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I have long disagreed with Prof. Richard Dawkins’ view on religion. I have no problem whatsoever with Prof. Dawkins’ expressing his personal views on any given topic. I am not even offended by such a public figure using celebrity to influence others – the Catholic Church, for one, has done no less for centuries. I am in no way upset by my disagreement with Prof. Dawkins and I certainly don’t want him to stop – or be stopped – from freely expressing his views just because I happen to disagree with him. Indeed, I find Prof. Dawkins’ writings to be always invigorating and entertaining. I would go so far as to pay the Professor the highest of compliments and say that his is so often thought-provoking.

I was, nevertheless, pleasantly surprised recently to find myself actually agreeing with Prof. Dawkins upon reading his piece in ‘The Spectator’ (4^th March, 2023).

But, maybe, I should clarify.

Prof. Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist. This is a branch of biology inspired by and dependent upon Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection. I readily agree that this particular theory is one of the truly great intellectual achievements. In terms of explanatory power, Darwin’s theory is probably the most powerful ever conceived by humanity. So, in regards to his science, I have no disagreement with Prof. Dawkins whatsoever.

Prof. Dawkins is a scientist and, therefore, it is only natural for him to extol the virtues of his discipline. Nothing at all wrong with that!

Nor is there any problem with Prof. Dawkins expressing his personal views on subjects other than his chosen profession. The idea that one should only speak or write concerning a narrow area of expertise is relatively new. Imagine the likes of John Ruskin being told he could only write on matters pertaining to Art. We would then be deprived of one of the greatest books, ‘Unto This Last’, on political economy. What would be the effect upon the writings of Sigmund Freud if all reference to subjects outside of Psychoanalysis were to be erased? It is little less than foolishness to expect great minds to remain limited to a single area of thought!

So, Prof. Dawkins is perfectly free to express his views on matters pertaining to religion, for instance. And Thank Goodness! Whatever one’s views on the existence of God and the role of religion in human life, one cannot, surely, fail to find Dawkins’ book ‘The God Delusion’ vastly entertaining and, occasionally, even thought-provoking.

My disagreement with Prof. Dawkins is with his insistence that the scientific approach is the only legitimate way of relating to our world. Without doubt, the scientific method has brought us – and, likely, will continue to bring us – immense understanding of the physical universe in which we exist. Also, the benefits of science are immeasurable. Science should be advocated for and defended when under attack – or simply ignored (as in the current “debate” on gender). It should not, however, be touted as our only route to understanding.

In granting science such an exalted position, so much of what makes us human must be denied. In order to present his General Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein needed to be able to demonstrate its validity with that beautifully complex mathematical formulae that will forever lie outside my understanding. In my ignorance, I am more than willing to accept the expert opinion that it does exactly what it claims. But, before he ever began to scribble on his chalkboard, Einstein first needed to comprehend the entire universe. No mean feat for a paltry human mind, even one as superior as Einstein’s. A feat which could in no way be accomplished in any concrete, precise, mathematical way. A feat only possible because human beings have a metaphysical awareness of life, the universe, and everything. The vastness of this awareness is diminished when translated into mathematics or any other form of expression – even science!

It is often said that what distinguishes human beings from all other animals is our awareness of our death. But this is just one small aspect of that vast metaphysical awareness of which we are capable. Whatever the scientific method has or will produce in real terms, it always begins with that quality of being human which is unquantifiable – a mind which dreams in metaphysics in order to build in reality.

So, I agree absolutely with Prof. Dawkins’ opinion, as expressed in The Spectator, when he says that the Maori Ways of Knowing “belong elsewhere in the curriculum”. Of course, “the true wonder of DNA” shouldn’t be “confused with the doctrine that all life throbs with a vital force conferred by the Earth Mother and the Sky Father”. But, notice Prof. Dawkins’ use of language here – DNA is “true”; Maori knowing is “doctrine”.

Again, I agree absolutely that these two ways of knowing belong in different parts of the curriculum – just as Biology and Psychology are, for instance. Of course, it is human nature to extol the virtues of those things we favour and denigrate those we don’t. Only the truly wise are conscious of the very real possibility that those things we hold beneath contempt might very well contain wonders beyond our understanding – much like Einstein’s mathematical formulae for Relativity containing wonders beyond my ken.

We should not, however, be too quick to dismiss based solely on our own biases. Especially, we should not be so overly quick to lampoon and denigrate ways of knowing just because they provide insights and forms of wisdom outside our own purview.

At the risk of upsetting Maoris everywhere, it is safe to assume that their ways of knowing offer no real insight into the physical universe and its workings. What they do offer, as so brilliantly explained by Yuval Noah Harari in his book ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’, is that “ability of Sapiens to cooperate in large numbers [which] arises from its unique capacity to believe in things existing purely in the imagination”.

Scientists, like Prof. Dawkins, relegate origin myths to the poetic as a way of stigmatising their knowledge content. In doing so, they seek to privilege the scientific method over all other ways of knowing. As scientists and rationalists, it is only natural that they do so. It is up to those for whom an open mind holds no fear to ensure that all legitimate ways of human knowing – including those of a more metaphysical nature – receive no less privilege than the sciences.

Equal privilege does not, of course, mean that all ways of knowing belong in the science department or that one way of knowing supersedes all others. However, it should be clearly understood that those more metaphysical ways of knowing provide insight into ourselves and our place and (possibly) meaning in the physical realm to which science applies itself.

Despite our immense ingenuity, we humans would rather have the world make sense in the simplest terms. In our pre-scientific days, when faced with the complexity of life and the world in which it was lived, we simplified it all with the idea of God. Whatever else God may be, He is single, unifying and a straight-forward idea graspable by all.

Even though that other much loathed, but basic, human characteristic – self-contradiction – then guarantees our complexifying this beautifully simple idea, in essence, even when God is multiplied into a pantheon, it remains essentially simple. After all, every pantheon has an All-father, a god above other gods, the first among equals.

However preposterous the idea of God may seem to the so-called rational atheists, it is an idea which makes perfect sense to our more metaphysical ways of knowing – that very way of thinking which enables, not God, but ourselves to transcend the mundane and

Those who extol the pre-eminence of science, including Prof. Dawkins, whether they’d admit it or not, seek the very same goal as the Christian Church in its early history when it sought to silence any voice speaking heresy.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake