In a chapter disparagingly entitled 'The
poverty of agnosticism', Dawkins identifies two categories (p. 47): 1) Temporary
Agnosticism in Practice, or TAP, which denotes that there “is a truth out there
and one day we hope to know it, though for the moment we don’t.” 2) Permanent
Agnosticism in Principle, or PAP, for questions that can never be answered. Some
people assign the question of God’s existence to PAP, which means that they
“cannot say anything, one way or the other, about whether or not God exists” (p.
51). He, however, believes that “the God question is not in principle and
forever outside the remit of science” (p. 71).
It is true that the inventor of the term "agnosticism", T.H. Huxley, intended it
to mean the impossibility of knowing whether God exists or not (= PAP), but the fact that one cannot answer a
question most certainly does not mean that one cannot say anything either way about the
subject of that question. Even a PAP can explain his reasons for regarding the
question as unanswerable, while a TAP remains open-minded, and is thus
able to consider all arguments about whether God exists or not. Wherein, then,
lies the "poverty" at least of TAP agnosticism, i.e. of open-mindedness? In any case, all
human states are temporary, and even a committed Christian like Darwin can
change into an agnostic, while a committed opponent of the church like St Paul
can suddenly have a revelation and become its leading apostle. Dawkins,
astonishingly, maintains that “atheists do not have faith” (p. 51), and yet it
is his belief that science will one day come up with the answer, and the answer
will be “no God”. Since this entails the miracles of life (we shall discuss
these later) having come into existence by sheer chance, he believes in the
miraculous powers of chance as well as the ability of science to answer all the
questions. If that is not “faith”, what is?
Again typical of this blinkered approach is his selective quotation of results
from a study in America, in which he pinpoints the fact that only 7% of members
of the National Academy of Sciences believed in a personal God. This he
describes as an “overwhelming preponderance of atheists” (p. 102). An agnostic,
by definition, cannot believe in a personal God, but by verbal sleight of hand,
Dawkins has removed agnostics from the scene. Either you are a believer, or you
are an atheist.
In any case, the argument is specious. Science examines the physical world.
Religious people believe in a non-physical world. In an earlier chapter, Dawkins
quotes the response of an Oxford astronomer who, when asked the “deep
questions”, said: “Ah, now we move beyond the realm of science. This is where I
have to hand over to our good friend the chaplain” (p. 56). Dawkins’ comment is
worth quoting in full: “But why the chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef?
Why are scientists so cravenly respectful towards the ambitions of theologians,
over questions that theologians are certainly no more qualified to answer than
scientists themselves?” In relation to the poll taken among scientists, one can
only ask: “Why scientists? Why are atheists so cravenly respectful towards the
ambitions of scientists, over questions that scientists are certainly no more
qualified to answer than theologians?” But atheists such as Dawkins are
convinced that the world is exclusively physical, scientists examine the
physical world, and therefore scientists will one day discover the truth, and
the truth is that there is nothing but the physical world. The perfect circle.
Theologians, who believe in a spiritual world, are wrong, and agnostics, who are
unable to step into either camp, are left out of the equation because they
“cannot say anything either way”. His faith, prejudice and self-contradiction are
encapsulated in an extraordinary paragraph quite early on in his thesis:
“Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections
of physical entities within the brain. An atheist in this sense of philosophical
naturalist is someone who believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical
world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable
universe,
no soul that outlasts the body, and no miracles – except in the sense of natural
phenomena that we don’t yet understand. If there is something that appears to
lie
beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually
to
understand it and embrace it within the natural” (p. 14).
He acknowledges that thoughts and emotions emerge (it is good that he avoids the
word “originate”), summarizes the atheist’s beliefs, acknowledges that there are
things we do not understand, and expresses the hope that one day we will be able
to prove that their source is physical. Christians too hope that one day their
beliefs will be vindicated, but where is the scientific objectivity of either
approach? His own amounts to saying: I believe the universe is entirely
physical, there are things I don’t understand, but one day I hope I’ll be proved
right. And yet according to Dawkins, atheists have no faith. Agnostics do not
impose theories on what they do not understand, and they do not hope that their
prejudgments will be proved right.
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