Darwin's Angel

A Review of Darwin's Angel, by John Cornwell.

I've been thinking recently that I probably spend too much time reading criticisms of the writings of creationists and other religious types, usually before I've read the originals. So when I saw this book in my local library, I figured that turnabout was fair play - since I haven't read The God Delusion yet, I would read a critical book first and see how that went. This is probably an ideal book to do it with, since I have previously found Dawkins unconvincing at times - even when I agreed with what he was trying to say.

The blurb on the back of this book describes it as an "elegant riposte", and "consummately crafted". At one point Cornwell complains that Dawkins dismisses the entire field of theology by saying it "should not be regarded as an academic 'subject' at all"; he laments all the fine theologians that have been skipped over, and comments (fairly enough) that Dawkins shouldn't dismiss theology if he hasn't read it. But Dawkins clearly argues with theologians - Cornwell reports such an argument in here - and if in the course of that Dawkins hears nothing worth pursuing further, he is entitled to assume that they have brought their best. I came away from this book with much the same impression; nothing in here evoked any sense of enlightenment or that I would be rewarded by further study.

Cornwell calls the book "Darwin's Angel" to invoke an angel who is "special to natural historians and biologists". Having invoked it, he does very little with it, other than the occasional mention to remind us that an angel is supposed to be writing this. I suppose he needs to call the book something. Angels apparently "exemplify, symbolize, and render intelligible the dynamic mental capacity known as imagination" - which would come as a surprise to almost everyone I've ever heard talk about them. A great deal of this book wastes time and space in various ways.

Cornwell devotes an entire chapter ("Dawkins vs Dostoyevsky") to complaining that Dawkins has said that Dostoyevsky believed what he wrote in "The Brothers Karamazov" - that if God does not exist, everything is permitted. If Dawkins has really made a central plank of an argument out of what Dostoyevsky thought, then he deserves to be criticized. Cornwell should have spent the chapter on that instead of taking us through Dostoevsky’s life and a part-summary of the book. Having seen the line used before, though, I expect that Dawkins was simply using that as a handy summary of a common Christian accusation. Either way, the chapter is irrelevant, and makes me wonder if Cornwell is short on arguments. In the credits, though, we find a simpler explanation - Cornwell has read a piece on the subject and is probably just showing off his erudition.

Cornwell also wastes a chapter on the question "Is God supernatural?". He claims God is not, because the definition of "supernatural" implies outperforming one's natural abilities, and how can God do that? I'm as big a fan of correct terminology as the next man, but if Cornwell goes out into the street and asks a collection of English speakers whether God is supernatural, he'll find that the English definition does not match the theological one. Dawkins, of course, is writing in English.

It's in this chapter that Cornwell claims theologians don't "pick and choose" bits of the Bible, but "read critically". That's fine, but the vast multitudes of theologians (professional and amateur) who do this appear to have no uniform standard or even a prospect of one; some treat every word as, well, gospel, while others are happy to treat almost everything as up for reinterpretation.
Elsewhere, Cornwell claims that "most sensible theologians have no problem with the theory of evolution". All I need do now is introduce him to the large percentage of Christians who have huge problems with it, stand back, and watch the fur fly; they will happily (and vigorously) tell him that "sensible theologians" are picking and choosing, or even that "sensible theologians" are therefore not Christians. When there's a definition of Christianity that's widely agreed on (barring the odd crank) and actually makes sense, then Cornwell can have his claim to a critical reading. When I say agreed on, I mean to the extent that those disagreeing don't feel the need to split into different churches.

In the chapter on beauty, he apparently shows himself incapable of following an argument. Dawkins opens by saying he is often challenged "How do you account for Shakespeare, then?". Given Dawkins' reputation, it's fair to assume that this is mean to be an argument for God's existence. Dawkins response appears to be that if Shakespeare is sublime, it is sublime whether God is there or not; and if a sublime work happens to include God, it does not require God's existence any more than Wuthering Heights requires the existence of Heathcliffe. Cornwell proceeds to argue that suspension of disbelief in Heathcliffe is not the same as faith that the stories in the Bible really happened. Very true; but the point at issue is not whether *the Bible* proves the existence of God - it's whether *great art like Wuthering Heights* proves the existence of God.

Dawkins writes that he's never seen a logical argument linking the existence of great art to the existence of God; Cornwell opines that he must not have looked very far, and cites George Steiner in Real Presence, saying that "... the experience of aesthetic meaning.... infers the necessary possibility of this 'real presence'". But then Cornwell notes that "'Assumption' and 'necessary possibility' of God's presence is not the same as 'requiring that God actually exists'", and that Steiner "is not offering a 'proof' for the existence of God"! So we're back to arguing that the author believed in God - but the existence of believers is not in question. Cornwell apparently can't disagree with Dawkins that this is not a valid argument for God, rendering the chapter pointless.

