It took me a little time of reading Richard Dawkins famous book The God Delusion before the missing component in his conception came to me. But now that it’s standing out like a red cow in a green field, I’ll call this missing component The Lost Piece in the Jigsaw.

Seeing Richard Dawkins on Australian television this week confirmed my view of a Lost Piece and what it was. While Professor Dawkins continues to rely solely on logic, rationality and scientific analysis, God will continue to remain obscure to him because the Professor is not equipping himself with the correct tools. And of course if he can’t find God, then he can’t believe in him.

No one entering the hallowed halls of theology is required to check their brains in at the door. Far from it. Questioning, study and the pursuit of understanding are needed in the religious life. However, God is spirit and can be found when we open our own human spirits to seek him.

This is the Lost Piece that Richard Dawkins has missed. It’s easy to surmise that Professor Dawkins finds it difficult to think that such a finely honed tool as the scientific mind is insufficient for any task. However, his statement on Australian TV the other night gave some insights into his position.

The program Professor Dawkins appeared on was ABC TV’s thought-provoking panel discussion Q & A, hosted by Tony Jones, and this week’s subjects were God, Science and Sanity. Among the other eminent panelists put on the spot by audience (and cyber-audience) questions was Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio from the Temple Emanuel in Sydney.

Predictably, God (and his existence or otherwise) came up for discussion early in the show and Rabbi Ninio said: “I can say for myself that what I understand and believe about God now was not what I understood and believed about God when I was 10 and it’s not what I understood when I was five [and] it won’t be what I understand when I’m 90. I think that it’s an evolving process to understand God and what God is and how God is in the world …”

Questioned further, she added: “… there’s an amazing Jewish philosopher who said the second you start to define God, you already limit God. God is un-understandable in some ways by humanity and so the second we try and grapple with it, we’re already limiting what God is. I think that there’s an unfolding understanding of God as you change and as the world changes and all we can do as human beings is to approach it from where we are and from our understanding and what we know in that moment …”

Richard Dawkins immediately responded: “I was wondering what on earth it [that statement] meant, I must say.”

Dawkins is an eminent biologist, the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, a truly admirable, intelligent man and distinguished scientist. So of course he believes in the scientific mind as the pre-eminent tool for problem solving.

This is a little like the situation of another eminent scientist and author, physicist Paul Davies who, in his book The Mind of God, discusses how difficult it is for people trained in scientific disciplines to trust themselves to intuitive means of probing into subjects.

That’s quite understandable. As a non-scientist myself, I’m off the hook and more trusting of the spiritual and intuitive side of my nature.

Perhaps Richard Dawkins and Paul Davies have something of the problem that confronted the prominent scholar Nicodemus a couple of thousand years ago, during the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. Gospel writer John, a disciple and friend of Jesus, tells us that Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a “ruler of the Jews”. Nicodemus came to Jesus secretly at night with questions on his mind and Jesus told this erudite man plainly: “Unless one is born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus was puzzled and Jesus explained further: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

It was a challenging concept for that high-ranking religious scholar (who later showed himself a courageous believer in Jesus). In his very next chapter however, John tells how Jesus introduced a very similar lesson to someone right at the other end of the social ladder, a Samaritan woman. Then, Jesus said: “God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

That’s a challenge for all of us, erudite or, like me, just an ordinary person. We all have a human spirit and it’s there for us to listen to and reach out with when we approach such great questions as the existence of God.

Image Courtesy of DayLife - British scientist Richard Dawkins, author of the new book "The Greatest Show on Earth: the Evidence for Evolution". Dawkins asks readers to imagine they are a teacher of Roman history whose attention is constantly distracted by a movement that claims the Roman Empire never existed. His new book lays out the case for evolution, which most scientists regard as a fact, but which is rejected on religious grounds by many Christians especially in America. - Reuters Pictures

Book Image Courtesy of DayLife - The cover of British scientist Richard Dawkins' new book "The Greatest Show on Earth: the Evidence for Evolution". - Reuters Pictures

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