intellectual dishonesty) Dawkins has debated "creationists" like John Lennox twice and has had exchanged arguments with other religious thinkers like Christian theologian Alister McGrath, as you can watch here:



So, is Dawkins' reply the REAL, rational and logically coherent reason to avoid debating Craig? Given the evidence, the answer is clearly NO.

In my opinion, Dawkins is smart enough to avoid debating Craig because he knows that Craig would destroy him easily. Craig is a seasoned debater, a prominent philosopher of religion and a professional theologian; and Dawkins' only expertise is in zoology and biological sciences.

Obviously, Dawkins is not so stupid to cross swords with a professional philosopher in the latter field of expertise, especially when Dawkins' argument for the improbability of God has been refuted by Craig and other philosophers, and it is not defended by any prominent and well-informed atheist philosopher of religion.

I'd like to see a debate between Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig but I'm almost sure that it will never happen.

If it happens in some moment, Dawkins will be demolished. And he knows it. So he'll avoid this debate with everything he got.

Dawkins is intellectually dishonest, but certainly he is not stupid.

Link of interest:

-Christian philosopher Peter Williams' review of Dawkins' The God Delusion.

-Peter Williams on Dawkins' concepts of "Design" and "Designoid"

-Richard Dawkins' pseudoskepticism.

-Richard Dawkins' moral relativism.

-Thomas Nagel, the Cosmic Authority Problem and the atheist fear of God.