The God we don’t believe in: Rowan Williams and Richard Dawkins on faith and atheism

Rowan Williams writes “…the examination of where the points of stress [between faith and atheism] are…allows us to test the resources of what we say as believers – and, ideally, to emerge with a more robust sense of those resources.”[1] Prominent among these points of stress is the perceived conflict between “science” (often used as a proxy for atheism) and “religion.” Here, taking as an example the dialogue between Williams and militant scientific atheist Richard Dawkins, I will outline ways of clarifying areas of belief and disbelief, consider whether belief is actually essential to faith and look at ways of separating the territories of science and religion. I will show how two video debates between Williams and Dawkins exemplify a civilised approach to this discourse and conclude that a healthy dialogue between atheism and religion, conducted with integrity and mutual respect, can open up new avenues of discovery and provide opportunities for different disciplines to work together to the benefit of humanity.

The God Dawkins and Williams don’t believe in

Two videos featuring Dawkins and Williams are available on YouTube: a discussion moderated by Anthony Kenny at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford[2] and a Cambridge Union debate featuring Dawkins, Williams, Andrew Copson, Arif Ahmed, Tariq Ramadan and Douglas Murray.[3] Both Dawkins and Williams have also written on atheism, Dawkins most notably in The God Delusion[4] and Williams in his essay Analysing Atheism; Unbelief and the World of Faiths.[5]

In The God Delusion, Dawkins famously describes the God of the Old Testament as:

…arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Dawkins, The God Delusion, 31.

This is a God Dawkins cannot believe in; however, he admits to being attracted by the idea of a cosmic God, whom he considers “worth worshipping but not praying to,”[6] although he is reluctant to “clutter up” the elegance and beauty of the universe with the idea of God.[7] Williams counters this by pointing out that God is not an optional extra – that’s exactly how I see it, interjects Dawkins – but is the underlying unconditional actuality which makes all things possible; a God who is both big enough to encompass the whole of creation and loving enough to care for every person as an individual. This pinpoints a key difference between Dawkins and Williams: for Dawkins, a God who is not all-encompassing would lack the capacity to deal with individual concerns while an all-encompassing God would not want to be bothered with such minutiae. Thus Williams rejects the caricature of The God Delusion in favour of an all-encompassing, eternal, unconditionally loving God, whereas Dawkins cannot accept either characterisation.

Defining the God we don’t believe in

This process of identifying what we don’t believe about God in order to refine what we do believe – the so-called via negativa – poses the question “….are there some things that Christian faith refuses to believe? And if so, how do we come to recognise what they are?”[8] In this “apophatic approach” God is defined by what God is not, thus refining our understanding of what God actually is. As Williams puts it “to come to a point where you disbelieve passionately in a certain kind of God may be the most important step you can take in the direction of a true God.”[9] It may also, by focusing on areas of agreement between theists and atheists – for example, that God does not resemble the caricature presented in The God Delusion – help to calm the debate and facilitate amicable discussion.

Removing belief altogether

One logical extension of the apophatic approach is to remove belief from the equation altogether. Brian Zamulinski argues that “Standard Protestant Christianity”  can be based on a set of assumptions that need not be proven or even believed to be true, redefining Christianity as “adopting the stance of faith [as long as] it is neutral or beneficial.”[10] He argues that this pragmatic approach is compatible with scientific rationality and does not imply “pretending to be a Christian” or being self-deluded. Alastair McGrath makes a similar point:  “…most of us are aware that we hold many beliefs that we cannot prove to be true, but are nonetheless reasonable to entertain….our beliefs may be shown to be justifiable, without thereby demonstrating that they are proven.”[11] Dawkins would disagree: “…the religious believer who holds her beliefs in the absence of evidence is a rather naïve believer who has not done justice to her alleged faith.”[12]

Mapping the territories of science and religion

Stephen Jay Gould, “an agnostic in the wise sense of T.H. Huxley”[13] (i.e. an open-minded sceptic), proposed another way of moderating the discourse between science and religion. He argued that the two fields of enquiry occupy “non-overlapping magesteria” (NOMA). Thus:

…the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value.

Gould, Rocks of Age, 6.