There's an interesting claim at the end of this that Cornwell obviously likes, as he uses it elsewhere: "You can be certain that while there is plenty of wood and plastic around there will be new tables; you can never be certain that another poem... will be created." Well, actually, we can, and for the same reason: tables are things that humans need, and while there are humans there will be new tables. Art is also something that humans need - and while there are humans, there will be new art. Some of it will be created by atheists, and a lot of it will have nothing to do with God.

It's the chapter on "Does God Exist?" where Cornwell really gives us support for Dawkins' claim that theology is useless.
Here he brings the first cause argument into play. Dismissing the idea that the universe is "just there" as "entirely arbitrary", he instead offers the suggestion that God is the first cause. Where did God come from? Well, he "must contain within himself the reason for His own existence: it is not possible for Him to be nothing." That's grandly written, but no less arbitrary. Why can't it apply to the universe? We've seen a universe, but if we'd seen a God we wouldn't need the First Cause argument for His existence. And what does this line of reasoning give us? Nothing. "If we think that we can come back from God with additional information about the world it is only because we have introduced, smuggled, something extra into our notion of God...". And Cornwell claims that Dawkins has not understood the argument as he thinks it is "...an argument for the ludicrous anthropomorphic deity that rightly appalls you." So it's not scientific; no 3K background radiation, no hydrogen/helium ratio predictions for this theory. And it's not religious; all you get is the fact that the universe must have come from somewhere. No connection to humanity is made. So who cares?

I note in passing that Cornwell's denies that this is an argument for "the ludicrous anthropomorphic deity that rightly appalls you". If Cornwell feels that way about the contents of the Bible, he should probably be championing Dawkins, not criticizing him.

Cornwell is at his strongest arguing that Christianity is not as bad as Dawkins makes it out, and atheism is not as good. If Dawkins' arguments really can be put together to suggest that teaching religion to children really is the same as child abuse and should be forcibly stopped, that religion is a contagious disease that should be quarantined or otherwise forcefully eradicated (and replaced with science), and that the world would be a peaceful utopia without religion, then he deserves to have his certainty punctured. If nothing else, religion is deeply embedded in human society, and attempting to prise it out will tighten its grip, as a number of regimes have found. The right way to remove incorrect beliefs is with argument - just in case yours are the incorrect beliefs, a point Cornwell makes in asking who will decide the incorrect beliefs. But even here he wants to attribute the actions of the Nazis to atheism, which is a far from complete picture of that particular blot on history. And I hope no-one will begrudge me a sliver of doubt that Cornwell has accurately depicted Dawkins' argument, in light of the rest of Darwin's Angel.

And he continually uses arguments that make him look unable to think straight. Quoting Phillip Pullman's endorsement of The God Delusion, "It should have a place in every school library - especially in the library of every 'faith' school", Cornwell remarks "I suppose it's possible to write a book that replaces the Bible without a simple transference of fundamentalist leanings." Pullman doesn't say "It should replace the Bible", he says "It should have a place". There's an enormous difference (most libraries have more than one book, after all), and a great many atheists (myself included) wouldn't dream of removing the Bible from libraries. The more people who read it - all of it - the fewer Christians we will have and the more sympathy there will be for those who reject it as a disgraceful moral example.

Cornwell also cannot resist taking potshots at Dawkins: "You quote yourself (who else?) from your book The Devil's Chaplain...". I can easily imagine that he has been irritated by the style of Dawkins' writing, and perhaps more directly his dismissal of theologians. I, in turn, found Cornwell's style irritating. The blurb on the back claims it is written "more in sorrow than in anger", but I would suggest "peevishness" is a more accurate description.

Cornwell could have written a much more useful book if he had gone into more detail on his theological arguments. As written, they look weak and uninteresting; I suspect that more detail would confirm this impression, but that at least would make the book more definitive. I've discussed some of them above, but for example, in the chapter on "God's simplicity", Cornwell attacks Dawkins' Ultimate 747 argument (that if a complex universe requires a creator to explain it, then that creator must be even more complex and require even more explanation) by saying that theologians "define God as simple". Wonderful; but it's not enough to just define it as simple. You need to show that having done so, it can still do the job required. Cornwell closes the chapter with analogies of the universe proceeding from a "mind" or a "thought", and claims these provide a hint "...of the nature of God's simplicity". But we have minds and thoughts to study; all of them proceed from exceedingly complex structures, and are generally considered to be outstanding examples of the complexity in the universe that is to be explained.

Cornwell suggests that this is "hardly the place to make good that deficiency" (ie, Dawkins' failure to read theology books), but surely a few pages to outline how it is that a simple God can have complex thoughts is not too much to ask? There are many wasted pages in this book - the chapter on Beauty, the blank pages between chapters and at the end, arguments about the exact interpretation of a poem by Yeats, or what Dostoyevsky *really* thought. Cornwell closes chapter 2 (A Summary Of Your Argument, which by my count is less than 50% summary) with two pages of verbiage about spirit around a poem by Wordsworth; ending, ironically enough, with the statement that "In such a large book... we must take a little time to examine the leading points in greater depth." Quite.