Response to Dawkins

Dawkins spends a great deal of time early in The God Delusion explaining the concept of NOMA, that is, “non-overlapping magisteria.” This simply means the classic argument that science and religion are two different things, addressing completely different issues. I agree with Dawkins that this is not actually true. The interests of science and religion often overlap and address the same issues, not the least of which being the whole question of how and why we got here in the first place. But Dawkins argument against the NOMA position is simply that religious propositions can and should be testable by science.

He uses the example of an experiment on the effects of prayer, conducted by the Templeton Foundation, which found that there was no measurable difference between patients who were prayed for and those who weren’t – at least if they didn’t know they were being prayed for. The ones who knew they were being prayed for actually did worse, perhaps, Dawkins muses, due to a sort of “performance anxiety”. Dawkins argues that this is one way that a specific claim of religion could be tested, and was. Therefore, he believes, science can be used to prove or disprove religion, or at least certain claims thereof.

But what he fails to understand in criticizing this position is the reason it is invoked by people of faith. He assumes, due to his own bias as an intellectual and a scientist, that NOMA is intended to keep science from messing with the sacred, probably because as soon as it does it will blow it out of the water. So fear, in Dawkins view, is the chief motivation. He is especially cheesed because whenever something comes to light as a result of scientific inquiry that seems to support religious positions, the religious seize on it and trumpet it far and wide in the hopes of proving themselves right.

I see it differently. I think the NOMA position is rather an acknowledgement that there is a fundamentally different and opposite assumption at the basis of each position. Science asserts that human reason is capable of understanding everything (at least eventually), while religion asserts that human reason can’t. Although I have yet to finish the book, Dawkins keeps coming back to this point, and it really is that simple: science emphasizes reason, religion emphasizes faith. I found this thoroughly disappointing. If I wanted such an uncomplicated argument, I could have gone to any fundamentalist church – there’s at least five within walking distance of where I sit this very moment, thanks to my home being in the oh so wonderful South.

You see, ultimately I disagree with the NOMA position precisely because I don’t think it’s true that science and religion never overlap. And in spite of his attempt to say that NOMA is untenable, when we find out the main point of his argument, Dawkins ultimately ends up using it himself, if it can be restated in the way I have restated it: that science trusts in reason and religion trusts in faith. So Dawkins cannot truly undermine the position of faith because he cannot understand it.

He fails to understand it because of all the abuses and failures of religion that he sees. And they are many, nor is he unjustified in pointing them out. He argues that the “God hypothesis” is ultimately no more than an excuse for intellectual laziness, as it encourages people to be content with lack of understanding. This, unfortunately, is true, but it seems to me a horribly un-Christian position to take, for reasons I will explain below. Dawkins also, inevitably, points out the horrors that have been carried out in the name of religion, which, also unfortunately, are many. But again, these are abuses of religion, and by no means endorsed by God.
Rather than taking the NOMA position, I advocate a position of overlapping but distinct magisteria. That is, while science and religion can and should address the same issues, they do so in entirely different ways, and based on entirely different, opposing assumptions, as we have seen. This is a position the religious can more easily take than the scientist, since they have no problem with co-existing but mutually exclusive phenomenon.

Here’s how this point-of-view would work, on a practical level. Christians would pursue the sciences with just as much skepticism and objectivism as the staunchest atheists in the field, even if that means operating under or even endeavoring to prove evolutionary theory. They would do so for the most religious of reasons: bringing glory to God. You see, God gave us our human intellects for the same reason He fashioned the heavens and the earth and administers all the laws thereof: to bring glory to His name. The chief way He does that, and the pinnacle of all creation, its very reason for existence is to bring humanity into relationship with Him. Thus, the intellect exists chiefly for us to contemplate the profound mystery of God. One way we do that is by contemplating His creation, and it is indeed, as Dawkins would argue, lazy and in fact irresponsible for us to say “God did it” and thereby stop asking questions about it. That does not challenge us to grow closer to God, nor to understand Him at a deeper level. It leaves our relationship with Him stagnant, when it ought to be dynamic.