Gould believed in “a respectful, even loving, concordat” between these magesteria, which are of equal worth, logically distinct and fully separate in styles of inquiry; they do not overlap although they “interdigitate in patterns of complex fingering.”[14]

Gould’s NOMA may just be an elegant way of expressing the truism that science and religion address different questions, but it is an attractive position and Gould is by no means the first to adopt it: Charles Lyell (1797-1875) separated science and religion in his own version of mythos and logos and it seems that Ludwig Wittgenstein held a similar view:

…religious beliefs do not occupy the same space, and are not held in the same way, as scientific beliefs are held…. A statement of religious belief is a statement about one’s life, one’s values, about ultimate things. The religious believer does not engage religious beliefs as hypotheses that may or may not turn out to be true.

Wittgenstein, as paraphrased in Amarasingam et al., Religion and the New Atheism, 218.

Dawkins’s view is diametrically opposed to Wittgenstein’s: for him, God absolutely is a hypothesis (usually capitalised: The God Hypothesis) in which he will only believe if provided with external evidence – which is, of course, impossible if there is nothing outside God.

Unfortunately, Gould’s NOMA do not seem to have gained much traction, at least in the US scientific community. In a 2003 survey of evolutionary biologists only 8% held to the NOMA principle.[15] Interestingly, most identified no conflict between religion and evolution, not because they occupy NOMA but because religion was seen as a sociobiological phenomenon: 72% chose the option “religion is an adaptation, a part of evolution”.[16] This recalls a question raised during the Oxford discussion, “Did the first human beings have non-human ancestors?”. Williams and Dawkins agreed that they did and that the emergence of humanity was a gradual process. When asked “Did God intervene at this point?” Williams posited a gradual acquisition of consciousness which enabled proto-humans to relate to God, a view not dissimilar to that of Graffin and Provine’s evolutionary biologists.

The need for integrity and respect

Approaches like Zamulinski’s and Gould’s may moderate the dialogue between science and religion; however, the tenor of the debate is, ultimately, dependent upon integrity and mutual respect between the participants. Two kinds of respect are involved: appraisal respect recognises a participant’s competence while recognition respect accords him/her the dignity to which everybody is entitled.[17]  Appraisal respect need not be shown unless it is deserved, but everybody should be afforded recognition respect. Williams articulates this perfectly: “Human beings as such are worthy of respect” but religion must be scrutinised so “I thank God for Professor Dawkins.”[18] Elsewhere he writes “…argument is essential to a functioning democratic society, and religions should be involved in this, not constantly demanding a right not to be offended.”[19] Likewise, Gould favours vigorous debate:

NOMA is tough-minded. NOMA forces dialogue and respectful discourse about different primary commitments. NOMA does not say “I’m OK, you’re OK – so let’s just avoid any talk about science and religion.[20]

Evaluation

The New Atheists are often criticised for their confrontational style, but the Dawkins-Williams dialogue exhibits the utmost courtesy. Their Oxford encounter, in particular, exemplifies an attempt to reach mutual understanding through a relaxed, amicable discussion centred on integrity and respect. Key points of agreement are identified at the outset and both appraisal and recognition respect are in evidence throughout the discussion.  It is instructive to compare this event with the Cambridge debate, whose adversarial nature brings out a more strident tone, particularly in Dawkins.

Both parties might benefit from reflecting upon these encounters. Even the usually gentle Williams occasionally betrays irritation; in Analysing Atheism….for example, he dismisses proposals for treating atheism as a “non-faith belief system” alongside traditional religions as “based on some serious conceptual confusions and category mistakes”, calling for clarity as to exactly what it is that atheists deny (and believe).[21] The ill-defined doctrines of groups such as the Sunday Assembly[22] probably frustrate him intensely, though his willingness to engage with Dawkins implies recognition of the New Atheists’ version of scientism as an intellectually coherent belief system, even if it is one with which he profoundly disagrees.

Williams’s comments on atheism are mild in comparison with the contempt for religion often displayed by Dawkins who, while sometimes reasonable – McGrath characterises his critique of William Paley in The Blind Watchmaker as “fair, gracious and accurate”[23] – often weakens his own position by withholding appraisal respect even from his peers when he disagrees with them; thus “Gould carried the art of bending over backwards to positively supine lengths in one of his less admired books, Rocks of Ages.”[24]  Those whose expertise Dawkins does not recognise are dismissed even more harshly: responding to a comment by Astronomer Royal Martin Rees about “the province of philosophers and theologians” he wonders “…in what possible sense theologians can be said to have a province” and recounting a colleague’s suggestion that “deep questions” should be referred  to the Chaplain he asks “But why the Chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef?”[25] This stands in marked contrast to his hero, Charles Darwin, for whom “to speak gently about other peoples’ beliefs (especially those one disagreed with) was to speak with moral integrity.”[26]

