As an atheist, previously a Christian, I have a wonderful sense of freedom in knowing that I’m not having to account for myself to a judgmental deity. I feel a sense of contentment that my attitude to life (not always realised, I should add) very much mirrors that of Christ’s teachings, i.e. be nice to each other and give more than you receive. Always being aware that I should be doing “the right thing” generally gives me that solid rock on which to cling to when previously I would have turned to God.

When bad things happen, I don’t need to have the extra worry that I’m being punished for something or being tested. I can just get on with trying to understand what I need to do to get things sorted. I’ve only read one Dawkins book (“The Blind Watchmaker”) but other “science” books I’ve read have helped me to understand and appreciate that, however unfortunate and miserable, bad things do “just happen”.

Herb

1) Dawkins’ reputation as an evolutionary biologist is unimpeachable. I am absolutely sure he knows where the boundaries of science lie and to suggest that he doesn’t is a bit silly.

2) I think his anger stems from his belief that fundamentalists and the majority of evangelicals don’t know the limits of theology! (I think I am with him here). An illustration of this is Mark’s claim that ‘If science contradicts the Bible then science is wrong.’

3) it is not as a scientist but as a theologian that he fails. (Just as Mark does in fact!) His failure is rooted in the assumption that the only sort of knowledge that can count as evidence is propositional knowledge. In this, he is supported by other scientists and mathematicians. The majority of analytic philosophers (though thankfully not all) would agree. How strange that a majority of these also have a mathematical or a scientific background!

4) The questions we might ask are ‘what can I know?’ and ‘how can I know it?’. Questions which philosophers from Socrates through Kant to Wittgenstein have wrestled with.

He also makes the mistake of treating God as a scientific hypothesis. But knowing God requires different methods – humble acceptance of his self-revelation. It’s not possible to subject God to scientific enquiry; he is not a cog in the created order, even a very big and important cog, that can be inferred from gaps in our understanding. He is the creator and gracious sustainer, and it is his ongoing providence that creates the very order that science studies. But Dawkins seems so enamoured with the scientific method that he seemingly can’t conceive of rational belief in God on any other grounds.

It is akin to dismissing ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ because it is bad sociology or seeing a tulip as ‘a thin red bubble of blood’ as inaccurate and a waste of time.

Dawkins, rather like an intelligent estate agent, insists that there is no reason to bring God into scientific investigation. Well, we know that and one of the greatest theologians in history, St Thomas Aquinas, agrees. Science, necessarily atheistic, and theology speak of different things; much as obstetrics and woodworking do.

However the newfangled idea that Genesis (or ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’) is to be taken literally is simply to miss the whole point.

‘Give unto Caesar’ comes to mind.

I think this misunderstands the nature of science. Science is by definition the study of the natural order, the normal patterns of cause and effect by which creation is ordered; it restricts itself to the testable and measurable because this is the sphere of its competence.

Methodological naturalism is a useful tool to use for studying nature. Just as the microscope allows us to zoom in for a closer look at particular things, so the scientific method allows us to zoom in on the normal workings of the physical order. Using methodological naturalism doesn’t in itself deny the existence of the supernatural any more than using a microscope denies the existence of stars. It’s just a different tool for a different part of reality.

Now some scientists, such as Dawkins, have got so excited with all the neat things we’ve been able to do with the scientific method, that they’ve said that it’s the *only* way of looking at reality. They take the success of methodological naturalism as proof of ontological naturalism; because we’ve been so good at finding out about nature by looking at nature, nature must be all that there is. This is a very basic philosophical and logical mistake, like biologists insisting that because their microscopes work, there can’t be any stars.

As Christians, we must insist that although the scientific method a very powerful tool for studying the natural order, it only gives us part of the picture of reality, and that if left in isolation, it gives a distorted picture of reality. It’s a way of modelling reality that for many purposes is very useful and valid.

But when it comes to investigating God, the supernatural and so on, science is not the right tool. When considering Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, asking “what usually happens in nature?” is the wrong question; you need an historical approach of “what actually happened?”

The same goes for any possible supernatural action, including Creationism, Intelligent Design and so on. It’s been said, correctly, that these aren’t scientific. What people miss is that just because they’re unscientific does *not* mean they are necessarily untrue and unworthy of investigation or consideration. You just need to use different tools from the intellectual workbox than the scientific method to consider them.

In short, what we need is not to redefine science to include the possibility of the supernatural. This would take away the very focus that has made science so powerful and useful for looking at nature. What we need is a greater awareness of the limits and boundaries of science, and understand when it is and isn’t useful for investigating truth.

Your understanding of science and the scientific method are as defective as your dilapidated theology in which you continue to see ‘Christian’ as a synonym for ‘evangelical’.

It is not.