Dawkins and Williams debate and thoughts on language

I listened to the debate between Richard Dawkins and Rowan Williams yesterday. It has been on mind ever since. I was dissatisfied at the time but am even more so today.  Last night  I had doubts - for the first time in years I think. 

The Archbishop was immensely courteous as always but occasionally this turned into diffidence and at odd moments he even seemed waffly. Towards the middle he was rather left out of the conversation between Dawkins and Anthony Kenny who sat between them. (I don't think the dual role of contributor and chair quite worked.) Dawkins was much more courteous than in some previous encounters and there was none of the Hitchens aggression - which helped his argument considerably. Again and again though, when faced with the philosophy of Kenny or the rather more biblical approach of Williams all that Dawkins had to say was 'I don't know what you mean' and he will have had more than half the world agreeing with him. 

It strikes me this morning that the essential problem is the misunderstanding about language.

I have said this before but it is even more pertinent now. The Archbishop is quite right to give enormous ground to Dawkins's scientific view. Arguing with this makes no sense and is totally unnecessary anyway. If we are aiming at 'truth', then scientific discoveries and the way in which modern western man thinks have to be both taken into account and allowed for. But it also has to be made clear that the way in which we think is only meaningful insofar as we are using language in a particular way. As soon as the language changes (Kenny's philosophy - very complex and very tight - or Williams' theology, more poetic and much looser) then Dawkins can merely say 'I dont know what you mean' and  the rest of the listening world - mostly brought up to speak the language that Dawkins understands and uses (scientific dialectic) - can easily agree. Because it's all English  we are misled into believing that the language they are using is the same but it really isn't and until this is acknowledged I doubt there can be much progress.

Although Dawkins claims to be a cultural Anglican he remains almost fascist in the way in which he sweeps aside anything anyone thought before Darwin wrote the 'Origin'. To him centuries and centuries of accumulated wisdom is so much balderdash. This always seems so alarming. Have we learnt nothing about the dangers of 'contemporary arrogance'?

For me the crux of the matter really came when Dawkins used the word 'clutter' to describe the use of God as a 'prop' to hold up the universe which he described several times so powerfully as 'almost too wonderful to be' (quoting the hymn.) He described the laws of physics which eventually lead to us being here as innately beautiful and that any recourse to religious language as so much unnecessary clutter. Williams immediately picked up on this (twice) but it was already too late on in the discussion for him to develop his argument further. All that really came across to me at that point was that he didnt agree. (I need to listen to that section again to see if he got anywhere beyond this. . . . .).. . . . and so was this a Dawkins victory? At the moment it really does seem so to me.  


Perhaps it would be possible to clarify this lingual division better. But how? I have tried this before but it might be worth raking over again . . . . .  .

Scientific language deals in atoms and molecules. It deals always in Stuff. The Stuff of the universe. It measures and calculates, examines and assesses. In order to understand the butterfly it often (though not always) has to kill it first to stop it moving so it can examine it better. If it allows it to live, it looks instead at the way it flies (perhaps through a slow motion camera) or at the way in which it feeds. The scientist would then say that he is looking for the truth about the butterfly.
When a poet looks at the butterfly he does not even consider dissecting it, or even looking at what he feeds on. He uses language to place the butterfly in a context over and against himself or over and against other things, or feelings, or thoughts, or objects, or places . . . That isnt to say that he is necessarily 'relating' to the butterfly but that he is placing the butterfly in a relationship with the rest of things and quite possibly himself also.  Perception is perhaps the best word to describe what poetry 'does'. It 'perceives' linguistically.
Religious language, scientific language and indeed poetic language grow out of the fundamental human need to get to the bottom of things but they do so in profoundly different ways. They all seek 'truth' but could never agree on what that might actually mean.
It strikes me here that there is a slightly racial element in all of this. The antithesis of Greek over and against Jewish thought runs through a substantial part of the Old Testament. It was a major preoccupation for me in my younger years and was only really resolved when I began to understand the nature of Christianity itself as a synthesis.
I wrestled for a long time with the possible reasons for this and came up with a couple of theories: first geographical environment. The Jews lived in the desert. There was nothing  but sand and sky. There is a monody there which might well have influenced the way in which they perceived things (note the word 'perceived'.)  The Greeks lived in a quite different locality: islands of considerable beauty, seas and bays and boats and travel and peoples and wildlife. Would this not influence the way that they too spoke and thought?

