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it s overst at ement s, is c learly appropriat e and valid. So we must t hank h im f o r
helping us kill off t his out dat ed false t urn in t he hist ory of Christ ian apologet ic s. It
is a good example of how a dialogue between sc ienc e and Christian theology c an
lead to some useful outcomes.
Unfortunately, having made suc h a good point, Dawkins then weakens his
argument by suggest ing t hat all religious people t ry t o st op sc ient ist s from
exploring those gaps: "one of the truly bad effec ts of religion is that it teac hes us
that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding." While that may be true of
some more exot ic forms of Christ ian t heology, it is most emphat ic ally not
characteristic of its approaches. It's a crass generalization that ruins a perfectly
int erest ing disc ussion.
Aft er all, t here is not hing wrong wit h admit t ing limit s to our understanding,
part ly arising from t he limit s of sc ienc e it self, and part ly from t he limit ed human
capacity to comprehend. As Dawkins himself pointed out elsewhere:
Modern physic s teac hes us that there is more to truth than meets the eye; or
than meet s t he all t oo limit ed human mind, evolved as it was t o c ope wit h medium-
sized objects moving at med-ium speeds through medium distanc es in Afric a.
It's hardly surprising that this "all too limited" human mind should enc ounter
severe difficulties when dealing with anything beyond the world of everyday
experienc e. The idea of "mystery" arises c onstantly as the human mind struggles to
grasp some ideas. T hat 's c ert ainly t rue of sc ienc e; it 's also t rue of religion.
The real problem here, however, is the forced relocation of God by doubtless
well-intentioned Christian apologists into the hidden rec esses of the universe,
beyond evaluation or investigation. Now that's a real c onc ern. For this strategy is
st ill used by t he int elligent design movement—a mo v e me n t , b ased primarily in
Nort h Americ a, t hat argues for an "int elligent Designer" based on gaps in sc ient ific
explanation, suc h as the "irreduc ible c omplexity" of the world. It is not an approac h
whic h I ac c ept, either on sc ientific or theologic al grounds. In my view, those who
adopt this approach make Christianity deeply—and needlessly—vulnerable t o
sc ient ific progress.
But the "God of the gaps" approac h is only one of many Christian approac hes
to the question of how the God hypothesis makes sense of things. In my view it
was misguided; it was a failed apologet ic st rat egy from an earlier period in hist ory
that has now been rendered obsolete. This point has been taken on board by
Christian theologians and philosophers of religion throughout the twentieth c entury
who have now reverted to older, more appropriate ways of dealing with this
question. For instanc e, the Oxford philosopher Ric hard Swinburne is one of many
writ ers t o argue t hat t he c apac it y of sc ienc e t o explain it self requires explanat ion—
and that the most ec onomic al and reliable ac c ount of t his explanat ory c apac it y lies
in the notion of a Creator God.
Swinburne's argument asserts that the intelligibility of the universe itself needs
explanation. It is therefore not the gaps in our understanding of the world whic h
point to God but rather the very c omprehensibilit y of scientific and other forms of
understanding that requires an explanation. In brief, the argument is that
explic abilit y it self requires explanat ion. The more scientific advance is achieved, the