John Bishop: We all have right to give thanks

Richard Dawkins

Opinion

At his recent lecture in Auckland (University of Auckland Alumni Association), Richard Dawkins had a message for his audience: the Darwinian evolutionary perspective shows that we should give thanks for our own existence!

Though some process of evolution is predictable, the fact that we exist depends on improbabilities piled upon improbabilities: we cannot but wonder at its sheer gratuitousness.

Does that mean, though, that we should be grateful for our existence? And, if we should give thanks, does that not imply someone or something to whom such thanks are due?

Dawkins gave a fascinating answer.

Many animals are prone to "vacuum activities" - continuing to exhibit fitness-enhancing behavioural routines when those routines are pointless. (He gave the sad example of a captive beaver, going through the motions of building an imaginary dam with imaginary logs painstakingly piled into place.)

Our sense of gratitude is, Dawkins suggested, a similar vacuum phenomenon. To develop as social animals we needed to judge fairness and reckon debts owed to us and by us: that capacity then free-wheels when we reflect on our evolutionary origins and feel thankful for the existence we have "received".

Dawkins was arguing, however, that it is right and proper for us to give thanks. But if this is a vacuum activity, how could it also be worthwhile?

Furthermore, thankfulness must surely have an intended, if not a real, object (the child could not be grateful to Santa if she didn't at least believe that Santa is real).

Perhaps, then, it does not make sense to be grateful for one's existence - rather than just be gratified at it - unless one believes in a Giver?

Some disagree. Robert Solomon, for example, argues that a good life should include gratitude for existence, for skeptics as well as believers.

Solomon thinks this gratitude extends even to the tragic: "The important thing is not to deny tragedy, but to embrace it as an essential part of the life we love and for which we should be grateful" (Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life, Oxford University Press, p88).

Dawkins's atheism seems uncompromising and, even, "evangelical". For example, his official website (http://richarddawkins.net/) includes a "Converts' Corner" where people witness to their "escape from religion".

But his polemic against religion has too narrow a target: many theists entirely agree with Dawkins's critique of Creationism. Darwinian evolutionary theory may be not only scientifically well confirmed, but also to be welcomed on theological grounds. Indeed, there is a style of theology - process theology - that holds that God Himself evolves along with the cosmos.

Passionate atheists tend to be very protective of the God they do not believe in - and Dawkins is no exception.

He has little patience with "liberal" theology.

Yet it is not just a few on the fringes of theism who endorse Dawkins's atheism so far as a Creationist God is concerned, while challenging his inference to an outrightly atheist position.

Arguably, it has always been a bad misunderstanding of theism - though in some times and places a distressingly widespread one - to suppose that God's existence could conflict with any well-confirmed scientific theory.

Nevertheless, Dawkins' message about thankfulness for our existence suggests it is a mistake for theists to do nothing but complain about him.

We theists should stop demonising - or, worse, patronising - Dawkins; rather, we should thank him for exposing inadequate forms of religious commitment that reject the rich insights into our existence conferred by evolutionary science.

We should rejoice at the emancipation from oppressive religion recorded on his website's "Converts' Corner".

At the same time, we are entitled, I think, to recognise in Dawkins's message about thankfulness something profoundly in common with the theistic traditions, for whom it is right, always and everywhere, to give our thanks and praise.

I am not arguing that Dawkins is a closet theist: that would be insufferable!

We theists must clear-sightedly accept that the thankfulness we value so highly (and, in our understanding, link to the praise of God) may be found in, and valued equally highly by, many who are outright atheists.

Perhaps, for their part, atheists who agree with Dawkins that gratitude for our existence is an important feature of the evolutionary worldview will accept that, whatever their other disagreements, they do at least have this much in common with theists.

There might thus be a breakdown of "exclusivist" attitudes across the theist/atheist divide: atheists should not insist that rejecting the theistic religious traditions is essential for human flourishing; no more should theists continue their widely entrenched attitude that only those with the right beliefs are acceptable to God.

* John Bishop is professor of philosophy at the University of Auckland.