Richard Dawkins’ atheism collides with reality — then it crumbles

Is there a God-shaped hole in every human heart?

The metaphor refers to the sense of longing that humans feel outside the Garden of Eden, the place where humans freely dwelt with God, and it asserts that only God the Creator — as opposed to anything God created — can fill this hole.

Enter prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, who recently felt it necessary to declare the God-shaped hole to be a myth.

Dawkins’ assertion is not surprising. He is, after all, one of the most prominent figures of the New Atheism movement, and he never hides his disdain for religion. But what is surprising is why Dawkins decided to reassert his rejection of Christianity and the God-shaped hole.

Dawkins’ stand

In December, Dawkins resigned from the honorary board of the Freedom from Religion Foundation in protest of the FFRF’s decision to remove an essay titled “Biology Is Not Bigotry” from its blog. In that essay, biologist Jerry Coyne, another member of the New Atheism movement, had rebuked another blog essay that promoted trans ideology and asserted that “a woman is whoever she says she is.”

In his resignation letter, Dawkins accused the FFRF of having “caved” to the “hysterical squeals” of the far left, referring to backlash from the LGBTQ community.

That Dawkins would object to the promotion of trans ideology is itself not surprising. Despite his commitment to atheism, Dakwins affirms the truth of biological sex.

Irony abounds

Dawkins’ resignation from the FFRF provoked responses that highlight the irony of his supposed principled stand against trans ideology.

Irony 1: Debbie Hayton, a biological man who identifies as transgender, argued that Dawkins’ God-less worldview constructs the scaffolding that helps trans ideology seem plausible.

Hayton observed:

[M]aybe the key lesson from this sorry debacle is that it is not so easy to expunge the need for religion from human beings than atheists might like to think. If there is a god-shaped hole in us then without established religion, something else is likely to take its place.

In other words, atheism creates a vacuum — for morality, ethics, and all of life’s biggest questions — that can and will be filled by “something else,” such as trans ideology.

Dawkins later responded to Hayton’s claim in an essay titled, “The myth of the God-shaped hole.”

“Christianity provides reasons for rejecting trans nonsense. Therefore Christianity provides the only reasons for rejecting trans nonsense. Some syllogism!” he mocked.

Dawkins called it “patronizing” and “insulting” to “imply that, if deprived of a religion, humanity must ignominiously turn to something equally irrational.”

Irony 2: But as writer Sarah Haider, herself an atheist, observed, “Except in this case, that may be exactly what has happened!”

Her point? While she also rejects the God-shaped hole, it’s clear to her that religion creates a “floor” that, by and large, doesn’t make it vulnerable to ideas, like trans ideology, that clearly run afoul of common sense. On the other hand, atheism and the supposed “reason” on which it is built contain inherent “vulnerabilities.”

Clearly, one such vulnerability is that it provides a petri dish for trans ideology to flourish.

What Dawkins misses

While it is ironic that a trans-identifying person and an atheist can recognize the pitfalls of Dawkins’ worldview, the real problem is that he seems to misunderstand Christian anthropology.

Christianity doesn’t simply provide “reasons for rejecting trans nonsense” on the basis of biological sex. Rather, Christians reject trans ideology on the basis of human teleology. Trans ideology not only rejects biological reality, but it rejects, from the Christian perspective, why and for what purpose God created humans in the first place.

The Bible is clear: God created humans, and our bodies, for a purpose — and that purpose, or telos, is key to understanding what humans, and our bodies, are ultimately for.

This is where Dawkins’ atheism and his rejection of Christian teleology contradict his crusade against trans ideology.

Theologian Carl Trueman even believes that Dawkins’ worldview forces “a dramatic reduction in the importance of biology” because we live in a world that has made biology “a problem or a challenge to be overcome,” and Dawkins does not explain why chromosomes, for example, should be granted “decisive authority” when such authority is not given to biological challenges, like cancer and sickness.

“Why should we not treat the difference in biological makeup and functions between men and women as just another set of problems for technology to dispatch to the dustbin of history?” Trueman asks. “Gender theory may seem far-fetched, but if the body has no intrinsic telos and evolution grants authority only to efficient causality, it is hard to understand why an evolutionary scientist would necessarily regard it as problematic.”

The question, then, for Dawkins is: What are humans for? What is our purpose?

Christianity provides an answer: God created humanity as male and female in God’s image with a specific vocation to multiply and steward creation in partnership with Him. The Bible teaches that humans were created for relationship with God and each other, and humanity’s purpose in creation has eternal significance.

Reality strikes

Dawkins can mock the idea of the God-shaped hole, but the cracks in his worldview tell the real story.

If human beings do not have a divine telos, then why should biology (and evolutionary theory built on efficient causality) hold any more authority than feelings and, say, trans ideology? Dawkins’ argument against trans ideology — and his worldview in general — is built on sand, making it vulnerable to the crushing waves of whatever philosophy is most fashionable at the moment.

Trans ideology has flourished precisely because Western culture rejects the divine telos.

Rather than accepting a God-given purpose, our culture believes that authentic purpose is found in self-actualization. In such an environment, it makes sense why self-identity — being your “most authentic self” — can override biology.

But Christianity provides a coherent teleology. Christianity not only teaches that humans were created with a purpose, but it tells us what that purpose is. Christianity, therefore, denies that humans are mere biological machines. We are not cosmic accidents.

In the end, Dawkins’ rejection of the God-shaped hole only leaves it deeper and emptier than he found it — yet the hole still longs to be filled.