Of course, one possible reason for his attitude – which might be characterised as defensive – is that allowing other levels of enquiry exposes Dawkins himself to “big questions” with which he has been assessed as being out of his depth;[27] however, the fact that he agreed to engage with Williams at least twice indicates a welcome willingness to begin exploring these questions. Perhaps he is now ready to engage in “a real conversation between faith and unbelief [which] requires a mutual openness and a reverence that is lacking in many heady debates.”[28]

Conclusion

The debate between science and religion shows that differences in belief can be negotiated without resorting to abuse and insults; it also highlights the discipline that is required in order to avoid this temptation. By engaging openly and acting with integrity and mutual respect, participants on both sides can learn from one another, reach a better understanding of one another’s beliefs and work productively together. This may open up new avenues of discovery in both magesteria, as articulated by physicist Brian Cox:

What would it mean for a creator if the universe were shown to be eternal – in time – so it didn’t have a beginning? That’s an interesting question….and it requires theologians…..The physicists can’t sit around and answer that question, because we don’t know enough….. People look for conflict where none exists.

Professor Brian Cox, interviewed on Sunday https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0016ww8 BBC Radio 4 (01/05/22).

This is, perhaps, what McGrath means when he suggests replacing the idea of NOMA with POMA: “….partially overlapping magesteria….a realisation that science and religion offer possibilities of cross-fertilisation on account of the interpenetration of their subjects and methods.”[29] I hope that the discussions Cox and McGrath advocate will bring theists and atheists to a level of mutual understanding – not necessarily agreement – which will permit those on both “sides” to work together for the benefit of humanity.

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References

[1] R. Williams, Faith in the Public Square (Bloomsbury, 2015), 290.

[2] University of Oxford, “The nature of human beings and the question of their ultimate origin,”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bow4nnh1Wv0,YouTube (28/02/12).

[3] Cambridge Union Society, “This house believes that religion has no place in the 21st Century,”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVxciEFyBT0,YouTube (05/02/13).

[4] R. Dawkins, The God Delusion (Bantam, 2006).

[5] Williams, Faith in the Public Square, 281-291.

[6] The Cambridge debate.

[7] The Oxford discussion.

[8] C. Morse, Not every spirit (Continuum, 2009), 3.

[9] Quoted in: W.H.U. Anderson (ed), Atheism and the Christian Faith (Vernon Press, 2017), 83.

[10] B. Zamulinski, “Christianity and the Ethics of Belief,” Religious Studies 44, no. 3 (2008): 333-346.

[11] A. McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion?  (SPCK, 2007), 8. (Author’s emphasis).

[12] The New Atheist view, as paraphrased in: A. Amarasingam et al., Religion and the New Atheism  (Brill, 2010), 219.

[13] S.J. Gould, Rocks of Ages (Vintage, 2002), 8.

[14] Ibid., 9, 58-59, 65.

[15] Wittgenstein, as paraphrased in Amarasingam et al., Religion and the New Atheism, 218.

[16] G.W. Graffin and W.B. Provine, “Evolution, Religion and Free Will,” American Scientist 95, no. 4 (2007): 294-297.

[17] Ibid.

[18] M.C. Coleman, “Connecting Integrity, Respect, and Ethical Disagreement in Darwin and Dawkins,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 48, no. 3 (2015): 292-312.

[19] The Cambridge debate.

[20] Williams, Faith in the Public Square, 4.

[21] Gould, Rocks of Ages, 92.

[22] Williams, Faith in the Public Square, 283.

[23] K. Cross, The Sunday Assembly and theologies of suffering (Routledge, 2020), 44-46.

[24] McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion? 7.

[25] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 55.

[26] Ibid., 56.

[27] Coleman, “Connecting Integrity, Respect, and Ethical Disagreement…,”  302.

[28] M.P. Gallagher, “Revisiting the ‘New Atheism’,” Studies 101, no. 401 (2012): 57-68.

[29] Ibid., 67.

[30] Professor Brian Cox, interviewed on Sunday https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0016ww8, BBC Radio 4 (01/05/22).

[31] McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion? 19.

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© Lesley Stanley, 2023.

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Cover Image taken by the author.