Polytheism over and against monotheism.
And following on from that: a love of diversity and natural things which was not weighed down by the stark rigidity of the Jewish moral system.
Scientific discourse can surely only happen in an environment where there is great freedom of thought; where everything can be questioned without threat or persecution.

I used to think that religion was more linked to poetry than to science but since the Greeks were both great scientists and great poets it is necessary to look a little deeper . . . .

Assuming that science and poetry are embedded deep into each culture one could make the case that, in a God-centred view of the world the science would have to be just as God-centred as the poetry. Greek scientific thought on the other hand was 'thing'-centred just as it's poetry is. . . . . just as our modern post-renaissance way of thinking is. This gives it an intellectual freedom that the Jews did not have. . . . . .

Are there not striking parallels with the east and west divide down to this day? The deeply God-centred view of the Moslem world over and against the innate materialism of the west. . . . . 

 

The scientist is inevitably a materalist. He deals all the time with things; Stuff - as I said . . . . .When Dawkins speaks of God as 'clutter' he is referring to matter. He is thinking of God as another part of a material universe. His theology is little different to that of the five year old who draws God with a long beard and a throne . . . . it is no wonder that in the light of this he has to be an atheist. His atheism takes him closer to the truth than his childlike theology can possibly do. However, if God is NOT matter - which he clearly is not then of course on one level he disappears from the universe altogether except that this is not true either. This is where it becomes impossible to speak of God in the third person without losing all perspective. It makes no sense because God is always about 'relationship'. ("about" is not the right word here) The essential aspect of the concept of 'trinity' is relationship. God cannot be anything other than 'gone' unless we relate to him. Only when the 'him' becomes the 'you' can he become 'imminent'. And so this is how God disappears completely for all those who do not relate to him. There comes the essential problem: the atheist is right in that so long as God is 'him' and not 'you' he does not exist. Only when we are prepared to take that enormous step of faith and change 'him' into 'you' can he become the imminent God that in truth he is - but not as clutter; not as some extra burden on my daily life, not as a mere 'father-figure' or a 'comfort' or a 'daily help' but as something much much more than that because he changes our perception of absolutely everything - life in other words. 

This is too long and I got slightly carried away there, but usefully I think. 

Only one more point. The usual Anglican response to the fundamental question 'Why does God allow so much suffering in the world' is (and Williams did this also again in the debate) 'I don't know'. I really think this is not enough. I equally agree that 'neat explanations' can be both distressing for those who are suffering and utterly meaningless. I am not suggesting this. I am absolutely clear now however that suffering and death are hugely important in our approach to God and that to say they are just impossible mystery is to undermine their significance and to demean those who suffer terribly.  The psalms are essential here. The absence of God is an essential aspect of our faith. It is an essential aspect of our life too. Is it ridiculous to say that God is most present when he seems absent? I think that takes us back to where this really started: that God is not 'stuff'. He does not 'exist' in the way that we do. He is totally other and our perception of him as 'absent' is really to do with our inability to perceive him 'as he is' at all . . . . when we perceive 'absence' we need to celebrate because then only can we get anywhere near to 'seeing' him as he is . . . . . Isnt it then that we 'suffer with'? Which is what he does. And this is not something morbid or dark because it is when we are most acutely aware of the bond - when we can really reach out and touch his hand. It is only then that we really can celebrate.

phew enough for now . . . . . .