It should make no odds, really. If prayer works, then praying for Richard Dawkins may help him recover more quickly from his stroke. If it doesn’t, then it won’t. No harm done, either way.

That a well-wishing tweet from the Church of England should lead to quite such a reaction says something about the febrile nature of Christian-atheist relations at present. But we’ll lay aside for the moment any scepticism regarding what may have motivated the tweet in question. What’s more important is that believers embrace those, like Dawkins, who criticise their beliefs. Because the fostering and exploration of doubt has a fundamental role in the story of faith.

Dawkins may be called a “New Atheist”, but his atheism isn’t really new. He just happens to have articulated it especially clearly for this generation. One could be unkind and say that the church should be grateful to him for distracting attention from more pertinent and profound critiques (those offered by Freud, Nietzsche and Marx, for example), but there is no doubt that he has made the discussion of belief a mainstream topic. He has doubtless caused Christians to sharpen their thinking and question, or abandon, what they believe. Besides, many Christians will find common cause with him – not only in his critique of the dangerous absurdities of fundamentalism, but in his apparent desire for a more peaceful world (much as his Twitter feed at times suggests otherwise).

Church of England defends prayer tweet for Richard Dawkins after stroke Read more

Dawkins stands in a long tradition of scepticism, stretching back through the likes of Bertrand Russell, Antony Flew and David Hume, right back to Epicurus and doubtless many beyond. It’s kept religious thought dynamic, and helped it evolve and move closer to truth. Indeed, so important has doubt of the existence and nature of God been to faith that the Judeo-Christian tradition has been a fount of it, from the biblical books of Job and Ecclesiastes to the cry of Jesus from the cross. The philosopher Slavoj Žižek argues that Christianity “is much more atheist than the usual atheism”.

The temptation for the believer is sometimes to contort and stretch their beliefs around the critics’ arguments. In some cases, this can result in a “God of the gaps”, a sense that God is in retreat as God’s old domain is colonised increasingly by science. In others, we may find ourselves inflicting what Flew called “the death by a thousand qualifications” upon whatever assertions we wish to make regarding God.

Yet while there is a place for religious apologetics, perhaps a wiser approach would be to embrace and cherish doubt and uncertainty. Since the dawn of Christianity, believers have acknowledged that we “see through a glass, darkly”; perhaps the best way then to understand the diverse manifestations of religion is not to perceive one as right and all the others wrong, but to see them all as wrong in different ways.

This is why doubt is good. It helps us to cross divides and appreciate the “other”. One of the noblest aspects of the scientific method is its inherent humility: part of the scientific mission is to prove itself wrong. Believers should be unafraid to question themselves and subject themselves to questioning, for the truth should hold no fear; on the contrary, it sets us free. Dawkins, however much of an irritant he may sometimes be, has at least helped rouse many from lazy thinking and expose the brittleness of some beliefs.

It could be argued that Dawkins, through his words or manner, has played a key role in the cheapening of sceptical discourse. Likening religious belief to a disease – however flippantly – does little to further our understanding of the world. Those who decry the Bible because its books (sorry, “fairytales”) were written thousands of years ago by unsophisticated desert-dwellers betray nothing but their own ignorance and bigotry. And the sooner we move on from the “sky pixie” thing, the better – not because it’s a searing, unanswerable critique of religion, but because it’s just plain dumb.

But it would be unfair to lay all the blame on Dawkins for the behaviour of his followers. Yes, he’s often irksome. Yes, he has pretty vast blind spots (generally regarding context, connotation and implication). But he represents something important, and something for which the church should be grateful. So, unfashionable as it may be, let’s celebrate Richard Dawkins. May he recover and continue his clear-eyed (if occasionally cloth-eared) criticism of religious belief. We need him and his like. #PrayForDawkins