faith as an assault on science

31Jan07

“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
(Richard Dawkins)

“The Christianity of this age does not distrust anything science really says… With a devout faith in the Written Word, there is faith scarcely less sublime in the utterances of nature; because we believe that the same God that made the Word also made the World, and that the words and works of the true God can never conflict. Religion, therefore, knows no oppositions of science but those that are falsely so called.”
(The Rev. Otis L. Gibson, President of the Alumni Association of Syracuse University, 1873)

It is difficult to reconcile these views–Dr. Dawkins, on the one hand, is thoroughly anti-religion, claiming that religion is a suspension of reason and stands fundamentally opposed to science. Rev. Gibson, on the other, believes firmly that true Christian religion embraces science and seeks to explore it.

Which is true? Certainly, a naturalistic explanation of the universe’s origins does not bide well with the Bible. God’s involvement in the creation of the universe is a firmly established Biblical tenet of Christianity. We argue and fight to sound out ways to understand the universe and its origins in a way consistent with the Creation account.

It is Dawkins who proclaims an attitude that is most inimical to rational thinking, I’m afraid. He arrives at the belief that religion–Christianity included–is all a grand, improveable and impossible delusion that is flatly denied by science. But what he does say–that it is true that science can’t disprove God, but that it is equally unable to disprove the existence of a teapot orbiting around the sun–is odd. If we can’t disprove God, why can’t we hypothesize his existence? In fact, what if experience proves a higher power? Miraculous healings? What if God spoke directly, in an audible voice, to all mankind?

But Dawkins ignores such possibilities, since they are outside of his assumptions. In fact, that is all Mr. Dawkins has–assumptions. Assumptions that don’t allow for reasoning, don’t allow for new evidence, don’t allow for argument. Mr. Dawkins has moved beyond hypothesizing to stating the natural law he feels exists.

It is difficult to argue with an articulate man like Dr. Dawkins. My concentrations are policy studies and linguistics, so I have very little way to address the substance of many of his arguments. Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure the question of where that original supposed singularity from whence formed the Universe came from is still unsettled, and I’m uncertain how linguistic faculties could be passed on in fragmentary form since no perceivable evolutionary advantage could be gained from the ability to form syntax or lexical items.

Christians should not stand opposed to science. But science should not presume to know the answers to everything, for not everything is testable through the scientific method. I will always champion critical thinking and reason–but let’s not play games. Dr. Dawkins does not hold the sum total of all human knowledge and experience, and is unable to explain even some of my own personal experience through his empty philosophy. I have seen the hand of God in his Word and this world, and I will not suffer to hear Dr. Dawkin’s poor exegesis of the Bible and flat denial of the divine.

Filed under: atheism, christianity, religion, syracuse university   |  1 Comment