The God Debate

Two days ago, this fascinating conversation was published:

As the famous promoter of the New Atheism, Richard Dawkins needs no introduction. But the story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a surprising one: she grew up in a radical Muslim milieu of Somalia and Kenya, turned away from religion completely after fleeing to Europe, wrote the bestselling book Infidel, became one of the key proponents of the New Atheist movement and also a member of the Dutch Parliament. But recently, she became a Christian. Like many, God found her “in a desert land … in a barren and howling waste” (Deuteronomy 32:10), in a difficult life situation, where her world came crashing down.

In this conversation, Ayaan publicly confronts her former “mentor”, as she calls him, and gives her personal testimony, which hardly leaves one indifferent. Two worlds collide. Richard just can’t fathom that she really believes things like Jesus being the Son of God. His comments are in his style, a bull in a china shop, or perhaps more accurately, a robot. He is not even aware of his offensiveness and destructiveness.

I will interject myself into the debate here. I would certainly ask Richard what, for him, is the “truth” that he is waving around. How did he arrive at it? Through what? Through human consciousness, which he believes is the product of blind evolutionary processes that have nothing to do with truth? Furthermore, Richard, you have set up the axiom that all truth is scientific truth. That is, that which you can prove by rigorous scientific methodology. How do you know that? How can you prove it? How do you know that truth can be known in that way at all? Can’t you see that this a priori limitation is a matter of your personal faith, nothing else? You have arbitrarily limited the reality, and then you stubbornly howl that there is no reality other than what is in your voluntary enclosure. Oh, and what could be added on the question of a creator, who you claim with such certainty does not exist. The fine-tuning of the fundamental constants of the universe certainly points to at least some kind of intelligent designer. (All scientific attempts to get around this inconvenient fact are pathetic, not to say pathological.) And that’s to say nothing of the statistical improbability of the origin of life. Then there is the problem of consciousness, which Ayaan also mentions. And let me add this almost trivial detail: in our time (+/- 50,000 years), as seen from the earth, the apparent size of the sun and the moon are the same. None of the known planets in the universe have this phenomenon. What is the statistical probability of this happening on the very planet where the statistically improbable life, with the bonus of consciousness, has also emerged? The fine-tuning of physical constants is necessary for the existence of the universe, but here this is purely an aesthetic “fine-tuning”! A completely unnecessary detail. Signature: “By the way, I was here.”

And from another point of view: how do you know that certain dimensions of reality (such as, for a start, your aesthetic experience of Bach’s St Matthew Passion) are not accessed through empirical-rational method (of which human consciousness is certainly capable), but through entirely different faculties of that same consciousness? Perhaps even so: through other parts of the brain which, with appropriate training, develop the “tools” and “senses” to access these other dimensions of reality? Sorry, Richard, your explanation of your own aesthetic pleasure in art by “neurology” is, to use your term, “bulls**t”. You are unfaithful to yourself. Dishonest. If beauty is nothing else than an accidental blind response of randomly evolved neurons, then so is the goodness and justice and any other dimension of human ethics. It is just an illusion. It has no inherent truth or general validity. Hence the moral vacuum in our societies that Ayaan is charging you with. Because of this, your project of “secular morality” is without any foundation whatsoever – you yourself are negating it!

On some points, however, I have to agree with Richard. The origins of Western civilisation, which Ayaan (understandably) holds so dear, are more complex and controversial than they appear. The humanism and freedom and justice that you, Ayaan, value so much in our society (as opposed to, say, Somalia, which I think is a hell on earth) did indeed emerge from certain Christian assumptions, foundations and sensibilities, but for the most part they have only prevailed where “Christian prevalence” has ended. Throughout the Middle Ages and well into the modern era, various “Christian kingdoms” and empires showed surprisingly little tolerance for anything that did not conform to the “brand” of the local church (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) and its hierarchy. In the Middle Ages, you were quickly burnt at stake as a dissident, and even much later you were marginalised and shamed as a kind of social apostate. (I would point here, for example, to the miserable experience of the Czech evangelical missionary Antonin Chráska in Slovenia in the first decades of the 20^th century.) You are right, Ayaan, atheism did indeed create a moral vacuum, into which various woke and Islamic radicalisms are now intruding. And I very much appreciate your apology for your atheist activism. What a public act! Accepted and forgiven. I also agree that it makes sense to include more Christian content in education. However, I think we need to be very careful how to do this. Certainly this must be well thought out. I do not think that we can do it from a pedestal: “This is our civilisation, so you must know this. And behave like this.” Just as you speak of personal humility, it should also be true here, in the public sphere: yes, the Christian message can make an important contribution to the well-being of society, but it cannot be imposed from a position of power. This is contrary to the very core of that message, if I may say so: to Jesus himself. I must confess a considerable scepticism about such an outward social project. The message of Jesus is the leaven that leavens the society primarily in a different way: through such humble and yet courageous public witness as yours, Ayaan, and then through communities that concretely put into practice Jesus’ radical new way of living and viewing God and neighbour and the world. There, in these simple and seemingly insignificant communities of Jesus, is the germ of a new society, dare I say, of a new humanity, operating under a new authority, a healing, liberating, revitalising authority. And yes, one that provides Sense, even with a capital letter. These small communions, mustard seeds, are the real core of Christian “political” engagement in the world. As for the rest, in the general public sphere, we can only humbly and boldly offer advice whenever someone asks and wants to listen. Indeed, I think that the anomaly of the “imperial Christendom” which ruled Europe for over a millennium and half has caused that there has not yet really occurred a true reflection on what a genuine Christian contribution to wider (non-Christian) society ought to be. Looking back to the first centuries, we see this: even more important than the Christian message was Christian practice, care for the poor, the sick, the marginalised. And prayer for the whole state, including all those in power. So we should start here.

I will certainly continue to pray for you, Ayaan, but also for Richard and for Freddie, who was so superbly leading such an amazing public confrontation.